Search results for

Religion scholar Karen Armstrong. The best-selling author of The History of God, and The Battle for God, has a new book about the life of Buddha. From North India, Sidhatta Gotama, renounced normal life, leaving his wife and child to live alone and attain enlightenment. He found it through his own experiences, did not rely on a supernatural God, and fought against the cult of personality that would turn him into a leader. Instead the Buddha taught his disciples to discover the truth within themselves. His teachings flourished in India for 1500 years and then spread to Tibet, Central Asia, China, Korea, Japan, and Southeast Asia. Armstrong's book Buddha is published by Penguin Lives.

Critic Milo Miles reviews a new 3-CD set Demons and Angels (Shanachie) collecting the recordings of blues guitarist Rev. Gary Davis.

It looks a little more like a fire truck than an S.U.V. DaimlerChrysler is planning to begin marketing a massive four wheel drive vehicle called the UNIMOG in the United States. The truck was made by Mercedes for fifty years. In 1999, Elizabeth Bailey and her friends drove from Chile to Texas in a Mercedes Unimog. She talks to Noah Adams about driving this enormous vehicle.

NPR's Sylvia Poggioli reports that Pope John Paul the Second formally inducted 44 prelates into the College of Cardinals today.

NPR's Jennifer Ludden in Jerusalem reports Israel's Prime Minister-elect Ariel Sharon is continuing efforts to form a coalition government. Once in office, Sharon's first move may be to seek reforms to an electoral system that many Israelis say makes the country all but ungovernable.

NPR's Nina Totenberg reports on today's Supreme Court decision that states cannot be sued by their employees for money damages under the Americans With Disabilities Act. The justices' 5-4 ruling follows a pattern of recent decisions that reduce the power of the federal government over the states.

In January, a federal circuit court in Washington, D.C., ruled that a Federal Communications Commission order requiring broadcasters to conduct broad community outreach before making hiring decisions was unconsitutional race discrimination. Today the FCC decided to rehear the case, and commentator David Cole says this is a good thing.

The Marine's V22 Osprey has come under increasing scrutiny after a series of deadly crashes and a highly critical GAO report. The aircraft may face a funding cutoff after a review of Defense Department programs ordered by President Bush. Russell Lewis reports from member station KPBS.

Robert Siegel talks with NPR's Chris Arnold, who's in the courtroom in San Francisco where a judge is hearing arguments on whether the online music service Napster should be shut down. A lawyer for Napster said today that the company will voluntarily introduce a screening system this weekend, which could block Napster users from trading nearly a million titles of pirated music. The company says instead of being forced to shut down, it should be allowed to police its system -- and it offered the screening method today as a way in which it will do that.

Seventy-five years ago this week, William Faulkner's first novel was published, called Soldier's Pay. It was inspired by his World War I service in the Royal Canadian Air Force. But it was another war that brought commentator Fred Woodress to Oxford, Miss., and an afternoon with Faulkner. Having learned about Faulkner in the Army's college program at Ole Miss, he asked a waitress about him in a local restaurant. She was Faulkner's wife, and told Woodress to go see him. He describes the afternoon smoking and rocking on the the Faulkners' front porch, and another visit several years later.