Talk Cocktail

Particularly in the First World, it's amazing how fragile our world is. Remember how upset we get if our cell phones don't work, or our computers get glitchy? So imagine if the electrical grid collapsed, or the fuel or food supply was curtailed, only for a few days, much less, some far more devastating apocalyptic kind of event?

We see it in natural disasters, like tsunamis, or earthquakes, or floods or tornadoes. We get a glimpse, but only a glimpse, of what might happen.  But are we prepared for any of these kinds of disasters, or should we be? 

Were Katrina and New Orleans and Sandy only outliers or a harbinger?  And if it is the later, what should we know about trying to survive in a post apocalyptic world?

Oxford research scientist, Dr. Lewis Dartnell gives us that information in  The Knowledge: How to Rebuild Our World from Scratch.

My conversation with Lewis Dartnell: 

When the nuclear age dawned, people spoke of being “present at the creation.”  Man suddenly had the ability to completely remake  the world anew, or even to destroy it. Today, we have that same power.  The environmental crises we face, driven by the pillars of population growth, technology and short term thinking, also give us the power to destroy the world.

In fact, much of the destruction may be underway already and it may even be too late to reverse some of it.  We may be entering what Elizabeth Kolbert calls The Sixth Extinction: An Unnatural History

My conversation with Elizabeth Kolbert: 

Back in the 1980’s we thought Japan was not only the number one economic power, but we thought it was taking over the world.  The Japanese bought iconic properties like Rockefeller Center, and Pebble Beach.  We were looking at Japanese schooling and trying to emulate their educational and economic success.  Just as we want our kids to learn Mandarin today, back then we wanted them to learn Japanese. 

All that has changed.  Japan’s economy has spent twenty years in the doldrums.  The Japanese population is aging, and it’s been anything but a dynamic society. 

How are all of these events related?  How does the rise of China, the stagnation of Japan and the insecurities of the US all fit together?  And how has Japan, especially since the multiple and overlapping tragedies of Fukushima, been able to cope with its place in the world?

Is there something we can all learn from the way that Japan deals with its adversity? Journalist David Pilling thinks so, and he gives his views in Bending Adversity: Japan and the Art of Survival

My conversation with David Pilling:

Few events truly define the complexity of the American experience.  Yet the passage of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, comes very close.

At its core, it address the founding flaw in the American republic, in taking up the issue of race itself.  It incorporates the moral underpinnings  and power of religion, faith and morality in the American character.   And further, its shows the best in the system of self government, designed by our founders, to allow conflict, and compromise and the better angels of our nature to foster action that may not be politically expedient.  

In this sense, our focus on this Act, fifty years ago, is not so much nostalgia, but perhaps longing for what we once were able to do.

This is the zeitgeist that Todd Purdum captures in his new book An Idea Whose Time Has Come: Two Presidents, Two Parties, and the Battle for the Civil Rights Act of 1964.

My conversation with Todd Purdum:  

This is the season in which high school seniors start receiving college admissions, and begin the run up to High School graduation.  Given that gallons and gallons of self esteem have been poured into these kids, every one of them thinks that they are special.  David McCullough, Jr has a bit of a different idea. Those ideas were a part of a High School commencement speech that he gave back in 2012.  The YouTube of that speech has been viewed over two and a half million times. 

David McCullough, Jr.  has now turned that speech into You Are Not Special: ... And Other Encouragements

My conversation with David McCullough, Jr. 

When we hear the word, or hear about “non-profits,” we often think about organizations that seem like they are fighting the oncoming wave in order to try and do good.  Often with noble purpose, sometimes the mission seems too big, the emotional pull too intense, or success too fleeting.

Today all of that is changing.  We have a whole new group of organizations, perhaps the Gates Foundation being the penultimate example,  that look to the ideas and metrics of the for profit world.  They realize the importance of scale, marketing, transparency and ways to measure real success.  

They are, as Adam Braun calls them, FOR PURPOSE organizations. Adam is the founder of one of those organizations, Pencils of Promise.  He has now written about his experiences in The Promise of a Pencil: How an Ordinary Person Can Create Extraordinary Change.

My conversation with Adam Braun:  

For those who are regular viewers of sports, Olympic level  or professional,  extreme sports or even golf, you know that what human beings are capable of is constantly increasing.

What we are learning, is that the extension of human performance is not just about higher, or stronger, or faster, it's also about the mental component. It's the mental performance we are able to achieve, that makes the physical possible.  This has been called being in the zone, or flow.  

The idea of "flow" has been around and widely studied for many years.  But today, with our new forms of peering into the brain and into the very idea of consciousness, we are finding both the internal insights and the far flung potential of human performance.

Steven Kotler takes us to the edge in The Rise of Superman: Decoding the Science of Ultimate Human Performance.

My conversation with Steven Kotler:

In the movie The Talented Mr. Ripley, Tom Ripley, played by Matt Damon, says that,  “I always thought it would be better, to be a fake somebody... than a real nobody.” 

This insecurity, this lack of confidence in who we are, is such a critical part of  life, that it has been immortalized repeatedly in movies and literature.

But, beyond that, it has real life consequences that go beyond art and definitions in the DMS.  For women in particular, this lack of confidence and yes, even our confidence genes, drive relationships, families and the workplace in ways that create a kind of confidence feedback loop. In this loop, lack of confined produces a fear, that in turn produces further lack of confidence. And while the issues is a particularly important one for woman, we all are part of that loop.

This is where my guest Katty Kay and Claire Shipman begin The Confidence Code: The Science and Art of Self-Assurance---What Women Should Know.

My conversation with Claire Shipman and Katty Kay: 

Donald Sterling  and Cliven Bundy notwithstanding, the past year has seen us engaged in a celebration of the passage of the Civil Rights Act, the March on Washington and Freedom Summer.  All seminal events in the amazing history of the Civil Rights movement.  

But what we sometimes forget is that the movement itself, mostly because of its scope and inclusiveness, started a bigger revolution. One that took up opposition to Vietnam, the fight for social and economic justice and the movement beyond nonviolence, for more than just public accommodation, but the struggle for real political, social and economic power.

Present at the creation of that effort was Stokely Carmichael.  He was a bridge between the nonviolence of Dr. King, the anger of Malcolm X and the urban struggle for civil rights led by the Black Panthers.

Carmichael has been somewhat forgotten in the pantheon of leaders from the period, that is until Peniel Joseph's new biography, Stokely: A Life

My conversation with Peniel Joseph:  

It’s always good when we are having legitimate debates about public policy.  And when the subject is education, it’s even better. However, amidst all the debate, we should not forget that there are people deeply engaged, every day, in the effort.  The children, the parents and the teachers have real experiences that often trump the ideas of policy makers.

That’s why it’s so important to look deeply inside the system and see what’s really going on.  This is what education consult and researcher Sam Chaltain has done in the context of his new book Our School: Searching for Community in the Era of Choice.

My conversation with Sam Chaltain:

Except perhaps for brief periods of historical time, there have always been cultural divides in America and in the world.  Sometimes it’s been about race, or about ethnicity.  Sometimes about gender or status.  Today, that divide is fueled by education, class and economic attainment.

Is it any surprise then, that we have completely shuffled the deck on success and that modern marketing and media reinforce those ideas. Those with means, with college and postgraduate education, have similar goals, similar objectives and similar lifestyles.  It matters far less what gender, or what race; what matters is education and income.  That, coupled with the long standing idea of associative mating, has grown and reinforced an economic elite, where its members have far more in common with each other, than with others of their race, or even their gender.  Sisterhood and brotherhood have given rise to what David Brooks might call bobohood.

How this has impacted women and society, is the subject of The XX Factor: How the Rise of Working Women Has Created a Far Less Equal World by Alison Wolf.

My conversation with Alison Wolf:

For many people, particularly in urban America, restaurants represent the place where they live life.  Spending time with friends, memorable meals, socializing and simply being a third place, not home, not office, but an urban extension of their lives.

For some, those third places become like songs or great books.  Simply mention them and they become triggers of thought that short circuit time and make yesterday's events, today’s reality.

