Kristen Meinzer

The Transportation Security Administration has begun more thorough pat-downs at airport security checkpoints just weeks before holidays' heavy travel season. Many passengers have already complained of inappropriate contact and others are upset with the intimacy of the search. Secretary of Homeland Security Janet Napolitano explains the new search procedures and the full-body scanning machines that have been set up in airports. She and the TSA are asking passengers to be patient and cooperate.

"The vast majority of the traveling public understands that this is a safety and security measure," Napolitano said. Read a full transcript. 

How many times a day to do you say OK? Ten, twenty, fifty? Chances are, you say it a lot — whether you're acknowledging and agreeing to a request, or telling somebody how you're feeling. But who invented it? And what does the use of "OK" indicate about us culturally? OK if we talk about it? 

This month, Mark Twain fans will finally be able to read something by him that’s never been published before: Twain's secret autobiography, which he decreed should not be published until one hundred years after his death.

Why the delay? Was his request unusual? And how common is it for books to be published after an author’s death?

In the late 1960s, Dick Cavett began hosting TV’s hippest, smartest ninety-minute conversation on legendary talk show “The Dick Cavett Show.”

From the beginning, his guests and topics ranged from the popular to the intellectual; and included Groucho Marx, Jimi Hendrix, Salvador Dali, Norman Mailer, Marlon Brando, and Katherine Hepburn.

His discussions of society and culture were just as compelling — and often controversial — with topics ranging from the Vietnam War to pornography.

Salman Rushdie has been many things over the years: an award-winning millionaire novelist, a British knight, and of course, the object of an Iranian Ayatollah’s fatwa in the late '80s. But his new novel, “Luka and the Fire of Life,” will likely lead to new titles: videogame master, or perhaps “the next J.K. Rowling.” The novel, inspired in part by his 13-year-old son and the videogames he plays, centers on young Luka and his much older father Rashid. When Rashid mysteriously falls into a deep sleep and can’t be awakened, Luka must travel into the Heart of Magic, battle giants, monsters — and even time itself — to bring back the fire that will save his father’s life.

Kristen and Rafer's weekly disagreement returns as they debate "Morning Glory," along with morning news shows, a few movies about journalists, and ways to tell if a movie was made several years ago and only released recently.

For thirty years, the legendary punk band Bad Religion has been singing about politics, questioning religion, and, of course, rocking supremely hard.

But did you know that the band’s lead vocalist and lyricist, Greg Graffin, has a side job? And no, it’s not bartending or acting.

When he’s not on stage, Graffin is a professor of life sciences and paleontology. His passion is evolution. And he's the co-author of a new book that shares his insights, intellectual musings and personal stories called “Anarchy Evolution: Faith, Science, and Bad Religion in a World Without God.”

For nearly fifty years Nora Ephron has been writing about marriage, divorce, family, love and death — in essays and movies that have become popular for their insight and wit about relationships, including “When Harry Met Sally,” “Heartburn,” “Sleepless in Seattle,” and “Julie and Julia.”

Home is where you hang your hat. There's no place like it, or so we're told. But what exactly is home? Is it a place? A state of mind? A smell, sound or look? Or the presence of a person we love?

During the week of Thanksgiving, we'll be exploring the notion of home each day. We'll look at the details that matter: from the specific structural aspects of a home to our ideas of what constitutes a homeland. And we'll be talking with people across the United States (and maybe even outside it).

John and Celeste will also share their personal memories of home, and what the word home means to them.

Tell us: What  says 'home' to you?  What are the details that make a place look like, smell like, or sound like home to you? Is home a place you long for, or do you carry it with you? Is there something that makes you love or dread the thought of going home for the holidays?

This is the latest assignment with The Takeaway iPhone app. Take a photo of the things that make a place home to you. Record audio of the sounds. And take video of the events that make it that way.

If you don't have an iPhone, just submit the photo below. If you do, get the app.

Cleopatra was ancient Egypt’s final, and arguably most famous, Pharaoh. But aside from epic romances with Julius Caesar and Mark Antony, we know very little about her. For example, what did she actually look like? Was her leadership role unique among women of the time? And how did she earn the reputation as a scheming temptress?

