Program Alert: April 29, 2011

Think airs Monday to Thursday from 12:00 noon to 2:00 p.m. on KERA-FM. Podcasts and streamed video are available online at www.kera.org/think.

Monday, 5/02

Noon:  Remember Little House on the Prairie? Our guest this hour certainly does. We’ll talk with writer and editor Wendy McClure about retracing the journey and recreating the life of the real Ingalls family as told in her new book “The Wilder Life: My Adventures in the Lost World of Little House on the Prairie” (Riverhead, 2011).

1pm:  How are environmental degradation and climate change affecting our physical well-being? We’ll talk this hour with Dr. Paul Epstein, Associate Director of the Center for Health and the Global Environment at Harvard Medical School and co-author of the new book “Changing Planet, Changing Health: How the Climate Crisis Threatens Our Health and What We Can Do about It” (University of California Press, 2011).

Tuesday, 5/03

Noon:  What is necessary for human survival in space and how long can a person reasonably expect to thrive in such an inhospitable, zero-gravity environment? We’ll find out this hour with science writer Mary Roach, whose book “Packing for Mars: The Curious Science of Life in the Void” (W. W. Norton & Company, Paperback, 2011) is now out in paperback.

1pm:  How did Mexico gain its independence in 1910 and how did the revolution transform the country and its relationships with the United States and the rest of the world? We’ll talk this hour with Ray Telles, co-producer of the new documentary “The Storm That Swept Mexico” which airs this Thursday, May 4^th on KERA 13 and PBS.

Wednesday, 5/04

Noon:  How does the recent past inform our preset culture and what was so great about the 1980s anyway? We’ll explore ongoing influence of the decade that brought us Rambo, The Cosby Show, Reaganomics and more this hour with journalist David Sirota. His new book is “Back to Our Future: How the 1980s Explain the World We Live in Now–Our Culture, Our Politics, Our Everything” (Ballantine Books, 2011).

1pm:  Until Mesquite ventriloquist Terry Fator won the $1 million grand prize on NBC’s America’s Got Talent, ventriloquism may have seemed like a vaudeville act of yesteryear. Mark Goffman pulls back the curtain on the big time ventriloquism industry in his new film “Dumbstruck” which opens this on Friday, May in Dallas. We’ll talk with Goffman this hour.

Thursday, 5/05

Noon:  Who is Yoshi Kojima? We’ll find out this hour as we explore the lucrative and obscure world of illegal butterfly trafficking with journalist Jessica Speart. Her new book is “Winged Obsession: The Pursuit of the World’s Most Notorious Butterfly Smuggler” (William Morrow, 2011).

1pm:  What was life like for the first Native American to graduate Harvard College in 1665? Pulitzer Prize-winning author Geraldine Brooks will join us this hour to discuss what we know of the real life of Caleb Cheeshahteaumauk and how it inspired her new novel “Caleb’s Crossing” (Viking, 2011).

ABOUT Think

Think is a topic-driven interview program hosted by Krys Boyd covering a wide variety of subjects ranging from history, politics, current events, science, technology and trends to food and wine, travel, adventure, and entertainment. Think airs Monday to Thursday from 12:00 noon to 2:00 p.m. on KERA-FM. Podcasts and streamed video are available online at www.kera.org/think.

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