Tonight, Extension 720 ventures into virtual reality with two internet and computer experts who will fill us in on the latest developments in cyberspace. Our guests include KRISTIAN HAMMOND, professor of computer science at Northwestern University, and CRAIG LANDY, president of All Info Inc. and Searchengines.com.

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: September 11, 2001 changed our world forever as terrorism became not simply a thing of distant lands, but a threat right here on our own shores. However, to the government and the CIA, the fight against terrorism had been raging long before the collapse of the World Trade Center. Tonight, with Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist STEPHEN COLL, we examine the history of the war against terror, and specifically the CIA’s involvement in it. Former managing editor of the Washington Post, Coll’s latest book is Ghost Wars: The Secret History of the CIA, Afghanistan, and bin Laden, from the Soviet Invasion to September 10, 2001.

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

IS SY HERSH TO BE TAKEN SERIOUSLY? Max Boot thinks not and gives his reasons. When one program guest critiques another we are inevitably interested. When the critique discovers a "hidden agenda" it bears close reading and further contemplation.

THE GENOCIDE IN DARFUR...continues and takes on new forms according to this highly informative article. The source is Dissent magazine.

ON THE COMMEMORATION OF THE DESTRUCTION OF AUSCHWITZ: Among the many essays that have appeared on the sixtieth anniversary, this one by a distinguished literary figure who is, as well, a survivor seems to us the most meaningfully elegiac.

A MEMOIR OF THE HOLOCAUST...that details how it reached into France has only recently been discovered and published in that country. The moving story behing the book is conveyed in this article from Deutsche Welle.

THE DIREST VIEW OF GLOBAL WARMING...has just been worked up by some agitated Brits seeking the "worst case" scenario. They have found it! Here's the report from today's U.K. Independent.

WHO PLAYS THE MAD SCIENTIST IN THIS MOVIE? We were shocked (shocked do you hear?) when we read this today. But then the casting question arose: Boris Karloff as Dr. Weissman? Or, perhaps, Bela Lugosi? Or, of course, Peter Lorre.

A CRITICAL VIEW OF THE LEFT...FROM THE LEFT: This article from Dissent, the leading American journal in the socialist tradition, will stir a good deal of further commentary. After a general historical review it comes to the conclusion (obviously painful to the author) that the main theme of the left now is hostility toward the U.S. and Israel.

GEORGE WILL TO THE RESCUE OF LARRY SUMMERS: We think his comments are wise and, in a sane academic world, would take the steam out of the Harvard lynch mob. But we doubt that it will have that effect. Rather, the ultimate outcome may be the ill-considered de-throning of the only-recently-installed president of the country's first-ranked university.

MORE ON THE "GET LARRY" CAMPAIGN AT HAHVAHD: This account of the stirrings at the Faculty Club comes from yesterday's New York Times.

WHAT DOES A BORDERLINE UNIVERSITY NEED? A GOOD MOTTO! And some of the most non-memorable (and non-credible) instances are reviewed here in an enticingly understated article from the U.K. Guardian.

THE LOST LIBRARY OF ROME...still under excavation at Ercolano, in the shadow of Vesuvius, is yielding great literary treasures from classical antiquity. This exciting account of the recovery of works by Philodemus, Epicurus and Zeno of Sidon appeared a few days ago in the Sunday Times of London.

THE FERTILE AND NEVER QUIET MIND OF ISAIAH BERLIN...is on display in a rich collection of his letters, here reviewed by Simon Schama in the current issue of New Republic.

THE ST. JOHN PASSION OF BACH...recorded in 1989 at St. John's Church in London. This ranks as a great performance of a work as great as the St. Matthew Passion, but too infrequently performed.

Tonight on Extension 720: We go inside the ivory tower to discover what really happens in university classrooms. Our guest, PATRICK ALLITT, is a professor of history at Emory University in Atlanta, and his latest book--I'm the Teacher, You're the Student: A Semester in the University Classroom--chronicles three months in the life of one of his classes. From the distribution of the syllabus to the determining of final grades, Allitt chronicles the highlights and many lowlights that the modern professor must face.

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.

