Terrence Mcnally Podcast

Aired: 12/22/13 As we approach the end of another year, let's step back and look at where we are in the big picture. What do you think are the most critical issues facing the US and the world? How do you see things moving in those areas? How are things getting worse or better? What should we be keeping our eyes on in the year to come? My guest for this conversation will be HAZEL HENDERSON, a woman who's been asking those sorts of questions for at least the last 40 years. We're going to approach this exploration globally as well as nationally, with a long term view, and with an eye toward relationships and systems that we often miss in our day to day focus on the latest news and events. I hope we can shed some light on the most promising possibilities for solving problems, as well as on what's happening under the radar -- for good or ill -- that deserves more of our attention.

Aired: 12/8/13 What do you think are the biggest solvable problems facing humanity? Justice and inequality? Violence and war? Climate change and pollution? Today we're going to focus on one that I believe underlies all of those: Population. The last book from today's guest, ALAN WEISMAN, was thought-provoking, award-winning, and best-selling. THE WORLD WITHOUT US, which was made into a powerful documentary, imagined what would happen to planet earth if humans disappeared. Our massive infrastructure would collapse and vanish without human presence, and nature would swiftly begin to heal without our daily pressures. But, Weisman, would rather Imagine a successful world with us, and that led to his newest book, COUNTDOWN: OUR LAST, BEST HOPE FOR A FUTURE ON EARTH. For this one, he traveled to 21 countries asking politicians, scientists, family planning specialists, doctors, and religious leaders, crucial questions about how we can successfully deal with the size of human population.

Aired: 12/1/13 What do you know about hydraulic fracturing or "fracking" of natural gas?Probably depends on who you're listening to. The fossil fuel industry tells you it's the biggest energy development of the century, which promises America energy independence for the US and a huge boost to our economy with benefits to local economies. Many of the communities themselves tell a different story - of pollution on the one hand and social disruption on the other. For the spoils of success, I recommend an article in March 2013 Harpers, Where Broken Hearts Stand, Grief and Recovery on the Badlands of North Dakota by Richard Manning. RICHARD HEINBERG has a new book, SNAKE OIL: How Fracking's Promise of Plenty Imperils Our Future, looks at fracking from both economic and environmental perspectives, informed by the most thorough analysis of shale gas and oil drilling data ever undertaken. Join us as I try to find out, Is fracking the miracle cure-all to our energy ills, or a costly distraction from the necessar

Aired: 11/24/13 After its recent IPO, Twitter is valued at nearly $25Billion. Now what is Twitter? Millions of tweets created and shared by users plus some ads. But how many users get a piece of that $25Billion? Well, none. Where would Facebook be without Friends? What would Twitter, Amazon, Yelp, and any network whose value is based on our data, be without us - sharing photos and feelings, making purchases, registering opinions. More than programming or advertising, TV has always been about selling our eyeballs. Likewise, today's online giants are selling our visits, our clicks, our shares. JARON LANIER, in his new book, WHO OWNS THE FUTURE?, writes: "At the height of its power, Kodak employed more than 140,000 people and was worth $28 billion. They even invented the first digital camera. Today Kodak is bankrupt, and the new face of digital photography is Instagram. When Instagram was sold to Facebook for a billion dollars in 2012, it employed only 13 people. Where did all those jobs disappear? And wha

Aired: 11/17/13 The gap between rich and poor is huge and growing...legislative stalemate paralyzes the country...corporations fight federal regulations...the influence of money in politics is greater than ever...new inventions speed the pace of daily life. Sound familiar? Those headlines from the early 1900s set the scene for Doris Kearns Goodwin's new book The Bully Pulpit-a history of the first decade of the Progressive era - a time when courageous journalists and an ambitious president took on the Robber Barons - the 1% of their day - and won. Goodwin tells the tale through the long friendship of Theodore Roosevelt and William Howard Taft - a relationship that serves both until it ruptures in 1912, when they engage in a brutal fight for the presidential nomination that cripples the progressive wing of the Republican Party and helps elect Woodrow Wilson. Getting equal billing in her account is the golden age of journalism led by the muckraking press at McClure's magazine. Together a bold and progr

Aired: 11/10/13 THE SQUARE Sundance Audience Award Winning Documentary re Egypt’s revolution(s) JEHANE NOUJAIM, Director KARIM AMER, Producer KHALID ABDALLA, Participant

Aired: 11/4/13 Nature, imaginative by necessity, has already solved many of the problems we are grappling with. Animals, plants, and microbes are the consummate engineers. They have found what works, what is appropriate, and most important, what lasts here on Earth. After 3.8 billion years of R&D on this planet, failures are fossils. What surrounds us in the natural world is what has succeeded and survived. So why not learn as much as we can from what works? Today's guest, JAY HARMON is doing just that, translating nature's lessons and models into technologies that solve problems and perform tasks more elegantly, efficiently, and economically. He's the author of THE SHARK'S PAINTBRUSH: Biomimicry and How Nature is Inspiring Innovation. I believe biomimicry - a way of looking and working and designing - has enormous potential to save us from ourselves. I find this one of the most exciting developments in the world at this time.

Aired: 10/06/13 What do you feel when at sporting events or other public gatherings crowds join in a call to "support the troops?" If you're like me, I always have some misgivings. On the simplest level, the gesture seems pretty meaningless. What am I or anyone else in that crowd actually doing to support the troops? And when they add some clichéd phrases about fighting for our freedoms, a voice in my head always asks, "Yeah, how? Where?" In Iraq, Afghanistan, operating a drone that's flying over Pakistan or Yemen? Today's guest ANDREW BACEVICH has thought long and hard about such things, and has written a series of fairly short, very readable books that pursue questions that too many ignore or pretend don't matter. The United States has been "at war" for more than a decade. Yet as war has become normalized, a gap has widened between America's soldiers and the society in whose name they fight. For ordinary citizens, as former secretary of defense Robert Gates has acknowledged, armed conflict has becom

Aired 092913 A new documentary film opened Friday 9/27 in 23 cities, including Los Angeles, starring former Labor Secretary in the Clinton Administration, Berkeley professor, best-selling author, and frequent guest on this program, Robert Reich. Titled INEQUALITY FOR ALL, can it do for this "inconvenient truth" what the original did for climate change? My first guest this week will be the film's director JACOB KORNBLUTH. Early reviews are positive. It's got a Rotten Tomatoes score of 93%. Here's Ken Turan in the LA TIMES: Smart, funny and articulate, Robert Reich is the university professor we all wish we'd had. He's so accessible and entertaining he takes a subject that sounds soporific and makes it come alive like you wouldn't believe. Here's just a few numbers to remind you how crazy things have gotten: * In 1978, a typical male worker made $48K, a typical member of the top 1% $393K. In 2010, a typical male worker made $34K - a drop of 30%, while a typical member of the top 1% made $1,101K a gain of 18

Aired: 09/22/13 Standing on an island off the Alaskan coast, PHILIP CAPUTO marveled that Inupiat Eskimo schoolchildren pledge allegiance to the same flag as the children of Cuban immigrants in Key West, six thousand miles away. And a question began to take shape: How does the United States, peopled by every race on earth, remain united? CAPUTO resolved to drive from the nation's southernmost point to the northernmost point reachable by road, talking to everyday Americans about their lives. Fourteen years later, nearing 70, CAPUTO, his wife, and their two dogs drove a truck and an Airstream trailer from Key West, Florida, to Deadhorse, Alaska, covering 16,000 miles. They avoided interstates, and invited conversations with Americans you meet when you avoid interstates. Somewhere in many of those conversations, Caputo would ask two questions: What holds a country as vast and diverse as the United States together? Was it holding together as well as it once did?

Are you doing more sharing these days? In a virtual sense, most of us would probably answer yes. Sharing political petitions, photos shot with our mobile phones, and of course, cute cat stuff. But what about sharing in the real world - are you doing more of that? Well, as a society the answer again is yes. Whether bike sharing, which is rolling out in 500 cities, car-sharing, even Hertz is getting into the game, or apartment sharing through services like AirB&B. Habits and practices of simpler times like swapping, trading, renting, and sharing, have been reinvented through real-time technologies and peer-to-peer networks to make sharing more efficient and affordable than buying new things. null According to the Economist, "Occasional renting is cheaper than buying something outright or renting from a traditional provider such as a hotel or car-rental firm. The internet makes it cheaper and easier than ever to aggregate supply and demand. Smartphones with maps and satellite positioning can find a nearby room

Aired: 8/12/13 This week we’re going to talk about happiness. So let’s start with a true-false test. I’ll tell you a supposed fact about happiness, and you decide whether you think it’s true or false. 1. Unexpected pleasures are the most rewarding. True or false? 2. Novelty in a relationship has similar effects on our brain as a high from drugs. True or false? 3. Daily hassles impact our well-being more than major life events. True or false? 4. When it comes to sex, women require more novelty than men. True or false? 5. The genes that underlie who gets divorced are passed down from parents to children. True or false? 6. A smoking habit is not a bigger risk factor for heart disease as a troubled marriage. True or false? 7. Renters are happier than homeowners. True or false? Okay, let’s see how you did…It turns out, according to today’s guest, all seven statements are true. Yup, renters are happier and women want more novelty in sex than men. Where do I get off making those assertions? All base

Some estimate China will surpass the US to become the leading economic superpower by 2016. On the other hand, July 19th Paul Krugman wrote, "China is in big trouble. ...The country's whole way of doing business, the economic system that has driven three decades of incredible growth, has reached its limits. You could say that the Chinese model is about to hit its Great Wall..." This week's guests, ORVILLE SCHELL and JOHN DELURY, have both devoted a lot of time to studying and writing about China, including co-authoring the new book, WEALTH AND POWER: China's long March to the 21st Century. We'll explore China's current story on a number of fronts. Schell and Delury believe that China's character has become defined by its pursuit of national greatness to reverse generations of humiliation at the hands of its neighbors and the West. This quest for wealth, power and respect remains key to understanding many of China's actions today. We'll talk about China's history, character, economics, politics, and more. Ja

Aired: 07/28/13 I sometimes say that in a past life I worked in the entertainment industry, comedy in particular. I co-wrote and co-produced novelty records THE HOMECOMING QUEEN'S GOT A GUN, I LIKE EM BIG AND STUPID and EARTH GIRLS ARE EASY all performed by Julie Brown. I directed comic music videos for some of these songs, and ended up co-writing and co-producing the film EARTH GIRLS ARE EASY. I've produced and hosted this show since 1996 and I consult and speak primarily to non-profits and foundations, working with them on communications, encouraging them to tell better stories. My transition seems mild compared with that of this week's guest, TOM SHADYAC, whose phenomenally successful writing/directing/producing career included the hits- ACE VENTURA: PET DETECTIVE, LIAR LIAR, THE NUTTY PROFESSOR, BRUCE ALMIGHTY, and PATCH ADAMS . His films grossed nearly $2 billion and earned him four People's Choice awards and a ton of money. His 2011 documentary, I AM recounts what happened after a cycling accident

Aired: 7/21/13 This week we'll spend the hour with RAFE ESQUITH, who's been teaching fifth graders in LA's Hobart Elementary public school for nearly thirty years. Now a teacher of teachers, he recently returned from doing that in China. I first learned of Rafe's work in 2005, when POV the PBS film series pitched me a documentary, THE HOBART SHAKESPEARIANS, about the full Shakespeare productions that his students - most from families where English is not the primary language - perform each year. The film was directed by MEL STUART, a wonderful director of at least two landmark films - the 1971 Willy Wonka & the Chocolate Factory with Gene Wilder and 1973's WATTSTAX concert film of funky music and Black Power. Mel Stuart passed away a little less than a year ago. And he is missed. In September 2005, introducing my interview with Rafe and Mel about the film , I said this: Documentaries may be giving us what we hunger for. March of the Penguins, Mad Hot Ballroom and The Hobart Shakespeareans are documentaries

A friend tells the story of striking up a conversation with a hip looking man in his late 20s-early 30s in a movie line on the west side of LA shortly before the 2004 election between George Bush and John Kerry. He asked the young man who he planned to vote for, he answered that he hadn't made up his mind. My friend said to him, "Two words. Supreme Court." To which the young man replied, "Oh, are we voting for them too?" While we may be disappointed in his apparent lack of civics knowledge, in his own way, he spoke the truth. The most lasting actions a president takes may be his appointments to the Supreme Court. Supreme Court justices serve for as long as they wish or as long as they are able. Their decisions very often set precedents that can live forever. Bush had appointed John Roberts Chief Justice in his first term, but according to today's guest, it was his second term appointment of Samuel Alito to replace Sandra Day O'Connor that really solidified the Roberts Court. O'Connor had been a much more m

What would you do? BLM is holding a oil and gas lease auction where pristine Utah land is up for bid. What would you do? You're asked if you're there for the auction? Asked if you are a bidder? What would you do? You end up with a paddle, you bid, you win 12 leases in a row before the auction is halted. You are arrested, charged with felonies, and offered plea deals if you will apologize? What would you do? On December 19, 2008 TIM DeCHRISTOPHER disrupted a highly disputed BLM auction, effectively safeguarding thousands of acres of land. Not content to merely protest outside, Tim entered the auction hall and registered as bidder #70. He outbid industry giants on land parcels (which, starting at $2 an acre, were adjacent to national treasures like Canyonlands National Park), winning 22,000 acres of land worth $1.7 million Two months later, incoming Interior Secretary Ken Salazar invalidated the auction. Yet DeChristopher was indicted and tried on two federal felonies and spent 21 months in prison. Released i

This week, in the second of a two-part series (Part One with CARL HART author of HIGH PRICE: A Neuroscientist's Journey of Self-Discovery that Challenges Everything You Know about Drugs and Society) I'll be joined by DOUG FINE to talk about the accelerating movement to change the rules on marijuana. According to Fine, as the economy continues to limp along for most Americans and California cities declare bankruptcy, one action -- the legalization of marijuana -- would save government billions per year while raising huge sums in taxes. According to TIME, the legal medicinal cannabis economy already generates $200 million annually in taxable proceeds from a mere five hundred thousand registered medical users in just sixteen states. 51% of Americans support full legalization (cannabis regulated for adults like alcohol), and 80% support medicinal cannabis legalization. Fine's book, TOO HIGH TO FAIL: Cannabis and the New Green Economic Revolution, is just out in paperback. In a postscript added to the new edit

Aired: 06/16/13 How many of you agree that the War on Drugs is one of the most irrational, wasteful, counterproductive, and harmful things our federal government does in our name? Long after anyone can pretend that it might ever be won, this war lumbers on bloated and clumsy and obscenely unjust -- a monument to the corruption of money from the prison industrial complex, BIg Pharma and others, and to the cowardice of elected officials. This week's guest, neuroscientist CARL HART grew up in one of Miami's toughest neighborhoods and, in his first book, HIGH PRICE, he explores how it is that he avoided becoming one of the crack addicts he now studies. Columbia University's first tenured African American professor in the sciences, Hart goes beyond disputing myths, falsehoods, and ignorance about drugs, drug users, and drug policy. He has been engaged in cutting edge research since the late 90s, testing individuals with actual drugs. His controversial work is redefining our understanding of addiction. He exa

Aired 06/10/13 GEORGE PACKER has written a remarkable book, THE UNWINDING: An Inner History of the New America. In it, he argues that seismic economic shifts during a single generation have created a country of winners and losers, leaving the social contract in pieces and setting citizens adrift to find new paths forward. Packer sees America as a superpower in danger of coming apart at the seams, its elites no longer elite, its institutions no longer relevant. We've covered a lot of this ground before on Free Forum, but the power of THE UNWINDING is in how Packer tells his truth. He begins - "No one can say when the unwinding began - when the coil that held Americans together in its secure and sometimes stifling grip first gave way. Like any great change, the unwinding began at countless times, in countless ways - and at some moment the country, always the same coun­try, crossed a line of history and became irretrievably different. If you were born around 1960 or afterward, you have spent your adult life