Virginia Prescott

Kevin Smokler is setting out to resurrect America’s long-ago encounters. Works such as The Great Gatsby, Fahrenheit 451 and Bartleby: The Scrivener, skimmed and discarded by 15 year-old high school hands in days of yore, are being taken off the shelf, dusted off, and re-explored by the same pair of older, more experienced eyes. By compiling a list of fifty high school “classics”, Kevin spent ten months re-reading the stories that have become distant, unquestionable deities in the eyes of many middle-aged Americans. What he found was profound; and in some ways, unexpected. Kevin, now 39, amassed his thoughts and findings in his new book Practical Classics: Fifty Reasons to Reread Fifty Books You Haven’t Touched Since High School.

Since its introduction in 1861, “Tax Day” has loomed as a day of inevitable fiscal obligation. As the 15th of April approaches, stresses related to tax filings inevitably ramp up. To some, tax burdens may become too much to shoulder, leading to filings for extensions or an uncomfortable loss of funds. However, yearly tax payments can result in an even more uncomfortable reality – damage to your credit. Here to discuss how Uncle Sam affects your credit score is Gerri Detweiler, credit.com’s personal finance expert.

Thirty years ago, a North American ship dumped ballast water containing comb jellyfish into the black sea and triggered a catastrophic decline in marine life. A decade later, discharged ballast containing a strain of cholera contaminated shellfish of the coast of Peru, killing more than 12,000 Latin Americans. These cases of biological stowaways are being targeted by the United Nations for regulation – but the treaty that would prevent future catastrophes has yet to be ratified. Fred Pearce is the environment consultant for New Scientist discusses the stowaway problem and potential solutions with us.

Many of us have good intentions when it comes to reducing household waste – but too often those canvas totes get left in the closet, food scraps avoid the compost pile, and product packaging fills the trash-bag.  One head of household has found the motivation and creativity needed to take home-waste reduction to a whole other level.  Bea  Johnson is the blogger behind Zero-Waste Home, and now author of a book by the same name. She and her family produce only one quart of garbage per year.

You may not know it, but that encyclopedia set you grew up with has a radical history.  Published in France in the 1700’s, the original Encyclopédie included 28 volumes with entries written by Voltaire and Rousseau. Its goal was rather lofty: gather the world’s knowledge into one collection and to change how people think; historians link its publication to the French revolution. Since then, there have been several versions of the original from the pedestrian Britannica to crowd-sourced Wikipedia.  And now we have actipedia.com, an open-sourced web site open to any art and activist group who seeks a better vision of society. NYU professor and co-founder of actipedia.org, Stephen Duncombe joins us to discuss the site.

Pharmaceutical companies have long gotten a bad rap for trying to influence medical decisions for a profit – but the issue isn’t exclusive to drugs. New York Times reporter Roni Caryn Rabin recently wrote about aggressive tactics used to market the Da Vinci Surgical System – a robotic assistant now operating in over 1300 hospitals across the United States.

Springfield’s evangelical Ned Flanders and Hindu Kwik-E-Mart owner Apu are frequent foils to satirize and explore religious belief systems on The Simpsons -- America’s longest running scripted TV show.  Mike Reiss, four-time emmy winning writer for The Simpsons is interested in teasing out another brand of animated spirituality – Judaism.   He’s presenting “Jews in Toons” -- discovering Jewish themes across Springfield’s twenty-four year history.  His talk takes place at the New Hampshire Jewish Film Festival at Concord’s Red River Theatres on April 14th.

This month, award-winning anthropologist Jane Goodall was supposed to be celebrating the release of her fifteenth book “Seeds of Hope”. Instead, publication of the work has been delayed after investigation revealed Goodall borrowed a number of passages without attribution.  While reviewers for the Washington Post and New York Times held back from using the “P” word outright, a vocal minority is very concerned about the amount of copied material in ‘Seeds’ – and the dubious content of the book itself. Michael Moynihan is Cultural News Editor for The Daily Beast. You can read his article about Goodall’s new book here.

You may know the band cloud cult from an animated commercial that aired during the Super Bowl a few years ago. In exchange for the work, e-Surance helped fund some of the band's costs for greening the recording of album. The fact that Cloud Cult chooses deals like that--writes heart-warming songs, and travels across the country to perform for good causes--may have you wondering if they are for real. But doing good and staying positive are deeply embedded in the DNA of Cloud Cult. This evening the band will perform a live acoustic set during a yoga class at the At Om Yoga studio in Concord. It’s a benefit for a local child with pediatric cancer. I talked with Craig Minowa, singer, guitarist, and leader of Cloud Cult before they headed to New Hampshire and can say that the whole kind-hearted thing is not just PR. In fact, I told him that they are just about the least cynical indie band I can think of.

The Red Sox faithful are holding their breath for a resurrection after a 26 game deficit behind the Yankees and a dismal .426 winning percentage last year. Yesterday, New Hampshire’s own Darren Garnick was in attendance at Fenway’s opening day, one face in a crowd of thousands hoping for a win under New Hampshire native – and new Red Sox skipper, Ben Cherington. Darren is a former business columnist and contributor to New Hampshire magazine and joins us today to discuss opening day, the Red Sox, and the New Hampshire fans who love them.

Throughout history, pieces of art – and their creators, have been hauled into the courtroom. They stood accused of obscenity, extramarital dalliances, societal intermingling, and blasphemy – among other equally verbose charges. Government agencies championed their prosecution as a righteous public service – but maybe they just needed to gain a little sense of humor. Regardless, these pieces of art fought the law. Here to discuss whether the law won is Clay Wirestone, arts editor for the Concord Monitor and author of an article in an upcoming issue of Mental Floss called, “Arts on trial.”

A month into a continuing series of threatening ultimatums from North Korea’s Kim Jong-un, the 30-year old leader has an international fever that his fore-fathers would envy. Official statements and propaganda videos, such as last week’s reel of Jong-un shooting a handgun during a military drill, are soaking up views around the world.

Through aggressive threats and flashy shows of power, the North Korean leader has proven himself to be the champion of manipulating tense global news-wires. Conversely, he is the also subject of countless humorous memes. Here to discuss Kim Jong-un’s social media strategy is John Hudson, writer for Foreign Policy’s flagship blog Passport.

Shirley Falls, Maine is one of those New England towns with a strong memory of the way things used to be…before the mills closed, before the mall went up across the river…before so many residents moved away. It’s the fictional town left behind by a pair of brothers in The Burgess Boys, a new novel by Elizabeth Strout, who won the Pulitzer prize for fiction for Olive Kitteridge. The story centers on Jim and Bob Burgess, brothers whose lives are imprinted by a childhood tragedy in very different ways. Both pull up their stakes and secret miseries and move to New York City….and both are pulled back to their hometown by another family crisis. Elizabeth talks to Virginia about the book and it's connection to Maine.

Two weeks ago, Congress passed a continuing budget resolution that included an amendment to cease all funding of political science research. Currently, Poly-Sci gets about ten million dollars a year in support from the national science foundation. In a recent series of posts on Pacific Standard, Seth Masket, political scientist at the University of Denver, says his field has become a new political punching bag. We’ve asked Seth on to tell us why…and why he thinks such research matters.

Central Park was New York City’s place of refuge and openness until April 19, 1989 when a woman was brutally assaulted and left for dead. Author Sarah Burns turned her research about the event into a documentary film detailing the racially charged convictions of five black and Latino youth. They were exonerated over a decade later when another man confessed to committing the crime.