Free Forum with Terrence McNally
637 episodes - English - Latest episode: 25 days ago - ★★★★★ - 28 ratingsFeatures conversations with people who offer pieces of the puzzle of “a world that just might work” -- provocative approaches to business, environment, health, science, politics, media and culture. Guests have included Michael Lewis, Ken Burns, Arianna Huffington, Paul Krugman, Temple Grandin, Bill Maher, Cornel West, Doris Kearns Goodwin, and Norman Lear. [http://terrencemcnally.net]
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Episodes
Q&A:: Michael Pollan, Professor and Author
February 12, 2008 22:04 - 27 minutes - 25.3 MBMichael Pollan is a professor of journalism at the University of California, Berkeley, where he is also director of the Knight Program in Science and Environmental Journalism. Pollan is a contributing writer for the New York Times Magazine, a former executive editor for Harper's Magazine, and author of five books: In Defense of Food: An Eater's Manifesto (2008) The Omnivore's Dilemma: A Natural History of Four Meals (2006), The Botany of Desire: A Plant's-Eye View of the World (2001...
Q&A:: Lester Brown, Author
February 08, 2008 20:55 - 23 minutes - 13.6 MBLESTER BROWN has been described by the Washington Post as "one of the world's most influential thinkers." After working with the Department of Agriculture in international agricultural development, Brown helped establish the Overseas Development Council, then founded the Worldwatch Institute, which has played an important role in the public's understanding of trends in our global environment with its annual State of the World report and later the annual Vital Signs In 2001, he left ...
Q&A: Steven Clemons, Blogger
February 06, 2008 03:21 - 16 minutes - 9.67 MBSteven Clemons is is the publisher of the popular political blog; www.thewashingtonnote.com, and a former staff member of Senator Jeff Bingaman. Clemons is also Director of the American Strategy Program at the New America Foundation, and the former director of the Japan Policy Research Institute. He characterizes himself as a "progressive realist."
Q&A: Thomas Hayden, Author, Activist and Politician
February 06, 2008 01:52 - 15 minutes - 8.93 MBThomas Hayden is an American social and political activist and politician, most famous for his involvement in the anti-war and civil rights movements of the 1960s. Hayden serves as a member of the advisory board for the Progressive Democrats of America, an influential "grass roots" organization created to expand “progressive” political cooperation within the Democratic Party. Enjoy the conversation as Terrence and Tom talk about the 2008 election, Barack Obama and Super Tuesday! ...
Q&A: MUHAMMAD YUNUS, Author
January 18, 2008 17:27 - 26 minutes - 15.3 MBMUHAMMAD YUNUS, Nobel Peace Prizewinner, pioneer of micro-credit author, BANKER TO THE POOR, and his newest, CREATING A WORLD WITHOUT POVERTY As founder of Grameen Bank, YUNUS pioneered microcredit, the innovative banking program that provides poor people--mainly women--with small loans they use to launch businesses and lift their families out of poverty. In the past thirty years, microcredit has spread to every continent and benefited over 100 million families. But YUNUS remained ...
Q&A: LYNNE McTAGGART, Journalist and author
January 01, 2008 21:52 - 25 minutes - 14.8 MBJournalist and author LYNNE McTAGGART's research on THE FIELD included meetings with top frontier scientists in Russia, Germany, France, England, South American, Central America and the USA. During these meetings, she saw that what these scientists were working on seemed to overthrow the current laws of biology, chemistry and physics. Their theories and experiments also compounded into a new science, a new view of the world. Lynne concludes that her research paints a picture of an in...
JODIE EVANS Co-founder, CODE PINK & ANNIE LEONARD creator of a powerful online video, THE STORY OF STUFF
December 19, 2007 22:59 - 13 minutes - 14.1 MBJODIE EVANS, Co-founder, CODE PINK: Women for Peace They're launching www.dontbuybushswar.org on the anniversary of the Boston Tea Party. When Ralph Waldo Emerson visited Thoreau in jail, he asked the author of Walden, "Henry, what are doing in there?" Thoreau responded, "Ralph, what are you doing out there?" Our statement is not against taxation or government. Many of us will continue to pay a portion of our taxes that support the vital functions of government. But we will hold in ...
