Obama on War and Peace

President Barack Obama sits in front of framed photos of previous Nobel Peace Prize winners during a Signing Ceremony at the Norwegian Nobel Institute in Oslo, Norway, Thursday, Dec. 10, 2009. (AP)

Listen
President Obama accepted his Nobel Peace Prize today agreeing with those who say there are others more deserving of the honor. The President also acknowledged that he is accepting the prize as a commander in chief of two wars and went on to lay out the case for “just wars” to achieve what he called “just and lasting peace.” Did he make a convincing argument? We speak with Michael Tomasky,  head of the U.S. edition of the newspaper The Guardian.

Americans Arrested in Pakistan

Listen
F.B.I. and Pakistani intelligence officials are questioning the 5 young Muslim-American men and the father of one of those men, all arrested yesterday in Pakistan in a house linked to an Islamic militant group. All the young men are from the suburbs of Washington, D.C. None of the men have been accused of any crime and their aims still remain unclear. We speak with Josh Meyer, national security corespondent for the Los Angeles Times.

Tiger Woods, The Media Factor

Listen
How could one of the world’s greatest sportsmen fall from grace as precipitously as Tiger Woods has? With reported earnings of over $100 million a year, mostly from endorsements, and with a carefully crafted image as a squeaky clean, family man, the recent explosion of accusations about Tiger’s sexual infidelities calls into question the media’s role in how the story has played out. We speak to sports columnist Christine Brennan of USA Today, and reflect upon a controversial profile of Tiger written by journalist Charlie Pierce in 1997.

The Little Sub That Could

Researchers pull The RU-27 aboard earlier this month. (Copyright Dan Crowell)

Listen
Last April, a 6 foot, 120 pound robot called RU-27 left the coast of New Jersey with a mission to be the first remote controlled vehicle to traverse the Atlantic Ocean underwater. IEEE Spectrum Radio’s Ari Daniel Shapiro brings us the story of RU-27’s dramatic voyage and recovery.

• More photos of RU-27’s journey

BBC Journalist Returns to Gaza after His Kidnapping

Listen
The BBC’s Alan Johnston returns to the Palestinian territories two years after he was kidnapped and held for four months in Gaza City. He reports on the bitter relationship between Fatah and Hamas.

Letters

Listen
Listeners weigh in on reports that adopted children from China may not have been orphans, and on what’s missing in the health care debate.

Reviving the Western Canon

Listen
Brother and sister writing team Daniel and Dina Nayeri have rewritten Geothe’s “Faust” for young readers. They plan to do the same with several other classics and give their characters a new life in the modern world. The Nayeris talk to us about how their background as Iranian immigrants shaped their love for the Western Canon. Their debut novel “Another Faust” is the first installment of their “Another Series.” They’re now working on their next book, “Another Pan,” which will come out next year.

• Learn about the “Another Another Faust” Competition
• See Video of the Nayeris debating during a writing session

Music from the show

• Air, “Mike Mills”
• Ahmad Jamal, “Patterns”
• Peter Dixon, “Nagog Woods”
• Fred Hirsch, “Desafinado”
• The Lickets, “Meat City”
• Charles Mingus, “Open Letter to Duke”