Do you hear the lonesome whippoorwill?

I’m so lonesome I could cry.

Those are the unmistakable words of Hank Williams, words that can conjure up his distinctive voice, the guitar, and the pure, straight-to-the-gut emotion of his songs.
Hank Williams was country long before country was cool. And, fifty years ago, early in the morning on New Year’s Day, he died, a victim of drinking, drugs and hard living. He was 29 years old. Before Buddy Holly, Jimi Hendrix, Janis Joplin, and Kurt Cobain, Hank Williams was a national star who died too young, whose raw energy and joy in singing made his faults all the more heartbreaking and human.

The legacy of the man from Alabama. Hank Williams.

Guests:

Kira Florita, director, special projects, Country Music Hall of Fame, co-author, “Hank Williams: Snapshots from the Lost Highway”

Jason Petty, portrays Hank Williams in “Hank Williams: Lost Highway” at Manhattan Ensemble Theatre, New York City.

North Korea and new questions of diplomacy. As some kind of Christmas present to itself, North Korea delivered 1,000 fuel rods to its Yongbyon nuclear reactor. On the last day of 2002, it expelled U.N. weapons inspectors.

The Bush administration can only guess what New Year’s resolution Kim Jong Il has up his sleeve. Yesterday the president criticized Mr. Kim but made it clear that military operations in the Korean Peninsula are out of the question. At the same time he warned Saddam Hussein that his “day of reckoning” is coming.

While some say that treating the two ends of the axis or evil differently makes perfect sense, others argue that that there’s a case to be made for consistency. Split screen diplomacy.

Guests:

James Lilly, senior fellow at the American Enterprise Institute and former U.S. Ambassador to China and South Korea under Reagan and Bush

Leon Fuerth, professor of International Affairs at George Washington University’s Elliot School and former national security advisor to Vice President Al Gore.

The seven Deadly Sins, those big, bad forbiddens. They are taboo, not allowed. You’ll go to hell, or be punished here on earth if you sample them. In the Bible, God wrote off the entire population of Gomorrah for embracing the seven deadlies, and some cultural critics, like Dr. Laura, Robert Bork, and Bill O’Reilly, fear this country is destined for the same fate.

Well Dan Savage says Fear Not! America isn’t going to hell in a hand basket. Rather, Americans are sinning, but doing it in moderation, and hey, there’s nothing wrong with that. To make his point, Savage travels throughout the United States in search of sin.

He tries all seven, (except for one) and lives to tell about it in his new book “Skipping Towards Gomorrah.” Dan Savage takes on the virtuecrats and stands up for the sinners.

Guests:

Dan Savage, Sex-advice columnist and author of Skipping Towards Gomorrah.

2003. An economic look ahead. What’s next after the Year of the Scandal. A year filled with fraud, overreaching CEOs, and underachieving government regulators. 2002 was the year the bull became a bear, and when the fog of recession that had slip in under the door in 2002, made itself comfortable, and despite the monetary entreaties of the Fed, refused to leave.

Consumers, under a heavy debt burden, are becoming even cagier with their wallets; and thanks to rising unemployment, the confidence of those consumers and investors, is still on the slide. So just as a new year begins, with a fresh economic team at the White House, America now has to factor in a possible war with Iraq.

Guests:

Rosabeth Moss Kanter, Professor of Business Administration at Harvard Business School

Tom Easton, New York Bureau Chief for The Economist Magazine.

Considering the taste sensation it gives, caviar comes from a most unlikely place: the muddy and dark, green-brown water of the Caspian Sea. It is harvested from the belly of the sturgeon, a fish so lacking in grace and good lines that it resembles a poorly-armored, slimy submarine. “Ah, but caviar,” a noted food historian writes, “in the nature of things, must be a rarity, or it does not fulfill its function.” So for centuries it has been sought, and fought over, carefully packed in special crates, and sent around the world, where it is drawn from an elegant server, delicately spread on toast, perhaps with butter, and savored.

Such reverence, though, has lead to excess, less in the consuming than the hunting, and now the finest caviar, the beluga variety, is so rare, it’s on the verge of extinction.

Guests:

Inga Saffron, author, “Caviar: The Strange History and Uncertain Future of the World’s Most Coveted Delicacy”

Armen Petrossian, president and CEO, Petrossian, SA

Lisa Speer, senior policy analyst, Natural Resources Defense Council and spokeswoman, Caviar Emptor

Eugene Lapointe, former Secretary-General, Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species