Talk Cocktail

A young Johnny, played by Marlon Brando in THE WILD ONES, is asked what he’s rebelling against? He answers  “what have you got?”  Rebellion and the youthful the desire to shapes one's identity, have long been a part of the adolescent experience.  

Today however we know so much more about it.  About what goes on inside the brain that shapes that rebellion and the quest for identity.  What we also understand, but perhaps as parents we don’t always practice, is the the kind of virtuous circle, or feedback loop that results when parents react to adolescent behavior.  What we know is that the behavior isn’t fixed.  That it’s profoundly influenced by action and reaction....in ways that have a lifetime impact.

Few understand this better than UCLA clinical professor of psychiatry and Mindsight Institute Executive Director, Dr. Daniel Siegel.  He's also the author of Brainstorm: The Power and Purpose of the Teenage Brain.

My conversation with Dr. Daniel Siegel:  

The recent controversy surrounding Bill Keller’s column about Lisa Adams, and subject of illness and dying in general, brings into bold relief just how personal the subject is.  Dealing with death is little like marriage and fingerprints.  No two are ever alike.

We celebrate and mark weddings and deaths.  But what what are we marking, what we celebrating, really.  These are moments in time, the background and history,  joy and sorrow of which, may have gone on for years before, or may come years after.

Clearly to understand death, we must first understand the fullness life.   In some ways its counter intuitive. It runs counter to our uniquely American notion of being in the moment.  

Few understand all of as well as David Dow.  David is a death penalty appeals lawyer in the State of Texas.  As such, he has dealt with death on a regular basis. He has also dealt with his own personal experiences  which he shares with me in talking about his memoir, Things I've Learned from Dying: A Book About Life. 

My conversation with David Dow:

To live a full life is to make mistakes.  Unlike Fitzgerald’s suggestion of "personality as an unbroken series of successful gestures," for most of us life is messy, complicated and often filled with regret and anger.  When we look back we realize we are,  in some strange and mysterious way, the sum total of all that we have done.  The meals we’ve eaten, the books we’ve read and the people that we have touched and have touched us.  Together it forms kind of life mosaic, unique and often compelling.

Such has been the life of Daniel Manaker. Through the hallowed halls of the New Yorker, where he worked for twenty-six years, to the pinnacle of power in publishing at Random House and Harper Collins, through the death of a mother, a brother and his own battle with cancer, he now shares his unique mosaic with us in his new memoir My Mistake

My conversation with Daniel Menaker: 

Back in the dark days of the Cold War, John le Carre published The Spy Who Came In From The Cold.  It cast a light, as only fiction sometimes can, on covert actions that are not a clear choice between good and evil, but one where the methods that western intelligence would use, disturbingly resembled those used by their opponents.  The distance  between us and them became blurred.  It exposed the Cold War not as a battle between light and darkness, but a place where both sides meandered in the twilight of moral ambiguity.

In the days following 9/11 we as a nation, our policies and our intelligence service, the CIA, would again begin to blur those lines.  

At the same time, the actions that the President would arguably take, were reminiscent of Richard Nixon's comments in his famous interview with the late David Frost where he said, talking about Watergate at the time, "if the President does it, it means it's not illegal."

John Rizzo as, CIA General Council was at the center as that post 9/11 storm, as he was at the center of everything the CIA did for 34 years. He takes us through the history in Company Man: Thirty Years of Controversy and Crisis in the CIA.

My conversation with John Rizzo: 

As we continue to debate health care in America, as more people come into the system, the single most significant effort is now to figure out ways to reduce cost. Perhaps the best place to start, is with the one epidemic that accounts for no less than 10% of all health care costs. That epidemic is obesity.

It is our number one public health issue.  Its causes go to the limits of self control and human nature, but most of all to the reality and excess of our current food environment.

Dr. Deborah Cohen, in her book A Big Fat Crisis: The Hidden Forces Behind the Obesity Epidemic — and How We Can End It, argues that public policy, targeted at the food industry, is more important than any kind of personal responsibility.

My conversation with Deborah Cohen: 

Richard Pryor would become be the single most influential performer of the second half of the Twentieth Century, and certainly he was the most successful black comedian ever. 

