Arts

After 12 years writing a column on ethics, Randy Cohen is convinced ethics is not a moving target, unique to time or place.

"I believe there are a set of principles that are so profound and so essentially moral that if I were just slightly smarter and slightly more eloquent, I could travel everywhere and persuade everyone that they should apply," he tells Weekend Edition guest host Linda Wertheimer.

On-air challenge: Every answer is a two-word phrase in which one of the words starts with W and the other word is the same with the W removed. For example, if you were given the clue "desires scurrying insects," the answer would be "wants ants."

Nothing panics the fans of a show quite like the departure of the creator. That's just what's happening at True Blood, where creator Alan Ball is leaving after five seasons, but the show goes on. As he tells Laura Sullivan on weekends on All Things Considered, he feels some nostalgia, but he's ready.

Park Slope has become the "it" neighborhood to raise a family in Brooklyn. The new novel Motherland gives a tour of the neighborhood's brownstones, European coffee shops and personalities — in particular, the mothers of Park Slope, who definitely have a certain look.

Cross the Mississippi River on Saint Paul's Marshall Avenue and it morphs into Minneapolis' Lake Street — a colorful kaleidoscope of cultures.

As Lake Street's collection of murals grows, so does its sense of safety, beauty and community — thanks to groups of artist-activists.

Washington, D.C. blogger Sam Hiersteiner is a hot sauce fan turned maker. He's already harvested two pounds of chiles — serranos, jalapenos, and habaneros — from his 30-plant pepper garden this month, and he's ready to mash them into hot sauce as soon as more ripen. Last year, he mashed fifty pounds total.While he loved the results, he thought it would be even better with a whisper of the flavor imparted by a barrel used for aging bourbon.

Police procedurals are the spaghetti and meatballs of television programming. With so many permutations of Laws and Order, CSI and wisecracking cops, you can practically see yellow crime-scene tape stretched around the prime-time schedule.

Sgt. Derek Pacifico spent more than two decades with the San Bernardino County (Calif.) Sherriff's Department, responding to emergency calls and walking a beat. He has investigated close to 200 murders, shootings and other crime cases.

Peter Lassally is known as "the host whisperer." If you've ever watched a late night show with an opening monologue, a couch and guests bouncing off each other, then you've seen his work — he practically invented the form.

The season is almost over, but summer squash is still plentiful in supermarkets.

Tanya Holland, executive chef and owner of Side BBQ and Brown Sugar Kitchen in Oakland, Calif., tells NPR's Scott Simon that she loves the versatility of summer squash.

"It can pretty much be used in any dish as a vegetarian substitute that might require chicken or a fish," she says. "It kind of takes on any flavor that you put it with."

We do what damage we can on this show, but it's not often we get the chance to cause a real international incident. So we're very excited that Sir Peter Westmacott, Great Britain's ambassador to the U.S., has agreed to play our game called "No homework, extended naps and eight hours of recess!"

A lot of big-time politicians got their start as little politicians, running for the student council. We'll ask Westmacott three questions about strange doings in the school halls of power.