The lights are coming on, slowly, all over the Northeast and the Midwest and the parts of Canada. But the shock of the massive and crippling blackout is just beginning. Right now, power officials are still struggling to understand where it began, why it spread so rapidly, and how to prevent it from happening again.

Electric industry and government officials say they’ve known for years that the nation’s power grid is inadequate. But to fix it requires a lot of money and building new transmission towers and lines, which environmentalists and the NIMBY’s…the not-in-my-backyard types…don’t like. But no one wants to live without electricity. Shedding light on the blackout.

Guests:

William Hogan, Research Director of the Harvard Electricity Policy Group

Phil Giudice, energy analyst and managing director of Enernoc Inc.

Cynthia Gardner, spent last evening in Penn Station, New York City

Peter Behr, Financial reporter for the Washington Post

Steven Whitley, chief operating officer of Independent Systems Operators of New England, the organization that runs the New England power grid.

Guests:

t.b.a.

That gas you’re pumping into your car comes from the Middle East, right? Well, maybe not. America is now looking to Africa for its oil. West Africa is awash in the stuff, much to the relief of the Bush administration. But there’s a dirty little open secret: countries like Nigeria that have sold billions of barrels to Western oil companies have gotten poorer, not richer. And oil money spawns civil wars, environmental damage, and HIV/AIDs.

So chalk up African oil exploration as an unmitigated disaster? Maybe not. In an experimental project, ExxonMobil is trying to use some oil revenues to ease crushing poverty in Chad. The venture pairs good business and good works, they say. Proponents say it’s Africa’s greatest hope; critics claim it’s all about profits and PR.

Guests:

Samuel Nguiffo, director, Center for Environment and Development in Yaoundi, Cameroon

Ken Silverstein, Staff Writer, The Los Angeles Times

Donald Norland, former U.S. ambassador to Chad

Terry Lynn Karl, Senior Fellow, Institute for International Studies at Stanford University and author, “The Paradox of Plenty: Oil Booms and Petro-States.”

A bride. A groom. Something old. Something borrowed, something green. That’s not how the ditty goes, but that is what it takes to put on the average wedding these days. Say, $22 thousand worth of green, and most of it borrowed.

Blame it all on Queen Victoria, and the bright white gown and twenty foot train she wore in her 1840 wedding to Prince Albert. Now it seems all the brides want to outdo old Vicky, and a $50 billion industry of high-end wedding planners, cake designers, bridal malls, and discount chains have sprung up to serve a couple’s every whim. The next day there’s the wedding hangover; thank you cards to write, and a big stack of bills leaving a couple wondering if it was worth all the fuss.

Guests:

Stephanie Coontz, national co-chair of Council on Contemporary Families

William Harley, psychologist, marriage counselor and founder of Marriage Builders

Millie Martini Bratten, editor in chief of Bride’s Magazine.

When you go to your doctor, lawyer or even a priest, you assume that what you say is kept secret, right? Well, not necessarily. If your name is, say, Enron or Zacarias Moussaui, don’t be so sure.

After a wave of corporate scandals and concerns over terrorism, this week the American Bar Association decided to change the rules so that lawyers can snitch on crooked clients. For those tens of thousands of people who have lost their jobs or their pensions you may say good show. Asking lawyers to act more like cops might help stop fraud before it starts. But if you are worried about your own right to confidential counsel, you may have cause for concern. Some lawyers are now saying they can no longer be trusted to keep a secret. Trading in the bad guy for the public good.

Guests:

David Wilkins, professor at Harvard University Law School;’
Lawrence Fox, partner at the law firm Drinker Biddle & Reath and former chairman of the American Bar Association Standing Committee on Ethics and Professional Responsibility;
Jeffrey Rosen, associate professor of law, George Washington University and legal affairs editor of The New Republic

Professors of criminology who’ve spent time behind bars, say they know the criminal justice system inside and out. And they don’t like what they’ve seen. In recent years, they have formed a small but vocal movement that is trying to turn the justice system on its head.

They argue that too many people in America are imprisoned, for far too long, and in conditions that humiliate instead of rehabilitate. But mainstream crime scholars say their research is bunk. They say that ex-cons with PhD’s are writing victimology, not criminology, and argue that you can take the professor out of the prison, but you can’t take the prisoner mindset out of the professor. Academics and advocacy, the inside view on crime and punishment.

Guests:

t.b.d.

Professors of criminology who’ve spent time behind bars, say they know the criminal justice system inside and out. And they don’t like what they’ve seen. In recent years, they have formed a small but vocal movement that is trying to turn the justice system on its head. They argue that too many people in America are imprisoned, for far too long, and in conditions that humiliate instead of rehabilitate. But mainstream crime scholars say their research is bunk.

They say that ex-cons with PhD’s are writing victimology, not criminology, and argue that you can take the professor out of the prison, but you can’t take the prisoner mindset out of the professor. Academics and advocacy, the inside view on crime and punishment.

Guests:

Stephen Richards, criminologist, co-editor of “Convict Criminology”

Mark S. Fleisher, cultural anthropologist and criminal ethnographer, author of “Beggars and Thieves: Lives of Urban Street Criminals”

Gentlemen, start your engines. The shortest distance between the campaign trail and the White House may well be a race track. At least, that’s what some Democratic pollsters are saying. They’ve surveyed the masses, moved beyond the Volvo-driving, latte-swilling soccer moms, and staked their claim on the next big electoral thing: the NASCAR dad.

One internal memo from a prominent Democratic pollster reads: “They are more middle class, less educated, and more likely to be in a union…our advice to Democratic candidates is to buy ad time on NASCAR television and radio and be seen at the local racetrack.” But while some say NASCAR dads will be the Democrat’s ticket to ride, others see only electoral roadkill ahead. Putting political stock in stock cars.

Guests:

Mudcat Saunders, National Rural Liaison for the Bob Graham for President Campaign

Jim Wright, Author if “Fixin’ to Git: One Fan’s Love Affair with NASCAR’s Winston Cup”

Mark Penn, Democratic pollster and President of Penn, Schoen and Berland

California confounds. The state produces some of the world’s best wine, and deadliest weapons. And its fertile political soil has sprouted movements as diverse as the conservatism of Ronald Reagan and the radicalism of the Black Panthers. California’s history runs like a San Andreas fault of booms and busts.

First there were the Gold and Silver rushes. Then came the military expansions of WW II and the Cold War which brought millions of people running to the coast and tripled the state’s population. Then there was high tech burp in Silicon Valley. California is famed for drawing brave souls, in search of freedom and riches, and like the new crop of would-be governors blooming like wildflowers, people hungry to be seen as well as heard.

Guests:

Charlie LeDuff, Los Angeles-based reporter for the New York Times

Willie Brown, Mayor of San Francisco

Harry Shearer, LA-based author, actor, and humorist

James Rawls, historian and author of “California: an Interpretive History”

There’s no mention of a wall in the Bill of Rights, but throughout history Americans built one between church and state. The phrase actually comes from a letter Thomas Jefferson wrote to the Danbury Baptist Association in 1802, when he was president. The Baptists wanted to know why he wouldn’t proclaim national days of fasting and thanksiving, as Washington and Adams had done before him. Jefferson wrote there must be a “wall of separation between church and state.” The height, thickness and porosity of that wall have been debated ever since.

For some, the wall means: Thou shalt have no hint of religion in any public space. Others say the Ten Commandments are not strictly religious. They are the bedrock of the country’s moral and legal foundation.

Guests:

Charles Haynes, Senior Scholar, Freedom Forum First Amendment Center

Michael Novak, Director, Social and Political Studies, American Enterprise Institute

Rick Scarborough, President, Vision America, organizing rally to keep Ten Commandments monument in Alabama state court building

Razi (Bobby Blockum) Hassan, Assistant Imam of Masjid Tauhid and President of the Muslim American Society of Huntsville in Huntsville, Alabama.