Conversations with Allan Wolper

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  Alicia C. Shepard - 11/20/2009 
  Alicia C. Shepard, the Ombudsman for National Public Radio, has an impossible job. She explains NPR to its audience and its audience to NPR. She also checks out the complaints fired at her network and sometimes joins the critical chorus on her NPR blog.

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  Fred Kaplan - 10/21/2009 
  Fred Kaplan has spent a large part of his creative life in 1959, reliving a year he says changed everything in American life. Like the dawn of the birth control pill, the birth of the microchip, and the making of Motown. Kaplan is the war stories columnist for Slate and has lots to say about the new administration in the White House.
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  Bill Thompson - 8/27/2009 
  Bill Thompson, the New York City Comptroller, is suddenly making a strong showing in the polls against Mayor Michael Bloomberg in the New York City mayoral election. Thompson talks of growing up in Bedford Stuyvesant and reacts to Newark Mayor Cory Booker's endorsement of Bloomberg.
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  Andrew Rosenthal - 7/24/2009 
  Andrew Rosenthal, the editorial page editor of The New York Times, explains the process that produces the most read and debated section of the newspaper. He describes how he handles the furor that always follows a political endorsement and the diplomacy he uses to diffuse irate complaints from celebrities like Barbra Streisand.
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  Matthew Bogdanos - 6/17/2009 
  Marine Reserve Colonel Matthew Bogdanos is on a mission to capture the thieves who looted thousands of priceless antiquities from the Iraq National Museum. Bogdanos says collectors pay millions of dollars for the stolen treasures, money often used by insurgents to buy weapons to fight American troops in Iraq.
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  Layla Fanucci - 5/20/2009 
  For 25 years, Layla Fanucci, played a guitar, sang and taught music at the St. Helena Catholic School in California. But her life changed after she bought some paint at a Ben Franklin store. Now she gets up to $20,000 for her cityscapes of Paris and New York City. She made her New York debut at the Walter Wickiser gallery in Chelsea.
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  Steve Baruch - 4/23/2009 
  Steve Baruch, a producer of Hairspray, Gypsy, Young Frankenstein, and The Producers, sent Allan Wolper a letter asking to invest in one of his plays. Allan made a counter offer: an interview at WBGO. And here it is.
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  Annette Gordon-Reed - 3/7/2009 
  Annette Gordon-Reed is an authority on the intimate relationship between Thomas Jefferson and Sally Hemmings, a slave on his Virginia plantation. The relationship produced seven children. Gordon-Reed also knows first hand about the later day struggles of black women in America.
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  Hal Friedman - 1/30/2009 
  Hal Friedman, a New York advertising executive, tells why he went inside his son's head to a write a painful, yet uplifting tale called Against Medical Advice. It's a story about his son's struggle to overcome Tourette Syndrome, a disorder that mystifies much of the medial profession.
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  Willie Kathryn Suggs - 12/19/2008 
  Willie Kathryn Suggs, often called the Queen of Harlem Real Estate, gives listeners an insiders view of Harlem's housing history--starting with the days that African Americans and Jews were forbidden by convenant to buy there to the present boom of foreign investment, eminent domain disputes, and class and racial discord.
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  Joel Simon - 11/28/2008 
  Joel Simon, executive director of The Committee To Protect Journalists, says Mexican editors and reporters are assassination targets because of their exposure of the massive drug dealings on American borders. Simon warns that violence against journalists is increasing around the world -- presenting a serious threat to democracies everywhere.
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  Janis Karpinski - 9/23/2008 
  Janis Karpinski, the former army general in charge of the notorious Abu Grahib prison in Iraq, speaks about the controversial tactics American soldiers used on their prisoners. Miss Karpinski, who many claim was scapegoated in the torture scandal, gives her version of what she says is a dark chapter in U.S. military history.
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  Natalie Bauman - 8/29/2008 
  Natalie Bauman and her husband buy and sell rare books worth from one thousand to one million dollars. Ms. Bauman says the rare volumes contain untold stories of American literary history.
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  Maurice Carroll - 7/9/2008 
  Maurice "Mickey" Carroll, director of the Quinnipiac University Polling Institute, and a former political writer for the New York Times, tells how polls are conducted, who the pollsters are, how they're trained and the impact they have on the presidential race.
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  David Fisher - 6/4/2008 
  Author-Journalist David Fisher talks about the celebrities he has written about and worked with..an incredible list that includes William Shatner, Muhammad Ali, George Burns, Johnnie Cochran and Joan Rivers.
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  Ron Kuby - 5/16/2008 
  Ron Kuby is a civil rights attorney who has spent his entire career representing the underdogs and underpriviledged in American society. Kuby explains how the media sometimes convicts criminal suspects in the court of public opinion.
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  Jeremy Schaap - 4/8/2008 
  Jeremy Schaap is a host and reporter for ESPN's Outside The Lines and E:60 and the author of Triumph: The Untold Story of Jesse Owens and Hitler's Olympics. Schaap retells the heroics of Owens and other American track and field stars and debunks the myths of the 1936 games.
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  Steve Rubel - 3/7/2008 
  Steve Rubel of Edelman Worldwide is an expert on cyber communications and marketing. He brings listeners up to speed on what's happening with blogs and how they're now a part of the political game.
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  Tony Lo Bianco - 1/16/2008 
  Tony Lo Bianco talks about growing up in Brooklyn and how that helped shaped his brilliant acting career. Tony gives us a taste of some of his favorite characters, including Fiorello LaGuardia, the former mayor of New York and Dino DeLaurentis.
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  Lauren Thierry Watkins - 12/20/2007 
  Lauren Thierry Watkins produced the documentary, "Autism Every Day", which caused a sensation at the 2007 Sundance Film Festival and was shown on the Sundance Channel in 2008. She discusses what it's been like to raise Liam, her ten-year son who has autistim.
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  Richie Roberts - 11/16/2007 
  Richie Roberts is the former prosecutor and detective who is portrayed by Russell Crowe in the movie, American Gangster. He explains how street level drug dealers used the hype around the movie to sell their product.
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  Marcellus Bishop Allen - 11/12/2007 
  Marcellus "Bishop" Allen is the president of SOS and a leader of the Bloods. Allen played a key role in arranging a truce between the Bloods and the Crips. He's a clerk-typist for the Board of Education and advises on gang activity in the New York/New Jersey metro area.
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  Sandra Harmon - 10/16/2007 
  Sandra Harmon is the author of "Elvis and Me". She discusses her new book "Mafia Son" and her involvement in a high-profile trial in New York City.