Arts

DeGeneres performs on The Tonight Show in 1987.

Arts

How Ellen DeGeneres Helped Change The Conversation About Gays

5:59pm March 27, 2013

by Lynn Neary

In 1997, DeGeneres chose a very public forum — her television sitcom — to announce, "I'm gay." The entertainer's career has tracked the seismic shift in public opinion on gays and same-sex marriage.

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Tastes like chicken, but it's OK for Lent: Fried alligator, as served at New Orleans' Cochon restaurant.

Forget Fish Fridays: In Louisiana, Gator Is On The Lenten Menu

5:59pm March 27, 2013

by Tina Antolini

Move over, tuna fish, shrimp and clam chowder. Alligator is here for your Friday Lenten meals, thanks to confirmation from the archbishop of New Orleans that it is, in fact, a seafood.

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A Slap in the Face: Why Insults Hurt — And Why They Shouldn't by William B. Irvine

Books
Arts

You're So Dumb, You Probably Think This Book Is About Getting Slapped

5:58pm March 27, 2013

by NPR Staff

"Your mother was a hamster, and your father smelt of elderberries!" Philosophy professor William Irvine's new book, A Slap in the Face, is a compendium of insults — and a scholarly look at why we're constantly compelled to one-up each other.

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The only known photograph of the 1935 Bismarck town team.

Integrated Baseball, A Decade Before Jackie Robinson

5:05pm March 27, 2013

by NPR Staff

Over ten years before Jackie Robinson broke the color barrier in the major leagues, a little-known baseball team went to bat with players both black and white. Journalist Tom Dunkel writes about the team from Bismarck, N.D., in his new book Color Blind.

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In Jonathan Dee's new novel a woman finds her knack for getting powerful men to apologize.

Books
Arts

The Apathy In 'A Thousand Pardons' Is Hard To Forgive

4:32pm March 27, 2013

by Maureen Corrigan

The rich and good-looking get a taste of life among the 99 percent in Jonathan Dee's novels. In A Thousand Pardons, his protagonist, Helen Armstead, finds a secret talent for getting powerful men to apologize after her marriage falls apart and she is forced to enter the working world.

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Anchor Chris Hayes will host a new MSNBC weeknight show beginning April 1.

Arts

Chris Hayes: From 'Up' In The Morning To 'All In' At Night

2:09pm March 27, 2013

After hosting his Sunday morning show on MSNBC for the past year and a half, Hayes is making the move to a weeknight news show that premieres April 1. At 34, Hayes will be the youngest prime-time anchor on any of the major cable news channels.

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Arts

Dane Snodgrass Teaches the Ancient Art of the Selfbow at Sawtooth School for Visual Arts

10:14am March 27, 2013

by David Ford

The Sawtooth School has been leading the way in the Piedmont Triad for nearly 70 years, providing art education for all ages from beginner to advanced skill levels.

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Cookbook author Marilynn Brass says eating Virginia Lima's traditional Portuguese Sweet Bread is like biting into a cloud.

Arts

A Sweet Bread, A Wash Basin And A Shot Of Whiskey

6:45pm March 26, 2013

by NPR Staff

As part of All Things Considered's Found Recipes series, cookbook duo the Brass Sisters share a friend's memories of his mother's Portuguese Sweet Bread. Her tradition involved a big enamel basin, a nip of whiskey and a little prayer that the bread would turn out right.

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Sameerah Luqmaan-Harris plays Elizabeth Keckly and Naomi Jacobson plays Mary Todd Lincoln in Arena Stage at the Mead Center for American Theater's production of Mary T. & Lizzy K.

Arts

'Mary T. and Lizzy K.': History's Unlikely Friendship

5:03pm March 26, 2013

First lady Mary Todd Lincoln's closest friend was her dressmaker, Elizabeth Keckley. Keckley was a talented seamstress who bought her own freedom. This unlikely friendship between the two women is the subject of playwright Tazewell Thompson's Mary T. and Lizzy K.

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Lynne Olson, a former journalist for The Baltimore Sun, is also the author of Citizens of London.

Books
Arts

'Angry Days' Shows An America Torn Over Entering World War II

3:30pm March 26, 2013

World War II is often thought of as a good and just war — a war the U.S. had to fight. But it wasn't that simple. Public debate was heated between interventionism, which President Roosevelt supported, and isolationism, which aviator Charles Lindbergh became an unofficial spokesman for.

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