If you're a regular listener to the program you might be missing some of our Tuesday regulars. So are we. Alvin Hall, our Money guy, who helps us keep our finances straight, was ill. We hope he'll be back in the saddle soon. The Mocha Moms? There was a major technical failure yesterday and we lost the entire computer file on which the interview was recorded ... so we had to regroup. There was no way to get everyone back together in time for today's program. That's all I'm going to say about it. But we hope to be able to bring the conversation we planned soon. It's an important one. And as always ... we want to hear from you ... if you have questions for the Moms send them to our Mailbag.

I may have mentioned that we pre-record some of our segments (fewer and fewer actually!). We actually prefer to go live, but sometimes it just cannot be helped. As some of you know, we air the first "feed" of the program in the morning and that would just preclude participation from some guests, especially on the west coast. That's how we're able to catch up to people like Brutus Baez, AKA Bigg B. He's a DJ and MC and a rapper and he comes to us from Portland, Oregon - he's the music director at a station out there. Bigg B is giving us the lowdown on Native American hip hop, but he's on the air the same time we are!. The only way to catch him is to pre-record ... so that's what we did ... and we hope to hear from him again soon, and at the very least during the NAMA awards.

As always, it's a delight to catch up to Charlayne Hunter Gault in South Africa or wherever she is. And Susan Page from the National Democratic Institute.

And what can I say about Jhumpa Lahiri. I can honestly report that I have read every single word she has published. So what a treat to be among the first to experience her new collection Unaccustomed Earth. It was just published. You can read the New York Times review here.

Back tomorrow ... hoping the technical Gremlins have been vanquished by then.