Story in the Public Square

The genetics revolution is already reshaping healthcare—and most people see in it the potential for healthier children, healthier adults, and less disease.  Dr. Jamie Metzl argues that the same technology making progress possible has the potential to saddle the world with a complex array of thorny ethical questions that will affect everything from human sexual reproduction to national security.

Metzl is a technology and healthcare futurist, geopolitical expert, novelist, entrepreneur, media commentator, and Senior Fellow of the Atlantic Council.  He was appointed to the World Health Organization expert advisory committee on developing global standards for the governance and oversight of human genome editing in 2019.  He currently serves on the Advisory Council to Walmart’s Future of Retail Policy Lab and is a faculty member for Singularity University’s Exponential Medicine conference.  His most recent book is “Hacking Darwin: Genetic Engineering and the Future of Humanity.”

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With less than 5 percent of the planet’s population, the United States houses 22 percent of the world’s prisoners. The challenges of navigating that system don’t end when the convicted felon completes his or her sentence.  Keesha Middlemass shines a light on the substantial barriers felons face when they try to reenter society.  She’s Keesha Middlemass this week on Story in the Public Square.

Dr. Middlemass is a political science professor at Howard University.  She teaches courses in public policy and American Politics, and conducts research on race, institutions, public policy, and marginalized populations, focussing specifically on studying prisoner reentry, the politics of punishment, and racial justice. Her book, “Convicted & Condemned: The Politics and Policies of Prisoner Reentry” examines the public policies that create perverted incentives for men and women convicted of a felony and attempting to reenter society. 

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Afghanistan is known to most Americans as the site of America’s longest war.  Since 2001, the United States has sent hundreds of thousands of its sons and daughters to fight extremists and hunt-down the perpetrators of 9/11.  But Afghanistan is more than the war. Ambassador Adela Raz has a unique perspective on her country’s rich history and insights about its future.

Adela Raz is the Ambassador of Afghanistan to the United States.  She is also the designated non-resident Ambassador to Argentina, Mexico, the Dominican Republic, and Colombia.  She previously served as Afghanistan’s first female Permanent Representative and Ambassador to the United Nations from December 2018 until July 2021.  Raz was the Vice President of the 75th session of the General Assembly and was appointed by the President of the General Assembly to serve as the General Assembly’s co-coordinator on COVID-19-related initiatives.  In 2013, Raz was appointed as the first female Deputy Spokesperson and Director of Communication for President Karzai just after working with an international development organization in the United States.  She then became the Chief of Staff at the President’s Administrative Office in November 2014, and was appointed as Deputy Minister for Economic Cooperation at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs in March 2016.

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For generations, American politicians have promised reducing—or even eliminating—poverty as one of their goals.  In 1964, President Lyndon Johnson went so far as to declare an “unconditional war” on poverty.  Lenette Azzi-Lessing warns, however, that the rhetoric of fighting poverty has become a war on the poor with devastating consequences for America’s most vulnerable children.

Azzi-Lessing is Clinical Professor of Social Work at Boston University and author of “Behind from the Start: How America’s War on the Poor is Harming Our Most Vulnerable Children.” She founded the nationally recognized Rhode Island Center for Children At-Risk, now named Children’s Friend, in 1989 to address the social service and behavioral health needs of highly vulnerable young children and their families.  Azzi-Lessing is a member of the Child Welfare League of America’s National Joint Commission, she has co-chaired the League’s Committee on Prevention, Protection, and Family Preservation, and has been an expert witness in federal court on behalf of children abused and neglected in the child protective system.  In 2017, Azzi-Lessing was named a Fulbright Specialist focused on higher education and training in nations across the globe.  She also helped develop Graduate Certificate Programs in Early Childhood Development and Family Support in South Africa with colleagues from the University of Fort Hare, East London, Eastern Cape Province, South Africa.

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On September 22, 1928, a four-year-old girl named Barbara Griffiths disappeared in the woods near the small town of Massena, New York.  At some point in the panicked search that followed, someone speculated that the child may have been murdered by a Jewish resident of the community in a ritual sacrifice.  This was blood libel, a well-documented antisemitic slander common in Europe but new to the United States. Edward Berenson details the case and places it in historical and contemporary context. 

Edward Berenson is professor of history and chair of the history department at New York University (NYU).  Before he began teaching at NYU in 1998, he taught for many years at UCLA.  Berenson is the author or editor of eight books on 19th and 20th-century French, British, and U.S. history, two of which have been translated into French.  In 1999, he received the American Historical Association’s Eugene Asher Distinguished Teaching Award, and in 2006 he was decorated by former French president Jacques Chirac as “Chevalier dans l’Ordre de Merit.”  He has published op-eds in the New York Times and in leading French papers, and comments on American politics and public life for the French media.  His most recent book, “The Accusation: Blood Libel in an American Town,” covers the investigation of America’s only alleged case of blood libel, and what it reveals about antisemitism in the United States and Europe.

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After Alfred Nobel developed dynamite, his invention reshaped the world—literally.  From mining to infrastructure projects, dynamite proved essential to the building of the modern world.  But it also changed political violence—both on battlefields and in the streets where the first wave of modern terrorists adopted the explosive as a weapon of choice.  Audrey Kurth Cronin says we have work to do to manage the new age of open technological innovation before it gets ahead of us with potentially destructive consequences. 

Cronin’s career has combined academic positions and government service.  She joined the faculty of American University’s School of International Service in August 2016 and previously served as Director of the Center for Security Policy Studies, and Director of the International Security Program at George Mason University.  Before that, she was a faculty member and director of the core course on War and Statecraft at the U.S. National War College, after serving as Academic Director of Studies for the Oxford/Leverhulme Programme on the Changing Character of War at Nuffield College at Oxford University.  She was also the Specialist in Terrorism at the Congressional Research Service, advising Members of Congress in the aftermath of 9/11.  She has also served in the Office of the Secretary of Defense for Policy; the Office of the Secretary of the Navy and the American Embassy in Moscow.  Her latest book is “Power to the People: How Open Technological Innovation is Arming Tomorrow’s Terrorists,” which explores the risks and opportunities of 21st century emerging technologies.

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In 2017, opioid addiction claimed nearly 50,000 American lives—that’s as many Americans as were lost in the entire Vietnam War, and more than were lost to gun-shots and automobile accidents combined.  Dr. John Halpern and David Blistein explore the history of opium—from antiquity to the modern world—and describe a solution to the opioid crisis that blends an understanding of what works and what has failed, previously. 

Halpern and Blistein are the coauthors of “Opium: How an Ancient Flower Shaped and Poisoned Our World,” which details the history of opium and its evolution to the opioid crisis that ravages our nation today.  Halpern is a private-practice psychiatrist who previously served as medical director of the Boston Center for Addiction Treatment, the largest substance-use disorder hospital in New England.  He completed his residency and fellowship in addiction research at Harvard Medical School programs and taught at Harvard Medical School for over 20 years. Blistein is the author of the award-winning PBS documentary “The Mayo Clinic: Faith–Hope–Science” and is currently writing a comprehensive, three-part series on brain disorders and mental health.  He co-wrote “Cancer: The Emperor of All Maladies” and “The Gene” for PBS and authored “David’s Inferno,” which combines personal anecdotes with insights into the diagnosis and treatment of manic-depression.

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In 1924, a new American law ended the wave of immigration to this country that had begun in the 19th century.  Hundreds of thousands of southern- and eastern-European immigrants had entered the United States each year before the law, but after 1924, those numbers were reduced to a trickle.  Daniel Okrent is the author of a remarkable history of the bigotry and sham science that lay at the heart of the Immigration Act of 1924. 

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If you are a regular viewer of “Story in the Public Square,” you know we define “story” and “story-teller” very broadly.  Educators, artists, scholars—and more—all qualify in our eyes; but occasionally, we meet a talent that weaves all three skills together with a profound humanity that commends their work to us, as they inspire and even heal others.  Patricia Nguyen is just such a person. 

Nguyen is an Asian-American artist, educator, and scholar who was born and raised in Chicago, Illinois.  She is currently a Visiting Assistant Professor in Asian American Studies at Northwestern University, where she received her Ph.D. in Performance Studies.  She is also a Paul and Daisy Soros Fellow for New Americans and has over 15 years of experience working in arts education, community development, and human rights in the United States and Vietnam.  Her research and performance work examines critical refugee studies, political economy, forced migration, oral history, inherited trauma, torture, and nation building in the United States and Vietnam. She has published work in Women Studies Quarterly, Harvard Kennedy School’s Asian American Policy Review, and The Methuen Drama Anthology of Modern Asian Plays.

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In the early morning hours of July 10, 2016, a young staffer for the Democratic National Committee was murdered as he walked home from a bar.  Without any real evidence, Seth Rich’s death became a focal point for efforts to debunk the story that Russia hacked the DNC to help Donald Trump’s 2016 campaign.  Michael Isikoff, however, tells us that the conspiracy theories around Seth Rich’s murder have a remarkable origin: Russian intelligence. 

Isikoff is an investigative journalist who is currently the Chief Investigative Correspondent at Yahoo News.  He is also the co-author with of the 2018 book, “Russian Roulette: The Inside Story of Putin’s War on America and the Election of Donald Trump.”  Isikoff previously served as the national investigative correspondent for NBC News and Newsweek, writing extensively on the U.S. government’s War on Terrorism, the Abu Ghraib torture and prisoner abuse, campaign finance, presidential politics, and other national issues.

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