In 1996, President Clinton pledged to “end welfare as we knew it,” and with broad support from both parties in Congress, he did. Welfare’s status as a federal entitlement was removed, and instead states were put in charge of assigning time limits and work requirements for people receiving assistance.

Today, seven years later, the number of people on welfare is down, even lower that people expected. Those who were critics grudgingly admit that the reforms have been a success. President Bush is now proposing a tougher version of the law, one that demands welfare recipients work even more hours. But some point to the faltering economy and say this is exactly the wrong time for such changes.

Guests:

Jason Turner, former Director of Wisconsin’s welfare-to-work program

Frank Rocchi, a case worker in Greenfield Massachusetts

Sharon Parrott, director of the Welfare Reform division of the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities.

More than two decades into the Peloponnesian War, the Greek playwright Aristophanes summoned his descriptive powers for an anti-war purpose. Lysistrata is the bawdy tale of war weary women from both sides of the conflict, who, as the play’s heroine says, “must refrain from the male altogether” in order to bring peace to Ancient Greece.

Last night, actors all over the world staged readings of the 2500 year old play, in an international pro-peace theatrical event. The readings were good for a laugh, but their message cast the spotlight on something more significant: The role of women in war. Mothers, peace activists, care-givers, and soldiers.

Guests:

Kathryn Blume, Actor, Playwright and Co-organizer of The Lysistrata Project

Katha Pollitt, Columnist for The Nation

Jane Holl Lute, Executive Vice President at the United Nations Foundation.

Pitiful. That’s how most reporters summarize their own coverage of the 1991 Gulf War. It was a low point in relations between the press and the military. Reporters say they were held hostage in military briefing rooms and force fed a steady diet of Department of Defense data.

The Pentagon is now saying this time will be different. It has a new policy for war coverage in Iraq; embedding. Journalists this time around will sleep, eat, and tramp with the troops all the way to the front lines. Skeptics say it’s more likely to create a conflict of interest than good coverage of conflict, that reporters may get too close to the soldiers they are supposed to be reporting on. Either way, the new policy marks a new relationship between those fighting the war, and those covering it.

Guests:

Charles Lewis, Washington Bureau Chief for Hearst Newspapers

Bryan Whitman, Deputy Spokesman for the Department of Defense

Eric Westervelt, NPR reporter currently in Kuwait

Chris Hedges, NY Times reporter who covered the Gulf War.

Even reading Dante can be dangerous. Those lurid descriptions of Hell, where bodies writhe in torment and punishments that fit the crimes committed in life. Well, that was all too much for the powers-that-be at Harvard University in the year 1865. Proper Protestant Bostonians weren’t eager for professors to teach such filth, especially when it was written in the language of the Italians, who, like the Irish, were pouring into “their” city.

And so begins a new novel, a murder mystery, called The Dante Club. Its heroes are some of the famous poets of the nineteenth century: Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, James Russell Lowell and Oliver Wendell Holmes. They are Dante’s defenders, and, it turns out, crime scene investigators. The dangers of discovering Dante.

Guests:

Lino Pertile, Professor of Romance Languages and Literatures at Harvard University

Matthew Pearl, author, “The Dante Club.”

If you think the Bill of Rights affords all U.S. citizens a guarantee of Constitutional protection, think again. Jose Padilla, is a U.S. citizen labeled as an “enemy combatant” by the Bush Administration, and he is finding out just how far the justice system can bend in times of crisis.

Since he was seized ten months ago, Padilla has been sitting in a Navy brig, he has not been charged and he has been denied counsel. Those expecting the judiciary to come to the rescue might take a cue from history.

Courts have been reluctant to stand up to the executive branch in times of national crisis. The Bush Administration contends that protecting Americans from terrorism means putting some rights on hold. And so far, some courts are agreeing.

Guests:

Anthony Lewis, former New York Times Columnist covering the Supreme Court

Phillip Bobbitt, University of Texas Law School Professor and Chair