Kemal Kurspahic. He was editor-in-chief of Sarajevo's only surviving daily newspaper, "Oslobodenje." ("Oslobodenje" means liberation in Serbo-Croatian.) Now he is Washington correspondent for the paper. It has been a trial to get out the paper each day. The staff braved sniper fire just to get to work. After the paper's high rise offices were gutted by mortar fire, publication was transferred to an underground bunker. Three staffers were killed covering the war and Kurspahic himself was wounded.
Commentator Maureen Corrigan reviews "The Silent Woman: Sylvia Plath and Ted Hughes" by Janet Malcolm (Knopf). The book is a reflection on the various attempts by biographers to chronicle the life of the late poet Sylvia Plath.
We pay tribute to Professor and filmmaker Marlon Riggs, who died Tuesday. His film about gay black sexuality, "Tongues Untied," unleashed a storm of controversy for its graphic content; it was used by Senator Jesse Helms (Republican, North Carolina), to argue against government grants to the arts. Another RIGGS film was "Color Adjustment," a critique of prime time TV's myths and messages on American race relations. RIGGS was on the faculty of the Graduate School of Journalism at the University of California at Berkeley. (Rebroadcast of 7/11/1991)
Pro-gun activist Neal Knox. Knox is a powerful weapon for those who abhor any regulation of firearms. Champion target shooter and former gun journalist, he is considered the most influential voice in the National Rifle Association. He has been called the NRA's "spiritual master." He is a hardliner who believes that the Second Amendment to the United States Constitution guarantees the individual an absolute right to keep and bear guns.
Mexican author Carlos Fuentes. Mexico is in flux. On New Years Day, a violent peasant uprising broke out in Chiapas, and thru negotiations, the Zapitistas (as they call themselves) reached a tentative agreement with the government. Then frontrunner presidential candidate Luis Donaldo Colosio was assassinated as he campaigned in Tijuana. The Mexican government says at least seven people conspired in the killing. Fuentes will discuss recent events in Mexico and the history that shaped them.
Film critic Stephen Schiff reviews the recent body of work by British actor Hugh Grant. Grant appears in three new movies: "Bitter Moon," "Sirens" and the very popular "Four Weddings and a Funeral."
Selig Harrison spent four years as Washington Post Bureau chief in Japan, and is now Senior Associate at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace. He argues that the nuclear threat posed by North Korea is overstated -- that they are using the "nuclear card to get diplomatic recognition and economic help." Negotiations offer a chance for nuclear disarmament and dismantling throughout the area.
Syndicated columnist and writer for Time magazine, Charles Krauthammer. He favors an economic blockade of North Korea to force its government to stop any development of nuclear weapons. Of President Clinton's policy on North Korea Krauthammer. has said, "To allow North Korea to flout the nonproliferation treaty and become bomb supplier to every outlaw state on the planet would be Clinton's most humiliating and most dangerous foreign policy retreat yet." (Wash Post 3/25/94).
Filmmaker Haile Gerima. He was born in Ethiopia and now lives in America. His latest movie, "Sankofa," which he wrote and directed, is an epic about African-American slavery, from Africans' 18th century journey to America to their struggles for liberation, told for the first time from an African viewpoint. Gerima is a professor of film at Howard University in Washington, DC. Along with "Sankofa," two of his past features, "Harvest: 3,000 Years" and "Ashes and Embers" have won international awards.
Once one of the most powerful reviewers in America, The New York Times' former drama critic, Frank Rich. It was a great day for many playwrights when RICH stepped down as critic late last year. The British press once dubbed him "The Butcher of Broadway;" playwright David Mamet called him "a terrible critic. . . an unfortunate blot on the American theatre." Some playwrights and directors even chose to take their work elsewhere to save themselves from a review by Rich.
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).
