Talk Cocktail

On June 12th, 1994 a double homicide took place in Brentwood, CA. that would forever change the way we view crimes, criminal procedure and the American justice system. No crime and trial has ever drawn a bigger audience than the trial of O.J. Simpson for the murder of Nicole Brown Simpson and Ronald Goldman.

The players, the events, the moments are still powerfully etched in the public consciousness and even our popular entertainment had to shift to accommodate the perceptions we had all been inculcated with as a result of the crime and trial.

But was justice served? Did O.J. get away with murder? Has the downward spiral of his life been a kind of karmic punishment for a crime he got away with, OR...was he innocent? Did someone else actually commit the crime.

Private Investigator Bill Dear has a different theory and like it or not, he's spent the past eighteen years pursuing it and now he lays it out in O.J. is Innocent and I Can Prove It My conversation with Bill Dear:

In his new book The Crisis of Zionism, esteemed journalist, author and professor Peter Beinart argues that Israel is in danger. Not just from outside forces, not just from Palestinians or Iranians, but from the unraveling of its own core values, central ideas and founding principals.

He says that we need to view Israel today not as some Disneyfied version of the holy land, but as a modern nation state, with real power, that must merge the responsibility of that power, with the values that created it in the first place. And that perhaps the greatest threat to accomplishing this, comes not only from within Israel itself, but from an American Jewish community that has made power, real estate and Zionism a religion unto itself.

My conversation with Peter Beinart:

As many of you saw last night, 60 Minutes devoted an entire program to a retrospective of Mike Wallace's remarkable body of work. It reminded me of a conversation I had with Wallace back in 2006, just after his retirement from 60 Minutes, and upon the publication of the second volume of his memoirs. At the time Wallace was 87 years old, yet still personified and profoundly understood the role of broadcast journalism. This seemed like a good time to post that interview with Mike Wallace

1968 was certainly one of the most tumultuous years in American history. It was a year of political turbulence, civil unrest and violence; the Democratic Convention in Chicago, the assassinations of Martin Luther King and Robert Kennedy. It was a time that some thought the country would never recover from. It was also, although not quite as profoundly remembered, an unforgettable season in the history of baseball. Baseball had reached its apogee of popularity and it was a much need national distraction.

Writer and journalist Tim Wendel takes us back to the Summer of '68: The Season That Changed Baseball--and America--Forever. My conversation with Tim Wendel

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The battle between religion and secularism seems to have reached a feaver pitch in the US. Alain de Botton argues in his new work, Religion for Atheists: A Non-believer's Guide to the Uses of Religion,

that there may be a middle ground. That religions have important things to teach the secular world. That the tired old debate between atheists and believers is not helping the modern world and that we need to move onto more fruitful ground. For too long, de Botton says, we have faced a false choice between either swallowing doctrines or doing away with some worthwhile rituals and ideas. Botton's is a kinder, gentler atheism.

My conversation with Alain de Botton:

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There are very few individuals for whom just the mention of their name conjures up a complete set of beliefs and values. Gandhi is certainly one of those. So it is remarkable that as India continues to go through its current transformation, that Gandhi's legacy is still evolving.

Former New York Times Executive Editor and Pulitzer Prize winner Joseph Lelyveld in Great Soul: Mahatma Gandhi and His Struggle with India, takes us on the journey of Gandhi's extraordinary struggles on two continents, his ideals and values and how the nation that still revers him, rejected so many of his values. My conversation with Joseph Lelyveld:

It seemed that everywhere we turned last week religion was front and center. Easter, Passover and even our political dialogue all contained different sides of religious discussion.  But what happens when the religious rhetoric goes to extremes?  When individuals and even politicians claim to have spoken directly to, or are taking insttructions from God? Is this still religion, or have we crossed a line in psychosis? This is the backdrop for Tanya Luhrmann’s, When God Talks Back: Understanding the American Evangelical Relationship with God

My conversation with T.M. Luhrman

If there was ever any question about the human instinct for freedom, the story of Shin Dong-hyuk's escape from a North Korean prison camp will lay that doubt to rest.

North Korea currently holds as many as 200,000 political prisoners in a half-dozen labor camps. Many spend their lives there, often dying from malnutrition and mistreatment. Only one man, born inside one of the brutal camps, raised to be a laborer, has managed to escape. Journalist Blaine Hardin in Escape from Camp 14: One Man's Remarkable Odyssey from North Korea to Freedom in the West, tells the story of Shin Dong-Hyuk - how he was starved, tortured and forced to witness the execution of his mother and brother, and how he ultimately found his way to freedom.My conversation with Blaine Harden:

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Youth sports are more than just a pastime. They are a multi-billion dollar business that begins in elementary school and continues into a college system,  certainly as competitive as the pros. The movies Hoosiers, Hoop Dreams, Friday Night Lights and Lucas are just a few of the ways that popular culture has reflected our youth sports obsession. What was once a gentle diversion for kids, is today sometimes the difference between setting the stage for success or failure later in life.

Journalist and sports management Professor Mark Hyman has been looking at the issues surrounding youth sports for years and in his new book he concludes that it is clearly The Most Expensive Game in Town. My conversation with Mark Hyman:

We live in a world in which we praise logic and reason.  Yet to a large extent we are still ruled by our emotions. Moreover, new research shows us the power of emotions and that to very real extent, we do just as well making our decisions and choices from a combination of emotion and reason. All of this relates to what we understand about how the emotional system works, what are the genetic and biochemical components of the brain and can we define and maybe even change our emotional style?

These are the areas of cutting edge research being explored by Dr. Richard J. Davidson. Davidson has defined six emotional dimensions that reflect the discoveries of modern neuroscientific research. My conversation with Dr. Richard J. Davidson about The Emotional Life of Your Brain.