Podcasts about gajshost

Few people understand president Obama better than Jonathan Alter. He has covered Obama since his days in Chicago. He wrote an early Newsweek cover story that help bring Obama to national prominence and has been one of the preeminent chroniclers of Obama's campaigns and more importantly, it’s connection to the Obama Presidency. Over the years there have been several books central to changing our view of politics. Theodore White’s, Making of the President, F. Clifton White’s Suite 3505, Joe McGinniss’ Selling of the President 1968, and Hunter Thompson’s Fear and Loathing on the 1972 campaign. Now Jonathan Alter, award winning reporter, columnist, former senior for Newsweek, adds his new book The Center Holds: Obama and His Enemies to that list. My conversation with Jonathan Alter: var gaJsHost = (("https:" == document.location.protocol) ? "https://ssl." : "http://www."); document.write(unescape("%3Cscript src='" + gaJsHost + "google-analytics.com/ga.js' type='text/javascript'%3E%3C/script%3E")); try { var pageTracker = _gat._getTracker("UA-6296941-2"); pageTracker._trackPageview(); } catch(err) {}

Earlier in the week I spoke with British MP, Jesse Norman about Edmund Burke and the old idea of Conservatism as a way to address social order and care for the needs of generations past and future. After reading George Packer's new book The Unwinding: An Inner History of the New America, it makes you think that perhaps we need some of that institutional conservatism today. Packer deconstructs the past thirty years of "progress" in America and in so doing brilliantly gives narrative drive to the changes in almost every aspect of American life. You come a way with the realization that we are no longer held together by trusted institutions, but by individual brands, all competing in the marketplace. The questions is, is this any way to run a Democracy? My conversation with George Packer: var gaJsHost = (("https:" == document.location.protocol) ? "https://ssl." : "http://www."); document.write(unescape("%3Cscript src='" + gaJsHost + "google-analytics.com/ga.js' type='text/javascript'%3E%3C/script%3E")); try { var pageTracker = _gat._getTracker("UA-6296941-2"); pageTracker._trackPageview(); } catch(err) {}

Samantha Power is brilliant and President Obama’s pick to be the newest member of his cabinet and our new United Nations Ambassador. Her views have often been controversial, but always with a deep moral grounding. Part of this comes from her study of and admiration for the late UN diplomat Sergio Vieira de Mello. de Mello was killed in Iraq in 2003, engaged in the ongoing struggle to balance morality with the practical nature of diplomacy. Back in 2008, upon the publication of her book on de Mello,  Chasing the Flame: One Man's Fight to Save the World, I spoke with Samantha Power.  Listening to that conversation today, we get some very real insights var gaJsHost = (("https:" == document.location.protocol) ? "https://ssl." : "http://www."); document.write(unescape("%3Cscript src='" + gaJsHost + "google-analytics.com/ga.js' type='text/javascript'%3E%3C/script%3E")); try { var pageTracker = _gat._getTracker("UA-6296941-2"); pageTracker._trackPageview(); } catch(err) {} into the education of Samantha Power.

Throughout the history of America, and its federalist system, different states have personified, both politically and economically, the ethos of a particular era. New York would came to represent the economic boom of the 20’s and Chicago with its big shoulders, the apotheosis of industrialization. California would represent post war America and the dreams of the golden land with its promise of freedom and education. Today many would argue that Silicon Valley represents the future. But my guest Erica Grieder thinks we need to look toward the Lone Star State. That a place many of us instinctively turn away from, may be closer than we think to representing the future of America. It's a place that Erica Grieder says is Big, Hot, Cheap, and Right: What America Can Learn from the Strange Genius of Texas. var gaJsHost = (("https:" == document.location.protocol) ? "https://ssl." : "http://www."); document.write(unescape("%3Cscript src='" + gaJsHost + "google-analytics.com/ga.js' type='text/javascript'%3E%3C/script%3E")); try { var pageTracker = _gat._getTracker("UA-6296941-2"); pageTracker._trackPageview(); } catch(err) {} My conversation with Erica Grieder:

The New York Times in their obituary called him a "Priest, Author, Scholar, Scold." Andrew Greeley was all of these. “A Roman Catholic priest and writer whose outpouring of sociological research, contemporary theology, sexually frank novels and newspaper columns challenged reigning assumptions about American Catholicism.” He was a true maverick who was willing take on all sides in any debate. He was not a fan of what the institutional Catholic Church had become, but was just as harsh on what he saw as "secular intellectuals." I had the chance to speak with him, just once, back in 1999 on the publication of the second volume of his memoirs Furthermore! Memories of a Parish Priest. So much of what he said thirteen years ago still has relevance, and yet he was so wrong about the pace of progress in the Vatican, and in Latin America.Here is that conversation. var gaJsHost = (("https:" == document.location.protocol) ? "https://ssl." : "http://www."); document.write(unescape("%3Cscript src='" + gaJsHost + "google-analytics.com/ga.js' type='text/javascript'%3E%3C/script%3E")); try { var pageTracker = _gat._getTracker("UA-6296941-2"); pageTracker._trackPageview(); } catch(err) {}

Imagine if you could say things and interact with people unrestricted by conscience. If you had an unfettered capacity for risk, engaged in irresponsible behavior, and felt it unnecessary to conform to social norms. For this to happen one of two things is usually true, either you are a politician a or a sociopath....or maybe even a trial lawyer. And then imagine if these things could be combined? Then you would have M.E. Thomas. She’s a trial lawyer, a law professor and an admitted sociopath. In her just published memoir Confessions of a Sociopath: A Life Spent Hiding in Plain Sight, she shows us that all sociopaths are not Hannibal Lecter, but they do have many of the same traits.My conversation with M.E. Thomas var gaJsHost = (("https:" == document.location.protocol) ? "https://ssl." : "http://www."); document.write(unescape("%3Cscript src='" + gaJsHost + "google-analytics.com/ga.js' type='text/javascript'%3E%3C/script%3E")); try { var pageTracker = _gat._getTracker("UA-6296941-2"); pageTracker._trackPageview(); } catch(err) {}

Even amidst all of the domestic and international policy issues that come and go with each administration, perhaps the one that has the greatest staying power, is the environment. The roots and reasons go back almost thirty-five years. Originally conceived in September of 1969 as a nationwide environmental teach-in, the first Earth Day was a call to action that inspired thousands of events across the country. Becoming larger than the biggest civil rights and anti war demonstrations of the 60’s, roughly 1,500 colleges and 10,000 schools held teach-ins. Activities that took place in hundreds of churches and temples, in city parks and commercial and government buildings, it created a lasting “eco infrastructure.” And that first Earth Day in 1970 would give rise to the first green generation. University of Delaware Professor Adam Rome looks back in his book The Genius of Earth Day: How a 1970 Teach-In Unexpectedly Made the First Green Generation.My conversation with Adam Rome: var gaJsHost = (("https:" == document.location.protocol) ? "https://ssl." : "http://www."); document.write(unescape("%3Cscript src='" + gaJsHost + "google-analytics.com/ga.js' type='text/javascript'%3E%3C/script%3E")); try { var pageTracker = _gat._getTracker("UA-6296941-2"); pageTracker._trackPageview(); } catch(err) {}

