Listen to the interview here:

Geoff Emerick is an audio engineer, best known for his work with the Beatles. He served as the chief studio engineer for Revolver, Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band, The White Album and Abbey Road. “Tomorrow Never Knows” was the first song he worked on, after assuming the engineering duties from Norman Smith. Emerick also worked with Paul McCartney and Wings, Badfinger, and Elvis Costello. Read the rest of this entry »

Much remains unclear about the alleged rape incident implicating members of the Duke University lacrosse team. But the episode last month at the Durham, N.C., campus has cast fresh light on the schism that often exists between college athletics and the wider academic community. Student athletes have long inhabited a world often less focused on learning than on winning. But what is becoming more apparent today is that the divide is widening–and that it can lead to destructive behavior. Although the Duke lacrosse players appear to be better students than most, a pair of faculty reports issued last week noted the team’s “clannish” or “pack” culture, both on and off the playing field, and its connection to a rash of disciplinary incidents. Read the rest of this entry »

In 2004, two weeks before Christmas, an Army National Guard staff sergeant’s humvee was hit by a truck while under enemy fire in Iraq. The crash smashed the soldier’s jaw and sent him into a coma that lasted more than three months. The day he left the hospital, nearly six months after the accident, his wife was surprised to get a call from his unit asking why her husband was absent without leave. It was an all-too-common Army snafu and just the beginning of a long financial nightmare. Read the rest of this entry »