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February 15, 2008

Valentine’s Day 2008

Veronica Chater's mother wants to go to a resort in Mexico with a friend. Her father, a former cop with an extravagant sense of security, prepares as if she's headed for a war zone. This, and other stories about couples, that happen decades after the moment their eyes meet.
fly

Prologue

Richard Klein of Cornell University explains that the way we view love really began with love poems in the 13th century—an illusion. (7 minutes)

By

Richard Klein
Act Two

The Over-Protective Kind

Veronica Chater's mother wants to go to a resort in Mexico with a friend. Her father, a former cop with an extravagant sense of security, prepares as if she's headed for a war zone. Among his questions for the Mexican authorities: Exactly how long a knife blade might one be able to carry across the border? (13 minutes)

By

Veronica Chater

Song:

“Someone to Watch Over Me” by Ricki Lee Jones
Act Three

Istanbul

Ian Brown of the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation on the normal struggle most people experience when they try to stay monogamous. Parts of Ian's story are excerpted from his book, Man Medium Rare. (12 minutes)

By

Ian Brown

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Act Two: Fists And Guns

Geoffrey Canada, author of the book Fist Stick Knife Gun: A Personal History of Violence in America, talks about what it's like to carry a gun. He also talks about what poor neighborhoods in New York were like before the proliferation of handguns among young people.  When he grew up in the South Bronx, kids had fistfights in a very formal arrangement with formal rules that everyone lived by.

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