February
2003 Shows
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MONDAY
FEBRUARY 3RD
THE
RETURN OF JOHN MCWHORTER
JOHN McWHORTER is one of America's leading black commentators.
He is professor of linguistics at the University of California—-and
a famously contrarian commentator on racial issues. His latest
book is 
Authentically
Black: Essays for the Black Silent Majority and he will be
with us tonight for the full two hours to discuss his strong views
on the many race-related issues recently in the news.
TUESDAY FEBRUARY 4TH
THE
FUTURE OF AMERICAN FOREIGN POLICY
We are visited tonight by one of America's leading security studies
intellectuals, ROBERT KAGAN, who presently works at the Carnegie
Endowment for International Peace in Brussels. Recently, he has
directed severe criticism at European conduct in international
affairs and has commented on the future of U.S.-European relations.
His views are elaborated in the new book 
Of
Paradise and Power: America VS. Europe in the New World Order.
With war in Iraq looming and crises still ongoing in the Middle
East, in Northeast Asia, and elsewhere in the world, Kagan joins
us at 9:00pm for a full review of the near and longterm prospects
in American foreign policy.
WEDNESDAY
FEBRUARY 5TH
Taped interviews will follow the 8:00pm Northwestern basketball
game. Among the possibilities is our recently recorded talk with
British author ROSS KING, whose new book is 
Michelangelo
and the Pope's Ceiling, a riveting history of the Sistine
Chapel and Renaissance Italy or our interview with JARED DIAMOND,
the author of the phenomenally successful 
Guns,
Germs, and Steel: The Fates of Human Societies.
THURSDAY FEBRUARY 6TH
THE
WORLD OF DESIGN
JOHN HESKETT is professor of design at the Illinois Institute
of Technology and our guest tonight. His latest book, 
Toothpicks
and Logos: Design in Everyday Life examines the often ignored
world of modern design and its enormous, if usually subconscious,
impact on everything in our lives. Heskett will be joined tonight
by some local designers for a full look at this unusual but vitally
influential segment of American economic life.
FRIDAY
FEBRUARY 7TH
AT ARGONNE NATIONAL LAB
Argonne National Laboratory, though not officially born until
1946, had its actual origin during the course of the Manhattan
Project in the Second World War. Today, it remains one of America's
great science and engineering research laboratories, and it is
run by the University of Chicago under the authority of the Department
of Energy. Tonight, we'll journey through a great scientific research
institution and look at some of its major scientific projects,
with its director, HERMANN GRUNDER, and three of its important
research scientists.
MONDAY
FEBRUARY 10TH
THE RISE OF MILITANT ISLAM
As the war on terrorism continues in all its forms, we are still
faced with a mysterious foe. AHMED RASHID has been one of the
leading students of radical Islam and terrorism during more than
two decades as a major international journalist. His very important
book is 
Jihad:
The Rise of Militant Islam in Central Asia and he joins us
tonight for the full two hours to discuss this difficult but crucial
subject.
TUESDAY FEBRUARY 11TH
GERMANY
1933-1945
The Nazi period left in its wake a legacy of death and destruction
unparalleled in modern history. The institutionalization of a
radical racial regime and untold persecutions at home, the launching
of a war that cost over 50 million lives and ended European world
dominance for all time, the extermination of 6 million Jews and
millions of other on racial grounds: these were some of its defining
“achievements.” How did such a regime come into existence?
What did it attempt during its six years of “peaceful”
rule? And what fatal flaws led to its ultimate destruction in
the “Goetterdammerung” of 1945? Our guests tonight
include BRYAN MARK RIGG, who previously appeared with us for his
book 
Hitler's Jewish Soldiers: The Untold Story of Nazi Racial Laws
and Men of Jewish Descent in the German Military, and more.
WEDNESDAY
FEBRUARY 12TH
BOB
SCHIEFFER
Our guest tonight following Northwestern basketball is the host
of the CBS News program 'Face the Nation' and one of America's
leading television journalists. From his start following the Senate
campaigns of Lyndon Johnson in Texas through his coverage of eight
presidents, BOB SCHIEFFER has risen to the top of his profession.
His new memoir is 
This
Just in: What I Couldn't Tell You on TV and he will tell it
to us tonight.
THURSDAY
FEBRUARY 13TH
GREAT BOOKS AND WAR
Thomas Carlyle once said, "A good book is the purest
essence of a human soul." BRUCE GANS of the City Colleges
of Chicago has transformed this wisdom into a substantive educational
venture with the development of a nationally recognized "Great
Books Curriculum" at Wilbur Wright College. At Wright, great
books represent not merely the foundation of education but, as
with Carlyle, the very essence of humanity. Tonight Gans, and
fellow Wright Professors JOO HEUNG LEE and POLLY HOOVER accompany
Thucydides, Machiavelli, Sun Tzu, von Clausewitz and others, and
other masters of war literature and commentary to our studio.
FRIDAY FEBRUARY 14TH
USE AND ABUSE OF THE ENGLISH LANGUAGE
Another one of our regular features opens yet another chapter
tonight. Our traditional panelists SUSAN HARRIS and ELLEN HUNT
are joined by our old friend RON GROSSMAN. Together, they will
review the latest absurdities in the English language, and offer
their explanations and cures.
MONDAY
FEBRUARY 17TH
Our program on 'A SOLDIER IN TWO ARMIES' has been
postponed indefinitely
NEWS REVIEW
With war looming and terror alerts at 'Orange' level, we gather
another strong panel for a necessary News Review. Joining us will
be STEVE FRANKLIN from the Chicago Tribune, CHARLES LIPSON of
the University of Chicago, and ED KOLODZIEJ from the University
of Illinois. Our news review begins promptly at 9:00pm
TUESDAY
FEBRUARY 18TH
THE
RETURN OF SHERWIN NULAND
SHERWIN NULAND is Clinical Professor of Surgery at Yale School
of Medicine, a truly outstanding surgeon and medical historian,
a prolific author-—and one of the best guests we have had
on Extension 720 over the years. He is back tonight for the full
two hours to discuss his own fascinating life. While Nuland’s
previous books include ‘How We Die’ and How We Live,’
his latest is a memoir 
Lost
in America: A Journey with My Father.
WEDNESDAY
FEBRUARY 19TH
THE NEW CARS: GEMS AND LEMONS
The Chicago Auto Show is in full swing and, if you are still in
the market for a new car, you've come to the right spot. JIM MATEJA
of The Chicago Tribune and JOE WIESENFELDER of cars.com take a
few hours out of their exhaustive coverage of everything in the
world of cars to join us, and are more than ready to reveal the
coming year's best and worst to our listeners.
THURSDAY
FEBRUARY 20TH
THE BOOKS OF THE QUARTER
Another edition of our quarterly book review program is upon us.
Milt has challenged our panelists ALAN GITELSON, PENELOPE MESIC,
and DAN TUCKER with a wide array of recent works in history, biography,
science, religious studies, and the arts, plus several works of
fiction. John Ruskin wrote: "All books are divisible into
two classes, the books of the hour, and the books of all time."
We'll see if any of tonight's choices reach into the latter category
or if our show becomes, to paraphrase Logan Pearsall Smith, "the
gilded tomb of mediocre talent."
FRIDAY
FEBRUARY 21ST
THE
PSYCHOLOGY OF MOTHERHOOD
Our guest tonight is JANNA MALAMUD SMITH, author of 
A
Potent Spell : The Power of Motherhood Fears. In it, Smith
(who is herself the mother of two) argues that the traditional
protective instincts of a mother for her child have been (and
continue to be) harmfully manipulated in American society. The
result is an atmosphere in which mothers are under constant pressures
to account for their children’s lives while receiving few
societal rewards in return, all to the detriment of both mother
and child. Hear her views in much fuller detail, beginning tonight
at 9:00pm as usual.
MONDAY
FEBRUARY 24TH
SPORTSWRITERS
"The incredible dumbness of Sportswriters is a subject I
thought I'd exhausted a long time ago, but let's hit it one more
time, just for the fun of it. . . .," Hunter S. Thompson
once said. We'll test the intellect of our sports-worthy panel
tonight. IRA BERKOW, sportswriter for The New York Times and author
of 
The
Minority Quarterback and Other Lives in Sports, is back for
another appearance tonight, along with some prominent local sportswriters.
TUESDAY
FEBRUARY 25RD
CHICAGO POLITICS
As another Chicago mayoral election unfolds, we will analyze the
state of Chicago politics and the future of our fair city. Our
guests will be two old hands who have spent much of their careers
following and critiquing the Chicago pols: PAUL GREEN, the political
guru stationed at Roosevelt University, and former Tribune editor
DICK CICCONE.
WEDNESDAY
FEBRUARY 26TH
THE
FUTURE OF THE AMERICAN MILITARY
War in Iraq looms as the next great challenge for the American
military but what lies beyond? A series of small wars and peacekeeping
operations have kept our armed forces busy since the end of the
Cold War but have they fundamentally restructured enough to meet
our defense needs in the changing world? The future of the American
military, even as it lies in wait outside Iraq, is our focus tonight.
DANA PRIEST is one of Washington’s leading Pentagon reporters,
the author of a new book 
The
Mission: America's Military in the Twenty-First Century, and
our guest this evening. Joining in the discussion will be General
DAVID GRANGE, the former commander of the 1st Infantry Division
and current second-in-command of the Tribune McCormick Foundation,
and an active observer of military affairs.
THURSDAY
FEBRUARY 27TH
THE
CONCEPT OF DIVERSITY
“Diversity” has been a watchword in American life
for decades. But what does it really mean? PETER WOOD, Professor
of Anthropology at Boston University, has attempted to dissect
the origins of an idea in 
Diversity:
The Invention of a Concept. In it, he argues that, far from
promoting diverse ideas and individuals, the concept of diversity
has reinforced group stereotypes and hindered the advancement
of our whole society. In the midst of ever-intensifying debate
over race and diversity, Wood’s is an argument that needs
to be addressed—and it will be, on Extension 720, beginning
at 9:00pm tonight.
FRIDAY
FEBRUARY 28TH
This program remains under construction. Check back to this site
for details.
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