In 1863, New York Tribune reporters Junius Browne and Albert Richardson were captured by the Confederate army in Vicksburg, Mississippi. What followed was an epic journey through an archipelago of Confederate prisons, a daring escape, and a perilous 300-mile trek to freedom. It's the subject of the book, Junius and Albert's Adventures in the Confederacy: a Civil War Odyssey, due out at the end of the month. Author Peter Carlson takes Bob through the highs and lows of the adventure.

Music: Jim Taylor - Bonaparte's Retreat / Bonaparte's Charge / Bonaparte's March, Eastman Wind Ensemble - Liverpool Hornpipe, Craig Duncan - Dixie, Judy Collins - Battle Hymn of the Republic, Craig Duncan - Shiloh's Hill

In putting together last week's special show on the uncertain future of media business models, a lot of great tape ended up on the cutting room floor. Here's one such interview with Janko Roettgers, staff writer for the GigaOM network and author of Cut the Cord: All You Need to Know to Drop Cable. Brooke asks this pioneer cord cutter what content, if any, he's willing to pay for. 

OTM producer Doug Anderson fires up Grindr and meets up with another guy for a casual, anonymous...interview.

Fred Astaire - I'm Putting All My Eggs In One Basket

On last week’s show, we aired Brooke's interview with Michael Apted and Tony Walker, director and star of the “Up Series.” Brooke had no shortage of questions for Michael and Tony: even though the edited interview ran a whopping 17 minutes, many interesting tidbits of conversation ended up on the cutting room floor. We've salvaged some of those outtakes, and present them here for your enjoyment.

These are a few of our favorite things. And we're not talking raindrops on roses or whiskers on kittens.

On this week's show, U. Nebraska journalism professor Matt Waite admits to having childlike fascination with drones. He recalls being at a conference in San Diego last summer, where a demo video for the Gatewing X100 left him positively giddy.

Today marks ten years since the passing of Dave Thomas, the founder of Wendy's. [Full disclosure: The "Frosty," the restaurant's signature frozen dessert, is a particular favorite of our host, Bob Garfield.] Thomas gained fame not only as Wendy's CEO, but also as its folksy TV pitchman, appearing in more than 800 ads. Though his legacy was tainted by some bad calls, it's hard to overstate his skill as a businessman and marketer. 

This anniversary got me thinking about the TV spokespeople I remember most vividly. I came up with a list of ten who've made an indelible impression on my psyche, for better or for worse.

On Wednesday of last week, Rick Perry’s campaign posted a video on YouTube that caused a bit of a stir.

I'm not ashamed to admit that I'm a Christian, but you don't need to be in the pew every Sunday to know there's something wrong in this country when gays can serve openly in the military but our kids can't openly celebrate Christmas or pray in school.

A week after the video was posted, it had 6.5 million views, 22,000 “likes,” and 675,000 “dislikes,” making it the most disliked political video in YouTube history. (For anyone keeping track, Justin Bieber’s “Baby”  still holds the crown for the most hated non-political video.) Perry’s ad quickly spawned a slew of parodies, featuring an array of personalities, from Jesus to Voldemort.

Big things have been happening in South Africa since Bob went there last month. On November 10, the ruling ANC party suspended its high-profile young firebrand, Julius Malema, for five years. Then this past Tuesday—labeled "Black Tuesday" by protestors—Parliament passed the Protection of State Information Bill, which will allow the government to imprison anyone who discloses state secrets for up 25 years. The bill lacks any clause to protect whistleblowers who disclose secrets in the public interest.

At about 1:30 AM Tuesday, as the NYPD was evicting protesters from Zuccotti Park, Tim Pool picked up his cell phone and started streaming video to his Ustream channel. Twenty-one hours, 100,000+ views, and countless batteries later, the 25-year-old activist put down his camera and found he had been declared “the eyes of the movement.”