Society & Culture

The black comedy Little Miss Sunshine revolves around a 7-year- old girl and her dream of winning a childrens' beauty pageant. The movie is the feature debut of the husband-and-wife team of Jonathan Dayton and Valerie Faris, who made their names directing music videos for groups such as REM and The Smashing Pumpkins. Our film critic has a review.

The word lifestyle has moved around in our culture since it first appeared more than 35 years ago. Our linguist says the word has gone from being a way to differentiate the '60s counterculture to a marketing tool and now to a political catchphrase.

Our rock critic reviews Pick A Bigger Weapon a new hip hop album from The Coup.

Our book critic reviews The Abortionist's Daughter by Elisabeth Hyde. The novel's plot centers around the death of an abortion clinic doctor and the possible murder suspects involved.

Edmund White has been writing about gay culture in fiction and nonfiction since the 1970s. He has a new autobiography, My Lives. White is director of the creative writing program at Princeton University.

Coach Bill Resler and former player Devon Crosby Helms are at the heart of the basketball documentary The Heart of the Game. The film follows the Roosevelt High School Roughriders, a Seattle-area girls' team, for six seasons.

Inspired by a ride at Disneyworld, Pirates of the Caribbean: The Curse of the Black Pearl was a surprise blockbuster in 2003, grossing close to half a billion dollars and winning an Oscar nomination for Johnny Depp -- a rare honor for a comic lead performance. Virtually the same cast and crew returns for Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man’s Chest.

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.

Darrell Scott grew up on a tobacco farm in Kentucky, just like his father, Wayne. Now Darrell is a Nashville singer and songwriter with albums and awards to his credit. And his father, at 71, is releasing a debut album.

Author Robert Sullivan's new book chronicles his family's cross-country trips from Oregon to New York. Its subtitle paints the picture: Cross Country: Fifteen Years and 90,000 Miles on the Roads and Interstates of America with Lewis and Clark, a lot of bad motels, a moving van, Emily Post, Jack Kerouac, my wife, my mother-in-law, two kids, and enough coffee to kill an elephant.

Linguist Geoff Nunberg comments on the outrageous nature of political talk shows. He uses Ann Coulter's remarks describing Sept. 11 widows as witches to illustrate his point.

The brother-sister team of Eleanor and Matthew Friedberger has a new album called Bitter Tea, which they describe as "sissy psychedelic Satanism." Their other albums include Rehearsing My Choir, made with the participation of their 82-year-old grandmother.

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.

Our book critic reviews the critically acclaimed Stuart: A Life Backwards, by Alexander Masters. It's a British biography of a homeless man as told by his social worker.

Environmentalist William Powers' new book is Whispering in the Giant's Ear: A Frontline Chronicle From Bolivia's War on Globalization. Powers is also the author of Blue Clay People, about Liberia. He has worked for over a decade in development aid in Latin America, Africa and Washington DC.

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.

Linguist Geoff Nunberg comments on the recent controversy surrounding the Spanish-language version of "The Star-Spangled Banner."

Ann Fessler talks about her new book, The Girls Who Went Away. Using her own story of adoption as a basis for her book, Fessler tells the story of over a million women who surrendered children for adoption prior to legalized abortion. Fessler is a photography professor at the Rhode Island School of Design.

Our film critic reviews Down in the Valley, the new film by writer/director David Jacobson, starring Edward Norton, David Morse, and Bruce Dern.

There have been several waves of pop music in New Orleans since World War II, with each one subsiding as its celebrated musicians realize they can't make a living in the city they grew up in. In 1960, another of those waves crested, and with it came a pioneering effort for racial equality. Ed Ward has the story of AFO Records: All For One.