Podcasts about schechtman

David Ulin, one of Los Angeles's most perceptive chroniclers and an editor of Joan Didion's collected works, reflects on the city's unprecedented urban wildfires through the lens of history, identity, and belonging. Ulin talks about how disasters in Los Angeles paradoxically forge deeper connections between Angelenos and their landscape. Drawing parallels to 9/11 and the 1906 San Francisco earthquake, he explores how this watershed moment — with its destruction of thousands of structures across a burn area of roughly 60 square miles — may reshape Southern California's future. 

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Kerry Lutz and Andy Schechtman discussed the transformative shifts occurring in the gold and silver markets. They analyzed the changing dynamics of price-setting, the impact of rehypothecation on market suppression, and the increasing significance of commodities over currencies. They also highlighted the coordinated efforts of countries in the Global South to stand for delivery of physical metals, signaling a new phase in the global market landscape. The conversation also touched upon the strategic actions of countries like China and India in accumulating and repatriating gold, underscoring the evolving power dynamics in the precious metals market. The speakers also expressed deep concerns about the over-leveraged and under-capitalized world, highlighting the potential repercussions of rising interest rates and the strain on the financial system. They questioned the sustainability of the current economic situation and pointed out significant shortfalls in government programs. Both speakers emphasized the need to be contrarian and cautious in the face of these economic challenges. The conversation also delved into a detailed discussion about their investment strategies and perspectives on Bitcoin and gold. Both speakers advocated for a complementary approach to Bitcoin and gold investments, recognizing the potential for exponential growth with Bitcoin and the historical value of gold as a hedge against inflation. They also discussed the importance of reputation and social proof in their industry, emphasizing the significance of maintaining a high standard and the impact of third-party endorsements on credibility. Find Andy here: milesfranklin.com  Find Kerry here: FSN and here: inflation.cafe

In his new book "Welcome to the O.C.," Rolling Stone's chief television critic, Alan Sepinwall, provides an oral history of a cultural phenomenon that became an example of unpredictable success. Despite many shows featuring attractive casts and glamorous California settings, "The O.C." managed to stand out — and change the formula for television teen dramas. Its story offers insights into the cultural context of California and Orange County in the early aughts and underscores the elusive nature of hits in entertainment.

We caught up with Spafford's Jordan Fairless about Cory Schechtman's first year with the band and how he helped writing the new tune Motel 6  Ep: 297 #ATJPod  More: https://www.spafford.net/ @allthatjampod on IG, FB, and Twitter - www.allthatjampod.com - Subscribe - leave a review - tell a friend. Merch: https://t.co/QgtAisVtbV All That Jam is brought to you by Executive Producers Amanda Cadran and Kevin Hogan. Produced and edited by Amanda Cadran and Kevin Hogan. Mixed and Mastered by Kevin Hogan. Original Music by Aaron Gaul. Art by Amanda Cadran.

Link to bioRxiv paper: http://biorxiv.org/cgi/content/short/2023.07.26.546400v1?rss=1 Authors: Tal, A., Schechtman, E., Caughran, B., Paller, K., Davachi, L. Abstract: Newly formed memories are not passively stored for future retrieval; rather, they are reactivated offline and thereby strengthened and transformed. However, reactivation is not a uniform process: it occurs throughout different states of consciousness, including conscious rehearsal during wakefulness and unconscious processing during both wakefulness and sleep. In this study, we explore the consequences of reactivation during conscious and unconscious awake states. Forty-one participants learned associations consisting of adjective-object- position triads. Objects were clustered into distinct semantic groups (e.g., multiple fruits, vehicles, musical instruments) which allowed us to examine the consequences of reactivation on semantically-related memories. After an extensive learning phase, some triads were reactivated consciously, through cued retrieval, or unconsciously, through subliminal priming. In both conditions, the adjective was used as the cue. Reactivation impacted memory for the most distal association (i.e., the spatial position of associated objects) in a consciousness-dependent and memory-strength-dependent manner. First, conscious reactivation of a triad resulted in a weakening of other semantically related memories, but only those that were initially more accurate (i.e., memories with lower pre-reactivation spatial errors). This is similar to what has been previously demonstrated in studies employing retrieval-induced forgetting designs. Unconscious reactivation, on the other hand, benefited memory selectively for weak cued items. Semantically linked associations were not impaired, but rather integrated with the reactivated memory. Taken together, our results demonstrate that conscious and unconscious reactivation of memories during wakefulness have qualitatively different consequences on memory for distal associations. Effects are memory-strength-dependent, as has been shown for reactivation during sleep. Results support a consciousness-dependent inhibition account, according to which unconscious reactivation involves less inhibitory dynamics than conscious reactivation, thus allowing more liberal spread of activation. Our findings set the stage for additional exploration into the role of consciousness in memory structuring. Copy rights belong to original authors. Visit the link for more info Podcast created by Paper Player, LLC

Sports executive Andy Dolich, co-author of the new book "Goodbye Oakland: Winning, Wanderlust, and a Sports Town's Fight for Survival," discusses Oakland's bad sports luck. He talks about the exhilarating highs of victory and the painful lows of abandonment as the Raiders, the Warriors, and now the A's, all depart for ostensibly greener pastures. Once a celebrated sports hub, Oakland boasted a remarkable collection of national titles, star athletes, and colorful personalities. So, what led to this decline? Furthermore, does Oakland hold any potential for a future in sports?

Most of us were learning the alphabet or how to read in kindergarten. But what if you could have been doing scientific experiments? On this episode of Let's Talk Chemistry, hosts Yeongseo Son and Olivia Lambertson talk about their interview with Dr. Danny Schechtman, the 2011 Nobel Laureate and Distinguished Professor of Material Science and Engineering at Iowa State University. We talk about transmission electron microscopy, quasicrystals, a science kindergarten, and facing backlash in science. We hope you enjoy! If you would like to know more about Dr. Danny Schectman you can check out his Noble Prize-winning discovery or reach him by email at dannys@iastate.edu. About us: ChemTalk is a small student-led and ad-free non-profit working to become the top chemistry education platform in the country. Please support us by following our social media channels, sharing our content, and donating if possible. You can access our website for videos, articles, and tutorials on general, organic, and biochemistry. We also have a VERY cool interactive periodic table, articles about the elements and their properties, and experiment demos. ChemTalk is on TikTok, Instagram, Facebook, and Twitter which you can access here. Thank you for listening and see you next time!

In this episode of the Deep into Sleep podcast, host Dr. Yishan welcomes Dr.Eitan Schechtman, an assistant professor at the University of California Irvine, and head of the Cognitive Neuroscience of Sleep Lab. Dr. Schechtman discusses the modern literature and research methods used to understand how dreams and memories connect with each other, and how this connection can be used in clinical treatments. He explains that there are two lines of methods used to study memory and sleep: one is designed to solve the causality question and the other is designed to study the neural mechanisms of memory processing during sleep. Dr. Schechtman's research sheds light on how we can manipulate our sleep, especially our dreams, to bring healing power.Show Notes: deepintosleep.co/episode/memory-sleep-technologyConnect with Dr. YishanInstagram: @mind_body_gardenTwitter: @dryishanFacebook: @mindbodygardenConnect with Dr. Eitan SchechtmanEmail: eitans@uci.eduTwitter: @TMR_et_al Newsletter and Download Free Sleep Guidance E-Book:https://www.mindbodygarden.com/sleepCBT-I Courses:English: https://www.deepintosleep.co/insomnia.Chinese: https://www.mindbodygarden.com/sleepPodcast Links:Apple Podcast: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/deep-into-sleep/id1475295840Google Podcast: https://podcasts.google.com/search/deepintosleepStitcher: https://www.stitcher.com/show/deep-into-sleepSpotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/2Vxyyj9Cswuk91OYztzcMSiHeartRadio: https://www.iheart.com/podcast/269-deep-into-sleep-47827108/Support our Podcast: https://www.buymeacoffee.com/dryishanLeave us a Rating: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/deep-into-sleep/id1475295840

In this episode of the Deep into Sleep podcast, Dr. Yishan interviews Dr. Eitan Schechtman, an assistant professor at the University of California Irvine, and head of the Cognitive Neuroscience of Sleep Lab. They discuss the relationship between sleep and memory consolidation, with Dr. Schectman sharing his expertise on the topic. He explains that sleep is essential for remembering things better and performing better, and talks about some of the exciting studies he has conducted in his lab. This episode offers a fascinating glimpse into the cutting-edge research being conducted in the field of sleep science.Show Notes: deepintosleep.co/episode/memory-sleepConnect with Dr. YishanInstagram: @mind_body_gardenTwitter: @dryishanFacebook: @mindbodygardenConnect with Dr. Eitan SchechtmanEmail: eitans@uci.eduTwitter: @TMR_et_al Newsletter and Download Free Sleep Guidance E-Book:https://www.mindbodygarden.com/sleepCBT-I Courses:English: https://www.deepintosleep.co/insomnia.Chinese: https://www.mindbodygarden.com/sleepPodcast Links:Apple Podcast: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/deep-into-sleep/id1475295840Google Podcast: https://podcasts.google.com/search/deepintosleepStitcher: https://www.stitcher.com/show/deep-into-sleepSpotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/2Vxyyj9Cswuk91OYztzcMSiHeartRadio: https://www.iheart.com/podcast/269-deep-into-sleep-47827108/Support our Podcast: https://www.buymeacoffee.com/dryishanLeave us a Rating: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/deep-into-sleep/id1475295840

------------------Support the channel------------ Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/thedissenter PayPal: paypal.me/thedissenter PayPal Subscription 1 Dollar: https://tinyurl.com/yb3acuuy PayPal Subscription 3 Dollars: https://tinyurl.com/ybn6bg9l PayPal Subscription 5 Dollars: https://tinyurl.com/ycmr9gpz PayPal Subscription 10 Dollars: https://tinyurl.com/y9r3fc9m PayPal Subscription 20 Dollars: https://tinyurl.com/y95uvkao ------------------Follow me on--------------------- Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/thedissenteryt/ Twitter: https://twitter.com/TheDissenterYT This show is sponsored by Enlites, Learning & Development done differently. Check the website here: http://enlites.com/ Dr. Marya Schechtman is an LAS Distinguished Professor of Philosophy, as well as a member of the Laboratory of Integrative Neuroscience at the University of Illinois Chicago. Her main areas of interest are personal identity, practical reasoning, and bioethics. She is the author of books like The Constitution of Selves (Cornell 1996), and Staying Alive: Personal Identity, Practical Concerns, and the Unity of a Life (Oxford 2014). In this episode, we talk about the self. We start by discussing what the self is, and its relationship with personal identity. We discuss if it is a narrative, if it is unitary, and if coherence is important. We also talk about the social aspects of the self, and ask if we can develop separate selves in virtual worlds. -- A HUGE THANK YOU TO MY PATRONS/SUPPORTERS: PER HELGE LARSEN, JERRY MULLER, HANS FREDRIK SUNDE, BERNARDO SEIXAS, OLAF ALEX, JONATHAN VISSER, ADAM KESSEL, MATTHEW WHITINGBIRD, ARNAUD WOLFF, TIM HOLLOSY, HENRIK AHLENIUS, JOHN CONNORS, FILIP FORS CONNOLLY, DAN DEMETRIOU, ROBERT WINDHAGER, RUI INACIO, ZOOP, MARCO NEVES, COLIN HOLBROOK, SIMON COLUMBUS, PHIL KAVANAGH, JORGE ESPINHA, MIKKEL STORMYR, SAMUEL ANDREEFF, FRANCIS FORDE, TIAGO NUNES, ALEXANDER DANNBAUER, FERGAL CUSSEN, HAL HERZOG, NUNO MACHADO, JONATHAN LEIBRANT, JOÃO LINHARES, STANTON T, SAMUEL CORREA, ERIK HAINES, MARK SMITH, JOÃO EIRA, TOM HUMMEL, SARDUS FRANCE, DAVID SLOAN WILSON, YACILA DEZA-ARAUJO, ROMAIN ROCH, DIEGO LONDOÑO CORREA, YANICK PUNTER, ADANER USMANI, CHARLOTTE BLEASE, NICOLE BARBARO, ADAM HUNT, PAWEL OSTASZEWSKI, NELLEKE BAK, GUY MADISON, GARY G HELLMANN, SAIMA AFZAL, ADRIAN JAEGGI, NICK GOLDEN, PAULO TOLENTINO, JOÃO BARBOSA, JULIAN PRICE, EDWARD HALL, HEDIN BRØNNER, DOUGLAS FRY, FRANCA BORTOLOTTI, GABRIEL PONS CORTÈS, URSULA LITZCKE, SCOTT, ZACHARY FISH, TIM DUFFY, SUNNY SMITH, JON WISMAN, MORTEN EIKELAND, DR BYRD, DANIEL FRIEDMAN, WILLIAM BUCKNER, MAU MARIA, PAUL-GEORGE ARNAUD, LUKE GLOWACKI, GEORGIOS THEOPHANOUS, CHRIS WILLIAMSON, PETER WOLOSZYN, DAVID WILLIAMS, ROOFTOWEL, DIOGO COSTA, ANTON ERIKSSON, CHARLES MOREY, ALEX CHAU, AMAURI MARTÍNEZ, CORALIE CHEVALLIER, PEDRO BONILLA, ZIEGLER, JOÃO BARBOSA, BANGALORE ATHEISTS, LARRY D. LEE JR., OLD HERRINGBONE, STARRY, MICHAEL BAILEY, DAN SPERBER, ROBERT GRESSIS, TOM ROTH, THERPMD, IGOR N, JEFF MCMAHAN, JAKE ZUEHL, BARNABAS RADICS, AND MARK CAMPBELL! A SPECIAL THANKS TO MY PRODUCERS, YZAR WEHBE, JIM FRANK, ŁUKASZ STAFINIAK, TOM VANEGDOM, BERNARD HUGUENEY, CURTIS DIXON, BENEDIKT MUELLER, VEGA GIDEY, THOMAS TRUMBLE, KATHRINE AND PATRICK TOBIN, JONCARLO MONTENEGRO, ROBERT LEWIS, AND AL NICK ORTIZ! AND TO MY EXECUTIVE PRODUCERS, MATTHEW LAVENDER, SERGIU CODREANU, AND BOGDAN KANIVETS!

We discuss Miss Schechtman's journey from a patient to a patient advocate, who through her platform now empowers patients suffering from chronic pain to speak about the injustices they face in today's healthcare system. She has spent years chronicling the false opioid litigation narrative, and has learned how a select few physicians and policy makers led an entire nation down a path of misinformation. To learn more about Miss Schechtman and her advocacy, please visit the The Doctor Patient Forum/Don't Punish Pain site. https://www.thedoctorpatientforum.com/component/tags/tag/don-t-punish-pain

Prof. Susan Handy teaches in the Department of Environmental Science and Policy at U.C. Davis. With degrees from U.C. Berkeley, Stanford and Princeton, her research focuses on the relationships between transportation and land use. Handy talks about how all the federal infrastructure dollars coming to California, which everyone seems excited about, may not be the best thing for traffic, climate, or land use policy.

Minda's guests today are Marc Schechtman and Dr. Linda Strause. Marc is a Veteran of the US Air Force Reserves. Fifty years ago, he did his basic training at Lackland AFB in San Antonio, Texas, then served as a Chaplain's Assistant at Sewart AFB in Smyrna, TN, working in a church. And Linda is a professor of Human Nutrition at UCSD. She is also a clinical research professional with over 25 years of experience. She's considered among the top in her field and had previously spent 15 years volunteering and working at San Diego Hospice. Randy's Remedy products are powered by Cannaka, a botanically complete blend of natural cannabinoids and terpenes derived from hemp. Natural cannabinoids are active non-dietary ingredients that target the endocannabinoid system which is responsible for modulating homeostasis in the body. These active ingredients, combined with essential terpenes support the endocannabinoid system and promote a healthy inflammatory response. Developed by the Strause Group; Linda, Tyler, and Brendon Strause, Randy's Remedy are the products they wished they had when their husband and father, Randy, was diagnosed with glioblastoma multiforme, an incurable brain cancer. Together they helped develop Cannaka and Randy's Remedy products delivering all the healthful benefits of natural cannabinoids and terpenes from hemp. Facebook https://randysclub.com/

In this episode we hear from David Schechtman, Senior Executive Managing Director at Meridian Investment Sales. In this wide-ranging chat we hear about the state of the market, current investing strategies, and where things in NYC are headed.

Dr. Joy Schechtman, a rheumatologist joins the podcast to discuss topics in rheumatology and more in this PV Roundup specialist spotlight podcast.

This week we had on our first guest: Josh Schechtman from Bloomberg!! We dive deep into the details about his move to Sydney, his college days, living/working in Australia, experience as a "finance bro" living in New York, and how he continues to finesse the system. Make sure to follow us on Instagram @plsfixthxpodcast and our host @joshschechtman. --- Support this podcast: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/plsfixthx/support

Today on Real Estate REality Check, I have a rather easy assignment, given that I am going to attempt the not-so-impossible by bringing our guest out from his shell. The not-so-shy, the always informative and truly effervescent reformed yet long recovered attorney, who is now the Senior Executive Managing Director of Investment Sales for Meridian Capital Group, spends his days not only representing many of the name players in our industry, but also the true stars and integral backbones of NYC, namely the mom-and-pop owners of multifamily, industrial, office and retail properties. Yes my real estate brethren, I give to you the one and (definitely) the only David Schechtman. Thanks for joining us my friend, just a few days after your recovery from a perspective changing moment in your life which we will get to a bit later ... needless to say David, we have some things to talk about, here beside the rising and to many, not so rising tide of real estate, life and the consequential tumult from the pandemic.

Folk singer and avant-garde rabbi talks about his early musical influences, his journey to the United States as a Polish Jew and surrendering to the path of rabbinical studies --- Support this podcast: https://anchor.fm/jake-feinberg/support

Steve Lopez is one of California’s legendary columnists and reporters. In his 45th year in journalism, 20 of those writing a column for the L.A. Times, Lopez's life has merged with the fabric and lifeblood of the city he covers. The author of the best-selling book "The Soloist" shares his views on his career in journalism, housing, and the future of California and Los Angeles.

Conor Dougherty — New York Times economics reporter, Bay Area native, and the author of "Golden Gates" — looks deeply into California’s housing crisis, the historical economic forces that have driven it, the sad results we see on our streets, and the activists pushing for new public policies. He explains how and why what’s happening in California should be a cautionary tale for the rest of the country.

David Talbot, a long time Bay Area journalist and political activist returns to the California Sun podcast to share a reimagined view of the world after his life-threatening stroke. His near-death experience, and what he learned from it, is also the story of our times.

Kenneth Turan, L.A. Times film critic for almost 30 years and the regular film critic for NPR’s "Morning Edition," looks at the state of Hollywood on the eve of the Oscars. He describes a business edgier than some of this year’s movies, one that’s operating far out on the precipice of change and about to be eaten by Netflix.

State Sen. Scott Wiener makes his case for SB 50 by first reminding us that almost one-third of the nation’s housing shortage is in California. In homes per capita, California ranks 49th among U.S. states. Wiener argues that the California tradition of extreme local control of zoning has not worked, while sprawl continues and adds to our environmental woes. For too long, he says, we’ve allowed cites to do whatever they want in a race to the bottom.

Jared Farmer — an environmental historian and geohumanist, sometimes just called "the tree guy" — chronicles California’s post-Gold Rush history through the evolution of four emblematic tree species: redwood, eucalyptus, orange, and palm. As they have changed, so have we. His observations remind us how what is perceived as natural is often just a jumble of cultural legacies.

Thomas Wolf wants to use his experience with and recovery from drugs and homelessness on the streets of the Tenderloin as an opportunity to help others, thank the police officer who rescued him, and reinvent San Francisco’s response to the drug crisis.

Paul Kitagaki Jr., a Pulitzer Prize-winning Sacramento Bee photographer, tells the personal stories of Japanese Americans incarcerated during World War II. Inspired by a Dorothea Lange photograph of his parents' and grandparents' internment, he embarked on a 10-year pilgrimage, photographing survivors of the California camps and seeking to mirror pictures taken during World War II.

Sam Liccardo, the 65th mayor of San Jose, shares his view of the city as facing unique challenges and only now coming into its own. Liccardo also discusses his effort to get elected leaders around the state behind a proposal to turn PG&E into a customer-owned utility.

David Ulin, the former L.A. Times book editor, interprets Joan Didion, just as she interpreted California. As the editor of the new multi-volume edition of her collected works, Ulin shares insights about Didion as a writer and cultural figure and about her vision of California.

California and Silicon Valley may have created much of today’s America. But according to tech entrepreneur and presidential candidate Andrew Yang, the impacts are only just beginning. While we worry about Facebook and social media, we’re overlooking larger threats on the horizon and the “techlash” that will result from artificial intelligence and automation.

Lincoln Mitchell, author of "San Francisco Year Zero," makes the case that the San Francisco of today begins in 1978. The assassination of George Moscone and Harvey Milk, the massacre of Peoples Temple members in Jonestown, the explosion of the city’s punk rock scene, and a breakthrough season for the San Francisco Giants, he says, all led inevitably to 2019 San Francisco.

Willow Bay, dean of the USC Annenberg School for Communication and Journalism, details how the school is developing our next generation of journalists while taking advantage of the unique media resources of Los Angeles and Silicon Valley.

Soleil Ho, the newly minted restaurant critic at the S.F. Chronicle, shares her modern approach to food criticism, the politics of food, and the responsibility of being our culinary cartographer at a time when food is inseparable from who we are.

Producer Rocky Lang and film archivist Barbara Hall share the intimacy of personal letters from the likes of Humphrey Bogart, Audrey Hepburn, Frank Sinatra, John Huston, Ingrid Bergman, and others. Their collection, "Letters from Hollywood," is a voyeuristic but heartfelt examination of a bygone era, where personal letters reflected the passion and work of the time.

Jonathan Littman, an author and innovation consultant, discusses his recent LA Magazine story that pries open how the traffic app Waze is hacking our city streets and adversely impacting neighborhoods — all with the artificial hope that we might get somewhere a few seconds faster.

Autumn McDonald, the director of New America CA and a former advisor to the late San Francisco Mayor Ed Lee, details her organization's disruptive efforts to promote and aid non-profits in seeking economic equity and inclusion via innovation, technology, and storytelling.

Anne Lamott, the beloved California author, has always strived to help us better understand ourselves. She shares some personal touchstones she holds onto in the midst of turmoil and global chaos and she reminds us that “everything will work if you just unplug it for a few minutes.” Her latest book is "Almost Everything: Notes on Hope."

Paul Koretz and Marqueece Harris-Dawson represent polar opposite districts in Los Angeles. Yet the issues they face — housing, climate change, infrastructure, homelessness, and traffic — affect everyone. How they do their job, and whether or not they succeed, could very well determine the future of Los Angeles.

David Ulin, the former book editor of the L.A. Times, points out that few American cities have changed more in the past two decades than Los Angeles. The city that existed at the turn of the century has been reinvented, and the longtime social and cultural critic takes us on a journey through today’s L.A.

Joe Talbot’s debut film, "The Last Black Man in San Francisco," captures the unsteady pulse of an ever-changing city. The film is an ode to what home means as both a brick-and-mortar place as well as a state of mind. Talbot wonders if anyone can still hold onto that sense of home in today’s San Francisco.

Leah Garchik is an original. In an era of transitory work, she had one employer for 47 years. For 35 of those years, as a daily columnist, her voice reflected back to us the world and her city of San Francisco. On the occasion of her retirement last month, she shared insights into her view of the world and how it came to be.

Tony Serra gives an exclusive look at his defense strategy in the ongoing Ghost Ship trial. He explains why he thinks his client, Derick Almena, is not guilty of 36 counts of manslaughter, and gives a preview of what we can expect to hear when Almena takes the stand. Regardless of the outcome, the trial is also about the future of the city of Oakland.

Allison Haley, the district attorney for Napa County, is one of 58 district attorneys in California whose work is profoundly affected by Gov. Gavin Newsom’s decision to suspend the death penalty. Her reaction to it, like that of many of her colleagues, is outrage. She explains her concern for victims and juries after a move that seems out of sync with the will of California voters.

Paul Schrade stood at Robert F. Kennedy’s side at the Ambassador Hotel in Los Angeles, 51 years ago last week. As they entered the kitchen, Schrade was shot along with the presidential candidate. Schrade recovered from his injuries. Now 94 years old, his memories of that tragic night are still vivid. He shared his recollections of Kennedy and the candidate's time in the Central Valley, and of Schrade's own work for the United Auto Workers in California.

Julian Guthrie’s past work has taken us up close and personal with many of Silicon Valley’s most notorious alpha males, including Larry Ellison and Elon Musk. Now she takes us on a journey with the "alpha girls" who braved the male-dominated world of venture capital in Silicon Valley. Their personal stories will shape the future of women in tech, and their professional work impacts us all.

Mark Arax, a long-time California journalist, talks about the epic history of water in the Golden State. His new book, "The Dreamt Land," is a real-life "Chinatown," examining the water wars fought between farmers, activists, corporations, and governments. The story of the movement of water in California appears as a Rosetta Stone for understanding how these arteries of water literally and figuratively tie the state together

Robin Williams’ story is woven into the fabric of both the Bay Area and Hollywood. His drive for success and fame, coupled with always wanting to show us a piece of ourselves, is a very California story — especially as told by N.Y. Times culture reporter Dave Itzkoff, whose book "Robin," is just out in paperback.

Leslie Berlin wrote the book on Silicon Valley. The Project Historian for the Silicon Valley Archives at Stanford, she has profiled microchip discoverer Robert Noyce, and her book "Troublemakers," about Silicon Valley in the 1970s, has been called a “landmark event.” Berlin takes us back to the ’70s, when Ronald Reagan referred to those in the valley as “pioneers of tomorrow." She still sees the region today as “the golden child of the Golden State.”

Randy Shaw, executive director of the Tenderloin Housing Clinic, is a long-time housing activist in the Bay Area and author of the book, "Generation Priced Out." He shares his views about the controversial housing measure SB 50, gentrification, the tech boom, rent control, and the consequences of 30 years of failing to build enough housing in California.

Richard Walker, professor emeritus of geography at U.C. Berkeley, is a student of the renown Marxist geographer David Harvey. Walker brings an approach to his analysis that includes, economics, urban design, politics, and the environment, as well as the history of California. He’s the author of several books, including his most recent: "Pictures of a Gone City: Tech and the Dark Side of Prosperity in the San Francisco Bay Area

Nancy Clare, a longtime Southern California journalist, explains why Beverly Hills is no ordinary city. She tells how the gilded enclave shaped the region's politics, movies, and the battle for water, and gave it a special place in the evolution of Los Angles.

Audrey Cooper, the editor in chief of the San Francisco Chronicle, reminds us that while we often turn our eyes toward Washington, it's local and regional journalism that actually shapes how we live, vote, and earn a living. She shares her vision of local news and the Chronicle's future.

David Kipen, author, journalist, and cultural historian of Los Angeles has scoured libraries, archives, and private estates to assemble a kaleidoscopic view of the unique city of Los Angeles. He shares 500 years of writings in and about the city and the distinct role it has played in the hearts, minds, and imaginations of the public.

A headline in the Economist shouted recently that “socialism is storming back.” Certainly, with the wealth gap, declining social mobility, and climate change, it’s easy to see why some are losing faith in a capitalist society. But should the debate really be about capitalism vs. socialism — or is it a question of too much of a good thing that needs rebalancing?. After all, we once couldn’t get enough of the cars, antibiotics, and entertainment technology that capitalism produced in abundance. Today, that very abundance threatens to overwhelm us. In this week’s WhoWhatWhy podcast, journalist and Fast Company founder Bill Taylor talks to Jeff Schechtman about the language of our current political debate, and why rebuilding the public square is so essential to the survival of capitalism. Taylor talks about the commodification of just about everything these days, arguing that we have “drifted from a “market economy” to a “market society.” The resulting lack of a common civic life, he says, works against the common good. Schechtman and Taylor examine why it’s so essential for business, and leaders in the “commanding heights” of the economy, to take heed before the social, political, and economic consequences become dire. Rather than getting caught up in the polarized debate of the moment, this is a conversation that looks at the things we can actually do to make a change for the better.

There’s no better way to understand the issues and people shaping California today than through its colorful and complex history. Few understood the depth of that history better than Dr. Kevin Starr, the late author of a definitive eight-volume history of California. His work is the gold standard for the Golden State. Dr. Starr died two years ago, but we kick off the California Sun podcast with a special conversation I had with Dr. Starr about California from 1950 to 1963. As you will hear, it’s a time that shaped so much of the California we live in today.

As a regular reader of WhoWhyWhy, you know that we have focused like a laser on election integrity and uncovered story after story about voter suppression in Georgia, Florida, Texas, North Carolina, and elsewhere. But important as all of this is, it's only part of the bigger story.   It was Joseph Stalin who said that “it's not the people who vote that count, it's the people who count the votes.” The 2000 presidential election was a fantastic example of why that matters. You all remember chads, hanging chads, punch cards, Votomatic machines, and how 540 votes and five Supreme Court justices changed America. What if those hanging chads had not been an accident? What if it wasn't the fault — as was claimed at the time — of incompetent voters who didn't know how to completely punch out a chad? What if the cards themselves had been engineered to fail? In a never-before-told story that reads like a detective novel, investigative journalist Stephen Singular finds himself on the floor of the factory that made the infamous punch cards, in negotiations with 60 Minutes trying to get their help, and being given hundreds of unused punch cards to test as he tries to unravel the first great electoral mystery of the 21st century. In this week's WhoWhatWhy podcast, Singular talks to Jeff Schechtman about his just-published ebook Stolen Future: The Untold Story of the 2000 Election. Singular takes us inside the machines that manufacture the perforated cards, whose precision, down to 1/5,000th of an inch, shaped the fate of the republic. Imagine that the war in Iraq could have been caused by a dull blade in one high-speed perforating machine in one factory, or maybe engendered by foul play. Singular examines how the failure of punch cards not only impacted the 2000 election, but became the reason for states to place orders for hundreds of millions of dollars in new electronic voting systems — made by the very same private companies responsible for the 2000 mishap. He tells Schechtman about ES&S, an Omaha-based company with close Republican ties and far-right roots, that manufactures most of the systems to which we entrust our vote. Singular takes us inside 60 Minutes and their failure to pursue a story that may have been too hot for them to handle. In the best tradition of investigative journalism, Singular's journey goes from working with an old friend to test an idea, to having door after door slammed in his face. It's a story that should add a sober new dimension to the efforts to preserve our democracy next week.

This week feels like the culmination of two years of attacks on journalism — including President Donald Trump's ongoing denunciations of the press as “the enemy of the people,” the bombs sent to CNN along with other targets of Trump's verbal venom, and more revelations about the horrifying murder of Washington Post columnist Jamal Khashoggi. Khashoggi, who feared for his life in the months leading up to his killing, spoke about much of this with international journalist Rula Jebreal in one of his last interviews. She is Jeff Schechtman's guest on this week's WhoWhatWhy podcast. Jebreal talks about Khashoggi's views on the Saudi regime of Mohammed bin Salman — views that were, by any objective standard, nuanced and measured. He told Jebreal, in that last interview, that he was not seeking the overthrow of the bin Salman regime, but its reform. Jebreal explains how mournful Khashoggi was that he had tried, in vain, to foster the reformist impulses of the young crown prince.   Khashoggi saw the crown prince as a deeply divided figure: While bin Salman sought to win accolades as a reformer, he also wanted to rule as his grandfather and great-grandfather had — as a tribal leader of unquestioned authority. It was Khashoggi's exposure of bin Salman as a ruler trying to have it both ways that Jebreal thinks most angered him. She says that Khashoggi was murdered “for the crime of having an opinion.”   Jebreal shares with Schechtman what else she learned from Khashoggi, who was her friend. She talks passionately of Khashoggi's views on the Saudi-led, US-supported war in Yemen; the role of journalism in how Americans view the Saudis; and how shocking it is that defense of the Saudi regime is still permissible in polite society.   She tells Schechtman that Khashoggi thought it would probably take a major crisis to change US policy toward Saudi Arabia. What he didn't know was that his murder might be the trigger for that crisis.  

A country does not have to be fascist or have a fascist government in order to be riddled with fascist politics. This is the scary premise Jason Stanley argues in his recent book How Fascism Works: The Politics of Us and Them. Stanley, professor of philosophy at Yale University, is Jeff Schechtman's guest on this week's WhoWhatWhy podcast. Stanley reminds us that while 63 million Americans voted for President Donald Trump, a man who taps into America's worst impulses, historically there is nothing new about the kind of politics he exploits. The attacks on immigrants, the media, cities, elites, and minorities, and the promise to weed out corruption, are all straight out of the fascist playbook.   Stanley talks to Schechtman about what he believes are the ten pillars of fascist politics: the mythic past, propaganda, anti-intellectualism, unreality, hierarchy, victimhood, law and order, sexual anxiety, and appeals to the heartland. He explains how fascists have consistently used these elements to sow division and gain power. We are reminded in this conversation that the US is just as susceptible to fascist politics as Europe or anywhere else. Fascism, Stanley explains, is rooted in the struggle for “the national state” — a struggle fueled by a sense of loss for an idyllic past, which all but demands scapegoating of those “responsible” for that loss. It's about, as Stanley puts it, weaponizing nostalgia. Another key to fascism, as detailed by Stanley, is that it almost always wins by means of democratic elections. He points out that Nazi propaganda minister Joseph Goebbels observed that the great joke on democracy is that its very freedoms lead to the victory of its worst enemy. As Stanley speculates on the future, his greatest fear is that the US is evolving into a one-party state through a perversion of democracy. He singles out candidates like Brian Kemp in Georgia and Kris Kobach in Kansas, who are stoking fear of “others” to create an anti-democratic backlash — and who are masters of voter suppression of non-white voters. He then explains the path that runs from voter suppression to the public's feeling of hopelessness for democracy, and eventually to the collapse of democracy itself. Stanley's is a cautionary tale, taken straight from today's headlines.

The holy grail of physics is a unified field theory that somehow explains both the micro and macro aspects of how the world works. The same holds true for what Thomas Carlyle called the “dismal science” of economics, as we seek to understand the causes and consequences of the 2008 financial meltdown.  In this week's WhoWhatWhy podcast, Jeff Schechtman talks with economic historian Adam Tooze, professor of history at Columbia University and award-winning author, about a reinterpretation of the 2008 financial crisis through the lens of what came before and what followed in its wake. On this tenth anniversary of the collapse of Lehman Brothers, Tooze explains how, contrary to popular mythology, this was not just a problem that started in the US and rippled outward, but a global problem: the first real crisis of the global age.  He explains how decades of not fully understanding financial entanglement helped set in motion the shock waves that were felt around the world and that are still reverberating today in the economics of Europe and the developing world and in politics in the US.   In his conversation with Schechtman, Tooze shows how financial globalization engaged the entire world, how China ended up owning America's public debt, and how Europe's megabanks helped funnel trillions of dollars into the riskiest American mortgages.  Tooze points out that the threat of financial instability in European and American banking is still with us, although invisible. And how the 2008 crisis not only changed the financial landscape, but gave rise to a new regime of global governance in response. He reminds us that China is, without question, the most important factor in the world economy: 30 percent of all global economic growth now comes from China. That's more than the US and Europe combined. GM today sells more cars in China than in the US.    While we may not have realized it, at the height of crisis the Federal Reserve stuffed Europe's banks with trillions of dollars of liquidity and outsourced $4.5 trillion in credit to European and Asian central banks.  Tooze also talks about the near-miss economic crisis in China in 2015-2016, and why this is a harbinger of just how dangerous things might become in the near future. Adam Tooze is the author of Crashed: How a Decade of Financial Crises Changed the World (Viking, August 7, 2018).

While widespread voter fraud may be a figment of President Donald Trump's imagination, it should never be confused with voter suppression, which is very real. Two months out from the midterm elections, the basic rights of millions of Americans are under threat.   In this week's WhoWhatWhy podcast, Jeff Schechtman is joined by Carol Anderson, the Chair of African American studies at Emory University and an authority on voter suppression — especially of the efforts to disenfranchise African American voters in the South. She talks about how individuals within state governments are relentlessly fighting to deprive citizens of their fundamental rights. She explains how this is part of the long legacy of structural racism, which has become even more pernicious since the 2013 Supreme Court decision in Shelby County v. Holder. That ruling eviscerated, in her opinion, the Voting Rights Act of 1965, by allowing states and communities with a demonstrated history of racial discrimination to change voting requirements without approval from the Department of Justice. Anderson shares with Schechtman several case histories about states that have adopted voter suppression tactics, including photo ID requirements, poll closures, and voter-roll purging. She explains how they all work and how they can be combated. Citing the recent victory of Sen. Doug Jones (D-AL), she details how dedicated organizations and individuals were able to overcome almost every tactic of voter suppression and she talks about how this could be a template for the 2018 midterms.   This conversation with Carol Anderson — in which she draws from her book One Person, No Vote — is Voter Suppression 101: a fundamental primer on its reasons, its techniques, and the ways that it can and should be fought.

The financial insecurity facing so many Americans in today's gig economy is not the result of startups and their new apps, or even of technology in general. Temp work is the result of four decades of deliberate decisions by executives in corporate America — decisions that changed the nature of work and of capitalism itself. So explains Louis Hyman — a professor of economic history at Cornell, and Jeff Schechtman's guest on this week's WhoWhatWhy podcast.   Hyman takes us back to the 1960s and 70s, when the rise of conglomerates and management consultants brought about a reorganization of the American corporation and a profound change in the relationship of employees to their workplace.   Hyman shows how corporate America traded stability for short-term profits. At the same time, he challenges the myth of the idyllic post–World War II workplace, arguing that it was only “idyllic” for successful white men and basically repressive for everyone else.   He reminds Schechtman that the office and factory of that time offered stable paychecks, but not much self-determination. Today's economy may be volatile, but it offers the possibility of a new kind of individual freedom and a new kind of individualized capitalism. In fact, Hyman says, the corporation may no longer even be necessary to capitalism. According to Hyman, over the last ten years, 94 percent of net new jobs have appeared outside of traditional employment, and approximately one-third of the workforce now depends on this alternative world of work, either as a primary or supplementary source of income.   He also points out that today's corporations, like Starbucks and Walmart, are really the drivers of the gig economy, as a direct result of their failure to meet employees' need for a “living wage.” He refers to Uber and other gig economy players as the “waste product of the service economy,” because people drive for ride-hailing services or take temp jobs to provide the income that their full-time jobs don't. Despite the downside of the gig economy, Hyman argues that the burgeoning expansion of temporary work holds the promise of a complete reinvention of capitalism and economic freedom. If we can get it right, he says, it can be an exciting new world. Louis Hyman is the author of Temp: How American Work, American Business, and the American Dream Became Temporary (Viking, August 21, 2018).

Seyed Hossein Mousavian is a Middle East security and nuclear policy specialist at the Woodrow Wilson Center at Princeton. A former Iranian ambassador to Germany, he was the chief spokesman for Iran during its nuclear negotiations with the international community. Several years ago, he parted ways with the Iranian government. This week he joins Jeff Schechtman for our WhoWhatWhy podcast. Mousavian sets the stage with a look at Iran's reaction to the Trump administration's decision to withdraw from the Iran nuclear agreement (JCPOA). He talks about the debate that took place inside Iran on whether or not Iran should even enter into negotiations with the US. He reminds Schechtman that 40 years of distrust is a very high hurdle to overcome. Mousavian details the 10 years of negotiations that took place between Iran and the Europeans, beginning in 2003, long before the US was ever brought into the talks. In fact, he reminds us that this effort with the US was the first time there had been any high-level negotiations or even just talks between Iran and the US in more than four decades.    Mousavian strenuously argues that Iran has been complying with all aspects of the agreement, as attested by 11 International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) inspections. According to Mousavian, the Iranians see this deal as something worth saving, and that it should be a model for other non-proliferation deals around the world. In an obvious reference to Israel, he argues that if other nations, particularly in the Middle East, were to agree to the same deal, it could make the Middle East a nuclear-free zone. From a diplomatic perspective, Iran is clearly making every effort to paint the US as the bad guy for pulling out of the deal, and Iran, which says it has been fully complying with the deal, as the good guy. Mousavian says that the US's rejection of the JCPOA is increasing tensions in the region. From Iran's perspective, if the US had abided by the deal, the trust generated might have formed the basis for further negotiations on a whole range of complex issues in the region, including Yemen, Syria, Iraq, etc. Now that the trust is broken, he says, there is very little chance for US and Iranian diplomacy on these, or any other issues. The net result makes the world less safe. The only hope now appears to be that all those years of direct negotiations between the Europeans and Iran will pay off and that China will assume a bigger role as an honest broker in this region and provide economic relief from the US sanctions. The problem is that in order to keep the agreement alive, all remaining countries may need to violate the secondary sanctions provisions of the deal. These secondary sanctions put pressure on third parties to stop their activities with the sanctioned country, i.e. Iran, by threatening to cut-off the third party's access to the sanctioning country. On a more encouraging note: Mousavian says that, in spite of all the mistrust, Iran might still be willing to enter into new negotiations with the Trump administration. After all, he says, the US and Iran are the two biggest powers in the region and it makes sense for them to find a way to talk. For now, however, nothing further will happen if the US president and members of his administration keep spouting about regime change. Mousavian reminds us that such efforts have failed for 40 years, and that President Trump needs to learn from the lessons of history.

From long before the rise of Fox News, talk radio has been the essential medium through which millions and millions of hard-core conservatives comprehend the world. From its inception, talk radio has been built around codes of tribal identity, grievances, and scorn. Originally tapped as entertainers, talk show hosts soon learned to mobilize public anger in ways that boosted their listenership enormously. Talk radio's modern era began 30 years ago this month, with the national launch of Rush Limbaugh's show.   In this week's WhoWhatWhy podcast, Jeff Schechtman talks with Michael Harrison, founder and longtime editor and publisher of Talkers Magazine, often referred to as “the bible of the talk radio industry.” Schechtman and Harrison discuss how talk became big business by giving us an unparalleled group of personalities who thrived in an atmosphere — that they helped drive — of personal and political divisiveness. In a way, Limbaugh begat Fox News, MSNBC, the Tea Party, and, finally, Trump. All without ever losing his own audience or identity, which was overwhelmingly conservative. The Economist said last year: “[T]o understand the Republican party, get in a car, turn on the radio and drive.” With the repeal of the Fairness Doctrine in 1987 — the FCC policy that had required the holders of broadcast licenses to present matters of public importance in a fair and equitable way — all aspects of politics became fair game. And in 1988, a little-known Sacramento, CA, sports host moved into politics. The way he caught on was dramatic. Love him or hate him, it became clear, as Harrison points out, that Rush was a once-in-a-generation talent. Harrison and Schechtman chat about the early days of talk radio, and how Rush changed it. About the difference, initially, between Rush's idea of entertainment and how his audience often took him very seriously. Harrison speculated that, in the early days, Limbaugh was a kind of right-wing Jon Stewart. He combined everything that had come before in talk radio. He was conservative, he was angry, he was well-informed, and he had humor. In his early years, before he began to take himself too seriously, you never knew if his vitriolic flights of rhetoric were real or shtick. Starting with just 56 stations in 1988, he was heard on 800+ stations only three years later. In 2008, he signed a $400 million eight-year deal and his success inspired many imitators. The roll call of clones he spawned includes Sean Hannity, Glenn Beck, Neal Boortz, Dennis Prager, Michael Savage, Hugh Hewitt, Laura Ingraham, and Mark Levin. To say that Limbaugh and his emulators made possible Trump's election may be hyperbole. Or maybe not.

“It's the economy, stupid.” Those words have become ingrained into our politics. But seldom have we seen such a disconnect between raw data, the kind that President Donald Trump bragged about on Friday, and the economy people are actually living in. Journalist Alissa Quart, in her new book Squeezed: Why Our Families Can't Afford America, went looking for the real America. In this WhoWhatWhy podcast she talks to Jeff Schechtman about what she found. She discovered an America that is a far cry from one where anyone is jumping up and down over a 4.1 percent GDP increase in a single quarter. In fact, after ten years of steady growth, which began during the Obama presidency, the overhang of the Great Recession as well as some negative employment and economic trends that started before the recession are still with us. Wages have been stagnant, housing costs continue to go up, health care costs continue to rise, education requires more and more debt, and self employment and the gig economy have not helped. All of this is before we are even really feeling the full impact of automation and AI. Quart argues that we have to reassess what we value in society. Instead of being so happy at the lower cost of consumer goods — like our phones, computers, and TVs — we need to be far more concerned that the cost of basic necessities like healthcare, child care, senior care, education, and housing have skyrocketed. Quart reminds us that this is not a problem limited to the uneducated. She talks to Schechtman about the plight of professors, school teachers, health professionals, and journalists. According to statistics, kids today have only a 50/50 chance of doing better than their parents. Equally striking is how few of these would-be members of the middle class are politically engaged. They're exhausted from just getting from bind to bind. Many are cobbling together patchwork solutions, like co-living arrangements and shared child care. But, Quart explains, for those struggling, a lot of time is often spent watching the 1 percent on television — viewing a kind of “aspirational porn.” Maybe that's also how Trump got a toehold with so many of these same people. Before you hear the next boastful presidential report on the economy, this is a must listen. Alissa Quart is the author of Squeezed: Why Our Families Can't Afford America (Ecco Press, June 26, 2018).

Last week, Russian President Vladimir Putin singled out 12 Americans he'd like to see the US hand over to Russia for interrogation in exchange for allowing special counsel Robert Mueller to question the 12 Russian GRU agents he recently indicted. Of those, much attention focused on former US Ambassador Michael McFaul. (WhoWhatWhy also interviewed McFaul just a few days ago.)  But Putin singled out, even more prominently, international businessman Bill Browder, a major force behind the passage in 2012 of a particularly powerful piece of legislation, the so-called Magnitsky Act. Browder is Jeff Schechtman's guest in this WhoWhatWhy podcast.  The Magnitsky Act, initiated and lobbied for by Browder, was named after his murdered lawyer, who uncovered Russian government corruption. It created visa and banking sanctions for Russian officials violating human rights. The Magnitsky Act has long been a major point of contention for Putin, and he's actively worked to get the law overturned.  The legislation — which passed the US Senate 92 to 4 — has since, according to Browder, gone viral. It's been copied and passed into law by seven countries, including Canada, and eight more countries are on deck to put it into law.  Browder explains to Schechtman that Putin's hatred of the legislation has nothing to do with ideology. It's about narrowing the range of countries in which Putin and his oligarchs are allowed to park their ill-gotten fortunes — and therefore puts their money at risk.  What surprised Browder most about Helsinki was not Putin's talking about him, or even offering an exchange to get Browder back to Russia, since the Russian president has long been chasing Browder. Rather, he was shocked that Trump had labeled Putin's proposal an “incredible offer.” Putin had suggested that McFaul, Browder, and a group of legislative staffers who had worked on the Magnitsky legislation be sent to Russia for “interrogation.”  Browder reminds us that he is a British citizen and therefore not even subject to Trump's wishes. Similar requests made to the British government of Theresa May, and David Cameron before her, were turned down immediately.  Browder also sheds some new light on the role of Natasha Veselnitskaya — the convener of the famous Trump Tower meeting — and her role as Putin's point person within the US to work toward a repeal of the Magnitsky Act.  Browder, who has long known Putin, talks about the Russian leader's clear understanding of the “Deep State” and how America works, and how the former KGB agent benefits by being a “long-term player.”  As Browder sees it, “If Putin can't bring Russia to the level of the West, he's determined to bring the rest of the world down to the level of Russia.”  Bill Browder is the author of Red Notice: A True Story of High Finance, Murder, and One Man's Fight for Justice (Simon & Schuster, paperback version, October 20, 2015).

Russia, Russia, Russia. Not since the darkest days of the Cold War has our gaze been so resolutely focused on the land of the Czars. And yet with all of that focus, it's amazing how much we don't understand about the country and its people. Michael McFaul, US ambassador to Russia from 2012 to 2014, is suddenly front and center in the latest Trump/Putin controversy. At their recent summit, Putin is said to have made Trump an offer: The US could pose questions to Russian military intelligence figures named in Mueller indictments as alleged participants in email hacking — if Putin's people can do the same with McFaul and Bill Browder, two well-known critics of the Russian president. We may never know precisely what Trump and Putin discussed on the issue. On July 19, White House spokesperson Sarah Sanders said, “It is a proposal that was made in sincerity by President Putin, but President Trump disagrees with it.” But this may change. What we do know is that McFaul understands a great deal about Putin and Russia -- and he shares these insights with Jeff Schechtman in this week's WhoWhatWhy podcast. In this interview, recorded just before he became the latest mini-star in the ongoing Russiagate saga, McFaul reminds us that, though hard to imagine these days, Russia is more than just Putin. There is a far greater diversity of thought than US media give the Russians credit for: While many may be forced to go along to get along, there are many who don't support Putin or his approach to the world. McFaul emphasizes the fragility of Russian society today. He explains how Putin consolidated his power while the economy was working well. But with its recent slippage, he has come to rely more on jingoistic Russian nationalism, as exemplified by his military forays into Crimea and eastern Ukraine. According to McFaul, even that's now wearing thin with the Russian people. McFaul talks to Schechtman about Putin's ideology — what he really believes. About his conservative approach to governing, his genuine dislike for what he sees as the decadent liberal ideas of the West, and how he has given money to political organizations and NGOs around the world that support and embrace his ideology.   McFaul says that Putin expects his struggle against the West to go on for years. At the same time, the former ambassador believes we can still engage the Russian leader on topics like arms control and even trade, as long as we always understand his motives and develop specific strategies to push back. Finally, McFaul reminds us how much Putin's personal philosophy has in common with the nationalist, nativist, anti-globalist desire for ethnic purity that has driven the American alt-right. At a time when it seems that all our news about Russia is accompanied by noise and confusion, this is a calmer, more nuanced look at Putin and Russia today. Michael McFaul is the author of From Cold War to Hot Peace: An American Ambassador in Putin's Russia (Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, May 8, 2018).

You may remember that back in May of 2015, senior FIFA officials were arrested on corruption charges in Zurich. Those arrests rocked the foundations of the world's most popular sport. But little did we know at the time that the case was so wide-ranging and complex that its reverberation involved the FBI, the IRS, Donald Trump, Christopher Steele, Robert Mueller, James Comey, and Vladimir Putin. As the final of the World Cup is played in Russia this weekend, the WhoWhatWhy podcast features a conversation with investigative journalist Ken Bensinger, who spells out the 40-year history of bribery, corruption, and money laundering that has been at the heart of world-wide professional soccer. Ken Bensinger was part of the team at BuzzFeed that uncovered the Christopher Steele dossier. He's also become the go-to authority on the complexity of the world's biggest sports scandal. This week, Bensinger tells Jeff Schechtman how corruption ran unchecked for decades, until a team of investigators from the one country that cared the least about soccer stepped in to try to stop it. He takes us up close and personal with American FIFA executive Chuck Blazer, considered the most corrupt soccer official in history. He was a friend of Donald Trump and lived on the 49th floor of Trump tower. When the IRS discovered and confronted him about not having paid taxes for 17 years, Blazer turned state's evidence against other FIFA officials. We learn about the FBI and IRS soccer task forces. The multinational crimes unit overseen by the FBI director, at the time — Robert Mueller. When the arrests were made in May 2015, it was announced by then-FBI Director James Comey. Bensinger also tells Schechtman about how Putin became interested in wanting the 2018 World Cup, and how he enlisted oligarchs in the process. And finally how Putin's corrupt efforts were uncovered by the British, who'd had a competing bid, and hired none other than Christopher Steele to find out what the Russians were up to. There is a lot more to this complex global story — including heads of state, like the president of Argentina who felt soccer was more important than his government; an illegal sports book that was busted at Trump Tower; and the role of Russian organized crime. Listening to this week's podcast is a great prelude to the World Cup final. Ken Bensinger is the author of Red Card: How the US Blew the Whistle on the World's Biggest Sports Scandal (Simon & Schuster, June 12, 2018).

SHOW NOTES: http://freshisthepodcast.com/episode-85-erin-schechtman-caruso/ This episode is the first of three episodes dropping this week with interviews recorded at Wizard World Comic Con Columbus. First up is Erin Schechtman Caruso, a Cleveland-based Art Director, Professional Illustrator, Fine Artist, and creator of Super Group Hugs. Simply put, Super Group Hugs are prints of your favorite pop-culture characters HUGGING! During our interview, we talk about the idea behind Super Group Hugs, how she interacts with people at conventions like Wizard World, working in a variety of artistic mediums, and how she navigates having a career in one artistic medium while having her own projects. Each episode, the guest is asked to suggest someone from their life/career that should be on Fresh is the Word that would have good stories. Erin chose award-winning photographer, designer, and illustrator Roger De Muth and comic book writer/artist Katie Cook. Follow Erin Schechtman Caruso: Web: w --- This episode is sponsored by · Anchor: The easiest way to make a podcast. https://anchor.fm/app --- Send in a voice message: https://anchor.fm/freshistheword/message

In this special WhoWhatWhy podcast, Jeff Schechtman speaks with author and host of MSNBC's Hardball, Chris Matthews. During a long career in Washington he rubbed shoulders with the Kennedys — whom he has been talking and writing about for years — and now he turns his full attention to Bobby. Matthews argues that Bobby's politics were rooted in bringing people together. Of course, there's no way of knowing what his presidency might have been like. But Matthews reminds us of the crowds that gathered to salute the funeral train carrying RFK's body from New York to Washington after his assassination in 1968. The mourners lining the tracks were black and white, waitstaff, firemen, and cops, who believed that Kennedy cared about them all. One relevant detail: Bobby was known as the only senator who would personally say hello to the Capitol police each day. Matthews also tells Schechtman about Bobby's penchant for making enemies, how he was once described as “a romantic, disguised as a streetfighter.” Some of it came from his upbringing as the younger brother to Joseph Jr. and John F. Kennedy. The runt of the family, as his father would call him, he always had to fight for attention. We also learn about his relationship with Roy Cohn, which was a far cry from Cohn's relationship with then-businessman Donald Trump. Matthews explains the goals of Bobby's 1968 presidential campaign. Besides wanting to end the war in Vietnam, he hoped to bring back Jack Kennedy's “New Frontier,” but with many more working-class whites and minorities participating. He was, in Matthews's words, “a streetfighter for moral justice.” Chris Matthews is the author of Bobby Kennedy: A Raging Spirit (Simon & Schuster, October 31, 2017).

“What would you want if you could have any wish?” asked the photojournalist of the haggard, bloodied Marine before him. The Marine gaped at his interviewer. The photographer snapped his picture, which became the iconic Korean War image. Finally, the soldier revealed his wish: “Give me tomorrow,” he said at last. In this week's WhoWhatWhy podcast, Jeff Schechtman talks with military historian Patrick O'Donnell, who wrote a book about the war almost a decade ago, entitled “Give Me Tomorrow,” a deeply personal look at those who served amid the extreme brutality of the Korean War. That war, fought almost 70 years ago, still echoes today. O'Donnell tells Schechtman about the war, particularly of the horrors suffered by George Company — a group of men untrained for what they would face in the bloody Chosin Reservoir campaign. O'Donnell explains how the battle went right up to the Chinese border, and how aggressive and brutal the Chinese were in fighting alongside North Korea. He further explains how the North Korean army was in tatters, and that the Americans underestimated the possibility of a Chinese intervention. Eventually, the Chinese massed over 150,000 men near the Chosin Reservoir. O'Donnell touches on the other epic battles of the war, and why those who came home have always been reluctant to talk about their experiences, which felt so small in the shadow of the Greatest Generation. He explains how unprepared the US was to fight this war. How budget cuts and demilitarization after WWII left the soldiers with inferior equipment that cost many lives. O'Donnell makes it clear that the soldiers of George Company, and particularly their performance at Chosin Reservoir, define the very essence of what we honor on Memorial Day. Patrick O'Donnell is the author of The Unknowns: The Untold Story of America's Unknown Soldier and WWI's Most Decorated Heroes Who Brought Him Home (Atlantic Monthly Press, May 22, 2018).

The recent Chinese investment in Donald Trump's hotel project in Indonesia is just one in a long string of Chinese ventures across the globe. This deal, between a Chinese state-owned company and an Indonesian developer, falls under the umbrella of China's One Belt One Road initiative. One Belt One Road is an ambitious effort to spread the country's money and influence around the world. The Chinese see it as an extension of their foreign policy: projecting soft power through the financing and construction of infrastructure and other projects. In this week's WhoWhatWhy podcast, Jeff Schechtman talks with journalist Will Doig,  who covers urban development, transportation, and infrastructure, was international editor at Next City, and wrote the weekly "Dream City" column for Salon. Doig talks in detail about China's attempt to pull half the world into its orbit through One Belt One Road. According to Doig, this is a kind of Chinese Marshall Plan. By lending money to other nations for once-in-a lifetime infrastructure projects, China makes these indebted nations more beholden to its wishes. One example is the massive Southeast Asia railway project currently underway. Building the railroad through rural areas in Southeast Asia fosters urbanization along the route. The growth of these new communities creates more building and selling opportunities for China. Moreover, these are projects whose complexity requires Chinese labor, technology, and supply chains. Doig tells Schechtman that the government of President Xi Jinping works on a very long time scale. The Chinese are happy to build cities today that may not fill up for 20 or 30 years — a time when they see themselves as the dominant power in the world.   Doig is the author of High-Speed Empire: Chinese Expansion and the Future of Southeast Asia (Columbia Global Reports, May 1, 2018).

The Middle East has been a seething cauldron of conflict since 1918. Twice in the 20th century, in 1967 and 1973, it almost became a flashpoint for nuclear war. The region has always been a chessboard where great powers play out their strategies. In today's Syria, it's the US vs. Russia vs. Jihadists plus Saudi Arabia vs. Israel plus Turkey vs. the Kurds, not to mention Iran and Syria vs. the rebels. No wonder the country has been devastated, leaving behind an almost unimaginable humanitarian crisis. In this week's WhoWhatWhy podcast, Jeff Schechtman talks to longtime Middle East journalist Charles Glass, who has traveled extensively in the region covering conflict after conflict, and once spent 62 days as a prisoner of Shi'a militants during the Lebanon war. He explains how the Syrian economy is shattered: agriculture barely functions, the medical system is nonexistent, and education is spotty at best. The rebuilding effort will be long and costly, and it's not clear how many of the five million refugees who have left the country will ever come back. For those that have returned, says Glass, the situation is often bleak. In some areas of Aleppo, returnees have pitched tents in the rubble, just to avoid losing their property rights. As for chemical weapons, Glass is unsure whether the recent missile attack by the US, France, and Great Britain was justified. Since the action was launched without waiting for an on-site report from weapons inspectors, it was “like having an execution before a trial,” Glass tells Schechtman.   Another topic of concern is the current role of the 2,000 US troops in the area, now that ISIS is no longer the main objective. As Glass tells it, the US focus is now on containing Iran: US troops have become part of Washington's long game against Iran, particularly since President Bashar al-Assad has grown increasingly dependent on Iranian troops. Glass emphasizes that the solution to the ongoing disaster does not lie with the Syrian groups that started the civil war, but rather with the US and Russia, which control the money and weapons that alone can determine the outcome. Charles Glass is the author of Syria Burning: A Short History of a Catastrophe (Verso March 22, 2016); The Deserters: A Hidden History of World War II (Penguin Press, June 13, 2013); Americans in Paris: Life and Death Under Nazi Occupation (Penguin Press, February 22, 2011).

We are facing planet-wide extinction, a climate emergency — and our current course is suicidal. That is the underlying belief of author and scientist Richard Smith, who is Jeff Schechtman's guest on this week's WhoWhatWhy podcast. Smith believes that our current model of capitalism, with virtually unlimited growth and consumption, cannot sustain a planetary population of nine billion people. He tells Schechtman that we do not need most of what we consume, and that our current behavior must stop. But Smith's Jeremiad goes even further. He talks about the need to stop building planes and cars, to ration air travel and fishing, to nationalize and take public control of the fossil fuel industry, to close down oil companies and many manufacturers of disposable consumer goods, and to make less stuff. He understands that this may mean putting whole industries out of business and people out of work, but he thinks it's the only way to keep the planet habitable for humans. As just one solution, Smith talks about the need for global agreements on everything. That nation-states should no longer make many of the decisions they do now. That we need global plebiscites, a contraction or elimination of capitalism, and more global equality. Anything short of this, he argues, will bring the collapse of civilization. It's a radical set of views, but powerful food for thought. Smith is the author of Green Capitalism: The God That Failed (College Publications, 2016).

Longtime Memphis journalist Marc Perrusquia spent years investigating the story of how a famous African American photographer, with remarkable access, played a key role in the civil rights movement, all while being an informant for the FBI. Ernest Withers's photography captured some of the most stunning moments of the civil rights era: including Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. riding one of the first integrated buses in Montgomery, AL, and the blood flowing into King's room from the balcony at the Lorraine Motel, where he was assassinated. Withers had a front row seat to history, as a man trusted and beloved by the movement's inner circle. All the while he was reporting back to the FBI. On this 50th anniversary of King's assassination, Perrusquia talks to WhoWhatWhy's Jeff Schechtman about Withers and the impact that his information had on both the civil rights movement and the Bureau. Perrusquia speculates that Withers, who was also a disgraced cop, may have actually been a double agent, informing both the FBI and some of the people he trusted in the movement about what he believed was a noble effort that had gone too far. Withers's conservative views made him critical of King's anti-war stance and of the dangers that he saw posed by radicals inside the movement. In addition to the story of Withers, the FBI, and the civil rights struggle, Perrusquia tells Schechtman about his own battles to get all of this information from the FBI, and how hard the Bureau fought to protect its informant. Marc Perrusquia is the author of A Spy in Canaan: How the FBI Used a Famous Photographer to Infiltrate the Civil Rights Movement (Melville House, March 27, 2018).

Be it privatizing the Veterans Administration, railing against “socialized medicine,” gutting the Environmental Protection Agency, or trying to starve public education, the proponents of these ideas all seem to be beholden to the work of Ayn Rand. Rand's novel, The Fountainhead, was published 75 years ago this month, after being turned down by 12 publishers. Yet for people like Paul Ryan, Stephen Miller, Ted Cruz, Rand Paul, and Peter Thiel, it might as well have been a briefing paper published this morning. Even though Bill Buckley kicked Rand out of the conservative movement in the late 1950s, at a 2005 gathering to honor her memory, Paul Ryan declared, “The reason I got involved in public service, by and large, if I had to credit one thinker, one person, it would be Ayn Rand.” Yaron Brook, the president and executive director of the Ayn Rand Institute, and Jeff Schechtman's guest on this week's WhoWhatWhy podcast, thinks that The Fountainhead is the classic American novel and that Rand's ideas are at the core of American and Western civilization. Opposition to her is just as contemporary, as people like Robert Reich and Paul Krugman devote significant efforts to trying to discredit her. In his conversation with Schechtman, Brook talks about Silicon Valley and how, in his view, it's wrong for leaders and inventors to share credit. He argues that they need not apologize or share their success, but instead bask shamelessly in their accomplishments. He criticizes Bill Gates for focusing on philanthropy and giving his money away, when he could still be doing more to achieve greater success and make more money. Originally published in 1943, The Fountainhead, Brook claims, was intended not as a political manifesto, but to put forward a way of seeing the world devoid of what he says is today's tribalism and groupthink.

The traditional American notion of almost absolute freedom of speech may have run its course. Journalist and academic Damon Linker says some Americans may be having second thoughts about what we've come to accept as free speech. In this week's WhoWhatWhy podcast, he talks to Jeff Schechtman about his recent analysis that found free speech is under siege from all sides. Linker notes what's happening on college campuses, where arguments over diversity are polarizing students and faculty, and, on the political right, where state power is being marshaled to suppress “unpatriotic” speech. The result, according to Linker, is a potential constriction of public dialogue and a clear decline in democratic values. Civics classes once taught that untrammeled freedom of speech would allow the truth to triumph. But does this work when propaganda, multiplied many fold by social media, drowns out other voices in a blare of noise? In his conversation with Schechtman, Linker digs deep into the many complexities of the issue and what the current situation portends for the future of democracy.

With the world feeling like it's spinning out of control, with a new crisis happening every day at a speed beyond our ability to process, humor may be the only thing that can get us through. For this holiday weekend, WhoWhatWhy's Jeff Schechtman sits down with Chicago comic and professor Al Gini to talk about humor, satire and why we need both to fend off our fear of the world.   Certainly there is no algorithm for what's funny. Time, place, context, language and audience all matter a lot. But what's clear is that humor is an essential part of the human experience, and vital for coping with the daily onslaught of the unthinkable and unimaginable.   Gini and Schechtman talk about the evolution of humor. From the simple jokes of Henny Youngman and the early satire of Will Rogers to the more sophisticated satire of Mort Sahl, Lenny Bruce and today, Jon Stewart. Gini reminds us that we need satire in order not to die of the truth. Also, when very little seems to bind us together anymore, even the right and left can sometimes bond over the same punchline.     At the very least, the primal aspect of humor might help get us through the holidays.

"Jamaican? I thought you were some kinda outer-space potato man." with Special guest Erin Schechtman-Caruso http://supergrouphugs.com/ ________________________________________ FOLLOW SLURMCAST ONLINE! www.facebook.com/slurmcast Twitter:@slurmcastpod instagram: @slurmcastpod Call or Text us 1-216-438-1077 (message and data rates may apply) http://www.slurmcast.com slurmcastpod@gmail.com produced and edited by HateCat Inc © 2016 HateCat Inc  

Human memory is an intriguing thing. On the one hand, we forget things all the time. On the other, there are things we never seem to forget. How could this be though? Memory researcher Flavia Schechtman Belham explains. | Read along while listening at our Medium: bit.ly/1SaD3qO | Narrated by Vidish Athavale | Music by Kai Engel and Lee Rosevere | Flavia is a Brazilian biologist working on memory and ageing at the UCL Institute of Cognitive Neuroscience. When not busy with her research, she likes to get involved in the organization of science events and festivals in different cities. No less important, she has a love for monkeys, travelling and chocolate desserts.

Some people are just ahead of their time.  Sometimes they are in science, or academia, or economics…but sometimes they're in the media and they see what we all will see, long before it happens. Pioneering author, filmmaker and media reform activist Danny Schechter was such a talent.  He worked as a producer at ABC's 20/20, where he won two Emmy Awards, and at CNN, when it was newly launched.  He was part of the media when it still made a difference; before it morphed into entertainment and ridicule.  He wrote 12 books, including “The More You Watch, the Less You Know.” He understood the potential of the Internet long before most of us. He was a leading activist and journalist against apartheid in South Africa.  That work led him to leave corporate journalism to make six documentaries about Nelson Mandela and produce the cutting-edge television series, “South Africa Now,” which aired on over 150 public television stations in the late 80's and early 90's . Schechter died last week of pancreatic cancer at the age of 72.  Back in 1998, I had the opportunity to talk to Schechter about television news and his book, The More You Know.  While some of the conversation is dated, what's amazing is how much is not and how much Schechter saw the dystopian future of corporate media. Here is that conversation.

What is it to be the same person over time? The 17th-century British philosopher John Locke approached this question from a forensic standpoint: persons are identified over time with an appropriately related series of psychological states, in particular a chain of memories, and our interest in identifying persons in this way stems from our interest in holding people responsible for their actions. Locke’s psychological account of persons remains highly influential today, although his forensic approach is more contentious. In Staying Alive: Personal Identity, Practical Concerns, and the Unity of a Life (Oxford University Press 2014), Marya Schechtman builds on the Lockean idea of persons as forensic units, expanding it to include a much wider range of practical concerns and recognizing the role of sociological and biological factors in these relationships. Schechtman, a professor of philosophy at the University of Illinois at Chicago, articulates her view in relation to a range of prominent competing positions, in particular Eric Olson’s influential animalist account in which human persons just are human bodies. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

What is it to be the same person over time? The 17th-century British philosopher John Locke approached this question from a forensic standpoint: persons are identified over time with an appropriately related series of psychological states, in particular a chain of memories, and our interest in identifying persons in this way stems from our interest in holding people responsible for their actions. Locke's psychological account of persons remains highly influential today, although his forensic approach is more contentious. In Staying Alive: Personal Identity, Practical Concerns, and the Unity of a Life (Oxford University Press 2014), Marya Schechtman builds on the Lockean idea of persons as forensic units, expanding it to include a much wider range of practical concerns and recognizing the role of sociological and biological factors in these relationships. Schechtman, a professor of philosophy at the University of Illinois at Chicago, articulates her view in relation to a range of prominent competing positions, in particular Eric Olson's influential animalist account in which human persons just are human bodies.

What is it to be the same person over time? The 17th-century British philosopher John Locke approached this question from a forensic standpoint: persons are identified over time with an appropriately related series of psychological states, in particular a chain of memories, and our interest in identifying persons in this way stems from our interest in holding people responsible for their actions. Locke’s psychological account of persons remains highly influential today, although his forensic approach is more contentious. In Staying Alive: Personal Identity, Practical Concerns, and the Unity of a Life (Oxford University Press 2014), Marya Schechtman builds on the Lockean idea of persons as forensic units, expanding it to include a much wider range of practical concerns and recognizing the role of sociological and biological factors in these relationships. Schechtman, a professor of philosophy at the University of Illinois at Chicago, articulates her view in relation to a range of prominent competing positions, in particular Eric Olson’s influential animalist account in which human persons just are human bodies. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Here's the final part of our panel with Evan, Adele, and Oscar, talking about interactive media and building an audience.

Evan Schechtman discusses how they built The Johnny Cash Project. If you haven't seen it visit: www.thejohnnycashproject.com

In this episode, Gordon interviews Evan Schechtman, Oscar Tillman, and Adele Major about Hotel 626. If you haven't seen Hotel 626 then WATCH the trailer at the Cutting Room site.