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Live from the Left Coast: a program from
Ian Masters which features a longer, more in-depth interview
with a special guest on a topic of current interest, followed by a
series of listener phone calls.
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Podcast now available:
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Click for -> Archived programs from 2008
Click for -> Archived programs from 2007
Click for -> Archived programs from 2006
Click for -> Archived programs from 2000 - 2004
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Note: No Live From the Left Coast for February 8th, 2009 due to fund drive.
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June 21st, 2009
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Douglas Rushkoff on the corporatization of American life. Mr. Rushkoff is an author, teacher, and documentarian who focuses on the ways people, cultures, and institutions create, share, and influence each other s values. He teaches media studies at the New School University, serves as technology columnist for The Daily Beast, and lectures around the world. His ten best-selling books on new media and popular culture have been translated to over thirty languages. They include Cyberia, Media Virus, Playing the Future, Nothing Sacred: The Truth about Judaism, Get Back in the Box: Innovation from the Inside Out and Coercion, winner of the Marshall Mcluhan Award for best media book. Rushkoff also wrote the acclaimed novels Ecstasy Club and Exit Strategy and graphic novel, Club Zero-G. He wrote a series of graphic novels for Vertigo called Testament, and is currently working on another book for Vertigo as well as a new series of graphic novels for Smoking Gun Interactive. He has written and hosted two award-winning Frontline documentaries - The Merchants of Cool looked at the influence of corporations on youth culture, and The Persuaders, about the cluttered landscape of marketing, and new efforts to overcome consumer resistance.He has just released his most important book to date: an analysis of the corporate spectacle called Life Inc. for RandomHouse, as well as a series of short films called Life Inc Dispatches. He is the winner of the first Neil Postman award for Career Achievement in Public Intellectual Activity
George Lakoff on the importance of language in politics. Dr. Lakoff is a Professor of Linguistics at the University of California, Berkeley and the co-founder and Senior Fellow of the Rockridge Institute. He previously taught at Harvard University and the University of Michigan. Dr. Lakoff has published a multitude of articles in major scholarly journals and has authored a number of books, including "Moral Politics: How Liberals and Conservatives Think," " "Don't Think of an Elephant: Know Your Values, Frame the Debate," and "Whose Freedom.?" His new book, "The Political Mind: Why You Can't Understand 21st-Century American Politics with an 18th-Century Brain." In What s the Matter with Kansas?, Thomas Frank pointed out that a great number of Americans actually vote against their own interests. In The Political Mind, George Lakoff explains why.
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June 7th, 2009
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William K. Black is an Associate Professor of Economics and Law at the University of Missouri Kansas City. He was the Executive Director of the Institute for Fraud Prevention from 2005-2007. He has taught previously at the LBJ School of Public Affairs at the University of Texas at Austin and at Santa Clara University, where he was also the distinguished scholar in residence for insurance law and a visiting scholar at the Markkula Center for Applied Ethics. He was litigation director of the Federal Home Loan Bank Board, deputy director of the FSLIC, SVP and General Counsel of the Federal Home Loan Bank of San Francisco, and Senior Deputy Chief Counsel, Office of Thrift Supervision. He was deputy director of the National Commission on Financial Institution Reform, Recovery and Enforcement. He is the author of "The Best Way to Rob a Bank is to Own One," which Nobel Prize-winner Dr.George Akerlof called a classic. Paul Volcker praised its analysis of the critical role of Bank Board Chairman Gray s leadership in reregulating and resupervising the industry: "Bill Black has detailed an alarming story about financial - and political - corruption. The specifics go back twenty years, but the lessons are as fresh as the morning newspaper. One of those lessons really sticks out: one brave man with a conscience could stand up for us all." Robert Kuttner, in his Business Week column, proclaimed: "Black's book is partly the definitive history of the savings-and-loan industry scandals of the early 1980s. More important, it is a general theory of how dishonest CEOs, crony directors, and corrupt middlemen can systematically defeat market discipline and conceal deliberate fraud for a long time -- enough to create massive damage." Black developed the concept of control fraud frauds in which the CEO or head of state uses the entity as a weapon. Control frauds cause greater financial losses than all other forms of property crime combined and kill and maim thousands. He recently helped the World Bank develop anti-corruption initiatives and served as an expert for OFHEO in its enforcement action against Fannie Mae s former senior management.
Frank Schaeffer is a bestselling author of fiction and nonfiction, and a documentary and feature film director. He is the son of the late evangelist Francis Schaeffer. He has written several internationally acclaimed novels depicting life in a strict, fundamentalist household including Portofino, Zermatt, and Saving Grandma. By the time he was nineteen, Frank Schaeffer s parents, Francis and Edith Schaeffer, had achieved global fame as bestselling evangelical authors and speakers, and Frank had joined his father on the evangelical circuit. He would go on to speak before thousands in arenas around America, publish his own evangelical bestseller, and work with such figures as Pat Robertson, Jerry Falwell, and Dr. James Dobson. But all the while Schaeffer felt increasingly alienated, precipitating a crisis of faith that would ultimately lead to his departure even if it meant losing everything. Mr. Schaeffer is also the author of the nonfiction book "Crazy for God." Jeff Sharlet has described "Crazy for God" as "a brilliant book, a portrait of fundamentalism painted in broad strokes with streaks of nuance, the twinned coming-of-age story of Frank and the Christian right. But this story moves in more than one direction: both coming-of-age narratives are pulled against the current by the tragedy of Francis Schaeffer, a man who let his children, biological and ideological, guide him down a path from which he'd spent his whole life struggling to get off."
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May 31st, 2009
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Mark Benjamin on whether or not photos depicting torture and suppressed by President Obma will ever see the light of day. Mr. Benjamin is an award-winning investigative reporter with Salon.com s Washington bureau, Mark Benjamin has focused on national security issues with an emphasis on the plight of returning veterans and detainee abuse. He has been hailed for exposing problems caring for veterans at Walter Reed starting in early 2005 and also obtained for Salon the Army s entire Abu Ghraib investigative files. Benjamin has been a consultant for CBS 60 Minutes, a freelance on-air reporter for CNN and has appeared on all of the major television networks.
Dan Neil on General Motors entering bankruptcy. Mr. Neil is an automotive columnist for the Los Angeles Times, who won the Pulitzer Prize for Criticism in 2004. The Pulitzer board praised his: "one of a kind reviews of automobiles, blending technical expertise with offbeat humor and astutue cultural criticism." Prior to coming to the Los Angeles Times, Mr. Neil wrote for the New York Times, Autoweek magazine Car and Driver, among others. Besides the Pulitzer prize, Dan Neil has also won the Ken Purdy Award for Excellence in Automotive Journalism, from the International Motor Press Association, 2001. His work was selected for Houghton Mifflin's Best American Sports Writing, 2002.
Glenn Greenwald on what is not known about the record of President Obama's nominee to the Supreme court, Sonya Sotomayor. Mr. Greenwald is an author, journalist and blogger, who was previously a constitutional lawyer in New York City. He litigated numerous high-profile cases in federal and state courts around the country, including Civil Rights cases before Judge Sotomayor. Greenwald is the author of two New York Times best-selling books, "How Would a Patriot Act? Defending American Values From a President Run Amok," and "Tragic Legacy: How a Good v. Evil Mentality Destroyed the Bush Presidency." His latest book "Great American Hypocrites" reveals how the GOP propaganda machine manipulates the Press.
George Smith on President Obama's just-announced Cyber Warfare Initiative. Mr. Smith is a Senior Fellow at Globalsecurity.org and wrote one of the first books on computer virus writers, "The Virus Creation Labs", in 1994. Over the past fifteen years, he has written frequently on computer security for a variety of publications, more recently "The Register." He also authored the first critical scholarly piece on cyberwar called "Electronic Pearl Harbor -- Not Likely." In the past few years he's analyzed al Qaeda documents said to be devoted to biological and chemical weapons and, as a consequence, has consulted to a couple of terrorism trials.
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May 24th, 2009
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Robert M. Hertzberg on the crisis in California's finances. Mr. Hertzberg previously served as a California State Assemblyman representing the 40th District from 1996 2002 and was Speaker of the California State Assembly from 2000-2002. He chaired the transition team for Los Angeles Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa and served on the transition team for Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger. Robert Hertzberg is now a partner at Mayer Brown LLP and is chairman and co-founder of G24 Innovations based in Cardiff, Wales, manufacturers of a new type of lightweight and flexible solar cell that generates power in low, ambient and even indoor conditions.
interviewed with
Dr. Max Neiman is currently Director of the Governance and Public Finance Program at the Public Policy Institute of California, based in San Francisco, which he joined in 2005. Before that he was a professor of Political Science at the University of California, Riverside and his most recent book is titled DEFENDING GOVERNMENT: WHY BIG GOVERNMENT WORKS
Janet Afary on the forthcoming elections in Iran. She is the author of Sexual Politics in Modern Iran. Ms. Afary is a native of Iran and a leading historian. Her work focuses on gender and sexuality and charts the history of the nation's sexual revolution from the nineteenth century to today, revealing the extraordinary resilience of the Iranian people, who have drawn on a rich social and cultural heritage to defy the repression and hardship of the Islamist state and its predecessors. It is this resilience that is promoting reforms in marriage and family laws, while demanding more egalitarian gender and sexual relations as well as personal and political freedom.
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May 17th, 2009
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Gillian Tett is an award-winning journalist and one of the world s preeminent authorities on capital markets and the role they have played in the global financial crisis. She is widely credited with being the first to cover the credit crunch in the mainstream press. Beginning in 2004 three years before anyone else she began building a team at the Financial Times of London to cover capital markets, correctly anticipating the need to watch an industry growing uncommonly fast. By 2007, a year ahead of the curve, she began issuing her news-breaking alarms about a looming financial crisis. Gillian is the author of Fool s Gold: How the Bold Dream of a Small Tribe at J.P. Morgan Was Corrupted by Wall Street Greed and Unleashed a Catastrophe, a vital contribution to our understanding of the worst economic crisis since the Great Depression. Then finally we will hear a very insightful analysis of the war in Afghanistan that challenges the premises President Obama is operating under and looks at this deepening quagmire in a different light.
John Mueller on the war in Afghanistan that challenges the premises President Obama is operating under. Dr. Mueller holds the Woody Hayes Chair of National Security Studies, Mershon Center, and is professor of Political Science, at Ohio State University where he researches terrorism and particularly the reactions (or over-reactions) it often inspires. His book on the subject, Overblown: How Politicians and the Terrorism Industry Inflate National Security Threats, and Why We Believe Them, was published in November 2006 by Free Press. And his next book is, Atomic Obsession: Nuclear Alarmism from Hiroshima to Al Qaeda, to be published in November by Oxford University Press, suggests that atomic terrorism is highly unlikely and that efforts to prevent nuclear proliferation frequently have damaging results.
