Having it all vs. being angry

In 1982, at the height of the feminist movement, Helen Gurley Brown, published a book entitled Having It All: love, success, sex and money. A popular TV movie of the time, was also entitled Having it All and had Dyan Cannon with a high powered job on both coasts.

Oprah has said that women can have it all, but not all at once. And now 31 years after Helen Gurley Brown's book, the debate still rages on. Sheryl Sandberg has recently talked about the efforts of woman in the workplace, and now Debora Spar, the President of Barnard College, in her book Wonder Women: Sex, Power, and the Quest for Perfection, takes a fresh look of what is possible and and not for the woman of the 21st century.

My conversation with Debora Spar:

How we think we do it!

While talk of sex is all around us, the fact is that the origins of our reproductive lives are still a mystery. And while 50 years ago Masters and Johnson set out to try and find the science of sex, much has transpired since,  in our understanding of science, and evolutionary biology.

In his new book How We Do It: The Evolution and Future of Human Reproduction Field Museum of Natural History curator Robert Martin draws on 40 years of research in biological anthropology to locate the roots of everything from our sex cells to the way we care for newborns. He examines the procreative history of humans, as well as that of our primate kin. His findings are a constant surprise.

My conversation with Robert Martin:

Proof that Hollywood or Broadway really is High School with money

Although the provenance is somewhat sketchy, it has often been said that show business is High School with money. The point being that the battles, the cliques, the backstabbing, and yes even the deal making that consume Hollywood, are often the same skill sets that are required for a successful High School career.

Journalist Michael Sokolove has found another more important link: A group of High School students and a remarkable teacher who turns it all around and brings the positive side of show business to High School. A sense of participation, an appreciation for narrative and story, a kinship in a bigger cause and a need to reach deep inside ourselves to do good work. If only we all had that teacher.

Michael Sokolove did! And he returned to his High School in Levittown, PA. to tell us the story of Drama High: The Incredible True Story of a Brilliant Teacher, a Struggling Town, and the Magic of Theater.

My conversation with Michael Sokolove:

The spy who was forced in from the cold

Spies and covert agents are, by their very nature required to live lives of secrecy. So when some spies, for whatever complicated reasons, become household names like Aldrich Ames, Kim Philby, or Robert Hanssen, it's a big deal.

In 2003, the outing of covert CIA operative Valerie Plame, by columnist Robert Novak, brought an end of her CIA career. But it also brought all of us, in ways not seen since the Cold War, into better harmony with the symbiotic relationship that exists between politics, espionage, and government bureaucracy.

The outing of Plame triggered a political scandal that would truly make her, the spy who came in from the cold. Now 10 years later, Valerie Plame is back, but this times masquerading as Vanessa Pierson, in her novel Blowback

My conversation with Valerie Plame:

When Politics Worked

Our founding fathers created a system of government that respected opposing points of view and was designed to work even across differences. Throughout most of American history it has worked. One time it did not was in 1861 when Abraham Lincoln, said the following:

“What is our present condition? We have just carried an election on principles fairly stated to the people. Now we are told in advance, the government shall be broken up, unless we surrender to those we have beaten, before we take the offices. In this they are either attempting to play upon us, or they are in dead earnest. Either way, if we surrender, it is the end of us, and of the government. They will repeat the experiment upon us ad libitum."

After the Civil War and for 150 years the system worked. Today we are in danger of what Lincoln called “the end of us.”

Perhaps it is necessary to look into contemporary history for what was perhaps the last time that our system of government worked as it was intended. That would be in the 1980’s. It was in part the personalities of people like Ronald Reagan and Tip O’Neil and it was also a different time and a different context. Chris Matthews is one of our keenest political observers. He sorts through it all in his new book Tip and the Gipper: When Politics Worked

My conversation with Chris Matthews:

Vietnam 1963...Finding Madame Nhu

From the days of Caligula, right on through to the Clinton's, the role of First Ladies has always been complex, political and sometimes exotic.  What’s interesting is how often we ignore the role of First Ladies, in nations other than our own. In fact, they have often played a key roles in determining US foreign policy.

Perhaps nowhere has this been more true than in Vietnam in the early 1960's. There, Madame Nhu, the young and glamours First Lady of South Vietnam, would play a key role in one of the darkest chapters of American history. Her perception has the Dragon Lady only added to the US decision to support the coup that would topple the South Vietnamese government, in 1963. Her husband and brother in law were murdered and the war in Vietnam would be forever escalated.

For years no one really knew had happened to Madame Nhu. That is, until Monique Brinson Demery would dedicated herself to Finding the Dragon Lady: The Mystery of Vietnam's Madame Nhu

My conversation with Monique Brinson Demery:

Calcutta

Jane Jacobs, in writing about the rise and fall of great cities, talks about a quality even meaner than urban ugliness or disorder. That is, the idea of “pretend order,” achieved she says by ignoring or suppressing the real order that is struggling to exist and to be served. This real order “is what make cities flourish and diversity sprout and makes them strange and unpredictable.” This, as Jacobs explains, is not a drawback, it is the point of cites.

