Books

On the November ballot, voters will decide whether to expand gambling in Maryland to include table games--and to add a casino in Prince George's County.  Meanwhile, the state is preparing for an increase in gambling addiciton, and is partnering with the University of Maryland to create a new center that trains counselors in gambling addiction.  We'll talk with the director of the center, and a gambling counselor in Worcester County, which is the where t

Expect a complex ballot in November:  Once you finish voting for President, Senator, Congressperson, and multiple  referendum questions, then you might have a series of bond issues to vote on. UMBC political scientist Roy Meyers tells you what you need to know when you get there.

Then – Members of the local Muslim community respond to the film Innocence of Muslims, which has spurred international outrage and which some say led to the deaths of four Americans in Libya.

Dr. Marty Makary, surgeon at Johns Hopkins Hospital, says if medical error were a disease, it would be the sixth-leading cause of death in the U.S. Dangerous doctors, unnecessary procedures, surgical slips and other medical mistakes injure or kill hundreds of thousands of Americans every year. Meanwhile, hospitals and doctors are not required to make their patient-outcome statistics public.

Baltimore native Michael Tucker is perhaps best known for acting as lawyer Stuart Markowitz on the television show “L.A. Law,” which he appeared on with the woman who is now is wife, Jill Eichenberry, who is a survior of breast cancer.  Now, he comes back to Charm City to read from his first novel, called After Annie, at the Baltimore Book Festival.  It tells the story of an actor whose wife dies from breast cancer.

Bestselling science/tech writer and popular TED talker Steven Johnson makes the case for political progress in a networked age, arguing that the key to breaking partisan gridlock lies in cooperative thinking, encouraged by both digital and human networks. Johnson is the author of “Future Perfect.”
Guest host: Korva Coleman

Radiation is all around us. It’s in the air we breathe, the soil we walk on, the cell phones we hold to our ears. But what are the implications of all this radiation for our health and well-being? Johns Hopkins University professor, writer and one-time journalist Wayne Biddle, author of “A Field Guide to Radiation,” explains its genesis and its effects on the human body.

University of Maryland Baltimore County professor Bill Thomas has made an international reputation as a geriatrician and nursing-home reformer.  He generated a new approach to running nursing homes called “The Eden Alternative."

Thomas on the good and bad in his characters