Episodes
Monday Nov 29, 2010
All the running he can do....
Monday Nov 29, 2010
Monday Nov 29, 2010
As Republicans now face the reality of trying to govern and run congress with a rather diverse group of freshman legislators, so two years ago, the Obama administration came to office with real divisions within their coalition. Divisions between true believers, what MSNBC analyst Richard Wolffe calls "revivalist" and those with a more practical, Washington based agenda, the so call "survivalists." Amidst these divisions, the country faced problem unequaled since the 1930's, an opposition party set to "no" as its default position on everything, and in spite of it all, the new President accomplished an extraordinary amount. How did this play out and what price did the administration and the nation have to pay? This is the backdrop for Richard Wolffe's new book Revival: The Struggle for Survival Inside the Obama White House. My conversation with Richard Wolffe:
Wednesday Nov 24, 2010
Take two aspirn and see a shrink
Wednesday Nov 24, 2010
Wednesday Nov 24, 2010
What are the limits of the medical establishment? How can prejudice and sometimes just lack of answers from Doctors result in a patient suffering for over twenty years? And how resilient must someone be, to recover and not be angry for loosing two decades? This is the story and the journey of Chloe Atkins. Now a professor in the Law and Society Program at the University of Calgary she is the author of the memoir My Imaginary Illness: A Journey into Uncertainty and Prejudice in Medical Diagnosis. My conversation with Chloe Atkins:
Wednesday Nov 24, 2010
The Amazing Journey of American Women from 1960 to the Present
Wednesday Nov 24, 2010
Wednesday Nov 24, 2010
Tuesday Nov 23, 2010
A sixth crisis?
Tuesday Nov 23, 2010
Tuesday Nov 23, 2010
Monday Nov 22, 2010
The West Rules....for Now
Monday Nov 22, 2010
Monday Nov 22, 2010
We study history not just to collect facts and dates, but rather to understand where we came from, to ascertain the patterns of human affairs. This is not just to tell us what to do, but also what to avoid. For it is the task of succeeding generations to try and escape history, that is, to remove from possibility the mistakes of other times. In so doing one improves and that improvement is necessary to growth and civilization. When we look at history, particularly since around the 14th century, we see the steady domination of the West even though both East and West began on a kind of level playing field. What happened and what do those patterns of success and failure tell us about the future? This is the work of Stanford historian Ian Morris, as told in his new work, Why the West Rules--for Now: The Patterns of History, and What They Reveal About the Future. My conversation with Ian Morris:
Friday Nov 19, 2010
Health Care...Solved
Friday Nov 19, 2010
Friday Nov 19, 2010
As the past year will attest, if we wait for Washington to solve the health care crises, we could be waiting a very long time. Yet in spite of Washington, or maybe because so little gets done there, their are some real world efforts going on at the business and grass roots level that are transforming health care into a cost-efficient, accountable system that actually empowers consumers. John Torinus, the CEO of Serigraph, in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, is truly at the leading edge of this effort. His commitment, his passion and encyclopedic knowledge of the subject has created a model that companies all over can follow. He's even written a book to share his efforts. My conversation with John Torinus Jr.
Thursday Nov 18, 2010
Who controls the information highway?
Thursday Nov 18, 2010
Thursday Nov 18, 2010
The subject of net neutrality, the idea that everyone should have the same access to the web, is certainly the subject of much debate. But that debate, begs the larger issue. That is, that the history of innovation is the history of the concentration of power and control in the hands of a few. Sometimes even government has been complicit in that effort. From the printing press to the telephone to radio & television, individuals and monolithic enterprises have exercised central control. With the Internet and its lower barriers to entry, how will this historical economic and capitalistic trend play out? This is the central focus of the work of Tim Wu, the man who coined the term "net neutrality," and whose new book The Master Switch: The Rise and Fall of Information Empires, could well be the tabula rasa of our digital future. My conversation with Tim Wu:
Tuesday Nov 16, 2010
Invisible Capital
Tuesday Nov 16, 2010
Tuesday Nov 16, 2010
What if a great idea, hard work and a good plan simply aren't enough to assure entrepreneurial success? In his book Invisible Capital: How Unseen Forces Shape Entrepreneurial Opportunity, Chris Rabb puts forth specific ways that entrepreneurs can build and grow sustainable business, even amidst the thousands of unseen forces, in our business and cultural landscape, that create the inevitable uneven playing field. By simply reaffirming how success is defined, we have the ability to make sure that tomorrows entrepreneurs not only serve their company, but their community and the broader society. My conversation with Chris Rabb:
Monday Nov 15, 2010
"Twisted Sisterhood"
Monday Nov 15, 2010
