Gone Fishing Today, Harold Kushner and Vali Nasr Next Time

Since 1950, the world's appetite for seafood has gone up eight-fold, and the sad state of the oceans shows it. Fish and marine mammal and bird species are going down for the third time as they near extinction, grotesque fishing practices called ''bycatch'' -- the fishing version of ''collateral damage'' -- mean killing and throwing out five, ten, twenty pounds of sea creatures for every pound of ''target'' catch they take in.

The Monterey Bay Aquarium's new Seafood Watch picks and chooses among the seafood and fishing practices that are safe -- safe for humans and sea life -- and those that aren't. It's not just worth a listen, it could be a matter of survival -- as the oceans go, so goes our species. www.seafoodwatch.org is one way to check, and, funny I should ask our guest: the aquarium now also has an iPhone app so you can sit right there with the restaurant menu in one hand and the aquarium recommendations and don't-eat list in the other.

I was surprised at how many of you are fans of the music website Pandora, which was founded by a frustrated musician who wants to broaden the world's musical tastes beyond the top-of-the-pops, using algorithms that take the music you listen to and extrapolate your tastes to recommend other works. www.pandora.com might even, as we heard from caller Chris, open up a world of unexpected music to die-hard fans of another genre -- say, hip-hop to Rachmaninoff, or vice versa!

Next time, Rabbi Harold Kushner takes on our terrors in his new book, ''Conquering Fear,'' and Middle East sage Vali Nasr brings us ''Forces of Fortune,'' about the significance for the world of a growing Muslim middle class.

[The other meaning of ''gone fishing'' is that, by rising to the morning challenge for fund-raising, you've all guaranteed yourselves a tuesday afternoon and evening of regular programming, in which the fundraising has ''gone fishing''! Well done, you!]

-- Patt Morrison