FRESH AIR Nora Volkow, director of the National Institute on Drug Abuse, ranks as one of the U.S.’s leading addiction researchers. She’s helped demonstrate that addiction is in fact a disease — a disease of the brain — and that all addictions, whether it’s to drugs, alcohol, tobacco, sex, gambling or even food, are more alike than was previously thought. Volkow, who’s the great-granddaughter of Russian revolutionary Leon Trotsky, grew up in Mexico City — in the house where her famous ancestor was assassinated. PLUS, food scientist Massimo Marcone travels the world’s remotest corners to investigate bizarre food “delicacies”: cheese […]

Michael Eric Dyson, the acclaimed author and noted thesaurus abuser “hip-hop intellectual,” moved on to Georgetown University Tuesday to teach religion, culture, and society, Georgetown University said in a statement. “I am not leaving the University of Pennsylvania as much as I am going to Georgetown,” said Dyson during a phone interview yesterday. Dyson was in New Orleans getting ready to speak at the Essence Musical Festival, a multiday event that attracts rappers and politicians alike. Dyson has become a superstar academic within hip-hop circles and the pop-culture arena. Most hipsters know his name from his 2001 book about rap […]

WASHINGTON — President Bush, facing a growing Republican revolt against his Iraq policy, has rejected calls to change course but will launch a campaign emphasizing his intent to draw down U.S. forces next year and move toward a more limited mission if security conditions improve, senior officials said yesterday.Top administration officials have begun talking with key Senate Republicans to walk them through his view of the next phase in the war, beyond the troop increase he announced six months ago today. Bush plans to lay out what an aide called “his vision for the post-surge” starting in Cleveland today to […]

TO: Interested Parties FROM: Mark J. Penn, Chief Strategist, Hillary ’08 DATE: June 9th, 2007 RE: After 6 Months In the latest Newsweek poll, which fielded after the 2nd quarter fundraising numbers were released, Hillary’s lead in the Democratic primary nearly doubled from 12 points in May to 23 points now. Hillary’s favorability has risen to 57% among all Americans, and they say overwhelmingly she has the experience to be a good president (70%). Nearly two-thirds say there is a good chance or some chance they will vote for her (62%). *** In the general election, Hillary leads top Republican […]

Friedman and others were acting in response to a 2005 report on the budgetary implications of marijuana prohibition by Jeffrey Miron, visiting professor of economics at Harvard. By Miron’s estimate, regulating marijuana would save about $7.7 billion annually in government prohibition enforcement — $2.4 billion at the federal level and $5.3 billion at the state and local levels. That’s a lot of money for English tutors and health care for indigents. Add to that amount income taxes that would have to be paid by marijuana producers. Drug dealers don’t pay taxes, after all. Nor do they concern themselves much with rules […]

FRESH AIR Jonathan Oberlander, a political scientist with an expertise in health-care politics and policy, discusses problems with the U.S. health-care system and considers how other countries handle health care. He’ll also give us a critique of Michael Moore’s documentary Sicko. Oberlander is an associate professor at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. PLUS, Chu Berry, otherwise known as Leon Berry, was a tenor saxophonist who backed singers like Billie Holiday and Mildred Bailey in the 1930s, and jammed with Fletcher Henderson’s and Cab Calloway’s bands. He died at the age of 33 in a car accident. Jazz […]