Monday Nov 15, 2010
It often appears that the bonds of sisterhood are among the powerful. In fact, new research suggests that, for many woman, they are often the most corrosive. When Kelly Valen's essay "My Sorority Pledge? I Swore Off Sisterhood," was published in the New York Times Modern Love column, she was overwhelmed by the response. This wasn't just about the so called "mean girls," this was about woman who had been scared or shaped by the pain inflicted by high school, college or work related sisterhood. Inspired by the response to her article Kelly Valen conduced a unique survey of more than 3,00 woman. She reveals the results in her new book The Twisted Sisterhood: Unraveling the Dark Legacy of Female Friendships. My conversation with Kelly Valen:
Friday Nov 12, 2010
Dylan
Friday Nov 12, 2010
Friday Nov 12, 2010
For any music to be successful, there must be that special bond between performer and listener. Perhaps nowhere has that bond been stronger then in the unique relationship between Bob Dylan and music critic extraordinaire Greil Marcus. For over forty years Dylan has drawn upon and reinvented the landscape of traditional American music, its myths, heroes and villains. Throughout all of it, Greil Marcus has been there to be our ears, to be a unique listener of an unparalleled singer. Marcus' forty years of writing on Dylan has been compiled into a new volume. Bob Dylan by Greil Marcus: Writings 1968-2010. My conversation with Greil Marcus:
Wednesday Nov 10, 2010
Frank
Wednesday Nov 10, 2010
Wednesday Nov 10, 2010
Monday Nov 08, 2010
The world turned upside down
Monday Nov 08, 2010
Monday Nov 08, 2010
Friday Nov 05, 2010
Hearding Donkeys
Friday Nov 05, 2010
Friday Nov 05, 2010
It's hard to believe, but just four short years ago, during the 2006 midterm elections, the Democrats made some big gains. In 2008, the Obama campaign, layering on to the grass roots work done by the DNC under Howard Dean, would create a powerful grass roots movement that swept Democrats into power in 2008. Today, the movement seems shattered. The wave that rolled over the country on Tuesday was certainly Republican and impacted not only Congress, but State Houses and State Legislatures in every corner of the country. How did a movement that once seemed unstoppable collapse in a few years? What does it say about our politics, our President and about the Democratic party? The Nation's Ari Berman looks at all of this in his timely new book Herding Donkeys: The Fight to Rebuild the Democratic Party and Reshape American Politics. My conversation with Ari Berman:
Thursday Nov 04, 2010
Big Girls Don't Cry
Thursday Nov 04, 2010
Thursday Nov 04, 2010
The 2008 Presidential election may have changed the political landscape for generations. Hillary Clinton's 18 millions cracks in the glass ceiling, Barack Obama’s transcendence of race and Sara Palin’s emergence as a political force, all shape our politics today. The irony is, that for all the drama and cultural upheaval caused by the election an African-American President, and the splendor of that election night speech in Grant Park, it was perhaps Clinton's loss and Palin's attempt to co-opt it, that may now have the most far reaching impact on our politics and our culture. How did this happen? How did all of the primary campaign's angst and tension between Obama and Clinton supporters lead to John McCain’s spawning of Sara Palin, which has in turn lead directly to this weeks elections and will politics or feminism ever be the same? This is the backdrop for Salon's senior writer, Rebecca Traister's eye opening new book Big Girls Don't Cry: The Election that Changed Everything for American Women. Even if you were paying close attention, Traister brings us up close and personal with people and ideas we probably missed and should be thinking about. My conversation with Rebecca Traister:
Wednesday Nov 03, 2010
Power!
Wednesday Nov 03, 2010
Wednesday Nov 03, 2010
As the election dust settles and a new Congress comes to town, some members will have power and others will not. We know from our own experience that power requires more than just hard work and intelligence. In politics like anything else, what are the skills we need to succeed, to acquire personal power and to effectively wield that power? Thirty five years ago Michael Korda laid out a predicate for power. Today, Stanford's Jeffrey Pfeffer is the leading thinker on the subject and his new book, Power: Why Some People Have It and Others Don't, lays out a 21st Century guide to how power works today. My conversation with Jeffery Pfeffer:
Tuesday Nov 02, 2010
The Fear Election
Tuesday Nov 02, 2010
Tuesday Nov 02, 2010
As Juan Williams' recent comments pointed out and today's election further attests, fear is the dominate impulse in our culture and in our politics. Fear of the other, be it on an elevator, or across the aisle of a plane, dominates our collective national consciousness. Even Jon Stewart realized this in his comments at his rally on Saturday. Journalist Shankar Vedantam, a reporter for the Washington Post and columnist for Slate.com, takes a look at this recent phenomenon and how he believes our Hidden Brain is evolutionarily hard wired to be afraid. How do we get behind this? My conversation with Shankar Vedantam:
Monday Nov 01, 2010
Whack-Job Politics
Monday Nov 01, 2010
Monday Nov 01, 2010