Controversial always and enigmatic throughout  his lifetime, Pryor’s performances opened up a new world of possibilities, merging fantasy with angry reality in a way that wasn’t just new—it was heretofore unthinkable.

David and Joe Henry have captured the essence of Pryor in their new book  Furious Cool: Richard Pryor and the World That Made Him

My conversation with Joe and David Henry:

Long, long after the death of LIFE and LOOK, we once again live in a world of images.  Instagram, Facebook, Pinterest all cater to that proverbial idea that a picture is worth a thousand words.  Yet perhaps it's because we have too many images, or that they are coming at us to fast, few truly capture the essence of any particular moment or ethos.

However when we look back at the work of famed photographer Dorothea Lange, it’s different.  Her  striking black and white images taken during the depression years and depicting those on the margins of society, are a kind o tabula rosa for understanding a place, a time, a way of life.

Dorothea Lange will soon be the subject of a PBS documentary  on the American Masters series, and Chronicle Books has just released a career spanning collection of her work entitled Dorothea Lange: Grab a Hunk of Lightning. It is the companion book to the PBS documentary.  The new volume is written and curated by her goddaughter acclaimed biographer Elizabeth Partridge.

My conversation with Elizabeth Partridge:

Alan Turing, the great British mathematician who cracked Nazi codes, set the stage for our digital age and later killed himself after the government chemically castrated him for being gay, received a posthumous royal pardon last week, 61 years after his conviction on the "gross indecency" laws of the time. 

Turing's life will soon be the basis for the film The Imitation Game, starring Benedict Cumberbatch. Last year I spoke with technology historian George Dyson about his book Turing's Cathedral: The Origins of the Digital Universe.

My conversation with George Dyson:

Recently reports proliferated that in the House of Representatives, during the government shutdown, while meeting late into the night, the smell of booze was rampant.  Perhaps if they had been smoking pot, instead of drinking alcohol, the government would never have been shut down and there might be a whiff more bipartisanship.

Sound ridiculous? Well if it had been the Colorado or Washington legislature, it might very well be the case.  In fact the legalization of marijuana seems to be an idea whose time has come. Recent votes in Colorado and Washington, coupled with the twenty states already allowing medical marijuana, and the decision by the Justice Department to rescind prosecutions, are all key sign posts along the way.

A key player in this effort, who was also instrumental in Colorado's recent decision to legalize even recreational use, is Paul Armentano.  He's the co-author of Marijuana is Safer: So Why Are We Driving People to Drink?

My conversation with Paul Armentano:

Recently you’ve probably heard that the American College of Cardiology and the American Heart Association are seeking to expand the use of statins.  Cholesterol lowering drugs, that some have said should be put in our water supply.  But really how safe are these drugs? Are their benefits all they are cracked up to be and what’s the nexus with the fact that they also happen to be the worlds best selling drug and the biggest tool in enhancing big pharma's profits?

Why have doctors, even those that don’t stand to benefit from those profits, been so smitten with this class of drugs; drugs that have been linked to severe muscle pain, neuropathy, diabetes, memory loss, sexual dysfunction and even Lou Gehrig's disease?

Dr. Barbara Roberts, an associate clinical professor at the Alpert Medical School of Brown University,  has been trying to put put her finger in the dam of big pharma and trying and bring some reason to the debate.  She does so in her book The Truth About Statins: Risks and Alternatives to Cholesterol-Lowering Drugs.

My conversation with Dr. Barbara Roberts:

We often hear career counselors and teachers talking to young people about following their passion. Obviously good advice. But for some, that passion comes with a price.  For esteemed war correspondent Marie Colvin, that passion, her desire to bear witness to the horrors of war would cost her her life.  The same is true for British reporter and photographer Paul Conroy.  He was with Colvin in Syria in early 2012 when they would come under fire in the city of Homs

A rocket would kill Colvin and seriously wound Conroy.  As Syrian ground forces closed in on his position, Conroy was forced to make a terrifying last-ditch attempt to escape from a regime that appeared determined to murder him. He did escape, and has written  Under the Wire: Marie Colvin's Final Assignment.

My conversation with Paul Conroy:

Why is it that the pain of rejection in High School often stays with us for life?  Not being asked to the prom, not making the team, or that first broken heart. All seem to imprint us in ways that scar us for life.  

And what is the connection between those experiences and our seeming insatiable appetite for social networks?  As we look at the evolution of technology, from cave paintings to the printing press to the telephone to Facebook and Twitter, all are advancing the effort to connect.  

Maybe, we need to reassess  Maslow's hierarchy of needs, in a way that makes social connection as important to our well being as food, clothing and shelter?

Neuroscientist Matthew Liberman has been studying this and in Social: Why Our Brains Are Wired to Connect has come to some very powerful conclusions.

My conversation with Matthew Liberman:

Today it seems that every piece of evidence supports kinder and gentler parenting, a more cooperative workplace and a stress free education that supports deeper learning.  Tiger moms, and Tiger teachers and the excessively tough boss seem to be interesting, but outliers.

But are we missing something?  Does it have to be a zero sum game? Can the tough taskmaster, the dispenser of tough love teach out something about persistence, character, and resiliency that will serve us well later in life?

Joanne Lipman thinks so.  The former editor and chief of Portfolio Magazine, and former Deputy Managing Editor of the Wall Street Journal, is the co-author of Strings Attached: One Tough Teacher and the Gift of Great Expectations.

My conversation with Joanne Lipman: 

Audiences flock to see them.  What’s the appeal?  When we hear about real life heroes like Sully Sullenberger, or Wesley Autrey, who who jumped onto NY subway tracks to save man from an oncoming train, we are captivated.

Perhaps our fascination is because we can’t ever imagine ourselves exercising such a degree of selflessness.  We might fantasize about being hero, but don't think we have the right stuff.

Today science, genetics, and social psychology tells us we all, under the right circumstances and with the right experience, have what it takes. 

Elizabeth Svoboda, in What Makes a Hero?: The Surprising Science of Selflessness, examines how biology, upbringing and external influences all converge to produce altruistic and heroic behavior.

My conversation with Elizabeth Svoboda: 

The unemployment rate still sits at a around 7%.  Million of Americans, blue and white collar workers, have experienced long term unemployment.  But the 2008/2009 recession didn’t just impact the US.  Unemployment in many other Western nations is even higher.  

What’s different, is how unemployment and job seeking varies from country to country.  Who the unemployed blame for their problems, the self help industry that continues to grow and a different approach by employers, are all areas of extreme differences around the world.  

MIT sociologist Ofer Sharone, in his new book Flawed System/Flawed Self: Job Searching and Unemployment Experiences, looks at the personal impacts of these different approaches to unemployment and to job hunting.

My conversation with Ofer Sharone:

Each day life gets more complex. There are more pressures on our time, we are pulled in more and more directions.  To ground us, we look for the universal in everyday life.  Those things that create  order out of the chaos and cynicism of daily existence.   

We seek comfort in the memories of loved ones, in routines we used to appreciate, like that regular weekly phone call, perhaps from a child away at school or to an aging parent.   Often, even if we are not at all religious, we look for a a belief in something that transcends us.

These are some of themes in Mitch Albom’s newest book, The First Phone Call from Heaven. The author of Tuesdays with Morrie, explores the search for human connection and for something larger than ourselves and even how technologies may be getting in the way.

My conversation with Mitch Albom:

There is an old saying about popular culture, that if it’s popular, it can be good. This philosophy has at various times permeated music, film, literature, and especially the world of art.  Sometimes it's no doubt true.  But there are also profound exceptions.  

In the world of art, maybe the most unique exception is the work of Peter Max.  Few artists can be considered more American than Max.  His work, often referred to a pop or psychedelic art, has come be respected for its optimism, its boldness of color and celebration of the icons of success in all aspect of American life.  A story that parallels Peter Max's own success story

Peter Max, now at the age of 76 is out with his own multimedia autobiography entitled  The Universe of Peter Max.

My conversation with Peter Max:

With the execution of an uncle of Kim Jong Un, we saw another example of the brutality of the North Korean regime.  Perhaps more than any other nation, North Korea is disconnected from the norms of civilization.

This has been the case for some time, and it’s why most efforts to bridge the divide have failed.  This was the case all the way back in 1968 when the USS Pueblo, a rag tag American spy ship set out to find radar stations along the coast of North Korea.  

On a January morning the Pueblo was attacked and its crew shot at and captured. The incident remains one of the seminal dramas of American foreign policy in the 60’s, of the cold war, and once again of the efforts of an American President to avert war on the Korean peninsula. Long time Los Angeles Times political reporter Jack Cheevers takes us back to this Act of War.

My conversation with Jack Cheevers:

It’s amazing sometimes how simple ideas get lost in the big picture.  Back in 1923, President Warren Harding proposed a federal department to look after the nation's health, education and welfare.  The department was finally created by Eisenhower in 1953.  In 1979, Education was spun off and we created the department of Health AND Human Services.

Clearly as a nation, we’ve long understood the connection between health and human services.  Yet the way our health care system has evolved, preventive care, and human services have been almost abandoned as part of the health care enterprise.

Today we spend more money, per capita, on health care than any other nation.  Yet our outcomes, are near the bottom.  How did this happen, especially when we seemed to understand all along that there was a connection?

Is the fault in our government, our doctors, in our philosophy or in ourselves?  Elizabeth Bradley and Lauren Taylor set out to try and find out.  The result is their book The American Health Care Paradox: Why Spending More is Getting Us Less

My conversation with Elizabeth Bradley and Lauren Taylor: 

Even looking at the broad sweep and scope of history and change in the 20th century, it’s arguable that the dynamics of Israel, its relationship to its neighbors and the meaning of the Zionist project remain one of the most vexing and truly complex issues of our time.

For events that began at the end of the 19th Century, clearly and directly link to the issues being talked about and dealt with this very day in Tel Aviv, Tehran and Washington.

But how did it all get this way?  How did the desire for a homeland, a base for the Jewish diaspora, become so complex and lead to a statistically improbable number of foreign policy mistakes, on all sides?

And finally, can this huge ship, carrying the burdens of this history, be turned around in time to avoid crashing into the rocks ahead.

Israeli Journalist Ari Shavit has written what has been called the least tendentious book about Israel.  A non doctrinaire examination of Israel’s past, present and future, My Promised Land: The Triumph and Tragedy of Israel, is a book we’ve all need for quite some time.

My conversation with Ari Shavit:  

Back in 1996 welfare as we knew it was forever changed by President Clinton.  But while public policy can address issues like food stamps, child care, Medicaid, and many other aspects, it can never address issues of trust.  We know from Civil Rights legislation that no matter what the policy prescriptions, you can’t address what’s in the human heart.

In the panoply of issues surrounding welfare you might not think that trust was paramount.  In fact, Temple University Professor Judith Levine, in Ain't No Trust: How Bosses, Boyfriends, and Bureaucrats Fail Low-Income Mothers and Why It Matters, finds that it is one of the defining issues for low income women.  That it has an ongoing corrosive and paralyzing effect in the lives of these women and that even public policy cannot fully address it.

My conversation with Judith Levine: 

Perhaps it's our popular culture, but the business of selling has gotten a terrible reputation.  Whether it’s Willy Loman trying to be “well liked,” or Harold Hill hoodwinking people from town to town, or Alec Baldwin's character of Blake in David Mamet's’ Glengarry Glen Ross, we've seen selling portrayed as as one of the least trustworthy endeavors. Even lower on the scale than members of congress. 

Selling in the 21st century is very different.  No longer is it about sleaze and closing.  Today it’s about science, persuasion and information. Selling is something we all do in our personal lives, and in our professional lives; even if we are not in the business of sales. Best selling author Daniel Pink, takes us inside this reality in To Sell Is Human: The Surprising Truth About Moving Others.

My conversation with Daniel Pink: 

The number of angry white men in America is on the decline, just as talk radio, that panders to and inspires them, is also aging and declining. Yet their continued presence tells us a lot about change in America and the divides that separate race, gender and class.

Perhaps it all started back in 1969 when Richard Nixon tried to obscure the difference between working class and affluent voters, particular men, by portraying them all as a part of a silent majority.  He portrayed them as both heroes and victims of the tumultuousness of the period.   Reagan continued  with similar themes to capture what came to be called “Reagan Democrats.”  

All of this was before and really a precursor to the profound impacts of  feminism, civil rights, gay rights, globalization, growing income disparity, more women in the workplace, the loss of manufacturing, Sex in the City, outsourcing, the technological revolution, the US attacked on 9/11, the great recession, legalized marijuana, same sex marriage and the election of a black President.

It’s enough to disorient anyone.  But most notably its greatest  impact was on those most threatened; the standard bearers of the old status quo, white men.  Men who had stood on the wall  trying to defend an old way of life, a cultural paradigm that was crumbling beneath their feet. Stony Brook University Professor Michael Kimmel examines this phenomenon in Angry White Men: American Masculinity at the End of an Era.

My conversation with Michael Kimmel: 

Nelson Mandela stands as one of our greatest symbols of the struggle for freedom.  His shadow will always infuse the politics and culture of South Africa.  Yet almost one half the county is under 25 and doesn’t know or remember their nation in anything but it’s post apartheid period.  

How does and will this disconnect shape the future of the country?  How can it deal with its historical context and at the same time, the seemingly mundane issues health, welfare, justice and jobs.

Douglas Foster, a long time South Africa watcher, former head of the Journalism School at U.C. Berkley and currently Professor at Northwestern University's Medill School of Journalism writes about After Mandela: The Struggle for Freedom in Post-Apartheid South Africa.

My conversation with Douglas Foster:

Most of us, over a certain age, remember when getting on a transcontinental or international flight was glamorous.  We dressed to travel.  Strong pilots and beautiful stewardess framed the wonders of the journey.  The glamour of air travel imbued us with a sense of freedom and possibility. 

How many women were inspired by the glamour of the Charlie Girl commercial to believe that having it all was possible and the holy grail?

During the depression and war years, the glamour of Joan Crawford inspired a generation to believe in social mobility.

And of course, as we just re experienced, the glamour of the Kennedy’s and Camelot, has remained frozen in time, in our collective consciousness. 

All are examples of the power of glamour to shape society, define the culture and motivate each of us.

Virginia Postrel in The Power of Glamour: Longing and the Art of Visual Persuasion, goes to the core value of glamour as a powerful aspirational force and a very real part of our our social language.

My conversation with Virginia Postrel:

Whenever we see or hear great art, we are usually inclined to wonder about the forces that created it.  What constitutes the artistic life?  What influences, combined with what DNA creates the perfect storm of artistic temperament, vision and creation?

Long time music critic and editor for the LA Times, Robert Hilburn, has made trying to understand this, his life's work.  He has reported extensively about many of pop music’s legends, including Dylan, Springsteen, U2, Elton John and John Lennon.

Now he turns to the life and legend of Johnny Cash.  Cash spent a good part of his career fighting both his own demons and walking the line between being a credible artists and trying do good in the world 

Hilburn capture his essence in Johnny Cash: The Life

My conversation with Robert Hilburn:

Five years ago, on the evening of Nov. 26, 2008, heavily armed Pakistani terrorists raced to infiltrate the five-star Taj Mahal Palace Hotel.  At the same time, as part of a coordinated attack, other tourist sites in Mumbai were also attacked.

Throughout Mumbai more than 160 people were killed in the two day siege.  The Indian commission charged with studying what happened and why, did a remarkably poor job of gathering and reporting the facts. Now we have perhaps the best and most official account yet in The Siege: 68 Hours Inside the Taj Hotel.  A new book by two British journalists, Adrian Levy and Cathy Scott-Clark.

What's particularly significant about this story, is that when we look at the trajectory of more recent terrorist attacks, including the mall in Kenya, we see this attack on the Taj, as representing the beginning of a new wave in the future of terrorism.  

My conversation with Adrian Levy and Cathy Scott-Clark:

When we look at the immigrant history of America, it can perhaps best be told through great food. As neighborhoods emerged and changed, so did the restaurants. This is just as true today. 

Roy Choi is one of the founders of the food truck movement. But more than that, his food, his trucks and his four restaurants, represent the melting pot that is Los Angeles today.  By blending American, Asian, Caribbean and Mexican influences, Roy Choi sits at the cutting edge of our emerging culture. He tells his delicious story in his memoir,  L.A. Son: My Life, My City, My Food.

My conversation with Roy Choi: 

We’ve all heard that men are from Mars and women are from Venus.  The notion that men and woman are different is deeply inculcated in our culture. Yet today science, our growing understanding of the human genome and the interaction of culture and genetics, are giving us a far greater understanding of those differences. 

Harvard Professor of the History of Science and Studies of Women, Gender, and Sexuality, Sarah Richardson, in Sex Itself: The Search for Male and Female in the Human Genome, offers a compelling argument for the importance of an ongoing critical dialogue on how cultural conceptions both pre-judge, but also shape o

ur evolving gender roles.

Yet, like almost everything else in the realm of modern scientific discovery, different groups are happy and unhappy with the results of the science.

My conversation with Sarah Richardson:

Let's face it, our attention spans have been decapitated by modernity.  Our knowledge, criticism and even entertainment now comes to us in 140 neat characters.  We ourselves can be critics, just by clicking on a “thumbs up.”  

Today, serious commentary and serious criticism is in short supply.  It's not gone..but it's in remission.  One place it still survives is in the presence of James Wolcott and and his work, primarily today, on the pages of Vanity Fair.

His just published collection of work and essays Critical Mass: Four Decades of Essays, Reviews, Hand Grenades, and Hurrahs, reminds us of what it was like, not that long ago, when ideas seemed to matter. When we thought as well at felt, and when the moral power of language made us sit up and take notice.

My conversation with James Wolcott:

For over thirty years, and through over thirty books Anne Rice has captivated us with her imaginative fiction. She has become one of the most beloved novelists of our time. With each new book or series, she not only reinvents herself, but reinvents whole new arenas of fiction. From the Vampire Chronicles, to her Christ the Lord books, to the world of angels.

Now she continues her move into the realm of werewolves.  Where she still brings her own quite unique perspective. During a time of when we all face real dangers each day, she gives us a reason to escape into another world, but at the same time stay connected to our own. The Wolves of Midwinter: The Wolf Gift Chronicles is her latest.

My conversation with Anne Rice:

When Bill Clinton ran for President in 1992, and came in second in the New Hampshire primary, he dubbed himself “the comeback kid.”  The idea being that , Americans loved and admired the story of resurgence. The ability and the character to come back from seeming defeat.  Perhaps no President's story embodies that more than FDR.  

Struck down with polio at age thirty-eight, his polio not only further shaped his character, and honed what Oliver Wendell Holmes called “his first class temperament.” but perhaps it also taught him skills that he would need as he taught the nation to deal with and recover from the twin crises of war and depression.

James Tobin captures this essence of Roosevelt in The Man He Became: How FDR Defied Polio to Win the Presidency

My conversation with James Tobin: 

Like almost everything else in our globalized world, education is now competitive.  We are long past the time when American kids could stand on the ramparts and look down at the rest of the world.  Even some of our most prestigious and wealthiest communities can’t compete with the “average” kids in places like Korea or Finland or Poland.

As is normal when we are under attack, our knee jerk reaction is to come up with excuses.  We are more diverse, we are larger, we focus on different things and different values.  Problem is, they are excuses.  When the pencils are down, we fail.  We fall far, far behind.  But why?  We often ask what we are doing wrong, but instead, Atlantic and Time journalist Amanda Ripley, asks and explores what are others are doing right.

That is the core of her reporting in The Smartest Kids in the World: And How They Got That Way

.

Amanda Ripley spent one year following American teenagers living in Finland, South Korea and Poland.   Her stories, reveal startling transformation. These countries got smarter not by spending more money or creating more tests, and they are not like Lake Wobegon, where all the children are above average.  

My Conversation with Amanda Ripley: 

If the assassination of a President took place today, we’d all know about it in a matter of seconds.  Alerts, tweets, the Internet.  We’d all have the same facts, literally in an instant.  In a way that microsecond information impacts the way we process the news itself.

