In Deep With Angie Coiro: Interviews

Show #230 | Guest: Don Reed | Show Summary: That Don Reed Show has just extended its run at The Marsh in Berkeley, CA. He crosses the Bay to talk to Angie about his stories, his stand-up, and even a character or two he admits is - wait for it - "too white."

Show #229 | Guest: Joel Simon | Show Summary: America does not negotiate with terrorists—but should keep it that way? Last year there were nearly nine thousand international terrorist abductions. The US refuses to pay ransoms, holding that it would only fuel more kidnappings. Other countries pay-up to free their citizens taken hostage. Statistics tell the grim result: according to

Show #228 | Guest: Wesley Yang | Show Summary: From the “Tiger Mother” to take-out, Asian-American culture is so deeply entrenched in our understanding of the American fabric, we sometimes don’t know we’re talking about it when we’re talking about.     Collecting a decade’s worth of essays, from his award-winning analysis of the Virginia Tech murderer to his cult classic looks at mandarin zombies, pickup artists, and immigrant strivers, Wesley Yang’s highly anticipated new book, The Souls of Yellow Folk is a watershed of engaging and provocative new perspectives on what it truly means to have and hold an American Dream.

Show #227 | Guest: John B. Judis | Show Summary: Why has nationalism made a comeback? Angie sits down with John B. Judis, editor-at-large of Talking Points Memo, to bore into the history and political mechanics of this recurring phenomenon. His new book, The Nationalist Revival: Trade, Immigration and the Revolt against Globalization, puts our current divisive political environment into the context of prior movements, and sheds light on the unique confluence of forces energizing Nationalim around the world.

Show #226 | Guest: Jackie Speier | Show Summary: Congresswoman Jackie Speier, national hero and survivor of the Jonestown tragedy, reflects on over 40 years of public service. As a young congressional staffer, Jackie Speier’s incredible courage became evident during the Jonestown Massacre of 1978. Jackie was one of two people who prepared a will in anticipation of that trip to save cult defectors in Guyana, after rumors of abuse in the People’s Temple compound. On the day that Jim Jones’ group attacked then-Congressman Leo Ryan’s staff on an airport tarmac in South America, Jackie survived five separate gunshot wounds and a 22-hour wait for rescue, only to undergo two months of treatment and 10 surgeries in the aftermath. Five died, and nine were injured and left to die on that tarmac; mere miles away, another 900 perished in the murder-suicide that would be one of the largest mass deaths in history. Jackie refused to be merely a survivor of that incident. Unbowed, she campaigned her way onto the San Mateo Co

Show #225 | Guest: Lara Bazelon - Rectify: The Power of Restorative Justice after Wrongful Conviction | Show Summary: As the truism goes, everyone behind bars is innocent - if you listen to them. The problem is a lot of them are. Our justice system is often unjust; people are convicted by a system mired in racism, classism, and systemic faults. Lara Bazelon is a law professor, author, and contributing writer for Slate. Her op-eds and essays have also been published in the New York Times, Washington Post, and Politico, among other media outlets. Her book, Rectify: The Power of Restorative Justice After Wrongful Conviction, was recently published by Beacon Press. Her article, Innocence Deniers: Prosecutors who have refused to admit wrongful convictions was published last January in Slate.

Show #224 | Guest: Adam Hochschild | Show Summary: Journalist and public historian Adam Hochschild shares his insight into the forces shaping our world, through a study of first-person witness accounts. His new book is Lessons From A Dark Time and Other Essays.

Show #223 | Guest: Randy Shaw | Show Summary: The class divide in America's big city has a companion: a generational breach. Long-time housing activist and attorney Randy Shaw says that, through policy and politics, Baby Boomers have contributed to the urban housing crisis - leaving millennials out in the cold.     Shaw traveled the country, visiting housing stakeholders in a dozen urban centers. He spoke with renters, homeowners, builders, politicians. His new book, Generation Priced Out: Who Gets to Live in the New Urban America, combines these interviews with policy critique and details on plans that work getting housing built. And he questions some long-standing conventional wisdom - for example, the inevitability of gentrification.

