Government & Politics

Writer Bharati Mukherjee's new novel is Desirable Daughters (Theia Press). Mukherjee is an Indian-born writer who emigrated to the U.S. as an adult. Her new novel is about a traditional Brahmin family transformed by contemporary culture. Mukherjee is the author of five novels, two nonfiction books and two collections of short stories, including The Middleman and Other Stories, for which she won the National Book Critics Circle Award.

Writer Gerard Jones is the author of the new book, Killing Monsters: Why Children Need Fantasy Games, Superheroes, and Make Believe Violence (Basic Books). A former creator of comic books, he's written text for Batman, Superman, X-Men, and Pokemon. This is his fourth media studies book. He lives in San Francisco.

Journalist Jeffrey Goldberg wrote an article in the current New Yorker Magazine about Saddam Husseins 1988 chemical attacks on the Kurds . There is also new evidence of Husseins ties to al Qaeda. Goldberg has been a staff writer at The New Yorker since 2000. His specialty is foreign reporting with an emphasis on Europe, Africa and the Middle East. Goldberg came to The New Yorker from The New York Times Magazine, where he reported from Africa and the Middle East.

Writer and retired New York city firefighter Dennis Smith arrived at the site of the World Trade Center towers on the day of the attacks to volunteer with the rescue effort. His new book Report from Ground Zero (Viking) is composed of first-person testimony of rescuers who were there when the towers were attacked and fell, and who helped in the efforts afterwards. Smith spent 18 years with the fire department. He is the author of nine books, including the bestseller Report from Engine Co. 82 about his years in the city's most dangerous and active firehouse.

Srdja Popovic is one of the founders of the nonviolent student group which helped bring down Serbian dictator Slobodan Milosevic. The group known as Otpor (the Serbian word for "resistance") had a clenched fist as its symbol, but used humor and theater to ridicule Milosevic and other government officials. The new PBS documentary Bringing Down a Dictator tells their story. Popovic is now a member of Parliament.

Journalist James Bennet of the New York Times. Hes been in the Middle East covering how the crisis there is affecting both Israelis and Palestinians.

Father Donald Cozzens is the author of The Changing Face of the Priesthood: A Reflection on the Priest's Crisis of Soul. He is president-rector and professor of pastoral theology at Saint Mary Seminary and Graduate School of Theology in Cleveland. He is also the editor of The Spirituality of the Diocesan Priest. Father Cozzens will talk about the church's current sexual abuse scandals, and other crises facing the priesthood.

His book Reaching for Glory: The Secret Lyndon Johnson Tapes, 1964-1965 (Simon & Schuster) is now out in paperback. It is Beschloss’s second volume on the LBJ tapes. Beschloss will talk about the tapes, and we will hear excerpts, including some recordings of conversations about Vietnam, Civil Rights, and with Jackie Kennedy. Beschloss has written 5 previous books on American presidents. He is also a regular contributor to The News Hour with Jim Lehrer.

Book critic Maureen Corrigan reviews A is for American, the new book by historian Jill Lepore.

Human rights leader Jeri Laber. Shes one of the founders of Helsinki Watch, which eventually became Human Rights Watch. Her new book, The Courage of Strangers: Coming of Age with the Human Rights Movement is a memoir that is part personal history and part history of the human rights movement. Laber was executive director of Helsinki Watch from 1979 to 1995 and has written many articles for newspapers and magazines. She's been awarded the Order of Merit by President Vaclav Havel on behalf of the Czech Republic, and she's also won the prestigious MacArthur Grant.

Journalist David E. Hoffman's new book is called The Oligarchs: Wealth and Power in the New Russia. He profiles a group of men who became leaders in post-soviet Russia, taking over industry, commanding private armies and buying up television stations. Hoffman is the former Moscow Bureau chief for the Washington Post. Now he is based in D.C. as the newspapers Foreign Editor.

His book is called Them: Adventures with Extremists. (Simon and Schuster). He traveled around the world interviewing different types of extremistsfrom Islamic fundamentalists in a Jihad training camp, to Ku Klux Klansmen at rallies. Them was first published in the U.K. in the spring of 2001.

Founder of the Federal Witness Protection Program, Gerald Shur, and journalist Pete Earley. They've collaborated on the new book, WITSEC: Inside the Federal Witness Protection Program (Bantam Books). Shur started the program in the 1960s after realizing that many witnesses would not testify because they were afraid of being killed as a result. WITSEC assigns a new identity and relocates witnesses and their dependents. Witnesses have included everyone from mobsters to drug traffickers to terrorists in the first world trade center bombing. Shur headed the program for 34 years.

Journalist Christopher Dickey is the Paris bureau chief and Middle East regional editor for Newsweek magazine. He's co-author of the cover story for the Sept. 23 issue, "How We Helped Create Saddam: And Can We Fix Iraq After He's Gone?" Dickey is also a novelist, and author of Summer of Deliverance: A Memoir of Father and Son about his relationship with his father, poet and novelist James Dickey.

Chris Giannou, surgeon for the International Committee of the Red Cross. For about 20 years he has been a medic in war torn parts of the world including Burundi, Somalia, and in a Palestinian Refugee Camp. As such he has seen the devastation on human beings from landmines. Giannou is currently leading the Red Cross's campaign for a ban on anti-personnel landmines worldwide, which kill or injure hundreds of civilians each week. Giannou has just returned from six weeks in Afghanistan.

We speak with Clinton Lacy, a longtime program director of Friends of the Island Academy. FOIA was founded in 1989 by the first principal of the high school on Riker's Island. The program is designed to break the cycle of return to Riker's by providing education and counseling. Each year, FOIA works with 350 young people.

We speak with two people involved with "Youth Portraits," a radio skills training program for ex-offenders released from Riker's Island prison in New York City. Riker's Island is the biggest jail in North America. "Youth Portraits" is a joint project of Friends of the Island Academy and Sound Portraits Productions. First, we hear from Andre Vaughn, a 21-year-old ex-offender who was released from Riker's and became involved with the "Youth Portraits" program. He was caught stealing at the age of 17 and subsequently served three sentences.

Linguist Geoffrey Nunberg looks at the word, "evil".

Language commentator Geoff Nunberg looks at the term "capitalism." He says it is back in fashion after an era of "free enterprise".

Journalist Andrew Meldrum is the Guardian Zimbabwe correspondent. Currently, he covers the upcoming presidential election in Zimbabwe and the crackdown that the media faces as election time nears. In the past few weeks, he written a series of articles focusing on the bill President Mugabe signed, requiring all journalists working in Zimbabwe to have a license from the Minister of Information.