The second hour of Think will be pre-empted today to bring you NPR’s live coverage of the Senate Armed Services Committee’s hearings on the nomination of Robert Gates to be United States Secretary of Defense.
What can we expect from the newly nominated Secretary of Defense, Robert Gates? On November 15th, we talked with Texas Monthly Senior Executive Editor Paul Burka, who profiled Gates for the November issue of Texas Monthly.
How does Pakistan view the Pakistan – U.S. relationship? What can America do to help Pakistan control religious extremism, counter terrorism, and forge a lasting and constructive relationship with India? We’ll talk this hour with His Excellency Mahmud Ali Durrani, Ambassador of Pakistan to the United States.
Can the free-market economy improve America’s health care system? Dr. David Gratzer thinks so. We’ll spend the hour Gratzer, a senior fellow at the Manhattan Institute, whose new book is “The Cure: How Capitalism Can Save American Health Care” (Encounter Books, 2006).
We all know the difference between right and wrong, but why do we know that one action is morally superior to another? Philosophers and scientists have long argued that our ability to reason, coupled with our education and socialization have developed the “moral compass” which guides each of us through life. Harvard biologist Marc D. […]
How will you celebrate the holidays this year? Will you max out your credit cards buying gifts for everyone you know? Will you celebrate an “Alt-Christmas” by baking cookies for everyone or making your gifts by hand? How do you plan to handle the stress of the holidays? We’ll spend this hour with Nicole Berckes […]
We’re approaching the third anniversary of the Spirit and Opportunity Rover landings on Mars, and the rovers, which were expected to function for a few months at best, are still exploring the red planet and sending stunning photographs home. We’ll spend this hour with Jim Bell, the NASA scientist responsible for the rovers’ color imaging […]
It’s been said that every cloud has a silver lining, but what exactly is good about the breakdown of a society and what leads to that breakdown in the first place? Political scientist Thomas Homer-Dixon will join us this hour to discuss his new book “The Upside of Down: Catastrophe, Creativity, and the Renewal of […]
Earlier this month, the Farmers Branch City Council passed an ordinance designed to thwart illegal immigration by requiring apartment renters to provide proof of citizenship or residency. The council also agreed that Farmers Branch police officers should be allowed to check immigration status of detainees and begin deportation proceedings in certain cases. We’ll talk about […]
Is there a problem with the current idea of diversity? Has our cultural focus on identity allowed economic inequality to flourish? Walter Benn Michaels, professor of English at the University of Illinois at Chicago, argues (among other things) that affirmative action in schools has not made them more open, it’s just guaranteed that the rich […]