Show #222 | Guests: Chris Taich and Dr. Ruchika Mishra | Show Summary: Everybody dies. And we all know that - at least, intellectually. But how realistically do we approach our own ends?     Statistically, it's a mixed bag. More elderly and hospitalized people have Do Not Resuscitate orders in place than ever before. But most American adults don't have a will ready. A third don't carry life insurance. Only one in five has told their friends and family how they'd like their own death dealt with.     What does a "good death" look like? How helpful can we expect the medical profession to be when the time comes - for example, respecting that DNR order, or talking frankly with us about what's ahead? What can hospice offer a client and their family - and who's lucky enough to have access to that?     Guests: Chris Taich is with the non-profit Pathways Home Health and Hospice, where she's the director of Clinical Support Services. She's spent

Show #221 | Guest: D.D. Guttenplan | Show Summary: Who are the new progressive leaders emerging to lead the post-Trump return to democracy in America? National political correspondent and award-winning author D.D. Guttenplan's new book The Next Republic is an extraordinarily intense and wide-ranging account of the recent fall and incipient rise of democracy in America.     The Next Republic profiles eight successful activists who are changing the course of American history right now: Jane McAlevey, Chokwe Antar Lumumba, Jane Kleeb, Carlos Ramirez-Rosa, Waleed Shahid, Corbin Trent, Zack Exley, and Zephyr Teachout.     Additionally, the book ties in the election and first year of the Trump presidency to the current rise of populism of the left, and stakes a claim for seeing beyond the Trump ascendancy.

Show #220 | Guest: Eliza Griswold | Show Summary: Fracking, poverty, and justice delayed and denied. Journalist Eliza Griswold discusses her new book, Amity and Prosperity: One Family and the Fracturing of America.

Show #219 | Guest: Soraya Chemaly | Show Summary: Show #219 | October 20, 2018 | Women get told to smile - a lot. Research shows that a neutral expression is perceived on a man's face as neutral, but as angry or negative on a woman. And all kinds of ugly words are reserved for woman who show anger.     Where others see female anger as something to fear or reject, Soraya Chemaly sees strength, even opportunity. With the Women's Media Center Speech Project, and as organizer of the Safety and Free Speech Coalition, she's pushed for wider exposure of women's voices, and worked to curb online abuse. Now, she's encouraging women to embrace their rightful anger. In her new book Rage Becomes Her, Chemaly links patriarchy and misogyny to the traditional repression of women's full range of emotion. She goes beyond simple rejection of "Smile, honey!" to an embrace of anger as a personally and politically transformative tool.     Soraya Chemaly joins Angie Coiro in a prov

Show #218 | Guest: Francis Fukuyama | Show Summary: Populism. Nationalism. Identity politics. What links these phenomena, and why have they moved to the fore in our fractious cultural conversations?     Political scientist The End of History and the Last Man. Since then he's undergone his own identity transition. No longer a supporter of neoconservativism, he supported Barack Obama for President. His conversation with Angie Coiro interweaves his own journey with the changes he's urging for America and the world.

Show #217| Guest:Mary Robinson | Show Summary: Holding the arm of her first grandchild, something occurred to Mary Robinson. Before his fiftieth birthday, nine billion people would share the planet with him. What kind of planet would it be?     In an instant, the faceless, shadowy menace of climate change became real. One of the most important voices on the International stage, Mary Robinson -- the former president of Ireland and the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights -- bound herself to a single mission: to leave her grandson the best possible world.     Her work has been transformative. She founded the Mary Robinson Foundation-Climate Justice. She served in two capacities as the United Nations Secretary-General’s Special Envoy on Climate Change. She continues today to be one of the most dynamic climate activists in the world. From Mongolia to East Biloxi, Robinson’s work has touched lives the world over, reifying the countless local and intern

Show #216 | Guest: Joe Flower | Show Summary: Joe Flower sits down with Angie for a discussion on the state of healthcare, and what the future holds. Not shy about sharing his knowledge of the complex world of healthcare and health insurance, Joe cheerfully demolishes many standard beliefs about so-called "best practices" in medicine.     With over 37 years’ experience, Joe Flower has emerged as a thought leader on the deep forces changing healthcare in the United States and around the world. He has spoken to or consulted with hundreds of clients ranging from the World Health Organization, the Global Business Network, the U.K. National Health Service, the U.S. Department of Defense, and Fortune 100 companies, to the majority of state hospital associations in the U.S. as well as many of the provincial associations and ministries in Canada, and an extraordinary variety of other players across healthcare in every sector.

