Joe Donahue

Nick Offerman is known to many as Ron Swanson on the TV series ‘Parks and Recreation’ and has done a ton of other work including last year where he was the announcer for the Academy Awards. He is also a writer, humorist, and master woodworker who runs the Los Angeles based Offerman Woodshop. He has written several bestselling books celebrating craftsmanship, storytelling, and the pleasures of working with one’s hands. Now he is bringing those passions to the stage with ‘Big Woodchuck: An Evening of Comedy with Woodworking and Bookish Mirth.’ It is a live show blending standup, reflection of craft and literary humor, and the tour stops at The Palace Theatre in Albany, NY on 4/11.

Erin Harkes, Publisher and Editor-in-Chief of Metroland Now, joins us this morning for our regular arts segment where she will talk about what’s in the pages of Metroland Now and preview each month’s events for First Friday in Albany.

The Roundtable Panel: a daily open discussion of issues in the news and beyond. Today's panelists are full professor in the History Department at John Jay College of Criminal Justice (CUNY) Allison Kavey, CEO of The Business Council of New York State Heather Mulligan, and Siena University Professor of Economics Aaron Pacitti.

Historian Ryan Gingeras has spent years tracing the hidden networks of power that operate just beneath the surface of modern states. A professor at the Naval Postgraduate School and a specialist in late Ottoman and modern Middle Eastern history, his work often explores crime, politics, and the blurred lines between them.His new book, 'Mafia: A Global History,' widens that lens, charting the evolution of organized crime across continents and centuries. It’s a sweeping, deeply researched account of how mafias emerge, adapt, and endure—and what their stories reveal about the world we live in.

The Roundtable Panel: a daily open discussion of issues in the news and beyond. Today's panelists are Joseph Palamountain Jr. Chair in Government at Skidmore College Beau Breslin, Former Vice President for Editorial Development at the New York Press Association Judy Patrick, Founder and Director of the Volunteer Literacy Project and columnist for The Free Press Larissa Phillips, and Associate Professor in the department of sociology at Vassar College Catherine Tan.

The Roundtable Panel: a daily open discussion of issues in the news and beyond. Today's panelists are public policy and communications expert Theresa Bourgeois, Dean of the College of Emergency Preparedness, Homeland Security and Cybersecurity at the University at Albany Robert Griffin, and Senior Fellow at the American Enterprise Institute Robert Pondiscio.

Tayari Jones’s fiction, including her previous novel, ‘An American Marriage,’ confronts the deepest questions of love, identity and belonging with a rare combination of lyrical grace and moral clarity. Her new novel, ‘Kin,’ is tale of two girls born in the segregated South and how they journey from home and back.

Tayari Jones’s fiction, including her previous novel, ‘An American Marriage,’ confronts the deepest questions of love, identity and belonging with a rare combination of lyrical grace and moral clarity. Her new novel, ‘Kin,’ is tale of two girls born in the segregated South and how they journey from home and back.

This week's Book Picks comes from Connie Brooks and Suzanne Kulick who join us from Battenkill Books in Cambridge, NY.

The Justice Center of Rensselaer County is presenting their fourth annual Robert Doherty Memorial Lecture this week with Douglas Blackmon. Blackmon is a distinguished journalist, scholar, filmmaker, and the Pulitzer-Prize winning author of Slavery by Another Name: The Re-Enslavement of Black Americans from the Civil War to World War II.His talk: “What Comes Next? Redefining Police Power, Restoring Personal Freedom, Rebuilding Faith in American Democracy” will be held on Thursday, April 2nd @ 7PM in the Troy Savings Bank Music Hall.