One of the great pleasures of directing On Point is that I hear just about every show we produce. And around the holidays, I listen back to some of our best shows to rebroadcast while the staff takes a well-deserved break.

Jay Parini, Middlebury College professor and jack-of-all-literary trades, makes the case in our second hour today for America’s thirteen “representative” books in his new tome “The Promised Land.” Of course, the idea of a great list or “canon” of hallowed must-reads

Today’s second hour looks at how the financial crisis is hitting higher education. And as belts tighten, it’s perhaps inevitable that executive compensation – the big payouts to people at the top – will come under scrutiny in academia as it has on Wall Street and in Detroit.

In his weekly address on Saturday, President-elect Obama outlined a huge public-works program – the biggest investment in the nation’s infrastructure since the creation of the interstate highway system under Eisenhower.

Speaking to Tom in today’s second hour, Stanford historian David Kennedy noted that few would have predicted that the Democrats would nominate the nation’s first African-American president. The Democrats only “came over” on civil rights in the 1960s.

As you count down the hours to the end of this long, long election campaign, if you’re tired of staring at the endless polls and projection maps, here’s an excuse to give your eyeballs a rest and just use your ears for a while.

Sure, there’s a Halloween sound to our second hour today — a conversation with historian John Demos about his new book, “The Enemy Within: 2,000 Years of Witch-Hunting in the Western World.”

It’s not a law firm. It’s our guest lineup for Wednesday’s second hour. The Atlantic’s superblogger Andrew Sullivan — he of The Daily Dish — will join us.

On Monday, a week and a day before the election, we’re going to look at the still swirling controversy over the integrity of the vote, from the right and the left. Robert F. Kennedy Jr. will join us.

We thought it would be worth highlighting another exchange in our interview with Vanguard founder John Bogle on Wednesday.

We had a great conversation in our second hour today with Vanguard founder John Bogle and economist Jared Bernstein. Here’s an ear-catching exchange, right off the top, between Tom and Bogle.

There were several interesting exchanges in Thursday’s first hour between Douglas Holtz-Eakin and Austan Goolsbee, but this one stood out. Holtz-Eakin said that the Treasury plan to take an ownership stake in banks is “very disturbing,” and added: “It’s not the way things should be done in the United States.”

A heads-up to listeners — as part of our series on the issues of 2008, we’ll be joined in our first hour tomorrow (Thursday) by the top economic advisers to McCain and Obama.

A note here, and a question or two for listeners, about On Point’s campaign coverage. You may have noticed recent shows with the phrase “Issues ‘08″ in the title.

So, dear web souls, long time no see… Yes, our “presence” in this space has been somewhat lacking of late. All I can say is, we’ve been plenty busy producing a radio show.

Hurricane Gustav makes a heck of a segue from Democratic to Republican conventions, but even through the roar of the storm the shift in political cultures hits you like a balloon drop…

I expected to work hard at the conventions. I didn’t expect to be so moved on a personal level. While the focus of attention was on the big-name politicians, I couldn’t take my eyes off of the delegates…

Clear skies over Invesco. The press was allowed in this morning, with “real people” being let in around 1 p.m. An army of cameras already set up by 11 a.m. A Greek temple — or is it a Federal building? — has been constructed as the backdrop for tonight’s festivities…

After 4 p.m. Mountain time, the hallways at Denver’s Pepsi Center become like tropical ocean reefs, with a million vibrant fish swimming in every direction — and some really big fish paddling through…

Talk about uncanny coincidences. Everyone knows that Barack Obama’s acceptance speech at Invesco Field on Thursday night will take place on the 45th anniversary of Martin Luther King Jr.’s “I have a dream” speech (Aug. 28, 1963)…

So we’ve made the journey from the confines of Studio 3 at WBUR-Boston to the concourse outside Gate 120 in Denver’s Pepsi Center, On Point’s broadcast home for the next four days…

Lights. Camera. Conventions. On Point hits the road tomorrow morning for Denver and the Democratic National Convention.

Listening to our first hour this morning, I was struck by several comments about the glossy postcard image of China as presented on TV.

I’m a producer at On Point, and as I’ve been reading all the comments here on the new site, I’ve been thinking a lot about the sort of feedback we get on the show…

She’d been shot, on a bus, between jungle and mountains, and we had to get her home.
Nothing like having a loved one take a bullet to start a vacation off hot. To collapse the gap between news and life. Not that you asked, but here are my first 24 hours away from the microphone…

Wow, I’m loving this new site already! Thanks for all the comments. Plenty to consider there.

If you landed at onpointradio.org and wondered what had happened — well, don’t worry, you’ve got the right address. We’ve just replaced the old edifice with something a little more, shall we say, architecturally ambitious. Call it our own small version of Web 2.0…