Society & Culture

Criminal defense attorney Johnnie Cochran died Tuesday at age 67 of cancer, after having been diagnosed in 2003 with an inoperable brain tumor. In 1995, Cochran won O.J. Simpson a not-guilty verdict in the slayings of his wife Nicole Brown Simpson and Ron Goldman. Over the years, Cochran defended celebrities as well as lesser-known individuals. He represented football great Jim Brown, as well as rappers Tupac Shakur, Snoop Dogg and Sean Combs. (Originial airdate: 10/10/96)

Writer Samuel G. Freedman's new book is Who She Was: My Search for My Mother's Life. Freedman's mother died many years ago, when he was just 18, and as he approached his mother's age when she died, he decided to find out all about her life. The result is a narrative fueled by facts.

Film critic David Edelstein reviews Old Boy, a South Korean film that won the Grand Jury Prize at last year's Cannes Film Festival.

Her new movie, which she wrote and directed, is The Ballad of Jack and Rose, starring Miller's husband, Daniel Day-Lewis, along with Camilla Belle and Catherine Keener. It's about an aging hippie father and his daughter who are living on an abandoned commune but come face-to-face with the contemporary world. Miller is the daughter of the legendary playwright Arthur Miller.

Wagner hangs out with the rich and famous, and then writes satirical novels based on Los Angeles life. His new book is The Chrysanthemum Palace. The three main characters are actors who are the children of wealthy, successful parents. Wagner is known for his dark wit and nasty portrayals of show business elite.

Judith Warner is the author of the new book Perfect Madness: Motherhood in the Age of Anxiety. In it she writes about the "choking cocktail of guilt and anxiety and resentment and regret" that is poisoning motherhood for American women. Warner is a former special correspondent for Newsweek in Paris.

Film critic David Edelstein reviews Melinda and Melinda the new Woody Allen film, starring Will Ferrell.

Former Marine Capt. Brian Steidle has been in the Darfur region of Western Sudan monitoring the humanitarian crisis there for the African Union. Steidle says there's no doubt that Sudan is in the midst of genocide.

We remember Gene Wilder who died Sunday at the age of 83, by listening back to his 2005 interview in which he talks about working with Mel Brooks, growing up, and his marriage to Gilda Radner.

Film critic David Edelstein reviews The Upside of Anger starring Joan Allen and Kevin Costner.

Book critic Maureen Corrigan reviews A Changed Man, the new novel by Francine Prose.

Critic Edelstein looks at The Best of Youth, a six-hour drama first shown on Italian television.

Film critic David Edelstein reviews Diary of a Mad Black Woman, starring Tyler Perry and Cicely Tyson.

Film critic David Edelstein reviews the new Japanese film Nobody Knows.

Sen. Barbara Boxer (D-CA) recently made headlines with her tough questioning of Condoleezza Rice during her confirmation hearings for Secretary of State. Boxer was also the only senator to object to the certification of Ohio's electoral votes.

Linguist Geoff Nunberg considers the term "love-child" and other euphemisms.

Film critic David Edelstein reviews the new German film Head-On about a marriage of convenience in Hamburg between two troubled Turks. It won the Golden Bear award at the Berlin International Film Festival

Robert O'Harrow, Jr. is a reporter for The Washington Post and an associate of the Center for Investigative Reporting. His new book is about how the government is creating a national intelligence infrastructure with the help of private companies as part of homeland security. Huge data-mining operations are contracted by the government to gather information on our daily lives. Information technology has enabled retailers, marketers, and financial institutions to gather and store data about us.

Essie Mae Washington-Williams is the daughter of the late Sen. Strom Thurmond. While her mother, who was black, served as the maid for the Thurmonds, she had an affair with the future senator, at the age of 15. Thurmond was a long-time senator from South Carolina and an opponent of integration. Washington-Williams did not reveal her true identity as Thurmond's daughter until after his death at 100 a little more than a year ago. Now 78, she has written a new memoir, Dear Senator: A Memoir by the Daughter of Strom Thurmond.

Linguist Geoff Nunberg reflects on the popularity of grammarian Lynne Truss's book Eats, Shoots & Leaves.