LOOKING FORWARD TO AN INTERESTING WEEKEND...IN IRAQ: The U.K. Economist notes a "lull' that, in all likelihood, presages a vast storm and a non-turbaned new administration.

A NOT-UNFRIENDLY ASSESSMENT OF THE BUSH FOREIGN POLICY...has just been published by Foreign Affairs, the journal of the Council of Foreign Relations. The author, John Lewis Gaddis of Yale University, basically endorses the doctrine put forward in the inaugural address--but with some important qualifications and additions.

ON THE LEGITIMATE USE OF "STRESSFUL" INTERROGATION: Heather MacDonald, a rather frequent guest on Extension 720 (here's one of our programs with her) argues for the legitmacy and necessity of using "strong pressure" in the questioning of suspected terrorists and their accomplices. The article is from the current issue of City Journal.

WHAT'S GOING ON WITHIN THE DEMOCRATIC PARTY? Much debate, confusion and argument over why they lost and what to do about it. So says John O'Sullivan in what looks to us to be a well-informed and realistic appraisal of the Democrats' Dilemma.

THE DEMOCRATS RE-EXAMINE THEIR "HARDLINE" TRADITION: This essay by the executive editor of the American Prospect is clearly part of the new debate within the Democratic Party as the various factions search for a way to reach out to their lost majority.

WILL THE U.S. AND CHINA ULTIMATELY (AND INEVITABLY) CLASH? Two major figures in the "realist" tradition that now prevails in the study of foreign affairs join here in a debate just published by Foreign Policy magazine. Both Brzezinski and Mearsheimer have appeared often on our program. After you have read

THEY ARE DYING YOUNG IN RUSSIA. Why and how and with what consequences for the state itself? These questions are addressed by Nicholas Eberstadt in this searching analysis just published in The Public Interest.

WHAT DO YOU KNOW ABOUT BLACK HOLES? For that matter, what do the space-science people now know? This feature (check the valuable links) from Space.com should shift your contemplation away from present distractions and toward the ultimate.

MALE AND FEMALE CREATED (WHO?) THEM: The fuss over Harvard's president and his "provocative" comments about the sex differences in mathamatical ability has generated some interesting side products. Here's one: a valuable, if slightly irreverent, Boston Globe article reviewing the "science" of it all.

JOHNNY CARSON AS HE WAS...or as Kenneth Tynan construed him, stands out vividly in this great New Yorker profile dating back to 1978.

OH! WHAT A FALLING OFF WAS THERE: That line from Shakespeare might serve as a summary of the career of Orson Welles who, despite the flaws discovered by this latest biographer, remains (we stubbornly assert) the greatest filmmaker of Hollywood history.

REMEMBER JIM AND TAMMY FAYE BAKKER? What has happened to them since Jim went to prison? All is revealed in this irresistible (though we tried!) profile of their son who is now preaching in other venues. The article, from the New York Times Magazine, is rather like the Medusa...despite one's distress over what has happened to that once cherubic kid, one can't help reading it.

THE GREAT BILLY ECKSTINE: Here he is singing with his own band, with Basie's band and with a studio orchestra and, with all of them, the consummate performer in polished blues reshaped as "swing."

Tonight on Extension 720: What makes America great? What inventions, ideas and innovations have made this country what it is today? From the automobile to the microchip, from mass production to the endless media cycle, individuals and their ideas have forever changed America. Tonight, we examine many of those great innovators with HAROLD EVANS, editor at large of The Week Magazine and author of the new book They Made America: From the Steam Engine to the Search Engine, Two Centuries of Innovators.

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.

Tonight on Extension 720: Milt Rosenberg is taking the evening off, and the previously scheduled "Shakespeare's Comedies" program has been moved to February. In its stead, please enjoy these recently recorded programs. During the first hour, Milt talks with noted writer ADAM HOCHSCHILD about his new book Bury the Chains: Prophets and Rebels in the Fight to Free an Empire's Slaves. The second hour features Milt's interview with anti-death penalty activist SISTER HELEN PREJEAN, whose latest book is The Death of Innocents: An Eyewitness Account of Wrongful Executions.

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 is taking a few days off, but will return soon.