Guests:

T.B.A.

For the Ninth Bishop of the Episcopal Church of New Hampshire, this has been an extraordinary year. It is the year in which Gene Robinson was consecrated as the first openly gay Bishop in the history of the Christian Church. His move toward his investiture was rocked with as much adversity as adulation. Some church leaders spoke glowingly of his election calling it a “tool to strengthen the life of the church” . But others spoke of it in more apocalyptic terms, saying the church was going against the Bible itself and opening a great rift in its community of believers. In fact, Robinson’s position has caused unrest in parishes from as near as New Hampshire and as far away as Africa.

But so far, the church remains united. Bishop Gene Robinson joins us to talk about his year in the spotlight, homosexuality, and holiness –

Guests:

The Rt. Reverend Gene Robinson, Episcopal Bishop of New
Hampshire.

Did he jump, or was he pushed — it’s the answer everyone in Washington wants to know. CIA Director George Tenet’s decision to leave his post has many in the intelligence community feeling that he is playing the fall guy for an Administration that failed to prevent September 11th and that pushed the idea that Iraq had weapons of mass destruction with evangelical zeal.

Now, on the eve of two reports expected to present even more damning evidence about the faulty intelligence used in the case for war, Tenet is headed out the door. In this election year, its left people wondering what affect his departure will have on the Bush White House and on the future of the nation’s intelligence community.

Guests:

Judith Yaphe, former CIA operative and Senior Fellow at
the National Defense University

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

Timothy Burger, reporter at Time Magazine.

Pop Quiz for those who think they know who’s who in the music world…Name the top selling Christian musician….If Amy Grant is the first name that pops into your head, you’re at least 10 years behind. In the last decade, Christian music moved out of the church basement and into the mainstream, where it now boasts platinum selling hardcore and punk bands along with the more folksy types. It is now a multi-million dollar industry that is finding followers at a time when the rest of the music industry is floundering.

And it’s not just the folks in the choir who are listening to evangelical rock– about one in five American teenagers is buying it. Tuning into rock and roll without the sex and drugs, bump or grind. Rock of the ages.

Guests:

Nancy Aleksuk, Pastor and Co-Director of Club Three Degrees, the largest Christian dance club in the U.S.

Brian Meiler, independent A&R for Christian Rock industry

Tom Moon, Music Critic, Philadelphia Inquirer.

American intelligence officials are sifting through allegations that Ahmad Chalabi passed U.S. secrets to Iran while receiving a monthly stipend of more than 300 thousand dollars from the American taxpayers. His critics are saying that the Saville Row Shiite is finally being seen as the Svengali he is.

We warned you all along, they say, that the think tank neocons Chalabi cozied up to in the 90s are the same ones he then conned in the White House and Pentagon with faulty intelligence. But if Chalabi has been a master manipulator, he has also been relentlessly on message about the necessity of regime change in Iraq. Now that that nation is in tatters, and the Bush administration is in the hot seat, the man who helped instigate all of it may yet emerge the victor. Ahmad Chalabi. The story behind the Teflon troublemaker.

Guests:

Jane Mayer, staff writer, The New Yorker.

To sleep, perchance to dream…but why? That’s a question scientists are now trying to answer. After years of following Freud and obsessing about what we dream, researchers are now trying to understand why we dream. Paul McCartney swears the melody for the song “Yesterday” came to him while he slept. And Jack Nicklaus insists that dreams improved his golf game. That may not be as crazy as it sounds.

Researchers using brain scans and other new techniques to look inside the brain while we sleep are finding out, surprise, that there’s a lot going on in there. Of course, figuring out why we dream may give us further insight into what we dream. After all, doesn’t everyone want to know if that train is just a train or if the tunnel is something more.

Guests:

Andrea Rock, journalist, author of “The Mind At Night”

Deirdre Barrett, clinical psychologist, associate professor, Harvard Medical School.

They are the new black Republicans and they have a new name for the party. GOP they say stands for the Grow Out Party. These are African American Mayors and State lawmakers who say for far too long, Democrats have taken the black vote for granted. And they’re fed up.

It’s time, they say, for black voters to take back the party of Lincoln, to make the GOP look more like them: African American faces, young and old. Rich and poor. Professional and working class. And as more young black voters identify themselves as Republicans, some African American leaders hope this could be a year to fundamentally change the Party, to give it new color and a new attitude.

Guests:

Jennifer Carroll, Florida State Representative (R-Jacksonville)

James Clyburn, U.S. Congressman (D-SC), former Chair of the Congressional Black Caucus

James Garner, Mayor of Hempstead, NY (R) and Head of the U.S. Conference of Mayors.

Hugh Masekela’s musical journey began as a township teenager on a trumpet donated by none other than Louis Armstrong. Though Masekela was born in a country with thousands of years of musical tradition, there were few options for young black musicians. He left the clutches of apartheid and landed in the booming jazz scene of New York in the 1960’s, but South Africa remained in his heart and in his horn.

Masekela found famous friends like Harry Belafonte and Dizzy Gillepsie, and took a ride on the familiar arc of quick fame, hard-living, decadence, and redemption. While rising and falling, Masekela retained the rhythm and resistance of a boy from a South African coal town. Still Grazin': The Musical Journey of Hugh Masekela.

Guests:

Hugh Masekela

It’s not often that a small business fights for the right to follow extra rules and regulations, but that’s the case with Creekstone Farms. The Kansas meat-packer wants to test every cow for what’s known as Mad Cow disease. Doing so, they hope, will woo back their best Japanese customer who stopped buying American beef after one diseased animal turned up in Washington State last year. But the USDA has refused that request for extra testing, dismissing it as unnecessary and unjustified.

Now, those ranchers who favor the screening process are squaring off against the USDA and lobbyists with the nation’s heavyweight meat packers. The outcome could determine what lands on your plate.

Guests:

Kevin Pentz, V.P. of Operations at Creekstone Farms

Dean Cliver, Professor of Veterinary Medicine, University of California, Davis

and Bill Bullard, CEO of Rancher’s and Cattlemen’s Action Legal Fund.