Talk Cocktail

Is wearing a bracelet or a ribbon enough?

We live a world in which we want everything to be easy. We want instant gratification, sound bite politics, fast food and instant cures for all problems. We also want our philanthropy to be easy and painless. If we can go shopping or just wear a bracelet and do good, what could be better? The problem is, like most things instant, it’s not that simple or that good. Or maybe it is, if we only think of ourselves as consumers rather than engaged and caring human beings. This is the jumping off point for Mara Einstein in Compassion, Inc.: How Corporate America Blurs the Line between What We Buy, Who We Are, and Those We Help My conversation with Mara Einstein:

Gluttony and Hubris in an Age of Epic Inequality OR Why Greed is Not Good

The level of economic inequality in America today exceeds every other Western nation. This is ironic when one realizes that it was the rise of the middle class that built post war America. So what has happened in three generations, in just sixty years, that has so stratified the nation, that makes Wall Street look like Versailles in the age of Louis the 14th, and in 2008 almost drove the economy off the cliff? Esteemed Canadian journalist Linda McQuaig takes us to the Billionaires' Ball: Gluttony and Hubris in an Age of Epic Inequality My conversation with Linda McQuaig:

Entrepreneurs and The Coming Prosperity

We sit at the apogee of four hundred years of human progress; never have we been closer to democratizing that progress to every corner of the globe. Yet here we sit today, in a nation fearful, paralyzed and seeing our futures almost choked off by that fear. We are in a time where, as Yates observed, “ the best lack all conviction, the worst are full of passionate intensity.” While we rearrange the deckchairs on the Titanic, the rest of world looks out to opportunity and progress. And it is entrepreneurs that sit at the forefront of that progress. George Mason University professor Philip Auerswald argues that how we respond to these challenges will determine The Coming Prosperity: My conversation with Philip Auerswald:

Equal Pay and Fairness - a radical idea

Equal pay for equal work. Sounds like such a simple idea. Yet it had to take an act of congress and the support of the President to make it a reality. The Lilly Ledbetter Fair Pay Act was the first bill signed by President Obama. It was passed with bipartisan support, but now it's become a campaign issue, with one Republican Senate candidate calling it a "nuisance," and Mitt Romney, not surprisingly, on the fence about it. Lilly Ledbetter never dreamed she'd be the center of national controversy. She was just trying to do her job and support her family. Now she gives us a first hand account of what she went through in Grace and Grit: My Fight for Equal Pay and Fairness at Goodyear and Beyond My conversation with Lilly Ledbetter:

Is it possible?

On June 12th, 1994 a double homicide took place in Brentwood, CA. that would forever change the way we view crimes, criminal procedure and the American justice system. No crime and trial has ever drawn a bigger audience than the trial of O.J. Simpson for the murder of Nicole Brown Simpson and Ronald Goldman. The players, the events, the moments are still powerfully etched in the public consciousness and even our popular entertainment had to shift to accommodate the perceptions we had all been inculcated with as a result of the crime and trial. But was justice served? Did O.J. get away with murder? Has the downward spiral of his life been a kind of karmic punishment for a crime he got away with, OR...was he innocent? Did someone else actually commit the crime. Private Investigator Bill Dear has a different theory and like it or not, he's spent the past eighteen years pursuing it and now he lays it out in O.J. is Innocent and I Can Prove It My conversation with Bill Dear:

Israel on the brink

In his new book The Crisis of Zionism, esteemed journalist, author and professor Peter Beinart argues that Israel is in danger. Not just from outside forces, not just from Palestinians or Iranians, but from the unraveling of its own core values, central ideas and founding principals. He says that we need to view Israel today not as some Disneyfied version of the holy land, but as a modern nation state, with real power, that must merge the responsibility of that power, with the values that created it in the first place. And that perhaps the greatest threat to accomplishing this, comes not only from within Israel itself, but from an American Jewish community that has made power, real estate and Zionism a religion unto itself. My conversation with Peter Beinart:

Mike Wallace

As many of you saw last night, 60 Minutes devoted an entire program to a retrospective of Mike Wallace's remarkable body of work. It reminded me of a conversation I had with Wallace back in 2006, just after his retirement from 60 Minutes, and upon the publication of the second volume of his memoirs. At the time Wallace was 87 years old, yet still personified and profoundly understood the role of broadcast journalism. This seemed like a good time to post that interview with Mike Wallace

The Summer that changed Baseball - and America

1968 was certainly one of the most tumultuous years in American history. It was a year of political turbulence, civil unrest and violence; the Democratic Convention in Chicago, the assassinations of Martin Luther King and Robert Kennedy. It was a time that some thought the country would never recover from. It was also, although not quite as profoundly remembered, an unforgettable season in the history of baseball. Baseball had reached its apogee of popularity and it was a much need national distraction. Writer and journalist Tim Wendel takes us back to the Summer of '68: The Season That Changed Baseball--and America--Forever.

My conversation with Tim Wendel

Atheism 2.0

The battle between religion and secularism seems to have reached a feaver pitch in the US. Alain de Botton argues in his new work, Religion for Atheists: A Non-believer's Guide to the Uses of Religion, that there may be a middle ground. That religions have important things to teach the secular world. That the tired old debate between atheists and believers is not helping the modern world and that we need to move onto more fruitful ground. For too long, de Botton says, we have faced a false choice between either swallowing doctrines or doing away with some worthwhile rituals and ideas. Botton's is a kinder, gentler atheism.

My conversation with Alain de Botton:

Great Soul

There are very few individuals for whom just the mention of their name conjures up a complete set of beliefs and values. Gandhi is certainly one of those. So it is remarkable that as India continues to go through its current transformation, that Gandhi's legacy is still evolving. Former New York Times Executive Editor and Pulitzer Prize winner Joseph Lelyveld in Great Soul: Mahatma Gandhi and His Struggle with India, takes us on the journey of Gandhi's extraordinary struggles on two continents, his ideals and values and how the nation that still revers him, rejected so many of his values. My conversation with Joseph Lelyveld:

when God talks back

It seemed that everywhere we turned last week religion was front and center. Easter, Passover and even our political dialogue all contained different sides of religious discussion.  But what happens when the religious rhetoric goes to extremes?  When individuals and even politicians claim to have spoken directly to, or are taking insttructions from God? Is this still religion, or have we crossed a line in psychosis? This is the backdrop for Tanya Luhrmann’s, When God Talks Back: Understanding the American Evangelical Relationship with God My conversation with T.M. Luhrman

From North Korea to Freedom

If there was ever any question about the human instinct for freedom, the story of Shin Dong-hyuk's escape from a North Korean prison camp will lay that doubt to rest. North Korea currently holds as many as 200,000 political prisoners in a half-dozen labor camps. Many spend their lives there, often dying from malnutrition and mistreatment. Only one man, born inside one of the brutal camps, raised to be a laborer, has managed to escape. Journalist Blaine Hardin in Escape from Camp 14: One Man's Remarkable Odyssey from North Korea to Freedom in the West, tells the story of Shin Dong-Hyuk - how he was starved, tortured and forced to witness the execution of his mother and brother, and how he ultimately found his way to freedom.My conversation with Blaine Harden:

The Rising Cost of Youth Sports and the Toll on Today's Families

Youth sports are more than just a pastime. They are a multi-billion dollar business that begins in elementary school and continues into a college system,  certainly as competitive as the pros. The movies Hoosiers, Hoop Dreams, Friday Night Lights and Lucas are just a few of the ways that popular culture has reflected our youth sports obsession. What was once a gentle diversion for kids, is today sometimes the difference between setting the stage for success or failure later in life. Journalist and sports management Professor Mark Hyman has been looking at the issues surrounding youth sports for years and in his new book he concludes that it is clearly The Most Expensive Game in Town. My conversation with Mark Hyman:

This is Your Brain on Emotions

We live in a world in which we praise logic and reason.  Yet to a large extent we are still ruled by our emotions. Moreover, new research shows us the power of emotions and that to very real extent, we do just as well making our decisions and choices from a combination of emotion and reason. All of this relates to what we understand about how the emotional system works, what are the genetic and biochemical components of the brain and can we define and maybe even change our emotional style? These are the areas of cutting edge research being explored by Dr. Richard J. Davidson. Davidson has defined six emotional dimensions that reflect the discoveries of modern neuroscientific research. My conversation with Dr. Richard J. Davidson about The Emotional Life of Your Brain.

Jonah Lehrer explains How Creativity Works

George Bernard Shaw is quoted as saying, that "some men see things as they are and ask why, others dreams things that never were and ask why not."  This is often quoted in a political context, but could also be said to be a central question of creativity.  Where does creativity come from, how can it be stimulated, and like the uncertainty principle, if we try too hard to understand it, do we in some way alter it?  Jonah Lehrer, the author of "How we Decide" gives us a contemporary and real look at the creative process in his new book Imagine: How Creativity Works. My conversation with Jonah Lehrer:

The Making of The Military Industrial Complex

Last night on 60 Minutes we learned how man's reach into space has been virtually shut down over three billion dollars! While certainly this is real money, it is but a mere fraction of America's defense budget, much of which goes for waste, fraud, abuse and to satisfy the insatiable demands of the "military industrial complex."  Fifty years ago, Eisenhower warned us about it.  Today journalist William Hartung takes us inside the largest of America's ongoing military pariahs, Lockheed Martin.

My conversation with Willaims Hartung about the Prophets of War: Lockheed Martin and the Making of the Military-Industrial Complex.

The Front Lines of China's Great Urban Migration

As all the talk, misstatement and misrepresentation about Foxconn plays out in the media, it’s worthwhile to try and really understand how the Chinese economy works and how the macro issues of China's great migration helps explains so much that we don’t understand. Every year more than 200 millions rural peasants pour into China's cities, fueling the country's staggering growth. The obstacles they face, the opportunities that lie before them and the contributions they make are all part of the future of modern China. How this all plays out is still an open question, as China moves faster than any other nation in history from a rural to an urban economy. Michelle Dammon Loyalka, in her book Eating Bitterness: takes us inside these stories from China’s great urban migration. My conversation with Michelle Dammon Loyalka:

The Epic Rivalry Between Big Business and Government.

If any movement has defined our times, it is the movement towards power in both government and business and the balance between the two. In fact the occupy movement protesting against the rising power of business and the tea party movement protesting the rising power of government, are indeed two sides of the very same coin. In many way this could have been predicted, as globalization and multinationals first began their rise in the 1970’s. David Rothkopf, acclaimed author, visiting scholar at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace and the CEO and Editor-at-large of Foreign Policy Magazine, looks at this phenomenon in his new work Power, Inc.: The Epic Rivalry Between Big Business and Government--and the Reckoning That Lies Ahead. My conversation with David Rothkopf:

The Unfinished Revolutions

A year ago it appeared as if the Arab world would be forever transformed. The Arab Spring would move like a tsunami, taking out dictators in its path. Yet as we are now beginning to see, the the removal of old regimes was just the beginning. The larger story is, as it usually is, about the morning after. What happens next and how does the Arab public gain real power, what do they do with it and will this be just a rerun of previous attempts at "revolution?" Marc Lynch is a professor of political science at The George Washington University, where he also is the Director of the Institute for Middle East Studies. He lays out the whole contemporary crises in his new work The Arab Uprising: The Unfinished Revolutions of the New Middle East. My conversation with Marc Lynch:

Why have we made so little progress?

