Now Playing

Loading streams...

People of Northwest Public Radio

Sueann Ramella
Sueann Ramella
Morning Edition Host & Producer
Thom Kokenge
Thom Kokenge
All Things Considered Host & Producer
Robin Rilette
Robin Rilette
Music Director & Classical Music Host
Kerry Swanson
Kerry Swanson
Station Manager
Gillian Coldsnow
Gillian Coldsnow
Assistant Manager of Programming and Operations
John Paxson
John Paxson
News Director
Steve Reeder
Steve Reeder
Classical Music Host

All Things Considered on NPR News

Weekdays from 3-6pm (with Marketplace at 3:30)
Hosted by: Melissa Block, Michele Norris, Robert Siegel &
Thom Kokenge

NPR's afternoon radio newsmagazine brings you breaking news and compelling analysis, insightful commentaries, interviews, and special - sometimes quirky - features. Thom Kokenge also updates you on regional news, and weather forecasts on your drive home.

Below, you will find articles, transcripts, and clips of many of the stories heard on All Things Considered.

Visit All Things Considered on NPR.org

Composer ID: 
5187c790e1c89a513fd56df1|5187c750e1c8c870fd6d9fbc

Pages

Author Interviews
1:32 pm
Thu September 6, 2012

Getting Around To Writing 'Art Of Procrastination'

Next imagePrevious image
Credit iStockphoto.com
Credit Courtesy of Workman Publishing Company
John Perry is the Henry Waldgrave Stuart Professor of Philosophy at Stanford University and co-host of the public radio program Philosophy Talk.
Share
E-mail
Comments
By editor

Originally published on Mon September 10, 2012 8:12 am

At the end of July, when NPR's Robert Siegel set off on the longest vacation since his honeymoon 39 years ago, he packed a few books, including the new book The Art of Procrastination by John Perry, emeritus professor of philosophy at Stanford.

After two weeks in Delaware, two weeks in Iberia and a week of work in Tampa, Fla., Siegel finally finished it Wednesday night. He says his timing is fitting: The book is 92 small, double-spaced pages.

It expands on a short confessional essay Perry wrote in 1996 called "Structured Procrastination."

Read more
NPR Story
1:32 pm
Thu September 6, 2012

European Bond-Buying Plan May Not End Debt Crisis

Share
E-mail
Comments
By editor

Originally published on Thu September 6, 2012 4:09 pm

Transcript

ROBERT SIEGEL, HOST:

This move by the European Central Bank is complicated stuff, and we've asked economist Kenneth Rogoff to help explain it a bit further. He's professor of economics at Harvard and former chief economist at the International Monetary Fund.

Welcome back to the program.

KENNETH ROGOFF: Thank you.

SIEGEL: And the first question: In general, is this another incremental, stopgap measure to hold the eurozone together? Or is the European Central Bank and Mario Draghi, are they announcing a game-changer here?

Read more
Music Reviews
12:26 pm
Thu September 6, 2012

Cat Power Rips It Up, Starts Again

Next imagePrevious image
Credit Stefano Giovannini / Courtesy of the artist
Chan Marshall, better known by the name Cat Power, takes a new approach on her latest record, Sun.
Credit
cover art for Sun
Share
E-mail
Comments
By editor

Originally published on Thu September 6, 2012 4:09 pm

I recently listened to the first single from the new Cat Power album with some fellow fans, and the room was deeply divided. Some thought the song was fabulous, but others were startled and upset — which I could understand, sort of. Chan Marshall's songs generally speak to pain and trauma with a hushed and intimate musical vocabulary. But this song, "Ruin," was different — not just a rock 'n' roll song, but one you might even want to dance to.

Read more
Latin America
7:34 am
Thu September 6, 2012

Guess Who's Chopping Down The Amazon Now?

