Weekly Program Highlights

Friday 3/20

1:00 – 2:00 PM
Science Friday… This week on Science Friday, Project Hail Mary is hitting theaters. Take a look into how the alien in the film was given emotion, despite lacking many human facial features.

2:00 – 3:00 PM
Hidden Brain… We tend to see depression as an illness to eliminate; evidence that something has gone wrong in the brain. But what if low mood serves a purpose? This week on Hidden Brain, examine how depression can narrow our focus, and sometimes open the door to change.

3:00 – 4:00 PM
Fresh Air… This week on Fresh Air, remember guitar-picking blues singer Roy Book Binder, a prolific songwriter with 12 albums who was a well-traveled storyteller in the folk music realm. He was a student and friend of Reverend Gary Davis, who taught Book Binder his guitar style through touring together.

6:30 – 7:30 PM
The Club McKenzie… Feelin’ Complementary, part 2: As far as jazz counterpoint is concerned, the key idea is independence with awareness. Each voice is free, but none is oblivious to the others, and above all, it’s harmonious, meaning everyone is in the same key. In 1920s and early ‘30s jazz, both human and instrument voices complement each other.

Saturday 3/21

10:00 – 11:00 AM
Wait, Wait Don't Tell Me!… This week on Wait, Wait Don’t Tell Me, Paula Poundstone and Alonzo Bodden welcome newcomer Shane Torres to the panel. And, actor/comedian Aasif Mandvi plays Not My Job.

11:00 – NOON
Radiolab… This week on Radiolab, consider a creature we often don’t think much about: the snail. And not just snails, but their sex lives. Which, as it turns out, is epic. There is persuasion and subterfuge, spaghetti penises and co-copulation. And, this very surprising habit—erm, kink—of making tiny arrows (actually!) and stabbing each other with them. Known as a “love dart,” these limestone daggers aren’t just a strange trick of nature—they have a deep evolutionary purpose.

3:00 – 4:00 PM
American Routes… Jackson, Mississippi, blues guitarist Eddie Cotton, Jr. takes time out from his performance at the 2019 National Folk Festival to talk to American Routes about his gospel roots and his mission to bring Mississippi music to the world. Then, sit in on a live set from New Orleans’s Chickie Wah Wah with Texan songman Willis Alan Ramsey. Plus, music from Robert Johnson, Lucinda Williams, Sister Rosetta Tharpe and Willie Nelson.

Sunday 3/22

10:00 – 11:00 AM
Reveal… Nowruz, the Persian New Year, celebrates the triumph of new life: spring. As it begins, Reveal reports on the Iran war and its global impact. Explore what the war could mean for Iran’s future, meet an influential group of Americans who celebrate the conflict as a prophecy foretold, and hear from residents of Lebanon as they grapple with the spiraling effects of the conflict.

11:00 – NOON
This American Life… This week on This American Life, host Ira Glass returns to a series of relationship-altering interviews with his parents that he did in the early days of the show.

NOON – 3:00 PM
Sunday Baroque… This week on Sunday Baroque, take a look back on the life of Johann Sebastian Bach, who earned a reputation as a larger-than-life musician over the course of his 65 years. But what was Bach like as a young man? What kind of music did he write when he was just starting out and establishing his career, and becoming the musician who continues to be revered even today?

3:00 – 4:00 PM
Code Switch & Life Kit… This week on Code Switch, a show about how the Boy Scouts shaped ideas of race and gender in the U.S. Then on Life Kit, a show about why you should think twice before using supposed tax hacks from social media.

6:00 – 7:00 PM
The Moth Radio Hour… This week on The Moth Radio Hour, stories of bearing witness and when it's best to look away: overheard arguments; recording history; and a view nobody asked for.

