Tonight on Extension 720: We celebrates (with some great and rare recordings) the great Chicago dance bands of the first half of the twentieth century. CHARLES SENGSTOCK, a former WGN Radio newscaster and author of the new book That Toddlin' Town: Chicago's White Dance Bands and Orchestras, 1900-1950 joins us to highlight some of the great Chicago bands that gave Chicago its great musical reputation.

More information on this and other programs is available at our monthly program guide. You can listen to the show from 9 to 11 p.m. central time here.

Milt's File will return on Monday.

Tonight on Extension 720: French writer Nicolas Chamfort mused “Philosophy, like medicine, has plenty of drugs, few good remedies, and hardly any specific cures.” His cynicism about the usefulness of philosophy might be shared by many of our listeners, but tonight we hope to dispel the myth that philosophy cannot relate to “real life.” Our guests tonight will talk about the study and practice of modern philosophy as well as detail its practical applications. They are KENNETH SEESKIN, professor of philosophy at Northwestern University, and SALLY SEDGWICK, professor of philosophy at the University of Illinois at Chicago.

More information on this and other programs is available at our monthly program guide. You can listen to the show from 9 to 11 p.m. central time here.

THE CIA'S BIN LADEN EXPERT TALKS! This interview with Michael Scheuer who has recently surfaced after a long--and veiled--career with the CIA, contains fascinating information about the history and current plans of Al-Qaeda.

IN SEARCH OF THE SOURCES OF GENOCIDE: Another book that attempts that essential task has just appeared and is instructively reviewed here by the President of Genocide Watch.

WHAT DEFEATED KERRY? Among the many answers provided since November 2nd, this one, from the current issue of First Things, would be recommended reading for all the Democrats who aspire to have their party returned to national power.

THE TSUNAMI AND THEODICY CONUNDRUM: We have posted a few essays on the inevitable question of how a Just God could "allow" the death of hundreds opf thousands of innocents. Now, Ron Rosenbaum of the New York Observer, one of the best writers we know and a favored guest on our radio program, takes it on with his always probing and richly didactic style.

THE "ENVIRONMENTALISTS" ARE AN OBSTACLE TO CURBING DISEASE IN THE TSUNAMI REGION...says Michael Fumento in this warning just published at American Outlook, the journal of the Hudson Institute. Fumento, a sometime guest on our program, is a well-credentialed journalist who specializes in health issues.

JUDAH MAGNES AND THE HOPE FOR AN ARAB-JEWISH PARTERSHIP...are the subjects of a new biography of the first president of the Hebrew University. As reviewed in The Chronicle of Higher Education that hope seems even more fanciful and resistant to reality now than it was back in the 1940s.

"AND THAT JACKAL, MUSSOLINI"...was how Churchill spoke of him after Italy invaded southern France. Now an apparently fine study of the decline and death of the jackal has just been published and is here well reviewed by blogger John W. Nelson.

BELIEF BEYOND EVIDENCE AMONG THE "CREATIVE THINKERS:" That's what John Brockman, the publisher of Edge, calls these persons of strong opinion--opinions that seem to us, in large part, justifications or defenses of the ideas through which they have become publicly known.

TAKE HER ALL IN ALL, SHE AROUSED STRONG EVALUATIONS...on the occasion of her recent death. Here, from Front Page magazine, we have Susan Sontag condemned and idealized by Roger Kimball and Christopher Hitchens, respectively.

HOW GOOGLE SCHOLAR CAME TO BE...and what it aspires to do for you is recounted here by one of its prime developers in an article based on an interview with a publication in his native India.

MORE ON GREENBLATT'S SHAKESPEARE: This appreciative--and, in itself, illuminating--review/essay recently appeared in the New Yorker. Our recent conversation with Greenblatt (and containing some performed scenes from the plays) can be heard here.

PACINO'S SHYLOCK AND KERMODE'S OTHELLO: The new film stimulates a fine essay on Shakespeare's "anti-semitic" play from a great literary scholar--Frank Kermode who is one of the few actually up to the job. The essay is from the current issue of the London Review of Books.

AND SPEAKING OF SHAKESPEARE: Here are three settings of his words by British composer Roger Quilter. Our personal favorite is "O Mistress Mine."

Tonight on Extension 720: The Inca, Maya, Olmec and Aztec—the four great pre-Columbian peoples of South and Central America—created great civilizations with sciences, religion and architecture all their own. Tonight we will journey to Tenochtitlan, Machu Picchu and beyond with two experts in these ancient civilizations. Our guests include GARY FEINMAN, curator of anthropology at the Field Museum, which is currently playing host to the exhibit Machu Picchu: Unveiling the Mystery of the Incas, and BRIAN BAUER, professor of anthropology at the University of Illinois at Chicago.

More information on this and other programs is available at our monthly program guide. You can listen to the show from 9 to 11 p.m. central time here.

Milt's File will return tomorrow.

Tonight on Extension 720: What cures for diseases will we see in the next year? Are we any closer to understanding how the brain works? What new medical problems will we be facing in 2005? All these questions will be asked and answered tonight on Extension 720 as we welcome STEVE GOLDSTEIN, chairman of pediatrics at the University of Chicago, and JAMES SCHROEDER, president and chief executive officer of the Northwestern University Medical Faculty Foundation.

More information on this and other programs is available at our monthly program guide. You can listen to the show from 9 to 11 p.m. central time here.

Milt's File will return tomorrow.

Tonight on Extension 720: On the first Monday of 2005, as we all return to work and face the new year, our thoughts naturally turn to what the next twelve months will bring. Tonight on Extension 720, we will explore the state of the economy 2005. From the strength of the economy to the direction of the stock market, our panel of experts will attempt to forecast the economic outlook. Joining us will be PAT DORSEY, analyst at Morningstar Inc., and SAM PELTZMAN, professor of economics at the University of Chicago’s Graduate School of Business.

More information on this and other programs is available at our monthly program guide. You can listen to the show from 9 to 11 p.m. central time here.

A TSUNAMI UPDATE...as of yesterday morning and coming from Bloomberg.com which seems to have the fullest continuing coverage on the great disaster and the still not adequate rescue and recovery efforts now underway.

AFTER ARAFAT WHAT? PROBABLY MORE ARAFAT! That is the depressing, but realistic, evaluation presented by Efraim Karsh of Kings College, University of London, in this important--and clearly well-informed--article.

WHAT COMES NEXT? Many of the officially-designated wisepersons are opining on what the new year will bring in terms of policy choices. As usual, we find the thoughts of Victor Davis Hanson worth close consideration.

MORE ON THE YEAR TO COME: These predictions from some of the main people at the National Review are somehow rather embittered...or is that mere irony, satire and/or teasing?

IS DEMOGRAPHY DESTINY? If so, Europe may be profoundly altered in fifty years or so by a vastly increased Muslim population. The effects of that growing presence are already visible and consequential as David Pryce-Jones argues in this important article from the current issue of Commentary.

IS JIHADIST ISLAM CULTURAL OR POLITICAL IN ITS ORIGIN? Effective action against jihadist terrorism may well depend upon the answer. In this important article from the new issue of Foreign Affairs, Mahmood Mamdani buys the "political derivation" and applies that view to the current conflicts between the west and the Islamic world.

EINSTEIN AND THE BIG-BANG: Simon Singh tells the story of Einstein's initial resistance to that cosmological model--and of the "fudge factor" that he added to the static (non-expansionary) model which, though "wrong," now turns out to be "right." The fudge factor, that is, not the idea of a "stable universe."

AND SPEAKING OF EINSTEIN...this rather lucid and certainly ambitious attempt to explain his achievement in terms "comprehensible to the layman" has just appeared in the U.K. Economist.

A JUST GOD AND THE TSUNAMI DISASTER: As did the Lisbon tsunumi of 1775, the Indian Ocean disaster raises, once again, the question of how God--if omnipotent and loving--could allow nature to take this course. Here is one of the many recent essays addressing this classic question of theodicy.

THE JEWS DID IT! Well, they did a good part of it at any rate! Of what? The making of the modern age. So opines the author of this interesting--and not unpersuasive article--from The Jewish Journal of Greater Los Angeles.

THE SELF-ESTEEM PLAGUE...has corrupted both "parenting" and "teaching" in latter-day American culture. In this strongly-stated article from Chronwatch, an angry mother lets go with a stinging and, as we see it, on-target analysis.

FALSE MEMORY AND THE HERITAGE OF FREUDIAN THEORY: They are closely linked and the damage done to families and deluded "patients" has been considerable. How it all began with Freud is explained in this excerpt from the important book by Richard Webster, Why Freud Was Wrong.

THE PERSISTING PROBLEM OF POLITICAL CORRECTNESS ON CAMPUS...has become the focus of a major new communications venture. Here's their website, their new film and many useful links.

THE FRAUD BEHIND "THE DA VINCI CODE"...is reviewed and detailed by one of the great modern investigators of this sort of thing: namely, Massimo Polidoro writing in the current issue of The Skeptical Inquirer.

THE NEW TRADITIONALISM MAY PAY OFF AT THE BOX OFFICE...says Maggie Gallagher in this possibly far-seeing syndicated article. Non-cynical plots about family life, about business...even about patriotism? Is the woman dreaming or is she prescient?

THE POPULAR MUSIC OF SRI LANKA...is available here in a generously extensive collection. As we have listened today we were particularly impressed with the songs of Neela Wickramasinghe.