this is jeffrey smith. here when you're one of the more than two dozen farmers that gave him a call describing problems with pigs they could get pregnant because of the g.m. corn is all right. so so. what i may do it another time when i'm on my cell phone no but i might actually after we talk a bit i might actually email you and tell you exactly what i've written down about what we've talked about to make sure it's accurate. all right. thank you very much. so that was good news he said that he was willing to talk his cell phone was dying on the battery and he said first thing he said was is my name going to be in the article you're writing so i had to put him at ease and tell him no it's not if you don't want to be in the article it would be in there. that's that's the truth that's why we don't have a lot of whistleblowers the farmers farmers are not interested a lot of scientists are scared about it and that's the whole state of the art right now where almost all scientists focused on genetically engineere

who argues that adam smith's ideas have led to more good for humanity than arguably any other single glsh that way i can see you better -- and on the other hand, we can have a jeffrey zacks who suggests that smith yang markets have led to exploitation and deprivation. all of this accomplished by a socially-awkward 18th century scottish philosopher who wrote only two books his whole life which is hardly enough to get a full professorship at an american university these days. [laughter] so this suggests something of a puzzle, who really is this person, adam smith? what were these momentous ideas, good or bad? how can a person in an obscure profession, place and time have wrought such tremendous effect on the world? well, there's been, as one might expect, quite a range of writing on adam smith from all manner of perspectives, and for full disclosure, i myself have contributed to that. and smith has, indeed, been appropriated by many people including entire academic disciplines, by political parties, by schools of economics, by moral agendas all to serve their own purposes. so it can make one wonder, reasonably, whether one might get a true measure of the man. where c

reading list for you from historians and regular newshour guests richard norton smith and ellen fitzpatrick. plus jeffrey brown talks about the art of sound in the movies with richard king, nominated for an oscar for the movie "inception." all that and more is on our web site, newshour.pbs.org. jeff? >> brown: and that's the newshour for tonight. on tuesday, we'll look at the muslim brotherhood's role in a post-mubarak egypt. i'm jeffrey brown. >> woodruff: and i'm judy woodruff. we'll see you online, and again here tomorrow evening. thank you, and good night. major funding for the pbs newshour has been provided by: >> oil companies make huge profits. >> last year, chevron made a lot of money. >> whe does it go? >> every penny and more went into bringing energy to the world. >> the economy is tough right now, everywhere. >> we pumped $21 million into local economies, into small businesses, communities, equipment, materials. >> that money could make a big difference to a lot of people. >> moving our economy for 160 years. bnsf railway, the engine that connects ut. pacific life-- the power to help you succ

jeffrey brown has our conversation. >> brown: in february, 2008, 77-year-old raymond smith was admitted to the hospital with pneumonia. a week later, he died of a secondary infection, leaving his wife, the writer joyce carol oates, alone after 48 years of marriage. she's written of her husband's death in the aftermath in the new memoir titled "a widow's story." joyce carol oates is a much-honored author of more than 50 novels, short story collections, plays, essays, and more and a professor at princeton university. she joins me now. welcome to you. >> thank you. >> brown: were you compelled to write this after or later? >> i think i was compelled, that's probably a good word, to write down my experiences, my emotions each day beginning with the hospitalization. i keep a journal anyway and so late at night when i couldn't sleep i would just be jotting down what had happened that day. so the memoir has this breathless quality of things unfolding and that's the way it actually was in my life. >> brown: and what were you wanting it to convey? i've seen you describe it as almost a practical guide, in a way. is it for you o