Salt Lake City reporter Lee Benson has just published Lee Benson's Inside Guide to the Games: 2002, Salt Lake City. Recognized as one of Utah's leading experts on the Games, Benson has covered seven Olympic Games for Salt Lake City paper, the Desert News, in the past. He lives in Salt Lake City.
Sandi DuBowski's new documentary, Trembling Before G-d, tells the story of eight Orthodox Jewish men and women who have struggled to reconcile their love for their religion with their homosexuality. He is joined by Steven Greenberg, the first openly gay Orthodox rabbi and Michele Miller, a lesbian who was raised in a Hasidic Brooklyn family. The film shows in theaters now.
Sylvia Nasar is the author of A Beautiful Mind, the biography of mathematical genius and Nobel Laureate John Nash, who also suffered from schizophrenia. The book won a National Book Critics Circle Award, and inspired the movie of the same name. Nasar is a former economics correspondent for The New York Times. She is currently the Knight Professor of Journalism at Columbia University.
Journalist Barton Gellman of The Washington Post will discuss the Clinton and Bush adminstrationsefforts to track down Osama bin Laden and his network prior to Sept. 11. Gellman wrote a two-part series about it that ran in the Post Dec. 19 and 20, 2001. A third installment was later published Jan 20, 2002.
Last year, Journalist David Cay Johnston won a Pulitzer Prize for his reporting on the U.S. tax code. He writes about tax inequities, tax loopholes and the IRS for The New York Times. He will talk about how Enron and other large corporations get away with not paying taxes, and how the current economy and the war against terrorism will effect the proposed tax cuts.
Michael Patrick King is the executive producer of hit HBO comedy series, Sex and the City. Now in its fourth season, the show just won its third Golden Globe award for "Best Television Series-Musical or Comedy." The show also received last year's Emmy for "Best Comedy Series." He has also written for the television series, Murphy Brown, and acted as a consultant for the hit series, Will and Grace.
Author Philip Dray is the author of the book, At the Hands of Persons Unknown: The Lynching of Black America. Dray chronicles lynching. He looks at the perpetrators, the groups and individuals who courageously took a stand against it (the NAACP, Ida Wells, and W.E.B. Du Bois) and the legacy it left behind. Dray researched his book at the Tuskegee Institute where records about lynchings have been kept from 1882. He is also the co-author of We Are not Afraid: The Story of Goodman, Schwerner, and Chaney and the Civil Rights Campaign for Mississippi.
Rock historian Ed Ward continues with part two of his review of the Nuggets Two box set. This time he focuses on music from Europe, South America and Asia. The CD collection is called Nuggets Two: Original Artyfacts from the British Empire and Beyond, 1964-1969.
Milt Bearden spent 30 years in the CIA. He ran the CIA covert operations in Afghanistan during the Soviet invasion, and helped train the Afghan freedom fighters. Bearden also was station chief in Pakistan, Moscow, and Khartoum. He received the CIA highest honor, the Distinguished Intelligence Medal. Since the Sept. 11th attacks, Bearden has been a frequent commentator on TV and in print. He is also the author of the novel, The Black Tulip: A Novel of War in Afghanistan (paperback, Random House).
Rock historian Ed Ward reviews the new four-CD set Nuggets Two: Original Artyfacts from the British Empire and Beyond, 1964-1969, an expanded compilation of psychedelic obscurities put out by Rhino Records.
Australian actress Cate Blanchett. In her latest film Charlotte Gray she plays a courier behind enemy lines during World War II, directed by Australian director Gillian Armstrong. She also in three films out now: The Shipping News, Bandits and The Lord of the Rings. Blanchett was nominated for an Academy Award for her starring role in Elizabeth. Her other films include Pushing Tin, Oscar and Lucinda, The Talented Mr Ripley, and The Gift.
Ted Demme died Sunday at the age of 38 from a heart attack. He was playing basketball when he died. Early in his career he produced Yo! MTV Raps. He won an Emmy in 1999 for co-producing the civil-rights TV movie, A Lesson Before Dying. Demme film credits include Who the Man, The Ref, Snitch, and Blow. Ted Demme was the nephew of film maker Jonathan Demme.
