Something, it seems, is wrong at the zoo. A new study from Oxford University says animals like tigers and polar bears suffer too much stress when they’re locked up. Last week, a 300 pound gorilla escaped from a Boston zoo, injuring two people. The investigation into a spate of animal deaths at Washington’s National Zoo continues.

Despite such problems, people who support zoos, say they are needed today, more than ever to keep people in touch with the rest of the animal kingdom. But the challenges of zoo-keeping are steep: maintaining the highest of standards, and not just for the people who visit, but most importantly, for the animals that live there.

Guests:

Rory Browne, Associate Dean of Freshman Students at Harvard University, Zoo Historian, and member of the Zoo Advisory council of Zoo New England

Michael Hutchins, Director of the Conservation and Science for the
American Zoo and Aquarium Association, and professor of Sustainable Development and Conservation at the University of Maryland.

A Palestinian suicide bomber kills 19 in Haifa. The Israelis launch attacks deep inside Syria. The U.S. government stands on the sidelines, unwilling to act or to criticize for fear of jeopardizing what it calls its “global war on terror.”

At the same time, a new report shows the image of the U.S. in Arab and Muslim countries is at an all time low. The author, a former U.S. Ambassador, says “We have failed to listen and to persuade. We have not taken the time to understand our audience, and we have not bothered to help them understand us.” He argues for more money for advertising and education. Others say the U.S. image won’t change, until its foreign policy does.

Guests:

Edward Djerejian, Chair, U.S. State Department Advisory Group on Public Diplomacy in the Arab and Muslim World and Founding Director of the James A. Baker III Institute for Public Policy at Rice University

Rami Khouri, Executive Editor, The Daily Star, Beirut, Lebanon

It is better to have loved and lost, than never to have loved as all. For Red Sox and Chicago Cubs fans, that’s more than a romantic mantra, it’s a way of life. Red Sox fans begin every season with hope, and every year, or at least every year since 1918, it ends in despair.

Fans of the Chicago Cubs can be forgiven for holding onto hope. For now. Cubs and Red Sox fans, though different in temperament, are joined in the great temple of perennial losers. But here’s the thing. Their fans never even THINK about abandoning the team. Maybe it’s just blind devotion to the hometown? Or maybe its devotion to a city, or the players themselves, or maybe its just a bad case of low self esteem.

Examining this most brutal form of unrequited love and asking the question, if you are a fan of a losing team, what does that make you ?

Guests:

Joe Queenan, author of “True Believers: The Tragic Inner Life of Sports Fans”

Allen Barra, author of “Clearing the Bases: The Greatest Baseball Debates of the Last Century”

Michael Field, an administrator at Boston University and Cubs and Red Sox Fan.

It was two years ago when Enron stock started tanking. Company executives dumped their shares, and made millions, but they didn’t allow their employees to do the same thing. Thousands of Enron workers had lost everything they thought they’d saved in a retirement account.

Now, a federal judge has ruled that workers can go after Ken Lay to try to recoup some of the losses. Proponents are hailing the decision as a victory for the little guy, but critics say its bad for business, and could ultimately lead companies to stop providing retirement plans altogether if they are made responsible for such losses.

While retirees may love their monthly checks, businesses are wondering, with all the risk, whether it’s time to put pensions and retirement plans out to pasture.

Guests:

Lynn Sarko, Lead Attorney for Enron Plaintiffs

Jim Klein, President of the American Benefits Coucil

Tom Padget and Linda Roberts, former Enron employees.

Marilyn Horne and Barbara Cook are accustomed to audiences calling out for more. Marilyn was 20 when she made her operatic debut in 1954, almost fifty years ago. Barbara Cook was 30 when she starred as Marian the Librarian in the original cast of “The Music Man” on Broadway in 1957, more than 45 years ago.

But as one of the characters in a Barbara Cook cabaret song might say, they’re still here. Still singing. Still teaching. And still willing to try something new.

After years of pursuing very different careers, they’re now singing, together, songs from the Great American Songbook. And these two legendary singers, the real sopranos, are joining us here today

Guests:

Barbara Cook, soprano

Marilyn Horne, mezzo-soprano.

When archeologists want to understand old civilizations, they start by going to the dump. Hundreds of years from now, when the Indiana Joneses of tomorrow sift through our garbage, they’re going to have an awful lot to catalog.

Today, every single American generates about 5 pounds of trash a day. Think about it, five pounds per person per day. And thanks to tough environmental rules, landfills have become more expensive. And so there are fewer being built, and the ones that are being created, are huge. Many of these “mega-fills”, as they’re known, are popping up in poor communities, where residents need the money to build new schools, ball fields, and buy new fire trucks. Talking trash: the economics and ethics of megafills.

Guests:

Travis Windham. Councilman from Lee County, South Carolina

Richard Porter, Professor Emeritus of Economics,University of Michigan, Ann Arbor and the author of “The Economics of Waste”

Frank Ackerman, environmental economist and Research Director, Global Development and Environment Institute at Tufts University, and the author, “Why Do We Recycle?, Markets, Values and Public Policy”

The ancient Greeks had Hercules and Aphrodite, the Egyptians Isis and Osiris, and early Americans — well, they worshipped The Durango Kid and Jesse James.

In 1903, the first Western hit the screen in the United States. The French had invented cinema, and American entrepreneurs were determined to beat them at their own game, and make movies that would appeal to people in the USA. Someone at Edison studios in New York City came up with the idea of pulling together some bandits, horses, and one train, and the rest is history.

Today, 100 years after the first showing of “The Great Train Robbery,” the western is making a comeback on and off the screen. Wanted lists and smoking guns — American mythology is still in the saddle and riding high.

Guests:

Scott Simmon, professor at the University of California, Davis, and author of “The Invention of the Western Film”

Holly George-Warren, author of “Cowboy: How Hollywood Invented the Wild West: Featuring the Real West, Campfire Melodies, Matinee Idols, Four Legged Friends, Cowgirls & Lone Guns”

Washington has always loved a little blood in the water. But if the capitol’s appetite for scandal is famously healthy, it’s ability to metabolize rumor into ruin lags. The Pentagon Papers, Iran Contra, even MonicaGate, all started with a leak or a lie or some bit of drudged up innuendo, and then dragged on as independent counsels and criminal investigations ran their course.

So it’s not that surprising that it took three-months for news about a White House leak about the wife of a former ambassador to make headlines. Except for the fact that the information was classified, the woman is an undercover CIA agent, and the ambassador happens to be an outspoken critic of the Bush administration’s war in Iraq. From leak to scandal. Deconstructing a Washington Whodunit.

Guests:

Daniel Ellsberg, author, “Secrets: A Memoir of Vietnam and the Pentagon Papers

Scott Armstrong, former senior investigator, Senate Watergate Committee and founder, National Security Archive

Ted Gup, author, “The Book of Honor: Covert Lives and Classified Deaths at the CIA”