The biggest campaign fundraiser in history raised $15 million and packed a star-filled house of Hollywood millionaires in LA with the President at the center of it all. A huge chunk of the money came from people who were entered in a drawing for a chance to see it all, to hang out with George Clooney, Barbra Streisand, Robert Downey Jr., producers like Jeffery Katzenberg, and director Stephen Speilberg.

Who would want to be a nobody at a party like that? We wanted to find out, so John Hockenberry crashes the Clooney dinner in this audio essay.

While browsing for archival audio on the internet one night, radio historian J. David Goldin noticed a 1937 radio interview of baseball great Babe Ruth for sale on eBay. Goldin was startled; it looked almost exactly like the master copy he had donated to the National Archives more than 30 years ago. Goldin started sleuthing. His detective work set in motion an investigation that revealed one of the most serious thefts in the history of the National Archives. In stealing those master copies, the culprit stole history, a trove of mind-blowing audio recordings spanning decades of American culture. These audio recordings mark an age before television and the Internet, when only sound connected you to the rest of the world. Host John Hockenberry wonders, how does audio transport you back in time better than a photo?

John Hockenberry is broadcasting from KUOW in Seattle this week. While he's in town, he's reporting on the city's diverse economy. Seattle may be home to industry leaders like Starbucks, Amazon, Microsoft, and Boeing, but the city grew up along the port, and the fishing industry is still a major part of Seattle's economy. John traveled to Seattle's Fisherman's Terminal to speak with a number of halibut fishermen who's families have spent generations in the industry. He talks to them about the fishing economy, the gossip on the boat, and, of course, what they think of "Deadliest Catch."

After a conversation with filmmaker Lena Dunham about her new HBO show "Girls", John Hockenberry asks for some advice: should he tell his 13-year-old daughters about "Girls"?

In the past few weeks we've seen the power of a single person wielding only the weapons he could carry: in Toulouse, France, in a village in Afghanistan, in a peaceful gated community in Florida. In our age of instant communication a single armed person IS an entire army, with a power sometimes greater than that of a traditional army. In an audio essay, John Hockenberry talks about lone gunmen.

John Hockenberry joins us from London, where people are talking about fitness for police officers. After a survey found that 53 percent of officers were overweight and one in 100 was morbidly obese, new proposal in England and Wales would require officers to undergo an annual fitness test. Penalties could include paycuts for those who repeatedly fail -- all as a way to reportedly "rid the service of fat officers". 

Former Goldman Sachs employee Greg Smith has cost the company more than $2 billion in stock value since his op-ed piece ran in the New York Times yesterday. Smith's very public jump from the company at the top of the Wall Street food chain has raised some questions about Goldman's internal culture, it's capacity to learn lessons from past mistakes and it's ability to control its own brand.

The Godfather defined a movie genre and defined the mafia criminal enterprise headed by a godfather who ruled like a pharoah, murdered his enemies and was a gentle grandpa to his family. That movie premiered 40 years ago today in New York, the city where it is largely set. From London John Hockenberry spoke with Federico Varese, professor of Criminology at Oxford University and author of "Mafia on the Move," about the accuracy of the mafia portrayal in the classic film.

After 244 years, the oldest continually published encyclopedia in the English language, the Encyclopedia Britannica, is going out of print. The encyclopedia will now be focused on its online edition and educational curricula for schools. John Hockenberry reports from London, where he spoke with the encyclopedia's managing editor Ian Grant.

John Hockenberry reports from London, where he visited the UK's National Design Museum to view the "design of the year" nominations on display. With more than 80 entries in seven categories, the designs included a life-size paper hearse and a plan for a hospital in Rwanda that benefits the community.

It's musical chairs for The Takeaway this week, as John Hockenberry guest-hosts the BBC's World Update program in London, while World Update host Dan Damon joins The Takeaway. Here, John shares some thoughts from across the pond:

It’s starting to feel a little late in the day around here. The afternoons are getting longer and there is not much time left to make the magic happen. You might say that London is a city dressing up for a hot date, an all-out go-for-broke global celebration. This is a wear the pearls and the gold necklace moment. Yes, this is the moment for those traffic-stopping above-the-knee boots and that the fancy hat you haven’t worn in a long time, you know the one. You can see it everywhere here.

The Takeaway host John Hockenberry spoke Friday at TED2012 in Long Beach, California.

Design has always been a part of Hockenberry's life. His father, who was a designer for IBM and Kodak, taught him what good design looked like.

Americans have a fear of taxes, period. There's a historical precedent for this, detailed in every middle school kid's history book, and as it relates to the history of tyranny, it's an understandable fear.

We often bury this fear in mounds of denial and guilt, sort of like the silly idea that we live in a world without obscenities. You know, Planet Family Values, where the Gods bleep out everything we're not supposed to hear. Bleeps are, of course, a form of emphasis, not suppression.

Apple announced last night that Steve Jobs, co-founder and chief executive of the company, would immediately resign from his position. Tim Cook, chief operating officer there, will replace him. In a public letter, Jobs said "I have always said if there ever came a day when I could no longer meet my duties and expectations as Apple’s CEO, I would be the first to let you know. Unfortunately, that day has come." Jobs will stay on at Apple as chairman of the board. Shortly after the news broke, Apple shares fell seven percent. 

Today on The Takeaway we covered the rebel takeover of Tripoli in Libya extensively. After the show, co-host John Hockenberry gave his own take on the morning's coverage, including an interview with a young Libyan-American whose father has been imprisoned in the country since 1993. The young man doesn't even yet know if his father has survived in prison; now his family is preparing to leave their native country to find out.

On this Friday's show, The Takeaway's co-host John Hockenberry interviewed a guest about domestic workers portrayed in the new film "The Help," only to discover she grew up in the same city he did--Grand Rapids, Mich. But as Hockenberry describes, he and Inez Crockett Smith were living in two totally different worlds.

On today's show, John Hockenberry interviewed one of our own, Managing Editor Rupert Allman, about his impressions of the unrest roiling Britain. Allman, of the BBC, says the line between those who feel lucky to be a British resident and those who do not is an invisible one. He spoke about unrest in his country in the 1980s, how some people feel lucky to be born in Britain, and are invested in their community, while others do not. It's a distinction that is difficult to see, but incredibly important, when the chips are down.  

John Hockenberry went to Somalia in 1992. Hunger, armed Islamists, and drought were taking a heavy toll on the country — just like they are now. In his latest video, Hockenberry talks about the experience, and how news of famine and difficult challenges to delivery of aid in recent weeks sounds far too familiar in a country still desperate for help, and plagued by those who undermine it. 

The Takeaway’s co-host John Hockenberry reacts to today’s discussion of the Oslo terrorist attacks that took place on Friday. With nearly one hundred dead and the same number injured, Hockenberry questions the role of the internet in either fueling or deflating the hunger for violence in extremists such as Anders Behring Breivik, the confessed-suspect of the attacks. Does the passivity of the internet allow extremists to follow an easier path to violence? Hockenberry discusses this and freedom of assembly and expression in the digital age.

We're putting forward a new feature: quick videos with hosts after the show. In today's episode, John Hockenberry reacts to some of the morning's best segments, talking about the importance of language, his idea for an episode of "Curb Your Enthusiasm," and his wish: to retire the use of "lame" in the modern lexicon.