A city that for a long time embodied this ethos, is Calcutta. And while it may be changing and homogenizing today, esteemed author Amit Chaudhuri, captures its essence in his newest work Calcutta: Two Years in the City

My conversation with Amit Chauduri:

The Golden Age of Children's programming

Last week, during the Emmys, we heard a lot of talk about this being a golden age of television. Certainly with shows like Mad Men, Breaking Bad, The Wire and Newsroom, who could argue? However for children's television, the golden age may very well have been 25 years ago.

Then, Nickelodeon changed the landscape of kid’s programming. From the Adventures of Pete and Pete and Clarissa Explains it All to Ren and Stimpy, Nickelodeon became the go to channel for kids from early morning to Nick at Nite. Today we have a whole generation that grew up on that programming. Now, to better understand it all, Matthew Klickstein  gives us Slimed!: An Oral History of Nickelodeon's Golden Age.

My conversation with Matthew Klickstein:

The first casualty, of the first war, of the 21st Century.

When we look at a tragedy like 9/11, we think of who and what we lost at that moment. We forget that a future is also lost. That many of those killed that day may have changed and reshaped the future. Certainly Danny Lewin, who was on AA flight 11, the first plane to hit the towers, had the potential to do just that.

During his brief 31 years, Danny was a father, a soldier, a brilliant mathematician and an entrepreneur. Along with his MIT professor, Tom Leighton, he would reshape the Internet into the robust system that was able to withstand the traffic and news of 9/11 itself. What else he might have accomplished in his lifetime, is a loss not just to his family, but to all of us.

Molly Knight Raskin lets us all share Danny's story in No Better Time: The Brief, Remarkable Life of Danny Lewin, the Genius Who Transformed the Internet.


My conversation with Molly Knight Raskin:

Why has the debate over the Affordable Care Act been so UNPRECEDENTED?

Throughout all of the second half of the 20th century and into the 21st, right up until this moment, many have worked hard to institute some measure of affordable health care and health care reform in America. A country that, prior to the passage of the Affordable Care Act, was the only modern Western nation not to have done so.

It's no wonder that the forces allied against were powerful, well financed and prepared to do anything and say anything.  Those who would attack the law did so in the absence of political success. Instead, they would try and use the courts, the very courts that they always deride as activist. Except now they wanted to actively seek to overturn, by judicial fiat, that which they could not do through political means.

Law Professor Josh Blackman takes a broad look at the Constitutional and legal challenges to the Affordable Care Act and finds the case Unprecedented.

My conversation with Josh Blackman:

"The Girl" speaks about Roman Polanski and what happened 36 years ago

In 1977, a 13 year old aspiring actress was invited to do a photo-shoot with a famous film director.

What happened that day, still makes headlines around the world: Director Roman Polanski, then 43, gave Samantha Gailey then 13, a hefty helping of Champagne and Quaaludes, then raped her at the home of Jack Nicholson.

After pleading guilty to unlawful sex with a minor, Polanski fled the country before his court date and made a home in France. Samantha Geimer, Now 50, and 36 years after the fact, has written a memoir of her experiences. The Girl: A Life in the Shadow of Roman Polanski.

Lawrence Silver was Samantha’s lawyer, from the very beginning and now talks about the case. The facts remain the same, but the context has changed dramatically in the past 36 years.

My conversation with Lawrence Silver:

Thanks to The Billionaire and the Mechanic, the America's Cup will never be the same

This has been an amazing week for sailing, for Oracle team USA, for it’s crew and for Larry Ellison.

In many ways Ellison is the true manifestation of what creative destruction and Silicon Valley is all about….dreams, passion, vision, innovation and the ability to execute on all of it.

Many successful entrepreneurs possess some measure of these qualities. But often the purpose and the playing field is small; an app, a piece of software, a new design. All things of value. But Larry Ellison wanted to play on a much grander scale. He wasn't happy to just nudge the world, he wanted to change it, to shift it on it’s axis...just a bit.

Yesterday’s victory was the culmination of that effort in the world of sailing. It’s a story that is powerful and complex, and involved people like Norbert Bajurin and Jimmy Spithill, who would share and complement and expand on Ellison's vision and passion. It’s a story told with equal passion by Julian Guthrie. Julian’s book The Billionaire and the Mechanic: How Larry Ellison and a Car Mechanic Teamed Up to Win Sailing's Greatest Race, The America's Cup sets the stage for all that came before yesterday’s race.

My conversation with Julian Guthrie:

"An unbroken series of successful gestures."

