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"

Monday, May 23, 2022

Another Way Forward for Democrats

Back in 2002 in the wake of the George W. Bush election political demographer Ruy Teixeira, along with journalist John Judas, wrote The Emer...

Sunday, May 15, 2022

How Wars End: A conversation with Gideon Rose

Gabriel Garcia Marquez famously said that it’s much easier to start a war than it is to end it. Certainly, we’ve seen this up close and pers...

Friday, May 6, 2022

The Misinformation, Censorship and Noise That The Pandemic Gave Us: A Conversation with Joel Simon

While everyone is busy opining on the unknown and probably minor impact of a change of ownership of Twitter, we have literally ignored the c...

Thursday, April 28, 2022

Why the Internet Is Less Safe Than Flying or Driving or Eating: A Conversation with Bruce Schneier

The metaverse notwithstanding, the nexus between what happens on the internet, and what happens in the real, physical world, is disappearing...

Wednesday, April 27, 2022

A Whistleblower Stands Up To China: A Conversation with Ashley Yablon

Think about how different the world is because of whistleblowers. Think about the impact of Daniel Ellsberg, Coleen Rowley, Sherron Watkins,...

Monday, April 18, 2022

The Pandemic Profiteers: A Conversation with J. David McSwane

Even if the details were never reported in real-time, you knew instinctively during the chaos of the early days of the Pandemic, in the wint...

Thursday, April 14, 2022

Is Crypto a Libertarian Dream or a Left-Wing Nightmare? A Conversation with Daniel Pinchbeck

Cryptocurrencies, NFTs, Dows, and the blockchain they ride on are still, in the view of many, the decentralized financial instruments of the...

Tuesday, March 22, 2022

Is the Journalism of Old Still Viable?: A Conversation with Brian Karem

For journalism, it may be the best of times and the worst of times. On the one hand the national media is more vibrant than ever before. The...

Thursday, March 10, 2022

Corruption is America's Operating System: A Conversation with Sarah Chayes

Historian and journalist Sarah Chayes , argues that we can’t fix our floundering democracy until we face — and fix — our current levels of c...

Tuesday, March 1, 2022

The Battle of Banks Not Tanks: A Conversation with Bill Browder

Beyond the minute-by-minute reporting of the ground war, the Twitter feeds, TickTock images, there are broader and more economically complex...

Monday, February 28, 2022

Recipe for Survival: A Conversation with Dana Ellis Hunnes:

All the way back in 1971, with the publication of Frances Moore Lappe’s Diet for Small Planet, the world began to take notice of the connec...

Wednesday, February 23, 2022

Tell Me A Story: A Conversation with Frank Rose

I t’s the power of narrative that shapes every aspect of our lives. We rush to tell stories to our friends and family to validate our experi...

Monday, February 14, 2022

How Global Migration is Actually Moving the World Forward: My conversation with Parag Kahanna

At no time in civilization have so many forces been at play in reshaping the world. The complexity of everything is growing. Global geopolit...

Friday, February 4, 2022

How Chinese Language is the Core of its Culture: A Conversation with Jing Tsu

The story of how the world's oldest living language adapted to the modern world is one that carries within it the story of how language ...

Tuesday, January 25, 2022

A Love Letter to Spy-craft: A Conversation With Retired CIA Officer Douglas London

For as long as humans have interacted with each other, spies in one form or another, have been with us. To quote the legendary John le Carr...

Thursday, January 13, 2022

Politics Without Celebrity - Kati Marton's The Chancellor

Imagine a political leader that is not about celebrity or attention? In a time when we have elected a reality show star as President, when ...

Tuesday, January 4, 2022

January 6th Was a Rallying Point For White Hot Hate

As we witnessed on January 6th, the level of hostility and anger awash in the country today has real consequences. Demagogues and hateful rh...

Monday, December 27, 2021

How Fame, Fortune and Education Ended Objective Journalism: A conversation with Batya Ungar-Sargon

Too often when talking about the media and journalism we engage in a board discussion of ideas, policy, and how the levers of power really w...

Wednesday, December 15, 2021

The Modern Era of Television Begins with HBO: A Conversation with James Andrew Miller

The link between what we watch in movies and on television, and the business, the money and the people behind it, are inseparable. Business ...

Tuesday, December 7, 2021

The Shattering: America in the 1960's: A Conversation with Kevin Boyle

Think of all that has changed as a result of startups and creative destruction. Nothing is the same as it was because of the sometimes revol...

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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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