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May 10th, 2009
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Jane Mayer on the increasing debate regarding the Bush administration's use of torture. Jane Mayer is the co-author of two best-selling narrative non-fiction books, LANDSLIDE: THE UNMAKING OF THE PRESIDENT, 1984-1988, and STRANGE JUSTICE: THE SELLING OF CLARENCE THOMAS, both of which received glowing reviews, and the latter of which was a finalist for the National Book Award. She is a Washington-based staff writer for The New Yorker, specializing in political and investigative reporting. Before that, she was a senior writer and front page editor for The Wall Street Journal, as well as the Journal's first female White House correspondent. Her latest book, a New York Times best-seller, is "The Dark Side: The Inside Story of How The War on Terror Turned into a War on American Ideals," which is just out in a new paperback edition and is described as "Stunning" by Slate, "powerful, brilliantly researched, and deeplly unsettling" by the New York Times, and "one of those rare books that should be read by every concerned American," by the Austin American-Statesman.
Nicholas Schmidle on the increasing concerns about Pakistan. Mr. Schmidle is a fellow at the New America Foundation. He writes for the New York Times Magazine, Slate, The New Republic, Smithsonian, and the Virginia Quarterly Review, among other publications, and received the 2008 Kurt Schork Award for freelance journalism. As a fellow of the Institute of Current World Affairs, he lived and reported in Pakistan for two years. Schmidle is a graduate of James Madison University and American University. His new book is To Live or Perish Forever: Two Tumultuous Years in Pakistan. This book is described as a gripping and grim account of his time in Pakistan, where his travels took him into the most isolated and unfriendly provinces, and into the thick of interests and beliefs that impede that nation's peace and progress, reporting on the murky relationship between the Pakistani intelligence agencies and the Taliban and how American bombings have actually helped the Taliban gain influence in the border regions.
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May 3rd, 2009
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Jonathan Alter on the first 100 days of the Obama presidency. Mr. Alter is a senior editor at Newsweek, where, since 1991, he has written an acclaimed column on politics, history, media, and society at large. He is also an analyst and contributing correspondent for NBC News. Prior to appointment as Newsweek's senior editor, Alter was Newsweek's media critic for a decade, where he was among the first in the mainstream media to break tradition and hold other news organizations accountable for their coverage. When Newsweek launched his wide-ranging column in 1991, it was the first time the magazine allowed regular political commentary in the magazine, other than on the back page. He is the author of The Defining Moment: FDR's Hundred Days and the Triumph of Hope, which is out in paperback.
Dr. Reza Aslan on the failure of the "war on terror" paradigm. Dr. Aslan is an internationally acclaimed writer and scholar of religions, a columnist at the Daily Beast and a professor at the University of California, Riverside. .He is a member of the Council on Foreign Relations, the Los Angeles Institute for the Humanities, and the Pacific Council on International Policy. He serves on the board of directors for both the Ploughshares Fund, which gives grants for peace and security issues, Abraham's Vision, an interfaith peace organization, and PEN USA. Dr. Aslan's first book was the New York Times Bestseller, "No god but God: The Origins, Evolution, and Future of Islam," which has been translated into thirteen languages, short-listed for the Guardian First Book Award in the UK, and nominated for a PEN USA award for research Non-Fiction. Aslan is Cofounder and Chief Creative Officer of BoomGen Studios, a hub for creative content from and about the Middle East, as well as Editorial Executive of Mecca.com. Reza's new book is "How to Win a Cosmic War: God, Globalization, and the End of the War on Terror."
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April 26th, 2009
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Max Blumenthal on the reality of right-wing extremism in the context of the new DHS report. Mr. Blumenthal is an award-winning journalist and videographer whose work has appeared in The Nation, Salon, The American Prospect the Washington Monthly, The Daily Beast and other publications. He is a fellow at the Nation Institute and a Senior Writer for The Daily Beast. His blog is maxblumenthal.com. For the past six years he has covered right-wing political movements in America. His YouTube videos have received hundreds of thousands of hits. His forthcoming book is "Republican Gomorrah: Inside the movement that Shattered the Party," which will be available in July.
Jonathan Kirsch on the history of the use of torture. Mr. Kirsch is the author of ten books, including the national bestseller The Harlot by the Side of the Road: Forbidden Tales of the Bible, and his recent book, a Los Angeles Times bestseller, A History of the End of the World. Mr. Kirsch is also a book columnist for the Los Angeles Times, a radio broadcaster, an Adjunct Professor on the faculty of New York University, and an attorney specializing in publishing law and intellectual property in Los Angeles. Jonathan Kirsch is also a member of the National Book Critics Circle and a three-time past president of PEN Center USA West. His new book, just published, is "The Grand Inquisitor's Manual: a History of Terror in the Name of God." This is a powerful and cautionary history which traces an unbroken thread from the Inquisition to the Salem witch trials, to the torturers and executioners of Nazi Germany and Stalinist Russia, to the internment of Japanese-Americans during World War II, to the Hollywood blacklists of the McCarthy era, to interrogation cells at Abu Ghraib and Guantanamo. This book plumbs the dark, historic and contemporary questions of human cruelty, torture and madness, and gives us a lens to clearly see what has been called a "war on terror" as terror itself.
David Goodman on citizen activism in today's American politics. Mr. Goodman is an independent journalist and author, most recently of the critically acclaimed Fault Lines: Journeys in the New South Africa. He is the co-author, with his sister, Democracy Now's Amy Goodman, of The Exception to the Rulers: Exposing Oily Politicians, War Profiteers and the Media That Love Them, STATIC: Government Liars, Media Cheerleaders and the People Who Fight Back and their latest, just published, Standing Up to the Madness: Ordinary Heroes in Extraordinary Times. David Goodman was featured on a panel today here at the Los Angeles Times Book Festival on authors as activists.
