The Why Factor

Schedule
88.5-1
Monday
4:30 am
Sunday
4:30 am
88.3
Monday
4:30 am
Sunday
4:30 am

Why do we do the things we do? Mike Williams searches for the extraordinary and hidden histories behind everyday objects and actions to inform us about the way we live in the 21st Century.

The Why Factor from BBC

Arts & Culture

WAMU 88.5

Art Beat With Lauren Landau, October 7

You can explore one calligrapher's modern take on Korean handwriting, or see two shows that require a little help from the audience.

Food

NPR

School Pulls All-Beef Burgers From Menu, Citing Complaints

Students in a Virginia school system are now eating hamburgers with additives in them, after officials heeded their complaints about the appearance and taste of all-beef burgers it had been serving. The burgers that are now being served include a reported 26 ingredients.

Politics

NPR

Monday Morning Political Mix

Speaker Boehner insists there aren't enough House votes to pass a spending bill that has no strings attached... A GOP congressman likened the Republican situation to how the Confederate Army stumbled into the Battle of Gettysburg... Which Boehner will we see this week?

Technology

NPR

Wanted: A New Generation of High-Tech Aviation Workers

Millions of U.S. factory jobs have been lost in the past decade. Now, in North Carolina, high school students are being encouraged to think about taking manufacturing jobs. But this isn't the furniture-making or textile labor of generations past — it's a new kind of highly technical work in aviation.