Dennis Roddy talks with Sen. Edward M. Kennedy weeks before he was diagnosed with the cancer that would take his life.

As the federal budget gets under way, lawmakers will again seek earmarks -- all amid a widening scandal about the role of one lobbying firm, PMA Group, which landed millions for its clients and steered millions more into the coffers of power lawmakers. Dennis Roddy talks with Rep. Jeff Flake, R-Ariz., and John Murtha, D-Johnstown, about their very different theories on the art of the pet project.

From his perch as chairman of the defense appropriations subcommittee in Congress, U.S. Rep. John P. Murtha, D-Pa., has become the king of earmarked spending, sending billions into his western Pennsylvania district. Vilified by reformers, he is a hero at home. Dennis Roddy toured some of the plants he has funded and reports that one man's villain is another man's hero.

Allegheny County’s only remaining state hospital for people with mental illness closes tomorrow.

After 20 years of watching her confound logic by rising up the greasy pole of Pennsylvania politics, often with pundits and party regulars trying to pull her down, Dennis Roddy attended Catherine Baker Knoll's funeral and reflected on what made her the most popular vote-getter in the state's history. (Total time: 6:34.)

This edition of Dennis Roddy's Journal boards a Greyhound Bus in Pittsburgh headed to New York City in search of America (Total time 11:15)

Dennis Roddy's Journal returns this week with a report from the streets of Oakland, where Dennis spent a day following anti-war protesters around the streets, all the time attempting to get an answer to a question nobody can pin down: how can 200 people in the streets 300 miles away from Washington, end a war? Can a hunger strike stop an air strike? And why does that anarchist band sound like an Italian wedding?

Dennis Roddy spends Primary Day 2007 prowling his suburb trying to solve the season's top political mystery: Why does one of the candidates have just one name. Is it the first name? The last name? And why does the other candidate have three? Talk about failing to distribute the wealth. Follow him as he tells the story of Bonnie Van Kirk and her electoral opponent -- the mysterious Raja.

As the Primary Election neared, the "other" primary was being held in a courtroom in Pittsburgh. Politicians and their proxies jockeyed, maneuvered and petititoned to have their would-be opponents thrown off the ballot. Dennis Roddy spent two days chronicling the goings on that voters don't see, telling the stories of some candidates voters won't see on the ballot.

It's Valentine's Day, and Dennis Roddy thinks something should be done about it. The holiday demands we think of love, but with a little research at the local aquarium, a chat with a psychologist who specializes in vampires and a rummage through the old memory bank, our intrepid correspondent emerges with an audio warning. Love hurts.

Molly Jean Dilts was a chubby, 20-year-old high school dropout who scrapped and finagled and drank her way through a life that began in a used-up coal town and ended face down in a ditch on the edge of Atlantic City. Someone discarded her, along with three other women, in a brackish trough that runs between the cheap motels of the Blackhorse Pike and the new expressway that speeds big spenders to the luxury casinos of the Jersey Shore. Dennis Roddy presents the story of the girl in the ditch.

Mike Yates spent 32 years teaching economics. Six years ago he and his wife, Karen Korenoski, decided it was time to retire. They moved out of their Pittsburgh home, gave away everything but their clothes, car and Mike's pension, and hit the road. They worked at a lodge in Yellowstone. They prowled Manhattan. They roved from Portland to Miami. Everywhere they went, they tracked the widening gap between rich and poor. Now, Mike has put it together in a book, "Cheap Motels and a Hot Plate." Dennis Roddy, who has known Mike since 1972, helps them tell their story.

Dennis Roddy's podcast follows the journey of a family that became American -- and teaches a friend what it means to be one.