Monday 3/23

1:00 – 2:00 PM
Issues and Ideas… This week on Issues and Ideas, a ruptured oil pipeline spilled more than 140-thousand gallons of crude oil into the Santa Barbara coastline in 2015, and the pipeline system was shut down. Hear from Central Coast leaders about why the federal government is compelling Sable Offshore to resume oil production without having met standards imposed by state regulators. And, a local wine festival returns to Paso Robles. Hear from festival winemakers and organizers.

2:00 – 3:00 PM
The Splendid Table… This week on The Splendid Table, it’s an hour on African cuisine. First up, it's Nigeria with Ozoz Sokoh, author of Chop Chop: Cooking the Food of Nigeria. Then, turn to Ghana with chef Eric Adjepong, author of Ghana to the World: Recipes and Stories That Look Forward While Honoring the Past.

Tuesday 3/24

1:00 – 2:00 PM
TED Radio Hour… This week on Ted Radio Hour, host Manoush Zomorodi talks with a man with aphantasia, a psychologist who studies eye witness testimonies and a love coach who teaches the power of flirting to learn of the different ways the mind works.

Wednesday 3/25

1:00 – 1:30 PM
Bioneers… This week, plug into the real world Matrix of surveillance capitalism that dominates this Age of Information. When big tech companies join forces with Big Brother, privacy is the first casualty, and democracy goes with it. Hear from Cindy Cohn, director of Electronic Frontier Foundation, who brings decades of experience challenging digital authoritarianism.

1:30 – 2:00 PM
California Report Magazine… This week on California Report Magazine, learn about a post office in San Francisco’s Tenderloin neighborhood that doesn’t allow people inside and doesn’t sell stamps, but it does give people a place to pick up mail if they have no address.

2:00 – 3:00 PM
Freakonomics Radio… A ruthless (and ruthlessly efficient) industry is using digital tools to supercharge one of the world’s oldest behaviors. Freakonomics Radio looks at how the scamming industry works and asks the scam-fighters what they’re doing about it.

6:30 – 8:00 PM
KCBX in Concert… This week on KCBX in Concert, Craig Russell explores romance, desire, and amorous intrigue as found in Manuel de Falla’s ballet The Three-Cornered Hat, Thomas Linley’s The Landlady (an English opera set in 18th-century Seville), and Marianna Martines’s cantatas depicting the serenity and tumult of love. Then, hear Carlos López Buchardo’s courtship songs—Argentinian gems worthy of comparison to Lennon-McCartney’s masterpieces. Craig also inserts a guitar piece by Croatian composer Stjepan Šulek, “Troubadors,” which captures the toe-tapping fervor and unbridled passion of Spanish flamenco music.

Thursday 3/26

1:00 – 2:00 PM
Central Coast Voices… This week on Central Coast Voices, Lata Murti talks to guests about all there is to discover at the Guadalupe-Nipomo Dunes Center and how you can help to support this historic site. One of the largest dune ecosystems in the world, the 20,000 acre Guadalupe-Nipomo Dunes have many stories to tell, and the Guadalupe-Nipomo Dunes Center helps to preserve, inspire, and share them all. Hear from Guadalupe-Nipomo Dunes Center's Outreach Coordinator Saule Baipsys and Executive Director Erika Weber.

2:00 – 3:00 PM
Latino USA… This week on Latino USA, labor rights pioneer Dolores Huerta speaks with Maria Hinojosa about what it was like to learn about the investigation into César Chávez, to find out about other victims, and her decision to come out publicly about her own assault. Also on the show, hear an episode from Futuro Studios’ La Brega podcast that follows Puerto Rican champion Isabel González, who arrived in the U.S. in 1902 and faced deportation before taking her case to the Supreme Court.

Friday 3/27

6:30 – 7:30 PM
The Club McKenzie… Adventurers in Jazz: There are some wonderfully strange yet true stories of musicians in unexpected adventures in the 1920s. Jazz musicians of this era were road warriors, night creatures, and often social outsiders, navigating a world that simultaneously celebrated and, at the same time, marginalized them.