Terrence McNally podcast

Q&A: ATUL GAWANDE - Surgeon/Teacher/Author

Terrence McNally — Tue, 16 Mar 2010 18:52:33 GMT

Aired 03/14/10 Though Atul Gawande is a best-selling author, a Harvard professor, and an innovator in best practices for the W.H.O., he still performs 250-plus surgeries a year. A framed copy of Sylvia Plath's poem "The Surgeon at 2 a.m." stands on the desk in his office." Her surgeon's words: "I worm and hack in a purple wilderness." Gawande likes the Plath poem because it casts the surgeon in an ambiguous light. "Most writing about people in medicine casts them as either heroes or villains," he says, "That poem captures the surgeon as a merely human, slightly bewildered and benighted person in a world that is ultimately beyond his control." Medicine is just one area of our world that is becoming so complex that even the most expert professionals struggle to master the tasks they face. In his new book, The Checklist Manifesto, Gawande offers a disarmingly simple remedy: the checklist. Now being adopted in hospitals, the 90 second practice cuts fatalities In surgery by more than a third. NOTE: This interview was recorded when Gawande was recently in LA, prior to Obama's healthcare summit and the latest legislative negotiations. http://gawande.com/

Q&A: STIGLITZ, JOSEPH - Nobel Prize (Economics) & Author

Terrence McNally — Wed, 10 Mar 2010 19:41:58 GMT

Aired 03/07/10 JOSEPH STIGLITZ became a full professor at Yale in 1970 at the age of 27, and in 1979 was awarded the John Bates Clark Award, as the economist under 40 who had made the most significant contribution to the field. He has taught at Princeton, Stanford, MIT and Oxford, and is now University Professor at Columbia University, Chair of Columbia's Committee on Global Thought, and co-founder and Executive Director of the Initiative for Policy Dialogue. Stiglitz was a member and chairman of the Council of Economic Advisers during the Clinton administration, and later Chief Economist and Senior Vice-President of the World Bank. In 2001, he was awarded the Nobel Prize in economics and he was a lead author of the 1995 Report of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, which shared the 2007 Nobel Peace Prize. JOSEPH STIGLITZ is the author of, among other books, Globalization and Its Discontents, Fair Trade for All, Making Globalization Work, The Three Trillion Dollar War: The True Cost of the Iraq Conflict, with Linda Bilmes, and his newest, Freefall: America, Free Markets, and the Sinking of the World Economy. http://www.josephstiglitz.com/

Interview: RICHARD WILKINSON & KATE PICKETT, Authors

Terrence McNally — Fri, 05 Feb 2010 16:15:37 GMT

Aired 01/31/10 RICHARD WILKINSON & KATE PICKETT authors of an important new book: The Spirit Level: Why More Equal Societies Almost Always Do Better In the UK, the Guardian says The Spirit Level "might be the most important book of the year, and The New Statesman named it one of the top ten books of the past decade. Based on thirty years' research, The Spirit Level shows that unequal societies are bad for the well-off as well as the poor, when it comes to health and social problems, child wellbeing, life expectancy, infant mortality, obesity, educational scores, drop out rates, illegal drug use, mental illness, homicide, incarceration, CO2 emissions, recycling, social mobility, innovation, and levels of trust. The good news: If all these ills are related to one measure - income inequality, then, decreasing inequality should be the central goal of our politics because we can be confident that it works. RICHARD WILKINSON has played a leading role in international research on inequality. He studied economic history at the London School of Economics before training in epidemiology, and is Professor Emeritus at the University of Nottingham Medical School and Honorary Professor at University College London. KATE PICKETT is a senior lecturer at the University of York and a National Institute for Health Research Career Scientist. She studied physical anthropology at Cambridge, nutritional sciences at Cornell and epidemiology at Berkeley before spending four years as an Assistant Professor at the University of Chicago.

Interview: BOB EDGAR,Pres./CEO of Common Cause - SCOTT NELSON, Attorney

Terrence McNally — Fri, 29 Jan 2010 15:24:21 GMT

Aired 01/24/10 Has government of, by and for the people perished from the United States? January 21st, a divided Supreme Court reversed precedent and law, voting 5-4 in Citizens United v. FEC to remove limits on corporate contributions to political campaigns. We'll discuss the decision in the context of money in politics, looking at potential outcomes and possible remedies. BOB EDGAR is President and CEO of Common Cause, a grassroots advocacy organization working for democracy reform, with nearly 400,000 members and supporters and state chapters in 36 states. Edgar previously served as general secretary of the National Council of the Churches of Christ in the USA, the leading U.S. organization in the movement for Christian unity, and before that as president of the Claremont School of Theology. He was elected to the U.S. House in 1974, the first Democrat in 82 years to represent the heavily Republican 7th Congressional District near Philadelphia. SCOTT NELSON is an attorney at the Public Citizen Litigation Group in Washington, D.C., where he has practiced since August 2001. After graduating with honors from Harvard College, Nelson attended Harvard Law School, and was elected President of the Harvard Law Review in 1983. He then served as a law clerk to Supreme Court Justice Byron White. Nelson represented key Congressional sponsors of McCain-Feingold before the Supreme Court in Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission. http://www.commoncause.org/ http://www.publicintegrity.org/ http://www.citizen.org/ http://www.publicampaign.org/ http://www.thealliancefordemocracy.org/ http://www.movetoamend.org/ http://www.freespeechforpeople.org/

Interview: BRUCE LIPTON, Ph.D., and STEVE BHAERMAN, Author / Humorist

Terrence McNally — Sat, 16 Jan 2010 18:42:47 GMT

Aired 01/17/10 BRUCE LIPTON, Ph.D., a leading voice in new biology, bridges science and spirit. A cell biologist by training, he taught at the University of Wisconsin's School of Medicine, and later performed pioneering studies at Stanford University. He's the author of The Biology of Belief, and his latest with Steve Bhaerman, SPONTANEOUS EVOLUTION STEVE BHAERMAN is an author, humorist, and political and cultural commentator who's been writing and performing enlightening comedy as Swami Beyondananda for over 20 years. He's the author of several books prior to his current collaboration with Lipton on SPONTANEOUS EVOLUTION. http://www.brucelipton.com/ http://www.wakeuplaughing.com/

Interview: DAVID DE GRAW, Director, MediaChannel.org

Terrence McNally — Sat, 16 Jan 2010 18:19:55 GMT

Aired 01/10/10 DAVID DEGRAW is the day-to-day director of http://mediachannel.org/ whose slogan is "As the media watch the world, we watch the media." Founded by Danny Schechter and Rory O'Conner, MediaChannel deals with the political, cultural and social impacts of the media, large and small. David created http://ampedstatus.com/ to combine cutting-edge technology with human intelligence. He and his team analyze thousands of news items daily to deliver the most hard-hitting and informative. DAVID DEGRAW started a tech company with friends during the internet boom of the late 90's. They'd raised millions in venture capital when David chose to leave to do more socially conscious work. He did online marketing/business development consulting on projects with Sony, Pearl Jam, AlterNet, etc. After consulting on Danny Schechter's documentary Weapons of Mass Distraction, he moved to Media Channel, where he has been director for five years. In the spring of 2009, he debuted http://ampedstatus.com/

Interview: JIM WALLIS, Editor and Author

Terrence McNally — Sat, 16 Jan 2010 18:01:51 GMT

Aired 01/10/10 JIM WALLIS Founder/President, Sojourners; editor, Sojourners magazine; Author, GOD'S POLITICS; THE GREAT AWAKENING; and his newest, REDISCOVERING VALUES on Wall Street, Main Street, and Your Street: A Moral Compass for the New Economy. In REDISCOVERING VALUES, JIM WALLIS argues that the worst thing we can do now is to go back to normal. Normal is what got us into this mess. We need a new normal, and this economic crisis is an invitation to discover what that means. Some of the principles he offers for a new normal are... · Spending money we don't have for things we don't need is a bad foundation for an economy or a family. · Care for the poor is not just a moral duty, but is critical for the common good. · A healthy society is a balanced society in which markets, the government, and our communities all play a role.

Interview: MARION BLANK, PhD and Author

Terrence McNally — Wed, 13 Jan 2010 23:46:37 GMT

Aired 01/03/09 MARION BLANK PhD is an accomplished children's therapist with over thirty years of practical experience in helping children with reading and learning challenges. In addition to producing books, articles, tests and software programs, BLANK is currently the director of the A Light on Literacy program at Columbia University in New York and serves as a consultant to a wide range of school districts in New York, New Jersey and Connecticut. Her latest book, THE READING REMEDY, and her new reading system, PHONICS PLUS FIVE, now makes her ideas available to every parent. http://www.newhorizons.org/strategies/literacy/blank_2.htm

Interview: TEMPLE GRANDIN, Professor and Author

Terrence McNally — Wed, 13 Jan 2010 20:39:49 GMT

Aired 01/03/10 TEMPLE GRANDIN, who believes her autism allowed her to see the world more as an animal might, and led her to design enormous improvements in how we treat livestock. Her latest book is ANIMALS MAKE US HUMAN. TEMPLE GRANDIN, Ph.D., now a designer of livestock handling facilities and a Professor of Animal Science at Colorado State University, Dr. Grandin didn't speak until she was three and a half years old. Labeled "autistic," her parents were told she should be institutionalized. Roughly 50% of the beef that shows up on your plate came through improvements that she has made to the process of livestock management. Grandin has become a prominent author, speaker and advocate on the issues of Autism and Asperger's Syndrome because she has made a career of overcoming obstacles that have been placed in her path. She tells her story in the book EMERGENCE: LABELED AUTISTIC, and is also the author of ANIMALS IN TRANSLATION, THINKING IN PICTURES AND OTHER REPORTS FROM MY LIFE WITH AUTISM, THE WAY I SEE IT, and her latest, ANIMALS MAKE US HUMAN. http://www.templegrandin.com/

Interview: ADAM KAHANE, Author

Terrence McNally — Tue, 05 Jan 2010 16:55:10 GMT

Aired 12/27/09 When I received the book Power and Love, I was struck first by the ambition of anyone who would take on those two big notions. Then I read the subtitle A Theory and Practice of Social Change, and I was really curious. Its author Adam Kahane has been working for social change on a big scale all over the world. In the early 90s he facilitated the Mont Fleur Scenario Project, in which a diverse group of South Africans worked together to effect the transition to democracy. I’d let him tell you more about that, and he had learned some hard lessons that led to this book. Let me just read this quote: Over the past twenty years of work, I have made two discoveries. I reported the first one in Solving Tough Problems: An Open Way of Talking, Listening, and Creating New Realities. In that book I concluded that the key to creating new social relaites is to open ourselves up and connect: to our own true selves, to one anotherm and to our context and what it demands of us. Five years and many experiences later, I can see that this conclusion was right, but only half right and dangerously so. That last phrase – "dangerously so" -- really caught my attention. Adam Kahane is a partner in Reos Partners, an international organisation dedicated to supporting and building capacity for innovative collective action in complex social systems. He is also an Associate Fellow of the Institute for Science, Innovation and Society at the University of Oxford’s Saïd Business School. Adam is the author of Solving Tough Problems: An Open Way of Talking, Listening, and Creating New Realities and his newest, Power and Love: A Theory and Practice of Social Change.

Interview: RICK HANSON, Ph.D and Author

Terrence McNally — Tue, 05 Jan 2010 16:46:36 GMT

Aired 12/27/09 There’s been a lot of talk about the battle between science and religion the last few years. At the same time, there’s been some fascinating and powerful work bringing science and spirituality closer together. Recent developments in psychology and the neurosciences have led to insights about how our brains work and how these neurological functions shape our experiences of the world. Turns out some of what we’re learning fits very well with the wisdom developed over thousands of years in contemplative practices. RICK HANSON has been meditating since 1974 the same year he graduated summa cum laude from UCLA. In his new book, written with Richard Mendius MD, BUDDHA’S BRAIN, he pulls a lot of information together to reach all of us from the most scientific to the most spiritual. After all we’ve all got brains and we all seek happiness. Rick Hanson, Ph.D., is a neuropsychologist, co-founder of the Wellspring Institute for Neuroscience and Contemplative Wisdom (http://www.wisebrain.org/), and editor of the Wise Brain Bulletin. He offers a free newsletter, "Just One Thing" at his website rickhanson.net which offers a simple mindfulness practice each week. Hanson is co-author with his wife, Jan, of MOTHER NURTURE, still the only book that systematically shows how to support the health and well-being of mothers and couples over the long haul of raising a family. His newest book is BUDDHA'S BRAIN: THE PRACTICAL NEUROSCIENCE OF HAPPINESS, LOVE, AND WISDOM.

Interview: MARK HERTSGAARD, Author

Terrence McNally — Mon, 04 Jan 2010 02:31:16 GMT

Aired 12/20/09 A fellow of The Open Society Institute and The Nation's environment correspondent, MARK HERTSGAARD also covers climate change for Vanity Fair, TIME and Die Zeit and has written for many of the world's leading newspapers and magazines. He is the author of the highly acclaimed study of the media during the Reagan years, On Bended Knee, as well as Earth Odyssey; A Day in the Life: The Music and Artistry of the Beatles; The Eagle's Shadow; and the forthcoming Generation Hot: Living Through the Storm of Climate Change. http://www.thenation.com/doc/20100104/hertsgaard

Interview: REBECCA SOLNIT, Author

Terrence McNally — Sun, 27 Dec 2009 23:02:41 GMT

Aired 12/13/09 REBECCA SOLNIT is the author by my count of 10 books, and a co-author of at least 15 more. She is a journalist, essayist, environmentalist, historian, and art critic; a contributing editor to Harper's, a columnist for Orion, and a regular contributor to Tomdispatch.com and the Nation. She appeals to a wide spectrum of readers. As evidence, RIVER OF SHADOWS: Eadweard Muybridge and the Technological Wild West - her 2003 book on the history of photography, the dawn of the cinematic West, and the annihilation of space and time-won the National Book Critics Circle Award in Criticism, a prize from the Society for the History of Technology, and WIRED Magazine's Rave Award for Book of the Year. Her latest books are STORMING THE GATES OF PARADISE: Landscapes for Politics; A PARADISE BUILT IN HELL: The Extraordinary Communities That Arise in Disaster; and THE BATTLE OF THE STORY OF THE BATTLE OF SEATTLE, with her brother David.

Interview: KEVIN DANAHER, organizer and NORM STAMPER, author

Terrence McNally — Sun, 20 Dec 2009 20:31:21 GMT

Aired 12/06/09 This past week marked the tenth anniversary of the World Trade Organization's confrontation in Seattle with 50,000 protestors against corporate globalization. We look back at Seattle and at the ten years in between with two guests who played important roles. First, we talk with NORM STAMPER -- who oversaw the police response -- about those events and about his life and work in the decade since. Now retired, Stamper wrote the book, BREAKING RANK and has become a prominent spokesman for LEAP, Law Enforcement Against (Drug) Prohibition. NORM STAMPER, former Seattle Police Chief author BREAKING RANK: A TOP COP'S EXPOSE OF THE DARK SIDE OF AMERICAN POLICING http://www.normstamper.com/ http://www.leap.cc/cms/index.php Second, KEVIN DANAHER, who was centrally involved in organizing the Seattle WTO protests. His goals remain the same but his focus has evolved. His latest books are THE GREEN FESTIVAL READER: Fresh Ideas from Agents of Change, and BUILDING THE GREEN ECONOMY: Success Stories from the Grassroots http://www.globalexchange.org/ http://www.globalcitizencenter.org/ http://www.greenfestivals.com/

Interview: AMY BACH, author

Terrence McNally — Sat, 12 Dec 2009 15:13:38 GMT

Aired 12/12/09 Attorney AMY BACH spent eight years investigating the chronic lapses in courts across America. Lawyers sleep through trials. False confessions and mistaken eye-witness identifications convict the innocent. The rich walk, the poor go to prison. ORDINARY INJUSTICE goes beyond one particular injustice, one specific court, or one aspect of the legal system. Bach rejects the easy explanations of bad apples and meager funding to show how in the name of expedience legal professionals routinely choose to collaborate rather than face off as adversaries. Her investigation -- from small-town Georgia to upstate New York, from Chicago to Mississippi --reveals a culture of complicity among prosecutors, defenders, and judges that rewards shoddiness and sacrifices defendants and victims to keep the court calendar moving. http://www.slate.com/id/2234594/ http://www.scotuswiki.com/index.php?title=Sullivan_v._Florida

Interview: NICHOLAS KRISTOF, Columnist and Author

Terrence McNally — Tue, 01 Dec 2009 17:13:44 GMT

Aired 11/22/09 NICHOLAS KRISTOF, oped columnist at the New York Times, and author with his wife, former Times editor Sheryl WuDunn, of HALF THE SKY: From Oppression to Opportunity for Women Worldwide." Kristof grew up on a sheep and cherry farm near Yamhill, Oregon. He graduated Phi Beta Kappa from Harvard College and then studied law at Oxford University on a Rhodes Scholarship, graduating with first class honors. He joined the NY Times in 1984. In 1990 Mr. Kristof and his wife, Sheryl WuDunn, then also a Times journalist, won a Pulitzer Prize for their coverage of China's Tiananmen Square democracy movement. They were the first married couple to win a Pulitzer for journalism. Mr. Kristof won a second Pulitzer in 2006, for commentary for what the judges called "his graphic, deeply reported columns that, at personal risk, focused attention on genocide in Darfur and that gave voice to the voiceless in other parts of the world." In his column, NICHOLAS KRISTOF was an early opponent of the Iraq war, and among the first to warn that we were losing ground to the Taliban in southern Afghanistan. He was among the first to raise doubts about WMD in Iraq, he was the first to report that President Bush's State of the Union claim about Iraq seeking uranium from Africa was contradicted by the administration's own investigation. His columns have often focused on global health, poverty and gender issues in the developing world. In particular, since 2004 he has written dozens of columns about Darfur and visited the area ten times. Prior to their newest, HALF THE SKY, Mr. Kristof and Ms. WuDunn are authors of CHINA WAKES: THE STRUGGLE FOR THE SOUL OF A RISING POWER and THUNDER FROM THE EAST: PORTRAIT OF A RISING ASIA. http://kristof.blogs.nytimes.com/ http://halftheskymovement.org/

Interview: PHILLIPE DIAZ - Writer and Documentary Director

Terrence McNally — Mon, 30 Nov 2009 02:38:39 GMT

Aired 11/22/09 PHILLIPE DIAZ is writer director of a new documentary THE END OF POVERTY that exposes the roots of the south’s poverty first in colonialism and then in the policies of the World Bank, IMF and the WTO. The film features: Nobel prize winners in economics Amartya Sen and Joseph Stiglitz; expert authors Susan George, Eric Toussaint, John Perkins, Chalmers Johnson, government ministers such as Bolivia’s Vice President Alvaro Garcia Linera, and leaders of social movements in Bolivia, Brazil, Venezuela, Kenya and Tanzania. THE END OF POVERTY’s opening line by narrator Martin Sheen: “Why, in a world of so much wealth, do we still have so much poverty, where billions of people live on less than one dollar a day?” According to writer-director PHILLIPE DIAZ, the ultimate goal of the film is to change the dialogue around the poverty debate from "poverty is a shame," to "poverty exists for a reason." Born in Paris France, PHILIPPE DIAZ studied Philosophy at the Sorbonne in Paris, and began his film career as a director in 1980. He produced a number of features both in France and the US, and in 2003, with a consortium of partners he created Cinema Libre Studio, to provide an alternative structure for intelligent, independent films. His directorial debut, THE EMPIRE IN AFRICA won the Grand Jury Award for Best Documentary Feature at Slamdance 2006. According to Diaz, “The end of greed on Wall Street will not end poverty in the world. The problem is much deeper than that; it is centuries old. Our economic system since colonial times requires cheap labor and cheap resources from the global South to succeed and to finance our lifestyle in the North. Without changing that we will never alleviate poverty.“ http://www.theendofpoverty.com/

Interview: Malalai Joya, youngest member of Afghan Parliament and Author

Terrence McNally — Tue, 24 Nov 2009 17:22:44 GMT

Aired 11/15/09 Malalai Joya is an Afghan politician who has been called "the bravest woman in Afghanistan." As an elected member of the Wolesi Jirga from Farah province, she has publicly denounced the presence of what she considers warlords and war criminals in the parliament. The daughter of a former medical student who lost a foot while fighting the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan, Malalai Joya was 4 years old when her family fled Afghanistan in 1982 to the refugee camps of Iran and later Pakistan. After the Soviet withdrawal, Malalai Joya returned to Afghanistan in 1998 during the Taliban's reign. As a young woman she worked as a social activist and was named a director of the non-governmental group, Organisation of Promoting Afghan Women's Capabilities (OPAWC) in the western provinces of Herat and Farah Title of Joya's autobiography "Raising My Voice", which was published in the US/Canada under the title of "A Woman Among Warlords" was published in October 2009 Noam Chomsky writes: "Perhaps the most remarkable feature of this inspiring memoir is that despite the horrors she relates, Malalai Joya leaves us with hope that the tormented people of Afghanistan can take their fate into their own hands if they are released from the grip of foreign powers, and that they can reconstruct a decent society from the wreckage left by decades of intervention and the merciless rule of the Taliban and the warlords who the invaders have imposed upon them." http://malalaijoya.com/index1024.htm

Interview: Matthew HOH, former Marine Captain

Terrence McNally — Mon, 23 Nov 2009 04:30:35 GMT

Aired 11/15/09 A former Marine captain with combat experience in Iraq, Matthew Hoh, also served in uniform at the Pentagon, and as a civilian in Iraq and at the State Department. This summer he was the senior US civilian in Zabul province, a Taliban hotbed. In September Hoh became the first US official known to resign in protest over the Afghan war. His four page letter of resignation explains that he became convinced that our war in that country will not only inevitably fail, but is fueling the very insurgency we are trying to defeat. He points out that "next fall, the United States' occupation will equal in length the Soviet Union's own physical involvement in Afghanistan." "I have doubts and reservations about our current strategy and planned future strategy, but my resignation is based not upon how we are pursuing this war, but why and to what end." The Pentagon’s own 2004 report concluded: "Negative attitudes and the conditions that create them are the underlying sources of threats to America's national security . . . Direct American intervention in the Muslim world has paradoxically elevated the stature of and support for Islamic radicals." "American families," Hoh said at the end of his letter of resignaton, "must be reassured their dead have sacrificed for a purpose worthy of futures lost, love vanished, and promised dreams unkept. I have lost confidence such assurances can be made any more." http://www.stopafghanistan.org/

Interview: STEWART BRAND, Author and Editor

Terrence McNally — Mon, 16 Nov 2009 15:25:57 GMT

Aired 11/08/09 STEWART BRAND's Whole Earth Catalog introduced millions to new ways of thinking and doing and probably contributed to the birth of environmentalism in the US. Confronting today's challenges to global civilization in his new book, Brand questions environmental positions against GMO foods, Geo-engineering, and nuclear power. In 1968 a totally original cultural item appeared. It owed something to old time catalogs perhaps akin to the Farmers almanac. Its style was funkily low-fi while its content had one foot in a simpler past and the other in a high tech sci-fi future. It was called the Whole Earth Catalog and subtitled "Access to Tools." STEWART BRAND was its founder, editor and publisher, and Brand has been at the founding of several other cultural entities, events, and movements. Today, in his '70s, STEWART BRAND is no less curious, no less purposeful, and no less forward looking. His new book, WHOLE EARTH DISCIPLINE: An EcoPragmatist Manifesto, confronts the challenges we face as a global civilization - population, urbanization, resource depletion, peak oil, and most profoundly climate change, by issuing challenges of his own to what has passed for years as environmental orthodoxy. Brand characterizes many in a movement he helped to create and inspire as being anti-science, and anti-intellectual in their opposition to GMO foods, Geo-engineering, and nuclear power. Forty years ago, Brand could say in the Whole Earth Catalog, "We are as gods, we might as well get good at it". Today in WHOLE EARTH DISCIPLINE, he says, "We are as gods and have to get good at it." http://current.com/items/90416515_stewart-brand-proclaims-4-environmental-heresies.htm http://web.me.com/stewartbrand/DISCIPLINE_footnotes/Recommended_Reading.html

Interview: MIKE BONANNO - THE YES MEN, (political prankster)

Terrence McNally — Tue, 10 Nov 2009 17:14:10 GMT

Aired 11/01/09 Finally some patriotic tough talk from the little organization that represents Mom & Pop grocers and scrap-booking shops throughout this great land of ours. As you may have heard while attempting to save American jobs by courageously standing up FOR climate change and AGAINST legislation to cut greenhouse gas emissions and cripple American business, this hardy band of businesses suffered a vicious sneak attack by socialist hoaxters claiming to speak for the Chamber. This is just the latest in a series of such pranks pulled off by the YES MEN over the last few years. You can catch up with a lot of their previous work in the film THE YES MEN FIX THE WORLD opening in LA November 6. How do they describe their work? Identity Correction: Impersonating big-time criminals in order to publicly humiliate them. Targets are leaders and big corporations who put profits ahead of everything else. The Yes Men agree their way into the fortified compounds of commerce, ask questions, and then smuggle out the stories of their hijinks to provide a public glimpse at the behind-the-scenes world of business. In other words, the Yes Men are team players... but they play for the opposing team. http://theyesmen.org/ http://www.babelgum.com/yesmen

Interview: ZACHARY KARABELL Author,

Terrence McNally — Mon, 09 Nov 2009 17:22:54 GMT

Aired 11/01/09 ZACHARY KARABELL argues that the economies of China and the US have melded over the past 20 years, as billions of dollars flow east from the US for Chinese-made goods and return to this country from China in exchange for IOUs. "This mega-economy is hiding in plain sight, unrecognized, unacknowledged, and unwanted by many millions whose lives are being reshaped by it." Karabell's not suggesting this is an unalloyed good thing, "but it's a fact. And it's better to deal with reality than live in a fantasy land." ZACHARY KARABELL is President of River Twice Research, where he analyzes economic and political trends. He is also a senior advisor for Business for Social Responsibility, which develops sustainable business strategies. Previously, he was president of Fred Alger and Company; and portfolio manager of the award-winning China-U.S. Growth Fund, and launched the $30 million Spectra Green Fund, linking profit and sustainability. Educated at Columbia, Oxford and Harvard, his previous books include A Visionary Nation: Four Centuries of American Dreams and What Lies Ahead, The Last Campaign: How Harry Truman Won the 1948 Election, and Peace Be Upon You: The Story of Muslim, Christian and Jewish Coexistence. http://www.rivertwice.com/ http://www.randomhouse.com/author/results.pperl?authorid=15081

Interview: LESTER BROWN, Founder of Worldwatch and Earth Policy Institute

Terrence McNally — Thu, 22 Oct 2009 19:48:42 GMT

Aired 10/20/09 In Lester Brown's new book, PLAN B 4.0: MOBILIZING TO SAVE CIVILIZATION, Brown lays out the symptoms, the diagnosis, and the cure. He estimates that we could solve all the world's greatest problems for $200 billion a year - less than half the US defense budget. PLAN B 4.0 is a comprehensive plan for reversing the trends that are undermining our future. Its four overriding goals are to stabilize climate, stabilize population, eradicate poverty, and restore the earth's damaged ecosystems. Failure to reach any one of these goals will likely mean failure to reach the others as well.

Interview: JODIE EVANS, co-founder of CODE PINK

Terrence McNally — Mon, 19 Oct 2009 16:28:44 GMT

Aired 10/13/09 JODIE EVANS is the co-founder the International Occupation Watch Center in Iraq, and of CODE PINK, with, among others, Medea Benjamin. Jodie's Baghdad Journals are at the center of the book, Twilight of Empire, and she is co-editor with Benjamin of Stop The Next War Now. JODIE - "I am just returning from my 10-day trip to Afghanistan. As we left, a farm was bombed and eight members of a family were killed. Eight U.S. soldiers also lost their lives in an insurgent raid on their outpost. And today marks the 8th anniversary of the US Invasion of that war torn country. We have spent a quarter of a trillion dollars in those 8 years and what have we got for all that time, money, and suffering? Most of the country is in worse condition, the Taliban have been growing in strength and number, the bordering countries are more unstable and death fills the air." Watch Video: http://codepink4peace.org/blog/2009/10/afghan-women-speak-out-dr-roshnak-wardak/

Interview: CORNEL WEST, Author, Educator and Philosopher

Terrence McNally — Thu, 15 Oct 2009 17:25:54 GMT

Aired 10/13/09 More than just a reflection on his life, Cornel West says his new memoir Brother West: Living and Loving Out Loud is "an intensified dance with mortality." Following West's diagnosis of advanced prostate cancer -- now in remission -- he decided to write about his life in a way that might touch other souls. West calls the memoir his "most unique, delicate and difficult book to write," requiring him to "examine the dark corners of [his] soul...It is a life-transforming experience to write about your life." Cornel West, Professor of Religion and African American Studies at Princeton University, has won numerous awards, including the American Book Award, and has received more than 20 honorary degrees. He's produced 3 CDs of music and spoken word, offers commentary weekly on The Tavis Smiley Show, and is the author of several books, including Race Matters; Democracy Matters; Hope on a Tightrope; and his latest, Brother West: Living and Loving Out Loud.

Interview: Bruce H. Lipton, PhD and Steve Bhaerman

Terrence McNally — Thu, 01 Oct 2009 06:48:20 GMT

ìSpontaneous Evolution introduces the notion that a miraculous healing awaits this planet once we accept our new responsibility to collectively tend the Garden rather than fight over the turf. When a critical mass of people truly own this belief in their hearts and minds and actually begin living from this truth, our world will emerge from the darkness in what will amount to a spontaneous evolution.î In Spontaneous Evolution: Our Positive Future (And A Way To Get There From Here), pioneering biologist Bruce H. Lipton, Ph.D. and political philosopher Steve Bhaerman team up to offer an insightful, playful, and hopeful look at the unfolding destiny of our speciesóand how you can play an active role in birthing the evolution of civilization. http://wakeuplaughing.com/ http://www.brucelipton.com/

Interview: DANIEL ELLSBERG, Author

Terrence McNally — Fri, 11 Sep 2009 09:48:32 GMT

Aired 09/08/09 Daniel Ellsberg is an American hero. September 23rd is the 40th anniversary of the first night of copying the Pentagon Papers, which he took from his safe at the Rand Corporation in Santa Monica. America was embroiled in a dirty war based on lies. A president was abusing the power of his office, ignoring the will of the people, Congress and the courts. He promised peace while planning war without end. Daniel Ellsberg, a military analyst, leaded the truth about the Vietnam war to the New York Times. He risked life in prison to end a war he helped plan. Henry Kissinger called Daniel Ellsberg, "the most dangerous man in America." He's still at it. This week Ellsberg begins the online publication of The American Doomsday Machine, his memoir of the nuclear era. INFO http://www.ellsberg.net/

Interview: Gil Friend, President & CEO of Natural Logic Inc

Terrence McNally — Fri, 04 Sep 2009 07:07:37 GMT

Aired 08/01/09 "You don't have to choose between making money and making sense.... Green business practices are good for business and for the world. They can increase profits, lower costs, and attract customers." Those are the words of Gil Friend. Gil and I met in 1973 when I directed a video documentary of a Buckminster Fuller World Game Workshop. Each in our own ways, we've been plugging away at that game ever since. Gil Friend, President & CEO of Natural Logic Inc, is a systems ecologist and business strategist with nearly 40 years experience in communications, business, and environmental innovation. Clients include Agilent Technologies, Coca-Cola, Dean Foods, Hewlett Packard, Levi Straus & Co, Nike and Sun MicroSystems. Friend is the author of the upcoming Risk, Fiduciary Responsibility and the Laws of Nature, and just published, The Truth About Green Business. http://www.worldchanging.com/

Interview: MICHAEL LIND, Policy Director, New America's Economic Growth Program; Author

Terrence McNally — Fri, 28 Aug 2009 23:39:16 GMT

Aired 08/25/09 Michael Lind is a Senior Research Fellow and Policy Director of New America's Economic Growth Program. Lind's first three books of political journalism and history, The Next American Nation: The New Nationalism and the Fourth American Revolution; Up From Conservatism: Why the Right Is Wrong for America; and Vietnam: The Necessary War were all selected as New York Times Notable Books. Other books include Made in Texas: George W. Bush and the Southern Takeover of American; What Lincoln Believed, and with Ted Halstead, of The Radical Center: The Future of American Politics. Lind has been an editor or staff writer for The New Yorker, Harper's Magazine, and The New Republic, and writes frequently at Salon.com. http://www.newamerica.net/people/michael_lind

Interview: Eduardo Galeano, Author

Terrence McNally — Mon, 17 Aug 2009 14:36:07 GMT

Aired 08/11/09 It is my privilege to have Latin America's most acclaimed writers, EDUARDO GALEANO. I confess I was not aware of him until Hugo Chavez presented Barack Obama with one of his books. For that introduction, I thank the Venzuelan President. GALEANO's works are a unique blend of history, fiction, journalism and political analysis, and his life is so much more than that. Born in Uruguay in 1940, EDUARDO GALEANO began writing newspaper articles as a teenager, by the age of 20 he became Editor-in-Chief of LaMarcha. A few years later, he took the top post at Montevideo's daily newspaper Epocha. At 31, he wrote his most famous book - Chavez gift -- The Open Veins Of Latin America: Five Centuries Of The Pillage Of A Continent. After the 1973 military coup in Uruguay, GALEANO was imprisoned and forced to leave the country. He settled in Argentina where he founded and edited a cultural magazine, Crisis. After the 1976 military coup there, he moved to Spain where he began his classic work Memory of Fire, a three-volume narrative of the history of America, North and South. He eventually returned home to his native Uruguay where he now lives. http://www.sigloxxieditores.com/ http://www.progressive.org/galeano

Interview: Rick Steves, Travel Author

Terrence McNally — Thu, 13 Aug 2009 18:01:10 GMT

Aired 08/11/09 I like it when someone does something better than they have to, or takes stands or risks they don't have to take. RICK STEVES has a comfortable business and a comfortable place in our culture and media. He helps people learn how to make travel less stressful and more enjoyable. But in TRAVEL AS A POLITICAL ACT, he sticks his neck out. He has traveled to and written about Iran, El Salvador, Turkey, for instance, in ways that challenge what passes for conventional wisdom. Of course, conventional wisdom is often a contradiction in terms, conventional meaning parochial, provincial, small minded, with little possibility of wisdom. Not only that, STEVES serves on the board of NORML and has given keynote speeches calling for legalization of marijuana. Though RICK STEVES received degrees at the University of Washington, his real education came in Europe - since 1973 he's spent four months a year there. Spending one third of his adult life living out of a suitcase has shaped his thinking. Today he produces Europe Through the Back Door guidebooks, a travel series in America on public television, a weekly hour-long national public radio show, and a syndicated weekly column. info: http://www.ricksteves.com/

Interview: MICHAEL LEWIS, Author

Terrence McNally — Thu, 30 Jul 2009 01:01:59 GMT

Aired 07/28/09 MICHAEL LEWIS is one of my favorite popular writers. He writes about sports, business, Wall Street, Silicon Valley, political campaigns, now fatherhood - in bestselling books and for the New York Times Magazine and Vanity Fair, among others. He's smart and he has a sense of humor. Malcolm Gladwell says he's one of our best storytellers. LEWIS was a trader at Salomon Brothers before he wrote his first best-seller, LIAR'S POKER about the excesses of Wall Street in the 1980s. He continues to write about that world with a couple of books in 2008 -- Panic: The Story of Modern Financial Insanity and The Real Price of Everything (editor) -- and a column for Bloomberg. His newest book, Home Game, is about fatherhood, so we'll talk about that, but even more we'll talk about Wall Street, madness, greed, the crash, and how we're dealing with it. MICHAEL LEWIS received a BA in art history from Princeton University and an MSc in economics from the London School of Economics. He worked as an investment banker for Salomon Brothers before leaving to write LIAR'S POKER. Other books include MONEYBALL, on the Oakland A's, Billy Beane, and baseball's new wave of Ivy League general managers; PANIC: The Story of Modern Financial Insanity; and his newest, HOME GAME: An Accidental Guide to Fatherhood.

Interview: HENRY JENKINS, author, CONVERGENCE CULTURE: Where Old and New Media Collide

Terrence McNally — Tue, 21 Jul 2009 21:55:27 GMT

Aired 07/21/09 HENRY JENKINS is the Provost's Professor of Communications, Journalism, and Cinematic Art at the University of Southern California. Until recently, he served as the co-founder of the Comparative Media Studies Program at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. His newest books include Convergence Culture: Where Old and New Media Collide and Fans, Bloggers and Gamers: Exploring Participatory Culture. www.henryjenkins.org/

Interview: ROBERT WRIGHT, Author and Blogger

Terrence McNally — Sat, 18 Jul 2009 05:42:04 GMT

Recorded 06/05/09 Christianity, Judaism and Islam are both peaceful and violent. Robert Wright discusses what circumstances bring out the best and worst in religion. Is religion a force for good or ill? This question has been more energetically debated over the last few years, globally, due to the West's confrontation with radical Islam, and in the U.S., to the political emergence and activism of evangelical Christians. This was brought to a head with the misadventures of George W. Bush, from Teri Schiavo to Bagdhad. Robert Wright takes on big questions, and he's taken this one on in his new book, The Evolution of God. He follows the changing moods of God as reflected in ancient Scripture, to see what circumstances brought out the best and worst in religions. According to Wright, "The moral of the story is simple: When people see their interests threatened by another group, this perception brings out the most belligerent parts of their religion. Such circumstances are good news for violent extremists and bad news for moderates. What Obama is trying to do -- make Palestinians feel less threatened, and make Muslims generally feel more respected -- may now, as it did in ancient times, bring out the tolerant side of a religion." Wright is a visiting scholar at the University of Pennsylvania, a senior fellow at the New America Foundation, and founder and editor of www.bloggingheads.tv His books include: Three Scientists and Their Gods: Looking for Meaning in an Age of Information; The Moral Animal: Evolutionary Psychology and Everyday Life; and Nonzero: The Logic of Human Destiny. www.meaningoflife.tv and www.bloggingheads.tv.

Movie: THE RECKONING: The Battle for the International Criminal Court

Terrence McNally — Thu, 09 Jul 2009 17:04:55 GMT

Aired 07/07/09 THE RECKONING opens on a man holding a human skull in a lonely field. "Without justice," he says, "people have no respect for each other. If this is left unpunished, it will be repeated." He is speaking of the more than 5 million people killed in the wars that have torn eastern Congo apart since 1998. But he might as well have been speaking for the victims of mass murder in Guatemala (200,000), Cambodia (1.7 million), East Timor (200,000), Sierra Leone (50,000), Bosnia (200,000) and Rwanda (800,000), to name only the most notorious cases. The Nurmeburg trials following World War II introduced a new sensibility and legitimacy to international criminal justice and serve as the inspiration for the creation half a century later of the International Criminal Court. Over 100 countries have united to form the first permanent court created to prosecute perpetrators, no matter how powerful, of crimes against humanity, war crimes and genocide. But the Court was not given a police force or other enforcement arm, and faces major obstacles in pursuing its mission from nations that have not joined the treaty - including China, Russia and the United States. George Bush's UN ambassador, John Bolton, proudly expressed his contempt. "We should isolate and ignore the ICC. Specifically, I propose for the United States policy ... Three No's: no financial support, directly or indirectly; no collaboration; and no further negotiations with other governments to improve the Statute. [...] This approach is likely to maximize the chances that the ICC will wither and collapse, which should be our objective." The ICC has other problems on its hands these days. A joint declaration issued at the end of an African Union summit this weekend in Libya said member states would not cooperate in the arrest and surrender of Sudan's president Omar al-Bashir on war crimes charges. Summit host, Libyan leader Moammar Gadhafi was quoted as saying the ICC represents a "new world terrorism". Several African members of the ICC are uncomfortable with the AU declaration. Botswana's Foreign Minister, Phandu Skelemani, says his country reaffirms its position that it has treaty obligations to cooperate with the ICC in Mr. Bashir's arrest. Sudan's rival, Chad, has also indicated it would not honor the decision. THE RECKONING airs nationally on POV Tuesday, July 14 at 10 PM and in Southern California on KCET Thursday, July 16 at 8:30 PM. It will stream for 30 days following the broadcast @ http://www.pbs.org/pov/reckoning/ PACO de ONIS, Producer, THE RECKONING: The Battle for the International Criminal Court CHRISTINE CHUNG trial attorney, Office of the Prosecutor, ICC

Interview: JANE MAYER, New Yorker Correspondent and Author

Terrence McNally — Wed, 01 Jul 2009 16:14:46 GMT

Aired 06/30/09 JANE MAYER, one of our nation's foremost investigative journalists will join us for at least the last half hour, maybe a bit more. Her best-selling 2008 book, THE DARK SIDE, was chosen by the New New York Times, The Economist, Salon, Slate, and Bloomberg as one of the best books of the year. In THE DARK SIDE, MAYER reported (to quote a review by Andrew Basevich), "Since embarking upon its global war on terror, the United States has blatantly disregarded the Geneva Conventions. It has imprisoned suspects, including U.S. citizens, without charge, holding them indefinitely and denying them due process. It has created an American gulag in which thousands of detainees, including many innocent of any wrongdoing, have been subjected to ritual abuse and humiliation. It has delivered suspected terrorists into the hands of foreign torturers. Under the guise of 'enhanced interrogation techniques,' it has succeeded, in Mayer's words, in 'making torture the official law of the land in all but name.' Further, it has done all these things as a direct result of policy decisions made at the highest levels of government." The country learned about all this and rejected Bush's Republican successor, John McCain, in favor of former constitutional law professor, Barack Obama. So has everything changed for the good? I'd say not nearly enough. Just in the two months since President Obama released the torture memos, a former FBI interrogator testified to the failures of the CIA's so-called enhanced interrogation techniques, a former aide to Colin Powell said the interrogations were aimed at building the case for the Iraq war, a coalition of advocacy groups has launched a campaign to disbar twelve former Bush administration attorneys. The Obama response? While continuing to preach "move forward, don't look back" when it comes to investigating or prosecuting possible crimes committed in pursuit of the above listed policies, the Obama administration has withheld photos of detainee abuse, defended the military tribunal system, and floated plans for a system of "preventive detention" for accused Terrorists. We will talk with JANE MAYER about the past, the present, and the future of actions and crimes committed by the US government to defend us from terror.

Interview: LYME DISEASE documentary "UNDER OUR SKIN"

Terrence McNally — Fri, 26 Jun 2009 09:02:37 GMT

Aired 06/23/09 LYME DISEASE and the documentary, UNDER OUR SKIN (opening in LA Friday June 26) ANDY ABRAHAMS WILSON producer/director/camera LORRAINE JOHNSON CEO, California Lyme Disease Association RICHARD HORWITZ MD Physician, President, International Lyme and Associated Diseases Education Foundation MANDY HUGHES Lyme disease patient Lyme disease is one of the most misunderstood and controversial illnesses of our time. Difficult to test accurately, tens of thousands of people go undiagnosed-or misdiagnosed with such conditions as fibromyalgia, chronic fatigue, autism, MS and ALS. The Centers for Disease Control admits that more than 200,000 people may acquire Lyme disease each year, a number greater than AIDS, West Nile Virus, and Avian Flu combined. And yet, the medical establishment-with profound influence from the insurance industry-has stated that the disease is easily detectable and treatable, and that "chronic Lyme" is some other unrecognized syndrome or a completely psychosomatic disorder. Learn more about the film at http://www.underourskin.com/ Learn more about Lyme disease at www.lymediseaseassociation.org www.ilads.org www.lymedisease.org

Interview: REZA ASLAN, Author

Terrence McNally — Sat, 30 May 2009 20:52:38 GMT

Aired 05/19/09 REZA ASLAN is the author of "NO GOD BUT GOD" and his new book, "HOW TO WIN A COSMIC WAR: God, Globalization and the End of the War on Terror" REZA ASLAN says the only way to win a cosmic war is not to engage in one. That may seem obvious to some, but he's also saying that unless we recognize that we've been pulled into a cosmic war -- what that means and how it changes things -- we haven't got a chance of "winning" or even making the best of the situation. "A cosmic war is a battle not between armies or nations, but between the forces of good and evil. The ultimate goal of a cosmic war is to vanquish evil itself, which ensures that a cosmic war remains an absolute, eternal, and ultimately unwinnable conflict. Cosmic wars are fought not over land or politics but over identity." 1900 - 1/2 of world's population identified as members of major religions 2000 - 2/3 of world's population identified as members of major religions Aslan believes the days of wars between nation states are over. When globalization frees people from national identity, it's replaced by other identities - especially religion. We must strip the conflict between Islam and the West of its religious connotations, and we must address the actual grievances that fuel the Jihadist movement. A recent Gallup poll (see below) appears to back him up. According to AP: "Joblessness and poverty are a more potent source of tension between Muslims and wider European and U.S. society than religious differences, [according to] one of the first major studies of Muslim integration since the Sept. 11 terror attacks." REZA ASLAN has a fairly unique resume. Born in Iran, emigrated wih his family to Enid, Oklahoma as a child. Degrees in religion from UC Santa Clara, UC Santa Barbara, and Harvard Divinity School, as well as an MFA from the Iowa Writers Program. His first book, NO GOD BUT GOD: The Origins, Evolution, and Future of Islam offers more than a history - and the guy can write. The first time I interviewed him was just after Hamas had won the Palestinian election. We both hoped that having to actually run things would move Hamas in a positive direction. The US, Israel, and others weren't willing to find out. We pick up the conversation this week, looking at the lessons of history, the lessons of the recent past, and hopes for the future. http://www.rezaaslan.com

Interview: DAVID KORTEN author then RANDY HAYES founder of Rainforest Action Network

Terrence McNally — Tue, 19 May 2009 01:39:41 GMT

Aired 05/12/09 DAVID KORTEN author, AGENDA FOR A NEW ECONOMY: From Phantom Wealth to Real Wealth DAVID KORTEN is the author of WHEN CORPORATIONS RULE THE WORLD and THE GREAT TURNING: From Empire to Earth Community. He is co-founder and board chair of YES! Magazine, and a board member of the Business Alliance for Local Living Economies (BALLE) http://www.yesmagazine.org http://www.livingeconomies.org RANDY HAYES has been highly successful waging corporate accountability campaigns with Rainforest Action Network and International Forum on Globalization. He's working to launch a media campaign to "Ecologize the Economy." http://www.worldfuturecouncil.org http://ran.org KORTEN's got some big ideas, HAYES does too -- and a knack for activism. I'll talk with both about taking advantage of the current crises to transform our economy and, in turn, our future reality.

Interview: MATT TAIBBI - Columnist, Reporter, and Blogger

Terrence McNally — Tue, 12 May 2009 03:31:54 GMT

Aired 05/05/09 MATT TAIBBI is a fire-breathing, shoot-from-the-hip reporter, columnist and blogger, whose March Rolling Stone article, "The Big Takeover," paints a dark picture of greed, corruption and power. http://www.alternet.org/module/printversion/132859 You can learn more about Taibbi's work at: www.trueslant.com www.alternet.org www.rollingstone.com

Interview: MIKE LUX, Author

Terrence McNally — Thu, 07 May 2009 17:30:55 GMT

Aired 05/05/09 One of Ronald Reagan's most famous and successful quotes is from his 1980 debate with Jimmy Carter, "There you go again..." No one can remember what it was about or whether it was accurate, but it worked. I bring it up because a new book makes clear that that same line applies all too well to the right in this country. "There you go again..." - bringing up the same old stereotypes, same old fears, same old prejudices... Today's first guest MIKE LUX has a new book out -- THE PROGRESSIVE REVOLUTION: How the Best in America Came to Be -- in which he traces the role progressives have played in leading the US to so many of its best advances, battling every time the right's determination to keep progress at bay. Needless to say, we are at another of those moments today. After 30 years of dominance by the right, disaster is clear to all, and change is on the move. We'll talk about the history, the present moment, and what we all need to do to keep moving forward to a more progressive future. www.theprogressiverevolution.com www.anewwayforward.org

Special: LISTENER CALL INS

Terrence McNally — Fri, 01 May 2009 19:51:48 GMT

Aired 04/28/09 Swine flu. Bailouts. Torture. Pirates. 100 Days. Deficits. Health care. Afghanistan. Pakistan. Iraq. Iran. Israel. Palestine. Climate. Energy. Unemployment. What's worth talking about? What's new? What's another way to look at some of these things?

Interview: BEN SKINNER, Author: "A CRIME SO MONSTROUS"

Terrence McNally — Sun, 26 Apr 2009 21:19:08 GMT

Aired 04/21/09 Currently a fellow at the Carr Center for Human rights Policy at Harvard Kennedy School of Government, previously a Special Assistant to Ambassador Richard Holbrooke, BEN SKINNER has written for Newsweek, LA Times, Foreign Policy and others. He was named one of National Geographic's Adventurers of the Year 2008. His first book, now out in paperback, is A CRIME SO MONSTROUS: Face to Face with Modern Day Slavery. http://www.castla.org

Special: KGNU - Panel - Story vs. Substance

Terrence McNally — Tue, 21 Apr 2009 16:42:28 GMT

Aired 04/10/09 KGNU is an independent, noncommercial community radio station licensed in Boulder and Denver. Story vs. Substance with panel Chip Berlet, Terry McNally, James Trengrove and host Kathy Partridge. http://www.colorado.edu/cwa/index.html

Interview: JOSEPH CIRINCIONE, President of PLOUGHSHARES FUND and Author

Terrence McNally — Thu, 16 Apr 2009 17:36:10 GMT

Aired 04/14/09 Joseph Cirincione joined Ploughshares Fund as president in March 2008. He is author of Bomb Scare: The History and Future of Nuclear Weapons and served previously as senior vice president for national security and international policy at the Center for American Progress and as director for nonproliferation at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace for eight years. He worked for nine years in the U.S. House of Representatives as a professional staff member of the Committee on Armed Services and the Committee on Government Operations, and served as staff director of the bipartisan Military Reform Caucus. He teaches at the Georgetown University Graduate School of Foreign Service and is a member of the Council on Foreign Relations. His previous books include two editions of Deadly Arsenals: Nuclear, Biological and Chemical Threats, (2005 and 2002), and previous reports include Universal Compliance: A Strategy for Nuclear Security (co-author, March 2005) and WMD in Iraq (co-author, January 2004). He is the author of over 200 articles on defense issues, the producer of two DVDs on proliferation, the former publisher of the comprehensive proliferation website, Proliferation News, and is a frequent commentator in the media. In the past two years has delivered over 150 speeches around the world and appeared in the 2006 award-winning documentary, Why We Fight. Cirincione is an expert adviser to the Congressional Commission on the Strategic Posture of the United States, chaired by former Secretary of Defense William J. Perry and former Secretary of Energy and Secretary of Defense James R. Schlesinger. He also serves as a member of the Advisory Committee to the Commission on the Prevention of WMD Proliferation and Terrorism, headed by former Senator Bob Graham (D-FL) and former Senator Jim Talent (R-MO). http://www.ploughshares.org/

Interview: FRITJOF CAPRA, Author and Physicist

Terrence McNally — Thu, 09 Apr 2009 21:18:58 GMT

Aired 04/07/09 FRITJOF CAPRA is a founding director of the Center for Ecoliteracy in Berkeley, California, which promotes ecology and systems thinking in primary and secondary education, and he's is on the faculty of Schumacher College, an international center for ecological studies in England CAPRA is the author also of The Tao of Physics, coauthor of Green Politics and coeditor of Steering Business Toward Sustainability. His most recent book is The Science of Leonardo. I read a book a quarter century ago that greatly influenced my view not only of science, medicine, agriculture, energy, and even politics - it influenced my view of my worldview. That book was THE TURNING POINT by physicist Fritjof Capra. He's got a new book THE SCIENCE OF LEONARDO in which he holds that DaVinci saw the world with a lens that other scientists have only discovered in the last 100 years - and which society has yet to fully grasp. http://www.fritjofcapra.net/ http://www.spaceandmotion.com/Philosophy-Fritjof-Capra.htm

Interview: JANE D'ARISTA, Author

Terrence McNally — Thu, 02 Apr 2009 16:45:01 GMT

Aired 03/31/09 JANE D'ARISTA writes and lectures on economics and finance and is a Research Associate at the Political Economy Research Institute at the University of Massachusetts, Amherst. She served as a staff economist for the Banking and Commerce Committees of the U.S. House of Representatives, as a principal analyst in the international division of the Congressional Budget Office and has lectured in graduate programs at Boston University School of Law, the University of Massachusetts at Amherst, the University of Utah and the New School University. Her publications include a two-volume history of U.S. monetary policy and financial regulation. Author, REBUILDING THE FRAMEWORK FOR FINANCIAL REGULATION "...barely known among exalted policy-makers, ...progressive economists recognize the originality of her thinking..." -- William Greider in "Fixing the Fed" (see below) By William Greider, March 11, 2009, Nation http://www.thenation.com/doc/20090330/greider/print?+nofollow Congress and the Obama administration face an excruciating dilemma. To restore the crippled financial system, they are told, they must put up still more public money--hundreds of billions more--to rescue the largest banks and investment houses from failure. Even the dimmest politicians realize that this will further inflame the public's anger. People everywhere grasp that there is something morally wrong about bailing out the malefactors who caused this catastrophe. Yet we are told we have no choice. Unless taxpayers assume the losses for the largest financial institutions by buying their rotten assets, the banking industry will not resume normal lending and, therefore, the economy cannot recover.

Interview: THOMAS HOMER DIXON, Author

Terrence McNally — Thu, 26 Mar 2009 19:09:17 GMT

Aired 03/24/09 In 2006, THOMAS HOMER DIXON, author of Canada's #1 bestseller, THE UPSIDE OF DOWN, wrote, "September 11th and Katrina won't be the last time we walk out of our cities." Whether from economic collapse, terrorism, climate change, pandemic, energy scarcity, or the widening gap between rich and poor, he believes breakdown is inevitable. And if we won't change our ways till we crash, it's up to us to make sure breakdown doesn't spiral into total collapse. Check out the book title. Today "down" is everywhere we look. Okay, there's the "Catastrophe." I'll talk with HOMER DIXON in search of the "Creativity, and The Renewal..." http://www.homerdixon.com

Interview: DAVID BOLLIER, Author

Terrence McNally — Thu, 19 Mar 2009 18:55:17 GMT

Aired 03/17/09 "A world organized around centralized control, strict intellectual property rights, and hierarchies of credentialed experts is under siege. A radically different order of society based on open access, decentralized creativity, collaborative intelligence, and cheap and easy sharing is ascendant." - from VIRAL SPIRAL A global brigade of techies, lawyers, artists, musicians, scientists. businesspeople, innovators, and geeks of all stripes are dedicated to creating a digital republic committed to freedom and innovation. From free and open-source software, Creative Commons licenses, Wikipedia, remix music and video mashups, peer production, open science, open education, and open business, the world of digital media has spawned a new "sharing economy" that increasingly competes with entrenched media giants. I will also ask David to comment on the recent - and upcoming - bailouts, from the perspective of citizens and the commons. In other words, rather than fearing socialism, what are we getting for our "common" contributions to giant corporations -- and what should we be demanding? DAVID BOLLIER is Senior Fellow at the Norman Lear Center at the USC Annenberg Center for Communication and co-founder of Public Knowledge, a Washington policy advocacy organization dedicated to protecting the information commons. His latest book is VIRAL SPIRAL: How the Commoners Built a Digital Republic of Their Own. www.viralspiral.cc www.bollier.org www.onthecommons.org

Interview: JOSH TICKELL, Author and Film Director

Terrence McNally — Thu, 12 Mar 2009 17:34:34 GMT

Aired 03/10/09 Growing up amongst the oil refineries in Louisiana, JOSH TICKELL experienced the impacts of dirty oil processing at a young age. After watching members of his family suffer from pollution-related cancers, Tickell began a lifelong quest to find sustainable, clean energy sources. In 1997, TICKELL set out on the road with a biodiesel powered "Veggie Van" and a video camera and began filming what would eventually become known as FUEL, the 2008 Sundance Audience Award winning documentary film that investigates the possible replacement of fossil fuels with renewable energy. Over the course of his 11 year journey, TICKELL traveled the world going to over 25 countries, authored two books, founded a nonprofit organization, and jumpstarted America's biodiesel movement. "Fuel" is a vital, superbly assembled documentary that presents an insightful overview of America's troubled relationship with oil and how alternative and sustainable energies can reduce our country's -- and the world's -- addictive dependence on fossil fuels. The film's structure is built around director-narrator Josh Tickell's personal journey of enlightenment, which started in childhood after moving with his family from idyllic Australia to murkier Louisiana, where he came to realize the oil-rich environment was being ravaged by the omnipotent petrochemical industry. Later, as a young adult, he spent 11 years crossing the country in his vegetable oil-powered "Veggie Van," promoting biofuels and compiling footage for what would become this impressively comprehensive film. The events of Sept. 11 and Hurricane Katrina factor in both visually and thematically, providing provocative anchors for the movie's indictment of what Tickell believes is the Big Oil-cozy, ecologically indifferent Bush administration. Johnny O'Hara's WGA Award-nominated script doesn't dwell on muckraking, however; it's more focused on broadly inspiring viewers than preaching to the converted. Interviews with a wide range of environmentalists, policy makers and educators, along with such "green" celebrities as Woody Harrelson, Sheryl Crow and Larry Hagman offer serious fuel for thought -- as well as for action. Smartly animated interstitials, memorable archival material and a lively soundtrack round out the fast-paced proceedings. www.thefuelfilm.com

Interview: AZADEH MOAVENI, Author

Terrence McNally — Thu, 05 Mar 2009 21:13:16 GMT

Aired 03/03/09 AZADEH MOAVENI is a contributing writer on Iran and the Middle East for TIME magazine. She spent two years in Iran, from 2005 to 2007, and just returned from three weeks there at the first of the year. As one of the few American correspondents allowed to work continuously in Iran since 1999, she has reported widely on youth culture, women's rights, and Islamic reform for Time, The New York Times Book Review, The Washington Post, and The Los Angeles Times. She is author of LIPSTICK JIHAD and co-author, with Nobel Peace Prize winner Shirin Ebadi, of IRAN AWAKENING. Her newest book is HONEYMOON IN TEHRAN: TWO YEARS OF LOVE AND DANGER IN IRAN In his 2002 State of the Union address George W. Bush coined the term "axis of evil" to describe his vision of North Korea, Iraq, and Iran. The US has a new president who has made a fairly big and controversial deal about his willingness to meet with Iran's leaders without preconditions. Iran's last presidential election in 2005 brought the world Mahmoud Ahmadinejad. Another presidential election is coming soon to Iran. AZADEH MOAVENI has spent a good deal of time in Iran since the year 2000 and written two books about Iranian society. I'll talk with her about life and politics behind the caricatures and rhetoric that so often clouds US perceptions of Iran. http://www.azadeh.info/

Interview: VICKI ROBIN, Author

Terrence McNally — Fri, 13 Feb 2009 20:18:31 GMT

Aired 02/10/09 I bought this book when it originally came out in 1992. Much of it made profound sense then, at the dawn of the high-tech, Clinton era boom: Notice what really matters. Learn to say enough. Simplify. Choose. Today as we descend into the deepest financial crisis in over 60 years, its message is no longer a lifestyle choice. For most of us - and ideally for the entire American culture - it is a necessity. YOUR MONEY OR YOUR LIFE shows readers how to gain control of their money and finally begin to make a life, rather than just make a living. The new edition contains updated resources and anecdotes and examples particularly relevant today. It tells you how to: · get out of debt and develop savings · reorder material priorities and live well for less · resolve inner conflicts between values and lifestyle · save the planet while saving money ...and more www.yourmoneyoryourlife.org http://victoriaroserobin.blogspot.com/

Interview: WILLIAM GREIDER, Correspondent & Author (Part 2 of 2)

Terrence McNally — Fri, 06 Feb 2009 23:03:53 GMT

Aired 02/05/09 Part 2 of 2 Now National Affairs Correspondent for the Nation, WILLIAM GREIDER has spent forty years examining how powerful institutions affect ordinary people. For 17 years he was the National Affairs Editor at Rolling Stone magazine, and is a former assistant managing editor at the Washington Post, where he worked for fifteen years as a national correspondent, editor and columnist. He is the author of national bestsellers ONE WORLD, READY OR NOT, SECRETS OF THE TEMPLE and WHO WILL TELL THE PEOPLE. Greider also served as a correspondent for six Frontline documentaries on PBS, including "Return to Beirut," which won an Emmy in 1985. www.thenation.com

Interview: WILLIAM GREIDER, Correspondent & Author (Part 1 of 2)

Terrence McNally — Fri, 06 Feb 2009 01:31:27 GMT

Aired 02/03/09 Part 1 of 2 I have been trying to book this week's guest every week since at least last September, and finally I got him. WILLIAM GREIDER has been right for so long about so many things that last fall I wanted his take on the emerging financial crisis and the prospects of Barack Obama's being elected. Once both of those things happened, I've wanted to talk with him about how we got here, what we need to do to deal with the crisis, and what a true progressive platform for turning things around would look like. Now National Affairs Correspondent for the Nation, WILLIAM GREIDER has spent forty years examining how powerful institutions affect ordinary people. For 17 years he was the National Affairs Editor at Rolling Stone magazine, and is a former assistant managing editor at the Washington Post, where he worked for fifteen years as a national correspondent, editor and columnist. He is the author of national bestsellers ONE WORLD, READY OR NOT, SECRETS OF THE TEMPLE and WHO WILL TELL THE PEOPLE. Greider also served as a correspondent for six Frontline documentaries on PBS, including "Return to Beirut," which won an Emmy in 1985. www.thenation.com

Interview: NIALL FERGUSON, Columnist and Author

Terrence McNally — Thu, 29 Jan 2009 18:09:37 GMT

Aired 01/27/09 NIALL FERGUSON is Lawrence A. Tisch Professor of History at Harvard University, a Senior Research Fellow at Jesus College, Oxford, a Senior Fellow of the Hoover Institution at Stanford, an op ed columnist for the LA Times, and the other of several books, the newest is THE ASCENT OF MONEY: A Financial History of the World. In THE ASCENT OF MONEY, NIALL FERGUSON says that finance is the foundation of human progress, and that financial history is the essential back-story behind all history. He explains how banks provided the material basis for the the Italian Renaissance, while the bond market was the decisive factor in conflicts from the Seven Years' War to the American Civil War. Ferguson points out the origins of the French Revolution in a stock market bubble, and shows how a financial revolution is propelling the world's most populous country from poverty to power in a single generation. The single most important lesson of financial history is that sooner or later every bubble bursts - sooner or later the bearish sellers outnumber the bullish buyers - sooner or later greed flips into fear. We'll discuss how history can be helpful at a moment like this. And, what can it tell us about our current crisis and the way out? http://www.niallferguson.com

Interview: DAVID CAY JOHNSTON - Pulitzer Prize Journalist / Author

Terrence McNally — Thu, 22 Jan 2009 23:20:04 GMT

Aired 01/20/09 DAVID CAY JOHNSTON, who won a Pulitzer Prize for his innovative coverage of our tax system, retired this year as a investigative reporter for The New York Times. He is the author of PERFECTLY LEGAL: The Covert Campaign to Rig Our Tax System to Benefit the Super Rich--and Cheat Everybody Else and FREE LUNCH: How The Wealthiest Americans Enrich Themselves at Government Expenses (and Stick You with the Bill). DAVID CAY JOHNSTON knows about money, finances, and the economy. More than anything else, he knows about taxes. We'll talk about how we can make the most of the opportunity presented by our current financial catastrophe. Do the bailouts make sense? What could we do that would be smarter, more efficient, more effective - that might work?

Interview: CHRISTOPHER FLAVIN President, WORLDWATCH INSTITUTE

Terrence McNally — Fri, 16 Jan 2009 00:26:53 GMT

Aired 01/13/09 CHRISTOPHER FLAVIN is President of the Worldwatch Institute, a Washington-based international research organization focused on energy, resource and environmental issues. Worldwatch is recognized around the world for its pathbreaking work on the global connections between economic, social, and environmental trends. Chris has spent his career at Worldwatch where he previously served as Senior Vice President and Vice President for Research. Chris is co-author of three books on energy, including Power Surge: Guide to the Coming Energy Revolution, which anticipated many of the changes now under way in world energy markets. Chris is a regular co-author of the Institute's annual State of the World report, which has been published in 36 languages. He has participated in several historic international conferences, including the Earth Summit in Rio de Janeiro in 1992 and the Climate Change Conference in Kyoto, Japan, in 1997. Chris is a founding member of the Board of Directors of the Business Council for Sustainable Energy and serves as a board member of the Climate Institute and the Institute for Global Environmental Strategies in Japan. He is on the advisory boards of the American Council on Renewable Energy, and the Environmental and Energy Study Institute. He is also a member of the Greentech Innovation Network, an initiative of Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers. TEN KEY CHALLENGES (Excerpted from The Perfect Storm by CHRISTOPHER FLAVIN and Robert Engelman, Chapter One of STATE OF THE WORLD 2009, A Worldwatch Institute Report on Progress Toward a Sustainable Society.) Ten challenges must be met in order to create the world of zero net greenhouse gas emissions that will be needed to achieve climate stability. Thinking Long-term Human beings have evolved to be very good at focusing on an immediate threat-whether it is wild animals the first humans faced on the plains of Africa or the financial panic that gripped the world in late 2008. Climate change is a uniquely long-range problem: its effects appear gradual on a human time scale, and the worst effects will likely be visited on people not yet alive. To solve this problem, we must embrace the future as our responsibility and consider the impact of today's decisions on future generations. Just as Egyptians built pyramids and Europeans built cathedrals to last millennia, we need to start acting as if the future of the planet matters beyond our own short lives. Innovation The world needs to develop and disseminate technologies that maximize the production and use of carbon-free energy while minimizing cost and optimizing convenience. (Convenience matters: the ease of transporting, storing, and using carbon-based fuels is among their attractions, not captured in price alone.) An effective climate pact will offer incentives that accelerate technological development and ensure that renewable energy and other low-emission technologies are deployed in all countries regardless of ability to pay the costs. We need to dramatically increase the efficiency with which we use carbon-based energy and lower release into the atmosphere of land-based CO2, methane, nitrogen oxides, and greenhouse gases stemming from cooling and various industrial processes. The opportunities for quick and inexpensive emissions reductions remain vast and mostly untapped. Population It is essential to reopen the global dialogue on human population and promote policies and programs that can help slow and eventually reverse its growth by making sure that all women are able to decide for themselves whether and when to have children. A comprehensive climate agreement would acknowledge both the impacts of climate change on vulnerable populations and the long-term contribution that slower growth and a smaller world population can play in reducing future emissions under an equitable climate framework. And it should renew the commitment that the world's nations made in 1994 to address population not by pressuring parents to have fewer or more children than they want but by meeting the family planning, health, and educational needs of women. Changing Lifestyles The world's climate cannot be saved by technology alone. The way we live will have to change as well-and the longer we wait the larger the needed sacrifices will be. In the United States, the inexorable increase in the size of homes and vehicles that has marked the past few decades has been a major driver of greenhouse gas emissions and the main reason that U.S. emission are double those of other industrial countries. Lifestyle changes will be needed, some of which seem unattractive today. But in the end, the things we may need to learn to live without - oversized cars and houses, status-based consumption, easy and cheap world travel, meat with every meal, disposable everything - are not necessities or in most cases what makes people happy. The oldest among us and many of our ancestors willingly accepted such sacrifices as necessary in times of war. This is no war, but it may be such a time. Healing Land We need to reverse the flow of carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases from destroyed or degraded forests and land. Soil and vegetation can serve as powerful net removers of the atmosphere's carbon and greenhouse gases. Under the right management, soil alone could absorb each year an estimated 13 percent of all human-caused carbon dioxide emissions. To the extent we can make the land into a more effective "sink" for these gases we can emit modest levels essential for human development and wellbeing. Like efficiency, however, an active sink eventually faces diminishing returns. And any sink needs to be secured with "drain stoppers" to prevent easy return of greenhouse gases to the atmosphere when conditions change. Strong Institutions "Good governance" can be a cliché-until someone needs it to survive. The final months of 2008 laid painfully bare the dangerous imbalance between a freewheeling global economy and a regulatory system that is a patchwork of disparate national systems. And if there was ever a global phenomenon, the climate is it. In fact it is not hard to imagine the climate problem driving a political evolution toward global governance over the long term, but given the public resistance to that idea the next most effective climate-regulating mechanism will be the strength and effectiveness of the United Nations, multilateral banks, and major national governments. New institutions and new funds will be needed, but it could take a major public awakening or a dramatically deteriorating climate to overcome the obstacles to inventing and establishing them. The Equity Imperative A climate agreement that can endure and succeed will find mechanisms for sharing the burden of costs and potential discomforts. Per capita fossil fuel CO2 emissions in the United States are almost five times those in Mexico and more than 20 times the levels in most of sub-Sahara. An effective climate agreement will acknowledge the past co-optation of Earth's greenhouse-gas absorbing capacity by the wealthiest and most industrialized countries and the corresponding need to reserve most of what little absorbing capacity is left for countries in development. Most people live in such countries, and they bear little responsibility for causing this problem -though it is worth recalling that a small but growing share of their populations already have large carbon footprints. Economic Stability In the fall of 2008 the global economy foundered, raising the obvious question: can a world heading into hard economic times add to its burdens the costs of switching from fossil to renewable fuels or managing precious land for carbon sequestration? Any climate agreement built on an assumption of global prosperity is doomed to failure. And as growing and increasingly affluent populations demand more of the resources of a finite planet, we may have to balance the future of climate against present realities of hunger, poverty, and disease. A robust international climate regime will need to design mechanisms that will operate consistently in anemic as well as booming economic times. And a strong pact will be built on principles and innovations that acknowledge and accommodate the problem of cost - while building in monitoring techniques to ensure that efficiency is not achieved at the expense of effective and enduring emission cuts and adaptation efforts. Political Stability A world distracted by major wars or outbreaks of terrorism will not be able to stay focused on the more distant future. And just such a focus is needed to prevent future changes in climate and adapt to the ones already occurring. A climate pact could encourage preemptive action to diminish insecurity caused or exacerbated by climate change. But unless nations can find ways to defuse violent conflict and minimize the chance that terrorism will distract and disrupt societies, climate change prevention and adaptation (along with development itself) will take a back seat. On the bright side, negotiating an effective climate agreement offers countries an opportunity, if they will only seize it, to practice peace, to look beyond the narrowness of the interests within their borders at their dependence on the rest of the world, to see humanity as a single vulnerable species rather than a collection of nations locked in pointless and perpetual competition. Mobilizing for Change As fear of climate change has grown in recent years, so has political action. But opponents of action have repeatedly pointed to the vast costs of reducing emissions. At a time of serious economic problems, the power of that argument is growing, and some of those who are persuaded are going straight from denial to despair. The most effective response to both of those reactions is, in the words of Common Cause founder John Gardner, to see global warming as "breathtaking opportunities disguised as insoluble problems." Solving the climate problem will create the largest wave of new industries and jobs the world has seen in decades. Michigan, Ohio, and Pennsylvania in the United States are among those that have devoted enormous efforts to attracting new energy industries - with a glancing reference to climate change and a major focus on creating new jobs to revive "rustbelt" economies. In November 2009, the world faces a test. Will the roughly 200 national governments that meet in Copenhagen to forge a new climate agreement come up with a new protocol that provides both vision and a roadmap, accelerating action around the globe? The challenges are many: Will the global financial crisis and conflict in the Middle East distract world leaders? Will the new US president have time to bring his country back into a leadership position? Will the global North-South divide that has marked climate talks in recent years be overcome? Climate change is not a discrete issue to be addressed apart from all the others. The global economy fundamentally drives climate change, and economic strategies will need to be revised if the climate is ever to be stabilized - and if we are to satisfy the human needs that the global economy is ultimately intended to meet. We cannot afford to have the Copenhagen climate conference fail. The outcome of this meeting will be written in the world's history books - and in the lasting composition of our common atmosphere. ----------------------------------------------------- WORLDWATCH INSTITUTE delivers the insights and ideas that empower decision makers to create an environmentally sustainable society that meets human needs. Worldwatch focuses on the 21st-century challenges of climate change, resource degradation, population growth, and poverty by developing and disseminating solid data and innovative strategies for achieving a sustainable society. For more information, visit www.worldwatch.org

Interview: GERALD CELENTE, Author

Terrence McNally — Mon, 12 Jan 2009 19:37:23 GMT

Aired 01/06/09 GERALD CELENTE of The Trends Research Institute publishes TRENDS JOURNAL. A New Yorker, who calls himself a political agnostic, Celente gives everybody hell. I first booked him in January 05 and listener response has led me to make this an annual show. CELENTE accurately forecast the Iraqi War quagmire, the last two recessions, the Dot-Com meltdown, and the 1987 world stock market crash. As far back as 1993 he predicted that a new Crusades would be raging at the dawn of the new millennium. Excerpt from TOP TRENDS OF 2009 by Trends Research THE YEAR THAT WAS We described last year's "Year that Was" as ending with "an economic bang and a political thud." By contrast, 2008 goes out with a spectacular display of political fireworks and an economic implosion unlike anything experienced before. History was made. The racial barrier came down. A man of black & white blood, modest means and scant experience was elected to rescue a great and foundering nation. A young, charismatic president was replacing a Commander in Chief who had long since worn out his welcome. In 2000, George W. Bush assumed the presidency following an election replete with doubt and irregularities. A troubled first year abruptly gave way to a 90 percent approval rating following the trauma of 9/11. Playing his Commander in Chief trump card, he declared a War on Terror and war on Iraq. In 2004, with the Iraq War going badly but the economy booming - especially the real estate market - he remained popular enough to squeak out a second term. In 2006, with the costs of war and casualties mounting, a Democratic Congress was voted in with a mandate to end the Iraq War. Instead they kept funding it. By 2007, with America still bogged down in war, the real estate bubble bursting, a credit crisis erupting, and the subprime lending market collapsing, George Bush's popularity went into free fall. No longer confined to disgruntled Democrats, Bush-bashing became a bipartisan pastime. Most will remember the economy as the 2008 Election hot button issue. In reality, it replaced the Iraq War only when the news of failing banks, bustedbrokerages, government bailouts and rescue plans preoccupied the press. But it was candidate Barack Obama's early stand against the Iraq War - and his promise to end it - that separated him from the favorites of both parties seeking the presidency. In early 2008, none of the candidates in the run for the White House had an approval rating above 50 percent. Going into the Iowa Primary, Hillary Clinton was leading in the national polls while Obama's campaign was slowly gaining momentum. It wasn't until talk show host Oprah Winfrey jumped into the ring that it kicked into high gear. THE PRESIDENTIAL REALITY SHOW With the undisputed Queen of TV in his corner, the Obama campaign suddenly transformed into a flawlessly packaged Oprah production. Whether a stadium spectacle or a small town meeting, every event was staged to perfection.Was the celebrity witchcraft that endears Oprah to her millions of fans directed toward political stagecraft? As if by magic, Obama, an adequate public speaker, became the master of the Teleprompter; so skillful - and with cameras so artfully placed - that the illusion of spontaneity was created. Pacing the stage, confident of his words, his cadenced oratory gave him a messianic quality. "Yes we can!" preached Obama. "Yes we can!" echoed his mesmerized political congregation. As the economy worsened and the Iraq War was pushed into the background, Obama's focused message of change and his tightly-scripted performance made him a leading contender in The Presidential Reality Show. Meanwhile, his main challenger, Hillary Clinton was repeatedly discrediting herself by playing the race card, and clumsily exaggerating her foreign policy achievements with such claims as having dodged bullets in Bosnia and negotiating the peace in Ireland. In opposition, the Republicans ran the uncharismatic and aging John McCain, inextricably tied to eight years of the Bush administration, an insurmountable obstacle. The President, posting near record low approval ratings, was so universally derided and despised that McCain saw Bush as an unconditional liability, banning him from the campaign trail. The combination of an economic meltdown, Mc- Cain's acknowledged lack of economic awareness ... and puzzling choice of running mate made possible the impossible: a black, practically unknown challenger swept into power.

Interview: BILL DRAYTON, founder/CEO, ASHOKA - INNOVATORS FOR THE PUBLIC

Terrence McNally — Wed, 31 Dec 2008 16:32:11 GMT

Aired 12/24/08 TERRY McNALLY on AIR AMERICA RADIO sitting in for RACHEL MADDOW and interviews BILL DRAYTON. BILL DRAYTON has pioneered the field of social entrepreneurship. He is the CEO and founder of ASHOKA, a global organization which selects individuals tackling society's most pressing problems with innovative, entrepreneurial solutions. Since 1981, ASHOKA has elected over 2,000 leading social entrepreneurs as Ashoka Fellows, providing them with living stipends, professional support, and access to a global network of peers in more than 60 countries. Through ASHOKA, DRAYTON has introduced the world to a fundamentally new model of how ideas can change social systems across the globe, improving the lives of millions. As a management consultant with McKinsey & Co, he gained wide experience serving both public and private clients, and built his understanding of how organizations work. He also served briefly in the White House, and taught both law and management at Stanford Law School and Harvard's Kennedy School of Government. He is a graduate of Harvard, Oxford, and Yale Universities. Social entrepreneurs often seem to be possessed by their ideas, committing their lives to changing the direction of their field. They are both visionaries and ultimate realists, concerned with the practical implementation of their vision above all else. Each social entrepreneur presents ideas that are user-friendly, understandable, ethical, and engage widespread support in order to maximize the number of local people that will stand up, seize their idea, and implement with it. In other words, every leading social entrepreneur is a mass recruiter of local changemakers-a role model proving that citizens who channel their passion into action can do almost anything. Over the past two decades, the citizen sector http://www.ashoka.org/citizensector has discovered what the business sector learned long ago: There is nothing as powerful as a new idea in the hands of a first-class entrepreneur. Just as entrepreneurs change the face of business, social entrepreneurs act as the change agents for society, seizing opportunities others miss and improving systems, inventing new approaches, and creating solutions to change society for the better. While a business entrepreneur might create entirely new industries, a social entrepreneur comes up with new solutions to social problems and then implements them on a large scale. Learn more at http://ashoka.org

Interview: STUART KAUFFMAN, Author

Terrence McNally — Wed, 31 Dec 2008 15:36:49 GMT

Aired 12/24/08 TERRY McNALLY on AIR AMERICA RADIO sitting in for RON REAGAN and interviews STUART KAUFFMAN. STUART KAUFFMAN is the director of the Institute for Biocomplexity and Informatics at the University of Calgary, a MacArthur Fellow and an external professor at the Santa Fe Institute. He is the author of The Origins of Order, At Home in the Universe: The Search for the Laws of Self-Organization, Investigations and his newest, Reinventing the Sacred: A New View of Science, Reason, and Religion. With economic and communications globalization, some form of a global civilization is beginning to emerge. Just as we confront the challenges of global warming and peak oil, and the likelihood of growing hunger and resource wars, our diverse cultures are being crushed together. One response is a retreat into fundamentalisms, often religious, often hostile. Clearly there is an urgent need for new thinking. STUART KAUFFMAN says that's why he wrote Reinventing the Sacred. Rooted in hard science, the book - and it's passionate author -- aims for nothing less than a revolution in how we see the world, reality, God, and our role in it all. Learn more at http://www.edge.org

Interview: DAN PALLOTTA, founder, Pallotta TeamWorks, (AIDS Rides, breast cancer walks) and Author

Terrence McNally — Mon, 29 Dec 2008 18:45:57 GMT

Aired 12/23/08 Charities may operate with the noblest of intentions - but according to DAN PALLOTTA, they are hampered from the very start by an irrational set of rules and assumptions. By barring or discouraging charities from wielding the most effective tools of capitalism, he insists, we limit their ability to fight the social problems they were formed to tackle on a truly significant scale. UNCHARITABLE goes where no other book on the nonprofit sector has dared to tread. Where other texts suggest ways to optimize performance inside the existing paradigm, Uncharitable suggests that the paradigm itself is the problem and calls into question our fundamental canons about charity. Pallotta argues that society's nonprofit ethic acts as a strict regulatory mechanism on the natural economic law. It creates an economic apartheid that denies the nonprofit sector critical tools and permissions that the for-profit sector is allowed to use without restraint (e.g., no risk-reward incentives, no profit, counterproductive limits on compensation, and moral objections to the use of donated dollars for anything other than program expenditures. http://www.danpallotta.com

Interview: ETHAN NADELMANN, founder and executive director, DRUG POLICY ALLIANCE

Terrence McNally — Sun, 28 Dec 2008 05:18:59 GMT

Aired 12/23/08 Prohibition has failed -- again. Instead of treating the demand for illegal drugs as a market, and addicts as patients, policymakers the world over have boosted the profits of drug lords and fostered narcostates that would frighten Al Capone. "Harm reduction," a smarter drug control regime that values reality over rhetoric, is rising to replace the "war" on drugs. Reducing drug use is not nearly as important as reducing the death, disease, crime, and suffering associated with both drug misuse and failed prohibitionist policies. With respect to legal drugs, such as alcohol and cigarettes, harm reduction means promoting responsible drinking and designated drivers, or persuading people to switch to nicotine patches, chewing gums, and smokeless tobacco. With respect to illegal drugs, it means reducing the transmission of infectious disease through syringe-exchange programs, reducing overdose fatalities by making antidotes readily available, and allowing people addicted to heroin and other illegal opiates to obtain methadone.

Interview: JANINE BENYUS, Writer, Innovation Consultant, and Author

Terrence McNally — Thu, 18 Dec 2008 19:13:05 GMT

Aired 12/16/08 After 3.8 billion years of R&D, failures are fossils. The conscious emulation of life's genius is a sustainable survival strategy for the human race. Biomimicry (from bios, meaning life, and mimesis, meaning to imitate) is a new science that studies nature's best ideas and then imitates these designs and processes to solve human problems. Studying a leaf to invent a better solar cell is an example of this "innovation inspired by nature." The core idea is that nature, imaginative by necessity, has already solved many of the problems we are grappling with. Animals, plants, and microbes are the consummate engineers. They have found what works, what is appropriate, and most important, what lasts here on Earth. We are learning how to grow food like a prairie, build ceramics like an abalone, create color like a peacock, self-medicate like a chimp, compute like a cell, and run a business like a hickory forest. Learn more at www.biomimicryinstitute.org and www.asknature.org Janine Benyus' luscious 1997 book Biomimicry: Innovation Inspired by Nature is unique and profound. In the book, she not only invents a new field that she has named biomimicry, but she inverts the way we all think about design - the alchemy that turns intention into action. Benyus draws her design inspiration from nature's wisdom, not people's cleverness. Some 3.8 billion years of evolution have exposed the design flaws of roughly 99% of nature's creations - all recalled by the Manufacturer. The 1% that have survived can teach powerful lessons about how things should be built if they're to last. For example, nature's design genius has led to the creation of bat-inspired ultrasonic canes for the blind, synthetic sheets that collect water from mist and fog as desert beetles do, and paint that self-cleans like a lotus leaf. Little plastic-film patches have been designed using adhesiveless gecko-foot technology, so that carpet tiles can be stored in a big roll, but also easily removed. Equally promising, we'll soon make solar cells like leaves, supertough ceramics that resemble the inner shells of abalone, and underwater glue that mimics the natural as forests. Biomimicry isn't biotechnology. Biomimicry learns and emulates how spiders make silk; biotechnology transplants spiders' silk-making genes into goats, then sorts silk from milk and hopes the genes don't get loose. Biotechnology is smart kids in an oil depot with matches; biomimicry is wise adults in a rain forest with flashlights. Biotechnology is pure hubris; biomimicry is luminous humility - treating nature as model and mentor, cherished not as a mine to be stripped of its resources but as a teacher. Steering this design revolution is a centered, gentle, funny, lovely lady who lives in North America's Montana Rockies, observes deeply, writes with rare beauty, and lectures breathtakingly. By reorganizing the biological literature around function not organism - to reveal which organism knows how to solve your design problem - Benyus and her colleagues at the Biomimicry Guild and Biomimicry Institute in Montana are starting to help the world of the made work like, and live harmoniously with, the world of the born. This will change your life. And it may save the world. -- Amory B. Lovins, chairman and chief scientist of Rocky Mountain Institute

Interview: PARAG KHANNA, Author

Terrence McNally — Fri, 12 Dec 2008 22:35:17 GMT

Aired 12/09/08 Parag Khanna specialized in scenario and risk planning at the World Economic Forum, and conducted research on terrorism and conflict resolution at the Council on Foreign Relations. In 2007, Khanna served as a senior geopolitical advisor to United States Special Operations Forces in Iraq and Afghanistan. As a Senior Research Fellow and the Director of the Global Governance Initiative at the NEW AMERICA FOUNDATION, Mr. Khanna leads an effort to find innovative strategies for governmental, corporate, and civil society collaboration to resolve pressing global problems and redefine diplomacy for the 21st century. His writings have appeared in The New York Times, The Financial Times, Harper's Magazine, Slate." His first book, THE SECOND WORLD: EMPIRES AND INFLUENCE IN THE NEW GLOBAL ORDER has been highly praised. His upcoming HOW TO RUN THE WORLD is on the future of diplomacy. http://www.paragkhanna.com

Interview: Marc Darrow, M.D., J.D.

Terrence McNally — Tue, 09 Dec 2008 19:51:56 GMT

Aired 12/02/08 MARC DARROW M.D. is a Board Certified Physiatrist specializing in Physical Medicine and Rehabilitation and an Assistant Clinical Professor at the University of California at Los Angeles's, School of Medicine. Dr. Darrow emphasizes prolotherapy in his practice and teaches prolotherapy at UCLA. He is the author of several books including The Knee Source Book and Prolotherapy: Living Pain Free. His self-titled radio show can be heard on KRLA 870 AM in Southern California. Prolotherapy (short for "proliferation therapy") is one of many holistic treatments MARK DARROW utilizes in his practice. Proliferation, of course, means "rapid production." Prolotherapy rapidly produces cartilage and collagen, a naturally occurring protein in the body. Collagen is a necessary element for the formation of new connective tissue, the tissues that holds our skeletal infrastructure together. When benign natural substances are injected into precisely targeted areas of the body, known as "trigger points," they activate the body's natural healing process and stimulate the growth of new collagen and cartilage. This can rejuvenate damaged ligaments, tendons, muscle fascia and joint capsules responsible for most chronic pain. Learn more at www.jointrehab.com

Interview: JODIE EVANS, co-founder CODE PINK

Terrence McNally — Tue, 09 Dec 2008 17:54:24 GMT

Aired 12/02/08 JODIE EVANS is the co-founder the International Occupation Watch Center in Iraq, and of CODE PINK, with, among others, Medea Benjamin. Jodie's Baghdad Journals are at the center of the 2003 book, Twilight of Empire, and she is co-editor with Benjamin of Stop The Next War Now. Medea and I (CODEPINK co-founders) are spending the week in Iran on a citizen's diplomacy visit, engaging with Iranian women's groups and officials to build bridges and create peace from the ground up. We arrived Friday. Here's a bit of our experience. It is our third day in Iran and we feel like we've been here a month. We are all a bit bleary eyed, with too little sleep. Poor Ann Wright has been hit with the flu, but she doesn't miss a meeting. Leila Zand, our trip leader from Fellowship of Reconciliation is managing three jobs while trying to handle her wild bunch (Medea and myself.) Medea and I aren't great at following rules, especially when they don't make sense. So to be in a form of a straight jacket probably brings our rebellious spirit. Leila has to carry too much of our pent up energy and desires to see and do as much as possible in this short trip. We are all walking the tightrope of wanting to bring more groups back. This is the purpose of the trip and what we complained to Ahmadinejad about in September-the complaint that led to this trip. To break open the knot between Iran and the U.S., we need more citizen diplomacy, and Medea and I surrender to the need and agree to what I am now calling Slow Activism. There are people we have introductions to that we can't meet because it would upset the government, at whose very consent we are here-having been denied entry previously. So we are ALL on our best behavior. I even think I have been able to keep my scarf on much more than the last trip. It also helps us to better understand the terrain. Our friends here learn how to navigate the political land mines. International recognition here is a ticket to a freedom most Iranians who are politically active don't have. Habib knows how to fill a vacuum and seems to know they are inherent in the structure of our visit. Promises of meetings melt away and he is there with the replacement. We were supposed to be at the U.S. Embassy this morning, a tour prepared by the government-it was even announced in the press. But that and a meeting with the Foreign Minister were announced cancelled when we woke. So Habib whisked us off to the a War Library at the Center for Artists. A pretty serious library of books about war from around the world including 800 they had published or arranged to publish themselves. The director had been a journalist in the 8-year war and has given his life to telling its story to make sure another doesn't happen. A great partner for our War is So Over message....and a reminder it takes a lot of pictures, words and movies to tell that story. Lucky we love Habib so much because he manages to spend most of his time with us breaking our hearts and taking us deeper and deeper into the devastation of the 8-year war. I think when I leave I will feel like I was there. We wanted to ride a subway and we wanted to go shopping-if meetings cannot be arranged, then please take us into the belly of the city! We walked for blocks to the subway entrance. Public transportation is priced right-20 cents for the subway and 2 cents for the bus. It was about 3:30pm and getting close to rush hour so the train was packed and we had a choose between the men's train or the women's. We chose the men's train and it was packed. We had to push our way in to fit and of course all eyes were on the Westerners. We went five stops standing and mashed together, the other women on the train were young or with a partner. We emerged from the train to a bustling street. There were hundreds if not thousands of women in long black chadors. We had arrived at a community much more religious than the middle of downtown were we live. It was a fantastic bazaar which, unlike that of Isfahan where it is mostly crafts, seemed to cater to the needs of the community (housewares were in abundance.) Rostan told us that a wives' family has to buy what is needed to create the new home, and all around us, young girls and their mothers where laden in housewares. A tiled, arched entrance swallowed us and we got lost in catacombs of alleys laden with wares and Victoria's Secret-styled stalls with sexier lingerie than I have ever seen. We found our way to a center with vaulted tiled ceilings. Medea found a fantastic set of pink silverware, 33 pieces for $20. Needing a toilet we learned there are mosques almost everywhere and they are the best place to look. We found a mosque just outside and were greeted with warmth and invited in. As darkness engulfed this neighborhood and the stalls closed at the call to prayer, we descended to the subway again. There were hundreds of people, all in black, pushing to get through. It was awesome to behold. We thought of going up to take a cab but realized at rush hour it would take even longer. So we poured ourselves into the throng and decided this time we would try the women's car. What fun! We had a delightful conversation facilitated by a young woman who knew a bit of English. I love the curiosity of the people in Iran-they simply stop us on the street to know where we are from and it reminds me of our visits to Iraq. As I would come home to Venice Beach after being in Iraq and know just how closed a society I live in. There is no curiosity in those streets. Just people going somewhere, and when I have the openness that lingers when I come home, people think I am crazy. All the young women in the subway car have graduated from college-an urban planner, sociologist, doctor, teacher and mother's with their young children. It is much saner than the men's car and we get the wisdom of the separation. We went a stop past ours to find chador stores for Medea. We walked for blocks and blocks with no luck, finally there seemed to be one that was made of cotton. She went inside to try it on and I met a student who came up to ask if I was serious about the big peace sign on my back. "Glad you are here for PEACE,"" said Essa Abrahani, a student of mechanical engineering. "Congratulations for being here, US idea of Iran is colored by revolution and 8 year war. Come visit and see who we really are," was his message to Obama. Medea emerged with a new outfit that they even managed to hem for her. We had dinner in a richly layered restaurant full of music, courting couples, big families and the ever-present kabob. We had a fast dinner to be home for our weekly staff conference call on Skype from the internet café-and a late night of catching up on emails and blogs. Learn more at www.codepink4peace.org

Interview: DAVID BOLLIER, Author, Jounalist and Consultant

Terrence McNally — Mon, 08 Dec 2008 20:47:44 GMT

AIRED 12/01/08 DAVID BOLLIER is a independent policy strategist, journalist, activist and consultant with an evolving public-interest portfolio. DAVID BOLLIER work tends to focus on a few key concerns: reclaiming the commons, understanding how digital technologies are changing democratic culture, fighting the excesses of intellectual property law, fortifying consumer rights and promoting citizen action. Most of David's work these days is focused on the politics, economics and culture of the commons. In addition to speaking and writing frequently about the commons, David edit's the web portal and blog www.OntheCommons.org Newcomers to the commons might want to start by reading a terrific flyer, "Let's Reclaim the Commons," a report on The State of the Commons, a report on The Commons Rising, or any of my speeches. In January 2009 New Press will publish, "Viral Spiral: How the Commoners Built a Digital Republic of Their Own." Viral Spiral is about the rise of free and open-source software, Creative Commons licenses and the content commons they make possible, the internationalization of "free culture," and the burgeoning "sharing economy" that can be seen in open education, open science and open business models. DAVID BOLLIER has a number of affiliations and diverse projects at any given time, but most of David's work is done as: Editor, OntheCommons.org Senior Fellow, USC Annenberg School for Communication, The Norman Lear Center Collaborator with television writer/producer Norman Lear Co-founder and board member, Public Knowledge

Interview: Morley Winograd and Michael Hais, Authors

Terrence McNally — Fri, 05 Dec 2008 20:11:38 GMT

Aired 12/01/08 Morley Winograd and Michael Hais, Authors of Best-Seller Millennial Makeover. Morley Winograd is the executive director of the Institute for Communication Technology Management (CTM) at the University of Southern California’s Marshall School of Business. He is also the president and CEO of Morwin, Inc., a government reform consulting company. Michael D. Hais served for a decade as Vice President, Entertainment Research and for more than 22 years overall at Frank N. Magid Associates where he conducted audience research for hundreds of television stations, cable channels, and program producers in nearly all 50 states and more than a dozen foreign countries. Millennial Makeover builds a strong case for how today's rising generation is poised to become a political powerhouse, re-energizing civic spirit and transforming both the substance and process of American politics. With new technologies, attitudes, and agendas, this generation could define the twenty-first century just as fundamentally as the G.I. Generation defined the twentieth century. Winograd and Hais build a strong, historically rooted case for how this could unfold. -- Neil Howe and William Strauss, authors of Generations: The History of America's Future, 1584-2069 http://www.millennialmakeover.com

Interview: DREW WESTEN, Author

Terrence McNally — Wed, 03 Dec 2008 17:40:44 GMT

Aired 12/01/08 Drew Westen, 11/17/08 - How Obama Won "in the closing eight weeks of the campaign, Obama controlled the four stories that matter most in an election: the story you tell about your yourself (that he was the candidate of change), the story you tell about your opponent (that he was four more years of Bush), the story the other candidate is telling about himself (McCain the maverick, which Obama countered by citing McCain's proclamation that he had voted with Bush over 90% of the time and parrying, "That's not a maverick, that's a sidekick"), and the stories McCain was telling about Obama (that he lacked the experience and judgment to lead, which events transpired to allow Obama to counter with the entire nation watching)."

Interview: ROBERT COLES, Professor and Author

Terrence McNally — Sat, 29 Nov 2008 22:15:03 GMT

Aired 11/25/08 Who and what is Robert Coles? Social scientitst, humanist, political activist, psychiatrist, minstrel, wandering storyteller, mystic, wise man, poet, dissenter, and yes, I'll use the word, secular saint. -Andrew Greenley, Chicago Tribune I have long wanted to interview Robert Coles, and now, for an hour this week, I will finally do it. I invite anyone to google his books. He has written on a broad range of topics, but consistently on subjects that matter Much of his work is about story, much about children, some is about poverty, about art, about spirit, about meaning. I will talk with him about the power of story, the story of thanksgiving, the story of the current moment -- multiple crises and the emergence of Obama, and "Great Writing about Business" that has something to say to the current moment, when it appears business and finance have lost their way.

SPECIAL: Your Calls - POST-ELECTION

Terrence McNally — Wed, 12 Nov 2008 19:42:26 GMT

Aired 11/11/08 Last week during my two hour election day special, I said the following: When the nation is in the mood for change, it responds to charismatic optimists. FDR, JFK, Reagan, Clinton. The first time I saw Barack Obama on television at the 2004 convention, I felt not just that I had seen an excellent politician, but that I might have experienced an enlightened being. That it turns out he's an excellent politician as well as a superb manager gives me great hope. Our multiple severe crises may have finally broken through our culture of distraction enough that we are ready to ask questions, question answers and consider fundamental change. Barack Obama may be the ideal President for this moment. I won't interview a guest in depth on this show, though I've invited a number of notables to join me for a few minutes. I'll share my thoughts and feelings and maybe some news and opinion. And I invite you to join me to do the same. When I got a count-down keychain for Christmas last year, there were 390 days left till Bush's Last Day. Now that key chain says 70 and the mood in the country says he's already gone. We've got 60 minutes to celebrate. I'd like callers to answer three questions: What's your reaction to the election? What next steps would you like to see from Obama? What next steps do you think people ought to take? Join me in moving from "why we can't" to "how we will."

Interview: VAN JONES, Author

Terrence McNally — Sat, 01 Nov 2008 06:32:21 GMT

Aired 10/28/08 The economy is in crisis. Unemployment is rising. Families are hurting. Despite recent drops in oil prices, the days of cheap gas and oil are gone forever. Climate change calls for massive changes in the way we supply and use energy. Today’s guest sees that these crises are connected and believes that together they present an enormous opportunity. VAN JONES, a young, dynamic, charismatic, optimistic, solutions-oriented African American with an Ivy League law degree – boy that sounds familiar -- is the founder and president of GREEN FOR ALL and author of THE GREEN COLLAR ECONOMY A new report just released by the U.S. Conference of Mayors says that we can create over 4 million green jobs if we aggressively shift away from traditional fossil fuels toward alternative energy and a significant improvement in energy efficiency. Another report just released by the Political Economy Research Institute and the Center for American Progress shows that the U.S. can create two million jobs over two years by investing $100 billion in a green economic recovery plan. The report also shows that this investment would create four times more jobs than spending the same amount of money within the oil industry. Green For All and its partners are proposing a Clean Energy Corps that includes a revolving loan fund to finance the ambitious retrofitting of the nation's building stock. An investment of less than $3 billion per year would provide financing and can be expected to create close to 120,000 green jobs a year and 600,000 over five years, while also lowering home heating and electricity bills for homeowners and small businesses. VAN JONES is the founder and president of GREEN FOR ALL, a national advocacy organization based in Oakland, California, committed to building an inclusive, green economy - strong enough to lift millions of people out of poverty. Van also co-founded the Ella Baker Center for Human Rights and Color of Change, both committed to equal justice and opportunity for low-income people and people of color. Van has earned many honors, including the 1998 Reebok International Human Rights Award; the International Ashoka Fellowship; selection as a World Economic Forum “Young Global Leader;” the Rockefeller Foundation “Next Generation Leadership” Fellowship; and Campaign for America’s Future “Paul Wellstone Award 2008.” Van is a Senior Fellow with Center for American Progress. His first book, THE GREEN COLLAR ECONOMY is a New York Times best-seller.

Interview: HARVEY WASSERMAN, Author

Terrence McNally — Fri, 10 Oct 2008 22:41:34 GMT

Aired 10/07/08 HARVEY WASSERMAN is one of the nation's experts on the GOP's efforts to shrink and steal the vote in 2000, 2002, and 2004. He'll give us an update on where we stand a month from the election, and what we can do to stop they from doing it again. HARVEY WASSERMAN is senior advisor to Greenpeace USA and the Nuclear Information & Resource Service, senior editor of www.freepress.org and author of several books, including SOLARTOPIA and co-authro with Bob Fitrakis of HOW THE GOP STOLE AMERICA'S 2004 ELECTION & IS RIGGING 2008 and AS GOES OHIO: ELECTION THEFT SINCE 2004.

Interview: DEAN BAKER, Author

Terrence McNally — Thu, 09 Oct 2008 18:57:52 GMT

Aired 10/07/08 DEAN BAKER is one of the smartest progressive economics thinkers and we talk about the economic crisis, the bailout, the election, and what we might expect from an Obama or McCain administration. DEAN BAKER is the co-director of the Center for Economic and Policy Research (CEPR). http://www.cepr.net/index.php/dean-baker/ He is the author of THE CONSERVATIVE NANNY STATE: How the Wealthy Use the Government to Stay Rich and Get Richer (link). He also has a blog on the American Prospect http://www.prospect.org/csnc/blogs/ where he discusses the media's coverage of economic issues.

Interview: ROGER WEISBERG, Director/Producer & PATRICK DOWLING, MD, Chair of Family Medicine, UCLA

Terrence McNally — Thu, 02 Oct 2008 19:06:28 GMT

Aired 09/30/08 The US spends over $2 trillion a year — over $6K per person — on health care, yet is the only major industrial nation without universal coverage. 47 million Americans live without health insurance, and 80% of them are from working families who either cannot afford insurance premiums or lose their insurance exactly when they need it most: when they fall ill and can no longer work. Despite spending 50% more on health care than any other country in the world, America ranks 15th in preventable death, 24th in life expectancy, and 28th in infant mortality. The struggles of the four families profiled in CRITICAL CONDITION by ROGER WEISBERG ("Waging a Living," P.O.V. 2006) put a human face on the nation's growing health care crisis. They discover that being uninsured can cost you your job, your health, your home, your savings, even your life.

Interview: THOMAS FRANK, Author

Terrence McNally — Tue, 23 Sep 2008 21:29:38 GMT

Aired 09/23/09 THOMAS FRANK, founding editor of The Baffler and a contributing editor at Harper's, is The Wall Street Journal's newest weekly columnist. He is the author of WHAT'S THE MATTER WITH KANSAS?, THE CONQUEST OF COOL, ONE MARKET UNDER GOD, and his newest, THE WRECKING CREW. THOMAS FRANK in THE WRECKING CREW: "We can now say of that philosophy which regards good government as a laughable impossibility, which elevates bullies and gangsters and CEOs above other humans, which tells us to get wise and stop expecting anything good from Washington - we can now say with finality that it has had its chance. Whenever there was a choice to be made between markets and free people - between money and the common good - the conservatives chose money. It's time to make them answer for it." www.tcfrank.com

Interview: Andrew Bacevich, Author

Terrence McNally — Sat, 13 Sep 2008 00:32:48 GMT

I'd heard of Dr. Bacevich and read some op-eds, but as soon as I saw into his interview a few weeks back with Bill Moyers, I knew I had to talk with him. The next day when I looked at Barnes and Noble for his book I was surprised and pleased that it had jumped to #1 in sales. I believe Andrew Bacevich in his new book pulls things together in ways that I hadn't seen before. Things like our politics of personality, the rise of the imperial presidency, and our national culture of consumption and how all of those link to our military adventures. I say each week that I'm looking for pieces of the puzzle, and I believe today's guest is pulling some of them together in ways that make our problems clearer and change more possible. ANDREW BACEVICH, professor of history and international relations at Boston University, served twenty-three years in the U.S. Army, retiring with the rank of colonel. He also lost his son in Iraq last year. A graduate of the U. S. Military Academy, he received his Ph. D. in American Diplomatic History from Princeton University. His writing has appeared in Foreign Affairs, the Atlantic Monthly, the Nation, the New York Times, the Los Angeles Times, and the Wall Street Journal. He is the author several books, including THE NEW AMERICAN MILITARISM and his newest, THE LIMITS OF POWER: The End of American Exceptionalism

Interview: Neal Barnard, M.D, Author

Terrence McNally — Fri, 12 Sep 2008 19:21:58 GMT

Aired 09/09/08 Clinical researcher and author Neal Barnard, M.D., is one of America’s leading advocates for health, nutrition, and higher standards in research. As the principal investigator of several human clinical research trials, whose results are published in peer-reviewed medical and scientific journals, Dr. Barnard has examined key issues in health and nutrition. Neal Barnard is the founder and president of the Physicians Committee for Responsible Medicine (PCRM). Dr. Barnard is also president of The Cancer Project, a nonprofit organization advancing cancer prevention and survival through nutrition education and research. If you have diabetes or are concerned about developing it, this program could change the course of your life. Although diabetes is a serious illness that all too often leads to heart problems, nerve damage, blindness, stroke, or kidney failure, it doesn’t have to be that way. A new book by nutrition researcher Neal Barnard, M.D., outlines a completely new dietary approach to preventing, controlling, and even reversing diabetes. The program is based on a series of research studies Dr. Barnard and his colleagues have conducted over the years, the latest funded by the National Institutes of Health. Published in the August 2006 issue of Diabetes Care, that study found Dr. Barnard’s program to be three times more effective than the American Diabetes Association dietary guidelines at controlling blood sugar. The studies also show that by adopting a low-fat vegetarian diet—free of all animal products and added vegetable oils—individuals can lower their cholesterol, reduce their blood pressure, and lose weight. Best of all, the diet doesn’t demand one count calories, cut portion sizes, or give up all carbohydrates. On the contrary, you can eat as much as you want. The book explains how the diet actually alters what goes on in an individual’s cells. Rather than just compensate for malfunctioning insulin, like other treatment plans, Dr. Barnard’s program helps repair how the body uses insulin. It also includes helpful tips on adopting a plant-based diet and more than 50 delicious and easy-to-make recipes

Interview: THOMAS BARNETT, Author

Terrence McNally — Wed, 03 Sep 2008 16:03:49 GMT

Aired 09/03/09 Today I look at security strategy and planning with Thomas Barnett, an expert on how globalization is transforming warfare whom US News & World Report calls, "one of the most important strategic thinkers of our time." THOMAS BARNETT has been a senior adviser to military and civilian leaders in a range of offices, including the Office of the Secretary of Defense, the Joint Staff, Central Command and Special Operations Command. From November 2001 to June 2003, he advised the Pentagon on transforming military capabilities to meet future threats. Barnett also led the five-year HYPERLINK "http://www.thomaspmbarnett.com/projects/newrulesset/nrs_index.html"NewRuleSet.Project on how globalization is transforming warfare. In his book HYPERLINK "http://www.amazon.com/Pentagons-New-Map-Twenty-first-Century/dp/0425202399/ref=pd_bbs_1/002-9598594-4856004?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1180360844&sr=8-1"THE PENTAGON'S NEW MAP: War and Peace in the Twenty-First Century, Barnett presents concrete, world-changing strategies for transforming the US military -- adrift in the aftermath of the Cold War and 9/11 -- into a two-tiered power capable not only of winning battles, but of promoting and preserving international peace. He is author also of HYPERLINK "http://www.amazon.com/Blueprint-Action-Future-Worth-Creating/dp/0425211746/ref=sr_1_2/002-9598594-4856004?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1180361200&sr=1-2"BLUEPRINT FOR ACTION: A Future Worth Creating and writes regular columns for HYPERLINK "http://www.thomaspmbarnett.com/articles/esquire.htm"Esquire.

Interview: CRAIG VENTER, Author and Scientist

Terrence McNally — Thu, 28 Aug 2008 18:19:15 GMT

Aired 08/26/08 CRAIG VENTER is a remarkable and entrepreneurial scientist. As such, he asks huge questions, takes on huge challenges, and has achieved huge successes. Growing up in California, VENTER was an unremarkable student, with little interest in his schoolwork and even less motivation to complete his education. But the Vietnam War draft led to being a Navy medic, which piqued his interest in science and medicine, and jump-started his education. He received advanced degrees and established himself as a gifted and outspoken scientist. At the National Institutes of Health he introduced novel techniques for rapid gene discovery, and his own research institute in 1995 sequenced the first genome of a living species in history, the bacterium. This success led to the dauntingly more ambitious goal of the entire human genome—billions of letters of genetic code that would test the limits of both human and computation abilities. He announced he'd do it more quickly and for far less money than the government sponsored Human Genome Project's prediction for completion—a goal he fulfilled in 2001. http://www.jcvi.org/

Interview: GERALD CELENTE, Author

Terrence McNally — Thu, 21 Aug 2008 06:37:18 GMT

Aired 08/19/08 GERALD CELENTE accurately forecast the Iraqi War quagmire, the last two recessions, the Dot-Com meltdown, and the 1987 world stock market crash. As far back as 1993 he predicted that a new Crusades would be raging at the dawn of the new millennium. GERALD CELENTE's latest trends alert just released looks back from the year 2012. The streets are teeming with the homeless, helpless and jobless. Major cities look like Calcutta. Neither Big Brother's surveillance, corporate security squads, or angry vigilantes can stop the pandemic crime wave. Even gated communities provide no sure sanctuary; the rich have become the targets of choice for kidnappers, gangs and organized criminals. Food is plentiful if you can afford it, but dangerous to eat unless you grow your own or get it from reliable sources. After years of drought and mismanagement, water shortages have reached crisis levels in much of the world.

Interview: HUNTER LOVINS, Co-author,

Terrence McNally — Wed, 13 Aug 2008 23:05:42 GMT

Aired 08/12/08 Hunter Lovins is the founder and President of Natural Capitalism, Inc. and Natural Capitalism Solutions, a non-profit in Eldorado Springs, Colorado. A professor at Presidio School of Management's MBA in Sustainable Management program, she has co-authored several books including NATURAL CAPITALISM: Creating the Next Industrial Revolution and 2006 CLIMATE PROTECTION MANUAL FOR CITIES. Trained as a sociologist and lawyer, Hunter co-founded the California Conservation Project (Tree People), and Rocky Mountain Institute, which she led for 20 years. Named millennium Hero for the Planet by Time Magazine, she received the Right Livelihood Award, and the Leadership in Business Award.

Interview: JOHN POMFRET, Author

Terrence McNally — Wed, 06 Aug 2008 15:58:27 GMT

Aired 08/05/08 Currently editor of The Washington Post's Outlook section and formerly the Post's Los Angeles bureau chief, John Pomfret lived and worked in China off-and-on for a decade - as a student, an AP reporter and the Post's chief in Beijing - and was eyewitness to the '89 Tiananmen Square protests. He has been a foreign correspondent for 15 years, covering big wars and small in Afghanistan, Bosnia, Congo, Sri Lanka, Iraq, southwestern Turkey and northeastern Iran. In 2003, Pomfret was awarded the Osborne Elliot Award for the best coverage of Asia by the Asia Society.

Interview: Emily Levine, Author, Performer and Jester

Terrence McNally — Tue, 29 Jul 2008 20:40:50 GMT

Aired 07/29/08 Emily asks big questions, questions big answers, and makes us laugh. Emily Levine's website calls her a “speaker, comedian, epiphany provider.” She was formerly a successful television writer. During a stint at Disney, she became more and more interested in Chaos Theory and the Dynamics of Change but found no studio executives willing and/or able to discuss these issues. As is true for so many sitcom writers, Levine was invited to speak at a couple of think tanks: for USC's Institute for the Study of Women and Men, she spoke on "Beyond Either/Or". Reading up on physics theory for a physicists' think tank in La Jolla, Levine discovered the quantum logic of And-And. Levine realized she didn't have to make an Either/Or choice - she could be smart and funny. Entertaining and enlightening. She could be a comedian and a philosopher. I first met Emily Levine in the early 80s. We both worked out regularly as part of an anarchic and frighteningly creative improv group. We included some of the mad pioneers of the form and performed in public maybe three times in five years. It was there I learned the first rule of successful improvisation - “yes/and.” You stop the creative flow when you say no to what's thrown at you. You keep it moving when you say “yes” “and” run with it. This rule holds true for most improvs in life. From “yes/and” to “and/and” and beyond… http://www.emilylevinesuniverse.com

Interview: RIKI OTT, Author and Marine Biologist

Terrence McNally — Mon, 21 Jul 2008 17:19:47 GMT

Aired 07/15/08 In late summer1989 I spent a week living among and interviewing the fishermen and citizens of Cordova, Alaska. Once they'd realized that federal, state and corporate entities were moving too slowly to save their fisheries, many of them had moved heroically to import and place booms around the most vulnerable areas. Fishing was destroyed for that year so many of them were employed by Exxon in that summer's massive cleanup efforts. Though the luckiest among them earned the newly coined designation - “spillionaires,” the natural, social, and economic fabric of Cordova and Prince William Sound have never been the same. Last month, 19 years after the spill -- and two days after climate change scientist James Hansen told Congress that ExxonMobil and other fossil fuel CEOs "should be tried for high crimes against humanity and nature" for their role in delaying the global response to climate change -- the Supreme Court reduced a $2.5 billion punitive judgment against Exxon for the Valdez disaster to $500 million. Exxon made more than $40 billion in profits last year. RIKI OTT and I took a look at the long sad aftermath of the oil spill -- with an eye toward the broader context of corporate power versus nature and humanity. OTT believes this is the civil rights movement of our day. RIKI OTT Marine biologist, former commercial salmon "fisherma'am" and Author of SOUND TRUTH AND CORPORATE MYTHS: The Legacy of the Exxon Valdez Oil Spill; NOT ONE DROP: Betrayal and Courage in the Wake of the Exxon Valdez Oil Spill http://www.soundtruth.info/

Interview: Robert Scheer, Author, Columnist and Editor

Terrence McNally — Thu, 17 Jul 2008 16:23:38 GMT

Robert Scheer, Editor-in-chief of the web magazine http://www.truthdig.com and the author of seven books, the “left” of KCRW's nationally syndicated Left, Right, and Center, a weekly columnist at the San Francisco Chronicle, and a contributing editor to The Nation. His latest book is "The Pornography of Power: How Defense Hawks Hijacked 9/11 and Weakened America." THE PORNOGRAPHY OF POWER serves as an update to the World War I-era book WAR IS A RACKET. The former expands on the latter's theme of money, not security, as the reason for both military action and peacetime military spending. (You can read WAR IS A RACKET for free on-line with a web search of the title.) A sensible response to box cutters and poorly-constructed cockpit doors should cost taxpayers less than billions of dollars for F-22 Raptor fighter planes. Yet as THE PORNOGRAPHY OF POWER details, the Bush Administration and Congress used the September 11, 2001, hijackings as an excuse to place orders for those and many other expensive, unnecessary killing machines beneath the Christmas trees of their weapons manufacturer campaign contributors. Oh, and don't forget jobs. As if it were a contest to see if people will accept the stupidest rationale for spending tax dollars on overpriced, needless weapons, public officials cite jobs, THE PORNOGRAPHY OF POWER recounts. Imagine the community improvement were the government to spend all that money on hospitals, schools or infrastructure instead of unnecessary military stuff - while creating as many and probably a lot more paychecks. Perhaps school children should lobby Congress during their recess. Nearly 100 years since World War I, war still proves the greatest racket.

Interview: Lawrence Lessig, Professor and Author

Terrence McNally — Mon, 14 Jul 2008 21:55:06 GMT

Lawrence Lessig, a professor at Stanford Law School, is a leading thinker on technology and Internet policy. He is the founder of Creative Commons and author of "Code, The Future of Ideas, and Free Culture." You can learn more at http://change-congress.org Change Congress is a movement to build support for basic reform in how our government functions. Using our tools, both candidates and citizens can pledge their support for basic changes to reduce the distorting influence of money in Washington. Our community will link candidates committed to a reform with volunteers and contributors who support it. Our Principles Change Congress is a national movement to end corruption in America's congress. We're organizing citizens to push candidates to make four simple commitments: 1. No money from lobbyists or PACs Congresspeople should be beholden to citizens, not special interests. By committing not to accept money from lobbyists or PACs, candidates give us confidence that their votes won't be swayed by big money. This pledge was most prominently advanced by Senator Edwards in his Presidential campaign. To read more, click here. 2. Vote to end earmarks. Earmarks allow congresspeople to explicitly decide who should get the money our government spends. Because of the earmark economy, money that is supposed to go to our schools, our soldiers, and our citizens is instead diverted to political donors and pork-barrel projects like the "Bridge to Nowhere". We can't clean up Congress until we end this blatant system of corruption. Republicans have recently pushed prominently for changes such as these. A pledge to support ending earmarks means a Member will vote for proposals that will permanently abolish earmarks. Importantly, it does not mean that while the system of earmarks remains, the Member will choose to forego earmarks for his or her district. Until the system is changed, that choice is left up to the Member. 3. Support reform to increase Congressional transparency Sunlight is the best disinfectant, and we would all benefit from a cleaner Congress if more of its proceedings, and the proceedings of its members, were public. This pledge calls for changes in the law and rules of Congress to get all members to be more public about meetings and contacts, including changing the rules so lawmakers post weekly updates of their campaign contributions, meetings with registered lobbyists, their latest earmark requests, and significant changes in their personal wealth. ` 4. Support publicly-financed campaigns. It's not enough to just push particular candidates to stay out of the system of corruption; we have to reform the system itself. Publicly- financed campaigns will stop the cycle of campaign finance reform loopholes and ensure that big money stays out of Congress forever. Public financing has been supported by both Republicans and Democrats.

Interview: STUART KAUFFMAN, Author

Terrence McNally — Thu, 03 Jul 2008 18:44:59 GMT

Aired 07/01/08 Stuart Kauffman is the Director of the Institute for Biocomplexity and Informatics at the University of Calgary and Fellow of the Santa Fe Institute. His newest book: REINVENTING THE SACRED: A NEW VIEW OF SCIENCE, REASON, AND RELIGION With economic and communications globalization, some form of a global civilization is beginning to emerge. Just as we confront the challenges of global warming and peak oil, and the likelihood of growing hunger and resource wars, our diverse cultures are being crushed together. One response is a retreat into fundamentalisms, often religious, often hostile. Clearly there's an urgent need for new thinking. STUART KAUFFMAN says that's why he wrote Reinventing the Sacred. Rooted in hard science, the book - and it's passionate author -- aims for nothing less than a revolution in how we see the world, reality, God, and our role in it all. I think he's onto something.

Interview: SUSAN JACOBY, Author

Terrence McNally — Mon, 30 Jun 2008 19:48:20 GMT

SUSAN JACOBY – "THE AGE OF AMERICAN UNREASON" American 15-year-olds rank 24th out of 29 countries in mathematical literacy. Americans are as likely to believe in flying saucers as in evolution. Depending on how the questions are asked, roughly 30-40 % of Americans believe in each. A 34-nation study found Americans less likely to believe in evolution than citizens of any of the countries polled except Turkey, and President George Bush says “the jury is still out.” in the summer of 2005 nearly two-thirds of Americans told pollsters that they believed creationism should be taught in schools alongside Darwinian evolution. Steve Colbert interviewed Georgia Rep. Lynn Westmoreland on "The Colbert Report." Westmoreland co-sponsored a bill that would require the display of the Ten Commandments in both the House of Representatives and the Senate, but, when asked, couldn't actually list the commandments. This stuff would be funny if it weren’t so tragic or dangerous. According to the Program on International Policy Attitudes, University of Maryland, among Bush supporters in the 2004 election, nearly 70% believed the U.S. had "clear evidence" that Saddam Hussein was working closely with Al Qaeda, a third believed weapons of mass destruction were found in Iraq, and more than a third that a substantial majority of world opinion supported the U.S.-led invasion. We can assume they were similarly uninformed about who benefits from Bush tax cuts, and the success or meaning of No Child Left Behind, Clear Skies, Healthy Forests, the Medicare prescription benefit, etc.? I believe there has been a concerted effort on the part of political and cultural advocates to encourage misinformation and the ignoring of evidence. In addition, their labeling of “intelligent” and “informed” as “elite” and “effete” implies that ignorance is somehow both valuable and under attack. I also believe that to ignore evidence – scientific as well as simply factual -- is primitive, pathological, suicidal, and an unfit way to run the world. Susan Jacoby has written a book about this -- THE AGE OF AMERICAN UNREASON. A former reporter for the Washington Post and program director of the Center for Inquiry-New York City, Susan Jacoby, is the author of five books, including WILD JUSTICE, a Pulitzer Prize finalist. and FREETHINKERS: A HISTORY OF AMERICAN SECULARISM. Her political blog, The Secularist’s Corner is on the Web site of The Washington Post. http://www.susanjacoby.com

Interview: AHMED RASHID, Author and Journalist

Terrence McNally — Fri, 27 Jun 2008 18:56:36 GMT

AHMED RASHID – DESCENT INTO CHAOS In his new book, DESCENT INTO CHAOS, AHMED RASHID asks what has gone wrong since the invasion of Afghanistan. This interview was recorded June 13th. This from an editorial in that morning’s New York Times: “There is enormous confusion about what happened Tuesday night on Pakistan’s border with Afghanistan. Pakistani officials say that American air and artillery strikes killed 11 of their paramilitary troops, and some are angrily demanding an end to all military cooperation. The Bush administration says that American forces were firing in self-defense — against Taliban fighters crossing into Afghanistan — and made conflicting statements about whether any Pakistani troops had died.” A center of global instability for many decades, this is just the latest example of why Pakistan may now be the most dangerous place on Earth. Bordering Iran, Afghanistan and its perennial enemy, India, the nation straddles racial and religious fault lines, the impoverished majority Sunni population rubbing up against a minority of wealthy Shiites. The Islamic republic has spawned thousands of religious seminaries whose graduates have gone on to fight across South Asia, Chechnya and the Philippines, and most recently planned attacks in Madrid, London and Frankfurt, Germany. Almost every global terrorist plot carried out or prevented since 2004 has been traced to training, funding or material support from al-Qaeda based in Pakistan's northwest areas. To top things off, there is our allie’s unsecured nuclear weapons program and the nuke bazaar run for years by General Khan which supplied “rogue” states with nuclear technology and expertise. The US has spent over $10 billion in aid to Pakistan since 2001, about half for operations on our behalf against extremists, especially in Afghanistan. Following the murder of Benazir Bhutto, the change in Pakistan's government and military structure, and the recent attempt on the life of Afghan President Hamid Karzai, the political climate is no more stable than it was seven years ago -- when AHMED RASHID introduced the English-speaking world to the region in his New York Times bestseller, TALIBAN (translated into 26 languages, English language sales over 1.5 million copies.) AHMED RASHID is a Pakistani journalist, based in Lahore, who writes for "The Daily Telegraph (London)", "The Washington Post", "The International Herald Tribune", "The New York Review of Books", "BBC Online", and "The Nation". His books include JIHAD, TALIBAN, and THE RESURGENCE OF CENTRAL ASIA, and his newest, DESCENT INTO CHAOS. In January 2002 he established the ‘’Open Media Fund for Afghanistan’’ (OMFA), which gives cash grants to newly starting independent print media in Afghanistan.

Interview: Gay Browne, Founder & CEO of Greenopia

Terrence McNally — Tue, 10 Jun 2008 19:50:55 GMT

Greenopia is your local guide to green living. Greenopia created a directory of eco-friendly retailers, services, and organizations and conducted extensive research on those Greenopia listed in the guide. Greenopia's guide is not a paid directory; companies cannot pay to be included and all listees are included because they met our strict standards of eco-friendliness. They have already been screened for their sustainability in the product or service arena and are now being compared with "the best of the best." http://greenopia.com

Interview: Julie Lacouture, Deputy Director of Donors Choose

Terrence McNally — Fri, 06 Jun 2008 18:41:03 GMT

Aired 05/27/08 What if there were a simple way to provide students with the books, technology, and supplies that they need to learn? What if people from all walks of life could connect directly with public schools, learn about specific classroom needs, and choose how to help? http://www.donorschoose.org makes this possible. Julie has almost 10 years of work experience in advertising, marketing, non-profit finance, and general management. Prior to joining DonorsChoose.Org, she worked at Sempra Energy Utilities promoting low income customer assistance programs. Julie has also worked at the UCLA Johnson & Johnson Management Fellows Program, http://www.SeeitandStopit.org (an organization dedicated to ending teen dating violence), Peace Games, and Oscar Mayer, where she toured the country in a Wienermobile. She has a dual BA in Advertising and Psychology from Syracuse University and an MBA from UCLA.

Interview: Glenn Greenwald, Blogger and Author

Terrence McNally — Wed, 04 Jun 2008 20:32:28 GMT

Aired 05/28/08 Glenn Greenwald was previously a constitutional law and civil rights litigator in New York. Glenn is the author of two New York Times Bestselling books: "How Would a Patriot Act?" (May, 2006), a critique of the Bush administration's use of executive power, and "A Tragic Legacy" (June, 2007), which examines the Bush legacy. Glenn's third book, "Great American Hypocrites: Toppling the Big Myths of Republican Politics", examines the manipulative electoral tactics used by the GOP and propagated by the establishment press.

Interview: Josh Silver, Free Press

Terrence McNally — Tue, 03 Jun 2008 17:32:18 GMT

Aired 05/28/08 Executive Director Josh Silver co-founded Free Press with Robert W. McChesney and John Nichols in 2002. He oversees all programs, campaigns, fundraising and special projects. Josh previously served as campaign manager for the successful statewide ballot initiative for public funding of elections in Arizona and as the director of development for the cultural arm of the Smithsonian Institution in Washington. He has served as the director of an international youth exchange program and as a development and management consultant. Josh publishes frequently on media, campaign finance and other public policy issues. http://www.freepress.net/ Free Press is a national, nonpartisan organization working to reform the media. Through education, organizing and advocacy, we promote diverse and independent media ownership, strong public media, and universal access to communications. Our work focuses on the following core issues: Media Consolidation is about the takeover of our country's media by a handful of massive corporations and the increasing control these firms exert over the flow of news and information we need to hold our leaders accountable. Through our StopBigMedia.com campaign, Free Press aims to block further media consolidation and to promote diverse, local ownership and the vibrant press that sustains our democracy. The Future of the Internet is being decided right now. We're fighting to preserve the open Internet and make sure all Americans have affordable access to high-speed networks, free from discrimination or interference by would-be corporate gatekeepers. Through SavetheInternet.com, a diverse coalition of millions of people who have banded together with thousands of organizations, small businesses and bloggers, Free Press is working to make sure the free and open Internet stays that way. Public Media includes broadcasting networks like NPR and PBS, community and Low Power FM (LPFM) radio stations that provide local coverage not available elsewhere, public access TV, and independent publications and Web sites. Free Press supports a vibrant and sustainable public and noncommercial media sector that offers diverse fare and serves local communities. We're committed to finding long-term solutions that protect public media from the political whims of Washington and policies that create more opportunities for new voices to be heard. Quality Journalism is essential to providing Americans with the information they need to understand what's happening in their communities, to hold elected leaders accountable, and to serve as a check on government and corporate power. Free Press stands with working journalists who have been squeezed by runaway media consolidation; advocates for a vibrant independent press; and supports efforts to foster investigative reporting, substantive coverage of public affairs, and critical, high-quality journalism. Media is one of the most pressing Civil Rights issues of our time. People of color, women, youth and other disenfranchised communities have long been shut out of our country's media. They own few of our media outlets, and aren't represented on the public airwaves. Free Press supports the struggle for media justice and works to strengthen laws to expand minority ownership, support new independent and ethnic media outlets, and close the digital divide. Free Press is Building a Movement for better media in the United States. We want the American people -- not just big corporations and their high-priced lobbyists -- to have a say in crafting the policies that shape the media system. We're making the media a bona fide political issue that no politician can afford to ignore. Join us.

Interview: Anuradha Mittal, Oakland Institute

Terrence McNally — Thu, 22 May 2008 15:14:53 GMT

Aired 05/20/08 Anuradha Mittal (Oakland Institute) http://www.oaklandinstitute.org on the global food crisis. World food prices rose 39% in the last year. Rice alone rose to a 19-year high in March -- an increase of 50% in two weeks alone -- while the real price of wheat has hit a 28-year high. Food riots erupted in Egypt, Guinea, Haiti, Indonesia, Mauritania, Mexico, Senegal, Uzbekistan and Yemen. For the 3 billion people in the world who subsist on $2 a day or less, the leap in food prices is a killer. They spend a majority of their income on food, and when the price goes up, they can't afford to feed themselves or their families. Obvious causes: increased demand from China and India, rising fuel and fertilizer costs, increased use of bio-fuels and climate change. But less obvious causes have also had a profound effect on food prices. In the last 30 years, the US, the World Bank and the IMF have imposed devastating policies on developing countries. By requiring them to open up their agriculture market to giant multinational companies and persuading them to specialize in exportable cash crops, they have turned developing countries that used to be self-sufficient in food into large food importers.

Interview: Robert Bryce, Journalist and Author

Terrence McNally — Wed, 07 May 2008 22:17:48 GMT

Robert Bryce is a journalist in Austin, Texas and the author of Pipe Dreams: Greed, Ego, and the Death of Enron (PublicAffairs, 2002; a Publishers Weekly Best Book of the Year) and Cronies: Oil, the Bushes, and the Rise of Texas, America's Superstate (PublicAffairs, 2004). Bryce was a reporter for the Austin Chronicle for 12 years, and is now the managing editor of the Energy Tribune. His most recent book is Gusher of Lies: The Dangerous Delusions of "Energy Independence" (PublicAffairs 2008), which the New York Times said he wrote “with all the gusto of a hunter clubbing baby seals.”

Interview: KEVIN PHILLIPS. Author

Terrence McNally — Wed, 30 Apr 2008 21:56:57 GMT

Aired 04/29/08 KEVIN PHILLIPS, Author," THE POLITICS OF RICH & POOR; AMERICAN THEOCRACY" And his newest - "BAD MONEY: Reckless Finance, Failed Politics and the Global Crisis of American Capitalism." KEVIN PHILLIPS describes the consequences of our misguided economic policies, our mounting debt, our collapsing housing market, our threatened oil, and the end of American domination of world markets.

Special: Terry hosts The Rachel Maddow Show

Terrence McNally — Sat, 19 Apr 2008 22:27:36 GMT

Guns Over Butter - Terry hosts "The Rachel Maddow Show" (Hour 3-April 14)

Interview: JOSEPH STIGLITZ, Nobel Prize Winning Economist and Author

Terrence McNally — Fri, 04 Apr 2008 05:31:44 GMT

JOSEPH STIGLITZ is University Professor at Columbia University in New York and Chair of Columbia University's Committee on Global Thought. In 2001, he was awarded the Nobel Prize in economics for his analyses of markets with asymmetric information. His work has helped explain the circumstances in which markets do not work well, and how selective government intervention can improve their performance. Stiglitz was a member of the Council of Economic Advisers from 1993-95, during the Clinton administration, and served as CEA chairman from 1995-97. He then became Chief Economist and Senior Vice-President of the World Bank from 1997-2000. His book, Globalization and Its Discontents, was translated into 35 languages and has sold more than one million copies worldwide. Other books include Fair Trade for All, Making Globalization Work, and his newest (with Linda Bilmes) THE $3 TRILLION WAR. Three Trillion Dollar War: The True Cost of the Iraq Conflict. According to the book, Americans will spend decades treating the physical and psychological wounds of Iraq veterans — and when the economic consequences of the invasion are taken into account, the costs are staggering. http://www.josephstiglitz.com

Interview: DAHR JAMAIL, Independent Journalist and Author

Terrence McNally — Wed, 26 Mar 2008 19:52:59 GMT

DAHR JAMAIL: Book BEYOND THE GREEN ZONE: DISPATCHES FROM AN UNEMBEDDED JOURNALIST IN OCCUPIED IRAQ In late 2003, Weary of the overall failure of the US media to accurately report on the realities of the war in Iraq for the Iraqi people and US soldiers, DAHR JAMAIL an independent journalist from Anchorage, Alaska went to Iraq to report on the war himself. His dispatches were quickly recognized as an important media resource. He is now writing for the Inter Press Service, The Asia Times and many other outlets. His reports have also been published with The Nation, The Sunday Herald, Islam Online, the Guardian, Foreign Policy in Focus, and the Independent to name just a few. On radio as well as television, Dahr reports for Democracy Now!, the BBC, and numerous other stations around the globe. Dahr is also special correspondent for Flashpoints. http://www.dahrjamailiraq.com Dahr has spent a total of 8 months in occupied Iraq as one of only a few independent US journalists in the country. In the MidEast, Dahr has also has reported from Syria, Lebanon and Jordan. His first book was recently published, BEYOND THE GREEN ZONE: DISPATCHES FROM AN UNEMBEDDED JOURNALIST IN OCCUPIED IRAQ

Interview: Robin Wright, Journalist and Author (Part 2 of 2)

Terrence McNally — Fri, 21 Mar 2008 06:27:17 GMT

Robin Wright is an American journalist currently covering U.S. foreign policy for The Washington Post, She has reported for The Washington Post, The Los Angeles Times, The Sunday Times, CBS News and The Christian Science Monitor, and has served as a foreign correspondent in the Middle East, Europe, and Africa. She has also written for The New Yorker, The Atlantic Monthly, Foreign Affairs, Foreign Policy, The New York Times, and The International Herald Tribune. Books: "Dreams and Shadows: The Future of the Middle East” (2008) "Sacred Rage: The Wrath of Militant Islam" (revised in 2001) “The Last Great Revolution: Turmoil and Transformation in Iran” (2000) "Flashpoints: Promise and Peril in a New World" (co-author-1991) "In the Name of God: The Khomeini Decade" (1989) www.robinwright.net

Interview: Robin Wright, Journalist and Author (Part 1 of 2)

Terrence McNally — Sun, 16 Mar 2008 06:52:54 GMT

Interview: Nina Hachigian, Author: THE NEXT AMERICAN CENTURY

Terrence McNally — Wed, 12 Mar 2008 19:50:28 GMT

Author NINA HACHIGIAN, former Director of the Center for Asia-Pacific Policy at RAND, and member of the National Security Council under Bill Clinton. Her new book: THE NEXT AMERICAN CENTURY: HOW THE U.S. CAN THRIVE AS OTHER POWERS RISE, argues that it's better for us when other nations grow wealthier. We need them on our side so that together we can solve global problems of peace, climate, health, and justice.

Interview: SAMANTHA POWER. Pulitzer Prize, Foreign policy advisor to Barack Obama

Terrence McNally — Wed, 05 Mar 2008 02:52:03 GMT

SAMANTHA POWER: Won Pulitzer Prize for A PROBLEM FROM HELL: AMERICA AND THE AGE OF GENOCIDE, Foreign policy advisor to Barack Obama, her new book is CHASING THE FLAME -- life and death of UN human rights champion, Sergio Vieira de Mello Her latest book, CHASING THE FLAME is a biography of Sergio Vieira de Mello, the top UN official in Iraq, who died in a truck bombing of the UN's Baghdad headquarters in August 2003. Twenty-one others were killed and dozens wounded in one of the deadliest attacks on the UN in its 58-year history. De Mello had served in the United Nations since 1969 in some of the world's most sensitive areas, including East Timor, Yugoslavia, Cambodia and Bangladesh.

Interview: Michael Pollan, Professor and Author

Terrence McNally — Wed, 20 Feb 2008 01:48:40 GMT

Michael Pollan is a professor of journalism at the University of California, Berkeley, where he is also director of the Knight Program in Science and Environmental Journalism. Pollan is a contributing writer for the New York Times Magazine, a former executive editor for Harper's Magazine, and author of five books: In Defense of Food: An Eater's Manifesto (2008) The Omnivore's Dilemma: A Natural History of Four Meals (2006), The Botany of Desire: A Plant's-Eye View of the World (2001), A Place of My Own (1997), and Second Nature: A Gardener's Education (1991)

Interview: Lester Brown (part 2), Author

Terrence McNally — Mon, 18 Feb 2008 20:38:39 GMT

Lester Brown (part 2 of interview) has been described by the Washington Post as "one of the world's most influential thinkers." After working with the Department of Agriculture in international agricultural development, Brown helped establish the Overseas Development Council, then founded the Worldwatch Institute, which has played an important role in the public's understanding of trends in our global environment with its annual State of the World report and later the annual Vital Signs In 2001, he left Worldwatch, founded Earth Policy Institute www.earth-policy.org, and published Eco-Economy: Building an Economy for the Earth. His other books include Who Will Feed China?; Tough Choices: Facing the Challenge of Food Scarcity, and his newest book PLAN B 3.0: MOBILIZING TO SAVE CIVILIZATION. PLAN B 3.0 is a comprehensive plan for reversing the trends that are undermining our future. Its four overriding goals are to stabilize climate, stabilize population, eradicate poverty, and restore the earth's damaged ecosystems. Failure to reach any one of these goals will likely mean failure to reach the others as well.

Interview: Lester Brown, Author

Terrence McNally — Fri, 08 Feb 2008 20:55:51 GMT

LESTER BROWN has been described by the Washington Post as "one of the world's most influential thinkers." After working with the Department of Agriculture in international agricultural development, Brown helped establish the Overseas Development Council, then founded the Worldwatch Institute, which has played an important role in the public's understanding of trends in our global environment with its annual State of the World report and later the annual Vital Signs In 2001, he left Worldwatch, founded Earth Policy Institute www.earth-policy.org, and published Eco-Economy: Building an Economy for the Earth. His other books include Who Will Feed China?; Tough Choices: Facing the Challenge of Food Scarcity, and his newest book PLAN B 3.0: MOBILIZING TO SAVE CIVILIZATION. PLAN B 3.0 is a comprehensive plan for reversing the trends that are undermining our future. Its four overriding goals are to stabilize climate, stabilize population, eradicate poverty, and restore the earth's damaged ecosystems. Failure to reach any one of these goals will likely mean failure to reach the others as well.

Interview: Steven Clemons, Blogger

Terrence McNally — Wed, 06 Feb 2008 03:21:50 GMT

Steven Clemons is is the publisher of the popular political blog; www.thewashingtonnote.com, and a former staff member of Senator Jeff Bingaman. Clemons is also Director of the American Strategy Program at the New America Foundation, and the former director of the Japan Policy Research Institute. He characterizes himself as a "progressive realist."

Interview: Thomas Hayden, Author, Activist and Politician

Terrence McNally — Wed, 06 Feb 2008 01:52:14 GMT

Thomas Hayden is an American social and political activist and politician, most famous for his involvement in the anti-war and civil rights movements of the 1960s. Hayden serves as a member of the advisory board for the Progressive Democrats of America, an influential "grass roots" organization created to expand “progressive” political cooperation within the Democratic Party. Enjoy the conversation as Terrence and Tom talk about the 2008 election, Barack Obama and Super Tuesday!

Interview: Laura Flanders, Radio Host and Author

Terrence McNally — Tue, 29 Jan 2008 21:20:49 GMT

Laura Flanders is the host of "RadioNation" heard on Air America Radio and syndicated to non-commercial affiliates nationwide. She is the author most recently, of Blue Grit: Making Impossible, Improbable and Inspirational Political Change in America (Penguin, 2008) and BUSHWOMEN: Tales of a Cynical Species (Verso, 2004), an investigation into the women in George W. Bush's Cabinet. Publisher's Weekly called Flanders' New York Times best-seller, "fierce, funny and intelligent." She wrote on Hillary Clinton in The Contenders (Seven Stories Press, 2007) and The W Effect: Sexual Politics in the Age of Bush, an essay collection compiled by Flanders, appeared in June, 2004 from the Feminist Press. Before joining Air America when it launched in March 2004, Laura hosted the award-winning " Your Call," Monday-Friday, on public radio, KALW, 91.7 fm in San Francisco. Flanders' TV appearances include "Lou Dobbs Tonight" and "Paula Zahn Now" as well as "The O'Reilly Factor," and "Hannity and Colmes," "Washington Journal," "Donahue," "Good Morning America" and the CBC news discussion program, "CounterSpin." Her writing appears in The Nation, Alternet, Ms. Magazine, and elsewhere and her op-ed pieces have appeared in papers including The San Francisco Chronicle. Flanders was founding director of the Women's Desk at the media watch group, FAIR and for more than ten years she produced and hosted CounterSpin, FAIR's nationally-syndicated radio program. Shie is also the author of Real Majority, Media Minority; the Cost of Sidelining Women in Reporting (Common Courage Press, 1997) about which Susan Faludi wrote, "If only there were a hundred of her." Katha Pollitt called it "Funny, angry, factfilled and brilliant."

DAVID FREEMAN, G.M. Port of Los Angeles & ANTHONY LAPPÉ

Terrence McNally — Fri, 25 Jan 2008 17:13:13 GMT

DAVID FREEMAN, 81, has spent his professional life at the forefront of energy policy. In WINNING OUR ENERGY INDEPENDENCE, he explains how the sun, wind, biomass, geothermal, and hydrogen resources we have right now can be the fuels that solve energy issues and create a sustainable future for our planet. We have the renewable resources we need-now we simply need the awareness, passion, and drive from the people to make sure our politicians and business leaders respond. WINNING OUR ENERGY INDEPENDENCE provides action plans for showing us how to influence change. Also ANTHONY LAPPÉ Executive Editor, GUERILLA NEWS NETWORK Co-author, SHOOTING WAR (graphic novel re Iraq War) SHOOTING WAR with illustrations by Dan Goldman, follows the gonzo adventures of a New York blogger who becomes a media darling in 2011 after his footage of a bombing at a Williamsburg Starbucks gets picked up by the mainstream media. Looking to keep coverage of the ongoing Iraq quagmire edgy, a global news network hires him to bring a youth angle to the guerrilla war. Part satire, part dystopian nightmare, SHOOTING WAR is unflinching in its depiction of the hellish future toward which the Bush administration is corralling us.

Interview: MUHAMMAD YUNUS, Author

Terrence McNally — Fri, 18 Jan 2008 17:27:09 GMT

MUHAMMAD YUNUS, Nobel Peace Prizewinner, pioneer of micro-credit author, BANKER TO THE POOR, and his newest, CREATING A WORLD WITHOUT POVERTY As founder of Grameen Bank, YUNUS pioneered microcredit, the innovative banking program that provides poor people--mainly women--with small loans they use to launch businesses and lift their families out of poverty. In the past thirty years, microcredit has spread to every continent and benefited over 100 million families. But YUNUS remained unsatisfied. Much more could be done, he believed, if the dynamics of capitalism could be applied to humanity's greatest challenges. Now, in CREATING A WORLD WITHOUT POVERTY, Yunus goes beyond microcredit to pioneer the idea of social business--a completely new way to use the creative vibrancy of business to tackle social problems from poverty and pollution to inadequate health care and lack of education.

Interview: GERALD CELENTE, Author

Terrence McNally — Thu, 10 Jan 2008 19:08:36 GMT

GERALD CELENTE of The Trends Research Institute publishes TRENDS JOURNAL. A New Yorker, who calls himself a political agnostic, Celente gives everybody hell. I first booked him in January 05 and listener response has led me to make this an annual show. CELENTE accurately forecast the Iraqi War quagmire, the last two recessions, the Dot-Com meltdown, and the 1987 world stock market crash. As far back as 1993 he predicted that a new Crusades would be raging at the dawn of the new millennium. plus a brief commentary by TERESA O'NEILL

SPECIAL EDITION: The Iowa caucus - 2008

Terrence McNally — Fri, 04 Jan 2008 23:30:15 GMT

Terrence McNally takes calls and sums up the Iowa caucus - 2008.

Interview: LYNNE McTAGGART, Journalist and author

Terrence McNally — Tue, 01 Jan 2008 21:52:21 GMT

Journalist and author LYNNE McTAGGART's research on THE FIELD included meetings with top frontier scientists in Russia, Germany, France, England, South American, Central America and the USA. During these meetings, she saw that what these scientists were working on seemed to overthrow the current laws of biology, chemistry and physics. Their theories and experiments also compounded into a new science, a new view of the world. Lynne concludes that her research paints a picture of an interconnected universe. With THE INTENTION EXPERIMENT, McTAGGART asks a great question. Can our thoughts influence the world around us? Top scientists have teamed up with her to create the world's largest ever mind-over-matter experiment. Thousands of volunteers are testing this possibility in a series of web-based experiments, making it the largest mind-over-matter study in history. plus a brief commentary by TERESA O'NEILL

Interview: JODIE EVANS Co-founder, CODE PINK & ANNIE LEONARD creator of a powerful online video, THE STORY OF STUFF

Terrence McNally — Wed, 19 Dec 2007 22:59:21 GMT

JODIE EVANS, Co-founder, CODE PINK: Women for Peace They're launching www.dontbuybushswar.org on the anniversary of the Boston Tea Party. When Ralph Waldo Emerson visited Thoreau in jail, he asked the author of Walden, "Henry, what are doing in there?" Thoreau responded, "Ralph, what are you doing out there?" Our statement is not against taxation or government. Many of us will continue to pay a portion of our taxes that support the vital functions of government. But we will hold in escrow or redirect the portion of our war taxes to humanitarian aid projects and projects such as those providing relief to survivors of Hurricane Katrina. "The Story of Stuff with Annie Leonard" is an engaging new short film that explains the "materials economy" in 20 fun-filled minutes. Yes, fun-filled. Produced by Free Range Studios, which developed "The Meatrix" -- an animated short about factory farming that ranks among the cleverest uses of Internet technologies to deliver a politically progressive message -- The Story of Stuff features the wonderful Annie Leonard, amusing graphics, lots of humor, and a complicated analysis presented in an easy-to-understand conversational tone. You can watch the whole thing at www.StoryofStuff.com You'll have to watch the film to enjoy the humor -- there's no easy way to convey the playful cartooning with serious purpose. But I guarantee chuckles even for the most austere.

JOSEPH CIRINCIONE: VP for National Security, Center for American Progress & CHEF ANN COOPER: Director of Nutrition Svs, Berkeley CA Unified School District

Terrence McNally — Tue, 11 Dec 2007 22:12:58 GMT

When no WMD could be been found in Iraq, several members of the Bush administration justified the imminent preemptive invasion because we could “not afford for the smoking gun come in the form of a mushroom cloud.” Turns out Saddam had no bomb, probably no bomb program. We've heard consistent fear-mongering from a Bush administration that appears eager to attack Iran. Bush himself recently linked Iran to WWIII! Now comes word from the National Intelligence Estimate that Iran halted its nuclear weapons program in 2003. The administration handles Musharraf with kid gloves as he asserts dictatorial powers to control a very volatile Pakistan, home of Doctor Khan's global atomic sales operation. 2005 Nobel Peace Prize winner Mohamed ElBaradei, Director-General of the International Atomic Energy Agency, has high praise for JOSEPH CIRINCIONE'S BOMB SCARE. "At a time of challenges and uncertainties regarding the nuclear non-proliferation and disarmament regime, the book offers a comprehensive review of the history and theory of nuclear weapons, as well as of the policy options before us today in our common endeavor to address the most pressing threats; existing arsenals, the emergence of new nuclear-armed states, and nuclear terrorism.” CHEF ANN COOPER is a renegade lunch lady who works to transform cafeterias into culinary classrooms for students - one school lunch at a time. She has transformed public school cafeterias in New York City, Harlem and Bridgehampton, NY, and now in Berkeley, CA, to teach more students why good food choices matter by putting innovative strategies to work and providing fresh, organic lunches to all students. __Currently, Chef Ann is the director of nutrition services for the Berkeley Unified School District (BUSD), improving meals at 16 public schools with a population of over 9,000 students. In her work with public schools, Chef Ann is at the forefront of the movement to transform the National School Lunch Program into one that places greater emphasis on the health of students than the financial health of a select few agribusiness corporations. Chef Ann's lunch menus emphasize regional, organic, fresh foods, and nutritional education, helping students build a connection between their personal health and where their food comes from. Chef Ann's newest book, LUNCH LESSONS: CHANGING THE WAY WE FEED OUR CHILDREN, is overflowing with strategies for parents and school administrators to become engaged with issues around school food - from public policy to corporate interest. It includes successful case studies of school food reform, resources that can help make a difference and healthy, kid-friendly recipes that can be made at home, or by the thousands for a public school cafeteria.

ADRIAN LEVY and CATHERINE SCOTT-CLARK

Terrence McNally — Mon, 26 Nov 2007 19:14:51 GMT

ADRIAN LEVY and CATHERINE SCOTT-CLARK are award-winning investigative journalists who worked as staff writers and foreign correspondents for the Sunday Times of London for 7 years before joining the Guardian as senior correspondents. They are the authors of The Amber Room: The Fate of the World's Greatest Lost Treasure and The Stone of Heaven: Unearthing the Secret History of Imperial Green Jade, and their newest, DECEPTION: Pakistan, the US, and the Secret Trade in Nuclear Weapons. They have reported from South Asia for more than a decade, and now live in London and in France.

Interview: TOM HAYDEN & BARBARA BECNEL

Terrence McNally — Thu, 15 Nov 2007 20:30:50 GMT

Over 25,000 young people have died in America's gang wars since 1980 - a bit less than half the number of soldiers who lost their lives in Vietnam. In cities across America current and former gang-members are like traumatized war veterans with no way home. Tom Hayden's book STREET WARS indicts the domestic law and order politics that dominate current policy and suffocate inner city youth. It has been almost two years since Stanley Tookie Williams was executed after being denied clemency by California Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger. In the wake of his death, Stanley Tookie Williams' memoir BLUE RAGE, BLACK REDEMPTION, will be re-released to shed additional light on Tookie's personal and public fight for redemption. Part 1 of the book, entitled Blue Rage, chronicles Tookie's gang life as a co-founder of the Crips. During this time he committed hundreds of crimes and was eventually charged with the murder of four people. In 1981, Tookie was convicted and sent to Death Row for twenty years. Throughout his time in prison, he maintained his innocence for the crimes for which he was convicted. The second part of the book, Black Redemption, looks at the work Tookie completed and legacy he crafted behind bars-his books, awards, anti-gang initiatives, and Nobel Prize nominations.

PHIL DONAHUE

Terrence McNally — Tue, 06 Nov 2007 23:19:44 GMT

PHIL DONAHUE pioneered the modern television talk show. DONAHUE ran for 29 years and used its time to explore and debate issues that mattered to its audiences. Despite being one of MSNBC's highest rated programs, Donahue's brief return to television was cancelled in February 2003. A leaked internal NBC memo statede that Donahue had to be fired because he would be a "difficult public face for NBC in a time of war”. Now PHIL DONAHUE has collaborated with veteran documentary filmmaker Ellen Spiro to give us an unsanitized account of one young man's evolution from enlisted soldier to anti-war veteran. Tomas Young grew up in Kansas City and like many patriotic young men and women, he responded to a call to action after 9/11. After less than one week in Iraq, he received a bullet injury to the spine that paralyzed his body. The film cleverly inter-cuts two parallel stories: Tomas struggles to deal with the complexities of his injuries while we see the congressional deliberations granting President Bush authority to invade Iraq. The effect is a startlingly powerful juxtaposition of cause and effect and the personal consequences of misguided vision.

MILENA KANEVA Producer/Director, TOTAL DENIAL & KATIE REDFORD, Director, EarthRights International

Terrence McNally — Fri, 02 Nov 2007 17:17:49 GMT

TOTAL DENIAL documents abuses of Burmese villagers caused by the Yadana pipeline. Milena Kaneva's “guide” during this journey is Ka Hsaw Wa, one of the leaders of the student movement for democracy in Burma in 1988, who hid in the jungle for more than seven years. Wanted by the police in both Burma and Thailand, Ka Hsaw Wa gathered the evidence of thousands of victims of human rights and environmental abuses. In 1992, two Western oil companies - French TOTAL and UNOCAL, then based in California embark on a joint venture with the Burmese military regime, to build a gas pipeline. The Burmese army, hired by the companies to provide security for the project, forces many in the local population into slave labor. Burned villages, raped women, tortured and killed porters, hundreds of thousands of men, women and children hiding in the jungle is the picture of a silent genocide. In 1995, with KATIE REDFORD, the co-founder of Earth Rights International, Ka Hsaw Wa brought the precedent-setting lawsuit to the U.S. courts. TOTAL DENIAL was shot in Burma, Thailand, Europe, and the U.S. courts between 2000-2005. The identity of the plaintiffs in the lawsuit and in the film are protected under the California state law. Their faces and voices are distorted for their security. The images shot in US courtrooms are exclusive.

Interview Robert Bernard Reich

Terrence McNally — Thu, 18 Oct 2007 18:51:46 GMT

Robert Reich was secretary of labor in the Clinton administration and now teaches public policy at the University of California at Berkeley. He delivers weekly commentaries on public radio's Marketplace, and he blogs at RobertReich.blogspot.com. In his book Supercapitalism, economist Robert Reich looks at the divided mind of the consumer and citizen.

Interview: Bjørn Lomborg, Author

Terrence McNally — Thu, 18 Oct 2007 18:30:05 GMT

Bjørn Lomborg: Author - The Skeptical Environmentalist and Cool It One of the world's 100 most influential people - Time Magazine, 2004 14th most influential academic in the world - Foreign Policy and Prospect magazine, 2005. 'Young Global Leader' - World Economic Forum 2005 Former director - Denmark's Environmental Assessment Institute Director - Copenhagen Consensus Center Adjunct Professor - Copenhagen Business School

Interview: Charles Ferguson, Filmmaker

Terrence McNally — Sat, 29 Sep 2007 20:36:08 GMT

In 1996, Charles Ferguson sold the startup company he founded to Microsoft for $133 million. He was 41, had $14 million worth of growing Microsoft stock in his pocket after paying off investors - and was thoroughly exhausted after barely sleeping the previous year. Then for the next eight years, he wrestled with the question that relatively young entrepreneurs rarely consider until they hit it big. In 2004, Ferguson told several journalist friends and some contacts in the film industry that he wanted to make a movie about the U.S. occupation. Don't do it, was the unanimous reply. Do something easy for your first film. Make it local. Plus, Ferguson said he was told, there are 10 other filmmakers pursuing this idea. So he waited. A year later, nobody was making this movie, George W. Bush had been re-elected and as Ferguson said, "There still was very little good discussion about the nature of the occupation, the nature of American policy in conducting the occupation in the media. And I thought, '... I'm going to make this movie.' " Having cash in the bank gave him the power to do just that and fulfill his childhood dream of making a movie. He financed the film's entire $2 million budget.

Interview: Kenny Ausube, Entrepreneur, Author, Journalist and Filmmaker

Terrence McNally — Sat, 29 Sep 2007 07:28:02 GMT

Kenny Ausubel is an award-winning social entrepreneur, author, journalist and filmmaker. He is the founder and co-executive directions of Bioneers, a nationally recognized nonprofit dedicated to disseminating practical and visionary solutions for restoring Earth’s imperiled ecosystems and healing our human communities. He launched the annual Bioneers Conference in 1990 with his producing partner and wife Nina Simons, Bioneers co-executive director. The Conference attracts over 3,000 people each year to the national conference in San Rafael, California, and in 2007 it will be beamed by satellite simulcast to 22 localized Bioneers conferences across the US and Canada to another 10,000 attendees.

Interview: Rafe Esquith, Award Winning Teacher and Author

Terrence McNally — Sat, 29 Sep 2007 05:50:00 GMT

Rafe Esquith is an American teacher at Hobart Boulevard Elementary School, the second-largest elementary school in the United States, located in Los Angeles, California. A graduate of UCLA, Esquith began teaching in 1981. His teaching honors include the 1992 Disney National Outstanding Teacher of the Year Award, a Sigma Beta Delta Fellowship from Johns Hopkins University, Oprah Winfrey’s $100,000 Use Your Life Award, Parents Magazine’s As You Grow Award, National Medal of Arts, and Esquith was made an honorary Member of the Order of the British Empire by Queen Elizabeth. Esquith's fifth-grade students consistently score in the top 5% to 10% of the country in standardized tests. Many of Esquith's students start class at 7:00 each morning, two hours before the rest of the school's students. Most of his students come from immigrant Central American and Korean families and are learning English as a second language. They volunteer to come early, work through recess and stay as late as 5:30 pm, and also come to class during vacations and holidays. Each year the Hobart Shakespeareans, as Esquith’s students are known, perform one of the Shakespeare's plays. They have opened for the Royal Shakespeare Company, been hired by Sir Peter Hall to perform A Midsummer Night's Dream at the Ahmanson Theatre in Los Angeles and appeared at the Globe Theater in London.

Interview: Drew Westen, Professor and Author

Terrence McNally — Sat, 29 Sep 2007 05:37:16 GMT

Drew Westen is Professor in the Departments of Psychology and Psychiatry at Emory University in Atlanta, Georgia. He received his undergraduate degree from Harvard University, an M.A. in Social and Political Thought from the University of Sussex (England), and a Ph.D. in Clinical Psychology from the University of Michigan, where he taught introductory psychology for several years. In January 2006 a group of scientists led by Drew Westen announced at the annual Society for Personality and Social Psychology conference in Palm Springs, California the results of a study in which functional magnetic resonance imaging showed that self-described Democrats and Republicans responded to negative remarks about their political candidate of choice in systematically biased ways. Specifically, when Republican test subjects were shown self-contradictory quotes by George W. Bush and when Democratic test subjects were shown self-contradictory quotes by John Kerry, both groups tended to explain away the apparent contradictions in a manner biased to favor their candidate of choice. Similarly, areas of the brain responsible for reasoning (presumably the prefrontal cortex) did not respond during these conclusions while areas of the brain controlling emotions (presumably the amygdala and/or cingulate gyrus) showed increased activity as compared to the subject's responses to politically neutral statements associated with politically neutral people (such as Tom Hanks) Subjects were then presented with information that exonerated their candidate of choice. When this occurred, areas of the brain involved in reward processing (presumably the orbitofrontal cortex and/or striatum/nucleus accumbens) showed increased activity. As Dr. Westen said, "None of the circuits involved in conscious reasoning were particularly engaged... Essentially, it appears as if partisans twirl the cognitive kaleidoscope until they get the conclusions they want... Everyone... may reason to emotionally biased judgments when they have a vested interest in how to interpret 'the facts.'"

Interview: Robert H. Frank, Professor, Columnist, and Author

Terrence McNally — Sat, 29 Sep 2007 05:19:56 GMT

Professor Robert H. Frank is the Henrietta Johnson Louis Professor of Management Professor of Economics at Cornell University's S.C. Johnson Graduate School of Management. He is a monthly contributor to the "Economic Scene" column in The New York Times. Until 2001, he was the Goldwin Smith Professor of Economics, Ethics, and Public Policy in Cornell's College of Arts and Sciences at Cornell University. He has also served as a Peace Corps volunteer in rural Nepal, chief economist for the Civil Aeronautics Board, fellow at the Center for Advanced Study in the Behavioral Sciences, and was Professor of American Civilization at École des hautes études en sciences sociales in Paris. Professor Frank's books include Choosing the Right Pond, Passions within Reason, Microeconomics and Behavior, Luxury Fever, and What Price the Moral High Ground? The Winner-Take-All Society, co-authored with Philip Cook, was named a Notable Book of the Year by The New York Times, and was included in Business Week's list of the ten best books for 1995. Professor Frank holds a BS in mathematics from the Georgia Institute of Technology. He also holds an MA in statistics and a PhD in economics, both from UC Berkeley.

Interview: Stephen Duncombe, Author, Activist and Professor

Terrence McNally — Sat, 29 Sep 2007 05:05:54 GMT

Stephen Duncombe is a long-time activist and a professor of at the Gallatin School at New York University. His new book Dream: Re-imagining Progressive Politics in an Age of Fantasy urges progressives to tap into popular fantasies and desires and to develop a politics that imagines and embodies a better world rather than simply "speaking truth." To clarify his point, he enlists a wildly eclectic group -- everything from Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas and Las Vegas to Cindy Sheehan and the Billionaires for Bush.

Interview: Deborah Tannen, Author and Professor of Linguistics

Terrence McNally — Thu, 27 Sep 2007 21:37:59 GMT

Deborah Frances Tannen is an American professor of linguistics at Georgetown University. Although she has lectured worldwide in her field, and written or edited numerous academic publications on linguistics and interpersonal communication, she is best known for her general-audience books on interpersonal communication and public discourse. She became well-known in the United States after her book You Just Don't Understand - Women and Men in Conversation was published in 1990. It was on the New York Times best seller list for nearly four years, was for eight months the number one best seller, and was subsequently translated into 29 other languages and on best-seller lists in six other nations. She has since made numerous appearances on major television and radio shows as an expert on interpersonal communication, and has had material published in many major newspapers and magazines. You're Wearing That? Understanding Mothers and Daughters in Conversation, her latest book, was also on the best seller list. She is the author of several popular books about the way people in social situations talk to each other. By studying these interactions, she attempts to help others to understand them and so get along better in relationships.

Interview: Helen Caldicott, Physician and Anti-Nuclear Advocate

Terrence McNally — Thu, 27 Sep 2007 19:57:59 GMT

Helen Caldicott is an Australian physician and anti-nuclear advocate who has founded several associations dedicated to opposing nuclear weapons, nuclear weapons proliferation, war and military action in general, particularly the use of depleted Uranium munitions, most notably nuclear energy in recent years, Uranium mining and nuclear technology in general.

Interview: George Monbiot, Journalist and Author

Terrence McNally — Thu, 27 Sep 2007 19:01:10 GMT

George Monbiot is a journalist, author, academic and environmental and political activist in the United Kingdom who writes a weekly column for The Guardian newspaper. He is on the advisory board of BBC Wildlife magazine. Monbiot’s most recent book, Heat: How to Stop the Planet Burning, published in 2006, focuses on the issue of climate change. In this book, Monbiot argues that a 90% reduction in carbon emissions is necessary in developed countries in order to prevent disastrous changes to the climate. He then sets out to demonstrate how such a reduction could be achieved within the United Kingdom, without a significant fall in living standards, through changes in housing, power supply and transport. Monbiot concludes that such changes are possible but they would require considerable political will.

Interview: Niall Ferguson, Author

Terrence McNally — Thu, 27 Sep 2007 17:51:54 GMT

This interview was recorded on Ferguson's recent trip to Los Angeles - before the election and before the resignation of Donald Rumsfeld, so neither of these big stories will be mentioned. Ferguson is more conservative than my usual guest. The first two thirds deal with his views of the 20th century and their implications for our present moment. In the final third I confront his early support for the US invasion of Iraq.

Interview: Richard Heinberg, Author

Terrence McNally — Wed, 26 Sep 2007 20:13:57 GMT

"The Party's Over," Richard Heinberg places this momentous transition in historical context, showing how industrialism arose from the harnessing of fossil fuels, how competition to control access to oil shaped the geopolitics of the 20th century, and how contention for dwindling energy resources in the 21st century will lead to resource wars in the Middle East, Central Asia, and South America. He describes the likely impacts of oil depletion, and all of the energy alternatives. Predicting chaos unless the U.S.-the world's foremost oil consumer-is willing to join with other countries to implement a global program of resource conservation and sharing, he also recommends a "managed collapse" that might make way for a slower-paced, low-energy, sustainable society in the future.More readable than other accounts of this issue, with fuller discussion of the context, social implications, and recommendations for personal, community, national, and global action. Heinberg's book is a riveting wake-up call for humankind as the oil era winds down, and a critical tool for understanding and influencing current U.S. foreign policy. Richard Heinberg, from Santa Rosa, California, has been writing about energy resources issues and the dynamics of cultural change for many years.A member of the core faculty at New College of California, he is an award-winning author of three previous books. His "Museletter "was nominated for its "Best Alternative Newsletter" award by "Utne Reader "in 1993.

Interview: Paul Rieckhoff, Executive Director of Iraq and Afghanistan Veterans of America

Terrence McNally — Mon, 24 Sep 2007 19:31:01 GMT

Paul Rieckhoff founded and is Executive Director of Iraq and Afghanistan Veterans of America (IAVA). A non-partisan non-profit founded in 2004 with tens of thousands of members in all 50 US states, IAVA is America’s first and largest Iraq and Afghanistan veterans' group. Rieckhoff’s first book, a critically acclaimed account of his experiences in Iraq and activism afterwards, titled Chasing Ghosts, was published by Penguin in May 2006 (paperback to be published May 2007). While the IAVA is not tied to any political party or candidate, Rieckhoff has been a harsh critic of the Bush administration and the war in Iraq. A 1998 graduate of Amherst College, he now lives in New York City.