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KERA Think Rundown – Week of 1/9/12

KERA Radio, News Releases 48

Think airs Monday to Thursday from 12:00 noon to 2:00 p.m. on KERA FM. Encore airings of Think can be heard Monday to Thursday nights on KERA FM beginning at 9:00 p.m. Podcasts and streamed video are available online at www.kera.org/think.

Monday, 1/9

Hour 1:  We’re all familiar with many of the basic war-fighting approaches that the U.S. military has used over the last decade. But what are some of the strategies that we don’t often hear about and what’s it like to be virtually alone on the battlefield? We’ll spend this hour with retired Navy SEAL Chief Chris Kyle, who recounts his 10 year career in the new book “American Sniper: The Autobiography of the Most Lethal Sniper in U.S. Military History” (William Morrow, 2012).

Hour 2:  Where do you find the divine? Our guest this hour, veteran journalist and writer Eric Weiner asked himself that very question after a health scare landed him in the hospital. He tells the story of his own spiritual journey in the new book “Man Seeks God: My Flirtations with the Divine” (Twelve, 2011).

Tuesday, 1/10

Hour 1:  From shopping to banking and socializing, we do almost everything online these days, but just how secure is the internet? We’ll discuss the biggest threats on the web and how they’re being handled this hour with journalist Misha Glenny, author of “DarkMarket: Cyberthieves, Cybercops and You” (Knopf, 2011).

Hour 2:  Can consumerism restore the economy and ultimately save the world? We’ll find out this hour with James Livingston, Professor of History at Rutgers University-New Brunswick and author of the new book “Against Thrift: Why Consumer Culture is Good for the Economy, the Environment, and Your Soul” (Basic Books, 2011).

Wednesday, 1/11

Hour 1:  What’s the best way to approach health care and end-of-life decisions for loved ones? We’ll talk this hour with clinical bioethicist, medical educator and hospice volunteer Viki Kind. She lays out the tools and techniques needed to make informed, respectful decisions in her book “The Caregiver’s Path To Compassionate Decision Making: Making Choices For Those Who Can’t” (Greenleaf Book Group, 2010).

Hour 2:  How did Portugal manage to survive World War II virtually unscathed and what was the wartime climate like in its capital city? We’ll find out this hour with historian Neill Lochery, author of “Lisbon: War in the Shadows of the City of Light, 1939-45” (PublicAffairs,  2011).

Thursday, 1/12

Hour 1:  Is there any practical way to mitigate the influence of money on American politics? We’ll talk this hour with Lawrence Lessig, director of the Edmond J. Safra Center for Ethics at Harvard University and author of the new book “Republic, Lost: How Money Corrupts Congress–and a Plan to Stop It” (Twelve, 2011).

Hour 2:  What do the first hints of the Higgs boson, which were announced last month at CERN’s Large Hadron Collider, mean for the study of physics? We’ll find out this hour with University of Oxford Physicist Frank Close, author of “The Infinity Puzzle: Quantum Field Theory and the Hunt for an Orderly Universe” (Basic Books, 2011).