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April 19th, 2009
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Congressman Don Payne on Somalia and the Somalian pirates. Congressman Payne represents the 10th Congressional District of New Jersey and was New Jersey's first African American Congressman, now serving his eleventh term. A past Chairman of the Congressional Black Caucus, he is a member of the Democratic Whip Organization and has served as a member of the House Democratic Leadership Advisory Group. He was a Congressional delegate to the United Nations and is a member of the House Committee on Education and Labor, the Foreign Affairs Committee, where he serves as Chairman of the Subcommittee on Africa and Global Health and as a member of the Subcommittee on the Western Hemisphere and the Subcommittee on International Organizations, Human Rights, and Oversight. He also headed a Presidential mission to war-torn Rwanda to help find solutions to that country's political and humanitarian crises. Congressman Payne was successful in winning passage of a resolution declaring genocide in Darfur, Sudan. The measure was the culmination of more than two years' work by many churches, religious organizations, anti-slavery groups, and resettled Sudanese through broad grass-roots support. His involvement in Africa led him to meet with Darfur refugees at the camps in Chad, where he heard many of their stories first-hand. Congressman Payne also gained national recognition when he was selected to manage the debate on the floor of the House of Representatives in opposition to the use of force in Iraq before fully exploring a diplomatic solution. He has just returned from Somalia, where he met with top leaders. As his plane was departing, the airport was hit with a mortar attack.
Mark Danner on President Obama's release of the memos by now Federal Court judge Jay Bybee and others which served as the legal cover for what is widely viewed as torture. Danner is a writer, journalist and professor who has written for more than two decades on foreign affairs and international conflict. He has covered Central America, Haiti, Balkans and Iraq, among many other stories, and has written extensively about the development of American foreign policy during the late Cold War and afterward, and about violations of human rights during that time. His books include The Secret Way to War: The Downing Street Memo and the Iraq War's Buried History (2006), Torture and Truth: America, Abu Ghraib and the War on Terror (2004), The Road to Illegitimacy: One Reporter's Travel's Through the 2000 Florida Vote Recount (2004) and The Massacre at El Mozote: A Parable of the Cold War (1994). Danner was a longtime staff writer for The New Yorker and is a regular contributor to The New York Review of Books. He is also Professor of Journalism at the University of California at Berkeley, where he directs the Goldman Forum, and the James Clarke Chace Professor of Foreign Affairs, Politics, and Humanities at Bard College.
Niala Mohammad on conflicts in Afghanistan related to the rights of women. Ms. Mohammad works for Voice of America s newest Pashto language program, VOA Deewa Radio in Afghanistan, where she selects which popular Pashto artists and songs to be played on the VOA Deewa airwaves. Prior to joining VOA, Niala worked at the Pakistani Embassy in Washington, DC researching human rights and Afghan-Pakistan relations for senior diplomats. Niala also worked with Pakistan s Human Rights Commission - Peshawar office where she researched health care in the North West Frontier Province. During this time Niala also had the opportunity to work at Khyber TV, a Pashto language satellite channel, in their Peshawar bureau where she engaged in concept writing to develop ideas for new programming. Niala recently completed her Masters in International Studies and Diplomacy from the School of Oriental and African Studies - University of London, where her focus was International Law, specifically as it relates to human rights. She has performed extensive research on the indigenous and tribal peoples in the Federally Administered Tribal Areas of Pakistan. Niala was born and raised in Boston, Massachusetts and completed her undergraduate studies at the University of Massachusetts - Boston.
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April 12th, 2009
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Misha Glenny on the prevelance of international crime. Misha Glenny is an investigative journalist and author based in London. During the early 1990s he was the central Europe correspondent for the BBC World Service, and in 1993 he won a Sony Award for his coverage of Yugoslavia. He has contributed to many U.S. and European newspapers and magazines and is regularly consulted by U.S. and European governments on Balkan issues. He is the author of The Rebirth of History, The Fall of Yugoslavia (which won the Overseas Press Club Award in 1993 for Best Book on Foreign Affairs), and The Balkans, 1804 1999. His new book is "McMafia: A Journey Through the Global Criminal Underworld." In McMafia Glenny makes clear how organized crime feeds off the poverty of the developing world, how it exploits new technology in the forms of cybercrime and identity theft, and how both global crime and terror are fueled by an identical source: the material affluence of the West. Current estimates are that international crime accounts for nearly one-fifth of global GDP.
Strobe Talbott on US diplomacy and Russia. Mr. Talbott is currently president of the Brookings Institution, and has had a career which spans journalism, government service, and academe. He is an expert on U.S. foreign policy, with specialties on Europe, Russia, South Asia, and nuclear arms control. As deputy secretary of state in the Clinton administration, Talbott was deeply involved in both the conduct of U.S. policy abroad and the management of executive branch relations with Congress. Tablbott's many positions and titles include: Director, Yale Center for the Study of Globalization, Yale University; Deputy Secretary of State (1994 2001); Ambassador-at-Large and Special Adviser to the Secretary of State on the New Independent States (1993 94); Editor-at-Large and Foreign Affairs Columnist (1989 92), Washington Bureau Chief (1984 89), Diplomatic Correspondent (1977 84), White House Correspondent (1975 76), State Department Correspondent.
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April 5th, 2009
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Michelle Goldberg is an investigative journalist and New York Times bestselling author. A former senior writer at Salon.com, Goldberg has written for Glamour, The New Republic, Rolling Stone, The Guardian (UK), and many other publications. She was a finalist for the New York Public Library s Helen Bernstein Book Award for Excellence in Journalism.and has taught at New York University s graduate school of journalism. Her previous book Kingdom Coming: The Rise of Christian Nationalism was a critically-acclaimed bestseller. Her new book, just published, is The Means of Reproduction: Sex, Power and the Future of the World. This book won the 2008 J. Anthony Lukas Work-in-Progress Award.
Liaquat Ahamed has been a professional investment manager for twenty-five years. He has worked at the World Bank in Washington, D.C., and the New York-based partnership of Fischer Francis Trees and Watts, where he served as chief executive. He is currently an adviser to several hedge fund groups, including the Rock Creek Group and the Rohatyn Group, is a director of Aspen Insurance Co., and is on the board of trustees of the Brookings Institution. He has degrees in economics from Harvard and Cambridge universities. His new book is "The Lords of Finance: the Bankers who Broke the World." Booklist describes this book: "With penetrating insights for today, this vital history of the world economic collapse of the late 1920s offers unforgettable portraits of the four men whose personal and professional actions as heads of their respective central banks changed the course of the twentieth century."
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March 29th, 2009
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Dr. Juan Cole on the state of affairs in Iraq, the Middle East in general and his new book." Dr. Cole is an author, journalist, professor of Modern Middle Eastern and South Asian History at the University of Michigan and President of the Global Americana Institute. Dr. Cole is widely considered to be one of America leading scholars of contemporary Iraq and the Middle East. As an expert analyst, he has appeared around the world in print, television and radio, testified before the United States Senate and has provided high-level consultation to a number of elected officials. His weblog, Informed Comment, at JuanCole.com is one of the most popular blogs on the web, for its deep and authoritative analysis of the Middle East. Juan Cole's books include "Sacred Space and Holy War," "The Ayatollahs and Democracy in Iraq" and "Napoleon's Egypt: Invading the Middle East." His new book, just out, is "Engaging the Muslim World" described by Dr. John L. Esposito, Professor of religion & International Affairs at Georgetown University as "a MUST read, the right book at the right time for anyone who wants to understand what went wrong, why, and where do we go from here."
Craig Mullaney on the future of Afghanistan and his new book, "The Unforgiving Minute." Mr. Mullaney is a West Point graduate, Rhodes Scholar, and Army Ranger who, in 2003, led an infantry rifle platoon along the hostile border between Afghanistan and Pakistan with the 10th Mountain Division as part of Operation Enduring Freedom. His platoon operated along the entire spectrum of military operations from humanitarian assistance with the first Provincial Reconstruction Team established in Afghanistan to combat engagements against Al Qaeda and the Taliban. Following his return to the United States, Craig served for three years as the Army Exchange Officer to the history faculty of the U.S. Naval Academy in Annapolis, Maryland where he focused on American foreign policy. After leaving the military, Craig served as a national security adviser on Barack Obama s presidential campaign, led veterans outreach efforts in western Pennsylvania, and was the Chief of Staff for the President-elect s Department of Defense Review Team. Craig s military decorations include the Bronze Star, Army Commendation Medal with V device, Combat Infantryman s Badge, Ranger Tab, and Parachutist Badge. Craig Mullaney has authored a new book, which has garnered wide acclaim, about his time in Afghanistan, entitled "The Unforgiving Minute: A Soldier's Education." Steve Coll, author of the Pulitzer Prize-winning Ghost Wars and The Bin Ladens describes The Unforgiving Minute" as "one of the most compelling memoirs yet to emerge from America s 9/11 era. Craig Mullaney has given us an unusually honest, funny, accessible, and vivid account of a soldier s coming of age. This is more than a soldier s story; it is a work of literature.
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March 22nd, 2009
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Dr. Harley Shaiken on the Employee Free Choice Act and it's local implication. Dr. Shaiken is Chair of the Center for Latin American Studies at the University of California, Berkeley. He also also shares an appointment with the program in Social and Cultural Studies in the Graduate School of Education. He studies labor and globalization, with a focus on auto manufacturing. Dr. Shaiken has written about the Employee Free Choice Act for the Center for American Progress.
interviewed with:
Daniel Medress on the local implications of the Employee Free Choice Act. Mr. Medress is the communications director for Warehouse Workers United, a group working to organize warehouse workers in what is the largest concentration of warehouses in the world, located to the east of Los Angeles in the "Inland Empire." These workers handle the billions of dollars of goods to supply Los Angeles and other areas every day and night, but they are hired through temp agencies, paid low wages, receive no benefits, and have no job security. A recent report by the University of California Riverside shows how bad these warehouse jobs are and paints a clear picture of the difficulties facing warehouse workers. It also shows that the path to economic recovery in the Inland Empire, which has over 12% unemployment, must include turning these warehouse jobs into good middle class jobs with wages that can support a family, health care coverage, and the freedom to choose to join together in a union, which is the purpose of the Employee Free Choice act.
Nandan M. Nilekani on the present and future of India. Mr. Nilekani is the co- chairman of the board of directors of Infosys Technologies Limited. Nandan is the recipient of several awards, including the prestigious Joseph Schumpeter prize for innovative services in economy, economic sciences and politics. He was listed as one of the 100 most influential people in the world by Time magazine in 2006 and was named Forbes Businessman of the Year in 2007. Nandan received his bachelor s degree in electrical engineering from the Indian Institute of Technology, Bombay, India, in 1978. He is the author of a new book which is attracting wide attention, "Imagining India: The Idea of a Renewed Nation," described as a "visionary look at the evolution and future of India by a preeminent business leader."
