Conflict Resolution: What it is and How it Works (VOA 1995)

In the mid-1990s, I was the initiator, designer and lead producer for a very ambitious series about the emerging field of conflict resolution and its applications. It covered everything from war, to marital discord to the role of the media in preventing or stoking discord, to the psychology of violence, peace and forgiveness. This 20 […]

Driving Einstein’s Brain

Einstein may have had one of history’s most enviable cerebaums, but its post-mortem wherabouts were a mystery until an intrepid reporter found out about the weirdo pathologist who stole them at the physicist’s autopsy. He offered to drive the doctor and the the brain from New Jersey to the California to return it. This is […]

Little League’s Big Adventure

Little League is Americana itself, and I was shocked and privileged to be a part of it all as my son’s coach in Washington DC in the late 1990s. I produced this profile of one game for the Voice of America. In it, I had to explain the game of baseball to our foreign listeners, […]

Mister Spoons: Big Apple Flatware Virtuoso

There are hundreds of musicians, good and bad, tooting and strumming and bowing and belting in the New York subway system, but Mr. Spoons is sui generis. Not only is he fantastic at playing the spoons, he has an outsize character to match. I spent some serious time with him, and filed this report for […]

Profile of A Moonshiner (VOA 1999)

Folk all over the world have their own versions of homemade liquor that will blow the top of your head right off., but “White Lightning” from the stills of Appalachia have their own appeal for Americans who have heard about it through family lore and popular culture, or tasted it in a parking lot or […]

Auld Lang Syne Mega–Melange

There are zillions of ways to sing and play Auld Lang Syne. Here I had fun melding some of them.