Next imagePrevious image
Credit Carlos Villalon for NPR
Loggers discuss the day's plan in a camp called Puesto Viejo, or "old post."
Credit Carlos Villalon for NPR
Tree logs are marked for shipping.
Credit Carlos Villalon for NPR
A logger watches a machine move logs to be measured, trimmed and marked before inspection by ABT — Bolivia's agency of forests and land. They will then be transported to Ascencion de Guarayos.
Credit Carlos Villalon for NPR
A worker measures logs. They will be trimmed if they are deemed too long for transport.
Credit Carlos Villalon for NPR
A truck takes logs to the town of Ascencion de Guarayos in the Bolivian Amazon jungle.
Credit Carlos Villalon for NPR
Among the eight countries that the Amazon spans, Bolivia has the highest rate of deforestation. Here, Agustin Villa cuts down timber in the Amazon jungle. The logs will be transported to the town of Ascencion de Guarayos, Santa Cruz province.
Credit Carlos Villalon for NPR
Every year in Bolivia, a swath of forest two-thirds the size of Delaware is cleared of trees. The trees range from silk-cotton hardwoods and fig trees to ceibas — some of them 80 feet tall and decades old.
Credit Carlos Villalon for NPR
The town of Ascencion de Guarayos is the gateway to the Amazon jungle in Santa Cruz province. Here, brass band musicians walk on the streets during a festival.
Credit Carlos Villalon for NPR
Agustin Villa cuts down a tree in the Amazon jungle, in Santa Cruz province, Bolivia, 2012.
Credit Carlos Villalon for NPR
Logs in the Bolivian forest are moved, measured, trimmed and tagged for inspection by ABT — the Bolivian agency of forests and land — before being transported by truck to the town of Ascencion de Guarayos.
Share
E-mail
Comments
By editor

Originally published on Thu September 6, 2012 5:20 pm

Though Brazil's Amazon has been the focus of environmental groups for decades, the deforestation rate there has fallen dramatically in recent years as clear-cutting of Amazonian jungle in eight other countries has started to rise.

As a result, the 40 percent of Amazonia located in a moon-shaped arc of countries from Bolivia to Colombia to French Guiana faces a more serious threat than the jungle in Brazil. The culprits range from ranching to soybean farming, logging to infrastructure development projects.

Read more
Crisis In The Housing Market
2:56 pm
Wed September 5, 2012

Democratic Convention Draws Troubled Homeowners

Credit Yuki Noguchi / NPR
David Sole rode a bus from Detroit to the Democratic National Convention in Charlotte, N.C., to protest how the Obama administration and the nation's banks have handled the foreclosure crisis.
Share
E-mail
Comments
By

Originally published on Wed September 5, 2012 4:03 pm

Charlotte, N.C., host of the 2012 Democratic National Convention, is the nation's biggest financial center outside of New York. But Charlotte and surrounding Mecklenburg County have the highest foreclosure rates in the state, and many thousands of homeowners owe more on their homes than the properties are worth.

As thousands of Democrats converge in Charlotte for the convention, some troubled homeowners have also gathered, lamenting that the foreclosure crisis has not been sufficiently front and center in the presidential campaign.

Read more
Music News
2:14 pm
Wed September 5, 2012

Music Is Everywhere: John Cage At 100

Credit Rowland Scherman / Getty Images
John Cage during his 1966 concert at the opening of the National Arts Foundation in Washington, D.C.
Share
E-mail
Comments
By editor

Originally published on Wed September 5, 2012 3:05 pm

OK, let's get the elephant out of the room right away. John Cage's most famous, or infamous, work is "4'33"," in which a musician walks onstage and sits at the piano for 4 minutes and 33 seconds.

Read more
The Salt
2:09 pm
Wed September 5, 2012

Recession Still Hurting U.S. Families Trying To Put Food On The Table

Credit Carrie Antlfinger / AP
Jacque Holland, 43, of Milwaukee picks up food at the food pantry at United Methodist Children's Services of Wisconsin.
Share
E-mail
Comments
By

Originally published on Wed September 19, 2012 1:12 pm

The number of U.S. families struggling to put enough food on the table remains at record-high levels, according to new figures out today from the government. Last year, 1 in almost 7 households were what the government calls "food insecure." That's about the same level as in 2010, but still far higher than before the recession.

Read more
The Two-Way
1:23 pm
Wed September 5, 2012

Oscar Pistorius Seeks Redemption In Race To Be The World's Fastest Amputee

Next imagePrevious image
Credit Emilio Morenatti / AP
In a surprise finish, Brazil's Alan Fonteles Cardoso Oliveira (left) races past South Africa's Oscar Pistorius to win a gold medal in the 200-meter race at the 2012 London Paralympic Games.
Credit Ronald Martinez / Getty Images
Jerome Singleton, a single amputee, will challenge Oscar Pistorius in the Paralympic 100-meter race.
Credit Michael Steele / Getty Images
Pistorius and American Blake Leeper, seen here, share the fastest time for a double amputee in the 100-meter sprint.
Share
E-mail
Comments
By

