All Things Considered

Transcript

GUY RAZ, HOST:

And if you're just tuning in, this is WEEKENDS on ALL THINGS CONSIDERED from NPR News. I'm Guy Raz.

Have you ever received an unsolicited phone call from someone asking you questions about your politics or your buying habits or your likes and dislikes? Well, those surveys have long been important tools for corporations and political campaigns. But here's the thing - did you ever refuse to answer those questions or just hang up altogether?

Transcript

(SOUNDBITE OF SONG, "GOD SAVE THE QUEEN")

GUY RAZ, HOST:

A day of, what else, pomp and circumstance in London today.

(SOUNDBITE OF BOAT HORNS)

RAZ: Boats of all sizes blew their horns in celebration traveling past the queen on her own vessel on the River Thames. It's the queen's diamond jubilee, a celebration of her 60th year on the throne.

UNIDENTIFIED WOMAN: Three cheers for the queen. Hip, hip...

UNIDENTIFIED GROUP: Hooray.

UNIDENTIFIED WOMAN: Hip, hip...

UNIDENTIFIED GROUP: Hooray.

Richard Dawson, the actor and original host of Family Feud, died Sunday at the age of 79. He hosted the show for nearly 10 years, ending in 1985. The actor and original host of the popular TV show died Sunday at the age of 79.

Marina Keegan had just graduated from Yale University with a degree in English and was headed off to a job at The New Yorker. On May 26, she died in a car crash near her family's summer home in Massachusetts.

The Beach Boys are in harmony again. The group is recording and performing together, after years of disputes and estrangement.

Brian Wilson and Mike Love tell Guy Raz, host of weekends on All Things Considered, that they're not surprised at the reunion.

"We've had 50 years' practice," Wilson says, "not just in music but in being guys."

Love says once they got back in the studio and started writing again, it felt like they had never left.

"It was nuts," Wilson says. "It was a nutbuster."

When the economy entered its downward spiral in 2008, most everything related to housing hit the skids, including the lawn and garden industry. But one sector escaped the pinch — food gardening. In fact, sales spiked 20 percent and stayed there. While many households started growing food to be more budget-conscious, some are deciding vegetables and fruits can be beautiful, too. Blake Farmer

John S. Allen, a research scientist at the University of Southern California, explores our draw to crispy foods in a new book called The Omnivorous Mind: Our Evolving Relationship With Food. He speaks to host Guy Raz.

The Houla massacre left more than 100 Syrians dead. Some of them were women. Most of them were children.

The Syrian President Bashar Assad has denied responsibility. But the United Nations has pinned the blame mostly on his government.

Among the biggest advertisers in the presidential campaign is a group that says it doesn't do political advertising: Crossroads GPS.

Crossroads GPS — which stands for Grassroots Policy Strategies — was co-founded by Republican strategist Karl Rove. It and others like it enable wealthy donors to finance attack ads while avoiding the public identification they would face if they gave to more overtly political committees.