Government & Politics

In 1989, Lau became a best-selling author with her first book: Runaway: Diary of a Street Kid, a memoir of her years on the streets as a suicidal drug addicted teenage prostitute. She also wrote two books of her poetry: You Are Not Who You Claim and Oedipal Dreams. Her latest is a collection of short stories titled Fresh Girls and Other Stories. The 23 year old writer lives in Vancouver, Canada.

South African journalist Allister Sparks has written about secret negotiations that started in 1986 between South African leaders and then-jailed political prisoner Nelson Mandela. The meetings ultimately led to the dismantling of Apartheid. Sparks' new book is Tomorrow is Another Country. He served as South African Correspondent for The Observer and for The Washington Post from 1981-1992. He lives in Johannesburg, South Africa.

Judith Musick is the director of the Ounce of Prevention Fund, a pregnancy prevention and teenage-parent programs in Illinois, and author of the new book, "Young, Poor and Pregnant: The Psychology of Teenage Motherhood." Musick believes that impoverished adolescent girls become young mothers as an attempt to create a future and an identity.

Michael Tonry is a professor of Law and Public Policy at the University of Minnesota. His new book, Malign Neglect: Race Crime, and Punishment in America, discusses how our current approach to fighting crime victimizes disadvantaged black Americans. He calls for a reform of sentencing and parole policies.

Ed Gillespie, co-editor of the book The Contract With America and policy and communications director of the House Republican Conference. He believes the welfare reforms outlined in the Republican agenda are accurate assessments of what is needed to correct the current welfare system.

Director of the National Center on Hunger, Poverty and Nutrition at Tufts University, Dr. Larry Brown. He directed a recent study titled "Statement on Key Welfare Reform Issues: The Empirical Evidence." It revealed the assumptions behind the Republican "Contract With America" regarding welfare reform to be wrong. He agrees reform is necessary but must be focused on the right target.

Fresh Air prison correspondent Wilbert Rideau is editor emeritus of the Angolite, the news magazine of the Louisiana State Penitentiary at Angola where he is serving a life sentence. He talks about dying in prison. With longer sentences and less parole, prisoners are beginning to die in prison. Rideau recently spoke with a dying inmate, a prison nurse and a warden who handles funeral arrangements.

Scholars, social critics, and futurists Alvin and Heidi Toffler, authors of Future Shock (1970). They've gotten a lot of publicity lately because of their association with Newt Gingrich. Gingrich sought them out 20 years ago because he was fascinated by their ideas about the "intersection of history and the future." He suggested that every member of Congress read the Toffler's newest, called Creating a New Civilization: The Politics of the Third Wave.

Lee has written two volumes of poetry, Rose and The City in Which I Love You. He's won many awards for his work, including the Guggenheim Memorial Foundation Fellowship. He's just completed a memoir about his family's refugee experience in America, The Winged Seed. Lee was born in Indonesia; his parents were from China, where his father had been private physician to Mao. After escaping Southeast Asia, the family ended up in a small town in Pennsylvania, where his father headed an all-white Presbyterian church.

Soviet-born journalist Masha Gessen has just edited a new collection of post-Soviet fiction by women, called "Half A Revolution." She says that most of the writers in the collection belong to the "mute generation" that came of age under Brezhnev. Gessen immigrated to the U.S. in 1981 when she was 14 to be with her parents. She's been an editor, primarily in gay and lesbian press, and was international editor at The Advocate. Gessen has since repatriated to Russia.

Pollster Stanley B. Greenberg was senior advisor to Bill Clinton's presidential campaign and currently works for the Democratic National Committee. He is credited with recognizing, nearly ten years ago, the dissatisfaction among middle class voters with the two political parties. Greenberg has a new book about the historic forces that put Bill Clinton in the White House, and consequently led to 1994's midterm Republican landslide. It's called Middle Class Dreams: The Politics and Power of the New American Majority.

Manchevski, now based in the U.S., went home to make his first feature film, "Before the Rain." One critic at the Venice Film Festival said the film is "written and directed with surprising skill and ability, wonderfully filmed." Manchevski is also well known for directing the music video, "Tennessee" by Arrested Development which won an MTV video award in 1992.

David Von Drehle has written a new book, "Among the Lowest of the Dead: the Culture of Death Row." He looks at the current capital punishment debate using historical and personal observations and accounts of death row inmates, victims and survivors, and the people in charge of the executions. He says keeping people in prison is a bargain compared to the price of death row appeals and the fact that only 5% of death row executions actually occur. Von Drehle is arts editor of the Washington Post.

Chicago police officer Eric Davis, known as "21" in the rap group the Slick Boys. Davis and two other officers founded the group in 1991 to provide positive role models for the inner-city kids they encountered on their jobs every day. The group has received national acclaim for their songs about the importance of getting an education and staying off of drugs and out of gangs. Davis grew up in the Cabrini-Green development of Chicago, where the three officers work.

Engineer Fred Cuny is a relief worker for the International Rescue Committee. He worked in Sarajevo to restore gas and water to civilians in early 1994. He just returned from Chechnya, where he was evaluating the humanitarian situation.

Sargent Shriver is currently Chairman of the Special Olympics. He was organizer and first director of the Peace Corps, elevating it to become one of the most successful programs of the Kennedy Administration. Shriver headed President Johnson's War On Poverty in the 60s. During his tenure he also created VISTA, Head Start, Job Corps and many other successful programs. He recently received the Medal of Freedom from President Clinton -- the country's highest civilian honor.

Political satirist and impressionist Jim Morris began lampooning the presidents around the time Reagan was sworn in to office. Since then he's impersonated Bush and Clinton, as well as presidential contenders, Michael Dukakis, Paul Tsongas, and Ross Perot. The New Yorker says of Morris, "Like an obsessive character actor, Mr. Morris doesn't just impersonate his subjects; he becomes them."

Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist for The Washington Post, David Maraniss. He's just completed a new biography of President Clinton, "First in His Class." In researching the book, Maraniss interviewed more than 400 people, including Clinton's friends, relatives, and colleagues. One reviewer writes, "the portrait of Mr.

Film critic Stephen Schiff reviews "Just Cause," the new thriller starring Sean Connery.

Robert Rector is a policy analyst at the conservative think tank, the Heritage Foundation. He is credited wiith being the driving force behind the rightward swing of the newest GOP welfare reform. He believes the welfare system creates illegitimacy, and that, "the more you spend [on welfare] the more clientele for the programs you create." He also believes to bring people out of their "behavioral poverty," they need to work for their assistance.