Talk Cocktail

The Fire That Save America

At a time when the terms "sustainability" and "green" are becoming a national religion, National Book Award and Pulitzer Prize winner Timothy Egan in his new book The Big Burn: Teddy Roosevelt and the Fire that Saved America, examines their origins. Egan chronicles the story of the devastating forest fire that made Teddy Roosevelt's vision of conservation real in the American mind and that cemented his legacy as the President who saved our wild places. It is also the story of a blaze still unmatched in the annals of American wildfires, the Big Burn lasted three days in August 1910 and decimated three million acres of forest in Washington, Montana, and Idaho.  At the time, no living person had ever seen anything like those flames, and nether the rangers nor anyone else knew how to subdue them.  My conversation with Timothy Egan:

Supply-Side Economics, R.I.P.

When one of the architects of supply-side economics in the Reagan era, says that it should go out of business, you know the times are changing. Bruce Bartlett, in his new book The New American Economy: The Failure of Reaganomics and a New Way Forward, argues that while supply-side was good for the economy in the 1980's, it has no place in shaping current economic policy.  A Reagan official, a policy staffer for Jack Kemp in the 70's, he thinks the George W. Bush's tax cuts were "nuts" and that we need a return to Keynesian principals.  My conversation with Bruce Bartlett:

Be not afraid

Whether it is  fear of aging, of unemployment, of terrorism, of natural disasters, or simply of change,  fear has become the dominant paradigm of our times.  Obama came to office offering us hope, the opposite of fear, Roosevelt said " the only thing we have to fear is fear itself."  Yet the reality and speed of 21st century life, coupled with fear mongers amongst us, give us a world that in the words of Rabbi Harold Kushner, in his new book Conquering Fear: Living Boldly in an Uncertain World drains us of the joy and purpose of our lives. My conversation with Rabbi Harold Kushner:

Wasp sting

F. Scott Fitzgerald had said that their power came from "animal magnetism and money." Yet, they eschewed vulgar displays of wealth and were even considered to be thrifty.  They were the best and the brightest, but also refused to be considered "intellectuals."  They were the natural aristocracy, the ruling class of American society.  They were the Wasp elite and the last days of their rein took place during the last half of the 20th Century.  New Yorker writer Tad Friend, in his new memoir Cheerful Money: Me, My Family, and the Last Days of Wasp Splendor gives us a very human and personal study of what happened when this culture collapsed and the personal psychological wreckage it left behind.  My conversation with Tad Friend

Oil & Water Pt. 2

Oil and Water don't usually mix.  But they do when we think about the two natural resources whose future scarcity could reshape our world.   Today oil is central to our world and has played a role in the violent conflicts and in the divisions between rich and poor. Peter Maas, distinguished journalist and author of Crude World: The Violent Twilight of Oilrefers to it as the oxygen of the global economy.  And yet for years we have refused to talk about it honestly. On the other hand, in the growing consensus over global warming and the cost of excess carbon, we are arguably overlooking the depletion of another precious resource: potable Water.  In Heart of Dryness: How the Last Bushmen Can Help Us Endure the Coming Age of Permanent Drought journalist and water expert James Workman travels to the direst place on earth to see how, against all odds and under brutal government repression, an indigenous people draws on ancient wisdom to survive on extreme scarcity of water, and what we not only might learn, but must learn. My conversation with James Workman

Oil & Water Pt. 1

Oil and Water don't usually mix.  But they do when we think about the two natural resources whose future scarcity could reshape our world.   Today oil is central to our world and has played a role in the violent conflicts and in the divisions between rich and poor. Peter Maas, distinguished journalist and author of Crude World: The Violent Twilight of Oilrefers to it as the oxygen of the global economy.  And yet for years we have refused to talk about it honestly. On the other hand, in the growing consensus over global warming and the cost of excess carbon, we are arguably overlooking the depletion of another precious resource: potable Water.  In Heart of Dryness: How the Last Bushmen Can Help Us Endure the Coming Age of Permanent Drought journalist and water expert James Workman travels to the direst place on earth to see how, against all odds and under brutal government repression, an indigenous people draws on ancient wisdom to survive on extreme scarcity of water, and what we not only might learn, but must learn. My conversation with Peter Maas:

Nature vs. NurtureShock

Suppose everything we think we know about raising children were turned upside down?  Po Bronson, author of the previous cutting edge books "The Nudist on the Late Shift, and "What Should I Do With My Life?" now, in his new book NurtureShock: New Thinking About Childrentakes us beyond the folklore of child rearing into the realm of modern science.  He reveals what decades of studies teach us and gives an intriguing analysis of conventional wisdom.  You will never approach your kids the same way again.  My conversation with Po Bronson:

Half the Sky

Without exaggeration, it may be one of the most important books of our time.  Two time Pulitzer Prize winner Nicholas Kristof of the N.Y. Times and his wife, Sheryl WuDunn, a Pulitzer winner as well, have written a brilliant call to arms  that describe one of the great injustices in the world today, the brutal treatment of woman.  In Half the Sky: Turning Oppression into Opportunity for Women Worldwide they show how facing up to and helping to solve these issues for woman have the ability to transform the world.  Addressing both the moral dimensions and issues of international security and stability, Kristof and WuDunn show how these brave woman might be giving us a road map to remake the world anew.   My conversation with Nicholas Kristof:

Evolution & being good

Dacher Keltner, a psychologist at UC Berkeley, and the author of Born to Be Good: The Science of a Meaningful Life uses Darwin's work as a jumping off point to explain that human emotions, from spontaneous bursts of laughter to a sympathetic blush, are not only signs of evolution, but also the keys to understanding our ability to be happy and bring out the good in other.   My conversation with Dacher Keltner:

It's the science, stupid

150 years after Darwin's "The Origin of the Species," in which he lays out the predicate for all of our understating of biological science, the very science that keep us alive, the reason we are worried about health care, some are still questioning his work.  In this new book The Greatest Show on Earth: The Evidence for Evolution, Richard Dawkins ameliorates those who would question evolution, and those who would argue the nonsense of intelligent design.  Written with Dawkins usual wit and passion, his work is both hard hitting and totally convincing.   My conversation with Richard Dawkins:

Hawks, Doves and Friendship

They were two of the Best and the Brightest. There 60 year friendship shaped the Cold War and American foreign policy.  Their story shows how the world is a better place and a safer place when the clash of idea and intellects, coupled with the bond of friendship, shapes the future.  In his dual biography of Paul Nitze and George Kennean, Nicholas Thompson, in his book The Hawk and the Dove: Paul Nitze, George Kennan, and the History of the Cold War, gives us two remarkable men whose public lives defined our 20th century foreign policy.  It's a lesson we need now!     My conversation with Nicolas Thompson:

The Barbaric Heart

According to Curtis White, esteemed author of The Middle Mind, Michael Moore misses the point.  The problems of capitalism are not its moral failings, but its virtues.  The desire to win, the view of the world as a zero sum game lies, White believes, at the heart of our economic and environmental problems.  He explains all of this in his newest work The Barbaric Heart: Faith, Money, and the Crisis of Nature.   My conversation with Curtis White:

1400 years of violence

Every day American troops are sent into harms way in Iraq and Afghanistan to protect a people and a way of life we don't understand.  Car bombs, suicide attacks, assault on Mosques.  All of this violence is part of a centuries-old schism between Suni's and Shia's.  Yet few Americans, including senior policy makers, legislators and top counterrorism officials, understand the true cause of so much bloodshed. Award winning journalist Leslie Hazleton, in her new book After the Prophet: The Epic Story of the Shia-Sunni Split in Islam lays out the 1400 year story behind this violence and explains why events that took place 14 centuries ago, are relevant to actions on the ground today! My conversation with Lesley Hazleton

Ted Kennedy's True Compass

Like so much in the Kennedy legacy, it was left to Teddy to tell the true family history.  He does so by telling us his story, by showing us his own courage, perseverance and optimism, which was so emblematic of his family.  In his autobiography, True Compass: A Memoir, completed just before his death, he takes us with him on his personal voyage of faith, family and politics. Kennedy's collaborator on this book was his editor Jonathan Karp.  Jonathan is the Publisher and Editor in Chief of Twelve, which published True Compass.    My conversation with Jonathan Karp.

Why history matters!

The "it" book of this week takes us inside of the decisions, made by the Best and the Brightest, in the 1960s and 70s, to escalate the war in Vietnam.  Gordon Goldstein in his book Lessons in Disaster: McGeorge Bundy and the Path to War in Vietnam,  just out in paperback, examines McGeorge Bundy and his role in increasing Americas troop levels in Vietnam.  Both Frank Rich in the N.Y. Times and George Stephanopoulos, among  others, have told us that not only is this a book every America should read now, but that it is one being read by every member of the Obama war team. Last November I had the chance to talk to Gordon Goldstein about all of this.  His ideas are even more important now as the modern day Best and Brightest consider escalating the war in Afghanistan.  I will be talking with Gordon again in the next few weeks to update the story and the frightening parallels.  My November conversation with Gordon Goldstein:

We are all Keynesians now

"We are all Keynesians now" is a now-famous phrase coined by Milton Friedman and attributed to Richard Nixon. It is popularly associated with the reluctant embrace in times of financial crisis, of Keynesian economics by individuals who had formerly favored unfettered free market capitalism.  The phrase has gained a whole new status as a result of our current financial crisis.  Who was John Maynard Keynes and why are his ideas even more embraced today, than upon his death some sixty plus years ago. Robert Skidelsky is the premier Keynes biographer, whose latest book is Keynes: The Return of the Master.  My conversation with Robert Skidelsky:

The case for compassion

Renowned religion historian Karen Armstrong, in her new book The Case for God argues that our religious thinking is surprisingly less sophisticated now than it it has been in the past.  She explains how religion was never intended to answer the questions that fall withing the scope of reason or science.  The role of religion was to help people live and cope with realities for which there were no easy explanations.  She fires a shot across the bow of today's fundamentalists, as she shows that prior to the 17th century no one assumed biblical myths were factual accounts, but were meant to be interpreted and then reinterpreted.   My conversation with Karen Armstrong:

Justice

Every day we move further away from being a thoughtful society.  We have lost our sense of the responsibilities of citizenship.  In our sound bite infused culture, political extremism and the simplistic allure of pop culture have destroyed our ability to think, to reason and most of all to make sound moral judgments. Michael Sandel has been working for over two decades to reverse this.  As one of Harvard's most popular professors, more than 12,000 students have taken his course JUSTICE to debate and try and reason through the big questions of political philosophy and moral judgments. I recently spoke to Professor Sandel about his new book Justice: What's the Right Thing to Do?

Is the UN Security Council Relevant

For over 60 years the Untied Nations has tried to play to role in the peace and security of the world.  The UN Security Council and its five permanent members (the US, Great Britain, France, Russia, and China) have been central to that effort.  From the Berlin Airlift to the Iraq War,  from nuclear proliferation to the global war on terrorism, to genocide in Africa, the council has had some successes and many failures.  But even amidst its failures, it's  provide a kind of pressure valve for the five powers.  David Bosco, in his new book Five to Rule Them All: The UN Security Council and the Making of the Modern World sheds light on the competing visions of what the council is supposed to do vs. what it has actually accomplished and if, in fact, it has any relevance in a globalized 21st Century world.  My conversation with David Bosco.  

Terrorism: How to Respond

Do we need a radically new approach to dealing with the international terrorist threat?  Richard English, a Professor of Politics at Queen's University, Belfast, argues in his new book Terrorism: How to Respond that we need a totally new approach and that we can no longer afford to ignore the lessons of the past. English argues that we cannot adequately respond to the practical challenge of terrorist violence unless we are more honest about the precise nature of this  phenomenon, and about explaining its true and complex causes.  My conversation with Richard  English.

Sick around the world

The US claims 37th place in the World Health Organization's rankings of the world's health systems and 15th out of 19 in the Commonwealth Fund's rankings by avoidable mortality in industrialized countries. You would think that as a part of the health care reform debate we'd take a look at nations 1-36  or 1 -14 to learn what's working in other countries.   Why, in a scientific enterprise such as medicine, do we not look at evidence based best practices?  Why is America so myopic in its views and why, as Timothy Noah says in Slate, do we think it somehow patriotic to achieve low scores. Long time Washington Post correspondent T.R. Reid in his new book The Healing of America: A Global Quest for Better, Cheaper, and Fairer Health Care takes us on the global quest for better health and better health care.  My conversation with T.R. Reid.

If you're a fan....

As much as we think today's technology is changing everything, between the mid 70's and the mid '80 a series of companies were born that created a real seismic shift in entertainment.  In the mid 70's HBO forever altered the movie business.  In the early '80's MTV reshaped the music industry.  And in 1979, ESPN was born and would forever change the face of sports. ESPN The Company: The Story and Lessons Behind the Most Fanatical Brand in Sports, is leadership expert Anthony Smith's story of a network launched by sports junkies, funded by an oil company, marginalized by critics, yet it would ultimately transform sports into a global business.  My conversation with Anthony Smith.

Here O Israel

Israel is changing.  Two interviews this week shed light on the changing face of Israel both in country and in the the US Congress.  First Rich Cohen gives us insight into what makes modern Israel and modern Jews tick. In his book Israel Is Real, he explains the mishmash of politics, ideology and psychology that have gone into the deification of Israel. Then in his New York Times Magazine piece, award winning journalist James Traub talks about J Street, a new lobbying group with a very different mission of advocacy for Israel.  He shows how the old lock step model of "what's good for Israel is good for America" may be on the way out. My conversations with Rich Cohen and  James Traub:

Capitalism 101

Capitalism is, to paraphrase Winston Churchill, a  bad system, expect for all the rest.  It's taken a beating lately, but in spite of the recent excesses and the coming onslaught by Michael Moore, its ideas are tightly woven into our identity as Americans.  Today, as the triumphs and failures of free market capitalism and globalization continue to hold sway over the daily news and our daily lives, Gretchen Morgenson, a leading business journalism at the The New York Times,  argues in her new book,The Capitalist's Bible: The Essential Guide to Free Markets--and Why They Matter to You, that it's more important now than ever to understand how our economy works.  My conversation with Gretchen Morgenson.

Tom Ridge takes the Test Of Our Times

The reality of government is that it is never as good as we'd like it to be, or as bad as we usually think it is. This is abundantly clear and a kind of recurring theme in the new memoir by Tom Ridge, former Governor of Pennsylvania and the first Secretary of Homeland Security.  In The Test of Our Times: America Under Siege...And How We Can Be Safe Again he comes across as an honorable man, trying to do an impossible job, amidst a nest of Bush administration vipers.  My conversation with Tom Ridge:

Cuba and the Bacardi's

Every once in a while a family, a place and a cause come together to create a perfect storm that inexorably links there collective fate.  Such was the case with the Mondavi's in the Napa Valley and the Bacardi's in Cuba. Veteran NPR international correspondent Tom Gjelten, in his new book Bacardi and the Long Fight for Cuba: The Biography of a Cause takes a fresh look at the history of Cuba though the lens of the Bacardi family and in so doing shows us an island nation very different than fifty years of political sound bites.  My conversation with Tom Gjelten:

The first casualty of war

If truth really is the first casualty of war, how do we know if any war is truly worth the cost in lives and treasure?  Be it by lies, propaganda or by legitimate means, we are always led to believe that our country's military efforts are positive; that we are fighting the good war, and that the other side must be demonized.  This history of American war propaganda is told in Susan A. Brewer's Why America Fights: Patriotism and War Propaganda from the Philippines to Iraq. My conversation with Susan Brewer.

Empire of Illusion

When he ran for President in 2004, John Edwards spoke of "two Americas."  Today the gap between those two Americas is even wider.  Separated now, not just by economics, but by a culture that has become detached from intellectualism.  Instead, more than half the country relies on spectacle, false idols and snake oil salesman to distract it from the economic, moral and political decay that is abound. Pulitzer Prize winning journalist Chis Hedges, in his new book Empire of Illusion: The End of Literacy and the Triumph of Spectacle argues that a culture that cannot distinguish between reality and illusion dies and that we are dying now.  He argues that America is divided against itself, split between a minority that lives and functions in a  literate world and is able to discern deception from truth, and a majority that is informed by simplistic, childish narratives and cliches and is thrown by nuance, complexity and hard realities.    My conversation with Chris Hedges.

The poetry of farming

Called by The New Times "a poet of farming," David Mas Masumoto, the author of  Wisdom of the Last Farmer: Harvesting Legacies from the Land, has been on the cutting edge our new found appreciation of the relationship between food and farming.  By linking the humanity and hard work of farming  to the larger themes of life, death and renewal he has been a key player in making farming cool.  In so doing, he has helped influence a new generation to the realities of the agricultural marketplace. My conversation with David Mas Masumoto.

Ted Kennedy

For those of us that grew up in the 60’s, the Kennedy's will always be a part of our consciousness. Whether you were a Republican or a Democrat, whether you were for Nixon or Kennedy in 1960, the Kennedy's, the Kennedy brothers will be with us forever. They are woven in the very fabric of the nation and certainly the DNA of the ‘60’s. The death of Ted Kennedy somehow brings that era to some kind of closure. As Ted Kennedy passed the torch to a new generation, with his support for Barack Obama, that same generation must now go forth on its own. Embodied in the Kennedy's was all that was good and all that went wrong in the ‘60’s. From expanded freedom and civil rights, to the war in Vietnam, to the social divisions that we still struggle with today. The death of Ted Kennedy somehow leaves us adrift without our living anchor to that past. In some ways it’s like the death of a parent. For baby boomers, for those that grew up in that time, we are now truly on our own.. There are two audio clips of Ted Kennedy’s I want to include here. First, his eulogy for his brother Bobby, at his funeral in 1968. It is a powerful speech that could certainly be made today to reflect Ted Kennedy’s life. And also the final paragraphs of Ted Kennedy’s speech at the Democratic Convention in 1980, where he ended his Presidential aspirations and committed to the work that would become his life. That speech, written in large part by the political consultant Bob Schrum, would, for generations, define political oratory. Let’s listen to both.

Why do we do what we do?

We spend most of our waking lives at work.  And yet we rarely ask ourselves how we got there or what our occupations mean to us.  Alain De Botton (The Architecture of Happiness, How Proust Can Change Your Life, The Art of Travel) in his new book The Pleasures and Sorrows of Work explores the joys and perils of the modern workplace, evoking what other people wake up to do each day—and night—to make the frenzied contemporary world function. With a philosophical eye and his signature combination of wit and wisdom, Alain de Botton leads us on a journey around a deliberately eclectic range of occupations, from rocket science to biscuit manufacture, accountancy to art—in search of what make jobs either fulfilling or soul-destroying.  Along the way he tries to answer some of the most urgent questions we can ask about work: Why do we do it? What makes it pleasurable? What is its meaning? And why do we daily exhaust not only ourselves but also the planet?

Catch a falling star

Shooting stars have captivated us for centuries.  They continue to do so, as meteorite hunters are now hot on there trail.   Through millennia of folk tales, mad dreamers, science fiction fantasy, profiteers and modern scientists, we've come to understand meteorites as both life giving and perhaps life ending.  Christopher Cokinos, in his thrilling new book The Fallen Sky: An Intimate History of Shooting Stars gives us the ultimate historical account.

The artifice of art

How is the value of art determined? Is the value of art driven by intrinsic values, or artificially inflated by dealers, museums and hucksters? Never have these questions been brought into such bold relief than in the face of a decade-long art scam that sullied the integrity of museum archives and experts alike. Investigative reporter Laney Salisbury in her new book Provenance: How a Con Man and a Forger Rewrote the History of Modern Art tells the extraordinary narrative of one of the most far-reaching and elaborate deceptions in art history.

The Philosophical Baby

New research shows that babies are aware of much more and with much much greater intensity than we have thought.  Alison Gopnik in her new book The Philosophical Baby: What Children?s Minds Tell Us About Truth, Love, and the Meaning of Life explains that consciousness, counterfactual thinking and imaginative play all allow babies to explore alternative worlds and to see the world as it could be and to make plans to create that world.

The Philosophical Baby

New research shows that babies are aware of much more and with much much greater intensity than we have thought.  Alison Gopnik in her new book The Philosophical Baby: What Children?s Minds Tell Us About Truth, Love, and the Meaning of Life explains that consciousness, counterfactual thinking and imaginative play all allow babies to explore alternative worlds and to see the world as it could be and to make plans to create that world.

Paul Theroux's Ghost Train

In the early 1970s, a young author named Paul Theroux embarked on an adventurous voyage. After rambling across much of Asia and Russia via local trains, Theroux penned a book about his travels, The Great Railway Bazaar. It assured Theroux's literary reputation and cemented his commercial appeal. The bestselling book set a new standard in travel writing, an antidote to mass consumption of newly cheap, anonymous airline travel.  Now a grand old man with over 40 books to his credit, Theroux resolved to revisit the path he followed in that first groundbreaking book. Ghost Train to the Eastern Star: On the Tracks of the Great Railway Bazaar isn't an exact replication (Theroux skips Pakistan, Afghanistan and Iran this time around.) My conversation with Paul Theroux:

Robin Cook talks about medicine today

Dr. Robin Cook, with his first book "Coma"  gave birth to the genre of "medical thriller."  Since then, he has written twenty-seven NY Times bestsellers, translated into forty languages.  And in this time when medicine is perhaps to thrilling, he's not afraid to use his medical knowledge and public awareness to plunge into our most important debates in his new book Intervention. My conversation with Robin Cook:

How do we get out of GITMO

President Obama promised that he would close the US Detention Center at Guantanamo.  The reality of the legal and physical disposition of the detainees has proven to larger  problem than was initially anticipated.  Glenn Sulmasy, a judge advocate and an expert on national security law explains in his new book The National Security Court System: A Natural Evolution of Justice in an Age of Terror. My conversation with Sulmasy:

The legal issues around same-sex marriage

Lawyer Frederick Hertz, author of Making it Legal: A Guide to Same-Sex Marriage, Domestic Partnership & Civil Unions explains the very complex legal landscape surrounding same-sex marriages, domestic partnerships and civil unions.

St. Helena - still more....

More on the St. Helena CA. School Board Recall