His new book is At the Abyss: An Insider's History of the Cold War. Reed recounts America's fight against communism at the height of the cold war. Reed was director of national reconnaissance, a special assistant to President Reagan for national security policy, and a consultant to the director of Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory, a well-known center for nuclear weapons research.
When Armstrong decided to leave the Roman Catholic convent where she was a nun in 1969, she entered a world vastly different than the one she had been isolated from for seven years. She had no idea what was going on in Vietnam and had little idea what was happening in popular culture. She's written a new memoir, The Spiral Staircase: My Climb Out of Darkness, about her life in the convent and the spiritual quest that followed. Her other books include The Battle for God and A History of God.
The Rise of the Vulcans: The History of Bush's War Cabinet traces the relationships between Donald Rumsfeld, Dick Cheney, Colin Powell, Paul Wolfowitz and Condoleeza Rice. The group calls itself "The Vulcans." Some of its members have known each other 30 years. Mann is a former correspondent for The Los Angeles Times.
Weide is executive producer and a writer for HBO's Curb Your Enthusiasm. The show stars Larry David, who co-created Seinfeld, as himself. One reviewer calls Curb Your Enthusiasm "a comedy of hostility, resentment, paranoia and obsessiveness." The show is currently in its fourth season.
Kathie Klarreich is a freelance writer who has covered Haiti for more than 15 years. She is a Christian Science Monitor stringer and op-ed writer — and is currently reporting for Time magazine. She'll talk to us from Port-au-Prince.
She has reported on Haiti for a number of years and is the author of the book The Rainy Season: Haiti Since Duvalier. She also edited and translated the book In the Parish of the Poor: Writings from Haiti by deposed president Jean-Bertrand Aristide. Wilentz is a contributing editor for The Nation, and a former associate professor of journalism at Columbia University.
Pak is an award-winning writer and director who has made his first feature film, Robot Stories. It tells four stories of love between humans and robots. The film has been received warmly by critics, winning more than 23 awards. Previously Pak made a number of very short films including Asian Pride Porn, Cat Fight Tonight, Fighting Grandpa and Mr. Lee.
Matt is a professor of Jewish mysticism at the Center for Jewish Studies, Graduate Theological Union in Berkeley, Calif. He taught at the Graduate Theological Union for nearly 20 years. He's translated the new book The Zohar: Pritzker, Vol. 1. His other published works include God and the Big Bang and Varieties of Mystical Nothingness: Jewish, Christian, and Buddhist.
He created the HBO hit series The Sopranos. The show begins its fifth season this Sunday and picks up where it left off with the separation of Tony Soprano and his wife Carmela.
He'll discuss how the site was set up in an area known for its addicts. Campbell explains that the program's success is consistent with similar operations in Europe.
She works on the streets near the safe injection site, assisting addicts. From her perspective, preventing HIV and STDs is such an important task that it overshadows addiction issues. Two days a week, Gold walks the streets of Vancouver, handing out clean needles to addicts shooting up in alleyways. She also treats infections related to needle use.
Reporter Stephen Quinn talks about a program in Vancouver, Canada that provides clean needles and a safe injection site for heroin addicts. The idea is to prevent HIV, hepatitis and other blood-borne disease transmission. The program is controversial, and critics say it encourages drug use. He'll also talk about the politics surrounding the program. Quinn works for the CBC, the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation.
He's the author of the new book, Mind Wide Open: Your Brain and the Neuroscience of Everyday Life. He writes the monthly "Emerging Technology" column for Discover and is contributing editor at Wired. His work has appeared in The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, The Nation, The New Yorker, Harper's, and The Guardian. Johnson is also the author of Emergence: The Connected Lives of Ants, Brains, Cities, and Software, which was named as a finalist for the 2002 Helen Bernstein Award for Excellence in Journalism.
TV critic David Bianculli looks at The Apprentice, the NBC reality show. After all other contestants are eliminated, the winner gets to work as a corporate president for Donald Trump.