That's what Colman Andrews has done with his memoir My Usual Table: A Life in Restaurants. It not only tells of Andrews’ life, but captures the zeitgeist of an era, specifically Los Angeles in the 70’s and 80’s.

My conversation with Colman Andrews:

There once was a time when technology was sold just to business to help create new and “softer” consumer products.  Today, we know there is a mass market for technology itself and it’s often sold directly to consumers.

Given that new, particularly disruptive, technology usually begins with a blank page, an audience of zero for products that did not exist, how has the market for these products changed and what’s the nexus with our habits and adoption of the technology itself?

Geoffrey Moore’s book Crossing the Chasm, has long been the bible for entrepreneurs  bringing products to larger and larger markets...but what’s different today.?

Moore is just out with a new and updated volume, Crossing the Chasm, 3rd Edition: Marketing and Selling Disruptive Products to Mainstream Customers.

My conversation with Geoffrey Moore:

At this point in our history, it should come as no surprise that the adage “follow the money,” applies not just to tracking down criminal activity, but to virtually every aspect of our economic and political system.

In a world where free markets are expanding, where economic and political stability are closely linked,  where nations compete for the free flow of money around the globe, where bankers cozy up to leaders and leader cozy up to bankers, sometimes those relationships can be out of balance.

To understand how,  it’s worthwhile to see how we got here and look at the 100+ year relationship between Wall Street and the administrations of 18 Presidents, of all political persuasions.

In her new book, All the Presidents' Bankers: The Hidden Alliances that Drive American Power, financial journalist Nomi Prins explores how a small number of bankers have played critical roles in shaping a century's worth of financial, foreign and domestic policy.  She examines how these relationships have influenced events from the creation of the Federal Reserve, the response to the Great Depression, and the founding of the International Monetary Fund and the World Bank. 

My conversation with Nomi Prins:  

When we talk about drugs, or see the myriad array of pharmaceutical ads, we usually hear about a whole range of unique side effects.  These are not just side effects, they are real effects with real medical consequences.

This is true not just for the complex, highly marketed drugs, but even from our most basic antibiotics. While we’ve come think of this class of drugs as almost free from consequence,  the truth is they may have bigger and more far reaching consequences than the drugs that may cause individual problems.  For these drugs, the side effects may be to our whole species and to the ancient human microbiome that makes up a large part of who we are as individuals and as a species. We may be seeing these consequences every day, in the increase in childhood asthma, autism, obesity, and certain types of cancers.  

This discovery has been the life's work of Dr. Martin Blaser.  He examines this in Missing Microbes: How the Overuse of Antibiotics Is Fueling Our Modern Plagues

My conversation with Dr. Martin Blaser:  

In almost every way, today's workplace is very different than the world of Mad Men.  Yet one thing seems to be consistent. The nexus between the culture of an organization and its performance, is direct and powerful.

But what constitutes that culture, and how can it be changed?  It’s ironic that corporate culture often seems both immutable and fragile.  One jerk can seemingly ruin it, and yet CEO’s often spend whole careers trying to change it.  How can both be true?

We look inside organizational culture, not in a Dilbertesque way, but through the eyes of dozens of leaders and CEO that have talked with Adam Bryant, the creator of the “Corner Office” feature in The New York Times and the author of   Quick and Nimble: Lessons from Leading CEOs on How to Create a Culture of Innovation.

My conversation with Adam Bryant:

Progressive and social activists are too often portrayed as latte drinking,  sushi eating,  Volvo driving, arugula eating, white wine sipping, Birkenstock wearing, NPR listening, New York Times reading, tofu eating…etc.  You get the idea.  

This isn’t just another ordinary line of attack,  because what it does, what it means to do, is to drive a wedge between classes.  Class groups that often have common goals, shared values, and a true desire to solve real problems.

But the attacks often work because sometimes the leaders of social movements themselves, forget that while goals may be shared, many groups and different classes bring very different experiences and approaches along with different worldviews to solve similar problems.

So how can this circle be squared?  How can these groups not work against their self interest in a “What’s the Matter with Kansas,” kind of way?  Betsy Leondar-Wright gets to the core of the problem and potential solutions in her new book Missing Class: How Seeing Class Cultures Can Strengthen Social Movement Groups.

My conversation with Betsy Leondar-Wright: 

Progressive and social activists are too often portrayed as latte drinking,  sushi eating,  Volvo driving, arugula eating, white wine sipping, Birkenstock wearing, NPR listening, New York Times reading, tofu eating…etc.  You get the idea.  

This isn’t just another ordinary line of attack,  because what it does, what it means to do, is to drive a wedge between classes.  Class groups that often have common goals, shared values, and a true desire to solve real problems.

But the attacks often work because sometimes the leaders of social movements themselves, forget that while goals may be shared, many groups and different classes bring very different experiences and approaches along with different worldviews to solve similar problems.

So how can this circle be squared?  How can these groups not work against their self interest in a “What’s the Matter with Kansas,” kind of way?  Betsy Leondar-Wright gets to the core of the problem and potential solutions in her new book Missing Class: How Seeing Class Cultures Can Strengthen Social Movement Groups.

My conversation with Betsy Leondar-Wright: 

The task of bearing witness to war and terror, even for a journalist, is not to reduce events to our own understanding, but by acknowledging and reporting them, to serve both the dead and the living. Thierry Cruvellier has done this as one of the only journalists to have attended the trials of all of our contemporary international war crimes tribunals.  

Yet few such trials are more powerful than that of a mild mannered math teacher who was one of the principal executioners of the Killing Fields of the Khmer Rouge and the Pol Pot regime in Cambodia in the 70’s.  He tells that story in his new book The Master of Confessions: The Making of a Khmer Rouge Torturer.

My conversation with Thierry Cruvellier:

Few things are more ubiquitous than money.  Yet what seems so simple, can often become so complex.  Money is far more than just the notes and coins we carry in our pockets.  It’s part of a complex system of debits and credits and clearing. Just look at the workings of Bitcoin and you start to see how those notes and coins are really just tokens and symbols that represent a much larger and more complex world of money.

That's the world that Felix Martin ushers us into in Money: The Unauthorized Biography.

My conversation with Felix Martin: 

During what was once considered the “golden age of radio," from roughly the late 1920s until the late 1940s, advertising agencies were the most important source of radio entertainment. Most nationally broadcast programs, on network radio, were created, produced, written, and/or managed by advertising agencies.

For those old enough, you might remember something like  Kraft Music Hall, or Maxwell House Showboat. 

When television came along, again it was the advertising agencies that produced and drove the entertainment decisions and production. If you’ve been watching Mad Men, you’ve seen the evolution of this.    It’s funny how today, in some ways, we seem to be coming back full circle, to this old notion of “branded programming.”

Cynthia Meyers, takes us back, to this time gone by, in her new book A Word from Our Sponsor: Admen, Advertising, and the Golden Age of Radio.

My conversation with Cynthia Meyers:

From High School biology class, to treating the most complex diseases, evolution lies at the core of our existence.  Whether we’re trying to figure out world conflict, medical breakthroughs or even what might happen if we encounter alien beings, evolution provides the foundation.

Today, with the world moving so rapidly, with technology so much a part of shaping that world, it seems more important than ever, that we all, especially young people, understand our roots, where we came from and what it might mean for our future. Few do this better than UCLA Professor, and Pulitzer Prize winning author of Gun, Germs and Steel, Jared Diamond.

In his latest book, The Third Chimpanzee for Young People: On the Evolution and Future of the Human Animal, he brings young people deeply into the discussion.

My conversation with Jared Diamond

Think for a moment about how much has changed about life, just in our own lifetime.  Everyday there are new ideas or new products that disrupt existing paradigms.  Is it any wonder then that parenthood today is very different than in our parents or grandparents time?

Where once children were looked at as economic units to the family, today we live in a child centered society, where the rules, the expectations and the impact on parents have all changed.

Are we better off?  Are we having more fun, are children more rewarding?  The answer is, it depends.

That’s the landscape that Jennifer Senior enters into in her wide ranging looking at parenthood, All Joy and No Fun: The Paradox of Modern Parenthood.

My conversation with Jennifer Senior: 

Bogie reminded us “that we’ll always have Paris.”  Indeed, we will. Paris defines what a city should be.  Beyond it’s being a City of Lights, a Moveable Feast, and so many other things, it is a model, the model for what urban life should be.  And that’s how it grew up.  From a desolate, war torn landscape to one of the first cities to embrace street life, to welcome pedestrians, to be lit at night, to have public gardens and where, as Joni Mitchell said, “they kiss on main street.”

Joan DeJean celebrates this history and explains How Paris Became Paris: The Invention of the Modern City.

My conversation with Joan DeJean:  

Today, digital privacy is on everyone's mind.  We know that every time we search, use an App, make an online purchase, or even go to the doctor, more and more information is being collected about us.  

The degree to which we can do anything about it, or even care in this digital age, is an open question.  However, what if we ourselves could access and use this information?  Not to make us better consumers, but to actually make us happier.  If we understand our digital footprint, will it make us better able to understand ourselves, and would this have value?  Can all of this aggregated, quantified information create a kind of digital psychoanalysis, that we can use to improve our lives?  That's the premise of John Havens' book Hacking Happiness: Why Your Personal Data Counts and How Tracking it Can Change the World

My conversation with John Havens:

From the discovery of x rays at the turn of the century, to the tragedy of Fukushima, we’ve had 120 years of the nuclear age.  Yet something that was once so modern, so cutting edge, filled with so much promise, is now viewed as a scourge upon mankind.

While nuclear medicine makes life saving procedures possible, nuclear proliferation still drives international concern.  While the physics of the atom tries to give us a better understanding of our past, the fear is still pervasive that the same physics could be the end of that history. The contradictions and emotions of splitting the atom still haunt us. 

It's a remarkable and complex history, told by Craig Nelson, in    The Age of Radiance: The Epic Rise and Dramatic Fall of the Atomic Era.

My conversation with Craig Nelson: 

In Heart of Darkness, Conrad spoke of exploring up river with a “general sense of vague and oppressive wonder.  Like a weary pilgrimage amongst hints of nightmare.”

Paul Rosolie made a journey into his own heart of darkness, as he engaged in an extraordinary adventure into the uncharted tributaries of the Western Amazon.  

He writes about his experiences in  Mother of God: An Extraordinary Journey into the Uncharted Tributaries of the Western Amazon.  Paraphrasing Conrad, Rosolie conveys the life-sensation of his  existence--that which gives his story its truth, its meaning--its subtle and penetrating essence.

My conversation with Paul Rololie: 

Who among us is not multitasking?  The idea of watching or working multiple screens is now a term of art.  But are the pressures, demands and distractions producing an anxiety that has some long term consequences?

Simply viewed, has the evolution of our brain and our central nervous system kept pace with our needs, our desires and our technology?  For millennials and digital natives, it may be getting closer.  For the rest of us, not so much.

So is the answer to seek  digital hibernation, or  to find a way to reconcile the competing demands on our time, our brain and our body.

ABC news anchor Dan Harris thinks he has found a way to deal with modernity. He shares it with us in 10% Happier: How I Tamed the Voice in My Head, Reduced Stress Without Losing My Edge, and Found Self-Help That Actually Works--A True Story.

My conversation with Dan Harris:

Back in 1999, almost fifteen years ago, Sun Microsystems then Gadfly-in-Chief Scott McNealy made his infamous statement that “you have zero privacy anyway, get over, it.”  There was a kerfuffle at the time, mostly that he had the nerve to say such a thing.  Imagine, someone telling the truth.  

The fact is he was right then, and all the debate from time to time, about terms of service for Google or Facebook, has resulted in very little change in the private sector, with respect to online privacy.  In the public realm, the Snowden revelations really only confirmed what many have suspected for a long. We have not privacy.  

So the question now is, should we just get over it, or actually try to do something about and if so what?  Will some people opt to become a digital recluse, or is all of this  just the price of progress?

Pulitzer Prize winning journalist Julia Angwin looks inside the world of privacy today in Dragnet Nation: A Quest for Privacy, Security, and Freedom in a World of Relentless Surveillance.

My conversation with Julia Angwin: 

On of the strongest arguments for globalization and free trade, is that nations that do business together don’t go to war. The corollary of that is that  continued economic growth depends upon no major wars.  In other words,  global prosperity depends on politics. 

But can the two be separated.  Politics impacts economic growth and in many ways, as peoples of the world seek a higher or better standard of living, economics impacts politics.  We’ve created a kind of global feedback loop.  The result is that the chain of globalized growth and prosperity is only as strong as its weakest link. These ideas are part of The Road to Global Prosperity, a    new book by Johns Hopkins University Professor, Michael Mandelbaum.

My conversation with Michael Mandelbaum:

In the Netflix series House of Cards, Vice President Frank Underwood, a man dealing with and plotting the the fate of  of the world, takes time out to work with his hands and craft, lay out and paint Civil War figurines.   He says it's a form of relaxation.

For many people, even those in high profile, high stress jobs, working with their hands, doing crafts and even cooking, fulfill a primal and important need.  In a world where nothing ever seems to conclude, when the days and responsibilities and the technology seems to be both endless and seamless, the art of craft has, for many a very special place and a powerful fulfillment.

Peter Korn examines this in Why We Make Things and Why It Matters: The Education of a Craftsman.

My conversation with Peter Korn:

When it comes to Hollywood, William Goldman certainly may have been right when he said that, “nobody knows anything.”  Certainly the forces that drive Hollywood have always been somewhat mysterious.  Why and how pictures get made, why some get to be hits and others misses.  How some generate buzz and some actors and movies get hot, all sometimes seems

to be the stuff of movie magic.  

And all of this was before the digital age.  Before Netflix, and Amazon and Hulu and Pirate Bay and digital prints:  Before on demand and binge watching were everyday words.  

Today, the nuances of the film “business” are such, that it sometimes stretches the credibility of the word business.  Yet even amidst all of these changes, 2012 was a banner year.  After two previous declining years, 2012 generated over 11 billion dollars at the box office and even gave us some decent movies like Argo, Silver Linings Playbook, Life of Pi, Lincoln, Django Unchained and Zero Dark Thirty.

What did this year of 2012 mean in the new paradigm of Hollywood?  Longtime film journalist Anne Thompson takes us through the year in The $11 Billion Year: From Sundance to the Oscars, an Inside Look at the Changing Hollywood System.

My conversation with Anne Thompson:

T.S. Eliot may have had the best take on trying to understand the world when he said   that,  “we shall not cease from exploration, and the end of all our exploring will be to arrive where we started and know the place for the first time.”  Perhaps that is even more true today, as some places in the world are ever changing and that with each visit we need to see and understand them anew.  

Haroon Ullah is a Pakistani American scholar and diplomat.   In The Bargain from the Bazaar: A Family's Day of Reckoning in Lahore, he gives us a picture of a slice of Pakistan today.  A county both a key part of and deeply removed from the world.

In fact in that contradiction lies the very reason we need to understand Pakistan. It has the power to upend the world even while it and its people try desperately to find a place in it.

My conversation with Haroon Ullah:

Years ago I was having dinner with a friend and a friend of hers, who was a member of the Joffrey Ballet.  I asked this young woman, how is was that she became a professional ballerina?  Her answer still sticks with me.  She said that she started at six taking ballet classes, like every other young girl.  The difference is, she never stopped.

What stuck with me is the idea, and we see it in so many endeavors, that at six or seven, we already embody the passions that will guide us, the rest of our lives.  

Jenifer Ringer knew at the age of ten that her destiny was the Ballet.  At twelve, she entered the Washington School of Ballet in DC.  At fourteen, she entered the School of American Ballet in New York and became a member of the NYC ballet at sixteen.  

After a long and complex career, she rose to become the principal dancer of the NYC ballet and recently retired from that company. She tells her story of grit, determination and cultural images and her expectations in Dancing Through It: My Journey in the Ballet.

