President Obama gave a speech this week touting weatherization as a “sexy” way to save money and make the world a greener place. His audience included Senators, mayors, and labor leaders, and he cracked jokes in between serious discussion of insulation, job creation, and clean energy.

Reinhold Martin, Columbia professor of Architecture joined us in the studio for a fascinating discussion public housing, urban and rural living, and the fact that many "public" provisions that do not carry a stigma.

Are we just returning to pre-recession levels, or something better--or worse? Nicole Gelinas, fellow at the Manhattan Institute and author of After the Fall: Saving Capitalism from Wall Street and Washington and Max Fraad Wolff of the New School join us to talk about regulation, government and private industry, and where to go from here.

The democratic Republic of the Congo is literally and figuratively the heart of Africa. The country of 65 million people straddles the equator and is bordered by 9 other countries. It is the size of Western Europe and the fulcrum on which the entire African continent swings. Barack Obama proclaims, “If Africa is to achieve its promise resolving the problem in the Congo will be critical.”

Jennifer Utz, the filmmaker behind From Baghdad to Brooklyn, provided us this video report on Cole Miller, who founded a group No More Victims to support children in Iraq wounded by the war and without access to basic health care.

President Obama spoke of "seeing firsthand" what happens in Afghanistan when he visited Walter Reed. But in the latest segment from Brave New Films' Rethink Afghanistan, veterans point out that at best Obama's only seen a second or third-hand version of what they saw and dealt with every day.

Bob Dylan releasing a Christmas album might have thrown some longtime fans, but even with this album Dylan's proving his social consciousness: all artist's royalties from sales of the record go to Feeding America. Hope you like his version of "Little Drummer Boy."

Breaking News: Citigroup is getting more tax breaks, and Ben Bernanke is Time’s Person of the Year. The recession's over! Not so fast.

If you see a bunch of people in your neighborhood carrying red umbrellas, it might not be about the weather. December 17th is the international day to end violence against sex workers, and the red umbrella has become a symbol of sex worker rights and safety.

With the economic collapse last year, many mainstream voices suddenly started to talk about alternatives to capitalism. The economy seems to be stabilizing a bit, but as we've discussed many times, people are still suffering and jobless. Yet Citigroup is getting more tax breaks, and Ben Bernanke is Time's Man of the Year.