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Jim Fleming gets the pro and con sides of the affirmative action debate from Barbara Bergmann, author of "In Defense of Affirmative Action" and Terry Eastland, author of "Ending Affirmative Action." Bergmann is an economist at American University. Eastland is editor of "Forbes MediaCritic." Also, attorney Richard Kahlenberg tells Steve Paulson that the whole debate misses the point because affirmative action should be based on class, not race.

Clarence Page, a Pulitzer Prize winning columnist with the Chicago Tribune, tells Steve Paulson that race has become such a loaded issue for Americans that they no longer talk openly about it. Page is the author of "Showing My Color: Impolite Essays on Race and Identity."

Race in America is more than a black and white issue. Reginald Gibbons, in his novel "Sweetbitter," tells the story of a half white, half Chocktaw man who falls in love with a white woman in turn-of-the-century Texas. Not exactly fitting into any racial community, the characters experience both subtle and overt racism and celebrate the resilience of love.

Paul Johnson, chief of the Natural Resources Conservation Service at the U.S. Department of Agriculture tells Steve Paulson that he is optimistic about the future as long as environmentalists and private land owners can learn to work together. Also, as if the issues surrounding land use and stewardship weren't controversial enough, Robert O. Greer complicates things still further by introducing the issue of race in his new mystery novel "The Devil's Hatband." Greer is African American, a surgical pathologist, a research scientist, a professor at the University of Colorado Health Sciences Center, editor of a literary review, and a cattle rancher. He tells Jim Fleming that concern for the environment has nothing to do with ethnicity: the issue affects all of us.

Bill McKibben, a former New Yorker staff writer best known for his book "The End of Nature," talks with Judith Strasser about some of the case studies detailed in his book "Hope, Human and Wild: True Stories of Living Lightly on the Earth." He says we must solve our environmental problems soon, but that we can solve them.

One of Britain's best-known sculptors, David Nash works in wood - including living, growing trees - to create environmental sculptures. He describes some of his pieces for Judith Strasser and talks about getting to know places and cultures by creating works on-site.

Rutgers University historian Janet Golden tells Judith Strasser that our ideas about motherhood, and pregnancy, are culturally conditioned and change over time. Golden is the author of "From Breast to Bottle: A Social History of Wet Nursing in America." Also, Laurie Lisle tells Judith that there are many ways to nurture and she wishes society were more accepting of women who choose not to bear children. Lisle's book is called "Without Child: Challenging the Stigma of Childlessness."

Hal Sirowitz immortalizes his Jewish mother's indefatiguable advice-giving in a slim volume called "Mother Said." Jim Fleming reads several of the poems and talks with Sirowitz about how he survived his childhood. Hal Sirowitz teaches and writes poetry in Flushing, New York.

James McBride is one of twelve African American children born to a woman who kept her own history a secret: she was the sexually molested daughter of a rabbi; and her white, Jewish family sat shiva for her when she married a black Gentile. McBride tells her story to Steve Paulson and in a memoir called "The Color of Water."

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