Ian Pickus

Organist Ray Manzarek, a founding member of The Doors, died yesterday after a battle with cancer.

If Jim Morrison got the life-after-death rock sainthood that attaches itself to the genre’s fallen frontmen, Ray Manzarek became the torchbearer for the sometimes loved, sometimes despised, always compelling group that was both a pop success and a beguiling circus.

This weekend, an openly gay man was shot to death after a confrontation in Greenwich Village Friday in what police commissioner Ray Kelly is calling a hate crime. According to New York state Senator Brad Hoylman of Manhattan, whose district includes Greenwich Village, the incident was at least the fifth instance of anti-gay violence in Manhattan this month.

New York Times columnist David Brooks visited our region this weekend to receive an honorary degree at Skidmore College’s commencement ceremony in Saratoga Springs.  Brooks is familiar to WAMC listeners as a political analyst for National Public Radio whose Friday segments with E.J. Dionne are required week-in-review listening.  He spoke with WAMC's Ian Pickus about his advice to young people and the political week that was.

WAMC’s Ian Pickus and resident quizzer Mike Nothnagel focus on famous scandals tagged with the “-gate” moniker.

Simply one of the greatest basketball players of all time, Earl Monroe rose from the rough streets of South Philadelphia to the Hall of Fame in nearby Springfield.

WAMC's Ian Pickus and resident quizzer Mike Nothnagel celebrate tomatoes.

To read Benjamin Busch’s memoir Dust to Dust is to confront the big, hard questions of humanity: life and death, peace and war, family, honor, duty, and the frailty of all of it. Busch writes of his life’s often surreal interactions with nature and its destruction, whether that destruction is being wrought by land mines or natural erosion.

A key court ruling this week could have far-reaching effects for the future of hydrofracking in New York. WAMC’s Ian Pickus spoke with Gannett capitol reporter Jon Campbell for the latest.

WAMC's Ian Pickus and resident quizzer Mike Nothnagel focus on New Hampshire on this week's quiz.