My conversation with Jenifer Ringer: 

William James talked about “the bitch goddess success,” and the strange sacrifices that it takes from us.  Today, the same might be said of the pursuit of fame.  Whether it’s thousands of “Likes” on Facebook, millions of Twitter followers, ones own reality show, or simply 24/7 adulation, today fame is both the holy grail and the ultimate aphrodisiac.

But think how sad it would be to achieve fame, only after you're gone.  The idea of posthumous success is what drives Richard Vetere new novel The Writers Afterlife

My conversation with Richard Vetere:

Ever since the Iranian hostage crisis in November of 1979, political and diplomatic relations between the US and Iran have been irreparably ruptured.  Thirty years later, three young Americans would be hiking near the Iraq / Iran border.  They would be captured, accused of espionage, transferred to Iran's most notorious prison and held, sometimes for long periods in solitary confinement.

Their story is a cautionary reminder of the complexities of politics in the Middle East and most importantly of the  human face of news stories from the region that have, after 30+ years, and all that has transpired during that time, had an almost  numbing effect. But there is nothing numbing about the story of Shane Bauer, Joshua Fattal & Sarah Shourd.  They tell their full story, for the first time in A Sliver of Light: Three Americans Imprisoned in Iran

My conversation with Shane Bauer, Joshua Fattal & Sarah Shourd:  

We all know the equation E=MC2.  We’ve all read about Einstein's theory of general relativity.  But how many of us know what it means, how it came to be and how relevant it might be today, one-hundred years after it was put forth.

Much has been written about Einstein, but Pedro Ferreira in The Perfect Theory: A Century of Geniuses and the Battle over General Relativity gives us a real biography of general relativity and explains why we should still care.

My conversation with Pedro Ferreira:

Today, virtually everything in society has become atomized by the left/right, red/blue debate.  Whether it’s culture, entertainment, politics, sports, science and health,  all are shaped by how we see the liberal vs. conservative divide.  

But rarely do we stop to try and understand the roots of all of this.  Where did these terms come from, who were their intellectual fathers and how has their meaning morphed over decades and even centuries?

Conservative political analyst, and journalist Yuval Levin puts all of this in far greater perspective, in his new book The Great Debate: Edmund Burke, Thomas Paine, and the Birth of Right and Left.

My conversation with Yuval Levin:

We all intuitively know that the greatest gift we can get today, is the gift of time.  We just don’t have enough.   The pressures and stresses of work, parenthood, family and personal commitments pull us in multiple directions, all the time.

The technology that was supposed to free us up and make us more efficient, has become a kind of parolee ankle bracelet tying us down even more. Societal expectations of what it means to be a good parent or to lean in at work, add yet another layer to the demands.

Public policy doesn't necessarily help and sometimes it appears that our whole operating system of work and play, was designed for a mid 20th century world, when we are having to operate in the 21st century. The result is that often times we just, not unlike our computers, time out.  

But how did we get here and what do we do about it?  That’s the lens that Washington Post reporter Brigid Schulte looks though in her new book Overwhelmed: Work, Love, and Play When No One Has the Time.

My conversation with Brigid Schulte:

We spend a lot of time talking about technological change. The impact that everything from our phones and the Internet to self driving cars are having on the way we live.  The fact is, the single greatest factor in changing the way we live, may be the demographic changes shifting right in our neighborhoods and workplaces.  

Boomers are, not so gracefully, aging out and retiring.  Millennials are trying to find and take their place in the world and, as many of the ads during the Superbowl showed us, we look different as a nation; our values and what constitutes a family are all changing rapidly.

This would all be just very interesting were it not for the fact that policy makers are literally ignoring these changes.  Be it entitlements, transportation, education, or health care, leaders in Washington and in Statehouse often act like these changes just aren't happening, or somehow they will just go away.  They won't.  Business knows it.  We know it.  The question is what do we need to do?

Pew Research, Executive Vice President, Paul Taylor gives us a look into The Next America: Boomers, Millennials, and the Looming Generational Showdown.

My conversation with Paul Taylor: