The gut-wrenching novel, ‘Push’ by Sapphire (2008) was adapted into the powerful and heartbreaking screenplay Precious by Geoffrey Fletcher. The film was nominated for six Oscars including Best Picture of the Year and Fletcher himself won the Oscar for Best Adapted Screenplay. He tells Patt about how he brought this tragic story to the silver [...]
When Barack Obama was elected President conservative gun rights activists went into a frenzy: reports of huge spikes in sales of guns and ammunition came in across the country, on the fear that the new liberal president would move quickly to impose new gun restrictions. Ironically the opposite has happened in the first year under [...]
Forget those social studies textbooks filled with dry descriptions of tools and soil samples—author Brian Fagan’s chronicle Cro Magnon reveals the urgency and danger of early human society. Could battling traffic on the 405 and hunting wooly mammoths be any more different—or alike? What do ice age people and modern humans have in common? Is [...]
Larry Mantle and the FilmWeek critics traveled to the Egyptian Theatre for our 8th annual Academy Awards preview show. Who will take home Oscar gold? Who will be disappointed? KPCC’s critics make their predictions. Read the Full Story at KPCC Blogs
The firm Business Intelligence Advisors (BIA) is hiring active CIA employees to place as “deception detectors” in the private sector for places like Goldman Sachs, and SAC Capital Advisors. Are these moonlighting operatives sharing their top-secret CIA training in interrogation techniques, polygraph analysis, interviewing and more with the corporate world? Does this create a conflict [...]
Annabelle Gurwitch and Jeff Kahn have been married for thirteen years. In other words, they’ve had ample time annoy the hell out of each other. In their new book, You Say Tomato, I Say Shut Up, the actor-writer-comedian pair, take a humorous look back at their time served. At points, their relationship seemed doomed by [...]
Does depression serve an evolutionary purpose? That’s the theory doctors are beginning to explore, and in doing so, are discovering some positive sides to depression’s roots. It turns out intense rumination and fixating on one’s flaws might not be so bad if they allow you to focus on understanding your problems and doing something about [...]
Even if you've never heard of Jerry West, you're likely familiar with his image- the NBA modeled its logo on a silhouette of West and his left-handed dribble. In the book "Jerry West: The Life and Legend of a Basketball Icon," Roland Lazenby profiles West from his poor childhood in a West Virginia coal mining [...]
When should drugs be prescribed to control our children’s behavior? Judith Warner takes on this question in her new book “We’ve Got Issues: Children and Parents in the Age of Medication.” Based on five years of conversations with medicated children and their families, the doctors and psychologists who diagnose them and prescribe their medication, and [...]
Tiger Wood’s teary confession begs a question: does a man who continually strays from his wife suffer from a disorder? Many psychiatrists say, “yes.” In fact, psychiatrists are proposing adding “hypersexual disorder” to the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders. But is a rakish man really sick or just selfish? And if someone is [...]
