Film director Milos Forman. Originally from Czechoslovakia, Forman is the director of such American films as "One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest," "Amadeus," "Hair," and "Ragtime." Forman began his film career in his native country, apprenticing with some of the country's best film makers for the Communist state-controlled film industry.
Magician and juggler Penn Jillette. He's one half of the comedy team of Penn and Teller. They are to traditional magic what the Rolling Stones are to the Vienna Symphony Orchestra. Penn and Teller revel in making fun of traditional magicians, whom they characterize as sleazy lounge performers. Their hit Broadway show was a mix of rock and roll, insults, self-injury and baffling illusions. When David Letterman invited Penn and Teller to "Late Night," the pair made hundreds of hissing cockroaches appear on Dave's desk.
Today it was announced that scientists had unearthed in Ethiopia the first nearly complete skull of the earliest recognized human ancestors. It's that of a male who lived three million years ago, giving a face to the species first identified in 1974 with the discovery of the skeleton named "Lucy." Paleoanthropologist Donald Johanson discovered Lucy and was part of the team to make this new discovery. The discovery could settle the debate of whether various fossils from this time period were from a single species, Australopithecus afarensis, or from different species.
Part Two of the interview with journalists Donald Barlett and James Stelle. Their reports from the front pages of the "Philadelphia Inquirer" later became the book "America: What went Wrong"; it was a bestseller for eight months, and added fuel to the fire of the 1992 Election. Their new book of investigative reporting is "America: Who Really Pays the Taxes?" (Simon & Schuster).
Journalists Donald Barlett and James Steele. Their reports from the front pages of the "Philadelphia Inquirer" later became the book "America: What went Wrong"; it was a bestseller for eight months, and added fuel to the fire of the 1992 Election. Their new book of investigative reporting is "America: Who Really Pays the Taxes?" (Simon & Schuster). They argue the middle class has been soaked by the current tax system; that the same dollar earned by a neighborhood grocer is taxed more than if it was earned by a foreign corporation doing business here.
Classical Music critic Lloyd Schwartz has a review of the Metropolitan Opera's televised version of Verdi's fourth opera, "I Lombardi", starring Luciano Pavarotti and bass Samuel Ramey. It airs tonight on most PBS stations.
Professor John Dominic Crossan. A native of Ireland, ordained as a priest in the U.S. (he left the Priesthood in 1969), Crossan now teaches biblical studies at DePaul University. Crossan is a founding member of the Jesus Seminar, a group of scholars who meet to determine the authenticity of Jesus' sayings in the Gospels. Crossan's new work is "Jesus: A Revolutionary Biography" (HarperCollins) which seeks to place Jesus in the context of his Jewish, Mediterranean and peasant roots; to see him as a Socratic philosopher and radical egalitarian.
Mel White is the ghost-writer of biographies for such Religious Right leaders as Jerry Falwell, Pat Robinson and Billy Graham. That was before he came out as a gay man, after a long struggle accepting it. White tried aversion therapy and exorcism to purge himself of his homosexual feelings. Now White is the Dean of the largest gay church in the world, Dallas's Cathedral of Hope and the author of "Stranger at the Gate: To be Gay and Christian in America," (Simon & Schuster).
Colombian journalist Maria Jimena Duzan helped expose the connection between Colombia's drug traffickers and the nation's military in 1988. Duzan and her paper, El Espectador, were the targets of death threats and attacks. By 1990 all of the members of the paper's former investigative unit were either dead or in exile. Duzan went into exile, but her sister, a documentary film maker, was murdered. Duzan returned to Columbia in 1992. She has a new book, "Death Beat: A Colombian Journalist's Life Inside the Cocaine Wars." (HarperCollins)
Dr. Ira Rutkow is a surgeon and the author of the new book, "Surgery: An Illustrated History," (Mosby). The book has 386 illustrations including documents, photographs, cartoons, drawings and paintings related to surgery, taken from museums throughout the world. Rutkow has also written a two-volume history of surgery in the U.S. and has written studies on Civil War surgery. He's also consulting editor for surgical history for the Archives of Surgery. Rutkow is founder and surgical director of The Hernia Center in Freehold, N.J.
Author Jervey Tervalon. He has written a first novel, titled "Understand This" (William Morrow and Company, Inc.). Tervalon set "Understand This" in today's South Central Los Angeles where he grew up and returned after college to teach in a public high school. He believes life is much more difficult in South Central L.A.--and everywhere in America--now. Tervalon's characters are faced with often overwhelming, life and death decisions.
World Music critic Milo Miles reviews two new releases by Oumou Sangare, the woman singer from Mali: "Moussolou" and "Ko Sira" both on Rounder's World Circuit Label.
Commentator Maureen Corrigan has a review of a new biography of a turn of the century journalist: "Nellie Bly: Daredevil, Reporter, Feminist." (Times Books).
Nigerian writer Wole Soyinka. He was the first African to be awarded the Nobel prize for literature (in 1986), and he's been called one of Africa's "finest writers." He is a dramatist, poet, novelist, critic, and political writer. Some of his works have been banned by Nigerian regimes. He's gone into exile several times and has been imprisoned for political protests. He's written 21 books, including "Myth, Literature, and the African World," and his autobiography, "Ake': The Years of Childhood." (Ventura books).