From 1999 to 2006 he was Attorney General of the state of New York. In 2006, he won his bid for the New York governorship by one of the largest margins in state history. But in the spring of 2008, his name was best known for its involvement with prostitution. A documentary about Eliot Spitzer's meteoric career in politics, called “Client 9: The Rise and Fall of Eliot Spitzer” is out in limited release now.

Walter Mosley is widely known for his best-selling historical mysteries featuring Easy Rawlins — a hard-boiled black detective and World War II veteran living in the Watts neighborhood of Los Angeles. But Mosley's writing spans a number of genres, including science fiction, graphic novels, young adult literature, and political non-fiction. His newest book is called “The Last Days of Ptolemy Grey.” It centers on 91-year-old Ptolemy Grey, an African American living alone in violent South Central L.A.. Suffering from dementia and poor health, Ptolemy seems ready to give up on life, until he meets a 17-year-old girl who may be able to help him recover his lucidity...at a cost.

David Amram has composed more than 100 orchestral and chamber music works, written numerous scores for Broadway and film, authored three books, and played dozens of instruments from over 25 countries, including the jazz French horn, an unusual instrument/genre pairing in which he has long been considered a pioneer. The artists Amram has collaborated with are some of the greatest names in the music and entertainment: Langston Hughes, Dizzy Gillespie, Dustin Hoffman, Willie Nelson, Thelonious Monk, Arthur Miller, Charles Mingus, Tito Puente, Charlie Parker, Jack Kerouac, and Leonard Bernstein, who chose him as The New York Philharmonic's first composer-in-residence in 1966.

Try to imagine the world two hundred million years ago, when the earth's original landmass began to break apart into the continents that we know today. That moment made way for the mighty Atlantic ocean. 

Author, geologist and journalist Simon Winchester fell in love with the Atlantic when he made his first trans-Atlantic voyage in the early 1960s. That voyage inspired his latest book: "Atlantic: Great Sea Battles, Heroic Discoveries, Titanic Storms,and a Vast Ocean of a Million Stories."

John Legend has racked up six Grammy awards and gathered a loyal fan base. His long time projects with The Roots have given him a place in the contemporary music scene that most musicians would envy, and his nods to influences like Stevie Wonder give him crossover power for an older audience as well. Legend joins us to discuss his latest and more pointedly political album, "Wake Up," on which he and The Roots collaborated yet again.

It's a debate that's been around for as long as the Internet has been around: How do we keep the information superhighway open and beneficial for the public in a world that seems increasingly driven by corporations? The question has inspired plenty of debate about modern treatment of older principals, but author Tim Wu insists this debate isn’t new. He says it’s been around as long as communication structures have existed — from the telephone and radio to television.

We all know the words unemployment and underemployment, but are you familiar with the term "malemployment?" Chances are, even if you don’t know the word, you know some who’s suffering through it. Malemployment, unlike underemployment, isn’t about workers having too little work. It’s about college degree holders working jobs that don’t require college degrees. 

Kristen and Rafer discuss the upcoming "127 Hours," films primarily about single characters, and the exact circumstances under which Kristen thought she might lose her lunch during the film.

President George W. Bush has promised readers that his new memoir, "Decision Points," is unconventional. But is it really unique? Will readers be surprised? Or will his book, like so many presidential memoirs and biographies, fall flat?

Karen Holt joins us; she has written about other presidential biographies. She’s a former deputy editor of Publishers Weekly and contributes book reviews to O: The Oprah Magazine and Essence. She shares her opinions on "Decision Points," and presidential memoirs in general.

For generations, Sibera has served as a metaphor for exile, whether social, political, romantic, or geographic. Consider political thinkers like Lenin, who were forced to serve time — often years — in Siberia, or romantic heroes like Dr. Zhivago, cruelly separated from those they love and sent to the region's icy tundra. Even people who commit crimes of etiquette in their social circles inadvertently exile themselves to social Siberia.

But is this place of exile really so much like a prison? Ian Frazier doesn’t think so.