Kristen Meinzer

This spring, we’re having discussions some of America’s most fascinating elder statesmen: older Americans who are long past retirement age, but who are nonetheless still working to change how we live and work in this country. We’re calling this series “In My Experience.” Today, our guest is screenwriter, novelist, essayist, playwright, and gay rights activist, Larry Kramer. The Broadway revival of his 1985 critically acclaimed play “The Normal Heart,” opened this week.

Why are so many Americans so excited about the British royal wedding? Didn't we fight to get out from under the thumb of the monarchy? We talk with American royal wedding enthusiasts, a British-American souvenir shop owner, and a historian about our strange fondness for the British crown.

The Tribeca Film Festival kicked off in New York last week. The festival, known to most for its celebrity backer, Robert De Niro, is in its tenth year and has become something of a showcase for independent film. It also features films by young people — students who are nurtured and educated through the Tribeca Film Institute.

In recent decades, the public has been inundated with headlines of political sex scandals from former senator Larry Craig’s bathroom antics to president Bill Clinton’s numerous liaisons. While we’re encouraged to believe that sex scandals in politics are the exception, not the rule, a new book says that, in fact, great leadership and great promiscuity regularly go hand-in-hand.

Hip hop is filled with young artists who appear to live the Horatio Alger dream, ascending from impoverished urban neighborhoods to international fame and wealth.

But few of them have transformed themselves so often, and remained popular for so long, as Ice-T. An orphan turned family man and thief turned superstar, he famously went from singing about killing cops to playing a cop on the long-running and popular series “Law and Order SVU.”  He chronicles his rise from poverty to fame in “ICE: A Memoir of Gangster Life and Redemption — From South Central to Hollywood.”

Street vendors are the eyes and ears of urban society in many cities around the world. In Tunisia, it was a food vendor selling his wares on the street that ignited revolutions across the Middle East and North Africa. And here, in America, it was a couple vendors in New York that alerted police to the Times Square bomb – just waiting to explode in an abandoned SUV. Every year, Vendy Awards are handed out to the best vendors in New York. And this year, "best" doesn't just refer to food. Sean Basinski, Director of the Street Vendor Project, which hosts the annual Vendy Awards, explains why they've added a hero category to their roster. We also hear from other vendors. 

Twenty-five years ago today, disaster rocked Ukraine when a systems test at the Chernobyl nuclear power plant led to a series of explosions, releasing nuclear fallout into the atmosphere. It was the beginning of a months-long struggle by Soviet authorities to contain the spread of deadly radiation. Thousands of workers joined this fight. Sergei Belyakov was one of them. He’s the author of a forthcoming book about his experience called “The Liquidator.”

Between the news this week that James Cameron is predicting that all movies theatrese will be 3D within five years AND the latest movie craze to hit Hong Kong, like ah, 3D Soft Porn in packed theatres around the country, we want to ask whether anyone is excited about 3D and whether it is really will dominate our movie going experience in the near future.

In 1958, a Virginia couple named Mildred and Richard Loving married each other, only to be arrested shortly thereafter in middle of the night. Their crime: breaking the Racial Integrity Act of 1924, which criminalized marriages between white and non-white persons. Mildred was of African and Native American descent. Richard was of European descent. The Lovings initially pled guilty to the charges, but eventually fought back with a series of lawsuits that culminated in the Supreme Court case Loving v. Virginia. In 1967, the court ruled unanimously in their favor, proclaiming that laws criminalizing interracial marriage violated the Fourteenth Amendment.

A lot of parents grapple with how to talk to their kids about a certain sensitive topic. They want to know: Are the kids old enough to understand? Am I too late? And will I explain things right? We refer, of course, to money. Takeaway contributor Beth Kobliner has been working with the President's Advisory Council on Financial Capability on this very topic. She joins us from Washington DC, where she’s been on duty. Chuck Kalish is also here. A professor of educational psychology at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, he researches and develops financial literacy curriculum for preschoolers.

We’re kicking off a new series of discussions on The Takeaway called "In My Experience." We'll be talking with older Americans who are long past retirement age, yet are nonetheless still looking to change how we live and work in this country. Philosopher and civil rights reformer Grace Lee Boggs joins us for the inaugural edition.

In this week’s podcast, Kristen and Rafer talk about the movies they’re most looking forward to seeing this summer. Warning: most of them are extremely stupid.

Here's a sampling: Woody Allen's new star-packed flick "Midnight in Paris"; "Larry Crowne," starring Julia Roberts and Tom Hanks; "Bad teacher with Cameron Diaz as a drunk irresponsible teacher and Justin Timberlake as the hot new sub; Alex Gibney's latest documentary, "Magic Trip"; "The Change Up," starring Ryan Reynolds; and "30 minutes or Less," about a pizza delivery guy-turned robber.

Rafer Guzman, Newsday film critic and co-host of the Movie Date podcast previews the weekend's new releases. There's the new animated birdbrained film "Rio" as well as the latest in modern slasher blockbuster series "Scream 4."

President Obama's mother Stanley Ann Dunham died young, at the age of 52. Because of this, her four grandchildren never got to hear her stories, eat her cooking, or experience those other parts of the special relationship many children are able to have with their grandparents. Maya Soetero-Ng, Dunham's daughter, didn't think deeply about this until one of her kids asked her what grandma was like. That question served as the inspiration for a children’s book called “Ladder to the Moon.” The story, illustrated whimsically by Yuyi Morales, imagines a meeting between Maya’s older daughter and her own mother.

We often look at the soldiers we send off to battle as warriors. But the experience of war transforms can transform fighters into humanitarians; we hear from two young veterans for whom this is the case. U.S. Marine Rye Barcott is an Iraq veteran, and founder of Carolina for Kibera: a non-governmental organization that uses sports and health care to nurture and develop young leaders in the slums of Kenya. He’s also the author of “It Happened on the Way to War: A Marine’s Path to Peace.” Eric Greitens is a Navy SEAL, Iraq veteran, Rhodes Scholar, and founder of The Mission Continues: a non-profit that trains wounded veterans for leadership roles in their communities. He’s also the author of “The Heart and the Fist: The Education of a Humanitarian, the Making of a Navy Seal.”

205 years ago, a lawyer-turned-textbook writer-turned-newspaper-editor published the first American English dictionary. It was 1806, and the title was “A Compendious Dictionary of the English Language.” That man’s name was Noah Webster. And today, his name is synonymous with the word “dictionary” in the U.S. Joshua Kendall is the author of a new biography on Webster called: “The Forgotten Founding Father: Noah Webster’s Obsession and the Creation of an American Culture.” Joshua joins us from our partner, the WGBH, in Boston.

Today is the 150th anniversary of the start of the Civil War. And while history buffs all appreciate the influence that the war had over the future well being of our nation – it can be easy to gloss over the details of the war. Like who fought in it. Joining us to talk about the history of black confederate soldiers is Stan Armstrong, director of a documentary called "Black Confederates: The Forgotten Men in Gray.” Stan’s great-great-grandfather was a black confederate soldier.

Today marks the 150th anniversary of the start of the Civil War. For whites in the south, the anniversary marks the start of a proud military engagement. For blacks in the south, the war led to the end of slavery and the start of the civil rights movement. And while celebrations for the event will be grand in scale and scope, this year's commemoration will not reverberate nationally as it did during the centennial. How do the two anniversaries compare? 

Today is the 50th anniversary of the first human orbiting the earth. That human, Yuri Gagarin, was Russian, and his accomplishment was, like the Sputnik launch, a moment that terrified Americans and fed our fears that we couldn’t keep up with the Joneses across the sea. We look at this anniversary, and at the fact that we’re still lagging behind our international neighbors in math and science. What would it take for us to catch up? Recreational mathematician Vi Hart has some ideas. First on the list: to stop seeing math as a skill of right and wrong, and to begin embracing it as a tool of creativity.