Episodes
Tuesday May 29, 2012
The real Dark Arts
Tuesday May 29, 2012
Tuesday May 29, 2012
Thursday May 24, 2012
Reinvent or Die
Thursday May 24, 2012
Thursday May 24, 2012
My conversation with Jason Jennings:
Wednesday May 23, 2012
The Candidate
Wednesday May 23, 2012
Wednesday May 23, 2012
My conversation with Samuel Popkin:
Monday May 21, 2012
Is anybody in charge here?
Monday May 21, 2012
Monday May 21, 2012
When we think of a globalization, we tend to think of a world more connected, more unified and more equal in terms its power politics. It’s one of the ironies of globalization that it has really made the world more fragmented, more regional and more dangerous. In many ways it’s a kind of creative destruction in global politics. Just as creative destruction and entrepreneurialism has changed almost every aspect of the business and personal landscape, we would be foolish to think it wouldn't happen in global politics as well. The institutions, infrastructure, and architecture of the world America made in the post War years, is now under review and up for grabs.
Few understand this dynamic better than Ian Bremmer. He is the president of Eurasia Group, one of the world's leading global political risk research and consulting firms, and the author of his eighth book about the state of the world's geopolitics Every Nation for Itself: Winners and Losers in a G-Zero World My conversation with Ian Bremmer:
Friday May 18, 2012
The era of
Friday May 18, 2012
Friday May 18, 2012
It may be hard for young people to remember, but there was a time before 500 channels, before Hulu and itunes and Apple TV. A time when three networks accounted for almost the sum total of what we watched, and more importantly what shaped our popular culture. It was a time when Thursday night was “must see TV,” and totally dominated the conversation around water coolers and lunch rooms the next day. In large measure the man responsible for shepherding “must see TV,” was Warren Littlefield, the President of NBC Entertainment from 1993 to 1998. He writes about this Golden Age in Top of the Rock: Inside the Rise and Fall of Must See TV My conversation with Warren Littlefield:
Thursday May 17, 2012
The real Front Page
Thursday May 17, 2012
Thursday May 17, 2012
The business of daily journalism is under siege. The practice of putting out a morning paper each and every day, of searching for scoops, of pushing, editing and curating great reporters and making sure that paper reaches your driveway each morning, is a craft that may soon be preserved in amber.
But forty years ago, the business reached what many thought was its apogee as The Washington Post lead the coverage a second rate, Washington D.C. burglary, that would become known as Watergate. While Woodward and Bernstein covered the story and got the scoops, they were led by Ben Bradlee, whose tenure, at Executive Editor of the Post, displayed the very best that journalism has to offer.
Jeff Himmelman, a one time Bob Woodward protege, has written an authorized biography of Bradlee, Yours in Truth: A Personal Portrait of Ben Bradlee. It has stirred up some controversy, kicked at some of the sacred burial grounds of of Watergate and in some ways points to the news/entertainment vortex we're in today.
My conversation with Jeff Himmelman:
Wednesday May 16, 2012
Retirement on the Line
Wednesday May 16, 2012
Wednesday May 16, 2012
My conversation with Caitrin Lynch:
Tuesday May 15, 2012
Exxon Mobile and American Power
Tuesday May 15, 2012
Tuesday May 15, 2012
Monday May 14, 2012
The Moral Limits of Markets
Monday May 14, 2012
Monday May 14, 2012
On Sunday, Tom Friedman's column talked about a new book by Harvard Professor Michael Sandel. In it, he looks at our cynicism and growing lack of civic engagement. Our stubborn refusal to engage in real discussion about real ideas. Secondly, he examines the ways in which markets have become the sine qua non of every aspect of the way we organize society. These two ideas, seemingly independent, but according to Sandel, are very much related to creating the mess we are in today. My conversation with Michael Sandel about his book What Money Can't Buy: The Moral Limits of Markets:
Friday May 11, 2012
The Dark Magic of San Francisco
Friday May 11, 2012
Friday May 11, 2012
Every major cultural, social and political movement of the modern era seems to be anchored in its own place and its own decade. Post war sensibilities were shaped by and centered in New York in the1950’s. It was the time of Mad Men and The Man in the Grey Flannel Suit. In the mid to late 70’s the youthful freedom of the time was enshrined by the golden age of a new independent Hollywood film industry. In the 80’s Washington was front and center as the Reagan revolution changed America. There’s no question that in the 90s Wall Street, set the stage. In the 60s however San Francisco was the center of gravity. The culture wars that still shape every aspect of our lives today, had their roots in the San Francisco of the late 60’s; what we hear proclaimed today as San Francisco values. It was a unique flowering that would ultimately destroy The City. But San Francisco would fight back. Its’ people, its geography its intellectual heft would ultimately make its day. David Talbot, founder of Salon.com, recounts the turbulent years of San Francisco between 1967 and 1982 in Season of the Witch: Enchantment, Terror and Deliverance in the City of Love. My conversation with David Talbot:
Thursday May 10, 2012
The Great Divergence
Thursday May 10, 2012
Thursday May 10, 2012
All this talk about the one percent did not happen overnight. For 30 years the income gap in this country has grown geometrically. The middle class, that once provided the engine of American growth in the second half of the 20th century has shrunk and even with globalization the US is seeing economic mobility declining as compared to other western nations. How did we get here? Was it serendipity, tax policy, partisan political action or is it the inevitable result of the invisible hand of capitalism? New Republic “TRB” columnist Timothy Noah in The Great Divergence: America's Growing Inequality Crisis and What We Can Do about It gives us the essential background we need to begin to understand the answers to these questions.
My conversation with Timothy Noah:
Tuesday May 08, 2012
The Presidents Club
Tuesday May 08, 2012
Tuesday May 08, 2012
To be President is to be both anointed, yet at the same time scarred for life. To date, only fourty-four men have had that experience and can fully understand what that means. Never have more than six of them met, at any one time. It is arguably the most exclusive club in the world.
Two of the finest reporters and writers for Time Magazine, Time's Deputy Managing Editor Nancy Gibbs and Executive Editor & Washington Bureau Chief Michael Duffy, take us inside The Presidents Club: Inside the World's Most Exclusive Fraternity
My conversation with Nancy Gibbs and Michael Duffy:
Thursday May 03, 2012
Hunting in the Shadows
Thursday May 03, 2012
Thursday May 03, 2012
Tuesday May 01, 2012
Why Creating Innovators matters
Tuesday May 01, 2012
Tuesday May 01, 2012
We used to worry that schools were inadequate for the late 20th Century: that a system built around an agrarian calendar and 19th century ideas, was insufficient. Today, the disruptive impact of technology, information and globalization have once again transformed our society. And, as we move into the second decade of the 21st Century, we are still bogged down with some of the same 19th century ideas. Quite simply, do we have the momentum and energy to reach escape velocity from these old paradigms. Now, Tony Wagner, founder of Harvard's Change Leadership Group and the author of The Global Achievement Gap, gives us education 3.0 in Creating Innovators: The Making of Young People Who Will Change the World. My conversation with Tony Wagner:
Monday Apr 30, 2012
The Last Days of Old China
Monday Apr 30, 2012
Monday Apr 30, 2012
The China we are all to familiar with today is a modern nation, moving rapidly from a rural to an industrial economy. A center of commerce and modernity. But just before WWII China, particularly Peking, as it was known then, was a colonial outpost, a mix of privilege, scandal, superstition and opulence. The British were omnipresent, the Japanese were encircling the city. It was truly the last days of Peking. Amidst this the murder of a British schoolgirl would capture the city's imagination and fear. A murder that would reveal a side of Peking that few wanted to acknowledge. China expert and British expat Paul French has picked up the threads of this story and woven them into a remarkable picture of time that is truly a prelude to modern China. He takes us on a remarkable journey in Midnight in Peking: How the Murder of a Young Englishwoman Haunted the Last Days of Old China. My conversation with Paul French: