Music Critic Ken Tucker reviews the new country music CD by Dale Watson "Cheatin' Heart Attack." Tucker says he thinks most of today's country music is soft rock "safe" Watson's first CD has a refreshing sound of traditional country music.

World music critic Milo Miles on the Portuguese group Madredeus and 17-year old singer Teresa Salgueiro who is a newer member of the group. (The complete Madredeus catalog is on the Metro Blue label)

Novelist Robert Stone. His new novel "Damascus Gate" is about the Middle East. Unlike most writers who write about the region, Stone is not Jewish; he's a lapsed Catholic. One reviewer writes of the book that it is "so comprehending of Israel's convoluted workings and its bifurcated culture--where the Biblical fervor of Jerusalem coexists with the disco fever of Tel Aviv--that he makes other writers on the subject seem like the breeziness of literary tourists." Stone is also the author of "Outerbridge Reach" and "Dog Soldiers."

Since the 1973 release of his first album, Closing Time, Tom Waits has won fans over with his original songwriting and distinctive, gravelly vocal style. Musicians including Johnny Cash, Bruce Springsteen and Rod Stewart have recorded covers of his songs. He has also acted in films, including Sylvester Stallone's Paradise Alley, Jim Jarmusch's Down By Law and Robert Altman's Short Cuts. Waits has two new CDs out this month: Alice and Blood Money.

Steve Chapman, whose twice-weekly column for The Chicago Tribune is syndicated to about 50 newspapers, says reporters should give details on their sources to investigators in the case of the leak of a CIA officer's name. In Chapman's Feb. 20, 2005, column on the Miller and Cooper case, he sides with the court, stating, "in this case, principle should yield to the need to protect agents who are serving their country."

Film critic David Edelstein reviews We Don't Live Here Anymore, based on two novellas by the late Andre Dubus. The film centers on acts of infidelity between two couples in a small college town. Edelstein says the movie is "like a bad marriage greatest hits collection."

Ever since Chuck Berry, St. Louis has been producing rock music that defies the prevailing norm. But is it possible that in 1969 it also produced America's Beatles, a band no one ever heard? Rock historian Ed Ward investigates the curious case of the Aerovons.

Professor of English Joan DelFattore at the University of Delaware wrote the book "What Johnny Shouldn't Read," in which she examines several of the more publicized Federal court cases of the 1980s involving attempts to censor schoolbooks, looking at the resulting impact on publishers and on state education officials. She looks at efforts of both the right and the left to influence curricula.

In a profile of Ginsburg for this week's New Yorker, Jeffrey Toobin describes how the incremental philosophy of litigation that helped her win many precedent-setting women's rights cases as a lawyer is reflected in her career as a Supreme Court justice.

Jazz singer Sylvia Syms. During the 40s and 50s, she perfected her stage style and voice in New York's jazz clubs, including The Village Vanguard and The Latin Casino where she became friends and collaborators with Erol Garner, Billy Holiday and Frank Sinatra. She appeared on stage as well, originating the role of Bloody Mary in "South Pacific," and still sings the musical's centerpiece "Bali Hai" in her cabaret show. Syms teaches voice and song interpretation at Texas' Northwood Institute.

Decades after Parker's death, a new album compiles previously unknown performances by the alto sax legend. Critic Kevin Whitehead says the record will please both jazz experts and casual listeners.

Critic Milo Miles reviews a pair of what he considers rarities — all-instrumental albums that don't belong to a clear school or style of music. But in the case of the band Massacre and the Claudia Quintet, he says that's a good thing.

Jonathan Cohn traveled the country in search of ordinary Americans who had been affected by America's health care crisis. The stories he found — of heart attack victims becoming casualties of overcrowded emergency rooms and diabetes patients going blind because they can't afford treatment — earned him the Harry Chapin Media Award for coverage of poverty-related issues, as well as praise from both journalism and health care professionals. They also became the core of his book Sick: The Untold Story of America's Health Care Crisis — and the People Who Pay the Price.

Jazz saxophonist Coleman, who is almost 85, rarely makes records any more. In New Vocabulary, he joins up trumpet and drums — and peppers his solos with his signature catchy and earthy pet phrases.

Writer Tom Wolfe, known for his "New Journalism" in the 60s and 70s. His books from that period included The Electric Kool Aid Acid Test, Radical Chic and Mau Mauing the Flak Catchers and The Right Stuff. His new book, his first novel, is titled The Bonfire of the Vanities.

Repression in Vladimir Putin's Russia, journalist Edward Lucas writes, is matched by a new aggression abroad. It amounts to what Lucas calls "a new Cold War" fought with cash, natural resources, diplomacy and propaganda.

Miller was the first executive director of the Major League Baseball Players Association when it was formed in 1966. He helped form a labor union to represent the athletes, which caused the dramatic increase in player's salaries, and ended the system that bound an athlete to one team forever. To some, he's the man who depreciated the value of teams. His memoir is called "A Whole Different Ball Game."

A couple of years ago, director Jake Kasdan woke up in the middle of the night, knowing suddenly that his next film would be a fake music biopic called Walk Hard. He went on to cast John C. Reilly as Dewey Cox, the putative legend at the heart of the story, who has trouble with women and drugs and who tries on a multitude of musical personalities. Walk Hard, due out Dec. 21, also features Jenna Fischer from NBC's The Office; it was co-written and produced by Judd Apatow. Apatow and Kasdan worked together previously on the critically acclaimed TV show Freaks and Geeks.