Every time the singer-songwriter Aimee Mann tackles a new project, she seems to raise the bar for herself. Her music for the film Magnolia was so striking for the filmmaker, that the music actually became the movie.

Aimee’s split with her record label got her a lot of publicity but ultimately a lot of control over what and when and how she writes. Recently, you’re likely to find the musician sparing in a boxing ring, where fighting is a sport, and a well hidden hook can come from what’s known in the ring as “The Forgotten Arm.” That’s also the title of her new concept album.

The album is a collection of songs that linked together tell the story of a girl who meets a boxer at a country fair. Aimee Mann, pins back the wild hair of her Till Tuesday years to talk about the art of songwriting.

Guests:

Aimee Mann, singer-songwriter, her new album is “The Forgotten Arm.”

Invention is described in the Merriam Webster dictionary as “productive imagination.” From medical breakthroughs to computer advancements, we are forever in search of fresh ideas in science, technology and engineering.

Yet with high schools facing their budget cuts, it is often difficult to find the tools, the teachers and the time to inspire our next generation of inventors. If it doesn’t happen at some point in the classroom — what’s lost? Is invention something that can be taught or will people become inventors for other reasons?

We talk with two of the nation’s top high school inventors, recipients of the Lemelson-MIT grant, and one of MIT’s experts in robotic research. Who invents the inventors, anyway?

Guests:

Andrew Esther, junior from West Salem High School in West Salem, Oregon and Lemelson-MIT InvenTeams grant recipient

Genevieve Garris, senior from Gulf Coast High School in Naples, Florida and Lemelson-MIT InvenTeams grant recipient

James McLurkin, PhD candidate in Computer Science at MIT, 2003 winner of the $30,000 Lemelson-MIT Student Prize and inventor of robotic ants and swarmbots.

Kofi Annan recently described life for residents of Darfur as something close to hell on earth. For the reporters who have made it their business to travel through western Sudan over the past two years it must sometimes appear as if the world has stopped paying attention.

Months ago, President Bush did acknowledge that the country was in a state of genocide, and while a substantial portion of aid has been delivered, it also seemed at times that the political priority America once attached to the conflict had drifted away.

There are suggestions of progress now; word that peace talks could begin and signs that the small Africa Union force has made some headway in providing protection. But it’s still a part of the world with millions displaced and no real sign that the Sudan government is ready to change its policy.

Guests:

Nicholas Kristof, Op-Ed columnist for The New York Times.

Last week, a note on an online message board touched off a flurry of international speculation. It said that Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, leader of al Qaeda in Iraq, lay near death after suffering a serious injury.

Subsequent postings only deepened the confusion; one said Zarqawi had left Iraq, yet another said that a deputy had been appointed in his place. The speculation only ended when Zarqawi himself posted an audio clip to prove he was still alive.

These message boards do a lot more than send out press releases. They tell terrorists how to build bombs, and which targets to attack. U.S. authorities are faced with a choice: They can try to take these sites out of commission, or they can exploit them to collect valuable intelligence.

Guests:

Rita Katz, director of the SITE Institute, and author of “Terrorist Hunter”

W. David Stephenson, Principal of Stephenson Strategies, a consulting firm dealing in Homeland Security

Matthew Scully doesn’t fit the profile of someone who advocates for animal welfare. Until this past summer he was a senior speechwriter for President George W. Bush. Before that he was an editor of the conservative magazine, National Review.

But Scully takes the cause of animal protection seriously — so much so that he has made it his mission to convince fellow Republicans that the money-saving efficiencies of factory farming pose serious moral issues that his party needs to face.

Republicans generally ridicule the cause of animal protection — claiming it belongs to those far on the Left. But Scully argues that conservatives, with all their talk of compassion and values are a natural ally for the cows, chickens, and pigs caged in ungodly conditions.

