Added 7.26.18. To preserve big game animals being hunted to extinction, legendary explorer and taxidermist Carl Akeley embarked time and again on perilous expeditions in the wilds of Africa. This champion of conservation created the African Hall at the New York Museum of Natural History and cavorted with outsize personalities of the times, such as Teddy Roosevelt and P.T. Barnum. His story is told by biographer Jay Kirk in “Kingdom Under Glass.” Milt in 2010 interviews Kirk about the life and times of Akeley. Publisher’s Weekly called Greene’s book, “a rollicking biography” and “epic adventure…a beguiling novelistic portrait of a man and an era straining to hear the call of the wild.”

Added 7.18.18. Milt in this 2010 episode interviews former FBI Agent Bob Hamer, author of “The Last Undercover: An FBI Agent’s Dangerous Dance With Evil.” Hamer specialized in undercover sting operations against the baddest of the bad guys. To catch them, he at various times impersonated a buyer of drugs from Los Angeles street gangs, a purchaser of counterfeit U.S. stamps made by the millions in China, a dealer of land-to-air missiles, and a contract killer. Among other things. Learn more about how the operations worked, the results, and the hair-raising risks.

Added 7.10.18. Milt in 2010 interviewed three Chicago policemen about what their work is like. They are Brendan Daugherty, John Wrigley, and Martin Preib – who had recently authored, “The Wagon And Other Stories From The City.” Describing the book, The Guardian wrote, “At the age of 40, after years in dead-end jobs supporting his writing habit, Preib joined the Chicago police department. His first job was driving the wagon to collect dead bodies, ‘the messy remains of failed life’ ..Preib is clearly not a typical cop. He considers quoting King Lear in a police report and, in between calls, he tells his female partner about how he is inspired by Walt Whitman’s work…From gruesome accounts of collecting corpses to pieces about the daily catalogue of crime and disorder on the city’s streets, these personal essays offer a powerful portrait of the dark side of one of America’s greatest cities.”

Added 6.26.18. True, four of the last seven governors of Illinois have gone to jail. And Chicago has long been a leading-edge laboratory of institutionalized political corruption. But don’t overlook the suburbs. Developing this theme further – with plenty of additional insight on state and Chicago corruption – are Milt’s two guests, in this 2012 episode. They are Dick Simpson, a former Chicago alderman who is chair of the political science department at University of Illinois, Chicago; and David Ellis, former chief counsel to Illinois House Speaker Michael Madigan and lead prosecutor of now-jailed former Illinois governor Rod Blagojevich. Simpson reports on findings of a new report he spearheaded, that “corruption is rife” in 61 Chicago suburbs.

Added 6.12.18. Bite into this: in-vitro meat as a real-meat, more-humane alternative to fare from the slaughterhouse.  More ostrich meat in your diet, along with fish raised indoors, and tasty, satisfying wheat-less bread “baked” through fermentation of raw ingredients. Let’s chew on a few more things. How do we make tomatoes great again, and advance real sustainability in the way we foster the world’s food supply, all as cooking becomes more an intersection of art and science – rather than just an art, as in years past? The food of the future and the future of food are closely intertwined, as Milt and his guests reveal in this 2010 conversation. Guests are Josh Schoenwald, author of “The Taste of Tomorrow: Dispatches From The Future Of Food;” Chef Chris Koetke, Vice-President of Strategy and Industry Relations at Kendall College and its School of Culinary Arts, and the late Chef Homaro Cantu, who trained with the legendary and innovative Chef Charlie Trotter, and later opened the restaurants Moto and iNG in Chicago.