Irish writer and journalist Tim Pat Coogan. In the expanded edition of his twenty-some year old book, "The IRA: A History" (Roberts Rinehart), Coogan explains the historical background of the Irish struggles. For hundreds of years the Irish Republican Army has been fighting for home rule in Northern Ireland...their latest attack was a massive bombing of London last April. "The IRA: A History," is being released for the first time in the U.S., thought it's been required reading for British and Irish Military officers alike.
Photographer J.S. Cartier. A native to France, Cartier and his wife, Anna, returned to France and Belgium to take photographs for their "Western Front Project." Seventy-five years after the end of the First World War, the remaining vestiges and veterans are few, and vanishing quickly. For two years the Cartiers traveled "The Western Front," talking with villagers and veterans, and documenting the remaining traces of the war.
Comedian and actor Jerry Stiller. He's currently playing George Costanza's father on this season's "Seinfeld" show. Stiller got his start in standup comedy with his wife Anne Meara as The Stillers, the befuddled jewish guy and the heart-of-gold Irish girl. They performed for nine years on the Ed Sullivan Show, and did popular radio spots for Blue Nun wine and other TV shows and specials.
Director Brian De Palma. Now 53, he's the son of a orthopedic surgeon in Philadelphia, and sometimes watched his father's surgeries. Perhaps this explains the frequent depiction of blood and violence in many of his films, which include "Carrie", "Dressed to Kill", "The Fury", and "Scarface". His thrillers were often compared with those of Hitchcock.
From 1953 until 1989 Helen Suzman served as an Opposition Member of the South African Parliament. Suzman was a pioneering political leader in the fight against apartheid and anti-semitism. For thirteen years she was the sole representative in the Parliament to reject race discrimination.
Israeli peace activist and novelist Amos Oz. He lived on a kibbutz for many years and is a veteran of the Six-Day War in 1967 and the Yom Kippur War in 1973. Oz is a leading acivist for peace between the Arabs and the Israelis. His new book is called "Fima" (Harcourt Brace), he has written eleven novels in all. Amos Oz received the German Publishers Peace Prize in 1992.
Writer Edmund White. He has been called "unquestionably the foremost American gay novelist." White's novels draw significantly from his own experiences in a style he calls "auto-fiction." In his newest book, "Genet: A Biography" (Knopf), White documents the life of controversial French writer, Jean Genet.
American artist Roy Lichtenstein. He was one of the inventors of pop art in the 1960's, finding inspiration for his paintings in comic books and advertisements. (More recently, he's found it in the yellow pages of the phone book). Lichtenstein's work often replicates the heavy black outlines, bright colors and dots of a color comic strip found in a newspaper. Called by one critic the "supreme virtuoso of pop", his work is filled with constant references to high and low arts as well as to his own work.
Should you get a flu shot? We hear from Robin Marantz Henig, author of a book about viruses "A Dancing Matrix," and Dr. W. Paul Glezer, epidemiologist at the Influenza Research Center at Baylor College of Medicine.
