Paris – city for lovers, City of Light. The unique culture of the French capital attracts millions of visitors each year.

They indulge in quickie tours of the Eiffel Tower, buy posters of Monet’s “Water Lillies,” and dine at bistros on prix fixe (pree feex-ay) meals. But take five years – a wife, a baby, and an eye for cultural criticism – and you have the makings of a deeper tale. New Yorker essayist Adam Gopnik trains his eye on the City of Light from the inside, with a new collections of essays – Paris to the Moon.

He brings to life everything from Parisian health clubs – to WWII war crimes – to the impassioned battle to save a restaurant from corporate takeover. Underlying it all are the pecularities of the Franco-American relationship, and the joys and struggles of his family – living as foreigners.
(Hosted by Christopher Lydon)

Guests:

Adam Gopnik, author of “Paris to the Moon.”

Its been called the anti-trust trial of the century, the five months during which the world’s most successful software company, the flagship of the digital revolution, was hauled into court, accused of bullying and in some cases destroying its competition illegally.

And the world’s richest man revealed to the world as a truculent, evasive witness. Since the Microsoft anti-trust trial in Judge Thomas Pennfield Jackson’s court, the big company has seen many of its executives leave and its stock drop half its value. But over the past two days, Microsoft’s fortunes have begun to improve as a federal appeals court has sharply attacked the government’s case and the judge who presided over the trial.

Microsoft claims that Judge Jackson’s comments to reporters during the trial show a bias that should disqualify him, and the appeals court judges appear to agree. Coming up on the Connection, what’s next for Bill Gates and Microsoft?
(Hosted by Christopher Lydon)

Guests:

Ken Auletta, author of “World War 3.0: Microsoft and its Enemies”

and Bob Lyton, Brookings Institute.

America’s Puritanical past comes unbuttoned today. In New Orleans and elsewhere, revelers are guzzling beers, flinging plastic beads, and lifting their shirts in the unabashed celebration of Mardi Gras.

It’s the end of Carnival, the day before Lent, a release of hedonistic impulses before the swearing off of chocolate or cigarettes. What most Americans know as one Big Drunken Party has roots in Roman and pagan traditions, French and Spanish colonialism, and yes…the desperate need for a good, all-out, let-loose Party.

From the cornerstones of New Orleans and Mobile, to take-offs as far north as Lake Champlain – it’s a party that Americans cling to as their one blank check for licentiousness.
(Hosted by Christopher Lydon)

Guests:

Burt Wolf, PBS producer and author of “Gatherings and Celebrations”

Nick Spitzer, host of “American Roots”

Wayne Dean, the Slacabamorinoco of Mobile, Alabama’s Mardi Gras.

In the contentious debate over button pushing issues like industrial pollution, bio-engineered foodstuffs and health care the expert is always a welcome sight on the battlefield of public opinion.

Whether it be a professor or a pediatrician, a watch dog group or a think tank we are always ready and willing to put the public trust in the hands of the so called experts who speak the language of scientific authority and unbiased neutrality. But if you look past the lab coats you’ll discover that more often than not the credentials are bogus and the bias is bought and paid for.

Its all part of an industry that prides itself on its expertise in manipulating science, managing public outrage and engineering public policy. Its an industry that subverts the principles of democracy. We’re following the trails of blood money and slime through the bowels of the public relations industry.
(Hosted by Christopher Lydon)

Guests:

Sheldon Rampton, co-author of “Trust Us We’re Experts” and editor of PR Watch: Public Interest Reporting on the PR/Public Affairs Industry

Peter Sandman, PR Consultant.

Coral reefs have been called the rainforests of the sea because they harbor great biodiversity and because they help absorb greenhouse gases.

But today they are disappearing, under assault by toxic runoff, poison and blast fishing, mishandled boats, and from global warming. Coral reefs grow very slowly, only an inch a year, even though some colonies are a thousand years old and stretch as much as a mile beneath the sea. But they can be destroyed quickly. Nearly a quarter of the reefs have been wiped out in past several years.

Our guest, Julia Whitty, argues that coral reefs may be more important to the earth’s health than rainforests are. The delicate ecology of the reef world and what can be done to save it, here.
(Hosted by Christopher Lydon)

Guests:

Julia Whitty, Deevon Quirolo Executive Director of Reef Relief

Dr Phillip Dustin, Professor of Biology at University of Charleston.

We were told that the internet would change forever the way we buy things. But over the past year we’ve watched as scores of consumer dot com companies have gone down.

Was the whole notion of online retailing a bad idea — or are there only certain kinds of things that we’ll buy online and others that we’ll only buy after we touch, feel, and test? Consumers are concerned about punching in their credit cards online – about identity theft and privacy – E-tailers are finding their savings from forgoing retail space being eaten up by the need for big distribution centers and fulfillment staffs.

Meanwhile – the brick and mortar dinosaurs are finally getting to the new market – bringing decades of experience and recognized brands to the online mix… Who is the E-shakeout going to leave standing? The future of consumer commerce on the internet, here.
(Hosted by Christopher Lydon)

Guests:

Mary Modahl, Senior analyst with Forrester Research

Tom Eizanmann, Assistant Professor at Harvard Business School, boardmember of OneMain.com, one of the nation’s ten largest Internet service providers

Mark Goldstein, CEO of Blue Light, the online affiliate of Kmart.

Japan once boasted one of the best educational systems in the world and a post-World War II industrial boom that made it one of the world’s wealthiest nations.

Once admired for it remarkable successes, Japan’s economic miracle has turned into a spectacular mess. Imagine a land of endemic pollution, tenement cities and skyrocketing debts. A country beset by high unemployment, a failed banking system and a stock market melt down that wiped away more than $10 trillion dollars in assets. Driven by its mania for control and growth at any cost, Japan’s bloated bureaucracy props up old industries instead of investing in new technologies. But there’s light on the horizon, a maverick reformer, Junichiro Koizumi, yesterday won an election that will put him in a position as the country’s new prime minister.

Can the 59-year-old mop-topped rock music fan transform the political system? How did Japan get itself into so much trouble anyway?
(Hosted by Alex Beam)

Guests:

Ezra Vogel, professor of social sciences at Harvard University and author of “Is Japan Still Number One?”;

Alex Kerr, Kyoto resident and author of “Dogs and Demons, Tales From the Dark Side of Japan”

Toshiaki Miura, a Washington based political reporter with the newspaper, Asahi Shimbun.

The Winners are in… and the predicted edginess of the 43rd annual Grammy awards ended up on a more rounded note.

It was once again the year of the graying rocker — as veteran bands Steely Dan and U-2 took home the top trophies. Shut out last night were the factory-made teeny-bop poppers ‘N Sync and Britney Spears – and abundant was the hype around the sometimes sexist often gay-bashing rap album “The Marshall Mathers LP”.

It was also a night of odd bedfellows – As Techno mixed with soul and the world witnessed the much anticipated duet of the openly gay Elton Jay and the homophobic hip-hopper Eminem . The Grammy awards are sold as a microcosm of the music industry– so what did last night say about pop music today?
(Hosted by Christopher Lydon)

Guests:

Matt Ashere, Music Editor of the Boston Pheonix

Jay Sweet, Music Supervisor at the Planetary Group, a National Artist Develpment and Production Company.

If you tried to iron out metaphysics of fashion where would you start? By nature fashion is ephemeral – transient and frivolous.

Un-zip, un-buckle, and un-button all you like – it’s tough to uncover any essence or eternal truth because fashion is the absolute new – a permanent novelty… Perhaps we’d be better off pinning down when fashion is… the future? But is it really 2002 if you are wearing 1984? Fashion is constantly pulling from the past — borrowing and stealing in order to create an ever changing present.

But don’t leave the dressing room yet — because it turns out that fashion is a perfect size concept for us to understand the pace and rhythm of the modern world. Join us for the eternal recurrence of the new, the philosophy of fashion.
(Hosted by Christopher Lydon)

Guests:

Tobi Tobias, author of “Obsessed By Dress”

and Ulrich Lehman author of “Tigersprung: Fashion in Modernity.”

Bonnie and clyde, the james gang, butch cassidy…america has long been fascinated with its criminal past. But legend-making in australia is a more difficult task – nearly all aussies can trace their ancestry back to outlaws, shipped from across the world for crimes as mundane as stealing pigs.
Maybe history isn’t enough in the land down under. A new novel attempts to breathe life into the legend of an australian jesse james. Ned kelly, a notorious cattle thief and sometime ruthless killer. The man who’s been called a people’s hero and “the father of australian courage.” Critics say the book paints a new south wales romance out of the life of a dirty thug – a murderer of policemen and honest australians.

How do we recall our “home on the range” and how do we put tragic memories to rest, when a country’s historical memory is at stake?
(Hosted by Christopher Lydon)

Guests:

Peter Carey, author of “True History of the Kelly Gang.”