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Around the Nation
Involved For Life: Pregnancy Centers In Texas
January 22, 2013 Carolyn Cline, the executive director and CEO of Involved for Life (IFL), a ministry partner of First Baptist Dallas, helps run a pregnancy center that discourages women from getting abortions and offers help during unplanned pregnancies.
Television
Kevin Bacon, Seeking A TV 'Following'
January 21, 2013 The actor stars in a new Fox series about a former FBI agent asked to help apprehend a serial killer he once put behind bars. The series is well done, but the violence in it is alarming — especially for network television.
Author Interviews
'Double V': The Fight For Civil Rights In The U.S. Military
January 21, 2013 In his new book, The Double V, Rawn James Jr. argues that to understand race in America one must understand the history of African-Americans in the military. While the turning point came between the world wars, the struggle began with the American Revolution.
Fresh Air Weekend
Fresh Air Weekend: Ben Affleck And Dustin Hoffman
January 19, 2013 Fresh off the Golden Globes, where Ben Affleck won for best director and Argo won for best motion picture/drama, Affleck talks about his approach to the film. Dustin Hoffman makes his directorial debut with a film about four aging opera singers who stage a concert at their retirement home.
Movies
'Mama': A Good Old-Fashioned Horror Movie
January 18, 2013 In an age of werewolves, hormonal vampires and endless sequels, horror movies have lost some edge. But Mama, starring Jessica Chastain, is an entertaining step in the right — which is to say backward — direction.
Author Interviews
The Inquisition: A Model For Modern Interrogators
January 18, 2013 The Inquisition revolutionized record-keeping and surveillance techniques that are still used today, says Cullen Murphy. His book God's Jury draws parallels between some of the interrogation techniques used in previous centuries with the ones used today.
Book Reviews
How A 'Madwoman' Upended A Literary Boys Club
January 17, 2013 The National Book Critics Circle has announced that two feminist literary scholars, Sandra Gilbert and Susan Gubar, will receive a lifetime achievement award. Critic Maureen Corrigan says their groundbreaking 1979 book, The Madwoman in the Attic, changed the way we read.
Around the Nation
'Grayest Generation': Older Parenthood In The U.S.
January 17, 2013 In an article for The New Republic, Judith Shulevitz writes that as people have increasingly waited until their 30s to become parents, there has been a rise in developmental and neurocognitive disorders. Moreover, she says that the age of both parents affects the health of the child.
Movie Interviews
'Quartet': Dustin Hoffman, Behind The Camera
January 16, 2013 The veteran actor makes his directorial debut with a film about four aging opera singers who stage a concert at their retirement home. Starring Maggie Smith and Tom Courtenay, the film explores friendship, memory and the time that remains.
Movie Interviews
Affleck On 'Argo' And The 1979 Hostage Crisis
January 15, 2013 Fresh off Sunday's Golden Globe Awards, where he won for best director and his film won for best motion picture/drama, the actor and director talks about his approach to the story of six diplomats who managed to escape a hostile Iran — and the CIA operative who helped them do so.
Book Reviews
George Saunders Lives Up To The Hype
January 15, 2013 At the beginning of January, the cover story of The New York Times Magazine declared: "George Saunders Has Written The Best Book You'll Read This Year." The stories in the author's latest collection, The Tenth of December, prove that The Times may well be right.
Commentary
'The Whole Nine Yards' Of What?
January 14, 2013 There are many theories about where the expression comes from — among them square-riggers with three masts, the amount of cloth in the queen's bridal train, the Shroud of Turin, and a prodigiously well-endowed Scotsman who gets his kilt caught in a door.
Author Interviews
Retired Bishop Gene Robinson On Being Gay And Loving God
January 14, 2013 The first openly gay bishop in the Episcopal Church will start work with the Center for American Progress, focusing on issues of faith and gay rights. "Gay is not something we do," he says. "It's something we are." His book God Believes in Love: Straight Talk About Gay Marriage was published in September.
Fresh Air Weekend
Fresh Air Weekend: Civil War, 'Downton' And 'Girls'
January 12, 2013 Civil War historian Bruce Levine says that from the destruction of the South emerged an entirely new country. On the hit Masterpiece Theater series, social rules are changing as the world events of the 20th century unfold. And David Bianculli reviews season two of 'Girls.'
Music Reviews
Grant Green: The 'Holy Barbarian' Of St. Louis Jazz
January 11, 2013 An album recording of the guitarist from 1959 captures the thrilling sound of Midwestern jazz.
