Extension 720 tonight opens up the phone lines to hear our listeners' opinions on current events here in Chicago and around the world. Be sure to call early and let your voice be heard!

Information on past and future programs is available at our monthly program guide. You can listen to the show from 9 to 11 p.m. central time here.

THE NORTH KOREAN NUCLEAR THREAT...is discussed (and argued about) in this set of articles from the recent issue of Foreign Affairs. What is to be done about North Korea depends, of course, upon both their capacity and their intentions--and neither can be assesed with certainty; thus the differences between the "experts."

TORTURE AT AMERICAN HANDS IS HAPPENING...and, even if a comparative rarity, it is outrageous, scandalous and insupportable. Jeff Jacoby (a leading conservative journalist who backed the war!) is appropriatly denunciatory in this column from the Boston Globe.

EMBATTLED AMERICA MUST PURSUE THE REAL "HARD LINE"...says Victor Davis Hanson, a military historian whose understanding draws heavily (and, we think, effectively) upon Thucydides. Nor is it an accident that Hanson cut his teeth as a professor of classics and has done a book on the Thucydidean view of war.

THE RUSSIANS HAD BETTER GET OVER THEIR AMNESIA...for the ravages worked upon their nation by Stalin and Stalinism. So argues Moshe Lewin in his new book, The Soviet Century, and the reviewer for the Moscow Times agrees that there is an urgent need for full memory recovery.

HOW POETIC IS "MODERN POETRY?" Or, simply, how unsatisfying? Camille Paglia strikes again...and thereby justifies our continuing preference for the older Norton and Oxford anthologies. This outspoken (as usual) critique was published recently in the U.K. Telegraph.

REMEMBERING THE REAL ALFRED KINSEY...is a required exercise in this latter day when his preposterously unscientific studies and his insistent perversity are overlooked in "biographical" media representations. Edward Feser says what needs saying in this article from City Journal.

P.C. FEMINISM AND THE MURDER RAMPAGE OF BRIAN NICHOLS: Ann Coulter, not every conservative's cup of vitriol, has a strong point to make in this column published yesterday.

WHY WARD CHURCHILL SHOULD BE FIRED: Forget his "little Eichmanns" reference to the victims of 9/11. That's "free speech." But he has violated the tenure rules by frequent plagiarism and research fraud. So say the investigators from the Claremont Institute in this advisory report to the Regents of the University of Colorado.

BAD WRITING IS DEFENDED BY A BUNCH OF "BAD WRITERS"...in a recent book that is critically reviewed here by Mark Bauerlein. The reference is back to the great Bad Writing Awards of a few years ago and to such award winners as Judith Butler, Homi Bhabha and the many other unreadable Bunthornists who practice what they persist in calling "theory."

BACK TO PERFECT JAZZ...and that, of course, is Louis Armstrong's Hot Five with such classic performances as West End Blues, Muscrat Ramble, Heebie Jeebies and Georgia Grind.

Tonight on Extension 720: Founded in 1941, the Committee on Social Thought has become one of the most distinguished elements of the University of Chicago. Rather than focus on one particular discipline, the Committee is dedicated to the interdisciplinary study of great classic and modern texts from a variety of fields. Past members have included Allan Bloom, Saul Bellow, and François Furet, just to name a select few. Tonight, we welcome three members of the Committee to discuss their history, philosophy and current scholarly work. Our guests are NATHAN TARCOV, professor of political science at the University of Chicago and member of the Committee on Social Thought since 1990, ROBERT PIPPIN, chairman of the Committee on Social Thought and professor of philosophy, and DANIELLE ALLEN, member of the Committee on Social Thought, professor of classical languages and literatures, and dean of the division of Humanities at the University of Chicago.

Information on past and future 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: Chicago has long been heralded as one of the greatest architectural cities in the world. The Sears Tower, the Hancock Building and the many masterpieces of the Miesian School all grace the downtown skyline. Chicago’s legacy of residential architecture—often overshadowed by the more imposing skyscrapers—is no less impressive. Tonight we examine that great tradition with a panel of three experts: NEIL HARRIS, professor of history at the University of Chicago and author of the new book Chicago Apartments: A Century of Lakefront Luxury, and STUART COHEN and SUSAN BENJAMIN, co-authors of the new book North Shore Chicago: Houses of the Lakefront Suburbs, 1890-1940.

Information onpast and future 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: In January 2004, the robotic explorers Spirit and Opportunity landed on Mars and have, since then, been exploring the Red Planet. This is not NASA’s first foray onto Mars, nor will it be the last. Tonight, we will examine our quest to explore the nearest planet to earth with JUDITH and GARFIELD REEVES-STEVENS, co-authors of the new book Going to Mars: The Stories of the People Behind NASA's Mars Missions Past, Present & Future.

Information on future programs is available at our monthly program guide. You can listen to the show from 9 to 11 p.m. central time here.

DEMONSTRATION, DEMONSTRATION--WHO HAS THE BIGGEST? If that's the way they now decide internal conflicts in Lebanon, the improvement over full civil-war is, indeed, notable and preferable. Here's the latest account--as we go to blog--of yesterday's action in Beirut.

THE VIEW FROM BEIRUT: The Lebanese edition of the Daily Star presents an indelible--and heartening--picture of the "revolution" that won't yield to Hezbollah.

THE EMERGENT NEW IRAQ...is presented here in one of the best "interactive" articles we have ever seen. The source is yesterday's Wall Street Journal. Do check out some of the many valuable links.

THE NEO-CONS AND THEIR PRESIDENT: A VIEW FROM LONDON...is supplied in an article, sans byline, in the current Economist. The attributions made to the "sogennente" neos may be based on a far-too-close reading of the Weekly Standard, or perhaps a far-too-trusting reading of Pat Buchanan's journal. Still...interesting, if true!

IT'S FUNNY, YOU DON'T LOOK CAUCASIAN! This op-ed from yesterday's New York Times restores the legitimacy of the concept of (gasp!!) race. Earlier on we knew the Harvard biogenetics professor (when he was a Chicago professor) who reinforced and compounded the foolishness of the "liberal" anthropologists-- and we confess to a certain pleasure in his getting a come-upance for his arrogant and politicized muddling of the real differences between "genetically correlated" communities, i.e. "races."

HITLER'S GREATEST GIFT TO THE WESTERN DEMOCRACIES...was, of course, the brilliant Jewish scientists (and/or the non-Jewish scientists with Jewish spouses) whom he propelled away from Germany. Without them the allied powers might well have lost the war...as is elaborated in this fine article from the Baltimore Sun.

MALE AND FEMALE MISCREATED IT THEM! The dire foreast offered here by Jeff Jacoby predicts where "gay marriage" will lead us...and we fear that what he now sees through his glass darkly will surely come to pass.

STACKING THE DECK ON THE DECALOGUE: Now the anti-religion madness has reached the Supreme Court of Texas. Can it be stopped there? Mona Charen hedges her bet and so do we--or to put it more directly: no-one ever went broke over-restimating the capriciousness of the modern American judiciary.

A DANCE TO THE MUSIC OF POWELL: This quite perceptive critical appraisal of one of our favorite modern novelists was recently published in the Hudson Review.

MORE GREAT CHAMBER MUSIC FROM LUGANO: Recorded live in 2002, this concert features Beethoven Dvorak and Mozart, with some Bartok thrown in. The essential selection--if you have time for only one--is the Beethoven Clarinet Trio which features superb piano by Argerich.