Michael Tonry is a professor of Law and Public Policy at the University of Minnesota. His new book, Malign Neglect: Race Crime, and Punishment in America, discusses how our current approach to fighting crime victimizes disadvantaged black Americans. He calls for a reform of sentencing and parole policies.
Ann Charters, the biographer of Jack Kerouac, has just edited two new collections of his writings: The Portable Jack Kerouac, and Jack Kerouac: Selected Letters. In this interview,she reads from some of Kerouac's letters, and discusses how he translated his life into his work. Charters teaches at the University of Connecticut.
Fresh Air rock critic Ken Tucker reviews the new album "To Bring You My Love," from the English singer and songwriter PJ Harvey, It is being touted as her artistic -- and possibly commercial -- breakthrough.
Ed Gillespie, co-editor of the book The Contract With America and policy and communications director of the House Republican Conference. He believes the welfare reforms outlined in the Republican agenda are accurate assessments of what is needed to correct the current welfare system.
Director of the National Center on Hunger, Poverty and Nutrition at Tufts University, Dr. Larry Brown. He directed a recent study titled "Statement on Key Welfare Reform Issues: The Empirical Evidence." It revealed the assumptions behind the Republican "Contract With America" regarding welfare reform to be wrong. He agrees reform is necessary but must be focused on the right target.
Mamet's new novel is a conversation between a grandmother and granddaughter preparing a traditional Passover meal. The grandmother reveals the horrific family history of living through the Polish Pogroms. Mamet also wrote Glengarry Glen Ross, Writing in Restaurants, and the screenplays for The Untouchables and Hoffa.
Falk is best known for his role as a rumpled L.A. detective in the TV series "Columbo," where he garnered three Emmy awards. He currently stars in the recently released film "Roommates," detailing the relationship between a grandfather and grandson.
Fresh Air commentator Maureen Corrigan reviews The Diary of a Young Girl: The Definitive Edition by Anne Frank. The book is a newly expanded edition of the famous text which Anne's father Otto Frank, the only survivor, published.
Fresh Air prison correspondent Wilbert Rideau is editor emeritus of the Angolite, the news magazine of the Louisiana State Penitentiary at Angola where he is serving a life sentence. He talks about dying in prison. With longer sentences and less parole, prisoners are beginning to die in prison. Rideau recently spoke with a dying inmate, a prison nurse and a warden who handles funeral arrangements.
TV critic David Bianculli reviews the new CBS series "Under One Roof," starring James Earl Jones and Joe Morton. It's notable for being the first television drama focusing on an African American family.
Hammerstein is also past president of the Society of Stage Directors and Choreographers. He has recently helped in the making of a new PBS tribute show about his father, Oscar Hammerstein.
Scholars, social critics, and futurists Alvin and Heidi Toffler, authors of Future Shock (1970). They've gotten a lot of publicity lately because of their association with Newt Gingrich. Gingrich sought them out 20 years ago because he was fascinated by their ideas about the "intersection of history and the future." He suggested that every member of Congress read the Toffler's newest, called Creating a New Civilization: The Politics of the Third Wave.
Biographer Deirdre Bair has written acclaimed biographies of Samuel Beckett and Simone de Beauvoir. Her newest subject is writer and diarist Anais Nin. A reviewer in the Kirkus Reviews writes, "Bair's Nin emerges as the complex woman she was, a woman who inspired both wrath and passion in those whose paths crossed hers. It's called Anais Nin: A Biography.
Music critic Milo Miles reviews two CD anthologies of Bobby "Blue" Bland: "Turn on Your Love Light" and "I Pity the Fool." Bland, with his big band blues sound, had a number of hits on the "Black Charts" in his peak years from 1957 to 1964. He still makes records and performs today.
Frank Cardon is one of three teenagers who was given a video camera for a year to record his daily life in North Philadelphia. His footage is part of the documentary Teen Dreams. Cardon says he wanted to show a world composed of a lot of angry people trying to survive.
Peter Leschak battles forest fires in the Northwoods and the West. He’s not a smoke jumper; he’s a grunt-hiking to remote locations, putting out fires sometimes on his hands and knees -- spark by spark. For the rest of the year, he writes. His new memoir is called Hellroaring.
