The second installment of "Saints & Rascals" (History in the First Person) is Avicenna, the great, great Persian doctor, philosopher, scientist, and person of all things from about the Year 1000. He (I) describes what it was like to be able to read ALL the books there were before he was out of his teens. He describes the adventure of philosophy and even of being a doctor in his age of sultans, caliphates, imperial courts. And finally he tells why he spent his whole life running away from powerful sultans in order to preserve his freedom to think. Enjoy. And please let others know!

In this first audio essay, Thomas De Quincey, of a new series of monologues, Saints and Rascals, by Clark Carr, we hear De Quincey talk about his book, "Confessions of an Opium Eater," and of the terrible history of opium, the British/Chinese Opium Wars, and the evolution of the modern international drug crisis. What a tale! Told by someone who lived it...

This is the last chapter of the comic travel adventures. Comic after the fact, of course! Miserable or frightening while one is in the teeth of the tiger. But even if all might not be well that ends well, it DOES make for good stories! Enjoy. There are 12 chapters before this in Clark Carr's podcast "Clark Reads Books."

The way you learn the Cardinal Rules is by breaking them wildly, dumbly. Best done at 4AM outside Mumbai, or in a crowded Manila airport lobby with waiting passengers staring at you, or sitting on the royal white throne in Mexico City for days...and days...and days. Again somehow I survived, somehow!

Well, I've had more than my share of good luck. Here are three stories where it could have gone very south, very fast. But somehow kismet smiled on me. I don't deserve it, but I'm alive to tell the ridiculous stories of how I survived. Enjoy!

Not everyone gets to present at a science conference in Iran. You would think this would be so simple. What could possibly happen? After all, we're all such good friends, aren't we? Well, I made it, and it was VERY interesting. Very interesting indeed. Enjoy the fun and frisson!