A Historian Puts His Money Where His Mouth Is, and the Dog Whisperer Speaks Up

Can you beat that moment? A few moments after I wrapped up my interview with historian Taylor Branch about his book ''The Clinton Tapes,'' Molly Peterson and David Lazarus were making their pitch to listeners to pitch in to contribute to KPCC, and the award-winning writer opened his wallet right there in the studio and slapped down a double sawbuck -- twenty bucks, and the newest KPCC member!

On top of that, he was one terrific interview, so I can imagine what kind of interviewer he must have been, in those 79 sessions with Bill Clinton throughout the Clinton presidency. The switcheroo is that Clinton kept those tapes -- in his sock drawer, as it turned out -- and Branch, who had first met Clinton during the 1972 McGovern presidential campaign, recorded his own impressions on his way home from the interviews. I thought Branch's storytelling about those sessions made for a more engaging book than just reprinting big hunks of Clintonian transcript would have been.

The first hour was the province of that top dog, Cesar Millan, the ''dog whisperer,'' answering your calls about dog misbehavior, most of which he traces to people giving dogs all the wrong cues and letting the dogs become the leaders of the family pack. We could have spent the rest of the day taking your calls and concerns and hearing his answers about your nervous Jack Russells, too-submissive border collies and leaping German shepherds. Maybe we can persuade him to come back again -- if we behave ourselves.

Next time, health care for illegal immigrants was a matter of controversy long before the latest round of health care reform legislation. Let's hear how both sides can make their cases for and against delivering any health care to anyone in this country illegally.

Know anyone who got the H1N1 flu? Did doctors test for it? Or are they overdiagnosing the H1N1 virus? Not every case of flu gets tested – so are the medical honchos assuming wrongly that most flu is H1N1? We’ll test that premise.

-- Patt Morrison