One of the central tenants in the debate about religion, is that some claim it provides the only construct for understanding moral behavior. In fact, science, research and even our own pets should tell us clearly that empathy, cooperation, fairness and reciprocity are all traits we see in animal behavior. This is particularly true of the primates. And just as the monstrous instinct exists in all of us, including animals, so to do the traits of social cooperation. It’s simply the other side of the same coin. No one has done a better job of explaining this than Frans De Waal in his new work The Bonobo and the Atheist: In Search of Humanism Among the Primates.My conversation with Frans De Waal: var gaJsHost = (("https:" == document.location.protocol) ? "https://ssl." : "http://www."); document.write(unescape("%3Cscript src='" + gaJsHost + "google-analytics.com/ga.js' type='text/javascript'%3E%3C/script%3E")); try { var pageTracker = _gat._getTracker("UA-6296941-2"); pageTracker._trackPageview(); } catch(err) {}

Adoption today is a far cry from the idyllic portral we imagined and maybe have even witnessed, years ago. It has become engaged in international politics, domestic politics, and the abortion debate. Add to this, the current complexity of the process, the expanding landscape of open adoptions and you have a space that is no longer just about the love of a child, but an emotional minefield that prospective parents have to learn how to navigate. That’s the backdrop for The Mothers,a new novel that provides a powerful portrayal of modern adoption by Jennifer Gilmore. My conversation with Jennifer Gilmore: var gaJsHost = (("https:" == document.location.protocol) ? "https://ssl." : "http://www."); document.write(unescape("%3Cscript src='" + gaJsHost + "google-analytics.com/ga.js' type='text/javascript'%3E%3C/script%3E")); try { var pageTracker = _gat._getTracker("UA-6296941-2"); pageTracker._trackPageview(); } catch(err) {}

We face a vast array of global problems. Not the least of which is our environment and the way in which the expanding western industrial model of abundance, seems certain to geometrically grow these problems. Many think that somewhere, in some abstract way, technology will help of solve these problems. But perhaps the same industrial system that created the problems, is not the place to start looking for solutions. In short, it seems we can’t fix the problems of industrial technology with the same tools that created them. That’s where the work of K. Eric Drexler comes in. In his new book Radical Abundance: How a Revolution in Nanotechnology Will Change Civilization, he shows us how the world of nanotechnology and Atomic Precise Manufacturing may hold the answers. My conversation with K. Eric Drexler: var gaJsHost = (("https:" == document.location.protocol) ? "https://ssl." : "http://www."); document.write(unescape("%3Cscript src='" + gaJsHost + "google-analytics.com/ga.js' type='text/javascript'%3E%3C/script%3E")); try { var pageTracker = _gat._getTracker("UA-6296941-2"); pageTracker._trackPageview(); } catch(err) {}

The events of Sept. 11, 2001, would set off the ten year search for Osama bin Laden. That manhunt would end exactly two years ago today, on May 1st, 2011. In between, was one of the greatest detective stories of our time. CNN’s national security analyst Peter Bergen, through his exhaustive research, unprecedented interviews with key players, and exclusive access to the Abbottabad compound in which bin Laden lived his final years, has now been able to tell the full story. In fact, Bergen was the only outsider to tour the compound before it was destroyed by the Pakistani military. Considered the definitive account of the hunt for bin Laden, his book Manhunt: The Ten-Year Search for Bin Laden from 9/11 to Abbottabad, serves as the basis for the documentary of the same name, which debuts tonight on HBO.My conversation with Peter Bergen: var gaJsHost = (("https:" == document.location.protocol) ? "https://ssl." : "http://www."); document.write(unescape("%3Cscript src='" + gaJsHost + "google-analytics.com/ga.js' type='text/javascript'%3E%3C/script%3E")); try { var pageTracker = _gat._getTracker("UA-6296941-2"); pageTracker._trackPageview(); } catch(err) {}

One of the consequences of the vast numbers of men we incarcerate in America is that over 700,000 people each year are being released from prisons. Many have served long sentences and are woefully unprepared to integrate back into society. Especially a society that has little willingness to receive them. As changes in society come more rapidly, its harder and harder for these individuals to adjust. The result is often increased rates of recidivism, and a revolving door into the prison/industrial complex. Sabine Heinlein has taken both a micro and macro look the public policy consequences of this behavior. Her new book is Among Murderers: Life after Prison My conversation with Sabine Heinlein: var gaJsHost = (("https:" == document.location.protocol) ? "https://ssl." : "http://www."); document.write(unescape("%3Cscript src='" + gaJsHost + "google-analytics.com/ga.js' type='text/javascript'%3E%3C/script%3E")); try { var pageTracker = _gat._getTracker("UA-6296941-2"); pageTracker._trackPageview(); } catch(err) {}

There is an apocryphal story about the state of education, which tells the tale of a man who falls asleep, ala Rip Van Winkle, 100 years ago. He wakes up today and is totally disoriented. Everything is new and different. Transportation, technology, design, fashion, entertainment....then he stumbles into a school, into a 21st century classroom and suddenly he feels calm, at home....because, well because almost nothing has changed. Some would argue that this is part of the problem of education today. Others would argue for the value of those fundamentals; that we’ve long had many of the right ideas, but that we just needed to execute them better. This is where we join the conversation with UC Berkley Professor and education expert, David Kirp and his latest work Improbable Scholars: The Rebirth of a Great American School System and a Strategy for America's Schools My conversation with David Kirp: var gaJsHost = (("https:" == document.location.protocol) ? "https://ssl." : "http://www."); document.write(unescape("%3Cscript src='" + gaJsHost + "google-analytics.com/ga.js' type='text/javascript'%3E%3C/script%3E")); try { var pageTracker = _gat._getTracker("UA-6296941-2"); pageTracker._trackPageview(); } catch(err) {}

In the world of extreme right wing rhetoric, particularly on the subject of immigration, it often seems that the practitioners are always upping the ante in order to get attention. Listen to any hour of talk radio and you get the idea. However, what happens when that rhetoric gets out of control. When the listeners, particularly those that are scared, marginalized or worse yet, psychotic, become easy pray to act on that rhetoric and take matters into their own hands? Over the years we’ve seen many examples of this, and unfortunately a lot of them, for various reasons, seem to take place in Arizona. Dave Neiwert, the founding editor of the blog Crooks and Liars, takes us inside one such group of extremists in And Hell Followed With Her: Crossing the Dark Side of the American Border For them, killing women and children in cold blood is just the start.My conversation with Dave Neiwert: var gaJsHost = (("https:" == document.location.protocol) ? "https://ssl." : "http://www."); document.write(unescape("%3Cscript src='" + gaJsHost + "google-analytics.com/ga.js' type='text/javascript'%3E%3C/script%3E")); try { var pageTracker = _gat._getTracker("UA-6296941-2"); pageTracker._trackPageview(); } catch(err) {}

Wherever we live, we all, to some extent live in Hollywood. We are shaped and influenced by its messages, its ideas and by connection, to it’s people. Perhaps by having a better understanding of the people that populate and drive that community, we might better understand our culture. A good place to start that process is a new novel by Matthew Specktor entitled American Dream MachineMy conversation with Matthew Specktor: var gaJsHost = (("https:" == document.location.protocol) ? "https://ssl." : "http://www."); document.write(unescape("%3Cscript src='" + gaJsHost + "google-analytics.com/ga.js' type='text/javascript'%3E%3C/script%3E")); try { var pageTracker = _gat._getTracker("UA-6296941-2"); pageTracker._trackPageview(); } catch(err) {}

Back in 2008, David Sheff wrote a memoir that has become became a landmark in our understanding of addiction. Beautiful Boy was his powerful and personal story of the battle he fought alongside his son Nic, who was addicted to alcohol and various drugs. The book catapulted David Sheff into becoming one of the country's most prominent and sane voices on addiction — not as a doctor, an addict or an academic, but as a father with real world experience. Now he takes a broader view of what we, as a society, are doing right and wrong in dealing with the still growing rates of addiction in this country.  His new book is Clean: Overcoming Addiction and Ending America's Greatest Tragedy.My conversation with David Sheff var gaJsHost = (("https:" == document.location.protocol) ? "https://ssl." : "http://www."); document.write(unescape("%3Cscript src='" + gaJsHost + "google-analytics.com/ga.js' type='text/javascript'%3E%3C/script%3E")); try { var pageTracker = _gat._getTracker("UA-6296941-2"); pageTracker._trackPageview(); } catch(err) {}

Every hour, 72 more hours of video are uploaded onto Youtube. The moving image has become the literature of our time. Perhaps not since the development of moveable type has the context of our world and our understanding of it, changed so dramatically. But what do we really know and understand about the “grammar” and the structure of visual communication?  How are stories and our appreciation of them, different when we watch them, as opposed to reading them? How will this new realm of visual literacy shape our children and how they see and set out to change the world? These are some of the issues examined by Stephen Apkon, the Founder and Executive Director of The Jacob Burns Film Center, in his book The Age of the Image: Redefining Literacy in a World of Screens; var gaJsHost = (("https:" == document.location.protocol) ? "https://ssl." : "http://www."); document.write(unescape("%3Cscript src='" + gaJsHost + "google-analytics.com/ga.js' type='text/javascript'%3E%3C/script%3E")); try { var pageTracker = _gat._getTracker("UA-6296941-2"); pageTracker._trackPageview(); } catch(err) {} My conversation with Stephen Apkon:

We baby boomers are aging. With all the talk about health care and retirement and 401k's and endless mail from the AARP, the one subject that seems to get skipped, is what it will be like being a grandparent. We’ve spent so many years doting on and protecting and encouraging our own children, we almost forget that we get to do it again, sort of, with our grandkids. Fortunately for those of us that do forget, we have Anne Lamott to remind us. Always a powerful and soothing voice for her generation, Anne Lamott, in her new book Some Assembly Required: A Journal of My Son's First Son, takes us on the new and unexpected chapter in her life, her own grandmotherhood. My conversation with Anne Lamott: var gaJsHost = (("https:" == document.location.protocol) ? "https://ssl." : "http://www."); document.write(unescape("%3Cscript src='" + gaJsHost + "google-analytics.com/ga.js' type='text/javascript'%3E%3C/script%3E")); try { var pageTracker = _gat._getTracker("UA-6296941-2"); pageTracker._trackPageview(); } catch(err) {}

Amidst all the talk about the importance of education, and all the endless debates about public policy, we often forget that at the heart of the debate, is what it means to be a teacher and the awesome power and responsibility that comes with that job. Imagine a teacher who does not lecture, but leads; who teaches world peace by studying war; who respects students enough to instill in them the confidence to make the world anew...even while still in the 4th grade. This has been the work of John Hunter. John is a teacher and musician and the inventor of the World Peace Game. He is the star of the new documentary and author of the new book World Peace and Other 4th-Grade AchievementsMy conversation with John Hunter: var gaJsHost = (("https:" == document.location.protocol) ? "https://ssl." : "http://www."); document.write(unescape("%3Cscript src='" + gaJsHost + "google-analytics.com/ga.js' type='text/javascript'%3E%3C/script%3E")); try { var pageTracker = _gat._getTracker("UA-6296941-2"); pageTracker._trackPageview(); } catch(err) {}

Today the digital revolution has ushered in a whole new set of concerns with respect to piracy, copying and the very definition of who owns certain intellectual property. In fact, music copying and piracy is as old as recorded music itself.   Moreover today, it’s the desire to share, that has created the world of social media, the very existence of which grows from this idea of sharing and repurposing copyrighted material. If we understand this, if our legislators understand this, then perhaps we can undertake to redefine modern copyright and envision useful legislation and protection for the 21st Century. Alex Sayf Cummings, at Georgia Sate University, has been looking at this issues and examines its past, present and future in Democracy of Sound: Music Piracy and the Remaking of American Copyright in the Twentieth Century.My conversation with Alex Sayf Cummings: var gaJsHost = (("https:" == document.location.protocol) ? "https://ssl." : "http://www."); document.write(unescape("%3Cscript src='" + gaJsHost + "google-analytics.com/ga.js' type='text/javascript'%3E%3C/script%3E")); try { var pageTracker = _gat._getTracker("UA-6296941-2"); pageTracker._trackPageview(); } catch(err) {}

The great French novelist Andre Malraux once wrote that “man is not what he thinks he is, he is what he hides.” Certainly the secrets we all keep as individuals and as families place a heavy burden on us. Too often we think we are keeping secrets, when all we really are doing is hiding truth them from ourselves. For a long time this was Michael Hainey story, as he knew that someday he had to find out what really happened with respect to his fathers death. He was only six at the time, by years later he would know that something was not right about what he had been told. As he approached his fathers age, when he died, he would work hard to uncover that secret and in so doing free himself, his mother and his brother.He lays out his story in this memoir After Visiting Friends: A Son's Story. My conversation with Michael Hainey: var gaJsHost = (("https:" == document.location.protocol) ? "https://ssl." : "http://www."); document.write(unescape("%3Cscript src='" + gaJsHost + "google-analytics.com/ga.js' type='text/javascript'%3E%3C/script%3E")); try { var pageTracker = _gat._getTracker("UA-6296941-2"); pageTracker._trackPageview(); } catch(err) {}

Families are a little like snowflakes. No two are exactly alike. That’s why it often seems so ridiculous that so many people think they know what is best for families. The strict structure of the Chinese, the laissez faire of the French, the coolness of the British...all work and all don’t. It seems no one really has the magic formula. Therefore, maybe a little common sense is a good idea. That's what best selling author Bruce Feiler set out to discover. He set out on a three-year journey to find the smartest ideas, cutting-edge research, and novel solutions to make his family happier. Instead of the usual psychologists and family “experts,” he sought out the most creative minds from Silicon Valley to top negotiators at Harvard. Feiler then tested these ideas with his own wife and kids and writes about it in The Secrets of Happy Families: Improve Your Mornings, Rethink Family Dinner, Fight Smarter, Go Out and Play, and Much More. My conversation with Bruce Feiler: var gaJsHost = (("https:" == document.location.protocol) ? "https://ssl." : "http://www."); document.write(unescape("%3Cscript src='" + gaJsHost + "google-analytics.com/ga.js' type='text/javascript'%3E%3C/script%3E")); try { var pageTracker = _gat._getTracker("UA-6296941-2"); pageTracker._trackPageview(); } catch(err) {}

