Society & Culture

Director/writer Kimberly Pierce and actress Hilary Swank from the film "Boys Don't Cry." The movie Is based on a true story about a Nebraskan teenage girl, Teena Brandon, who successfully passed herself off as a boy, Brandon Teena. When her true Identity Is discovered, she's raped by two men, and killed after bringing charges against them. SWANK has been nominated for an Academy Award for her portrayal, so has her co-star Chloe Sevigny who plays Teena's girlfriend Lana.

Poets Sonia Sanchez and Michael Harper. The two are featured on a new CD anthology, "Our Souls Have Grown Deep Like the Rivers" (Rhino) a collection of African American poetry from 1919 to 1999. It Includes the work of Langston Hughes, W.E.B. DuBois, Maya Angelou, Gil Scott-heron, Amiri Baraka and others.

Senior editor at The Atlantic Monthly, Barbara Wallraff, and author of the magazine’s “Word Count” column. Her new book about language usage is “”Word Count: Wherein verbal virtue is rewarded, crimes against the language are punished, and poetic justice is done” (Harcourt).

Linguist Geoff Nunberg considers the difficulties we’re having talking about the new millennium.

Actress Anne Heche. She wrote and directed a segment of the upcoming HBO film “If These Walls Could Talk 2” a look at the lesbian experience thru three different decades. The segment, set in the year 2000, stars Sharon Stone, and Heche’s real-life lover, Ellen Degeneres, who is also one of the film’s executive producers. The film debuts on Sunday, March 5th.

Kinney Booker. He is one of the survivors of the Tulsa Race Riot of 1921. He provides a first person account of the riot.

Law Professor Alfred Brophy. In 1921, what many call the bloodiest race riot in US history took place in Tulsa, Oklahoma. Now 80 years later, a state commission has recommended reparations be made to the aged black survivors of the riots. Brophy, a professor at the Oklahoma City University Law School, researched the issue of reparations and the riot for the state commission.

Law Professor Alfred Brophy. In 1921, what many call the bloodiest race riot in US history took place in Tulsa, Oklahoma. Now 80 years later, a state commission has recommended reparations be made to the aged black survivors of the riots. Brophy, a professor at the Oklahoma City University Law School, researched the issue of reparations and the riot for the state commission.

Retired U.S. Navy flight surgeon and NASA astronaut Capt. Jerry Linenger ("Linn-en-jer") In his new book, Off the Planet: Surviving Five Perilous Months Aboard the Space Station Mir" (McGraw-Hill) he chronicles his five months on board the Russian Space station "Mir" a ramshackle place he described as "six school buses all hooked together." During his five months there, they had numerous brushes with death, lacking adequate supplies, and battling constant system failures.

Linguist Geoff Nunberg on the word "virtual" as In virtual reality.

Michael Eric Dyson Is the author of the new book "I May Not Get There With You: The True Martin Luther King, Jr." (The Free Press). In It, Dyson argues that Martin Luther King Jr, the human being, with flaws and gifts serves us better than the romanticized and Idealized King. Dyson is also the author of "Making Malcolm: The Myth and Meaning of Malcolm X," and other books. Dyson Is an ordained Baptist minister and a Professor at DePaul University.

Karl Evanzz is an on-line editor at the Washington Post, and author of "The Messenger: The Rise and Fall of Elijah Muhammad" (Pantheon Books) the founder and "Prophet" of the Nation of Islam. Evanzz talked to Muhammad's children, his apostles, and had access to previously unreleased FBI files about him.

David Reimer was born a boy in 1967, but after a botched circumcision, and on the advise of doctors, his sex was surgically altered and he was raised as a girl. He also had an identical twin brother. Told of his surgery at the age of 14, Reimer decided to live as a male. Reimer’s case became a landmark because of its value to the study of nature vs. nurture. He’s the subject of the new book, “As Nature Made Him: The Boy Who was Raised as a Girl” (HarperCollins) by John Colapinto. We’ll hear from Reimer and Colapinto.

Writer and traveler Patrick Symmes. He writes about Latin American politics, globalization and Third world travel for the magazines Harper’s, Outside, Wired, and Conde Nast Traveler. He’s written his first book: “Chasing Che: A Motorcycle Journey in Search of the Guevara Legend” (Vintage Books). Symmes traces the path of Ernesto “Che” Guevara who in 1952 traveled via motorcycle across South America from Argentina to Cuba and emerged a revolutionary. Guevara was an upper class Argentine medical student before he started the journey, but the poverty he saw radicalized him.

Travel writer Colin Thubron. His new book about his travels In the heart of Siberia Is "In Siberia" (HarperCollins). It's the third In his trilogy on the Russian landmass which Includes "Where Nights Are Longest" and "The Lost Heart of Asia." Thubron has also written books on the Middle East, China, and Central Asia.

Linguist Geoff Nunberg considers how new-age psycho-babble has made It's way Into the corporate room.

Children’s book writer Christopher Curtis has become the first writer to receive the prestigious Newberry Medal and the Coretta Scott King Author award for his book, “Bud, Not Buddy.” (Delacorte press). The story, set in the Depression Era, is about an orphan boy and his search for a home. Curtis is also the first African-American to win the Newbery Medal in 22 years. And he’s also author of “The Watsons Go to Birmingham” which was singled out for many awards. Before becoming a writer, CURTIS worked on an automobile assembly line in Flint, Michigan.

Book Critic Maureen Corrigan reviews The Great Arizona Orphan Abduction by historian Linda Gordon (Harvard Press).

Native American musician and songwriter Keith Secola. The music of Secola and his group, the Wild Band of Indians, is a hybrid of Rock, Folk and Tribal musics. Secola became a cult hero after the release of the contemporary Native anthem, ”Indian Cars.” Keith Secola and the Wild Band of Indians have a new CD called Fingermonkey

Fabric artist and writer Andrea Siegel is the author of the new book, “Open and Clothed: For the Passionate Clothes Lover” (Agapanthus Books). In the book she aims to provide an alternative to what the media conveys about clothes, by talking to people in and out of the fashion industry about their motivations for dressing the way they do, and the roots of how they dress. Siegel’s great grandfather founded the New York department store, “Kleins.”