Think from KERA

Political satirist P.J. O’Rourke is known nationwide as a diehard Republican. So even he was surprised when he endorsed Hillary Clinton during the presidential election. He joins us to talk about a top-to-bottom rethinking of how we as a country choose our leaders, which he writes about in “How the Hell Did This Happen?: The Election of 2016” (Atlantic Monthly Press).

Public radio listeners know Amy Dickinson has a regular panelists on “Wait, Wait … Don’t Tell Me!” The popular advice columnist joins us to talk about how experiences in her own life have helped her to guide readers through relationships, parenting and even death. Her new book is called “Strangers Tend to Tell Me Things: A Memoir of Love, Loss, and Coming Home” (Hachette).

Grand buildings provide frozen moments that help us to understand the life and times of the people who built them. And when these structures are destroyed, so, too, is part of our collective history. James Crawford joins us to talk about how the Tower of Babel, the Library of Alexandria and other important buildings were used and abused, which he writes about in “Fallen Glory: The Lives and Deaths of History’s Greatest Buildings” (Picador).

People born intersex have reproductive organs, hormones and chromosomal patterns that aren’t distinctly male or female. Hida Viloria was born in that space between genders, the beginning of a decades-long quest to understand what it’s like to be both male and female. Hida joins us to talk about that journey, the subject of “Born Both: An Intersex Life” (Hachette).

As the United States ramps up its efforts to deport people in the country without permission, Reynosa is taking the brunt of that activity. The U.S. regularly sends busloads of undocumented Mexicans and Central Americans to the Mexican border city, where those people often interact with others gearing up to cross the borders themselves. NPR’s John Burnett has spent time recently in the city, and he joins us to talk about what life is like there.

Twenty-five years ago, Krissi Caldwell and her boyfriend, Bobby Gonzales, shot Krissi’s mother, Roz, to death. Her father, Buz, survived the attempt on his life and pushed for the killers to be prosecuted to the fullest extent of the law. Jennifer Emily recently revisited the story for The Dallas Morning News, finding a family has made peace with that awful night. She joins us to talk about how a father found a way to forgiveness – and about how the case could change the way we think about prosecuting young offenders.

Between Britain’s “Brexit” and President Trump’s “America First” philosophy, two of the world’s strongest allies have moved toward a position of nationalism. Richard Haass, president of the non-partisan Council on Foreign Relations, joins us to make the case for globalism and the important role the U.S. plays in keeping the world running smoothly. His new book is called “A World in Disarray: American Foreign Policy and the Crisis of the Old Order” (Penguin Press).

The smartphone is one of the most useful creations of the last decade. For many of us, though, our use of them borders on compulsion. Adam Alter, a professor of psychology and marketing at NYU, joins us to talk about how the makers of smartphones and other products have cracked the code of behavioral addiction – and how we can gain control of our impulses. His new book is called “Irresistible: The Rise of Addictive Technologies and the Business of Keeping Us Hooked” (Penguin Press).

Moshe Rynecki was a Polish-Jewish artist with hundreds of paintings to his name before he was ushered off to the ghetto during World War II. Decades later, his great-granddaughter went on a quest to find these missing family treasures. Elizabeth Rynecki joins us to talk about the difficult task of rebuilding the collection, which she writes about in “Chasing Portraits: A Great-Granddaughter’s Quest for Her Lost Art Legacy” (New American Library). She’s in town to speak tonight at 7 at the Aaron Family Jewish Community Center.

Schools in the U.S. have been formally desegregated for more than 60 years. That doesn’t mean that race doesn’t remain a part of education, though. As part of KERA’s American Graduate series, we’re partnering with the public radio show Houston Matters for a discussion of how students’ racial backgrounds affect the quality of their schooling. We’ll be joined by University of Pittsburgh professor H. Richard Milner, author of “Rac(e)ing to Class” (Harvard Education Press), as well as Linda McSpadden McNeil of the Rice University Center for Education.