Why do certain products and ideas become so popular? Why are some stories and rumors more infectious than others, and what makes some online content go viral? These are just a few of the questions that Wharton marketing professor Jonah Berger takes up in his new book Contagious: Why Things Catch On. Berger has spent 10 years studying social influence and according to Berger, the key to making things really popular happens long before it’s discussed at the water cooler, or “liked” online. It starts with the message. My conversation with Jonah Berger: var gaJsHost = (("https:" == document.location.protocol) ? "https://ssl." : "http://www."); document.write(unescape("%3Cscript src='" + gaJsHost + "google-analytics.com/ga.js' type='text/javascript'%3E%3C/script%3E")); try { var pageTracker = _gat._getTracker("UA-6296941-2"); pageTracker._trackPageview(); } catch(err) {}

The song says "money can’t buy me love." But we know that’s not really true. The fact is, the same market forces that drive our economy, also drive our search for sex and love. Issues like abundance, scarcity, the price of commodities...like beer, all contribute to who we choose and the success and failure of those relationships. In 2008 Marina Adshade launched an undergraduate course, at the University of British Columbia, titled Economics of Sex and Love, which invited her students to approach questions of sex and love through an economist's lens. The class was an immediate hit with students and, by the time the first term started, had generated international media attention. Now the book, Dollars and Sex. My conversation with Marina Adshade: var gaJsHost = (("https:" == document.location.protocol) ? "https://ssl." : "http://www."); document.write(unescape("%3Cscript src='" + gaJsHost + "google-analytics.com/ga.js' type='text/javascript'%3E%3C/script%3E")); try { var pageTracker = _gat._getTracker("UA-6296941-2"); pageTracker._trackPageview(); } catch(err) {}

No one questions that we are going through a period of dramatic change. The world, the nature of work and relationships are changing faster than at any other time in human history. Succeeding and managing in this environment, will require a degree of nimbleness and creativity in order to sustain or create any economic value. But how creative are we, and do the old paradigms of education, work and leisure allow us to foster and bring out that creativity? Bruce Nussbaum, a Professor of Innovation and Design at Parsons The New School of Design in New York City, and a former Managing Editor at BusinessWeek thinks we have to reset our approach to creativity. He outlines it in Creative Intelligence: Harnessing the Power to Create, Connect, and Inspire. var gaJsHost = (("https:" == document.location.protocol) ? "https://ssl." : "http://www."); document.write(unescape("%3Cscript src='" + gaJsHost + "google-analytics.com/ga.js' type='text/javascript'%3E%3C/script%3E")); try { var pageTracker = _gat._getTracker("UA-6296941-2"); pageTracker._trackPageview(); } catch(err) {} My conversation with Bruce Nussbaum:

All the talk about drones lately seems to miss the larger point. What compels us, what disturbs us, is the sanitized way in which we conduct warfare today. The disconnect from death, violence and the human suffering that is war. Kurtz understood war by journeying into its Heart of Darkness. Today, it’s from 30,000 feet. It’s a different view of war. It’s also a metaphor for how we as Americans have witnessed the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. In neat, pre-packaged sound bites. Disconnected from combat, body counts and the horror. Now, ten years after the start of these wars, were beginning to hear the real stories of what went on, from the men and women who were there. Matt Gallagher and Roy Scranton, two veterans of the wars, have written for and edited a new collection of stories entitled Fire and Forget: Short Stories from the Long War. var gaJsHost = (("https:" == document.location.protocol) ? "https://ssl." : "http://www."); document.write(unescape("%3Cscript src='" + gaJsHost + "google-analytics.com/ga.js' type='text/javascript'%3E%3C/script%3E")); try { var pageTracker = _gat._getTracker("UA-6296941-2"); pageTracker._trackPageview(); } catch(err) {} My conversation with Roy Scranton and Matt Gallagher:

We live in a culture where victimhood is too often embraced. Usually, because we seem to lack internal motivation, we look to it to galvanize our actions. Buy why is this culture of victimhood so pervasive now? Perhaps it springs from the early Christian myth of martyrdom, and the degree to which that Christian mythology and those who subscribe to it, are trying to shape our politics and our culture.  This is the heart of a provocative new book, The Myth of Persecution: How Early Christians Invented a Story of Martyrdom,by Notre Dame Professor Candida Moss. var gaJsHost = (("https:" == document.location.protocol) ? "https://ssl." : "http://www."); document.write(unescape("%3Cscript src='" + gaJsHost + "google-analytics.com/ga.js' type='text/javascript'%3E%3C/script%3E")); try { var pageTracker = _gat._getTracker("UA-6296941-2"); pageTracker._trackPageview(); } catch(err) {} My conversation with Candida Moss:

This past week saw the pageantry of religion in the selection of a new Pope. Next month we will experience a different kind of pageantry, as the baseball season opens and for many it will be a kind of religious experience in its own right. Long the national pastime, baseball has a special place in the pantheon of sports and entertainment. But with all of the competition these days, does baseball still have the same kind of appeal? Has it’s superstitions, streaks, luck, and it’s sense of “you gotta believe," been flattened by metrics? Has William James been replaced by Bill James, and has the inspiration fostered by a father and son praying at the altar of driveway catch, given way to Nate Silver and Billy Bean? This is part of the story told by controversial NYU President John Sexton in Baseball as a Road to God: Seeing Beyond the Game. A book based on his wildly popular class at NYU. var gaJsHost = (("https:" == document.location.protocol) ? "https://ssl." : "http://www."); document.write(unescape("%3Cscript src='" + gaJsHost + "google-analytics.com/ga.js' type='text/javascript'%3E%3C/script%3E")); try { var pageTracker = _gat._getTracker("UA-6296941-2"); pageTracker._trackPageview(); } catch(err) {} My conversation with John Sexton:

Many us have powerful and painful memories of High School and Middle School. Sometimes, if we were not the most popular kid, something happened that we still remember as if it happened yesterday. The scar tissue of those years is even tougher if we were the victims of bullying. And For others it may be the guilt of being the one doing the bullying, or of not standing up for our friends. Now Slate's Emily Bazelon looks at this in Sticks and Stones: Defeating the Culture of Bullying and Rediscovering the Power of Character and Empathy var gaJsHost = (("https:" == document.location.protocol) ? "https://ssl." : "http://www."); document.write(unescape("%3Cscript src='" + gaJsHost + "google-analytics.com/ga.js' type='text/javascript'%3E%3C/script%3E")); try { var pageTracker = _gat._getTracker("UA-6296941-2"); pageTracker._trackPageview(); } catch(err) {} My conversation with Emily Bazelon:

As the movie Lincoln reminds us, sometimes crass politics has noble ends. But even crass politics, must be guided by truth, by facts and by evidence. Today in our politics, facts, information and empirical data have simply given way to what’s become the holy grail of opinion. Whether it's the influence of talk radio, the impact of money and special interests, or one political parties disconnect from reality, it seems we have dumbed down our discourse to the point where no good public policy can emerge. And as bad as that is today, its consequences down the road could be even more devastating. David Schultz takes us through the problem in American Politics in the Age of Ignorance: Why Lawmakers Choose Belief Over Research.  My conversation with David Schultz: var gaJsHost = (("https:" == document.location.protocol) ? "https://ssl." : "http://www."); document.write(unescape("%3Cscript src='" + gaJsHost + "google-analytics.com/ga.js' type='text/javascript'%3E%3C/script%3E")); try { var pageTracker = _gat._getTracker("UA-6296941-2"); pageTracker._trackPageview(); } catch(err) {}

While it certainly may seem as if our social, political and moral debates are a kind of tower of babel, or more like a kind of moral food fight, social psychologist Jonathan Haidt argues that there is a basic moral underpinning to it all. That the culture wars are really a way in which our own personal experience breaks out and defines itself in a kind of moral and political matrix that both traps and defines us. That these principles are universal and enduring and that perhaps if we can better understand them, we can, if not accept, at least have compassion for the better angels of our opponents. Jonathan Haidt is the Thomas Cooley Professor of Ethical Leadership at New York University's Stern school.  His newest work is The Righteous Mind: Why Good People Are Divided by Politics and Religion  My conversation with Jonathan Haidt: var gaJsHost = (("https:" == document.location.protocol) ? "https://ssl." : "http://www."); document.write(unescape("%3Cscript src='" + gaJsHost + "google-analytics.com/ga.js' type='text/javascript'%3E%3C/script%3E")); try { var pageTracker = _gat._getTracker("UA-6296941-2"); pageTracker._trackPageview(); } catch(err) {}

A new school recently opened in New York called Avenues World School. Its curriculum is focused on creating students who are citizens of the world. It’s tuition is 40,000 a year. But Some parents are willing to pay it, because they see the value of their kids engaging in the challenges of the 21st century's global environment. As a society, we say we are concerned when we fall behind much of the developed world in our math and science scores. The reality is, that there is a bigger threat. That is the degree to which most of our students are not even engaged with the shrinking world. Their lack of knowledge about the world, its differences, its cultures, its geography and its languages, are all areas that will serve to hold back American students in a rapidly globalizing society. var gaJsHost = (("https:" == document.location.protocol) ? "https://ssl." : "http://www."); document.write(unescape("%3Cscript src='" + gaJsHost + "google-analytics.com/ga.js' type='text/javascript'%3E%3C/script%3E")); try { var pageTracker = _gat._getTracker("UA-6296941-2"); pageTracker._trackPageview(); } catch(err) {} Carl Hobert of Boston University's School of Education and the Axis of Hope Center for International Conflict, in Raising Global IQ: Preparing Our Students for a Shrinking Planet looks inside our need for a much more global curriculum. My conversation with Carl Hobert:

Kishore Mahbubani is a writer, professor, and a former Singaporean diplomat who served twice as ambassador to the UN. In his new book The Great Convergence: Asia, the West, and the Logic of One World, he argues that the world has seen more positive change in the past 30 years than in the 300 that preceded it. The global middle class is growing. Poverty levels have fallen;  major wars have decreased and people are better educated and better informed. The world is connected in new ways. Mahbubani thinks we are at the dawn of a new age.My conversation with Kishare Mahbubani: var gaJsHost = (("https:" == document.location.protocol) ? "https://ssl." : "http://www."); document.write(unescape("%3Cscript src='" + gaJsHost + "google-analytics.com/ga.js' type='text/javascript'%3E%3C/script%3E")); try { var pageTracker = _gat._getTracker("UA-6296941-2"); pageTracker._trackPageview(); } catch(err) {}

Donald Rumsfeld had an interesting philosophy. He often said that sometimes the solution to a small intractable problem, was to create a much bigger problem or crisis which would, he thought, often make the bigger problem easier to solve. In some ways Dwight Eisenhower, our 34th President, subscribed to a similar idea. In order to avoid fighting small wars, which he was totally opposed to, he created the bluff of the potential for a much bigger nuclear Armageddon. In so doing, he helped set the country on a path to prevail in the Cold War. Now, award winning journalist Evan Thomas looks at Ike's unique talents in Ike's Bluff: President Eisenhower's Secret Battle to Save the World. My conversation with Evan Thomas: var gaJsHost = (("https:" == document.location.protocol) ? "https://ssl." : "http://www."); document.write(unescape("%3Cscript src='" + gaJsHost + "google-analytics.com/ga.js' type='text/javascript'%3E%3C/script%3E")); try { var pageTracker = _gat._getTracker("UA-6296941-2"); pageTracker._trackPageview(); } catch(err) {}

This past Monday marked the 100th anniversary of the birth of Rosa Parks. She would become one of the most well know women of the twentieth century. When she died in 2005, her body was placed in the Capitol rotunda. Yet the narrative of her life is often defined as a reluctant champion of civil rights, whose one action, on a bus in Montgomery in 1955, made her an iconic figure. In fact, her life was was really a lifelong fight for for the black freedom struggle. Historian Jeanne Theoharis in The Rebellious Life of Mrs. Rosa Parks paints a broad and nuanced picture of Rosa Parks as a sophisticated political actor and thinker. My conversation with Jeanne Theoharis: var gaJsHost = (("https:" == document.location.protocol) ? "https://ssl." : "http://www."); document.write(unescape("%3Cscript src='" + gaJsHost + "google-analytics.com/ga.js' type='text/javascript'%3E%3C/script%3E")); try { var pageTracker = _gat._getTracker("UA-6296941-2"); pageTracker._trackPageview(); } catch(err) {}

Few things are more personal than how we grieve. While society is often quick to judge and volumes have been written about the process, no one can know how we individually feel pain, love and loss. In the end though, it’s like so many things in life. We bring to it our innate talents and skills and summon up our strengths to do that which is so difficult. In the case of Danny Gregory, he would reach into his talents as an artist and designer to bring color and life to the darkness of grieving.  His graphic memoir of that experience is A Kiss Before You Go: An Illustrated Memoir of Love and Loss. My conversation with Danny Gregory: var gaJsHost = (("https:" == document.location.protocol) ? "https://ssl." : "http://www."); document.write(unescape("%3Cscript src='" + gaJsHost + "google-analytics.com/ga.js' type='text/javascript'%3E%3C/script%3E")); try { var pageTracker = _gat._getTracker("UA-6296941-2"); pageTracker._trackPageview(); } catch(err) {}

The inherent drama of presidential campaigns has given us a long line of great political reporting. From Theodore White, who set the bar in 1960, through Timothy Kraus, Richard Ben Cramer, who left us recently, Joe McGinniss and even Hunter Thompson. Today, Rolling Stone and BuzzFeed reporter Michael Hastings picks up that mantle. In many ways coverage of a campaign is an inherently boring job, but some reporters make the connection between the campaign, the times and the candidate. That's what Michael Hastings as accomplished in his new ebook Panic 2012: The Sublime and Terrifying Inside Story of Obama's Final Campaign. try { var pageTracker = _gat._getTracker("UA-6296941-2"); pageTracker._trackPageview(); } catch(err) {} My conversation with Michael Hastings: var gaJsHost = (("https:" == document.location.protocol) ? "https://ssl." : "http://www."); document.write(unescape("%3Cscript src='" + gaJsHost + "google-analytics.com/ga.js' type='text/javascript'%3E%3C/script%3E")); try { var pageTracker = _gat._getTracker("UA-6296941-2"); pageTracker._trackPageview(); } catch(err) {}

In life there is often a disconnect between what we mark, what we celebrate and the actual underlying reasons that we do so. We mark births and deaths, yet the back story for both may have been years in the making. We mark the beginning and end of wars, yet give little significance for the reasons that lead to either. So too was it for the founding of the American republic. 1776 marks the year in which seminal events took place. But the events that gave birth to them, happened earlier, in what esteemed historian Kevin Phillips says was 1775: A Good Year for Revolution.My conversation with Kevin Phillips: var gaJsHost = (("https:" == document.location.protocol) ? "https://ssl." : "http://www."); document.write(unescape("%3Cscript src='" + gaJsHost + "google-analytics.com/ga.js' type='text/javascript'%3E%3C/script%3E")); try { var pageTracker = _gat._getTracker("UA-6296941-2"); pageTracker._trackPageview(); } catch(err) {}

With US domestic markets facing greater competition; with the margins on most products shrinking, American companies are looking for international opportunities. When they do, the first place they usually look is to the worlds largest market, in China. But doing business in China is no easy task. The customs, the culture, the paperwork are sometimes daunting. For many business people, brokers and middlemen exists to help you with this process. But nothing beats knowing the facts and relationships yourself. Stanley Chao has guided many through the process. Now he takes us all on the journey in Selling to China: A Guide to Doing Business in China for Small- and Medium-Sized Companies.My conversation with Stanley Chao: var gaJsHost = (("https:" == document.location.protocol) ? "https://ssl." : "http://www."); document.write(unescape("%3Cscript src='" + gaJsHost + "google-analytics.com/ga.js' type='text/javascript'%3E%3C/script%3E")); try { var pageTracker = _gat._getTracker("UA-6296941-2"); pageTracker._trackPageview(); } catch(err) {}

Scott Fitzgerald said that "there are no second acts in American lives." Yet today we know there are third and fourths. Coupled we this, we've all heard about the impact of eduction and the value, especially for older workers, of retraining and the importance of our Community Colleges. In fact the discussion about Community Colleges, has become a kind o holy grail when talking about the future of work. Yet what's really happening on the ground? How is it working and what can be done better. UCLA Professor Mike Rose takes this up in his new work Back to School: Why Everyone Deserves A Second Chance at Education My conversation with Mike Rose: var gaJsHost = (("https:" == document.location.protocol) ? "https://ssl." : "http://www."); document.write(unescape("%3Cscript src='" + gaJsHost + "google-analytics.com/ga.js' type='text/javascript'%3E%3C/script%3E")); try { var pageTracker = _gat._getTracker("UA-6296941-2"); pageTracker._trackPageview(); } catch(err) {}

John Stuart Mill said, back in 1848, that "It is hardly possible to overstate the value, in the present low state of human improvement, of placing human beings in contact with persons dissimilar to themselves, and with modes of thought and action dissimilar to themselves, and with modes of thought and action unlike those with which they are familiar ... Such communication has always been, and is particularly in the present age, one of the primary sources of progress." Given the globalized nature of our world, nothing could be more true, even 164 years later. Jesse Aizenstat has done exactly that. Using his love of surfing, he forged a common bond with the disparate peoples of the Middle East and proved, beyond a shadow of a doubt, the ability of our common humanity to transcend those man made constructs that divide us.My conversation with Jesse Aizenstat about Surfing the Middle East: Deviant Journalism from the Lost Generation var gaJsHost = (("https:" == document.location.protocol) ? "https://ssl." : "http://www."); document.write(unescape("%3Cscript src='" + gaJsHost + "google-analytics.com/ga.js' type='text/javascript'%3E%3C/script%3E")); try { var pageTracker = _gat._getTracker("UA-6296941-2"); pageTracker._trackPageview(); } catch(err) {}

Many fear that technology is out of control. But perhaps, what’s really out of control is an imbalance of values. Over the last few centuries we humans have drastically valued technology as a solution to the problems of life. Consequently the emotional aspect of problem solving has often been left by the wayside. Few understand this dichotomy better than bestselling novelist Dr. Robin Cook. He has used this imbalance to scare the bejesus out of us in his books like Coma, Cure, and Fever. Now in his latest work, Nano, he once again walks us through the cost benefit analysis of medical technology falling into the wrong hands. My conversation with Robin Cook: var gaJsHost = (("https:" == document.location.protocol) ? "https://ssl." : "http://www."); document.write(unescape("%3Cscript src='" + gaJsHost + "google-analytics.com/ga.js' type='text/javascript'%3E%3C/script%3E")); try { var pageTracker = _gat._getTracker("UA-6296941-2"); pageTracker._trackPageview(); } catch(err) {}

If we were talk about a time of bitter angry partisanship, flawed leaders lusting after women and power, worried perhaps more about their legacy than their constituents. Politicians who were accused of being pragmatic rather than idealistic. Who sometimes did care about ideas, but to the determent of good politics. We might easily be talking about current members of Congress, President Obama, President Clinton or Jack Kennedy. In fact, we’d also be talking about Thomas Jefferson. The man whose idealization has in many ways clouded how we should see and understand the better nature of politics...even today. Pulitzer prize winning biographer and journalist Jon Meacham, in his new book Thomas Jefferson: The Art of Power gets to the heart of who Thomas Jefferson really dined with, when he dined alone. My conversation with Jon Meacham: var gaJsHost = (("https:" == document.location.protocol) ? "https://ssl." : "http://www."); document.write(unescape("%3Cscript src='" + gaJsHost + "google-analytics.com/ga.js' type='text/javascript'%3E%3C/script%3E")); try { var pageTracker = _gat._getTracker("UA-6296941-2"); pageTracker._trackPageview();} catch(err) {} My conversation with Jon Meacham:

If the debate about healthcare has taught us anything, it is the consequence and impact of unexpected disease. One illness can put us into poverty.  But it can also literally make us crazy. Imagine an illness, a medical mystery at first, that exhibits all the signs of demonic possession, that takes you over the line between sanity and insanity. That's the story of Susannah Cahalan. She tell us her remarkable story in her memoir Brain on Fire: My Month of Madness .My conversation with Susannah Cahalan: var gaJsHost = (("https:" == document.location.protocol) ? "https://ssl." : "http://www."); document.write(unescape("%3Cscript src='" + gaJsHost + "google-analytics.com/ga.js' type='text/javascript'%3E%3C/script%3E")); try { var pageTracker = _gat._getTracker("UA-6296941-2"); pageTracker._trackPageview(); } catch(err) {}

Why are there so few big name woman chefs? How are they different than men in the kitchen? Why have both Julia Child and The Food Network done a disservice to women in the kitchen? Powerhouse food journalist Charlotte Druckman takes us behind the kitchen doors of some of some of the leading female chefs in Skirt Steak: Women Chefs on Standing the Heat and Staying in the KitchenMy conversation with Charlotte Druckman: var gaJsHost = (("https:" == document.location.protocol) ? "https://ssl." : "http://www."); document.write(unescape("%3Cscript src='" + gaJsHost + "google-analytics.com/ga.js' type='text/javascript'%3E%3C/script%3E")); try { var pageTracker = _gat._getTracker("UA-6296941-2"); pageTracker._trackPageview(); } catch(err) {}

Perhaps more than at any other time in the history of the world, democracy is on the march. But the idea that people, individual citizens could engage in the practice of self government wasn't always so. In fact, it was only with the creation of our constitution, launched 225 years ago, that the idea was even appropriately articulated. But that constitution as brilliant and profound and clever as it was, was not the be all and end all of democracy. It was a starting point from which we would develop laws, establish precedent, and nourish institutions which would provide the foundations of self government. Those things have grown to become, what Akhil Amar, the Sterling Professor of Law and Political Science at Yale, calls America's Unwritten Constitution.My conversation with Akhil Amar: var gaJsHost = (("https:" == document.location.protocol) ? "https://ssl." : "http://www."); document.write(unescape("%3Cscript src='" + gaJsHost + "google-analytics.com/ga.js' type='text/javascript'%3E%3C/script%3E")); try { var pageTracker = _gat._getTracker("UA-6296941-2"); pageTracker._trackPageview(); } catch(err) {}

Creative destruction, while it may destroy and reshape individual companies, is an ongoing process. We all remember the earliest days of pay-per-view movies, which begat home video and the VCR, which gave rise to quaint local video stores, which gave us Blockbuster, which gave us Hollywood Video. Then the DVD made those spaces even more abundant. And then Netflix made video rental even easier. No late fees, door to door service and curation. Now it seems Netflix is under siege. Digital delivery has replaced the DVD rental model and we’ll see how all this plays out.   Taking a look at this emblematic history is journalist Gina Keating, author of the much talked about book Netflixed: The Epic Battle for America's EyeballsMy conversation with Gina Keating: var gaJsHost = (("https:" == document.location.protocol) ? "https://ssl." : "http://www."); document.write(unescape("%3Cscript src='" + gaJsHost + "google-analytics.com/ga.js' type='text/javascript'%3E%3C/script%3E")); try { var pageTracker = _gat._getTracker("UA-6296941-2"); pageTracker._trackPageview(); } catch(err) {}

We are reminded every day how polarized our politics have become. The gap between the Republican and Democratic parties is wider than ever. The lack of bipartisanship is not because we have leaders of ill will, but because the gap in ideas and vision has become so wide. This is reflected in our elections, in our news, in Congress and in the Supreme Court of the United States. Barack Obama, our 44th President and John Roberts, our 17th Chief Justice personify the apex of that divide. This is the back drop for Jeffrey Toobin's new book The Oath: The Obama White House and the Supreme Court.My conversation with Jeffrey Toobin: var gaJsHost = (("https:" == document.location.protocol) ? "https://ssl." : "http://www."); document.write(unescape("%3Cscript src='" + gaJsHost + "google-analytics.com/ga.js' type='text/javascript'%3E%3C/script%3E")); try { var pageTracker = _gat._getTracker("UA-6296941-2"); pageTracker._trackPageview(); } catch(err) {}

The longest serving US Senator from South Carolina made a career out of what he called “unreconstructed racism.” Arguing in a 1948 presidential campaign speech, that "there are not enough troops in the army to force the southern people to break down segregation,” but segregation did change, as did Thurmond. When we look at the Republican party today we see that it has changed greatly in the past 50 years, particularly in the south and sun belt. Many of us attribute much of this to Nixon's “southern strategy.” But it was only after his death that the full complexity emerged about Thurmond’s role in creating what is, for better or worse, today's Republican party. Joseph Crespino looks at all of this in his new look at Thurmond in Strom Thurmond's AmericaMy conversation with Joseph Crespino: var gaJsHost = (("https:" == document.location.protocol) ? "https://ssl." : "http://www."); document.write(unescape("%3Cscript src='" + gaJsHost + "google-analytics.com/ga.js' type='text/javascript'%3E%3C/script%3E")); try { var pageTracker = _gat._getTracker("UA-6296941-2"); pageTracker._trackPageview(); } catch(err) {}

Back in 1980 Ronald Reagan rode into office on the strength of what were then called “Reagan Democrats.” Blue collar, less educated, middle class workers who, until Reagan, were part of the New Deal coalition. Today, many of these voters are lost to the Democrats. And while President Obama certainly has done better with them than Al Gore or John Kerry, the culture war issues and the societal changes that they reflect, continue to drive a wedge between those voters and the Democratic party. Joan Walsh, editor at large for Salon.com, and an MSNBC political analyst looks at this changing political landscape in What's the Matter with White People: Why We Long for a Golden Age That Never Was. My conversation with Joan Walsh: var gaJsHost = (("https:" == document.location.protocol) ? "https://ssl." : "http://www."); document.write(unescape("%3Cscript src='" + gaJsHost + "google-analytics.com/ga.js' type='text/javascript'%3E%3C/script%3E")); try { var pageTracker = _gat._getTracker("UA-6296941-2"); pageTracker._trackPageview(); } catch(err) {}

Rahm Emanuel, the current Mayor of Chicago and the President's former Chief Of Staff said, during the height of the economic crisis "that you should never let a serious crisis go to waste." Obama did not. And now Time Magazine senior editor Michael Grunwald shows how the Obama administration heeded that advice. Grunwald argues that the stimulus, that helped to save the US economy, a stimulus that we’re barely talking about in the context of the current election, was one of the most profound pieces of legislation since the New Deal. It is perhaps the 800 billion pound gorilla that is reshaping America.. My conversation with Michael Grunwald: var gaJsHost = (("https:" == document.location.protocol) ? "https://ssl." : "http://www."); document.write(unescape("%3Cscript src='" + gaJsHost + "google-analytics.com/ga.js' type='text/javascript'%3E%3C/script%3E")); try { var pageTracker = _gat._getTracker("UA-6296941-2"); pageTracker._trackPageview(); } catch(err) {}

Back in 1966, James Brown first recorded "It's a Man's, Man's World." 1966 was a time of Mad Men, it was the same year that Betty Friedan founded NOW, and three years after the publication of the Feminine Mystique. Today, 46 years later, women are dominating almost every aspect of society; work, education, culture and personal lives. How did we get here and what does it mean for our future? In a way it’s a perfect storm. The changing nature of work, the move from an industrial to an information based economy, requiring a different set of skills, plus the social revolution of the 60's, the civil rights movement, title IX, and finally the failure, around the world, of patriarchy in all its forms, all played some part. As a result, have we reached the end of 200,000 years of human history OR is this simply a mid course correction on the road to greater gender equality and the full flourishing of both sexes?  Atlantic senior editor Hanna Rosin brings it all into focus in her bestselling book The End of Men: And the Rise of Women .My conversation with Hanna Rosin: var gaJsHost = (("https:" == document.location.protocol) ? "https://ssl." : "http://www."); document.write(unescape("%3Cscript src='" + gaJsHost + "google-analytics.com/ga.js' type='text/javascript'%3E%3C/script%3E")); try { var pageTracker = _gat._getTracker("UA-6296941-2"); pageTracker._trackPageview(); } catch(err) {}

If there is any one problem that has run through the center of American foreign policy over the past 30 years, through five successive administrations, Republican and Democrat alike, it is the poisoned relationship with Iran As students yelled “death to the Shah” in 1979, it set in motion a chain of events, an anti Americanism, that has become a part to the DNA of the country itself. Trying to understand it, and treat it has been one of the central pillars of our foreign policy. Yet with each successive treatment, the disease always threatens to burst out and become full blown. This is where we are once again, and why we need take a look as new book by the senior historian for the federal government, David Crist.My conversation with David Crist about The Twilight War: The Secret History of America's Thirty-Year Conflict with Iran: var gaJsHost = (("https:" == document.location.protocol) ? "https://ssl." : "http://www."); document.write(unescape("%3Cscript src='" + gaJsHost + "google-analytics.com/ga.js' type='text/javascript'%3E%3C/script%3E")); try { var pageTracker = _gat._getTracker("UA-6296941-2"); pageTracker._trackPageview(); } catch(err) {}

To date there has not been a single prosecution, much less a serious investigation into the events that brought the US economy to its knees. The SEC has not changed the rules, the Senate has repeatedly kowtowed to the big banks and "too big to fail" is still the name of the game. Are these just random issues, or is Wall Street simply too powerful for any part of the government to take on? Or should it even try?  Former White House and Senate staffer, Jeff Connaughton takes a look at all of this in The Payoff: Why Wall Street Always Wins.   My conversation with Jeff Connaughton:  var gaJsHost = (("https:" == document.location.protocol) ? "https://ssl." : "http://www."); document.write(unescape("%3Cscript src='" + gaJsHost + "google-analytics.com/ga.js' type='text/javascript'%3E%3C/script%3E")); try { var pageTracker = _gat._getTracker("UA-6296941-2"); pageTracker._trackPageview(); } catch(err) {}

Episode #58 of TIWWH – Wayne’s Take on Ballroom Dancing.  Another podcast produced by , at         Please call the listener feedback line at (206) 984-1446 or email to !Episode #58 of TIWWH – Wayne’s Take on Ballroom Dancing:Dancing With The StarsSo You Think You Can Dance?Please browse the .PLEASE write a glowing review of the Tuning In With Wayne Henderson podcast in .I'm proud to announce that I now produce the first ever podcast all about the upcoming FOX tv show Fringe!  The podcast is at Many thanks for Tuning In With Wayne Henderson.  Remember to keep dancing!Wayne This work is licensed under a . Twitter Updates <!-- google_ad_client = "pub-4264668257411982"; google_ad_width = 468; google_ad_height = 60; google_ad_format = "468x60_as"; google_ad_type = "text_image"; google_ad_channel =""; //--> var gaJsHost = (("https:" == document.location.protocol) ? "https://ssl." : "http://www."); document.write(unescape("%3Cscript src='" + gaJsHost + "google-analytics.com/ga.js' type='text/javascript'%3E%3C/script%3E")); var pageTracker = _gat._getTracker("UA-xxxxxx-x"); pageTracker._setLocalRemoteServerMode(); pageTracker._initData(); pageTracker._trackPageview();

Episode #12 of the by Wayne Henderson Voice-overs, at         Call the listener feedback line at (206) 984-1446 or send an email to   Be sure to . Episode #12 of the features:> Island protection confirmed on Official LOST podcast> Thoughts, theories, and feedbackPlease check out the .Wayne Other podcasts produced by The on Green Bay Packers and Ballroom Dancing   The This work is licensed under a . <!-- google_ad_client = "pub-4264668257411982"; google_ad_width = 468; google_ad_height = 60; google_ad_format = "468x60_as"; google_ad_type = "text_image"; google_ad_channel =""; //--> var gaJsHost = (("https:" == document.location.protocol) ? "https://ssl." : "http://www."); document.write(unescape("%3Cscript src='" + gaJsHost + "google-analytics.com/ga.js' type='text/javascript'%3E%3C/script%3E")); var pageTracker = _gat._getTracker("UA-xxxxxx-x"); pageTracker._setLocalRemoteServerMode(); pageTracker._initData(); pageTracker._trackPageview(); Twitter Updates

Episode #01 of the by Wayne Henderson Voice-overs, at         Call the listener feedback line at (206) 984-1446 or send an email to   Be sure to . Episode #01 of the  features:> First Thoughts: There’s No Place Like Home> How does one carefully move an island?Please check out the .Wayne Other podcasts produced by The on Green Bay Packers and Ballroom Dancing   The This work is licensed under a . <!-- google_ad_client = "pub-4264668257411982"; google_ad_width = 468; google_ad_height = 60; google_ad_format = "468x60_as"; google_ad_type = "text_image"; google_ad_channel =""; //--> var gaJsHost = (("https:" == document.location.protocol) ? "https://ssl." : "http://www."); document.write(unescape("%3Cscript src='" + gaJsHost + "google-analytics.com/ga.js' type='text/javascript'%3E%3C/script%3E")); var pageTracker = _gat._getTracker("UA-xxxxxx-x"); pageTracker._setLocalRemoteServerMode(); pageTracker._initData(); pageTracker._trackPageview(); Twitter Updates

Episode #11 of the by Wayne Henderson Voice-overs, at         Call the listener feedback line at (206) 984-1446 or send an email to   Be sure to . Episode #11 of the features:> First Thoughts: There’s No Place Like Home> How does one carefully move an island?Please check out the .Wayne Other podcasts produced by The on Green Bay Packers and Ballroom Dancing   The This work is licensed under a . <!-- google_ad_client = "pub-4264668257411982"; google_ad_width = 468; google_ad_height = 60; google_ad_format = "468x60_as"; google_ad_type = "text_image"; google_ad_channel =""; //--> var gaJsHost = (("https:" == document.location.protocol) ? "https://ssl." : "http://www."); document.write(unescape("%3Cscript src='" + gaJsHost + "google-analytics.com/ga.js' type='text/javascript'%3E%3C/script%3E")); var pageTracker = _gat._getTracker("UA-xxxxxx-x"); pageTracker._setLocalRemoteServerMode(); pageTracker._initData(); pageTracker._trackPageview(); Twitter Updates

Episode #57 of TIWWH – Wayne’s Take on Ballroom Dancing.  Another podcast produced by         Please call the listener feedback line at (206) 984-1446 or email to  Episode #57 of TIWWH – Wayne’s Take on Ballroom Dancing:> Dancing With The Stars> Ballroom Dancing at Arthur Murray's Medal Ball> > PSA for UNICEF Myanmar relief efforts         Check out the .Many thanks for Tuning In With Wayne Henderson and for Remember to keep dancing!Wayne This work is licensed under a . Twitter Updates var gaJsHost = (("https:" == document.location.protocol) ? "https://ssl." : "http://www."); document.write(unescape("%3Cscript src='" + gaJsHost + "google-analytics.com/ga.js' type='text/javascript'%3E%3C/script%3E")); var pageTracker = _gat._getTracker("UA-xxxxxx-x"); pageTracker._setLocalRemoteServerMode(); pageTracker._initData(); pageTracker._trackPageview();

Episode #10 of the by Wayne Henderson Voice-overs, at         Call the listener feedback line at (206) 984-1446 or send an email to   Be sure to . Episode #10 of the features:> Buddy Holly> > Locke the survivor> Thoughts, theories, and feedbackPlease check out the .Wayne Other podcasts produced by The on Green Bay Packers and Ballroom Dancing   The This work is licensed under a . var gaJsHost = (("https:" == document.location.protocol) ? "https://ssl." : "http://www."); document.write(unescape("%3Cscript src='" + gaJsHost + "google-analytics.com/ga.js' type='text/javascript'%3E%3C/script%3E")); var pageTracker = _gat._getTracker("UA-xxxxxx-x"); pageTracker._setLocalRemoteServerMode(); pageTracker._initData(); pageTracker._trackPageview(); Twitter Updates