Viewpoints Radio
Award-winning reporting on current issues featuring America's leading experts.
Although unemployment is down across the nation, there are still pockets of workers who have been unemployed for years, with no hope of ever finding a good job. Our guest researched the sociological effects of long-term unemployment on out-of-work autoworkers in Michigan, and found out that the hurt, humiliation and family problems that unemployment brings …
When you ask an American, “where are you from?” most of them will say it’s where they live now or where they were born. We talk to one man who thought long and hard about that question and went on a journey around the Midwest and Plains States to try to answer it. He learned a lot about his family’s heritage and the cost in lives, land and culture that …
There are millions of Americans who live together as husband and wife, but they never become formally “married.” What are their rights? Who gets the house, the car the bank accounts if they break up or one of them dies? We talk to a noted contract and family law attorney who has written extensively on the subject to find out how society and the courts view …
Millions of young people will soon head out on their own for the first time to attend college or start their first job. It will also be the first time that many of them are in charge of their own finances. How literate are they about banking, spending, saving, and credit? We talk to two financial specialists about what kids need to know about money and …
Our guest offers a new way to discuss abortion – without taking sides, without name-calling or raised voices -- that brings the issue to a more personal and compassionate level.
We hear that we should be happy, and that happiness helps you live longer, brings more tranquility to your life, and to the lives of your family and friends. But do you know what happiness truly is? We talk to a psychologist and a philosopher about the essence of happiness, how to find it and how it’s different from person to person and across the globe.
Jazz is the quintessential American music genre, and nobody sings it better than Sheila Jordan. We talk to Jordan and her biographer about Jordan’s rise from poverty to her career singing with some of the most famous jazz musicians of the 20th century, the racism that jazz musicians – both black and white – experienced, and the need to preserve this music …
Kids are little bundles of imagination and they can amuse themselves with the simplest of household goods: a pot and a spoon, becomes a drum; a cardboard box turns into a fort, and a towel can transform them into a caped crusader! However, some parents tend to micromanage their kids’ time with structured activities and there’s little left for the child to …
When the last child leaves home for college, marriage or that first job, parents are often sad and at loose ends about how the rest of their lives will progress. We talk to a therapist and author who’s experienced her own children leaving home, about the emotions of “the empty nest” and what parents can do to reframe their lives when the children go out on …
When was the last time you wrote or received a real, handwritten letter in the mail? It’s sad that there are young people today who will never experience the joy of getting or writing a personal letter during their lives. We talk to a writer and editor about the importance of letter writing, and what we can learn from reading letters from notables and …
As a kid, did you ever dream of becoming an astronaut and flying a rocket ship into space, but figured you weren’t good enough in science and math to do it? Our guest, a former U.S. astronaut admits he wasn’t the best young student in school in those subjects, but later on he grew fascinated by them and turned his new-found interest into becoming a Navy …
With emails, spam, texts and instant messaging it’s a wonder we ever have time anymore to just sit and relax with family and friends. At the office, we spend so much time online, how do we get anything done…or done well? That’s what worried our guest who took a 31-day vacation from the Internet to reconnect with her loved-ones and learn about how online life …
Millions of Americans are addicted to alcohol and drugs, and many of them end up unemployed, broken away from their families and homeless. We talk to a psychologist about the causes of addiction, and why some people are more likely to fall to it than others, and find out how an author who is battling alcohol and drug addiction made his journey to sobriety, …
Conflict is part of life, but it doesn’t have to be a negative experience. We talk to two experts on conflict about how to make disagreements with a spouse or other family member, or with colleagues at work a positive and productive learning experience.
Researching your ancestors is popular these days. It can be exciting if your ancestors were famous or if they had some connection to a historical event. However, it can be painful if your family played a part in one of the darker periods in our history, such as slavery. We talk to a man whose family held slaves and hear how he went back in history and to his …
Kids are always on their phones, tablets or computers – even when they’re sitting across from one another at the lunch table! Does communicating via screens hurt kids? We talk to two researchers who found that too much screen time at the cost of face-to-face communication could decrease our ability to recognize emotions, and possibly even shorten our lives.
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