.My conversation with Tim Wendel
Friday, April 13, 2012
The Summer that changed Baseball - and America
.My conversation with Tim Wendel
Thursday, April 12, 2012
Atheism 2.0
that there may be a middle ground. That religions have important things to teach the secular world. That the tired old debate between atheists and believers is not helping the modern world and that we need to move onto more fruitful ground. For too long, de Botton says, we have faced a false choice between either swallowing doctrines or doing away with some worthwhile rituals and ideas. Botton's is a kinder, gentler atheism.My conversation with Alain de Botton:
Wednesday, April 11, 2012
The joy of taste
Almost as much as our fingerprints or our relationships, we each seem to have very individualized taste profiles. We might like our coffee black, while our partners or colleagues might like it with only cream and sugar. We might like broccoli and hate sweets, just the opposite of others. How does this profile develop, can we refine it, change it and even get more enjoyment out of food? What's the link between how food tastes and and how it sometimes leads to problems.
Barb Stuckey has been a professional food developer for 15 years and she takes us on a journey of taste in Taste What You're Missing: The Passionate Eater's Guide to Why Good Food Tastes Good
. My conversation with Barb Stuckey:
Tuesday, April 10, 2012
Great Soul
There are very few individuals for whom just the mention of their name conjures up a complete set of beliefs and values. Gandhi is certainly one of those. So it is remarkable that as India continues to go through its current transformation, that Gandhi's legacy is still evolving.
Former New York Times Executive Editor and Pulitzer Prize winner Joseph Lelyveld in Great Soul: Mahatma Gandhi and His Struggle with India, takes us on the journey of Gandhi's extraordinary struggles on two continents, his ideals and values and how the nation that still revers him, rejected so many of his values.My conversation with Joseph Lelyveld:
Monday, April 9, 2012
when God talks back
It seemed that everywhere we turned last week religion was front and center. Easter, Passover and even our political dialogue, all contained different sides of religious discussion. But what happens when the religious rhetoric goes to extremes? When individuals and even politicians claim to have spoken directly to, or are taking insttructions from God? Is this still religion, or have we crossed a line in psychosis? This is the backdrop for Tanya Luhrmann’s,
When God Talks Back: Understanding the American Evangelical Relationship with God
My conversation with T.M. Luhrman
Friday, April 6, 2012
From North Korea to Freedom
North Korea currently holds as many as 200,000 political prisoners in a half-dozen labor camps. Many spend their lives there, often dying from malnutrition and mistreatment. Only one man, born inside one of the brutal camps, raised to be a laborer, has managed to escape. Journalist Blaine Hardin in Escape from Camp 14: One Man's Remarkable Odyssey from North Korea to Freedom in the West
, tells the story of Shin Dong-Hyuk - how he was starved, tortured and forced to witness the execution of his mother and brother, and how he ultimately found his way to freedom.My conversation with Blaine Harden:
Thursday, April 5, 2012
The Rising Cost of Youth Sports and the Toll on Today's Families
Youth sports are more than just a pastime. They are a multi-billion dollar business that begins in elementary school and continues into a college system, certainly as competitive as the pros. The movies Hoosiers, Hoop Dreams, Friday Night Lights and Lucas are just a few of the ways that popular culture has reflected our youth sports obsession. What was once a gentle diversion for kids, is today sometimes the difference between setting the stage for success or failure later in life.Journalist and sports management Professor Mark Hyman has been looking at the issues surrounding youth sports for years and in his new book he concludes that it is clearly The Most Expensive Game in Town.
My conversation with Mark Hyman:
Wednesday, April 4, 2012
This is Your Brain on Emotions
We live in a world in which we praise logic and reason. Yet to a large extent we are still ruled by our emotions. Moreover new research shows us the power of emotions and that to very real extent, we do just as well making our decisions and choices from a combination of emotion and reason. All of this relates to what we now understand about how the emotional system works, what are the genetic and biochemical components of the brain and can we define and maybe even change our emotional style?These are the areas of cutting edge research being explored by Dr. Richard J. Davidson. Davidson has defined six emotional dimensions that reflect the discoveries of modern neuroscientific research.
My conversation with Dr. Richard J. Davidson about The Emotional Life of Your Brain.
Tuesday, April 3, 2012
Jonah Lehrer explains How Creativity Works
George Bernard Shaw is quoted as saying, that "some men see things as they are and ask why, others dreams things that never were and ask why not." This is often quoted in a political context, but could also be said to be a central question of creativity. Where does creativity come from, how can it be stimulated, and like the uncertainty principle, if we try too hard to understand it, do we in some way alter it? Jonah Lehrer, the author of "How we Decide" gives us a contemporary and real look at the creative process in his new book Imagine: How Creativity Works
.My conversation with Jonah Lehrer:
Monday, April 2, 2012
The Making of The Military Industrial Complex
Last night on 60 Minutes we learned how man's reach into space has been virtually shut down over three billion dollars! While certainly this is real money, it is but a mere fraction of America's defense budget, much of which goes for waste, fraud, abuse and to satisfy the insatiable demands of the "military industrial complex." Fifty years ago, Eisenhower warned us about it. Today journalist William Hartung takes us inside the largest of America's ongoing military pariahs, Lockheed Martin. My conversation with Willaims Hartung about the Prophets of War: Lockheed Martin and the Making of the Military-Industrial Complex
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Friday, March 30, 2012
The Front Lines of China's Great Urban Migration
Every year more than 200 millions rural peasants pour into China's cities, fueling the country's staggering growth. The obstacles they face, the opportunities that lie before them and the contributions they make are all part of the future of modern China. How this all plays out is still an open question, as China moves faster than any other nation in history from a rural to an urban economy. Michelle Dammon Loyalka, in her book Eating Bitterness: takes us inside these stories from China’s great urban migration.
My conversation with Michelle Dammon Loyalka:
Thursday, March 29, 2012
The Epic Rivalry Between Big Business and Government.
If any movement has defined our times, it is the movement towards power in both government and business and the balance between the two. In fact the occupy movement, protesting against the rising power of business and the tea party movement, protesting the rising power of government, are indeed two sides of the very same coin. In many way this could have been predicted, as globalization and multinationals first began their rise in the 1970’s. David Rothkopf, acclaimed author, visiting scholar at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace and the CEO and Editor-at-large of Foreign Policy Magazine, looks at this phenomenon in his new work Power, Inc.: The Epic Rivalry Between Big Business and Government--and the Reckoning That Lies Ahead
.My conversation with David Rothkopf:
Wednesday, March 28, 2012
The Unfinished Revolutions
A year ago it appeared as if the Arab world would be forever transformed. The Arab Spring would move like a tsunami, taking out dictators in its path. Yet as we are now beginning to see, the the removal of old regimes was just the beginning. The larger story is, as it usually is, about the morning after. What happens next and how does the Arab public gain real power, what do they do with it and will this be just a rerun of previous attempts at "revolution?" Marc Lynch is a professor of political science at The George Washington University, where he also is the Director of the Institute for Middle East Studies. He lays out the whole contemporary crises in his new work The Arab Uprising: The Unfinished Revolutions of the New Middle East
.My conversation with Marc Lynch:
Tuesday, March 27, 2012
Why have we made so little progress?
My conversation with Isabel Wilkerson:
Tuesday, March 20, 2012
The modern plague
We live in a country where obesity and diabetes is a bigger problem than poverty. Where a staggering one in two Americans suffers from "diabesity." We are now raising the first generation of Americans that will live sicker and die younger than their parents. It is far more than prosperity and abundance that has created this. It's the choices we make. Dr. Mark Hyman, author of The Blood Sugar Solution, seeks to change those choices and take on this worldwide health epidemic.
My conversation with Dr. Mark Hyman:
Friday, March 16, 2012
Why do we hate White Bread today?
In a culture in which everything is political, even the humble loaf of bread isn't spared. In fact going all the way back to the 19th century, bread said a lot about who you were, or who you wanted to be. Today, it's fair to say that old fashion, store bought white bread represents the lowest rung on the food chain. But why has this staple, that once symbolized the triumph of industrialization, become so contemptible. Aaron Bobrow-Strain, in his book White Bread: A Social History of the Store-Bought Loaf
, gives rise to many theories.My conversation with Aaron Bobrow-Strain:
Wednesday, March 14, 2012
The Imperial Presidency 2.0
As Harvard law professor Jack Goldsmith states at the outset of his new book, “war and emergency invariably shift power to the Presidency. Permanent war and permanent emergency threaten to make the shift permanent.” Many believe that that 9/11 and the actions of the Bush administration, many of which were continued by the Obama administration, makes the idea of Presidential accountability impossible. But in his provocative new book Power and Constraint: The Accountable Presidency After 9/11,
Goldsmith makes the contrary argument. He says that post-9/11 American Presidents are more accountable for their national security decisions than ever before.My conversation with Jack Goldsmith:
Monday, March 12, 2012
Old Habits Die Hard
Why is it so hard to loose weight, to quit smoking, to go the gym regularly? Much of the answer lies in the power of habits. The same forces that allow us to back out our driveway without conscious thought and to brush our teeth each day without using mental energy, also often stands in the way of our progress. This is The Power of Habit. Charles Duhigg, investigative reporter for The New York Times explains "why we do what we do in life in business".My conversation with Charles Duhigg:
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