JOSEPH CIRINCIONE: VP for National Security, Center for American Progress & CHEF ANN COOPER: Director of Nutrition Svs, Berkeley CA Unified School District
December 11, 2007 22:12 - 25 minutes - 14.4 MBWhen no WMD could be been found in Iraq, several members of the Bush administration justified the imminent preemptive invasion because we could “not afford for the smoking gun come in the form of a mushroom cloud.” Turns out Saddam had no bomb, probably no bomb program. We've heard consistent fear-mongering from a Bush administration that appears eager to attack Iran. Bush himself recently linked Iran to WWIII! Now comes word from the National Intelligence Estimate that Iran halted ...
ADRIAN LEVY and CATHERINE SCOTT-CLARK
November 26, 2007 19:14 - 24 minutes - 14.1 MBADRIAN LEVY and CATHERINE SCOTT-CLARK are award-winning investigative journalists who worked as staff writers and foreign correspondents for the Sunday Times of London for 7 years before joining the Guardian as senior correspondents. They are the authors of The Amber Room: The Fate of the World's Greatest Lost Treasure and The Stone of Heaven: Unearthing the Secret History of Imperial Green Jade, and their newest, DECEPTION: Pakistan, the US, and the Secret Trade in Nuclear Weapons. ...
Q&A: TOM HAYDEN & BARBARA BECNEL
November 15, 2007 20:30 - 22 minutes - 13.1 MBOver 25,000 young people have died in America's gang wars since 1980 - a bit less than half the number of soldiers who lost their lives in Vietnam. In cities across America current and former gang-members are like traumatized war veterans with no way home. Tom Hayden's book STREET WARS indicts the domestic law and order politics that dominate current policy and suffocate inner city youth. It has been almost two years since Stanley Tookie Williams was executed after being denied clem...
Q&A: Phil Donahue
November 06, 2007 23:19 - 27 minutes - 15.6 MBPHIL DONAHUE pioneered the modern television talk show. DONAHUE ran for 29 years and used its time to explore and debate issues that mattered to its audiences. Despite being one of MSNBC's highest rated programs, Donahue's brief return to television was cancelled in February 2003. A leaked internal NBC memo statede that Donahue had to be fired because he would be a "difficult public face for NBC in a time of war”. Now PHIL DONAHUE has collaborated with veteran documentary filmmaker ...
MILENA KANEVA Producer/Director, TOTAL DENIAL & KATIE REDFORD, Director, EarthRights International
November 02, 2007 17:17 - 25 minutes - 14.4 MBTOTAL DENIAL documents abuses of Burmese villagers caused by the Yadana pipeline. Milena Kaneva's “guide” during this journey is Ka Hsaw Wa, one of the leaders of the student movement for democracy in Burma in 1988, who hid in the jungle for more than seven years. Wanted by the police in both Burma and Thailand, Ka Hsaw Wa gathered the evidence of thousands of victims of human rights and environmental abuses. In 1992, two Western oil companies - French TOTAL and UNOCAL, then based ...
Q&A: Robert Bernard Reich
October 18, 2007 18:51 - 25 minutes - 14.8 MBRobert Reich was secretary of labor in the Clinton administration and now teaches public policy at the University of California at Berkeley. He delivers weekly commentaries on public radio's Marketplace, and he blogs at RobertReich.blogspot.com. In his book Supercapitalism, economist Robert Reich looks at the divided mind of the consumer and citizen.
Q&A: Bjørn Lomborg, Author
October 18, 2007 18:30 - 26 minutes - 18.5 MBAired 12/26/10 Bjørn Lomborg: Author - The Skeptical Environmentalist and Cool It One of the world's 100 most influential people - Time Magazine, 2004 14th most influential academic in the world - Foreign Policy and Prospect magazine, 2005. 'Young Global Leader' - World Economic Forum 2005 Former director - Denmark's Environmental Assessment Institute Director - Copenhagen Consensus Center Adjunct Professor - Copenhagen Business School http://www.lomborg.com/
Q&A: Charles Ferguson, Filmmaker
September 29, 2007 20:36 - 24 minutes - 13.9 MBIn 1996, Charles Ferguson sold the startup company he founded to Microsoft for $133 million. He was 41, had $14 million worth of growing Microsoft stock in his pocket after paying off investors - and was thoroughly exhausted after barely sleeping the previous year. Then for the next eight years, he wrestled with the question that relatively young entrepreneurs rarely consider until they hit it big. In 2004, Ferguson told several journalist friends and some contacts in the film i...
Q&A: Kenny Ausube, Entrepreneur, Author, Journalist and Filmmaker
September 29, 2007 07:28 - 26 minutes - 15.2 MBKenny Ausubel is an award-winning social entrepreneur, author, journalist and filmmaker. He is the founder and co-executive directions of Bioneers, a nationally recognized nonprofit dedicated to disseminating practical and visionary solutions for restoring Earth’s imperiled ecosystems and healing our human communities. He launched the annual Bioneers Conference in 1990 with his producing partner and wife Nina Simons, Bioneers co-executive director. The Conference attracts over ...
Q&A: Rafe Esquith, Award Winning Teacher and Author
September 29, 2007 05:50 - 14 minutes - 15.6 MBRafe Esquith is an American teacher at Hobart Boulevard Elementary School, the second-largest elementary school in the United States, located in Los Angeles, California. A graduate of UCLA, Esquith began teaching in 1981. His teaching honors include the 1992 Disney National Outstanding Teacher of the Year Award, a Sigma Beta Delta Fellowship from Johns Hopkins University, Oprah Winfrey’s $100,000 Use Your Life Award, Parents Magazine’s As You Grow Award, National Medal of Arts, and...
Q&A: Drew Westen, Professor and Author
September 29, 2007 05:37 - 24 minutes - 14 MBDrew Westen is Professor in the Departments of Psychology and Psychiatry at Emory University in Atlanta, Georgia. He received his undergraduate degree from Harvard University, an M.A. in Social and Political Thought from the University of Sussex (England), and a Ph.D. in Clinical Psychology from the University of Michigan, where he taught introductory psychology for several years. In January 2006 a group of scientists led by Drew Westen announced at the annual Society for Personal...
Q&A: Drew Westen, Professor and Author
September 29, 2007 05:37 - 26 minutes - 14 MBDrew Westen is Professor in the Departments of Psychology and Psychiatry at Emory University in Atlanta, Georgia. He received his undergraduate degree from Harvard University, an M.A. in Social and Political Thought from the University of Sussex (England), and a Ph.D. in Clinical Psychology from the University of Michigan, where he taught introductory psychology for several years. In January 2006 a group of scientists led by Drew Westen announced at the annual Society for Personality and ...
Q&A: Robert H. Frank, Professor, Columnist, and Author
September 29, 2007 05:19 - 27 minutes - 15.7 MBProfessor Robert H. Frank is the Henrietta Johnson Louis Professor of Management Professor of Economics at Cornell University's S.C. Johnson Graduate School of Management. He is a monthly contributor to the "Economic Scene" column in The New York Times. Until 2001, he was the Goldwin Smith Professor of Economics, Ethics, and Public Policy in Cornell's College of Arts and Sciences at Cornell University. He has also served as a Peace Corps volunteer in rural Nepal, chief economist for...
