Jeff Schechtman's "Talk Cocktail"

"To discover to the world something which deeply concerns it, and of which it was previously ignorant; to prove to it that it had been mistaken on some vital point of temporal or spiritual interest, is as important a service as a human being can render to his fellow creatures..." John Stuart Mill, "On Liberty"

Saturday, May 29, 2021

With The American Experiment on the Precipice, It's Good To Know Our Shared Origin Story: A Conversation with Historian Patrick O'Donnell

As divided as we are today about the state of our current politics and the debate about facts, it seems that at least we should be able to a...

Monday, May 24, 2021

Why New York is New York

Many of our great cities are known for one or two things. Detroit certainly for the auto industry, San Francisco for the 60s and Tech. Houst...

Sunday, May 16, 2021

The Notorious Maxwells

We have a fascination with scoundrels. Especially if they are public figures. We love to build them up, to celebrate their success and then ...

Thursday, May 6, 2021

We Need Uniters, Not Dividers: A Conversation with Tim Shriver

One year ago fear stalked the world. That fear created a common bond. We celebrated those on the front lines who walked into danger, we wor...

Thursday, April 29, 2021

How the Rich Really Live and Why We All Should Care

Almost as wide as the wealth gap in America is the gap in the way we view wealth. We look at it as a monolithic thing. Yet part of the coun...

Sunday, April 25, 2021

A Time When Oscar Winning Movies Really Mattered: The Making of Midnight Cowboy

Great art, particularly movies at their best, reflect the times in which they were created. In 1968 political assination paralyzed the nati...

Wednesday, April 21, 2021

The Founding Mothers of NPR

Origin stories are usually part myth, part apocryphal and they often come to define the culture and sometimes the products of the companies...

Monday, April 19, 2021

Toxic Masculinity In An Oil Boomtown

The nature of work in America has changed. Good paying jobs in the manufacturing sector have been diluted, the service sector has exploded,...

Wednesday, April 7, 2021

Elon Musk IS Leading Us Into The Future

Someone once said that the best way to predict the future is to invent it. In many ways that’s been the story of scientific progress. It see...

Friday, April 2, 2021

Imagining the Next World War : 2034

There was once a time when we didn’t think a global pandemic was possible in the 21st century. The events of 9/11 took us by surprise as the...

Monday, March 29, 2021

Come Fly With Me: The World of The Pan Am Stewardess Before "Me Too"

Those of you that are old enough, will remember when people got dressed up to fly. When having a meal onboard, especially on a transcontine...

Monday, March 22, 2021

The Royals Have Outlived Their Value: Gilded Lives at the Expense of the British People

It’s been a while since the British monarchy was so front and center in our consciousness. The Crown, on Netflix, and Meghan and Harry have...

China and the Battle for the Twenty-First Century

It is impossible to understand the world today, without understanding China, the US China relationship and China's relationship to the r...

Thursday, March 18, 2021

Frida Kahlo and the Timelessness of Her Work and Her Ideas

Racial identity, socialism, the role of art in society, the responsibilities of artists and the position of the artist in popular culture. T...

Coffee, Globalization and and Why We Care About A Hill of Beans

While the world has changed in so many ways lately and turned most of our routines upside down, the one constant I suspect for many is thei...

Monday, March 1, 2021

Rethink Everything You Know About Policing

Georgetown law professor Rosa Brooks was working at the Pentagon when she heard about the D.C. Metropolitan police corp program. Intrigued, ...

Monday, February 22, 2021

Where Is The Information We Have Lost In Data

During the past year, perhaps a year like no other year, we have been bombarded with statistics. Covid cases, numbers of deaths, positivity ...

Monday, February 15, 2021

Mike Nichols: A Life

Amidst the cacophony of social and cultural noise that’s all around us, we have too often neglected the role of the arts in shaping who we a...

Monday, February 8, 2021

Why The Exploration Of Space Should Still Matter

Once it was the moon. Today Mars is the holy grail of space exploration. In the coming months three missions, one from the US, one from Taiw...

Tuesday, February 2, 2021

Are You A Broker, Expansionist or Convener? It Will Tell How the Pandemic Impacted You

As we work the phones and Zoom calls, it makes you wonder if physical connection is even necessary? Has the pandemic given us a new normal. ...

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About

Jeff Schechtman: Napa, California, United States; I grew up during the Kennedy Presidency. It was a time when the best and the brightest sat center stage in the nation's psyche. I've always remembered the story, that at an arts gala at the White House, Kennedy looked around the room and proclaimed it "the greatest gathering of talent since Thomas Jefferson dined alone." Without the benefit of such trappings, I've had the opportunity, for the past nineteen years, to have a seat at an international banquet of ideas and history. My radio program provided me a unique opportunity to "travel" around the world and speak to thousands of the most imaginative thinkers and leaders in the arenas of politics, religion, journalism, business, popular culture, academics, science, economics, history, and medicine. During these years, I have taken many people with me on this journey. It has been a momentous time. The trauma of politics, the onslaught of technology, the insights of science, and the changes in the human condition make this a period almost unequaled in history. I'm excited that technology has now made it possible for me to take more of you along with me on this journey.

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