Government & Politics

The director of the conservative Bradley Center for Philanthropy and Civic Renewal at the Hudson Institute talks about his work. The Hudson Institute examines "the role of philanthropy in encouraging or discouraging civil society in America and around the world," Schambra says.

Philanthropist and investor George Soros is the chairman of Soros Fund Management and the Open Society Institute. His new book is The Age of Fallibility: Consequences of The War on Terror. Soros, whose worth has been estimated at over $7 billion, has directed his philanthropic efforts toward defeating George W. Bush in 2004, overthrowing communism in Eastern Europe, helping black students attend university in apartheid South Africa and repealing drug prohibition laws internationally.

Jed Horne of the New Orleans Times-Picayune discusses his new book, Breach of Faith: Hurricane Katrina and the Near Death of a Great American City.

Richard Linklater's new film, A Scanner Darkly, is based on the book by Philip K. Dick -- a haunting tale of drug addiction, paranoia and surveillance set in the America of the near future. Live-action footage is overlaid with an animation technique first used in Linklater's 2001 film Waking Life.

In his new book, Talking Right, linguist Geoff Nunberg examines the parlance of the American political right. Conservatives, Nunberg notes, have been remarkably effective at creating a language through which to convey their agenda.

Army chaplain and captain Ran Dolinger has 20 years of experience in the army, ministering to soldiers in the field, and training other chaplains. He was in Iraq from July 2003 to February 2004, and returns there September. He currently serves at the Chief of Chaplains Office as media liaison officer.

Reporter Jane Mayer's recent article in The New Yorker examines the role of David S. Addington, Vice President Dick Cheney's chief of staff and longtime legal adviser. Mayer says current and former Bush administration officials credit him with helping form the administration's legal strategy in the war on terrorism.

Sergeants Zack Bazzi and Stephen Pink were two of three soldiers on the frontlines in Iraq who were given cameras to record their experiences. Charlie Company, 3rd of the 172nd Infantry Regiment and were based in the Sunni Triangle. They filmed their entire year's deployment. The footage makes up the new documentary The War Tapes which was directed by Deborah Scranton. The film opens in New York and L.A. this weekend.

Journalist Bill Minutaglio's new book documents the career of U.S. Attorney General Alberto Gonzales. Minutaglio writes for many publications, including The New York Times, Outside and Details.

Alan Furst has a new historical spy novel called The Foreign Correspondent. His first one, Night Soldiers, came out in 1988, and he's written eight more since then. Critic at large John Powers, who says he always snaps up a new one, explains Furst's appeal.

Author and museum director James Cameron died last Sunday at the age of 92. In 1930, an organized mob of more than 10,000 white men and women dragged Cameron and two other black teenage men from a jail cell in Marion, Ind. The mob mercilessly beat the three young men and lynched two — Cameron was spared. He recounted this experience in his 1984 memoir A Time of Terror and later founded the Black Holocaust Museum in Milwaukee, which he modeled after the Jewish Holocaust museum in Israel. This interview originally aired on March 8, 1994.

Sandy Tolan talks about his book The Lemon Tree: An Arab, a Jew and the Heart of the Middle East. The account grew out of a 1998 NPR documentary in which Tolan reported on a friendship between a Palestinian man and an Israeli woman that served as an example of the region's fragile history.

Dick Cheney's daughter was a campaign aide for her father during the 2000 and 2004 elections. The fact that she is a lesbian put a distinctive spin on the experience. She has a new memoir: Now It's My Turn.

Our book critic reviews Terrorist, the new novel by John Updike.

C.C.H. Pounder is best known for her portrayal of Detective Claudette Wyms on the FX TV show The Shield. Recently, her character got a much deserved promotion to captain. Pounder was raised in Guyana, and schooled in Britain. The Shield is one of this year's recipients of the prestigious Peabody Award, being handed out Monday night.

In a new documentary, soldiers on the front lines in Iraq capture their own footage of the experience of war. The War Tapes, directed by Deborah Scranton, opens in New York and Los Angeles this weekend.

The film follows three men: Sgt. Steve Pink, Sgt. Zack Bazzi and Spc. Mike Moriarty, members of the National Guard who arrived in Iraq in March 2004.

Hans Blix, the former director of the U.N. Inspection Commission, addresses the UN Thursday with a report on Weapons of Mass Destruction, Tackling the WMD Challenge. Blix is now chairman of the independent Commission on Weapons of Mass Destruction.

For 17 years, former Vice President Al Gore has been on the forefront of warning against global warming. But in his new documentary, The Inconvenient Truth, he says that he "failed to get the message out." He's now getting the message out with his documentary and new book of the same name. The Washington Post calls the book "downright chilling." The documentary has been critically acclaimed.

The new documentary Baghdad ER goes inside the 86th Combat Support Hospital in Iraq, the Army's premier medical facility in Iraq. Shot over two months in 2005, the film tells the stories of the hospital's doctors and wounded soldiers. The film debuted on HBO last week. Filmmakers Jon Alpert and Matthew O'Neill discuss their project with Terry Gross.

Former Washington Post Congressional correspondent Juliet Eilperin says warlike tactics, manipulation and strategic takeovers have replaced compromise in the House. She drives home the point in her new book, Fight Club Politics: How Partisanship is Poisoning the U.S. House of Representatives.