All Things Considered

Writer Adam Gopnik describes the idea of his latest piece in the New Yorker: that the prime source of nostalgia in popular culture is usually the period 40 years beforehand.

A video appeal to the wife of Syrian President Bashar Assad asks her to persuade her husband to stop the killing. The campaign for Asma Assad to "stand up for peace" was started by the wives of British and German ambassadors to the United Nations. Melissa Block talks with Joan Juliet Buck, the last American journalist to spend time with the Assad family before the latest civil strife began in Syria.

This week, music is bringing Americans and Russians together in a way that policy discussions never can. And don't call that a cliche in front of the music director of the Chicago Symphony Orchestra.

If U.S. relations with Russia have hit a sticky patch over Syria and other issues lately, that didn't stop the Chicago Symphony from thrilling a Russian audience this past Wednesday night, just as it did on its last visit — to the then-Soviet Union in 1990.