Q&A: Stephen Duncombe, Author, Activist and Professor
September 29, 2007 05:05 - 26 minutes - 15.2 MBStephen Duncombe is a long-time activist and a professor of at the Gallatin School at New York University. His new book Dream: Re-imagining Progressive Politics in an Age of Fantasy urges progressives to tap into popular fantasies and desires and to develop a politics that imagines and embodies a better world rather than simply "speaking truth." To clarify his point, he enlists a wildly eclectic group -- everything from Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas and Las Vegas to Cindy Sheeh...
Q&A: Deborah Tannen, Author and Professor of Linguistics
September 27, 2007 21:37 - 25 minutes - 14.4 MBDeborah Frances Tannen is an American professor of linguistics at Georgetown University. Although she has lectured worldwide in her field, and written or edited numerous academic publications on linguistics and interpersonal communication, she is best known for her general-audience books on interpersonal communication and public discourse. She became well-known in the United States after her book You Just Don't Understand - Women and Men in Conversation was published in 1990. It w...
Q&A: Helen Caldicott, Physician and Anti-Nuclear Advocate
September 27, 2007 19:57 - 22 minutes - 12.8 MBHelen Caldicott is an Australian physician and anti-nuclear advocate who has founded several associations dedicated to opposing nuclear weapons, nuclear weapons proliferation, war and military action in general, particularly the use of depleted Uranium munitions, most notably nuclear energy in recent years, Uranium mining and nuclear technology in general.
Q&A: George Monbiot, Journalist and Author
September 27, 2007 19:01 - 24 minutes - 14.1 MBGeorge Monbiot is a journalist, author, academic and environmental and political activist in the United Kingdom who writes a weekly column for The Guardian newspaper. He is on the advisory board of BBC Wildlife magazine. Monbiot’s most recent book, Heat: How to Stop the Planet Burning, published in 2006, focuses on the issue of climate change. In this book, Monbiot argues that a 90% reduction in carbon emissions is necessary in developed countries in order to prevent disastrous chan...
Q&A: Niall Ferguson, Author
September 27, 2007 17:51 - 24 minutes - 14 MBThis interview was recorded on Ferguson's recent trip to Los Angeles - before the election and before the resignation of Donald Rumsfeld, so neither of these big stories will be mentioned. Ferguson is more conservative than my usual guest. The first two thirds deal with his views of the 20th century and their implications for our present moment. In the final third I confront his early support for the US invasion of Iraq.
Q&A: Richard Heinberg, Author
September 26, 2007 20:13 - 56 minutes - 32.2 MB"The Party's Over," Richard Heinberg places this momentous transition in historical context, showing how industrialism arose from the harnessing of fossil fuels, how competition to control access to oil shaped the geopolitics of the 20th century, and how contention for dwindling energy resources in the 21st century will lead to resource wars in the Middle East, Central Asia, and South America. He describes the likely impacts of oil depletion, and all of the energy alternatives. Pre...
Q&A: Paul Rieckhoff, Executive Director of Iraq and Afghanistan Veterans of America
September 24, 2007 19:31 - 22 minutes - 13 MBPaul Rieckhoff founded and is Executive Director of Iraq and Afghanistan Veterans of America (IAVA). A non-partisan non-profit founded in 2004 with tens of thousands of members in all 50 US states, IAVA is America’s first and largest Iraq and Afghanistan veterans' group. Rieckhoff’s first book, a critically acclaimed account of his experiences in Iraq and activism afterwards, titled Chasing Ghosts, was published by Penguin in May 2006 (paperback to be published May 2007). While the...
Q&A: Bill McKibben, Author
September 23, 2007 05:42 - 24 minutes - 5.63 MBThe bestselling author of The End of Nature issues an impassioned call to arms for an economy that creates community and ennobles our lives. In this powerful and provocative manifesto, Bill McKibben offers the biggest challenge in a generation to the prevailing view of our economy. For the first time in human history, he observes, "more" is no longer synonymous with "better"—indeed, for many of us, they have become almost opposites. McKibben puts forward a new way to think about the...
Q&A: Walter Isaacson, Author
September 21, 2007 20:30 - 25 minutes - 5.83 MBWalter Isaacson is the President and CEO of the Aspen Institute. He has been the Chairman and CEO of CNN and the Managing Editor of TIME. He is the author of Benjamin Franklin: An American Life (2003) and of Kissinger: A Biography (1992), and is the co-author, with Evan Thomas, of The Wise Men: Six Friends and the World They Made (1986). His biography of Albert Einstein, Einstein: His Life and Universe, was published by Simon & Schuster in April 2007. In 2007, he became a columnist f...
Q&A: Chris Anderson, Author
September 21, 2007 07:23 - 25 minutes - 5.83 MBChris Anderson is editor-in-chief of Wired Magazine, which has won a National Magazine Award under his tenure. He coined the phrase The Long Tail in an acclaimed Wired article, which he expanded upon in the book The Long Tail: Why the Future of Business Is Selling Less of More (2006). He currently lives in Berkeley, California with his wife and five young children. He is the Chairman of a new startup, www.BookTour.com Before joining Wired in 2001, he worked at The Economist, where ...
Q&A: Arianna Huffington, Author and Syndicated Columnist
September 21, 2007 05:58 - 27 minutes - 6.38 MBShe's moved from Greece to America, from the east coast to the west coast, from the political right to the independent left. Arianna Huffington writes about how to move on in her new book: On Becoming Fearless. Huffington describes herself as a "former right-winger who has evolved into a compassionate and progressive populist". She is the founder of The Huffington Post . www.huffingtonpost.com Huffington is co-host of the nationally syndicated public radio program Left, Right & Ce...
Q&A: Jerome Armstrong and Markos Moulitsas Zúniga
September 21, 2007 04:29 - 26 minutes - 6.02 MBCrashing the Gate is a shot across the bow at the political establishment in Washington, DC and a call to re-democratize politics in America. Written by two of the most popular political bloggers in America Markos Moulitsas Zúniga served in the U.S. Army for three years and later earned two bachelors degrees from Northern Illinois University and a law degree from Boston University. After moving to California to work in the tech industry, Markos started www.DailyKos.com (2002) Je...
Q&A: Dr. Andrew Weil
September 16, 2007 19:59 - 54 minutes - 12.4 MBDr. Andrew Weil discusses Integrative Medicine, a new vision of health and health care and how environmental issues and public policy affect our health and well being. http://www.drweil.com
Q&A: Frank Rich, N.Y. Times Columnist and Author
September 14, 2007 17:11 - 26 minutes - 5.97 MBNew York Times columnist Frank Rich reviews the trajectory of fictions spun by the Bush administration from 9/11 to Hurricane Katrina, revealing the most brilliant spin campaign ever conducted.
Q&A: Greg Palast, Journalist and Author
September 13, 2007 22:10 - 20 minutes - 4.72 MBGregory Palast is a New York Times-bestselling author and a journalist for the British Broadcasting Corporation as well as the British newspaper The Observer. His work frequently focuses on corporate malfeasance but has also been known to work with labor unions and consumer advocacy groups. Notably, he has claimed to have uncovered evidence that Florida Governor Jeb Bush, Florida Secretary of State Katherine Harris, and Florida Elections Unit Chief Clay Roberts, along with the Choi...
Q&A: Richard Dawkins
September 13, 2007 20:25 - 50 minutes - 11.5 MBRichard Dawkins is an outspoken atheist, secular humanist, and sceptic, and he is a supporter of the Brights movement. While Europe is secularized, the rise of religious fundamentalism, whether in the Middle East or Middle America, divides opinion around the world. This work attacks God in various forms, from the sex-obsessed, cruel tyrant of the Old Testament to the more benign, but still illogical, Celestial Watchmaker favoured by some Enlightenment thinkers.