wnyc.org / 93.9fm / am 820

Award-winning journalist Sean Naylor details what went wrong during Operation Anaconda—the 2002 battle in Afghanistan that he argues could have destroyed Al Qaeda and captured Osama bin Laden. Then, Emily Auerbach, an English professor at the University of Wisconsin–Madison, challenges the common characterizations of Jane Austen as a demure writer hung up on etiquette and 19th century niceties. She argues that the real Jane Austen was confident, clever, and extremely hard-working. In Robert Antoni's latest novel, three childhood friends reconnect in New York City and decide to return home together for the Trinidadian Carnival. Against the backdrop of the festival, the three friends find themselves navigating the boundaries of race, class, and sexuality. And in this week’s Please Explain feature, we enter into the strange territory of black holes, and try to piece together a portrait of these mysterious regions of space.