The novelist Robert Olen Butler is a self-confessed eavesdropper with a passion for listening in on the conversations of the early 20th Century. He does it by collecting old postcards. Using the few lines scribbled on the back as his inspiration, he has created a cast of characters in a series of short stories that transports us to a time when the words we shared left a more permanent record.

Guests:

Robert Olen Butler, Pulitizer Prize-winning author. His new book is “Had a Good Time: Stories From American Postcards.”

Things are about to change for the American farmer. Some say the World Trade Organization’s new landmark agreement signals the end of subsidies and the death of the small U.S. farmer. Others say this is a trade breakthrough that will open all sorts of markets to U.S. crops, and that bailouts are a waste of money.

But as crop prices continue to fall, and as the global market gets increasingly competitive, many critics say it is all but impossible for the small U.S. farmer to stay afloat without a helping hand.

Guests:

Chuck Hassebrook, executive director, The Center for Rural Affairs

Mary Kay Thatcher, public policy director, American Farm Bureau

George Naylor, Iowa farmer.

Guests:

Vickie Hawkins, former Head of Mission in Afghanistan for Medecins San Frontieres (MSF)/Doctors Without Borders, currently Programmes Officer for MSF, London.

Guests:

After nearly a quarter century of work in Afghanistan, Doctors Without Borders is withdrawing from one of the most distressing countries in the world.

A targeted attack killed five of its aid workers this past June, shattering its fragile sense of security. The organization is now reeling from the realization that the line between humanitarian aid workers and the military appears to be blurring.

Guests:

Vickie Hawkins, former head of mission in Afghanistan for Doctors Without Borders.

Officials say that the photos and sketches of high-profile financial centers, employee schedules and security details recovered from a suspected terrorist in Pakistan is information Americans need to know, no matter how dated it may be.

However, Americans are wondering how to balance the “if you see something, say something” directives with the “just go about your daily lives” reassurances. The only certainty is that this intelligence reveals a secretive and complex web of patient planning.

Guests:

Larry Johnson, former deputy director of the State Department’s Office on Counter-terrorism

Lawrence Wright, staff writer for The New Yorker, author of “The Terror Web”

David Heyman, Director, Center for Strategic and International Studies Homeland Security Program.

In 1955 New York, the Brooklyn Dodgers beat the Yankees to win the World Series. A trumpet player named Miles Davis invited the tenor saxophonist John Coltrane to join a new quintet. And a group of poets and painters shrugged off the white gloved-propriety of Ozzie and Harriet’s America to break new creative ground in verse and on canvas.

Among them was a pair of Brooklyn-born painters, students of the Abstract Expressionists Hans Hofmann and Mark Rothko. In 1955, they married. Selina Trieff and Robert Henry are still together. They’re also still painting. They’ve created thousands of works and two children.

Guests:

Robert Henry and Selina Trieff, painters

The violence is intensifying against the backdrop of Iraq’s first tentative steps towards participatory democracy. A national conference to select a temporary parliament was postponed last week amid what some are calling partisan politics and mismanagement in the Iraqi government. And with the insurgents showing no signs of backing down, some wonder whether peaceful elections can happen at all.

Guests:

Laith Kubba, Senior Program Officer for Middle East and North Africa at the National Endowment for Democracy

Noah Feldman, law professor at New York University and former senior constitutional advisor to the Coalition Provisional Authority in Iraq

Peter Greste, BBC correspondent in Baghdad