Talk Cocktail

We talk a great deal, in the political context, of still fighting the culture wars of the ‘60s. Yet in that discussion we sometimes miss the larger points of what changed in that period. It wasn’t just politics, and war and drugs and race. It was a fundamental change in how we view ourselves as individuals and our place in the world.

The human potential movement, born in the early 60’s, sought to address how we see ourselves, and how we could be more empowered as individuals. This was very different than the Organization Man that grew out of WWII. We see the flowerings of this in some of the individual stirring in Mad Men.

Jessica Grogan takes a look at the whole history of this movement in Encountering America: Humanistic Psychology, Sixties Culture, and the Shaping of the Modern Self.

My conversation with Jessica Grogan:

As the new year begins, and we make the requisite resolutions, we somehow know that most will not be kept. In part, this is due to the gap that exists between what we want and what we actually do. In understanding that gap, we essentially define who we are. When we eat the organic chocolate, which we purchased as a donation to a charity, we are really fooling ourselves that our virtue is more important than our willpower.

This understanding of willpower, is the work of our guest Stanford professor Kelly McGonigal. Her work is detailed in The Willpower Instinct: How Self-Control Works, Why It Matters, and What You Can Do To Get More of It.

My conversation with Kelly McGonigal:

Laurie Rubin was born blind, but has never allowed herself to be defined by her disability. She is an internationally celebrated Mezzo Soprano, a jewelry designer, a water skier and a graduate of Yale. She is also the author of a new memoir and CD, both titled Do You Dream in Color

My conversation with Laurie Rubin:

A spoonful of sugar does not make the medicine go down! In fact, it maybe that spoonful of sugar that is the very reason we may need the medicine.

Walk into any convenience store or supermarket and sugar seems to be a key ingredient in most of what we buy and eat. At the same time obesity is reaching epidemic proportions. Its personal and public policy ramifications touch everything from health care costs to educational success. But is sugar really the culprit it's made out to be? Dr. Robert Lustig thinks so and he explains in his book Fat Chance: Beating the Odds Against Sugar, Processed Food, Obesity, and Disease

My conversation with Dr. Robert Lustig:

Maybe it’s the fact that we keep trying to move to a post racial America, or that we’ve re-elected a black President. Maybe it’s the movie Lincoln, or Django or that we are celebrating the 150th anniversary of the Emancipation Proclamation. But the subject of slavery, of freedom and the personal cost of moving from one to the other is suddenly very much a part of the public meme.

Add to this list a sweeping new historical novel from the celebrated author fo The Girl With The Pearl Earning. Tracy Chevalier, in her new novel The Last Runaway moves from European to American history; the 1850s, quakers and a network helping slaves escape to freedom.

My conversation with Tracy Chevalier:

In life there is often a disconnect between what we mark, what we celebrate and the actual underlying reasons that we do so. We mark births and deaths, yet the back story for both may have been years in the making. We mark the beginning and end of wars, yet give little significance for the reasons that lead to either.

So too was it for the founding of the American republic. 1776 marks the year in which seminal events took place. But the events that gave birth to them, happened earlier, in what esteemed historian Kevin Phillips says was 1775: A Good Year for Revolution.My conversation with Kevin Phillips:

var gaJsHost = (("https:" == document.location.protocol) ? "https://ssl." : "http://www.");

document.write(unescape("%3Cscript src='" + gaJsHost + "google-analytics.com/ga.js' type='text/javascript'%3E%3C/script%3E"));

try {

var pageTracker = _gat._getTracker("UA-6296941-2");

pageTracker._trackPageview();

} catch(err) {}

With US domestic markets facing greater competition; with the margins on most products shrinking, American companies are looking for international opportunities. When they do, the first place they usually look is to the worlds largest market, in China.

But doing business in China is no easy task. The customs, the culture, the paperwork are sometimes daunting. For many business people, brokers and middlemen exists to help you with this process. But nothing beats knowing the facts and relationships yourself. Stanley Chao has guided many through the process. Now he takes us all on the journey in Selling to China: A Guide to Doing Business in China for Small- and Medium-Sized Companies.My conversation with Stanley Chao:

var gaJsHost = (("https:" == document.location.protocol) ? "https://ssl." : "http://www.");

document.write(unescape("%3Cscript src='" + gaJsHost + "google-analytics.com/ga.js' type='text/javascript'%3E%3C/script%3E"));

try {

var pageTracker = _gat._getTracker("UA-6296941-2");

pageTracker._trackPageview();

} catch(err) {}

Scott Fitzgerald said that "there are no second acts in American lives." Yet today we know there are third and fourths. Coupled we this, we've all heard about the impact of eduction and the value, especially for older workers, of retraining and the importance of our Community Colleges. In fact the discussion about Community Colleges, has become a kind o holy grail when talking about the future of work.

Yet what's really happening on the ground? How is it working and what can be done better. UCLA Professor Mike Rose takes this up in his new work Back to School: Why Everyone Deserves A Second Chance at Education

My conversation with Mike Rose:

var gaJsHost = (("https:" == document.location.protocol) ? "https://ssl." : "http://www.");

document.write(unescape("%3Cscript src='" + gaJsHost + "google-analytics.com/ga.js' type='text/javascript'%3E%3C/script%3E"));

try {

var pageTracker = _gat._getTracker("UA-6296941-2");

pageTracker._trackPageview();

} catch(err) {}

For Baby Boomers who grew up in the shadow of the Cold War and the nuclear age, we thought all of that ended with the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1989. It seemed as if the Cuban missile crisis, 50 years ago, was the apogee of our nuclear fears.

But today, if we're paying attention, we see that the nuclear age has spread. There are not two, but nine nuclear states in the world today; and while it’s a lot less than the twenty-five that JFK thought we’d have by the 80’s, its enough to make the world of nuclear weapons 2.0, a very dangerous place.

This is the launching pad for Yale Professor Paul Bracken’s new book. The Second Nuclear Age: Strategy, Danger, and the New Power Politics.

My conversation with Paul Bracken:

John Stuart Mill said, back in 1848, that "It is hardly possible to overstate the value, in the present low state of human improvement, of placing human beings in contact with persons dissimilar to themselves, and with modes of thought and action dissimilar to themselves, and with modes of thought and action unlike those with which they are familiar ... Such communication has always been, and is particularly in the present age, one of the primary sources of progress."

Given the globalized nature of our world, nothing could be more true, even 164 years later. Jesse Aizenstat has done exactly that. Using his love of surfing, he forged a common bond with the disparate peoples of the Middle East and proved, beyond a shadow of a doubt, the ability of our common humanity to transcend those man made constructs that divide us.My conversation with Jesse Aizenstat about Surfing the Middle East: Deviant Journalism from the Lost Generation

var gaJsHost = (("https:" == document.location.protocol) ? "https://ssl." : "http://www.");

document.write(unescape("%3Cscript src='" + gaJsHost + "google-analytics.com/ga.js' type='text/javascript'%3E%3C/script%3E"));

try {

var pageTracker = _gat._getTracker("UA-6296941-2");

pageTracker._trackPageview();

} catch(err) {}