Terry Gross

In honor of the six-month anniversary of Sept. 11, 2001, Meyerowitz talks about his World Trade Center Archive Project, a traveling State Department-sponsored exhibition of Ground Zero photographs. Meyerowitz originally spoke about his World Trade Center photos when he was a guest on Fresh Air on October 23, 2001.

John McWhorter's newest book is called The Power of Babel: A Natural History of Language. He has written on Ebonics, language and African Americans, and the origins of the Creole Language. His other books include Losing the Race: Self-Sabotage in Black America and Word on the Street: Debunking the Myth of 'Pure' Standard English. McWhorter is a professor at the University of California at Berkeley.

Writer Gary Paulsen is a prolific writer of children's books. He began writing over 30 years ago, when he was coming to terms with his alcoholism. For many years he and his wife lived in poverty in rural Minnesota. This changed when Paulsen won the Newbery Award for children's fiction in 1985 with Dogsong, about running the Iditarod. Paulsen's children's books often deal with adventurous youths who triumph over adversity in the wilderness. This interview first aired Oct. 6, 1992.

Porn film director Wash West. His newest is The Fluffer, set in the gay porn industry. As compared to the films of Iran, Wash West's movies are all about touching. His other films include Seven Deadly Sins: The Gluttony, Naked Highway, Animus and Toolbox. West is much-honored in the field, with several Adult Video News Awards and Gay Erotic Video Awards.

Filmmaker Jamsheed Akrami is a scholar of Iranian film. His two documentaries are Dreams Betrayed and Friendly Persuasion: Iranian Cinema After the Revolution. Together, they explore Iranian filmmaking before and after the 1979 revolution. In Iranian films, male and female characters are not allowed to touch, ever, and women must be veiled at all times. Despite these and other limitations, Iranian cinema has garnered international critical acclaim. Akrimi is an associate professor at William Paterson University.

His Broadway musicals include Bye, Bye Birdie, Annie, Applause, It's a Bird, It's a Plane, It's Superman, and Golden Boy, which originally opened on Broadway in 1964 and starred Sammy Davis Jr. The show will be revived later this month by City Center Encores in New York. Strouse also composed music for film and TV, including "Those Were the Days," the theme song for TV's All in the Family.

Retired General Carl Stiner. With Tom Clancy, He co-authored of the book, Shadow Warriors: Inside the Special Forces. General Stiner was commander in chief of the US Special Operations Command (SOCOM) from 1990 to 1993. SOCOM is responsible for the readiness of all special operations of the Army, Navy and Air Force.

Michael Pollan is a contributing writer for The New York Times Magazine. To learn more about the meat industry in the United States he bought a calf, and then followed the process from fattening to slaughter. His article, "Power Steer," is the cover story of the March 31, 2002, issue of the New York Times Magazine. Pollan is also the author of the book, The Botany of Desire: A Plant's-Eye View of the World in which he maintains that plants and humans have developed a reciprocal, co-evolutionary relationship.

Rodney Brooks, the director of the Artificial Intelligence Laboratory at MIT (Massachusetts Institute of Technology). His new book is called Flesh and Machines: How Robots Will Change Us. Brooks offers a vision of the future of humans and robots. He is also Fujitsu Professor of Computer Science and Engineering at MIT. Brooks is the chairman and chief technological officer of iRobot Corporation. He was one of the subjects of Errol Morris' 1997 documentary, Fast, Cheap and Out of Control.

On November 14, 1965 they were together at the site of the first and bloodiest major land battle of the Vietnam War, Ia Drang. Moore was in command of the 1st battalion of the 7th Cavalry, and Galloway, then a UPI reporter, accompanied them. Moore and Galloway wrote a book about their experiences in the Ia Drang valley, We Were Soldiers Once... And Young.(Random House) Its been made into a movie, We Were Soldiers, starring Mel Gibson. Galloway has a small part in the film. This interview originally aired on Nov. 11, 1992.