Rebecca Lavoie

According to New York Times Comedy Reviewer Jason Zinoman, comedian James Adomian could very well be the first openly gay male comedy star. One question comes to mind...why hasn't there been one before?

As Hurricane Isaac continues to creep over the Gulf Coast and cause massive flooding, we can’t help but think of Katrina, and the devastation that storm left in her wake. Images this week of weary Louisiana residents make it difficult to remember the hopeful, yet not always easy rebirth of New Orleans after that storm.

Concord’s mayor Jim Bouley says the city isn’t going to tolerate hate crime against its refugee residents. On Sunday morning, a racist message written in black permanent marker appeared on the house of a Somali family in the city’s South End. Bouley stopped by NHPR to talk about this latest incident, which was nearly identical to graffiti that appeared on three refugee homes last fall.

Listeners tuning in to WWHK in Concord might remember the station as the “The Hawk,” which had a classic rock format.

Now, the station has changed its tune in a big way.  Classical covers of songs like “Pour Some Sugar on Me” are all that have played on 102.3 for weeks. The music, recorded by the L.A.-based Vitamin String Quartet, is a placeholder, and not likely to last. 

Word of Mouth is taking a short break this month, but we'll be back on the air soon. In the mean time, enjoy our broadcast of the TED Radio Hour from NPR.

We’ve recently noticed a trend of all-boys ballet classes popping up in dance schools, including the Southern New Hampshire Dance Theater in Bedford. Word of Mouth Senior Producer Rebecca Lavoie, herself the mother of two boys, wanted to find out more about all-boys ballet, so she reached out to that school’s artistic director, Patricia Lavoie (just coincidence…no relation) for more on their all-boys ballet program, and the trend of these classes popping up all over the country.

Spanking is controversial! Tractors aren't just for boys. Those postcard guys hit some snags. And you REALLY want to know who Tim Scott is!

Yes, I really read all your email, Facebook posts, and tweets. Today, I get to talk about a few of them on the show.

While we were prepping for today's segment on audio books, we couldn’t help but wonder about whether we could pass as audio book producers…perhaps even elevating a book of dubious quality by getting just the right people to read it. So, we took dramatic  stab at an excerpt from the hottest book around, Fifty Shades of Grey by E.L.

Smartphones make it relatively easy to record and monitor suspected law-breaking in real time, but what about crimes in the pre-smartphone era? Word of mouth producer Rebecca Lavoie tagged along with an unusual gumshoe…one who scours old buildings for evidence of architectural crimes.   

Earlier this week, we talked to our go-to internet guy about a switch to be flipped on a whole new version of the internet. Yesterday was World IPV6 Day, and as tech decoder Rob Fleischman explained, converting to the new web protocol was designed to solve the impending problem of the internet running out of IP addresses…those are the numerical codes designating the addresses of websites, pages, computers and hardware on networks. Well, Wednesday passed…the conversion happened…and our computers are still working.

If If fiction writers can learn from police reports, true crime writers have the tricky task of transforming those reports into prose. Word of Mouth Senior Producer Rebecca Lavoie is also a true crime author. She and her husband Kevin Flynn have written and published two books, in the genre.

If grandparents paying for potential grandchildren to be put on ice sounds a little strange, how about the emerging legal field of trust and estate rights for frozen embryos, eggs, and other, well biological material? When word of mouth senior producer Rebecca Lavoie read a Bloomberg Business Week article about a Manhattan lawyer representing frozen embryos in trust cases, she went right to the source to find out more.

Here's What's Awesome...

Plagiarism doesn't work.

Science suggests consuming organic food has an effect on our morals.

What's Internet Explorer? Chrome becomes number one browser!

Charles Wheelan’s unconventional advice for graduates got us talking about the twists and turns of our own post-graduate lives. The path life takes, as we know, zigs as often as it zags…so Virginia Prescott asked a few colleagues to record what they wish they’d been told on that expectant day.