Scott Fitzgerald wrote of Gatsby, “that if personality is an unbroken series of successful gestures, then there was something gorgeous about him, some heightened sensitivity to the promise of life, as if he were related to one of those intricate machines that register earthquakes ten thousand miles away. This responsiveness had nothing to do with that flabby impressionability which is dignified under the name of the 'creative temperament'--it was an extraordinary gift for hope, a romantic readiness such as I have never found in any other person.”

What is it that gives someone those qualities? Is it their bearing, their dress, the way they hold their hands or the words they use? Clearly some people have it, and others don’t . But can it be learned?

Matthew Kohut explains how people can find power and influence beyond just their KLOUT score. He argues that we can find that something that makes us into Compelling People: The Hidden Qualities That Make Us Influential.

My conversation with Matthew Kohut:

Ecstatic Nation

When we look at the vast expanse of history, we find that there are periods when the world seemingly shifted on its axis: When change is dramatic, when our whole way of looking at and understanding events changes. Perhaps the 60’s was such a period, perhaps we are in such a period today. The impact of technology, globalization, deindustrialization social, cultural and economic change. Only history will be able to give us that answer.

What we are learning though, is that the period of time leading up to the Civil War, the war itself, and the reconstruction that followed, was such a period. It gave rise to events that created tectonic shifts, and was populated by characters whose special quality secures their place in history.

This is the period written about by Brenda Wineapple in Ecstatic Nation: Confidence, Crisis, and Compromise, 1848-1877.

My conversation with Brenda Wineapple:

Nuclear Weapons and the Illusion of Safety

Since the dawn of the age of nuclear weapons we have only imagined the complexity of systems that are involved in the use of those weapons. Those of us that grew up during the cold war are all too familiar with the nuclear football that follows the President, launch codes, the hotline, fail safe mechanisms, and even the eccentricity of Col. Jack Ripper.

All have seemingly kept us safe. But today the cold war is over, US and Russian nuclear stockpiles have gone from over 60k weapons to less than 5k. It all sounds pretty good.

But as we worry anew about nuclear proliferation, about weapons in the hands of terrorists, it bring into bold relief that idea that these weapons are among the most complex machines built by man. As such they can fail; accidents can happen, and weapons on a hair trigger alert are subject to technical failure.

Is it pure dumb luck that we have not had an accident involving nuclear weapons? In fact we have had many such accidents, perhaps over 1200 of them… the worst of which happened in Damascus, Arkansas, 33 years ago.

Now investigative reporter Eric Schlosser, the author of Fast Food Nation and Reefer Madness, takes us inside our system of Command and Control.

My conversation with Eric Schlosser:

Do we need a new war on poverty?

It’s been almost 50 years since Lyndon Johnson declared "war on poverty."  It’s been more than 50 years since JFK was moved by the poverty of Appalachia and Bobby Kennedy by the poverty of the South Bronx.

Today's poverty may not be as dark or desperate, but it is more insidious. While we focus on the growing gap between the one percent and the middle class, we often ignore those that have fallen out of the middle class, and sunk below the poverty level. That group is growing exponentially and it’s a blight on our nation. Certainly it’s not a part of the American exceptionalism the President spoke of last week.

Just as the House is voting to drastically cut Food Stamps, journalist Sasha Abramsky delves deep into the issues in The American Way of Poverty: How the Other Half Still Lives.

My conversation with Sasha Abramsky:

Held hostage for 460 days

Many of us remember the 1978 movie Midnight Express, where Billy Hayes is held and tortured by his Turkish captors, as attempts are made to extract ransom.

Well imagine today, a young woman caught in a similar situation, kidnaped and held by brutal captors, not because of an attempt to smuggle drugs, but because she was trying to tell a story as a young and struggling and aspiring journalist. The location was not Turkey, but Mogadishu, Somalia, considered by some, one of the most dangerous places on earth. What brought Amanda Lindhout to this place, and what in her background gave her the strength and grace to survive a devastating 460 day ordeal? Her story A House in the Sky, tells us a great deal about her, and also about the indomitable resiliency of the human spirit.

My conversation with Amanda Lindhout:

The reselling of the Presdient 2012

Look at any campaign, for student body President or for President of the United States and we see some key ingredients. The clarity and strength of the message, the quality of the political organization, the discipline of the candidate, the get out the vote effort and the resonance of the broader issues.

As President Obama entered his reelection campaign, a full two years before election day, by any objective standard, these things were in flux and not always for the better.

To paraphrase his opposition, the hope and change thing wasn’t going so well. And yet Obama would become the first president, since Ike, to be re elected with over 50% of the vote. What the campaign did, right and wrong, is the subject of Richard Wolffe’s, 2012 campaign biography The Message: The Reselling of President Obama.

My conversation with Richard Wolffe: