Segments by Date

Rock critic Ken Tucker reviews The Party’s Over by the Smoking Popes which they recorded in 1998 just before the band broke up. It's just been released.

He is group editor at Energy Intelligence, a company that publishes news and provides data and analysis about international energy issues. Ibrahim is also a senior fellow on the Council on Foreign Relations. Previously, Ibrahim was a foreign correspondent for The New York Times, and Tehran Bureau Chief. He also covered energy for The Wall Street Journal.

Journalist Elizabeth Neuffer is the Foreign Affairs/U.N. Correspondent for The Boston Globe. She recently returned from Iran and was in Iraq earlier this year. She has also reported on the war on terrorism from Afghanistan. She's also the author of the book, The Key to My Neighbor's House: Seeking Justice in Bosnia and Rwanda, about the war crimes tribunals and the efforts of victims to find justice.

Staff writer for The New Yorker, Philip Gourevitch. He wrote a recent profile in the magazine about U.N. Secretary General Kofi Annan and the United Nations. Gourevitch is the author of We Wish to Inform You That Tomorrow We Will Be Killed with Our Families: Stories from Rwanda and his most recent book, A Cold Case.

Mark Woollen and Michael Greenfeld are both in the business of creating film trailers – the two-and-a half minute edited teasers that promote upcoming feature films. Woollen is the founder of Mark Woollen and Associates and their recent movie trailers include About Schmidt, Pianist, Antwone Fisher and The Ring. Greenfeld is partner and co-CEO of Antfarm. Recent Antfarm campaigns include Chicago, Lord of the Rings, The Two Towers, Catch Me If You Can and Harry Potter and The Chamber of Secrets. The Golden Trailers Awards were held last week.

Classical music critic Lloyd Schwartz considers the original Hollywood movie score from the Silent era to the present.

William Taubman is a Political Science Professor at Amherst College and an expert on Russia. He has written many books on the Soviet Union. His latest is a biography of the Russian ruler Nikita Khrushchev who led the country after Stalin’s death and attempted to de-Stalinize the country. It’s called “Khrushchev: The Man and His Era” (W.W. Norton). Taubman will also discuss Russia’s recent veto of the Security Council resolution on Iraq and Russia’s relationship with Saddam Hussein.

Novelist Scott Spencer. His newest book is "A Ship Made of Paper," and it's receiving critical acclaim. Our book critic, Maureen Corrigan, describes Spencer as a brilliant storyteller. Spencer is the author of seven previous novels, including "Endless Love" which sold over 2 million copies. He's also written for Rolling Stone, the New York Times and The New Yorker.

Film critic David Edlestein reviews a new documentary on domestic violence.

Former New York Times Balkans Bureau Chief and Middle East Bureau Chief Chris Hedges. He's covered war zones in Central America, the Middle East, and the Balkans for over 20 years. He'll talk about the mindset of being at war. Hedges is also the author of the book, War Is a Force That Gives Us Meaning. (Public Affairs).

Michael Ignatieff is Professor of the Practice of Human Rights and the Director of the Carr Center of Human Rights Policy at Harvard University. He has traveled to Serbia, Croatia, Bosnia, Rwanda and Afghanistan. He discusses his reluctant support of a war on Iraq, and his concerns.

Jazz critic Kevin Whithead reviews Humidity, the new CD by drummer Matt Wilson.

Pulitzer prize winning journalist Thomas Powers. His new book is “Intelligence Wars: American Secret History from Hitler to Al-Qaeda” (New York Review Books). POWERS wrote about Iraq after the war in the New York Times article, “The Man Who Would Be President” (Sunday, 3/16/03). He writes, “What then happens to Iraq’s 23 million people, its oil and its relations with its neighbors will remain the personal responsibility of Mr. Bush and his successors in the White House until one of them chooses to surrender it.”

Jazz critic Kevin Whitehead reviews Blowing In From Chicago, a new re-issue from tenor saxophonists Clifford Jordan and John Gilmore.

His new book is Secret Empire: Eisenhower, the CIA and the Hidden Story of America's Space Espionage. During the Cold War, a small group of scientists, engineers, businessmen and government officials developed spy planes and spy satellites to collect information about Soviet arms. Taubman is the deputy editorial page editor of The New York Times. He has reported on national security and intelligence issues for over 20 years.

The annual South By Southwest Music Conference takes place in Austin, Texas from March 12-16 this year. Rock Historian Ed Ward revisits the thriving Austin music scene of the late 1970s.

Rock critic Ken Tucker reviews new albums from The Buzzcocks and Paul Weller, the frontman from the band The Jam. The album titles are Buzzcocks and Illumination.

James Bennet, Jerusalem bureau chief of The New York Times, will tell us about the current state of affairs between Israelis and Palestinians, and the impact war would have on the region.

Book critic Maureen Corrigan reviews Gordon, the novel by Edith Templeton first published in 1966 and banned in Europe for indecency.

Walon Green is one of the executive producers of Dragnet, the remake of the 1950s crime drama set in Los Angeles. The new show revives the fictional detectives Joe Friday and Frank Smith. Green is a veteran producer and writer of other police dramas including Hill Street Blues, NYPD Blue, as well as the dramas ER and Law & Order. Green also wrote the screenplay for the classic Warner Bros. western The Wild Bunch, directed by Sam Peckinpah. He also wrote the screenplay for a more recent western, The Hi-Lo Country.