Talk Cocktail

George Bernard Shaw is quoted as saying, that "some men see things as they are and ask why, others dreams things that never were and ask why not."  This is often quoted in a political context, but could also be said to be a central question of creativity.  Where does creativity come from, how can it be stimulated, and like the uncertainty principle, if we try too hard to understand it, do we in some way alter it?  Jonah Lehrer, the author of "How we Decide" gives us a contemporary and real look at the creative process in his new book Imagine: How Creativity Works. My conversation with Jonah Lehrer:

Last night on 60 Minutes we learned how man's reach into space has been virtually shut down over three billion dollars! While certainly this is real money, it is but a mere fraction of America's defense budget, much of which goes for waste, fraud, abuse and to satisfy the insatiable demands of the "military industrial complex."  Fifty years ago, Eisenhower warned us about it.  Today journalist William Hartung takes us inside the largest of America's ongoing military pariahs, Lockheed Martin.

My conversation with Willaims Hartung about the Prophets of War: Lockheed Martin and the Making of the Military-Industrial Complex.

As all the talk, misstatement and misrepresentation about Foxconn plays out in the media, it’s worthwhile to try and really understand how the Chinese economy works and how the macro issues of China's great migration helps explains so much that we don’t understand.

Every year more than 200 millions rural peasants pour into China's cities, fueling the country's staggering growth. The obstacles they face, the opportunities that lie before them and the contributions they make are all part of the future of modern China. How this all plays out is still an open question, as China moves faster than any other nation in history from a rural to an urban economy. Michelle Dammon Loyalka, in her book Eating Bitterness: takes us inside these stories from China’s great urban migration. My conversation with Michelle Dammon Loyalka:

If any movement has defined our times, it is the movement towards power in both government and business and the balance between the two. In fact the occupy movement protesting against the rising power of business and the tea party movement protesting the rising power of government, are indeed two sides of the very same coin. In many way this could have been predicted, as globalization and multinationals first began their rise in the 1970’s.

David Rothkopf, acclaimed author, visiting scholar at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace and the CEO and Editor-at-large of Foreign Policy Magazine, looks at this phenomenon in his new work Power, Inc.: The Epic Rivalry Between Big Business and Government--and the Reckoning That Lies Ahead. My conversation with David Rothkopf:

A year ago it appeared as if the Arab world would be forever transformed. The Arab Spring would move like a tsunami, taking out dictators in its path. Yet as we are now beginning to see, the the removal of old regimes was just the beginning. The larger story is, as it usually is, about the morning after. What happens next and how does the Arab public gain real power, what do they do with it and will this be just a rerun of previous attempts at "revolution?"

Marc Lynch is a professor of political science at The George Washington University, where he also is the Director of the Institute for Middle East Studies. He lays out the whole contemporary crises in his new work The Arab Uprising: The Unfinished Revolutions of the New Middle East. My conversation with Marc Lynch:

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Sometimes it's reassuring, but often times very sad, that the strains of history repeat themselves in ways that show how little we've learned. From 1915 to 1970, the internal exodus of almost six million African Americans from the South changed the face of America. For her award winning book The Warmth of Other Suns: The Epic Story of America's Great Migration, Isabel Wilkerson interviewed more than a thousand people to tell the dramatic story of how this American journey unfolded. What happens to one the three central characters in 1945 Florida, shockingly parallels the recent killing of Trayvon Martin. My conversation with Isabel Wilkerson:

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We live in a country where obesity and diabetes is a bigger problem than poverty. Where a staggering one in two Americans suffers from "diabesity." We are now raising the first generation of Americans that will live sicker and die younger than their parents. It is far more than prosperity and abundance that has created this. It's the choices we make. Dr. Mark Hyman, author of The Blood Sugar Solution, seeks to change those choices and take on this worldwide health epidemic. My conversation with Dr. Mark Hyman:

In a culture in which everything is political, even the humble loaf of bread isn't spared. In fact going all the way back to the 19th century, bread said a lot about who you were, or who you wanted to be. Today, it's fair to say that old fashion, store bought white bread represents the lowest rung on the food chain. But why has this staple, that once symbolized the triumph of industrialization, become so contemptible. Aaron Bobrow-Strain, in his book White Bread: A Social History of the Store-Bought Loaf, gives rise to many theories. My conversation with Aaron Bobrow-Strain:

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As Harvard law professor Jack Goldsmith states at the outset of his new book, “war and emergency invariably shift power to the Presidency. Permanent war and permanent emergency threaten to make the shift permanent.” Many believe that that 9/11 and the actions of the Bush administration, many of which were continued by the Obama administration, makes the idea of Presidential accountability impossible. But in his provocative new book Power and Constraint: The Accountable Presidency After 9/11,Goldsmith makes the contrary argument. He says that post-9/11 American Presidents are more accountable for their national security decisions than ever before. My conversation with Jack Goldsmith:

Why is it so hard to loose weight, to quit smoking, to go the gym regularly?Much of the answer lies in the power of habits. The same forces that allow us to back out our driveway without conscious thought and to brush our teeth each day without using mental energy, also often stands in the way of our progress. This is The Power of Habit. Charles Duhigg, investigative reporter for The New York Times explains "why we do what we do in life in business." My conversation with Charles Duhigg: