LESTER BROWN has been described by the Washington Post as "one of the world's most influential thinkers." After working with the Department of Agriculture in international agricultural development, Brown helped establish the Overseas Development Council, then founded the Worldwatch Institute, which has played an important role in the public's understanding of trends in our global environment with its annual State of the World report and later the annual Vital Signs

In 2001, he left Worldwatch, founded Earth Policy Institute www.earth-policy.org, and published Eco-Economy: Building an Economy for the Earth. His other books include Who Will Feed China?; Tough Choices: Facing the Challenge of Food Scarcity, and his newest book PLAN B 3.0: MOBILIZING TO SAVE CIVILIZATION.

PLAN B 3.0 is a comprehensive plan for reversing the trends that are undermining our future. Its four overriding goals are to stabilize climate, stabilize population, eradicate poverty, and restore the earth's damaged ecosystems. Failure to reach any one of these goals will likely mean failure to reach the others as well.

Steven Clemons is is the publisher of the popular political blog; www.thewashingtonnote.com, and a former staff member of Senator Jeff Bingaman.

Clemons is also Director of the American Strategy Program at the New America Foundation, and the former director of the Japan Policy Research Institute. He characterizes himself as a "progressive realist."

Thomas Hayden is an American social and political activist and politician, most famous for his involvement in the anti-war and civil rights movements of the 1960s.

Hayden serves as a member of the advisory board for the Progressive Democrats of America, an influential "grass roots" organization created to expand “progressive” political cooperation within the Democratic Party.

Enjoy the conversation as Terrence and Tom talk about the 2008 election, Barack Obama and Super Tuesday!

MUHAMMAD YUNUS,
Nobel Peace Prizewinner, pioneer of micro-credit
author, BANKER TO THE POOR, and his newest,
CREATING A WORLD WITHOUT POVERTY

As founder of Grameen Bank, YUNUS pioneered microcredit, the innovative banking program that provides poor people--mainly women--with small loans they use to launch businesses and lift their families out of poverty.

In the past thirty years, microcredit has spread to every continent and benefited over 100 million families. But YUNUS remained unsatisfied. Much more could be done, he believed, if the dynamics of capitalism could be applied to humanity's greatest challenges.

Now, in CREATING A WORLD WITHOUT POVERTY, Yunus goes beyond microcredit to pioneer the idea of social business--a completely new way to use the creative vibrancy of business to tackle social problems from poverty and pollution to inadequate health care and lack of education.

Journalist and author LYNNE McTAGGART's research on THE FIELD included meetings with top frontier scientists in Russia, Germany, France, England, South American, Central America and the USA. During these meetings, she saw that what these scientists were working on seemed to overthrow the current laws of biology, chemistry and physics. Their theories and experiments also compounded into a new science, a new view of the world. Lynne concludes that her research paints a picture of an interconnected universe.

With THE INTENTION EXPERIMENT, McTAGGART asks a great question. Can our thoughts influence the world around us? Top scientists have teamed up with her to create the world's largest ever mind-over-matter experiment. Thousands of volunteers are testing this possibility in a series of web-based experiments, making it the largest mind-over-matter study in history.

plus a brief commentary by TERESA O'NEILL

JODIE EVANS, Co-founder, CODE PINK: Women for Peace
They're launching www.dontbuybushswar.org
on the anniversary of the Boston Tea Party.

When Ralph Waldo Emerson visited Thoreau in jail, he asked the author of Walden, "Henry, what are doing in there?" Thoreau responded, "Ralph, what are you doing out there?"
Our statement is not against taxation or government. Many of us will continue to pay a portion of our taxes that support the vital functions of government. But we will hold in escrow or redirect the portion of our war taxes to humanitarian aid projects and projects such as those providing relief to survivors of Hurricane Katrina.

"The Story of Stuff with Annie Leonard" is an engaging new short film that explains the "materials economy" in 20 fun-filled minutes. Yes, fun-filled.

Produced by Free Range Studios, which developed "The Meatrix" -- an animated short about factory farming that ranks among the cleverest uses of Internet technologies to deliver a politically progressive message -- The Story of Stuff features the wonderful Annie Leonard, amusing graphics, lots of humor, and a complicated analysis presented in an easy-to-understand conversational tone.

You can watch the whole thing at www.StoryofStuff.com
You'll have to watch the film to enjoy the humor -- there's no easy way to convey the playful cartooning with serious purpose. But I guarantee chuckles even for the most austere.

When no WMD could be been found in Iraq, several members of the Bush administration justified the imminent preemptive invasion because we could “not afford for the smoking gun come in the form of a mushroom cloud.” Turns out Saddam had no bomb, probably no bomb program.

We've heard consistent fear-mongering from a Bush administration that appears eager to attack Iran. Bush himself recently linked Iran to WWIII! Now comes word from the National Intelligence Estimate that Iran halted its nuclear weapons program in 2003.

The administration handles Musharraf with kid gloves as he asserts dictatorial powers to control a very volatile Pakistan, home of Doctor Khan's global atomic sales operation.

2005 Nobel Peace Prize winner Mohamed ElBaradei, Director-General of the International Atomic Energy Agency, has high praise for JOSEPH CIRINCIONE'S BOMB SCARE. "At a time of challenges and uncertainties regarding the nuclear non-proliferation and disarmament regime, the book offers a comprehensive review of the history and theory of nuclear weapons, as well as of the policy options before us today in our common endeavor to address the most pressing threats; existing arsenals, the emergence of new nuclear-armed states, and nuclear terrorism.”

CHEF ANN COOPER is a renegade lunch lady who works to transform cafeterias into culinary classrooms for students - one school lunch at a time.
She has transformed public school cafeterias in New York City, Harlem and Bridgehampton, NY, and now in Berkeley, CA, to teach more students why good food choices matter by putting innovative strategies to work and providing fresh, organic lunches to all students. __Currently, Chef Ann is the director of nutrition services for the Berkeley Unified School District (BUSD), improving meals at 16 public schools with a population of over 9,000 students.
In her work with public schools, Chef Ann is at the forefront of the movement to transform the National School Lunch Program into one that places greater emphasis on the health of students than the financial health of a select few agribusiness corporations. Chef Ann's lunch menus emphasize regional, organic, fresh foods, and nutritional education, helping students build a connection between their personal health and where their food comes from.

Chef Ann's newest book, LUNCH LESSONS: CHANGING THE WAY WE FEED OUR CHILDREN, is overflowing with strategies for parents and school administrators to become engaged with issues around school food - from public policy to corporate interest. It includes successful case studies of school food reform, resources that can help make a difference and healthy, kid-friendly recipes that can be made at home, or by the thousands for a public school cafeteria.

ADRIAN LEVY and CATHERINE SCOTT-CLARK are award-winning investigative journalists who worked as staff writers and foreign correspondents for the Sunday Times of London for 7 years before joining the Guardian as senior correspondents. They are the authors of The Amber Room: The Fate of the World's Greatest Lost Treasure and The Stone of Heaven: Unearthing the Secret History of Imperial Green Jade, and their newest, DECEPTION: Pakistan, the US, and the Secret Trade in Nuclear Weapons. They have reported from South Asia for more than a decade, and now live in London and in France.

Over 25,000 young people have died in America's gang wars since 1980 - a bit less than half the number of soldiers who lost their lives in Vietnam. In cities across America current and former gang-members are like traumatized war veterans with no way home. Tom Hayden's book STREET WARS indicts the domestic law and order politics that dominate current policy and suffocate inner city youth.

It has been almost two years since Stanley Tookie Williams was executed after being denied clemency by California Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger. In the wake of his death, Stanley Tookie Williams' memoir BLUE RAGE, BLACK REDEMPTION, will be re-released to shed additional light on Tookie's personal and public fight for redemption.

Part 1 of the book, entitled Blue Rage, chronicles Tookie's gang life as a co-founder of the Crips. During this time he committed hundreds of crimes and was eventually charged with the murder of four people. In 1981, Tookie was convicted and sent to Death Row for twenty years. Throughout his time in prison, he maintained his innocence for the crimes for which he was convicted. The second part of the book, Black Redemption, looks at the work Tookie completed and legacy he crafted behind bars-his books, awards, anti-gang initiatives, and Nobel Prize nominations.

PHIL DONAHUE pioneered the modern television talk show. DONAHUE ran for 29 years and used its time to explore and debate issues that mattered to its audiences. Despite being one of MSNBC's highest rated programs, Donahue's brief return to television was cancelled in February 2003. A leaked internal NBC memo statede that Donahue had to be fired because he would be a "difficult public face for NBC in a time of war”.

Now PHIL DONAHUE has collaborated with veteran documentary filmmaker Ellen Spiro to give us an unsanitized account of one young man's evolution from enlisted soldier to anti-war veteran.

Tomas Young grew up in Kansas City and like many patriotic young men and women, he responded to a call to action after 9/11. After less than one week in Iraq, he received a bullet injury to the spine that paralyzed his body. The film cleverly inter-cuts two parallel stories: Tomas struggles to deal with the complexities of his injuries while we see the congressional deliberations granting President Bush authority to invade Iraq. The effect is a startlingly powerful juxtaposition of cause and effect and the personal consequences of misguided vision.