Free Forum with Terrence McNally
637 episodes - English - Latest episode: 26 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
Episode 489: NEW-Sisters Constance Touey & Jeannette Lucey - DO IT BETTER: How the Kids of St. Francis de Sales Exceeded Everyone’s Expectations
December 26, 2020 00:00 - 59 minutes - 41.2 MBToo often when we read about immigrant children, they are being torn from their parents’ arms or blamed for lawlessness. Sisters Constance Touey and Jeannette Lucey met in 1984 when they were both assigned to a parish K-8 school in inner city Philadelphia. In DO IT BETTER: How the Kids of St. Francis de Sales Exceeded Everyone’s Expectations, they tell the remarkable stories of their as principal and 8th grade teacher as they worked to educate and transform the lives of wave after wa...
Episode 488: SAM MYERS, PLANETARY HEALTH: Protecting Nature to Protect Ourselves - Exhibit A: the pandemic
December 17, 2020 00:00 - 1 hour - 41.6 MBPlanetary health is by definition big picture, but it’s made immediate by the pandemic. I see our environmental goals as an effective reckoning with climate change and a healthy relationship with the rest of nature. I’ll talk about that relationship with SAM MYERS, Research Scientist at Harvard’s Chan School of Public Health and the Founding Director of the Planetary Health Alliance (planetaryhealthalliance.org). Myers is one of the editors of PLANETARY HEALTH: Protecting Nature to ...
Episode 487: REBECCA HENDERSON, REIMAGINING CAPITALISM In a World on Fire
December 03, 2020 00:00 - 1 hour - 41.2 MBToday we face several crises that have either grown out of the distortion of our economy and our politics or are unsolvable because of them – including inequality, climate change, social division, crippled government, and endangered democracy. In her book, REIMAGINING CAPITALISM, REBECCA HENDERSON calls for us to abandon two ideas from the 1970s at the root of our troubles: First, that business should dominate politics and write its own rules; and second, that the sole purpose of cor...
ELIE MYSTAL of The Nation on Trump’s legal options, How Biden reverses Trump’s orders, and the Supreme Court
November 18, 2020 00:00 - 1 hour - 41.3 MBI talk with ELIE MYSTAL, Justice Correspondent at The Nation magazine. We look through a legal lens at Trump’s fraud claims and his obstruction of an effective transition, at the question of what it will take for Biden to reverse Trump’s executive orders and rules, and finally we talk about the Supreme Court. You can learn more at thenation.com
MILTON BENNETT-The Cult of Trump -72M Americans voted for four more years
November 13, 2020 00:00 - 59 minutes - 41.2 MBMore than 72 million Americans voted for Donald Trump. 72 million voted for his incompetence, racism, ignorance, cruelty, criminality, and for his disastrous handling of the pandemic. Here’s my 2018 conversation with MILTON BENNETT, an expert on culting behavior. He spells out the methods Trump uses – consciously or unconsciously - to turn his followers into a cult, impervious to contrary influence and united in defense of their aims and their leader.
ROB JOHNSON-Relief - but no congratulations. Dems must be bolder.
November 06, 2020 00:00 - 1 hour - 41.6 MBIt lookls as if Joe Biden will win a very tight electoral college victory against arguably the worst president in history in the midst of a deadly pandemic and crippled economy the incumbent has bungled disastrously. How could this election even be close? ROB JOHNSON, Executive Director of the Institute for New Economic Thinking (INET), and I talk about how we got here and what it’s going to take to move forward. As long as both parties depend on Wall Street and the 1% for funding, o...
CHICAGO CONSPIRACY TRIAL - JON WIENER -What does it have to tell us?
October 23, 2020 00:00 - 58 minutes - 40.3 MBJON WIENER'S 2006 book, Conspiracy in the Streets: the Extraordinary Trial of the Chicago Eight has been re-released to sync with release of the film, The Trial of the Chicago Seven. Written and directed by Aaron Sorkin, its ensemble includes Sacha Baron Cohen as Abbie Hoffman, Eddie Redmayne as Tom Hayden, and Frank Langella as Judge Julius Hoffman. Jon and I will talk about the film. We'll talk about the Trial. We'll talk about the attitudes and excesses of Mayor Daley and the Nixo...
BILLY WIMSATT, Movement Voter Project (2018) - Invest in the grassroots to win elections and make change.
October 17, 2020 00:00 - 1 hour - 41.2 MBIt’s a little over 3 weeks till the final day to turn in your ballot. Here’s my 2018 conversation with BILLY WIMSATT, founder and executive director of Movement Voter Project, one of the most effective election fundraising organizations I know of. In a clear break from the beltway strategy of big donors, big consultants, and big TV ad buys, MVP helps progressive donors move their money instead to the best local community-based organizations in battleground states. Money invested in t...
ALEX KEYSSAR-Why Do We Still Have the Electoral College?
October 08, 2020 00:00 - 1 hour - 50.5 MBThe US hold only one national popular vote – for President and Vice President – and The Republican party has won that national vote only once since 1988, that’s 32 years. Yet they've held the presidency 12 of those years. Under the two most recent popular vote losers / electoral college winners, we’ve suffered 9/11, wars in Afghanistan and Iraq, the 2008 recession, the monstrously failed response to the pandemic, and a devastated economy. I believe that minority rule sickens democra...
JON WIENER, Set the Night on Fire: L.A. in the Sixties
September 24, 2020 00:00 - 56 minutes - 77.1 MBEven folks who live here, as I have since 1975, may have little idea of the central role Los Angeles played in the culture and politics of the 1960s. Too often LA is portrayed as surfing, Hollywood, and gogo dancing - think Gidget, Beach Boys, 77 Sunset Strip. Wiener and co-author, Mike Davis (City of Quartz) offer a “movement history” featuring early Black Power, the Watts uprising, the Chicano Moratorium, and LA’s star turn as a locus of the anti-war, gay lib, and women’s movements...
Rec. JAN 28, 2017-MARK HERTSGAARD, RICHARD ESKOW, DREW DELLINGER-the Week Trump Took Office
September 17, 2020 00:00 - 1 hour - 41.5 MBIt’s now less than 50 days from what we usually call election day. This year we call it the day the polls close. On January 28th 2017 the week Trump took officee I recorded this conversation with Mark Hertsgaard of The Nation, Richard Eskow of The Zero Hour, and Drew Dellinger of Planetize the Movement. Here’s what I wrote then: "Friday Donald Trump was inaugurated with dark talk of American carnage, and Saturday over 600 marches in every state and 66 countries drew millions with a d...
ROBERT FRANK, best-selling economist - UNDER THE INFLUENCE: Putting Peer Pressure to Work
September 11, 2020 00:00 - 59 minutes - 82.3 MBWe often think social contagion yields negative consequences - teens smoke because other teens smoke, for example. However, in his latest book, UNDER THE INFLUENCE: Putting Peer Pressure to Work, ROBERT FRANK makes the optimistic case that the economics of social contagion could solve our most critical problems — from climate change to income inequality – as well as the Covid-19 pandemic. There’s evidence: As VOX’s Ezra Klein points out, in the face of the coronavirus, "social pressu...
DAVID KIRP, author, KIDS FIRST - We know innovative programs that work - whether kids are in school or not
September 03, 2020 00:00 - 1 hour - 41.3 MBIn a normal year, children would to be starting back to school. This year, some will, some won’t, and parents, teachers, and school systems all face tough choices. What do know about what works to help kids whether they’re in school or not? Here’s my 2019 conversation with DAVID KIRP, Professor at UC Berkeley. His books include THE SANDBOX INVESTMENT and KIDS FIRST, and we talk about innovative programs that make a big difference in kids’ lives and deserve to be invested in and expan...
ELIE MYSTAL of The Nation on Racial Justice and the Trump-Barr Assault on Rule of Law
August 27, 2020 00:00 - 59 minutes - 40.9 MBThe Trump-Barr Justice Department is actively working for the President and his election campaign. The militarization of local police over the past decade mixed with a population that owns a lot of guns and a culture of systemic racism and anti-immigrant passion has produced a dangerous brew. I talk with ELIE MYSTAL, justice correspondent at The Nation magazine about the movement for racial justice and the Trump-Barr assault on the constitution and the rule of law. You can learn mor...
PAUL HOWARD, director, INFINITE POTENTIAL: Life & Ideas of DAVID BOHM
August 21, 2020 00:00 - 59 minutes - 41 MBWho is DAVID BOHM? A physicist who reconciled Einstein’s theory of general relativity and Neils Bohr’s quantum theory. A seeker whose scientific insight of implicate order and cosmic wholeness echoes the consciousness of oneness in Eastern philosophy. Welcome when a virus has forced us to acknowledge our shared vulnerability I talk with PAUL HOWARD, Producer/director of the new documentary, INFINITE POTENTIAL: The Life and Ideas of DAVID BOHM. You can learn more and watch the traile...
JEAN GUERRERO, author, HATEMONGER: Stephen Miller, Donald Trump, and the White Nationalist Agenda
August 15, 2020 00:00 - 59 minutes - 81.1 MBWho is Stephen Miller? Though officially chief speechwriter, he's also the architect of the Trump administration’s anti-immigrant policies - travel bans, family separations, refugees in cages during a pandemic. How did he achieve such power so soon? How did the anger and resentment of a young nerd in the early 2000s end up twisting the ideals of a nation and fueling the suffering of thousands of vulnerable people he will never meet? I talk with investigative reporter JEAN GUERRERO ab...
CHUCK COLLINS-Inequality is only getting worse during pandemic
July 31, 2020 00:00 - 1 hour - 41.2 MBInequality is getting worse. Most of us know that the Covid-19 pandemic has devastated the US economy. Between March 18 and June 25, over 46 million people filed for unemployment. In that same period, however, U.S. billionaire wealth surged over $600 billion. At least eight billionaires have seen their wealth grow by more than $1 billion this year. I talk about this with CHUCK COLLINS, who directs the Program on Inequality and the Common Good at the Institute for Policy Studies and c...
JODIE EVANS (2017) co-founder CodePink, where activism never stops
July 25, 2020 00:00 - 1 hour - 82.4 MBAt a moment when Black Lives Matter protests - the largest, most sustained mass demonstrations in US history - are still taking place and Donald Trump is sending federal secret police to incite disorder in Portland, here’s my 2017 conversation with JODIE EVANS. A tireless activist, advocate, and communicator for peace, justice and the planet, this interview was recorded as Code Pink, one of the organizations Evans founded, was celebrating its 15th birthday.
GREG PALAST-You’ve been warned-HOW TRUMP STOLE 2020 ELECTION
July 16, 2020 00:00 - 59 minutes - 81.3 MBElection Day is less than four months away. Between closing poll sites, purging voter rolls, manipulating voting machines, and putting obstacles in the way of voting by mail, the Trump administation and many state governments want to keep you from voting. Investigative reporter GREG PALAST has been working this beat since 2000. His latest book is a warning: HOW TRUMP STOLE 2020: The Hunt For America’s Vanished Voters. What are they up to and how can we foil them?
MARCIA COYLE on THE ROBERTS COURT (2013) - What shoiuld we expect with Roberts the new swing vote?
July 09, 2020 00:00 - 58 minutes - 40.2 MBThe Supreme Court is in the news – issuing surprising rulings on the Dreamers and abortion access in Louisiana, but predictable ones limiting absentee voting in Texas and okaying the denial of contraception coverage based on employers’ religious beliefs. Chief Justice Roberts seems to be the new swing vote, so what should we expect? Let’s listen to my 2013 conversation with MARCIA COYLE on her book THE ROBERTS COURT: The Struggle for the Constitution. By the way, Coyle confirms my be...
ROBERT JAY LIFTON-LOSING REALITY-Trump, Fox, & Online BS v Pandemic & George Floyd’s death
July 02, 2020 00:00 - 1 hour - 41.3 MBPsychiatrist and author ROBERT JAY LIFTON has spent a lifetime not turning away from our dark side: writing about Hiroshima survivors, Nazi doctors, and the Japanese cult that released sarin gas in Tokyo’s subways. Now 93, he finds the darkness closer to home. He wrote the foreword to The Dangerous Case of Donald Trump: 27 Psychiatrists and Mental Experts Assess a President, and his latest book is LOSING REALITY: On Cults, Cultism, and the Mindset of Political and Religious Zealotry. How c...
CONNIE RICE-Decades fighting to change the LAPD-POWER CONCEDES NOTHING
June 26, 2020 00:00 - 59 minutes - 40.9 MB“We're still fighting the last battles of the Civil War," according to attorney CONNIE RICE in a recent interview. Rice has for decades been doing the hard work of police reform. She believes, “There's a war within American policing … Does it continue to go with the policing that descended from slavery, which is containment suppression? Or do they go toward community healing, wraparound safety, public health policing — which doesn't even promote cops for making arrests?” Here’s my 20...
MOVEMENT VOTER PROJECT-Funding the grassroots wins elections + makes change-ELIZABETH FERNANDEZ
June 18, 2020 00:00 - 57 minutes - 39.3 MBELIZABETH FERNANDEZ has worked on voter education and GOTV campaigns, helping to register thousands of new voters. She’s now Communications Director of MOVEMENT VOTER PROJECT, which offers a clear break from failed electoral strategies of big donors, big consultants, and big TV ad buys. MVP helps donors move their money to the best local community-based organizations in key states, who are alive on the ground 365 days a year, election or not. In 2018, they moved more than $13M to 350...
ERICA CHENOWETH-Protest - What Really Works Best - Violence or Non-Violence?
June 13, 2020 00:00 - 1 hour - 41.2 MB2019 was marked by mass demonstrations around the globe. That ended with the pandemic. until millions witnessed George Floyd’s death. For more than two weeks crowds have risked their health to protest police brutality in all 50 states. People argue whether violent or non-violent protest works best. ERICA CHENOWETH did the research. Listen to my 2019 conversation with her about her book WHY CIVIL RESISTANCE WORKS: The Strategic Logic of Nonviolent Conflict.
GEORGE PACKER, We Are Living in a Failed State
June 03, 2020 00:00 - 1 hour - 41.9 MBGEORGE PACKER’s recent essay in the Atlantic, We Are Living in a Failed State, was being quoted a lot - before George Floyd’s death and the ensuing days of rage. Packer is the author of 2013’s THE UNWINDING, which reported on a country growing vulnerable to a demagogue like Trump, and 2019’s Richard Holbrooke biography OUR MAN, just out in paperback. He’s a staff writer at The Atlantic and I reached out after reading two of his recent essays The President Is Winning His War on Americ...
ASTRA TAYLOR, What is Democracy? Is it alive and well?
May 20, 2020 00:00 - 59 minutes - 40.6 MBASTRA TAYLOR takes democracy seriously. In her documentary WHAT IS DEMOCRACY? and the companion book, Democracy May Not Exist, But We’ll Miss It When It’s Gone, she explores its early roots as well as its current embattled state. She reminds us that real democracy—fully inclusive and egalitarian—has never existed. Both ancient Athens and the original US were slave states. Can we restore rule of the people to the current American rule of the wealthy? Can democracy handle big challenge...
Inspiring ideas for troubling times-1) Fritjof Capra on Systems Thinking, 2) Stuart Kauffman, Reinventing the Sacred
May 16, 2020 00:00 - 1 hour - 41.2 MBIn these unsettling times, I turned to the archives for inspiring ideas about the meaning of life. First, my 2009 conversation with physicist FRITJOF CAPRA about one of my favorite books, The Turning Point. Written in 1981, it looks at many domains of human activity, and makes clear that we need to move toward a systems view of reality that sees everything as dynamic and interdependent. True to those themes, in the second half you’ll hear my 2008 conversation with MacArthur award-win...
CHARLOTTE ALTER - THE ONES WE’VE BEEN WAITING FOR - Millennials in office. Will a new generation change America?
May 05, 2020 00:00 - 59 minutes - 41 MBMillennials have already revolutionized technology, commerce and media. They’re responsible for our major social movements. And there are now 26 Millennials in Congress - five times as many as before the 2018 midterms. TIME magazine national correspondent CHARLOTTE ALTER (cover stories on Mayor Pete, AOC, and Person of the Year Greta Thunberg) examines how millennials have gained power so far — from City Hall to Congress. In her first book, THE ONES WE’VE BEEN WAITING FOR, she asks -...
What stories got us here? Conversation w/ JEREMY LENT, THE PATTERNING INSTINCT (2018)
May 02, 2020 00:00 - 1 hour - 41.2 MBIn The Patterning Instinct, JEREMY LENT brings together cultural history and neuroscience - a new discipline he calls cognitive history. Lent reminds us we see the world through stories. The right has dominated politics with a story of America that is false on many counts and based on a set of values that brings us to this moment when we cannot work together to save our lives. Can we come out the other side with a story of shared vulnerability, shared fate, and shared purpose? I thin...
ROBERT WRIGHT-Why are Americans divided as they confront a pandemic?
April 22, 2020 00:00 - 59 minutes - 41.1 MBThe American people usually come together when confronting huge challenges – think of WWII and the attacks of 9/11. But today, facing the global pandemic, we are divided – on nearly every aspect of the crisis. In NONZERO, ROBERT WRIGHT contends that evolution and history move us toward greater cooperation, collaboration, and win-win outcomes. We talk about why - though individuals act heroically - the nation remains tribalized.
ROBERT WRIGHT-Evolution of God-How God’s personality changed with ancient politics
April 18, 2020 00:00 - 1 hour - 41.2 MBROBERT WRIGHT takes on big questions, and in 2009’s THE EVOLUTION OF GOD, he shows how the concept of God in Judaism, Christianity and Islam has varied over time depending on the politics at play when their stories were told. When people see their interests threatened, this perception brings out the most belligerent parts of their religion. We explore how this might apply to Islamic terrorists and Evangelical Christians.
MARY O’HARA-The Shame Game-The narrative that tells people poverty is their own fault
April 07, 2020 00:00 - 58 minutes - 40.2 MBMARY O’HARA grew up in deep poverty in Belfast, Northern Ireland during the Troubles. In THE SHAME GAME, she fights to break the power of the narrative that excuses the cruel and unjust treatment of our most vulnerable. We talk about her own story and the stories of others who have begun to move past that narrative in their own lives, often through the power of reading and writing, the same pathways that O’Hara herself took. Inspiring.
ROBERT REICH-Once the pandemic is over and Trump is defeated, the system will still be broken.Who rigged it and how do we fix it?
March 26, 2020 00:00 - 1 hour - 42.1 MBBefore the pandemic, before Trump, millions of Americans had already lost confidence in our political and economic system. Stagnant wages, volatile job markets, an unwillingness to deal with threats like climate change, fed a sense that the system is fixed, and serves only those with enough money to buy power. ROBERT REICH and I talk about the pandemic and about his new book, THE SYSTEM: Who Rigged It and How Do We Fix It?
BRANKO MILANOVIC-Capitalism Rules the World-How do we shrink inequality?
March 21, 2020 00:00 - 1 hour - 82.7 MBIn Capitalism, Alone: The Future of the System That Rules the World, BRANKO MILANOVIC says we’re all capitalists now. Liberal capitalism delivers rampant inequality and capitalist excess as it fights for hearts and minds with political capitalism, as practiced by China. Milanovic asks - What are the prospects for a fairer world now that capitalism is the only game in town? And what can we do to make that more likely?
Podcast - DON INGBER-Learning from Nature -> Biotech Breakthroughs at Harvard’s Wyss Institute
March 13, 2020 00:00 - 1 hour - 41.2 MBOur bodies — and all living systems — accomplish tasks far more sophisticated and dynamic than any entity yet designed by humans. By emulating nature's principles, researchers at Harvard’s Wyss Institute for Biologically Inspired Engineering develop innovative engineering solutions for healthcare, energy, robotics, and more. Here’s my 2012 conversation with founding director, DON INGBER. I find the notion of learning from nature one of the most exciting developments in human activity...
Robert Greenwald - SUPPRESSED: The Fight to Vote - new documentary
March 07, 2020 00:00 - 59 minutes - 82.1 MBHow far would you travel to vote if your polling place closed? How much time would you spend before giving up? I talk with ROBERT GREENWALD of Brave New Films about his latest documentary SUPPRESSED: The Fight to Vote, which exposes voter suppression tactics and policies used in Georgia that could be deployed nationally in 2020. Polling place closures, voter purges, missing absentee ballots, extreme wait times, and a host of voter ID issues disproportionately prevented many students ...
DAVID FARIS High Time for the Dems to Fight Dirty (2018)
March 02, 2020 00:00 - 1 hour - 41.4 MBOn a national level and in many states, when politics and elections are played fair and square, Republicans lose. So they turn to gerrymandering, voter suppression, the refusal to act on Obama’s nomination of Merrick Garland to the Supreme Court, etc And it works. In this 2018 conversation, DAVID FARIS says “Enough.” We talk about the ideas in his book: IT’S TIME TO FIGHT DIRTY: How Democrats Can Build a Lasting Majority in American Politics.
Nick Kristof & Sheryl WuDunn-TIGHTROPE-Americans in Despair Reaching for Hope
February 22, 2020 00:00 - 1 hour - 41.3 MBIn TIGHTROPE, the Pulitzer Prize winning husband-wife team of Nick Kristof & Sheryl WuDunn tell the story of how the town in which Nick grew up was devastated by the loss of well-paying jobs, how policy failures on education, healthcare, and criminal justice led ultimately to his childhood friends’ deaths of despair, how this is a national phenomenon and finally how we can end this crisis in working class America.
STEPHAN SCHWARTZ-8 LAWS OF CHANGE: How to Be an Agent of Personal and Social Transformation
February 15, 2020 01:02 - 1 hour - 83.2 MBSince 1991 STEPHAN SCHWARTZ has been following trends shaping the future, and has tracked the rise of fascist and identitarian politics and the Theocratic Right. His new book 8 LAWS OF CHANGE: How to Be an Agent of Personal and Social Transformation, based on years of research, shows how nonviolent compassionate life-affirming change can be achieved. I've subscribed to his Schwartzreport email digest for years - 4 articles each day well worth reading.
AARON GLANTZ- HOMEWRECKERS: How Wall Street Suckered Millions Out of Their Homes and Put the American Dream Out of Reach
February 07, 2020 00:00 - 59 minutes - 82.1 MBIn Homewreckers, AARON GLANTZ tells how a group of Wall Street bankers and private equity — including Treasury Secretary Steve Mnuchin and Commerce Secretary Wilbur Ross, as well as Trump confidants and funders — transferred billions of dollars in wealth to themselves from millions of individual homeowners after the real estate crash of the Great Recession. Many of them are now working to weaken the safeguards put in place to prevent it from happening again.
Take a break-1) Roco Belic, Happy doc 2) Rafe Esquith, 5th Grade Shakespearians
February 01, 2020 00:00 - 52 minutes - 36.2 MBThe virus is spreading, Brexit looms, democracy in America is being abused. Let’s take a break this week. First, here’s my 2012 conversation with film director Roco Belic about his documentary, HAPPY. It features science and stories from around the world. What did he learn? What can we use? In the second half, you’ll hear my 2005 conversation with US teacher of the year Rafe Esquith, who taught fifth grade in LA for over thirty years, about the Hobart Shakepearians - members of his c...
ANDREW BACEVICH-How US Squandered Its Cold War Victory - Paving the Way for Trump
January 23, 2020 00:00 - 58 minutes - 39.8 MBIn his newest book, The Age of Illusions, ANDREW BACEVICH takes us from 1989’s seemingly ultimate victory in the Cold War to the current troubling and chaotic moment. He attempts to explain how we ended up with outsized inequality, permanent war, moral confusion, an increasingly angry and alienated population, and Donald Trump. We also talk about current events including the confrontation with Iran.
HEDRICK SMITH’s PBS doc THE DEMOCRACY REBELLION celebrates grassroots reform victories
January 09, 2020 06:45 - 1 hour - 82.4 MBI talk with HEDRICK SMITH, Pulitzer-winning former New York Times reporter and Emmy-winning producer/correspondent, about THE DEMOCRACY REBELLION, his PBS documentary on grassroots movements who are winning political reform victories, state by state. Six states, six successful campaigns take on Citizens United, gerrymandering, voter suppression, etc. Learn more at reclaimtheamericandream.org Check here for PBS airdates.
PAULA DANIELS-Transforming the American Food System One School District at a Time
December 28, 2019 00:00 - 1 hour - 41.2 MBI talk with PAULA DANIELS, Co-Founder, Chief of What’s Next, and Chair of the Board of the Center for Good Food Purchasing, about what it takes to pull together elements of politics, government, business, entrepreneurism, science, and more to move the needle on a huge and complex system. The Center uses the power of procurement to create a food system that prioritizes the health and well-being of people, animals, and the environment. As its’s goals and standards are adopted by a gro...
Who was Jesus? REZA ASLAN, Zealot: The Life & Times of Jesus of Nazareth
December 21, 2019 00:00 - 57 minutes - 39.7 MBI wish you and your loved ones a deeply renewing holiday season. This week, you’ll hear my 2014 conversation with Reza Aslan about his best-selling book, ZEALOT: The Life and Times of Jesus of Nazareth. He examines Jesus the man through the lens of the time and place in which he lived, first-century Palestine, and labels him a zealot – a radical political opponent of the Roman occupation. Since Jesus was crucified without overthrowing Roman rule, he is one of many "failed messiahs." ...
MICHAEL APTED, 63 UP - the unique documentary series 56 years in the making
December 12, 2019 00:00 - 53 minutes - 37 MBIn 1964, the original 7 UP - in which children talked about their hopes and dreams - was broadcast as a one-off special in the UK. Michael Apted (Coal Miner’s Daughter; Gorillas in the Mist), took over as director on 14 UP and has returned to interview these same 14 individuals every seven years since. Roger Ebert, A few months before his death, wrote of the series, “It is a mystery, this business of life. I can't think of any cinematic undertaking that allows us to realize that more...
How did we get here? HENRY LOUIS GATES, America Behind the Color Line (2004)
December 09, 2019 00:00 - 30 minutes - 20.8 MBHere's my conversation with Harvard professor Henry Louis Gates on his 2004 television project America Behind the Color Line. Since the late 60's, two distinct classes emerged within Black America: a Black middle class and what some argue is a self-perpetuating Black underclass. One glaring example: the percentage of black children in poverty was about the same as the day Martin Luther King was assassinated. Gates asks, how can we bridge this class divide?
How did we get here? PAUL KRUGMAN, The Great Unraveling (2003)
December 09, 2019 00:00 - 30 minutes - 20.6 MBHere's my 2003 conversation with Nobel-prize winning economist and New York Times columnist Paul Krugman on his book The Great Unraveling: Losing Our Way in the New Century. He was one of few in the mainstream media to accuse George Bush of lying to to sell a tax cut and a war. He saw in the Bush-Cheney administration a radical group that rejects the legitimacy of key elements of the system itself. Sound familiar?
60s.2.0 Meets OK Boomer - Necessary Allies
December 05, 2019 00:00 - 21 minutes - 14.9 MBMy 20-minute commentary calls for Millennials and Boomers with shared values to forge a movement large enough, creative enough, diverse enough, and powerful enough to successfully confront the critical problems we face. 60s.2.0 - 21st century tech in the service of the best of ‘60s values - meets OK Boomer - the impatience of the young with the failures of the old. “If the challenges we face are big enough to turn us against each other, then they must be big enough to bring us togeth...
LAWRENCE LESSIG-They’re Not Representing Us-and what we need to do about it
November 21, 2019 00:00 - 59 minutes - 81.6 MBIn his latest book, THEY DON’T REPRESENT US: Reclaiming Our Democracy, Harvard Law School professor LAWRENCE LESSIG points out big problems the U.S. is NOT solving, and adds, “The crisis in America is not its president. Its president is the consequence of a crisis much more fundamental…The core problem with our democracy today is that it is essentially unrepresentative. We should secure, finally, a representative democracy…let’s just try it for once… and see if things get better.” We...