Weekend America

The Cassandras

As we look ahead to 2009, one of the most pressing questions we ask is, will our economy will get better, or worse? And how do we find any answer that is anything but pure shoulder shrugging speculation? It's natural to turn to sources who predicted the economic disaster all along. You know, the bears. The doctors of doom. The Cassandras of Wall Street.

Dilbert's 2009 Forecast

It's a tough economy. Even cartoon characters are losing their jobs. Dilbert, a character who's spent 20 years chronicling the daily frustrations, humiliations, shenanigans and incompetence of the American workplace, will get his pink slip. Fittingly, Wally, his cynical and lazy co-worker, will stay on. John Moe talks with Dilbert's creator, Scott Adams about finding the humor we crave when the economy sinks and life gets absurd. Adam's latest book is Dilbert 2.0: 20 Years of Dilbert.

Advising Obama from Your Living Room

It's less than three weeks until Barack Obama takes the oath of office and becomes president. A big reason why is that during the campaign, his team was astoundingly effective at mobilizing volunteers, getting citizens to be stake-holders in the campaign, running phone banks, ringing doorbells, holding house meetings. Obama won, but that apparatus is still in place and house meetings are still going on.

January Joiners

All right, so it's January, right? That means you're very likely to be in one of two groups: new member at the gym or old member at the gym who can't get on one of the elliptical machines at the gym because some new member is on it. Dang new members. The online slang compendium UrbanDictionary.com has a name for this phenomenon: "January Joining." It defines a "January Joiner" as someone who "joins the gym in January as part of a New Year's resolution and by February is back to being a couch potato."

Listener's New Year's Resolutions

With the new year comes the annual opportunity to put yourself on the line. To set yourself up for improvement, dedication, empowerment. Or to set yourself up for frustration, futility, disappointment. Talking of course about the New Year's Resolution. An annual proclamation of the new you. Easy to declare on New Year's Eve, perhaps a bit trickier as the year wears on. We asked you, our listeners, what you resolved to do this year. Here's what you told us.

Crazy for Time Capsules

There are thousands of time capsules buried by school children, civic leaders, colleges, and hospitals across the country every year in the United States. It's fueled by that indomitable optimism about the future we humans seem to have. We bury things and think future generations will find them - and care

Meet Your New Favorite Band

As we look ahead at what 2009 might be like, we think of a new president, lots of economic uncertainty, but how about simpler things? What kind of music might we be hearing? Turns out that's not so easy to predict either, but reporter Roman Mars took a crack at it.

Hunger In the New Year

A lot of people are thinking about plans for the upcoming year this weekend. Ann Shotwell knows a lot about planning, though for her, it's more week-to-week. She runs a hot meal program three Wednesday nights a month out of Morningstar Baptist Church on Cleveland's east side. It's a low income neighborhood hit hard by foreclosures. One-hundred and fifty people or more show up for the meal, and Mrs. Shotwell gets most of the food for it by shopping at Cleveland's food bank.

Changing the Emergency Room

The New Year brings a new president and the prospect of change to the U.S. health care system. Reformers want more people to have affordable care and health insurance. Massachusetts isn't waiting for the rest of the country on this issue. They're already pursuing universal health care for all residents. It hasn't been fully implemented yet, but ERs there are already changing how they deal with patients with chronic conditions.

A 21st Century Revulsion

19th century Americans lived through plenty of recessions, but they called them "revulsions" back then. New Yorker Magazine writer Adam Gopnik talks with John Moe about our historical amnesia when it comes to capitalism overheating. Gopnik is out with a new book "Angels and Ages: A Short Book about Darwin, Lincoln and Modern Life" that looks at how a president and an evolutionary scientist used clear language to explain the complexities of their own times.

Conversations with America

Conversations with America: Oliver Sacks

A couple of weeks ago in his weekly radio and YouTube address, President-elect Obama talked about the role science would play in his presidency. Obama said his administration would seek to ensure that facts and evidence reported by scientists are never twisted or obscured by politics or ideology. That's a stance dear to the heart of author and neurologist Oliver Sacks.

Poetry Radio Project

Poet and President-elect Obama

President-elect Barack Obama has a lot of writers excited about the next four years. He'll have a poet at his inauguration. He's said he's going to have more poetry readings at the White House. He's even quoted poetry on the campaign trail. In the speech he gave on Super Tuesday, Obama said, "We are the ones we've been waiting for." That line is from June Jordan's "Poem for South African Women." Nobel laureate Derek Walcott has been thinking about what it means to have a president who reads poetry.

New Restaurant + Bad Economy = Crazy Idea?

Restaurants have gotten a bit of break lately. Cheaper gas has meant lower food prices, cheaper ingredients. But Moody's Investment Service reported last week that restaurants still have a tough road ahead of them as businesses because it's so hard to refinance debt right now. Still, some ambitious restaurateurs are moving ahead with their dreams. In Albuquerque, New Mexico, the Cast Iron Cafe has just opened for business.

Girl Talk and the Future of Music

One of the most talked about bands out there right now is Girl Talk. But Girl Talk is a pretty different kind of band. To start with, it's just one guy: Gregg Gillis. Also, no instruments, just Greg and his laptop computer. His latest release, Feed The Animals, has over 300 samples on it - all of which he's borrowed without asking. It's a gray legal area, but there's no doubt he's made the music his own.