50 years ago, upon the assassination of JFK, this was not the case.  The information came out slowly.  Even on the streets of Dallas, news traveled by word of mouth, from person to person.  

Bit by bit, drop by drop we lived the story over four remarkable days.  The events, the images, the sounds had time to be absorbed into our pores, in a way that made it a part of our fabric, of the DNA of the American experience.

Perhaps that’s why those events, 50 years ago, still resonate so powerfully today. Now bestselling author James Swanson turns a laser like focus on the minute by minute events of the final days of our 35th president in End of Days: The Assassination of John F. Kennedy

My conversation with James Swanson:

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In the private sector, when corporations get into trouble they replace the CEO.  When sports teams repeatedly have a losing season, invariably they replace the coach.  If sales are down, managers are replaced.  Yet in the military today, it's very rare that generals are replaced.  Even in the wake of catastrophic failure.

Esteemed military journalist Thomas Ricks argues in The Generals: American Military Command from World War II to Today, that failures in America's recent wars can be directly traced to failures of those in command. Ricks examines U.S. military leadership from World War Two to the present day, and concludes that the mistakes in Iraq and Afghanistan can be traced to the Army's inability to come to terms with all the lessons of Vietnam and how that continued lack of accountability has shaped the military.

My conversation with Tom Ricks:

Woody Allen, in Annie Hall, said that he felt that life was divided into the horrible and the miserable. The horrible he thought were terminal cases, and blind people, and those with severe disabilities. He said, “I don't know how they get through life.” 

Yet many don't have that choice. Particularly for parents of children with severe disabilities. It appears on the surface that horrible is what they have to deal with every day.  However for many of them, it’s not horrible at all. It is difficult, it’s often painful, but it’s also a powerful lesson about unconditional love, about finding strength in broken places and about redefining one's identity. Often by entering an alien world, that sometimes turns out to be a place of love, and safety and enrichment.

This is the world that National Book Award winner Andrew Solomon lays out for us in Far From the Tree: Parents, Children and the Search for Identity.

My conversation with Andrew Solomon:

For years people have referred to Hollywood as being like High school with money.  Well, Hollywood has matured a lot. But today the same might be said about the tech world.  

Nowhere is that more apparent than in the story of the rise and rise of Twitter.  Started by four young guys looking to change the world, the drama of their story would rival anything in the world of high school mean girls.

Now, coinciding with the Twitter IPO, NY Times reporter Nick Bilton gives us Hatching Twitter: A True Story of Money, Power, Friendship, and Betrayal.  It takes us inside the remarkable story of the company and the four men who stated it. It’s a story of money, loneliness, bitterness, technology and personal growth; all driven by a grand vision to change how we communicate.

My conversation with Nick Bilton:

Even if you are not a football fan, you’ve all seen the diagrams of plays with all those X’s and O’s.  It makes you think, and even sometimes makes the players and coaches think, that they have it all figured out.  If you just follow the pattern, you will have success and that it will be a winning play.

Problem is, it’s not true. There are dozens of factors that enter into the equation.  The weather, the turf, memory, mental ability, the agility to pull it off and of course the plans and mindset of the opposing team.

In many ways the same is true for the human brain and human behavior.  We might have brain patterns, genetics and chemistry that tells us that we should or will develop a certain way.  The problem is there is also environment, parents, and many other factors that make us who we are.

That's the backdrop for neuroscientist Dr. James Fallon’s look at psychopathology in his book The Psychopath Inside: A Neuroscientist's Personal Journey into the Dark Side of the Brain

My conversation with James Fallon: 

When we look at the emergence of the diaspora of any ethnic group, we realize how important immigration is. To the Jews of the 20th century it was everything.  Some would migrate to America and become pillars of both capitalism and communism.  Some would migrate to Palestine and birth the state of Israel out of the desert.  Others would be left behind in Europe and suffer the last full measures of the holocaust.  They to would impact history, both by their courage and even by what they might have accomplished.

David Laskin, has written The Family: Three Journeys into the Heart of the Twentieth Century. It's

about his own family, but it's also a history that incorporate all the strands of this journey and the history of the Jewish diaspora in the 20th Century.

My conversation with David Laskin: