Talk Cocktail

To live a full life is to make mistakes.  Unlike Fitzgerald’s suggestion of "personality as an unbroken series of successful gestures," for most of us life is messy, complicated and often filled with regret and anger.  When we look back we realize we are,  in some strange and mysterious way, the sum total of all that we have done.  The meals we’ve eaten, the books we’ve read and the people that we have touched and have touched us.  Together it forms kind of life mosaic, unique and often compelling.

Such has been the life of Daniel Manaker. Through the hallowed halls of the New Yorker, where he worked for twenty-six years, to the pinnacle of power in publishing at Random House and Harper Collins, through the death of a mother, a brother and his own battle with cancer, he now shares his unique mosaic with us in his new memoir My Mistake

My conversation with Daniel Menaker:

Back in the dark days of the Cold War, John le Carre published The Spy Who Came In From The Cold.  It cast a light, as only fiction sometimes can, on covert actions that are not a clear choice between good and evil, but one where the methods that western intelligence would use, disturbingly resembled those used by their opponents.  The distance  between us and them became blurred.  It exposed the Cold War not as a battle between light and darkness, but a place where both sides meandered in the twilight of moral ambiguity.

In the days following 9/11 we as a nation, our policies and our intelligence service, the CIA, would again begin to blur those lines.  

At the same time, the actions that the President would arguably take, were reminiscent of Richard Nixon's comments in his famous interview with the late David Frost where he said, talking about Watergate at the time, "if the President does it, it means it's not illegal."

John Rizzo as, CIA General Council was at the center as that post 9/11 storm, as he was at the center of everything the CIA did for 34 years. He takes us through the history in Company Man: Thirty Years of Controversy and Crisis in the CIA.

My conversation with John Rizzo:

As we continue to debate health care in America, as more people come into the system, the single most significant effort is now to figure out ways to reduce cost. Perhaps the best place to start, is with the one epidemic that accounts for no less than 10% of all health care costs. That epidemic is obesity.

It is our number one public health issue.  Its causes go to the limits of self control and human nature, but most of all to the reality and excess of our current food environment.

Dr. Deborah Cohen, in her book A Big Fat Crisis: The Hidden Forces Behind the Obesity Epidemic — and How We Can End It, argues that public policy, targeted at the food industry, is more important than any kind of personal responsibility.

My conversation with Deborah Cohen:

Richard Pryor would become be the single most influential performer of the second half of the Twentieth Century, and certainly he was the most successful black comedian ever. 

Controversial always and enigmatic throughout  his lifetime, Pryor’s performances opened up a new world of possibilities, merging fantasy with angry reality in a way that wasn’t just new—it was heretofore unthinkable.

David and Joe Henry have captured the essence of Pryor in their new book  Furious Cool: Richard Pryor and the World That Made Him

My conversation with Joe and David Henry:

Long, long after the death of LIFE and LOOK, we once again live in a world of images.  Instagram, Facebook, Pinterest all cater to that proverbial idea that a picture is worth a thousand words.  Yet perhaps it's because we have too many images, or that they are coming at us to fast, few truly capture the essence of any particular moment or ethos.

However when we look back at the work of famed photographer Dorothea Lange, it’s different.  Her  striking black and white images taken during the depression years and depicting those on the margins of society, are a kind o tabula rosa for understanding a place, a time, a way of life.

Dorothea Lange will soon be the subject of a PBS documentary  on the American Masters series, and Chronicle Books has just released a career spanning collection of her work entitled Dorothea Lange: Grab a Hunk of Lightning. It is the companion book to the PBS documentary.  The new volume is written and curated by her goddaughter acclaimed biographer Elizabeth Partridge.

My conversation with Elizabeth Partridge:

Alan Turing, the great British mathematician who cracked Nazi codes, set the stage for our digital age and later killed himself after the government chemically castrated him for being gay, received a posthumous royal pardon last week, 61 years after his conviction on the "gross indecency" laws of the time. 

Turing's life will soon be the basis for the film The Imitation Game, starring Benedict Cumberbatch. Last year I spoke with technology historian George Dyson about his book Turing's Cathedral: The Origins of the Digital Universe.

My conversation with George Dyson:

Recently reports proliferated that in the House of Representatives, during the government shutdown, while meeting late into the night, the smell of booze was rampant.  Perhaps if they had been smoking pot, instead of drinking alcohol, the government would never have been shut down and there might be a whiff more bipartisanship.

Sound ridiculous? Well if it had been the Colorado or Washington legislature, it might very well be the case.  In fact the legalization of marijuana seems to be an idea whose time has come. Recent votes in Colorado and Washington, coupled with the twenty states already allowing medical marijuana, and the decision by the Justice Department to rescind prosecutions, are all key sign posts along the way.

A key player in this effort, who was also instrumental in Colorado's recent decision to legalize even recreational use, is Paul Armentano.  He's the co-author of Marijuana is Safer: So Why Are We Driving People to Drink? My conversation with Paul Armentano:

Recently you’ve probably heard that the American College of Cardiology and the American Heart Association are seeking to expand the use of statins.  Cholesterol lowering drugs, that some have said should be put in our water supply.  But really how safe are these drugs? Are their benefits all they are cracked up to be and what’s the nexus with the fact that they also happen to be the worlds best selling drug and the biggest tool in enhancing big pharma's profits?

Why have doctors, even those that don’t stand to benefit from those profits, been so smitten with this class of drugs; drugs that have been linked to severe muscle pain, neuropathy, diabetes, memory loss, sexual dysfunction and even Lou Gehrig's disease?

Dr. Barbara Roberts, an associate clinical professor at the Alpert Medical School of Brown University,  has been trying to put put her finger in the dam of big pharma and trying and bring some reason to the debate.  She does so in her book The Truth About Statins: Risks and Alternatives to Cholesterol-Lowering Drugs.

My conversation with Dr. Barbara Roberts:

We often hear career counselors and teachers talking to young people about following their passion. Obviously good advice. But for some, that passion comes with a price.  For esteemed war correspondent Marie Colvin, that passion, her desire to bear witness to the horrors of war would cost her her life.  The same is true for British reporter and photographer Paul Conroy.  He was with Colvin in Syria in early 2012 when they would come under fire in the city of Homs

A rocket would kill Colvin and seriously wound Conroy.  As Syrian ground forces closed in on his position, Conroy was forced to make a terrifying last-ditch attempt to escape from a regime that appeared determined to murder him. He did escape, and has written  Under the Wire: Marie Colvin's Final Assignment.

My conversation with Paul Conroy:

Why is it that the pain of rejection in High School often stays with us for life?  Not being asked to the prom, not making the team, or that first broken heart. All seem to imprint us in ways that scar us for life.  

And what is the connection between those experiences and our seeming insatiable appetite for social networks?  As we look at the evolution of technology, from cave paintings to the printing press to the telephone to Facebook and Twitter, all are advancing the effort to connect.  

Maybe, we need to reassess  Maslow's hierarchy of needs, in a way that makes social connection as important to our well being as food, clothing and shelter?

Neuroscientist Matthew Liberman has been studying this and in Social: Why Our Brains Are Wired to Connect has come to some very powerful conclusions.

My conversation with Matthew Liberman: