Terrence Mcnally Podcast

Aired: 5/26/13 How difficult is it to be a government whistleblower these days? A dozen years after 9/11, with a former constitutional law professor in the White House, the sad news is that to expose government negligence or illegality is to jeopardize one's career and life savings. The newest documentary from producer and director ROBERT GREENWALD and Brave New Films, WAR ON WHISTLEBLOWERS: Free Press and the National Security State highlights the stories of four individuals who felt compelled to reveal acts of government illegality and violations to the U.S. constitution in the military industrial complex in the years following 9/11. In the film, whistleblowers, journalist and experts share what happens when the government punishes those who stand up to demand accountability and defend the constitution. Such actions and the atmosphere they engender has a chilling effect on the speech rights of citizens and the free press. This week I speak about all of this with GREENWALD as well as with two of the courag

Aired: 5/12/13 Is there a revolution coming to your rooftop? While opponents claim solar is expensive, inefficient, and unreliable, in his book ROOFTOP REVOLUTION: How Solar Power Can Save Our Economy And Our Planet From Dirty Energy, DANNY KENNEDY makes clear solar can save money, create jobs, and protect the environment if only politics and perception will get out of the way. During the recent Presidential campaign, we heard a lot about Solyndra, the solar start-up that received a sizable government loan only to go belly up. Solar's detractors claim the collapse of Solyndra proves solar is just a hippie pipe dream, but Danny Kennedy, says the truth is quite the opposite. Solyndra failed because it wasn't able to compete in a red-hot industry, not because solar isn't ready for prime time. The industry employs 100,000 people in the United States, twice as many as in 2009 and twice the number of coal miners. In 2011, Warren Buffett invested $2 billion in a solar farm, and General Electric bought a start-up

Aired: 05/05/13 In JEREMY SCAHILL'S new best-seller, DIRTY WARS, what begins as an investigation into a US night raid gone terribly wrong in a remote corner of Afghanistan quickly transforms into a high-stakes global investigation into the rise of Joint Special Operations Command, the most secret and elite fighting force in U.S. history. In military jargon, JSOC teams "find, fix and finish" their targets, who are selected through a secret process. No target is off limits for the "kill list," including U.S. citizens. It's the unbounded, unending War on Terror: all bets are off, and almost anything goes. We have fundamentally changed the rules of the game and the rules of engagement. Today drone strikes, night raids, and U.S. government-condoned torture occur, generating unprecedented civilian casualties. DIRTY WARS reveals covert operations unknown to the public and carried out across the globe by men who do not exist on paper and will never appear before Congress, raising questions about freedom and democ

Aired: 04/28/13 Are human beings monogamous by nature? While granting our tendency to slip, most commentators and scientists seem to believe we are. According to the conventional wisdom, it is in the interests of a woman to keep a male as a protector/provider, and in the interests of a man to provide only for his own children. In the best-selling book, SEX AT DAWN, CHRISTOPHER RYAN and co-author Cacilda Jethá aim to answer the question, "What is the essence of human sexuality and how did it get to be that way?" They contend that, "Cultural shifts that began about ten thousand years ago rendered the true story of human sexuality so subversive and threatening that for centuries it has been silenced by religious authorities, pathologized by physicians, studiously ignored by scientists, and covered up by moralizing therapists." What is that true story? According to Ryan and Jetha, first, "We didn't descend from apes. We are apes." They liken us most to bonobos. Furt

Aired: 04/21/13 "If it doesn't spread, it's dead," is the simple consistent message of a new book, SPREADABLE MEDIA: Creating Value and Meaning in a Networked Culture, that maps the changes taking place in our media environment. For all their consolidation, concentration, and money, corporations can no longer control media distribution. Millions are now directly involved in the creation and circulation of content. "Stickiness" - focusing attention in centralized places -- has been the measure of success in the broadcast era. No more. "Spreadability" - dispersing content through formal and informal networks, with and without permission - is the new goal. What does this mean for media? For information? For culture? For the distribution of power? And how can you take advantage of the new realities to have greater impact and influence? I'll be talking about all of that this week with one of the book's authors, HENRY JENKINS. He coined the term "participatory culture" an

When someone approaches you to donate to a non-profit, how many of you want to know how much of of its money goes to salaries and fund-raising and how much goes to actual program services? If you're like most people, that question probably figures into your decision. I myself have factored that question of how much is spent on overhead into my charitable giving. But is it a valid or wise way to make such decisions? According to today's guest, DAN PALLOTTA, while it may be helpful, much more important is how well they serve their mission, how good a job they're doing solving the problems you care about. In his earlier book, UNCHARITABLE, Pallotta, who has a record of helping to raise hundreds of millions of dollars for causes, made the case that the way we think about non-profits and the rules we set for them, makes it harder for them to succeed on a truly significant scale. Too many nonprofits, he says, are rewarded for how little they spend -- not for what they get done. Instead of equating frugality wi

In the preface to an article entitled A National Strategic Narrative, Anne-Marie Slaughter of Princeton says we need a narrative that confronts some of the following questions, "Where is the United States going in the world? How can we get there? What are the guiding stars that will illuminate the path along the way? We need a story with a beginning, middle, and projected happy ending that will transcend our political divisions, orient us as a nation, and give us both a common direction and the confidence and commitment to get to our destination." She also writes, "In one sentence, the strategic narrative of the United States in the 21st century is that we want to become the strongest competitor and most influential player in a deeply inter-connected global system, which requires that we invest less in defense and more in sustainable prosperity and the tools of effective global engagement." Mark Mykleby, one of the authors of that article, A National Strategic Narrative, is my guest today. He writes that t

Aired: 03/31/13 I do my best to question conventional wisdom, but I had heard and repeated the fact that the US had lost its manufacturing and it was never coming back so often that I assumed it must be true. But I pick up the December 2012 issue of the Atlantic magazine recently and two articles jump out at me - both declaring that manufacturing is re-emerging. James Fallows writes of US startups exploiting new technologies to speed up the process of design-to-product, and Charles Fishman writes about US corporations like GE moving production back to the US. James Fallows' article, Mr. China Comes to America, opens with these words: "For decades, every trend in manufacturing favored the developing world and worked against the Unites States. But new tools that greatly speed up development from idea to finished product encourage start-up companies to locate here, not in Asia." That got my attention! Charles Fishman's article The Insourcing Boom goes even a step further. It's opening words: "After years o

Aired: 03/24/13 This week I'm joined by RON SCHULTZ, editor of a new book, CREATING GOOD WORK, that brings together essays by social entrepreneurs that share their experiences as well as their insights and advice for others. Ron has invited a few of his book's contributors (PAUL HERMAN, founder/CEO, HIP Investor Inc; JIM FRUCHTERMAN, founder/CEO Benetech; CARRIE FREEMAN, Second Muse; formerly Intel) to join us, and I want to tap each person's individual story while asking some of these bigger questions -- What is a social entrepreneur? What's working in the field? Why is it working? What is the larger goal or vision? Why is social entrepreneurship important? What are the big challenges? What lessons have they learned? Where can listeners learn more? I hope someone new to the concept will understand what we're talking about and a knowledgeable listener will learn things they can put to use.

Original Airdate: This week's guest, MICHAEL LIND, has written an economic history of the United States. In his new book, LAND OF PROMISE, he lays out a pattern in which the US has reinvented itself economically and politically a number of times based on the emergence of new technologies. From wind and water, to steam, to electricity and internal combustion, and finally the computer. Each new dominant technology overwhelms the existing political and regulatory system and American government lags a generation or two behind technology-induced economic change. It takes a crisis or a war or both to overthrow the old regime and usher in the new. When the U.S. economy has flourished, Lind argues, government, business, labor and universities have worked together as partners in a project of economic nation building. Today, as the United States struggles to emerge from the Great Recession, Land of Promise says that Americans, since the earliest days of the republic, have repeatedly reinvented the American econo

This week's guest is DAVE ZIRIN. Dave is the first sports editor for The Nation magazine. He has for years in books, columns, and commentaries examined both the politics of sports as well as the intersection of the two. Howard Cosell said "rule number one of the jockocracy" was that sports and politics don't mix. In his newest book, Game Over, Zirin asserts that modern professional athletes are breaking that rule like never before. From the NFL lockout and the role of soccer in the Arab Spring to the Penn State sexual abuse scandals and Tim Tebow's on-field genuflections, Dave reveals how our most important debates about class, race, religion, sex, and political power are being played out both on and off the field. I've left my overzealous interest in sports out of the studio for years, but this week -- a couple of weeks after the Super Bowl, not long after Lance Armstrong finally admits to doping, and a few hours before the NBA All Star game - I break that barrier. Dave Zirin and I will talk about specif

The Academy Awards will be given out in two weeks and we are lucky to have the co-directors of one of the nominated films with us today. 5 BROKEN CAMERAS, one of five nominees for best documentary, tells the story of a Palestinian farmer who lives with his wife and four small children in the village of Bil'in, in the central West Bank. EMAD BURNAT got his first camera in 2005, when his youngest son, Gibreel, was born. Almost simultaneously, the Israeli army began building a separation wall between Bil'in and a nearby Israeli settlement, separating residents from the olive tree groves that are their livelihood. Burnat turned his camera on his fellow villagers as they responded with nonviolent protests, including marches to the wall every Friday. I am joined in the studio today by Burnat and his Israeli co-director, GUY DAVIDI. Structured in chapters around the destruction of each one of Burnat's cameras, we witness Gibreel grow from a newborn baby into a young boy, as from behind the lens Burnat watches as

Aired: 02/03/13 This week, my guest is DAVID GOLDHILL. After the death of his father, Goldhill, a business executive, began a personal exploration of a health-care industry that for years has delivered poor service and irregular quality at astonishingly high cost. His September 2009 Atlantic cover story rocked the health-care world, and Goldhill has written a book expanding on the topic, Catastrophic Care: How American Health Care Killed My Father-And How We Can Fix It. It is a system, he argues, that is not worth preserving in anything like its current form. He asserts Obamacare will not fix it, and offers his own radical solution. * As a nation, we now spend almost 18% of our GDP on health care. * In 1966, Medicare and Medicaid made up 1% of total government spending; now that figure is 20%. * The federal government spends - 8 times as much on health care as it does on education -- 12 times what it spends on food aid to children and families -- 30 times what it spends on law enforcement -- 78

We hear a lot these days about Armageddon, the Apocalypse, the Rapture, End Times. More than a current cultural phenomenon, they appear to be a persuasive motivating force for millions of Americans. These words are now part of our vocabulary, and as metaphors, they show up all over the map -- Carmageddon as the nickname for the I-405's weekend closure in July 2011. But, where do they come from? As many of you may know, they come from the Book of Revelation, the last book of the Christian New Testament. But how did they get there? Who wrote this? What does it mean? This week's guest, religious scholar ELAINE PAGELS, author of The Gnostic Gospels, considers the Book of Revelation to be wartime literature. She points out that it was written by a Jew following Rome's resounding defeat of a Jewish uprising, and interprets it as an attack on the decadence of the Empire. Soon, however, a new sect known as "Christians" seized on it as a weapon against heresy and infidels of all kinds. I believe that weapon is still

Aired: 1/20/13 HOWARD BLOOM has been called “next in a lineage of seminal thinkers that includes Newton, Darwin, Einstein,[and] Freud,” by Britain’s Channel4 TV , and “the next Stephen Hawking” by Gear Magazine. His books include The Lucifer Principle: A Scientific Expedition Into the Forces of History; Global Brain: The Evolution of Mass Mind from the Big Bang to the 21st Century; The Genius of the Beast: A Radical Re-Vision of Capitalism; and his latest, THE GOD PROBLEM: How a Godless Cosmos Creates. Heavy stuff, sure, but his biography is a lot quirkier than that list might suggest. From 1968 to 1988, Bloom made his mark in the music business, founding and running its biggest PR firm, working with Michael Jackson, Prince, Bob Marley, Bette Midler, Queen, Simon & Garfunkel, Peter Gabriel, Grandmaster Flash and the Furious Five, among many others. He helped launch Farm Aid and Amnesty International’s American presence, and put together the first public service radio campaign for solar power. Bloom launc

In her 18th book, ECOMIND: CHANGING THE WAY WE THINK, TO CREATE THE WORLD WE WANT, Frances Moore Lappé argues that much of what is wrong with the world, from eroding soil to eroding democracies, results from ways of thinking that are out of sync with human nature and nature's rhythms. Humans are doers, she says. But our capacity for doing is undermined by seven "thought traps" that leave us mired in fear, guilt, and despair -- none of which are motivators to action. Drawing on the latest research in climate studies, anthropology, and neuroscience, she weaves her analysis together with stories of real people the world over, who, having shifted some basic thought patterns, now shift the balance of power in our world. Chapter-by-chapter, Lappé takes us from "thought trap" to "thought leap," and with each shift, challenges become opportunities.

Aired: 1/13/13 My guest this week is JONAH SACHS, author of WINNING THE STORY WARS: Why Those Who Tell and Live the Best Stories Will Rule the Future. He is also Creative Director at Free Range Studios, who are responsible for many wonderful campaigns, two of which - The Meatrix and The Story of Stuff - are among the most successful videos ever in terms of viral circulation to millions. On their home page, you'll see this quote: "Great stories make great change possible. Your world-changing message deserves to be heard - really heard. But that only happens when you learn to tell a great story."

Aired: 12/23/12 Recorded: 10/17/12 When gas prices were at or near record highs a few months ago in the US, that got people's attention. What about food prices? Have you noticed them rising? Are you making different choices in the supermarket? If not, it might be because of two things. One, in America so much of our food is processed, packaged and marketed, that raw commodity prices make up only a fraction of the price of the food we buy. In other countries, especially the less developed ones, an increase in the price of rice or corn can have a major effect on how much a family can afford to eat. Two, Americans spend only 9% percent of their income on food, while millions around the world spend 50-70%. Millions of households now routinely schedule foodless days each week-days when they will not eat at all. A recent survey by Save the Children shows that 14% of families in Peru now have foodless days. India, 24%. Nigeria, 27%. In his newest book, FULL PLANET, EMPTY PLATES, LESTER BROWN writes, "The U.S. Gre

Aired 1/6/13 In the year 2000, Germany got 6% of its energy from renewables. That's about what we get in the US today. But today Germany gets 25% of its electricity from solar, wind and biomass. And Germany is not exactly the American Southwest. Perhaps just as impressive and important, 65% of the country's renewable power capacity is owned by individuals, cooperatives and communities. Clean and decentralized. I'll be talking with Osha Gray Davidson about how they did it and what we can learn from their story. Osha is new to me, but I contacted him immediately as soon as I saw his new book CLEAN BREAK: The Story of Germany's Energy Transformation and What Americans Can Learn from It. As anyone who listens to this show knows, I feel one of the crucial elements in America's sluggish response to many of our biggest challenges is our ignorance about what other countries do well.

Aired 01/06/13 - I'll be talking with longtime anti-nuke activist Harvey Wasserman. I'll ask Harvey Wasserman about where things stand today in terms of nuclear power. What's going on in the US -- are new plants being built, are old ones shutting down? We'll get an update on Fukushima. And finally, we'll address the temporary shutdown at San Onofre near San Diego, and the opportunity to shut it down permanently. Harvey Wasserman is a teacher, author, and activist, focusing primarily on election protection and nuclear power. With Bob Fitrakis, Harvey helped break many of the major stories surrounding the 2004 presidential election in Ohio. In 1973 Wasserman helped pioneer the global grassroots movement against atomic reactors, then helped organize mass demonstrations at Seabrook, N.H., as well as New York City's 1979 "No Nukes" concerts and rally, featuring Bruce Springsteen, Bonnie Raitt, Jackson Browne, CSN, James Taylor. He edits the NukeFree.org web site, and is senior editor of www.freepress.org. Wasser