Guests:

Matthew Scully, former deputy director of presidential speechwriting for President George W. Bush, former literary editor of The National Review and author of “Dominion: The Power of Man, The Suffering of Animals, and the Call to Mercy.” His most recent work is an article in The American Conservative magazine, “Fear Factories: The Case for Compassionate Conservatism — for Animals.”

Tony Blair has big plans for Africa. Britain’s Prime Minister says fighting poverty there is one of his top priorities. He is proposing what has been called a “modern day Marshall Plan” to pay off Africa’s debts, increase trade and double the aid from wealthier countries.

Blair plans to present his new proposals next month at the meeting of the G8 but he needs U.S. support if anything is really going to change. Blair is in Washington today trying to persuade President Bush that it is in both their best interests to concentrate on helping people in Africa.

The Bush administration has its own ideas on debt relief. It once embraced the idea but has recently been raising doubts about the plan to simply sweep away 300 billion dollars in debt.

Guests:

Abraham McLaughlin, Christian Science Monitor Correspondent in Johannesburg, South Africa

Salih Booker, Executive Director of Africa Action

William Easterly, Professor of Economics at New York University.

What is life like for women behind bars, and how different is it from men in prison? These are two of the questions investigative journalist Cristina Rathbone explored during the time she spent looking at the people inside and the people operating the country’s oldest women’s prison.

At MCI-Framingham in Massachusetts, she found more despair than violence in the prisoner’s stories. While nearly 70 percent of the state’s male inmates are serving time for violent crimes, a majority of women in jail are sentenced for non-violent offenses. And more than two-thirds of those women are mothers.

Rathbone talks about the implications of those distinctions for the inmates and the families in her book “A World Apart: Women, Prison and life Behind Bars.”

Guests:

Cristina Rathbone, author of “A World Apart : Women, Prison, and Life Behind Bars.”

Guantanamo Bay is “the gulag of our times,” that’s how the head of Amnesty International sums it up. She was talking about her organization’s recent report on the human rights abuses of the United States.

Her remarks have drawn furious rebukes from the Bush Administration. The president, the vice president, Secretary Rumsfeld and others have all denounced the report as irresponsible — and said it was published by people who “hate America.”

But beyond this war of words are real questions about how America’s human rights record is being shaped by the Administration’s “war on terror.” Amnesty is calling on the U.S. to open the doors of its detention facilities and investigate higher-ups responsible for abuse. The administration is refusing, insisting that due process is being followed and that it has nothing to hide.

Guests:

William Schultz, head of Amnesty U.S.A.

David Rivkin, lawyer with Baker & Hostetler LLP.

It’s not often that debut novels get praise from such literary lions as Frank Norman Mailer, among others. But Peter Pouncey is no ordinary author. At age 67, Pouncey is a distinguished classicist and has served as the President of Amherst College and as Dean of Columbia College. But until now, he’d never written a book. His first novel, Rules for Old Men Waiting, tells the story of a dying man, Robert MacIver, struggling to come to terms with the death of his wife and his own growing infirmity. To survive, he constructs a set of rules to guide him toward death with purpose and a clear mind, and finds ways to make peace with his memories, and find meaning in his final days. Author Peter Pouncey on writing, remembering, and keeping the imagination alive.

Guests:

Peter Pouncey, author of “Rules for Old Men Waiting.”

It’s been less than four years since the catastrophic melt-downs at Enron and World-Com — which shredded the reputation of corporate America — along with all those documents. Those scandals are now history — and investor confidence much restored — thanks in part to new standards for financial disclosure and mandates for greater accountability by corporate officers and Boards of Directors. But there’s also been a backlash. Big business complains it’s hobbled by too much regulation. The current Chairman of the Securities and Exchange Commission– known as a tough enforcer, is quitting and President Bush has chosen a business friendly Republican ally to take his place. Some say this move is a much needed correction — others are calling it a big wet kiss for American corporations.

Guests:

Krishna Palepu, Senior Associate Dean and Director of Research at the Harvard Business School

David Chavern, Director of the Corporate Government Initiative for the U.S. Chamber of Commerce.