Known today equally as a musician and actor, Ice Cube was born O'Shea Jackson. He first gained notoriety in the late 1980s with the revolutionary group N.W.A. He now also acts in and produces movies, including this year's comedy Are We There Yet? (This interview originally aired Jan. 10, 2005.)
Journalist Mark Bowden ("Bow" like "Cow") for The Philadelphia Inquirer. He's just concluded a three part series (September 10-12, 1995) of articles on police corruption in Philadelphia. Most of the corruption was centered at the 39th Police District, and involves potentially thousands of cases in which persons have been falsely arrested and imprisoned.
He plays Bruce Wayne -- and his alter ego, Batman -- in the new film Batman Begins. Bale's other films include American Psycho, Laurel Canyon, Captain Corelli's Mandolin and The Machinist. He is also the voice of Howl in the new Japanese animated film Howl's Moving Castle.
Loach was a member of the British "Free Cinema Movement" of the '50s -- which was committed to dealing with issues of the working class and lower-class of British society -- and he was a pioneer of the doc-drama of the '60s. His film "Cathy Come Home," about a homeless mother, aired on the BBC, created a scandal, and forced a public debate about the homeless in London. His latest film "Riff-Raff," about construction workers, is his first comedy.
Moore is the president of the Club for Growth and contributing editor for National Review. The Club for Growth has a political action committee dedicated to elected conservative politicians who carry on the Reagan vision of "limited government and lowered taxes." Moore was the Cato Institute's director of fiscal policy studies, and is now a Cato senior fellow.
Record producer Joel Dorn worked with Roberta Flack, Bette Midler, Max Roach, Herbie Mann, the Allman Brothers and many more. He worked as an in-house producer at Atlantic Records before going out on his own, and in the late 1980s he repackaged back catalogs for the major record labels. He founded or co-founded several independent labels. He died Monday at age 65, of a heart attack. Fresh Air remembers him with this archival interview from April of 1991.
William Rubenstein ("steen," not "stine"), the director of the American Civil Liberties Union's Lesbian and Gay Rights Project. He'll discuss yesterday's court decision that granted guardianship of a woman left brain-damaged by a car accident to her lesbian companion. This is the first case that has granted rights equal to a spouse to a gay or lesbian partner.
For over 15 years, Linda Fairstein has directed the Sex Crimes Prosecution Unit of the Manhattan D.A.'s office. The unit was the first of it's kind, and has become a model for others in cities across the country. When Fairstein began working there, rape cases were rarely tried in court, rape victims were stigmatized, and there was little understanding about rape in society. Over the years, Fairstein and her colleagues have made great strides in combating such crimes, and improving conviction rates.
Filmmaker Ketan Mehta (Kay-Tahn May-Ta). He's one of a group of young, politically committed directors in India today who believe movies can be effective tools for social change and not just entertainment, and his films have dealt with such issues as the caste system and feminism. His latest film, "Spices," tells the story of a young woman in a remote village in India and her struggle to resist the advances of a powerful feudal overlord.
Retired U.S. Army Lt. Gen. Ricardo Sanchez commanded ground troops in Iraq from 2003 to 2004; it was on his watch that the Abu Ghraib prison scandal took place. Subsequently, Sanchez has vocally criticized the conduct of the Iraq war — especially the Bush administration's "catastrophically flawed, unrealistically optimistic war plan." His new book is Wiser in Battle: A Soldier's Story.
The first part of a two-part interview with filmmaker and writer John Waters. His new film - "Hairspray" - follows a long line of wildly eccentric films like "Polyester," "Pink Flamingos," and "Female Trouble." Like those films, the setting for "Hairspray" is Baltimore. The cast includes Divine, Debbie Harry, Pia Zadora and Sonny Bono.
The word lifestyle has moved around in our culture since it first appeared more than 35 years ago. Our linguist says the word has gone from being a way to differentiate the '60s counterculture to a marketing tool and now to a political catchphrase.
Rock historian Ed Ward profiles Bobby Fuller, whose band, The Bobby Fuller Four, had hits including "I Fought the Law." Fuller came from West Texas, the region that Buddy Holly came from, and tried to emulate Holly's mannerisms and music. Fuller was just catching on in Los Angeles when he died under suspicious circumstances at age 23.
Saxophonist and clarinetist Ned Rothenberg has always been a musical cosmopolitan.
Early on, he studied jazz with George Coleman and shakuhachi flute in Japan. Later, Rothenberg put together his North African-influenced Double Band, and toured in duos with the Tuvan throat singer Saimkho Namtchylak, the shakuhachi virtuoso Katsuya Yokoyama and English saxophone improviser Evan Parker.
Rothenberg's new album, Inner Diaspora, sends him back to his roots.
Civil rights attorney and law professor Jack Greenberg. He was just out of law school--a white Jewish man from the Bronx when he joined the fledgling NAACP Legal Defense and Educational Fund (LDF). Greenberg took over the helm of the LDF from his mentor Thurgood Marshall when Marshall was appointed to the Federal Court of Appeals. During Greenberg's tenure there, the LDF litigated some of the watershed cases of the civil rights struggle. He has just published a memoir of his 35 years at the LDF.
In New York City, in the 20th century, tens of thousands of women and transmasculine people were incarcerated at the so-called House of D, a brutal women's prison that opened in Greenwich Village in 1932. Author Hugh Ryan says that in many cases, the prisoners were charged with crimes related to gender-nonconforming behavior.
Co-creator, executive producer and head writer of "NYPD Blue," David Milch, and Detective Bill Clark who is a consultant to the show. Clark is a former New York City homicide detective. Many of the story lines for the show, come from the cases he worked on. The two have collaborated on a new book, True Blue: The Real Stories Behind NYPD Blue (William Morrow).
Hernando de Soto says that the inefficient and often corrupt bureaucratic system in Peru makes starting a legal business nearly impossible for most people. As a result, a robust, informal, and technically-illegal market has emerged. De Soto explores this phenomenon -- and similar cases throughout Latin America -- in his new book, The Other Path.
Co-creator, executive producer and head writer of "NYPD Blue," David Milch, and Detective Bill Clark who is a consultant to the show. Clark is a former New York City homicide detective. Many of the story lines for the show, come from the cases he worked on. The two have collaborated on a new book, True Blue: The Real Stories Behind NYPD Blue (William Morrow).