Talk Cocktail

There once was a time, back in the 18th and 19th centuries, when public shaming was the norm.  The stockades, corporal punishment, torture marks and even the famed Scarlet Letter, all represented ways in which society could express it’s scorn.
Today, with the power and reach of the Internet and social media, we are in a golden age of shaming.  Monica Lewinsky’s recent Ted Talk on the subject has been viewed over 3 million times.
But has this new age of shaming made us better?  Has it reined in indecent behavior?  Has it made us more just or just more paranoid?  The long time radio host Don Imus used to say he’d like to ask guests, especially public figures, very tough questions in the hope that the answers just might ruin their careers.   Today that can happen in the blink of a Tweet.
Jon Ronson  has been studying this recent phenomenon and he writes about it in So You've Been Publicly Shamed.
My conversation with Jon Ronson:

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The rate of voter participation in America continues to decline.  Yes, some of it is our politics today. But another part of it just may be a failure to embrace the true education for citizenship.
And it’s no wonder. Some of the fundamental ideas of what it means to be a citizen; the ability to reason, to analyze, and to articulate those views, has gone into remission.
In our education today, we are obsessed with what is call STEM.  Science Technology, Engineering and Math.  All very important. But Lost in this obsession is Writing, History, Rhetoric, and the Arts.  
State Governors are defunding liberal arts programs in state universities, the President is putting down Art History, and educational institutions from K-12 to our universities, are responding to the pressures.
There seems to be no regard for the fact that today’s technology will be tomorrows nostalgia and the ability to learn, think and write is forever.
Taking up this cause of liberal education is Fareed Zakaria in his new book In Defense of a Liberal Education.
He is one of our premiere foreign policy analysts, the host of Fareed Zakaria GPS on CNN and a columnist for the Washington Post.
My conversation with Fareed Zakaria:

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Everyday we hear and read more about how life is changing.  Probably while we were sleeping last night, someone came up with an app that will alter the way we work or play or interact.
It’s not surprising then that all of this profoundly impacts the careers we choose, the work we do and and what that work might look like in five, ten or fifteen years.
So where to begin.  If you are a young person starting out, or a making a mid career change, where is that Roadmap to that future.

Roadmap: The Get-It-Together Guide for Figuring Out What to Do with Your Life is the latest book by RoadTrip Nation and my guest Nathan Gebhard. It is based on the wisdom of more than 300 leaders.
My conversation with Nathan Gebhard:

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One of the dangers of our celebrity culture today, is that we tend to look at those who've attained that status, regardless of their field of endeavor, as fully formed human beings, whose life began and ended with the achieve that catapulted them into iconic status. 
Nothing can be further from the truth.  In looking at the stories or biographies of these celebrities, on the one hand we have case studies that zero in a particular moment in time, or hagiographies that only heighten misperception.
This has tended to be the case with Steve Jobs.  He wasn’t born as the  iconic founder and savior of Apple.  He evolved over time and his skills, talents and personality either acted as receptors or antagonists to the moment and issues at hand.
In looking at his story, we see the full magnitude of humanity that was, in and of itself, a part of his success.
Rick Tetzeli tells that story in Becoming Steve Jobs: The Evolution of a Reckless Upstart into a Visionary Leader
My conversation with Rick Tetzeli:

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Technological change and creative destruction is everywhere.  It’s changed the way we work, the way we interact with each other, the foundation of education, and not surprisingly the nature of warfare.
We’ve all seen the media images of drones giving us perfect images; the perfect eye in the sky for perfectly targeted air strikes.  As least that’s how it looks on Homeland, and 24 and the images for Abbottabad.
The reality however is somewhat different.  Less than clear images, imperfect targeting that kills civilians, increasingly complex and overpriced equipment and on the other hand, lower barriers to entry with respect to some drones, that will soon make them available to nations, groups or individuals everywhere.  Soon surveillance, and even "death from above," will be on a par with package delivery
It’s a scary future, one that Washington keeps pretty hidden,  and one that the Washington editor of Harpers,  Andrew Cockburn talks about in Kill Chain: The Rise of the High-Tech Assassins
My conversation with Andrew Cockburn:

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Conventional wisdom has long held that evolution is something that takes place slowly and  over centuries.  Concurrently we know that technological changes, and changes in the human condition have speeded up at a hyper multiple pace.  We have often thought that much of our anxiety and even some fundamental social problems stem from that dissonance, from that disconnect between our external and our internal change.
However, what if we ourselves, as a species, as generic templates, were really changing at the same time, in real time.  Imagine that all the plates are spinning at rapid speed and in different directions.  It’s not surprising then that they may crash into each other, some may shatter, and some will survive even stronger and sturdier.
In this way, we are rewriting life code. We are according to Juan Enriquez, Evolving Ourselves: How Unnatural Selection and Nonrandom Mutation are Changing Life on Earth.
My conversation with Juan Enriquez:

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It was Churchill who reminded us that history is written by the victors.  Well this is as true of religious history as it is of military, political and geopolitical history. 
We’ve all been been told since childhood of the Christian foundation of America.  That the history of America is John Winthrop's "Shining City on a Hill."  That the Christian Village Green represented the apotheosis of America. 
The fact is, since before the time of Columbus, America has been a pluralistic society.  An idea that Jefferson had to battle to prove, just as President Obama has in his recent speeches about religion.
At a time when technology and globalization continue to draw us all closer together, we have a choice. We can either channel our heritage and embrace that religious diversity or pull up the proverbial drawbridge and defend the mythology.
This is the world that Peter Manseau looks at in his new book One Nation, Under Gods: A New American History.
My conversation with Peter Manseau:

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Art theft is always a funny thing.  The public is usually fascinated by the story, but can seldom feel the kind of empathy with the theft, they feel if their neighbors car were broken into.
Art theft, at the highest level is a very special an almost elite kind of crime.  Like reading the pages of Rob Report, it fascinates, but never engages. 
Perhaps that's why so many art thefts are never solved. Including the recent grandaddy of them all, the the theft of priceless painting from the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum in Boston, 25 years ago. Award winning Boston Globe journalist Stephen Kurkjian takes us inside  Master Thieves: The Boston Gangsters Who Pulled Off the Worlds Greatest Art Heist.
My conversation with Stephen Kurkjian:

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Historians and journalists have devoted millions of pages to trying to understand the world. In fact, it may be a lot simpler than that.  Just maybe it can be done by eating.
We’ve all seen politicians in America, campaigning by eating the local foods and imitating local eating customs.  Why isn’t the same true for geopolitics?
If we can understand the culture of another country through its food, perhaps we’d better understand its people, its culture and its ideas.  In so doing, the world just might be a happier, and more satisfied place.
That’s what Graham Holliday has done in trying to appreciate first south Korea and then Viet Nam.  A place that he takes us to in Eating Viet Nam: Dispatches from a Blue Plastic Table.
My conversation with Graham Holliday:

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Even back in the tumultuous 60’s  we were enamored with the space program.  The idea of man “slipping the surly bonds of earth,” captured the nation's attention at a time when so much other news was negative.  Kids everywhere wanted to be astronaut. There even was an airline at the time that referred to itself as “the wings of man.”
Our landing on the moon, in 1969, instead of being the beginning of a renewed interest to take us to the planets and beyond, was simply the capstone of our national interest in space. The Shuttle program and the International Space Station, never had the same kind of magnetic pull or a national obsession.
However for the twin brothers, Scott and Mark Kelly,  growing up in New Jersey, the pull never stopped.
Mark Kelly, is a distinguished naval aviator, and astronaut who has flown four shuttle missions.  He has logged almost one-hundred million miles  and circled the plant almost a 1000 times.
His brother Scott, also an astronaut,  is embarking on man’s longest stay aboard the space station. And Mark is married to former Congresswoman Gabby Giffords, 
Mark is committed to instilling in young people a renewed interest in space and he’s written Astrotwins -- Project Blastoff
My conversation with Mark Kelly:

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