Show #215 | Guest: Chris Hedges | Show Summary: Chris Hedges hasn’t given up on America. That may not be the immediate impression from his reporting, nor from his books, where he describes the opioid crisis, the retreat into gambling to cope with economic distress, the pornification of culture, the rise of magical thinking, the celebration of sadism, hate, and plagues of suicides. But grasping the unvarnished reality is essential to fixing everything that’s gone wrong both nationally and worldwide. Hedges’ work, from his contribution to the New York Time’s 2002 Pulitzer Prize to his most recent book America: The Farewell Tour urges us not to compromise as we assess today’s political and societal realities. And he says that neither mainstream political party addresses our systemic problems — nor can they, until our country’s “corporate coup d’état” is reversed.     Chris Hedges served as a foreign correspondent for nearly two decades for The New York Times, The Dallas Morning News, The

Show #214 | Guests: Nicolette Hahn Niman, Rebekah Moses | Show Summary: A strange thing is happening to the American diet: the consumption of both meat and meat alternatives is rising. Americans are more aware of the climate and environmental damage industrial meat production inflicts on the planet. That’s why old, established protein sources have been joined by pea proteins, whey products, and other new alternatives. But we still keep eating meat.     Joining us: Rancher Nicolette Hahn Niman, who sees new attitudes toward beef and fowl, emphasizing local, non-industrial production and seasonal consumption. Will the market support one of those visions? Both? And what else will factor into the future of meat?    &nbspAnd Rebekah Moses, who leads sustainability and agriculture at Impossible Foods in Redwood City. Impossible Foods – their big hit is the Impossible Burger – is working to develop plant-based meat and dairy for a more sustainable and secure food syst

Show #213 | Guest: Dr. Edith Sheffer | Show Summary: Hans Asperger, for whom Asperger syndrome was named, has been celebrated for his compassionate defense of children with disabilities. Prize-winning historian Edith Sheffer’s new book, Asperger’s Children: The Origins of Autism in Nazi Vienna, exposes that Asperger was not only involved in the racial policies of Hitler’s Third Reich, he was complicit in the murder of children.     Dr. Sheffer is a historian of Germany and central Europe, and a Senior Fellow at the Institute of European Studies at the University of California, Berkeley. Her prize-winning book Burned Bridge: How East and West Germans Made the Iron Curtain challenges the moral myth of the Berlin Wall, the Cold War’s central symbol — revealing how the Iron Curtain was not simply imposed by Communism, but emerged from the everyday actions of ordinary people.

Show #212 | Guest: Steve Almond | Show Summary: We’re thrilled to bring Steve Almond back to our In Deep audience, but it won’t be an easy conversation. Like so many of us, he spent the weeks after the 2016 election lying awake, in a state of dread and bewilderment. He heard no coherent explanation why America had elected this man to the Presidency. Bad Stories: What the Hell Just Happened to Our Country is his effort to make sense of this historical moment.     Steve argues that Trumpism arises directly from the bad stories we tell ourselves. He says we have to confront our cultural delusions: our obsession with entertainment, sports, and political parody; the degeneration of our free press into a for-profit industry, our enduring pathologies of race, class, immigration, and tribalism. By the end of our hour, we may not be awash in solutions, but we’ll have new insights on what went so wrong. And that’s a start.     Steve Almond last joined us with his book A

Show #211 | Guests: David Gans, Meredith Hagedorn, Ronit Widmann-Levy | Show Summary: The small suburban theater with a “We Support Planned Parenthood” sticker on the window. The touring musician who’s careful what t-shirt he wears at gas stations in the South. The multi-stage venue producing “Peter and the Wolf” in four languages.      Meanwhile, Netflix, Amazon, and Hulu bring infinite entertainment into today’s living rooms. Why leave the house, paying for tickets, parking, and a babysitter?     We talk to three experienced artists about how they get people out of their houses and butts in seats – and how today’s political climate plays into the challenge of conveying ideas.Our guests:     David Gans, long associated with the Grateful Dead, spends many hours on the road as a touring musician. David’s challenge: life in an industry with a failing economic model, and long weeks away from home. (David sings our closing song! You’ll fi