Originally published on Thu September 6, 2012 3:43 am

Read more
Space
1:22 pm
Wed September 5, 2012

After 35 Years, Voyager Nears Edge Of Solar System

Next imagePrevious image
Credit NASA/JPL
In addition to surveying the planets, the Voyager mission also spent time studying the planets' satellites, or moons. This mosaic image, taken in 1989, shows Neptune's largest satellite, Triton. Triton has the coldest surface temperature known anywhere in the solar system.
Credit NASA/JPL
The two Voyager spacecraft launched on Aug. 20, 1977, and Sept. 5, 1977, on a mission to explore Jupiter and Saturn. This true-color image, captured by Voyager 2 on July 21, 1981, shows the moons Dione (small dot at left) and Rhea (lower right) near Saturn.
Credit NASA/JPL
As Voyager 1 passed by Jupiter on Feb. 5, 1979, it captured this image of the planet and its Great Red Spot, as well as three of its four largest moons — Io, Europa and Callisto.
Credit NASA/JPL
The Great Red Spot on Jupiter, seen here in an image from Voyager 1 taken on Feb. 25, 1979, is a giant, hurricane-like storm in Jupiter's atmosphere. It's been documented for at least 400 years by astronomers viewing the planet through telescopes.
Credit NASA/JPL
After the Voyager craft surveyed Jupiter and Saturn, NASA extended their mission and sent Voyager 2 on to Uranus and Neptune. Voyager 1 kept traveling outward. This image of Uranus was captured by Voyager 2 in 1986, when it was about 600,000 miles from the planet. Uranus' pale blue-green color is a result of methane in the atmosphere.
Credit NASA/JPL
About three years later, in 1989, Voyager 2 reached Neptune, where it captured this high-resolution color image, which shows bright cloud streaks on the planet.
Credit NASA/JPL
This image, also taken in 1989, was the first to show Neptune's rings in detail.
Credit NASA/JPL
Violin with music score (Cavatina)
Credit NASA/JPL
The Golden Record
Credit NASA/JPL
Mathematical definitions
Credit NASA/JPL
Earth
Credit NASA/JPL
DNA structure
Credit NASA/JPL
Diagram of conception
Credit NASA/JPL
Diagram of continental drift
Credit NASA/JPL
Diagram of vertebrate evolution
Credit NASA/JPL
Man from Guatemala
Credit NASA/JPL
Schoolroom
Credit NASA/JPL
Children with globe
Credit NASA/JPL
Supermarket
Credit NASA/JPL
Demonstration of licking, eating and drinking
Credit NASA/JPL
House (Africa)
Credit NASA/JPL
X-ray of hand
Credit NASA/JPL
Street scene, Asia (Pakistan)
Credit NASA/JPL
Astronaut in space
Credit NASA / JPL
The two Voyager spacecraft launched on Aug. 20 and Sept. 5, 1977, on a mission to explore Jupiter and Saturn. This true-color image, captured by Voyager 2 on July 21, 1981, shows the moons Dione (small dot at left) and Rhea (lower right) near Saturn.
Credit NASA / JPL
This artist's drawing shows one of the Voyager probes, which were launched in 1977. Voyager 1 is hurtling toward the edge of the solar system and might be close to reaching interstellar space, researchers say.
Share
E-mail
Comments
By

Originally published on Wed September 5, 2012 4:31 pm

The Voyager 1 spacecraft's 35th anniversary is proving to be unexpectedly exciting, as scientists gathered this week to examine new hints that the spacecraft is on the verge of leaving our solar system.

Voyager 1 is now more than 11 billion miles away from Earth. It blasted off in September 1977, on a mission to Jupiter and Saturn. But it also carried a Golden Record filled with music and the sounds of our planet, in case it encountered intelligent life as it moved out toward the stars.

Read more
Commentary
1:12 pm
Wed September 5, 2012

Dusty Pretzels A Relic Of Romania's 'Folk Capitalism'

Share
E-mail
Comments
By editor

Originally published on Wed September 12, 2012 10:21 am

Transcript

ROBERT SIEGEL, HOST:

After Hurricane Katrina, commentator Andrei Codrescu moved from New Orleans to the hills of Arkansas. He's lived many places since leaving Romania in the 1960s. And he recently discovered a pair of long-forgotten items that have been with him much of that time.

Read more

Pages