They call themselves “The Jersey Girls,” or simply “The Girls.” But don’t be fooled. If it hadn’t been for them, the 9/11 Commission might never have gotten off the ground. These women, all of whom lost their husbands in the World Trade Center attacks, were instrumental in pushing the politicians to uncover the truth of what happened on September 11th.

Over the past two years, they have spent countless hours in the corridors of Congress demanding answers. When the Commission said it needed a bigger budget, and more time to do its work, it was their public advocacy that helped make it happen.

Now, in the week the Commission is due to release its findings, they are waiting to see if their hard work paid off. Kristin Breitweiser, Lorie Van Auken, and Mindy Kleinberg, “The Jersey Girls” on The Connection.

Guests:

Kristen Breitweiser, widow of Ronald Breitweiser

Lorie van Auken, widow of Kenneth van Auken

and Mindy Kleinberg, widow of Alan Kleinberg

Guests:

Christine Kondoleon, George and Margo Vehrakis Curator of Greek and Roman Art, the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston

Thomas Cahill, author, “Sailing the Wine Dark Sea: Why the Greeks Matter.”

Guests:

Yonatan Shapira, former Captain in the Israel Air Force

We will also be talking to a Major in the Israel Air Force reserves who flies Cobra helicopter missions.

A group of pilots in the Israeli Air Force triggered a controversy in Israel when they signed a letter of refusal to take part in aerial attacks on the West Bank and Gaza. The pilots charge that their own military’s policy of targeting enemies in civilian centers is “illegal and immoral” because it takes the lives of innocent women and children. Israeli politicians denounced the pilots as traitors and dismissed their cause as politics parading as conscience.

Guests:

Yonatan Shapira, Refusnik and dismissed Captain in the Israeli Air Force Reserves;

Major “N,” current pilot in the Israeli Air Force

When more than 10,000 athletes from over 200 nations stride into the hot Aegean sun on the site of the first modern games, Milo of Kroton and his fellow forebears of the games will probably be rolling in their sarcophagi. In their day, nearly 3,000 years ago, only Barbarians would compete wearing anything but a delicate sheen of highly fragrant olive oil — to say nothing of letting women play.

Guests:

Christine Kondoleon, curator of Greek and Roman Art at the Boston Museum of Fine Arts;

Thomas Cahill, author of the “Hinges of History” series about Western civilization

Technology is making it possible for an increasing number of men to father children even after death. Some men facing terminal illness are freezing their sperm in order to create a family in a future they may never see.

Questions and controversy arise when the children of these cryogenic unions go looking for the same rights and benefits as children conceived when the father is alive. In an age of frozen sperm and embryos, technology is outpacing long-held beliefs and definitions of entitlement.

Guests:

Rhonda Gillett-Netting, Professor of Anthropology at the University of Arizona, mother of twins conceived after her husband’s death

Professor Elizabeth Bartholet, Professor, Harvard Law School and author of “Family Bonds: Adoption, Infertility and the New World Order of Child Production”

Thomas Harman, California Congressman.

Forty years after the Supreme Court ruled that every person, both rich and poor, is entitled to legal representation, jails across the country are bursting with defendants who can’t afford an attorney. In many states, public defenders are overwhelmed by hundreds of cases.

But in a time of tight budgets, when schools are underfunded and police and fireman rolls are being cut, some wonder if providing free lawyers to repeat offenders is really the way they want their tax dollars spent.

Guests:

Judge Timothy Lewis, co-chair of the National Committee on the Right to Counsel

Tom Workman, President of the Massachusetts Association of Court Appointed Attorneys

Steven Bright, Director of the Southern Center for Human Rights.

Arnon Grunberg’s writing tracks the lives of quirky outsider characters as they grapple with the absurdity and despair of love, writing and politics. His work has been translated in 18 languages and he’s won Holland’s top literary prizes. But his path to fame is a tribute to all who try, fail and persevere. At 20, Grunberg was a high school dropout, a failed actor and he worked at a dead-end photocopy job. Twelve years and 15 books later he’s challenging literary and geographic categories with fiction that knows no limits.

Guests:

Arnon Grunberg, award-winning Dutch novelist. His most recent book published in English is “Phantom Pain.”

Thursday saw the first major bombing since the so-called transfer of power. Although U.S. soldiers were among the first on the scene, Iraq’s interim Prime Minister Iyad Allawi toured the area.

Allawi has been attracting the attention of observers there simply because he does not appear to be managing the country’s affairs as an agent of the U.S. He has met secretly with insurgent leaders, and offered limited amnesty. The others he says will be pursued and killed as enemies of Iraq.

Guests:

Peter Greste, Baghdad Correspondent for the BBC

Dan Murphy, Baghdad correspondent for The Christian Science Monitor

Daniel Byman, assistant professor at the Walsh School of Foreign Service at Georgetown University and senior fellow at the Saban Center for Middle East Policy at the Brookings Institution.

If the off button is the best defense in a 24/7 cable world, then the record button may be the best offense. That’s what filmmaker Robert Greenwald hopes viewers of his film, “Outfoxed,” will think.

His documentary uses material from several months of FOX News broadcasts, leaked internal memos and testimony from former FOX News employees. Greenwald seeks to indict FOX News for unabashedly toeing the Republican Party line.

Guests:

Robert Greenwald, director and producer, “Outfoxed: Rupert Murdoch’s War on Journalism.”