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March 15th, 2009
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William Cohan on the Wall Street greed frenzy and his book House of Cards." is an author and formerly an award-winning investigative newspaper reporter in Raleigh, North Carolina, who later worked on Wall Street for seventeen years. He spent six years at Lazard Fr res in New York and later became a managing director at JP Morgan Chase. He lives in New York City and Columbia County, New York. In April, 2007 he published his book "The Last Tycoons: The Secret History of Lazard Fr res & Co." The book won the Financial Times and Goldman Sachs Business Book of the Year Award on October 25, 2007. His new book, just out, is House of Cards, which describes the last days of Bear Stearns & Co. This acclaimed book was described as a "masterfully reported account" by Tim Rutten in the Los Angeles Times. He is currently working on a book about former Westar Energy chief David Wittig.
Patrick Tyler on the history of the US Presidency and the Middle East. Mr. Tyler is the chief correspondent for the New York Times and the author of three books. Tyler studied journalism at the University of South Carolina, graduating in 1974. He worked in various newsrooms until 1979, when he was hired by the Washington Post. While at the Post he wrote a story critical of then Mobil Oil president William Tavoulareas. The story alleged that Tavoulareas had been guilty of nepotism in installing his son as chairman. Mobil sued the Washington Post and secured a landmark 2 million dollar verdict. The verdict was later overturned by a panel of judges that included then Appellate Court judges Antonin Scalia and Kenneth Starr. Tyler later praised the Post, commenting "I had thought my career was over, and so their determination to take the case all the way to the Supreme Court if necessary was one of the most singular acts of editorial courage...that I had ever witnessed. Tyler continued to write for the Post until 1990, when he left to join the New York Times. While at the Times, he served in various posts including as chief of the Moscow and Cairo news bureaus. He was promoted to chief correspondent in 2002. In 1986, he published his first book, Running Critical, an expose of General Dynamics and the building of the USS Philadelphia. His second book was Great Wall: Six Presidents and China, which received the Lionel Gelber prize in 2000. His latest book is A World of Trouble: the White House and the Middle East--from the Cold War to the War on Terror.
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March 8th, 2009
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Peter Canellos on the legacy of Senator Ted Kennedy. Mr. Canellos is the Boston Globe's Washington bureau chief and author of the weekly National Perspective column. He oversees all the Globe's national coverage. From 1999 to 2003, Canellos served as metro editor, overseeing all local coverage. Canellos covered the presidential campaigns in 1992 and 1996, served as a national roving correspondent and for a time was a Sunday writer emphasizing legal affairs. Canellos is a graduate of the University of Pennsylvania and Columbia Law School. Peter Canellos is the lead writer and editor of a new book about Senator Edward Kennedy, entitled "The Last Lion: the Fall and Rise of Ted Kennedy."
Dr. David Himmelstein on President Obama's failure to include the proven success of the single-payer health care model among the possible solutions being considered for national heathcare reform. Dr. Himmelstein is co-founder of Physicians for a National Health Program, which advocates for a universal, single-payer national health program, and Associate Professor of Medicine at Harvard Medical School. The author of numerous studies and books, he is recognized as a national leader in the movement for universal health care.
Susan Jacoby on the state of reason and thought in today's America. Susan Jacoby is the author of nine books, a frequent contributor to national magazines and newspapers, and the recipient of numerous awards, including a 2001 appointment as a fellow of the New York Public Library s Center for Scholars and Writers. She is a panelist for On Faith, a blog published by The Washington Post and Newsweek. Jacoby is also program director of the Center for Inquiry-New York City, a rationalist think tank with offices in Lower Manhattan. Her books include her recent Freethinkers: A History of American Secularism, which was named a Notable Book of 2004 by The Washington Post Book World and The Times Literary Supplement. Her latest book, being published in a new paperback edition, is "The Age of American Unreason."
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March 1st, 2009
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Dr. John Mill Ackerman on the potential of Mexico becoming a "failed state." Dr. Ackerman is an author as well as a professor at the Institute of Legal Research of the Universidad Nacional Aut noma de M xico and vice president of the International Association of Administrative Law. He has contributed to many publications in the US, Mexico and the UK on the topics of corruption control, elections, transparency, accountability, autonomous institutions and citizen participation. He has also served as a senior consultant for the World Bank as well as a consultant for the United States Agency for International Development, Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development, Global Integrity, Open Society Institute, International Budget Project, Secretary of the Public Function, United Nations Development Programme, Supreme Court of Justice of the Nation, the Chamber of Deputies and for the Head of Government of the Federal District.
interviewed with:
Joel Kurtzman is a Senior Fellow and Publisher of The Milken Institute Review. He is the former editor of the Harvard Business Review and a former member of the editorial board of Harvard Business School Publishing. He was also business editor and columnist at The New York Times. He was a columnist for Fortune, Chief Executive and the European Business Forum, and was an on-air book reviewer at CNN. Kurtzman began his career as an international economist at the United Nations, where he was deputy director of the U.N. s Project on the Future. While at the U.N., he participated in the negotiations between India and the Union Carbide Corporation over the Bhopal disaster. For these efforts, he was awarded India s Indira Gandhi Prize. Kurtzman is the author of 20 books and hundreds of articles. He is a member of the editorial board of MIT s Sloan Management Review and an advisor to Wharton s SEI Center. His latest book is Global Edge: Using the Opacity Index to Manage the Risk of Cross-Border Business" (Harvard Business School Press, 2007). He has a recent Op-Ed in the Wall Street Journal, entitled "Mexico's Instability Is a Real Problem: Don't discount the possibility of a failed state next door."
Michael Scheuer on the state of affairs in Afghanistan, and the prospects for President Obama's escalation of the American military mission there. Mr. Scheuer is a twenty-plus-year CIA veteran, best-selling author and commentator. From 1996 to 1999, her served as the Chief of the bin Laden unit, the tracking unity at the CIA's Counterrorrism Center. He then worked as Special Advisor to the Chief of the bin Laden unit from September 2001 to November 2004. He resigned from the CIA in 2004. Scheuer has been featured extensively on television, including 60 Minutes, and has been the focus of print media worldwide. In November 2004, Michael Scheuer revealed his authorship of Imperial Hubris and Through Our Enemies' Eyes, both originally published under the byline "Anonymous." His most recent book is "Marching Towards Hell: America and Islam after Iraq," just published in a new paperback edition.
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February 15th, 2009
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William Kleinknecht on the disastrous legacy of Ronald Reagan. Mr. Kleinknecht is a veteran reporter and crime correspondent for the Newark Star-Ledger. He has previously covered the crime beat for the New York Daily News. He has won awards from the Associated Press and the American Society of Professional Journalists, and has contributed to American Journalism Review, National Law Journal, the Boston Phoenix and other publications. He is the author of the acclaimed New Ethnic Mobs: The Changing Face of Organized Crime in America. His new book, just out, looks at the Reagan administration with through the tenacious eyes of a crime reporter: "The Man Who Sold the World: Ronald Reagan and the Betrayal of Main Street America."
Dr. David Korten on the economy. Dr. Korten is a journalist, author, analyst and economist. He is the chairman of the board of YES! Magazine and co-chair of the New Economy Working Group, founded in late 2008 with the Institute for Policy Studies. He is the founder and president of the People-Centered Development Forum; a founding associate of the International Forum on Globalization; a board member of the Business Alliance for Local Living Economies; and a member of the Social Ventures Network. He holds MBA and Ph.D. degrees from Stanford Business School and has thirty years experience as a development professional in Asia, Africa, and Latin America. In addition, he has been a Harvard Business School professor, a captain in the US Air Force, a Ford Foundation Project Specialist, and a regional adviser to the US Agency for International Development. His books include the international best-seller When Corporations Rule the World; The Post-Corporate World: Life after Capitalism. and The Great Turning: From Empire to Earth Community. His latest book, just published, is Agenda for a New Economy: From Phantom Wealth to Real Wealth.
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February 1st, 2009
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Craig Newmark on how democracy may be enhanced via technology. Mr. Newmark is an Internet entrepreneur best known for being the founder of the San Francisco-based website Craigslist. Newmark is a vocal advocate for keeping the Internet free, for Net Neutrality and for bridging the digital divide. He was an active supporter of candidate Barrack Obama and has taken an active role in helping to guide the integration not only in campaigning, as Barrack Obama did, but in governance. Newmark believes that Barack Obama has the potential to fundamentally alter communication between the presidency and the people. In early January, Craig Newmark joined a panel at the New American Foundation, "Wiki White House: Can Obama Use Technology to Change Government." discuss his support and involvement in the Obama campaign and his support of using the net as a tool to better provide government transparency, and using the net to help solve global issues..
Tia Lessin is director and producer of Trouble the Water, winner of the Sundance Grand Jury Prize and the Full Frame Grand Jury Prize. Tia was a producer of Michael Moore s Fahrenheit 9/11, winner of the Palme d Or, and the Academy Award-winning Bowling for Columbine. Her other film credits include line producer on Martin Scorsese s No Direction Home: Bob Dylan and coordinating producer on Michael Moore s The Big One. She began her film career working on Charles Guggenheim s Oscar-nominated Shadows of Hate. Tia was awarded the Women of Worth Vision Award by L Or al Paris and Women in Film for Trouble the Water. In television, Tia won the Sidney Hillman award for producing and directing Behind the Labels and her work as producer of the series The Awful Truth earned her two Emmy nominations, one arrest and a lifetime ban from Disneyland. Tia is a Sundance Institute Fellow and an Open Society Institute Katrina Media Fellow.
interviewed with:
Kimberly Roberts and her husband Scott were born and raised in New Orleans, Louisiana, and are featured in Trouble the Water. Just 24 hours before Hurricane Katrina flooded her city, Kimberly recorded a day in the life of her neighborhood on her hi-8 camcorder, and continued to tape through the storm until a lack of electrical power forced her to stop. Before the storm, Kimberly was working on her music career in the 9th Ward and, using the MC name Black Kold Madina, had recorded an underground demo album called Tryed and True. She believed all her music was lost in the storm, until she discovered that one of her relatives in Memphis had the only existing copy. Kimberly's husband, Scott Roberts, grew up streetwise in New Orleans and worked odd jobs through most of his adult life. He has overcome many of life's challenges and is now working in the construction industry, a profession he started post-Katrina when he found an employer who, according to him, gave me a chance that I didn't have pre-Katrina. Kimberly and Scott recently started an independent record company, Born Hustler Records: www.bornhustlerrecords.com.
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January 25th, 2009
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Sir Ken Robinson on creativity and education. Sir Ken Robinson is an internationally recognized leader in the development of creativity, innovation and human resources. He has worked with national governments in Europe and Asia, with international agencies, Fortune 500 companies, national and state education systems, non-profit corporations and some of the world s leading cultural organizations. They include the Royal Shakespeare Company, Sir Paul McCartney s Liverpool Institute for Performing Arts, the Royal Ballet, the Hong Kong Academy for Performing Arts, the European Commission, UNESCO, and the Council of Europe. From 1989 - 2001, he was Professor of Arts Education at the University of Warwick. He has published widely on creativity, innovation and culture. His book, Out of Our Minds: Learning to be Creative has been described by Director magazine as a truly mind opening analysis of why we don t get the best out of people at a time of punishing change. John Cleese said: Ken Robinson writes brilliantly about the different ways in which creativity is undervalued and ignored in Western culture and especially in our educational systems. Sir Ken Robinson's new book is The Element: How Finding Your Passion Changes Everything.
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January 18th, 2009
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Michael Wolff on Rupert Murdoch's media empire. Mr. Wolff is a columnist for Vanity Fair and two-time National Magazine Award winner, who is one of the nation s most influential writers about media, culture, and politics. He is a commentator for CNBC and a founder of Newser.com, the news aggregator. In 2003, he achieved international recognition for his dispatches from the Persian Gulf as the Iraq War began. His work has appeared in numerous publications in The United States, including New York magazine, where he was a columnist, and the Guardian and Spectator in The United Kingdom. He is the author of four other books, including best-sellers Autumn of the Moguls and Burn Rate. His latest book, just published, is "The Man who Owns the News: Inside the Secret World of Rupert Murdoch." In this book, with unprecedented access to Rupert Murdoch himself and his associates and family, Wolff chronicles the growth of Murdoch's $70 billion media kingdom.
Robert Fisk on the Gaza cease-fire. Mr. Fisk is a best-selling author and acclaimed journalist, based in Beirut, Lebanon. Fisk is the Middle East Correspondent of The Independent and has lived in the region for almost three decades. He holds more British and international journalism awards than any other foreign correspondent. The Financial Times described Fisk as "unrivaled as a war correspondent." The London Sunday Times said of him, "He is a devastating witness to the failure of politics to guard mankind against itself." His book, Pity the Nation, a history of the Lebanon war, was published to great critical acclaim. His latest book is a monumental 1,000-page work, "The Great War for Civilisation : The Conquest of the Middle East," which has been described by the New York Times as "an unflinching, stunning achievement."
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January 11th, 2009
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Russ Baker on the Bush family's unfortunate impact on the United States. Mr. Baker is an investigative reporter, author and journalist. He has written for the New Yorker, Vanity Fair, the Nation, the New York Times, the Washington Post, the Village Voice and Esquire, among others. Baker has received Society of Professional Journalists, Mencken and Common Cause awards, served as a panelist for the national conference of Investigative Reporters and Editors, and been a member of the adjunct faculty at Columbia University s Graduate School of Journalism. He is the co-founder of the journalism soirees that evolved into the company, MediaBistro and of the investigative website whowhatwhere.com. Russ Baker's latest book is FAMILY OF SECRETS: The Bush Dynasty, The Powerful Forces That Put it in the White House, and What Their Influence Means for America. Bill Moyers has said of Russ Baker, "In an era dominated by corporate journalism and an ideological right-wing media, Russ Baker s work stands out for its fierce independence, fact-based reporting, and concern for what matters most to our democracy A lot of us look to Russ to tell us what we didn't know.
Roger Morris on elements of corruption and failure in the Democratic party, and a review of President-Elect Obama's appointments. Mr. Morris served on the senior staff of the National Security Council under Presidents Johnson and Nixon until resigning over the invasion of Cambodia. An award-winning investigative journalist and historian, he is the author of several books, including "Richard Milhous Nixon: The Rise of an American Politician." His history of U.S. policy and covert intervention in South Asia and the Middle East, entitled "Shadows of the Eagle," will be soon published by Knopf.
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January 4th, 2009
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Dr. Max Neiman on the importance of government in restoring the economy. Dr. Neiman is currently Associate Director and Senior Fellow at the Public Policy Institute of California, based in San Francisco, which he joined in 2005. Before that he was the Director of the Center for Social and Behavioral Science Research and Chair of the Political Science Department at the University of California, Riverside. His most recent book is DEFENDING GOVERNMENT: Why Big Government Works, which is a manifesto opposing the Republican anti-government rhetoric and ideology which seeks to destroy essential government programs such as Social Security.
Max Blumenthal on the reality of "America's Pastor" Rick Warren's activity. Mr. Blumenthal is an award winning journalist and videographer whose work has appeared in The Nation, Salon, The American Prospect the Washington Monthly, The Daily Beast and other publications. He is a fellow at the Nation Institute and a research fellow for Media Matters for America. His blog is maxblumenthal.com. For the past four years he has covered right-wing political movements in America. His YouTube videos have received over a million hits. He has a new article out on how the election of Barack Obama may energize the extreme right..
Colonel Rich Riccioni on the waste involved in military spending on major weapons systems. Colonel Riccioni is a retired Air Force Colonel who is considered one of America's great fighter pilots and who consults and comments on the engineering and design of military fighter aircraft. After a career as a fighter pilot, Rich became a designer and advocate for air-air systems. He played a critical role in initiating the Lightweight Fighter Program, which led to both the F-16 and F-18, and organized the first conference on the then-radical concept of supercruise (i.e., sustained supersonic cruise without afterburner), a key characteristic of the F-22.
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