Think from KERA

As a co-host of the public radio show “On the Media,” Brooke Gladstone analyzes how the way in which we consume the news shapes our worldview. She joins us to talk about how our perception of even basic facts has changed of late, which she writes about in “The Trouble With Reality: A Rumination on Moral Panic in Our Time” (Workman).

Jessamyn Stanley doesn’t have the body you’d typically see in an ad for yoga clothes. And that hasn’t kept her from becoming an accomplished yogi. She joins us to talk about how people like her are expanding the world of yoga, which she writes about in “Every Body Yoga: Let Go of Fear, Get On the Mat, Love Your Body” (Workman Publishing). She’s in Dallas to talk more about the book Friday and lead a yoga class Saturday at Sync Yoga & Wellbeing.

Six weeks after giving birth, Elizabeth Silver got the news every new mother dreads – her infant daughter had suffered a serious brain injury and would need months of specialized care. She joins us to talk about what it’s like as a parent to feel helpless when your child’s future is up in the air. Her memoir is called “The Tincture of Time: A Memoir of (Medical) Uncertainty” (Penguin Press). She speaks tonight at 7:30 at Wild Detectives.

Three years into Mark Lukach’s marriage, his wife, Giulia, suffered the first in a series of debilitating psychotic breakdowns. He joins us to talk about what it takes to care for a mentally ill spouse, a story of devotion which he tells in “My Lovely Wife in the Psych Ward” (Harper Wave).

“Know thyself” is an aphorism that dates to the Ancient Greeks. Psychologist Tasha Eurich joins to talk about why that advice is still relevant in the 21st Century. She’s the author of “Insight: Why We’re Not as Self-Aware as We Think, and How Seeing Ourselves Clearly Helps Us Succeed at Work and Life” (Crown Business).

The conventional line of thinking is that the ability to focus is the key to getting things done. Neuroscientist Dr. Srini Pillay joins us to make the case for the opposite – that allowing our minds to wander can actually increase our productivity. His new book is called “Tinker, Dabble, Doodle, Try: Unlock the Power of the Unfocused Mind” (Random House).

Cyber attacks and strikes from ISIS and other nonstate organizations are forcing the U.S. military to rethink how it operates in battle. Retired Admiral Patrick Walsh joins us to talk about how our armed forces are preparing for 21st Century-style warfare. Walsh is the former commander of the U.S. Pacific Fleet and senior fellow in the Tower Center Program in National Security and Defense at SMU. He discusses possible strategies in the newest issues of The Catalyst.

The U.S. tax code underwent major overhauls in 1922, 1954 and 1986 – once every 32 years. T.R. Reid joins us to talk about why we’re due for another adjustment – and about what lawmakers should consider in the next update. He writes about the topic in “A Fine Mess: A Global Quest for a Simpler, Fairer, and More Efficient Tax System” (Penguin Press).

There may be no two contemporaries in American military history who are remembered more differently than George Washington and Benedict Arnold. Historian Nathaniel Philbrick joins us to talk about how the relationship between these two changed during the war, which he writes about in “Valiant Ambition: George Washington, Benedict Arnold, and the Fate of the American Revolution” (Penguin). He speaks tonight at DMA Arts & Letters Live!

How do race, ethnicity and culture intersect? And how do these distinctions affect the ways in which we interact with one another? Finding the answers to these questions is the mission of NPR’s Code Switch team. We’ll talk about reporting on race with team members Gene Demby, Adrian Florido and Juleyka Lantigua-Williams.