Sometimes it's reassuring, but often times very sad, that the strains of history repeat themselves in ways that show how little we've learned. From 1915 to 1970, the internal exodus of almost six million African Americans from the South changed the face of America. For her award winning book The Warmth of Other Suns: The Epic Story of America's Great Migration, Isabel Wilkerson interviewed more than a thousand people to tell the dramatic story of how this American journey unfolded. What happens to one the three central characters in 1945 Florida, shockingly parallels the recent killing of Trayvon Martin. My conversation with Isabel Wilkerson:

The modern plague

We live in a country where obesity and diabetes is a bigger problem than poverty. Where a staggering one in two Americans suffers from "diabesity." We are now raising the first generation of Americans that will live sicker and die younger than their parents. It is far more than prosperity and abundance that has created this. It's the choices we make. Dr. Mark Hyman, author of The Blood Sugar Solution, seeks to change those choices and take on this worldwide health epidemic. My conversation with Dr. Mark Hyman:

Why do we hate White Bread today?

In a culture in which everything is political, even the humble loaf of bread isn't spared. In fact going all the way back to the 19th century, bread said a lot about who you were, or who you wanted to be. Today, it's fair to say that old fashion, store bought white bread represents the lowest rung on the food chain. But why has this staple, that once symbolized the triumph of industrialization, become so contemptible. Aaron Bobrow-Strain, in his book White Bread: A Social History of the Store-Bought Loaf, gives rise to many theories. My conversation with Aaron Bobrow-Strain:

The Imperial Presidency 2.0

As Harvard law professor Jack Goldsmith states at the outset of his new book, “war and emergency invariably shift power to the Presidency. Permanent war and permanent emergency threaten to make the shift permanent.” Many believe that that 9/11 and the actions of the Bush administration, many of which were continued by the Obama administration, makes the idea of Presidential accountability impossible. But in his provocative new book Power and Constraint: The Accountable Presidency After 9/11,Goldsmith makes the contrary argument. He says that post-9/11 American Presidents are more accountable for their national security decisions than ever before. My conversation with Jack Goldsmith:

Old Habits Die Hard

Why is it so hard to loose weight, to quit smoking, to go the gym regularly?Much of the answer lies in the power of habits. The same forces that allow us to back out our driveway without conscious thought and to brush our teeth each day without using mental energy, also often stands in the way of our progress. This is The Power of Habit. Charles Duhigg, investigative reporter for The New York Times explains "why we do what we do in life in business." My conversation with Charles Duhigg:

Jack Kennedy: Elusive Hero

The playwright Arthur Laurents, in his film The Way We Were, talks about his handsome hero, saying that “in a way he was like the country he lived in; everything came too easily to him." For decades we thought the same about Jack Kennedy. He had that cool, romantic, Gatsbyesque detachment and it somehow seemed to come easily to him, as to the manor born. Today, as a result of a beautiful and insightful new biography Jack Kennedy: Elusive Hero by Chris Matthews, we know a lot more about how that heroic Renaissance man detachment came to be. It came not from ease, but from pain, study and yes, even loneliness. The kind of pain that builds character and makes great leaders and great Presidents. In a way he was like the country we all used to live in, and less like the one we live in today. My conversation with Chris Matthews:

First, do no harm!

The first rule of medicine is always "do no harm." It should also be the first rule of trying to do good in the world. However, when billions were committed to fighting AIDS in Africa, perhaps that rule was broken? Just maybe mistakes were made and over the long run more harm than good was accomplished? This is the focus of a revealing new book by Craig Timberg and Daniel Halperin,Tinderbox: How the West Sparked the AIDS Epidemic and How the World Can Finally Overcome It My conversation with Craig Timberg:

Valmpires and Angles and Werewolves, oh my!

Few writers  move as easily between genres as Anne Rice.  My last conversation with her was about religion, faith and then about Angels.  Now she moves into the realm of werewolves. A field already very crowded, but she still brings her own quite unique perspective. During a time of all to real dangers that face us each day, she gives us a reason to escape into another world in her new work The Wolf Gift. My conversation with Anne Rice:

From Black Panther to convict to Oscar nominee

How's this for a resume: 

• Joined Black Panther Party at age fifteen
• Served eleven months in the infamous NY Rikers Island Jail
• FBI fugitive
• Member of Panther 21, one of the most emblematic criminal cases of the sixties
• At sixteen, one of the youngest spokesman and leaders of the Panther's New York Chapter.  
• Member of the Revolutionary Black Underground
• Sentenced to twelve years in Leavenworth
• Earned two college degrees while in Leavenworth and founded a prison theater
• Released from Leavenworth
• Becomes full professor and Chair of Columbia University's School of the Arts Film Program 
• Nominated for 2008 Academy Award in Best Song category
• Publishes memoir Panther Baby

My conversation with Jamal Joseph:

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Clash of cultures on the court.

Yao Ming, the Chinese basketball star said, when he first came to America, that "basketball, in America, is like a culture. For me it is like a foreigner learning a new language. It is difficult to learn foreign languages and it will also be difficult for me to learn the culture for basketball here." Pulitzer Prize winning NY Times foreign correspondent Jim Yardley proves the reverse is also true. That Chinese basketball has its own culture, its own landscape and its own unique language, just as difficult for Americans to learn. Yardley, in his book Brave Dragons: A Chinese Basketball Team, an American Coach, and Two Cultures Clashing, take us inside the world of Chinese basketball. At a time when Linsanity is overtaking our game Yarldey gives us a whole new prospective on basketball inside a country that's been playing the game for as long as we have. My conversation with Jim Yardley:

They take home the Oscar, AND they are better parents!

When we think of the French we certainly think of wine, cheese, fashion, culture and this years Academy Awards. What we don't necessarily think about is parenting. We certainly didn't think that French mothers would give Tiger Mom a run for her money. Yet children do seem to behave differently in France. Former Wall Street Journal reporter Pamela Druckerman found out first hand that French woman not only "don't get fat," they raise better behaved children. Druckerman reports from the front in her book Bringing Up Bebe: One American Mother Discovers the Wisdom of French Parenting My conversation with Pam Druckerman:

What's happened to the United States Senate?

It was once referred to as "the world’s greatest deliberative body."  A body who can claim as its members, Daniel Webster, Abe Lincoln, Everett Dirksen, Ted Kennedy, Lyndon Johnson, Robert LaFollette, Robett Taft and Daniel Patrick Moynihan, just to name a few. Where once great issues like civil rights and war and peace were debated, today it’s become the epicenter of partisan gridlock. What happened and were the halcyon days really as good as we remember?  This is the world into which Ira Shapiro takes us in his book The Last Great Senate: Courage and Statesmanship in Times of Crisis. My conversation with Ira Shapiro:

If the President does it, it is still illegal?

Listening to the current crop of Republican candidates, you'd think the eight years of the Bush/Cheney administration had never happened. No embrace, not even an acknowledgement! No surprise really. Economic disaster, wiretapping, illegal war and torture are good reasons not to talk about it. Former Watergate committee member, the youngest woman ever elected to Congress and former Brooklyn prosecutor Elizabeth Holtzman argues in her new book Cheating Justice: How Bush and Cheney Attacked the Rule of Law, Plotted to Avoid Prosecution, and What We Can Do about It, that we still need to prosecute Bush and Cheney for violation of the rule of law. My conversation with Elizabeth Holtzman:

The Education of General David Petraeus

We have come a long way since Vietnam. Today the American military and our returning soldiers are looked upon as heroes, who often do give the last full measure of their devotion to serve their country. Much of this change in attitude has come, not from what many still see as the misguided mission of Iraq, but by the way in which that mission was transformed by Gen. David Petraeus. Petraeus has come to symbolize the iconic soldier- scholar-warrior ethos that we seemed to have lost for a long time in the American military. But who is the General who initiated and pulled off such profound transformational change. Paula Broadwell, who herself  has decades of military service and experience in counterterrorism and counterinsurgency, takes us All In: The Education of General David Petraeus. My conversation with Paula Broadwell:

Are there scarier words than

It has long been observed that the four scariest words a husband can hear are, “we need to talk.” The only thing that might be scarier is “we need to talk about making our marriage better.” With that as the basis, writer and journalist Elizabeth Weil began a quest that would take her and her husband into the heart of darkness of their marriage. But unlike Kurtz, they would return better off for the journey. Elizabeth and Dan's journey was first reported in one of the most talked about articles in The New York Times Magazine,  Now it is Elizabeth Weil's book No Cheating, No Dying: I Had a Good Marriage. Then I Tried To Make It Better. My conversation with Elizabeth Weil:

Inside Apple

Winston Churchill, in talking about the former Soviet Union, described it as “a riddle, wrapped in a mystery, inside an enigma, but perhaps," he said, "there is key and that key is Russian national interest.” After reading Adam Lashinsky’s new book Inside Apple: How America's Most Admired--and Secretive--Company Really Works, I feel we might say the same about Apple. A company that has been for so many journalist and business watchers, a puzzle difficult to solve. But Adam Lashinsky may have found the code. My conversation with Adam Lashinsky:

One is not the loneliest number

In our society today, one is no longer the loneliest number. In fact, in many places living along has become a luxury. There are currently 32 million Americans living along or 1 in 7 adults. Twenty percent of all households are single person households. Yet there is a big difference between living alone and being alone. The social alienation that Robert Putnam talked about in Bowling Alone, is not part of this trend. It simply reflects some profound changes in the nature of work, relationships, and social norms. Eric Klinenberg has captured the discussion about this in his new book Going Solo: The Extraordinary Rise and Surprising Appeal of Living Alone. My conversation with Eric Klinenberg:

The politics of a marriage

Politics in America has become, for better or worse, a part of our celebrity/entertainment complex. What we often forget is that inside this culture are not just politicians and Hollywood celebrities, but real people with real lives real, complex relationships and complicated and evolving marriages. Marriages that are like so many that we see every day, where the surface is like the iceberg; what we see represents only ten-percent of the reality, In fact, political marriage especially are like the proverbial snowflake, no two are ever alike. NY Times correspondent, Jodi Kantor in her book The Obamas, takes a look inside the Obama family, the Obama marriage and the complexity of a modern professional marriage inside the White House. My conversation with Jodi Kantor:

Queen for 21,900 days

Remember the movie,The Kings Speech,and the oldest daughter of the man who would become King? That young girl wold herself become Queen of England at the age of twenty-five and serve until this very day, almost 60 years, as the second longest reigning monarch of England. It seems simple, yet this woman, Queen Elizabeth of England, has been in the public eye for 60 + years. Through generations, wars, twelve British governments, and the monumental changes of the 20th and then 2st centuries. And she has done it all with grace, composure, intelligence and even only one husband. Regardless of your view of the monarchy, what might we learn from this remarkable woman? Sally Bedell Smith, one of our preeminent biographers takes us inside the life of this woman, Elizabeth the Queen: The Life of a Modern Monarch. My conversation with Sally Bedell Smith:

Are men designed to cheat?

How would our society, our culture and even our politics be different if men...and even woman, could "openly" cheat. Professor Eric Anderson of the University of Winchester argues, in his new work The Monogamy Gap: Men, Love, and the Reality of Cheating, that the desire for sexual diversity is the inherent biological and physiological norm and that we should "encourage" our partners to cheat as a way of balancing the cognitive dissonance between the desire for intimacy and the desire for sexual adventure. He argues that the problem is not cheating, that the problem is monogamy. My very surprising conversation with Erica Anderson:

Why can't choice be a settled issue?

The debate over artion rights has consumed our politics for decades. It seems that each time the freedom to choose seems like a settled issue, the nation becomes more divided. Why has this issues had such resiliency, why can’t the values of due process and privacy prevail, and why is this still even an issue of debate among young woman? This story is all the more powerful through the lens of a woman who has been at the forefront of the movement. Her tireless efforts have put herself in danger, while fighting so hard for the rights of other woman. Merle Hoffman shares her story in her new memoir  Intimate Wars: The Life and Times of the Woman Who Brought Abortion from the Back Alley to the Board Room. My conversation with Merle Hoffman