When it Mattered

Ep. 62:  She went from poverty in communist-era Poland to becoming the artist of choice of Silicon Valley billionaires for her renaissance-inspired conceptual art of machines and robots/ Agnieszka Pilat, Conceptual Artist.

Born in the shadow of communism, in the grip of poverty, in the cradle of post-industrial Central Poland, Agnieska Pilat acted on her burning desire to leave her homeland and headed to America in 2004. 

 

She landed in the Bay Area where a transformative book recommendation from her hairdresser, and her industrial roots in Poland, led to an epiphany which led her to start painting machines. First the traditional kind. Gears and widgets and meters and fire bells. Then — robots. One in particular, her big bright yellow 70 pound cybernetic “pet” if you could call it that / model/assistant/apprentice/Spot, on loan to her from the famed and controversial robot maker Boston Dynamics.

Over the past decade, Agnieskza Pilat’s classically-trained, renaissance-inspired, contemporary art around man and machine, technology and automation has gained a big following among Silicon Valley’s elite billionaires. Her works of art have been acquired by collectors including Sotheby’s and tech titans such as Craig McCaw, Richard Branson, Yuri Milner, and Larry Silverstein among others. Several of her paintings are featured in the latest Matrix movie, The Matrix Resurrections. Pilat has been described as an “artist who brings technology to life,” ‘the darling of Silicon Valley,” and a “technology storyteller.”  Her latest exhibition is titled Renaissance 2.0, and is an homage to Silicon Valley’s renaissance. It was such a pleasure to catch up with Agnieszka Pilat about her life and her renaissance-inspired contemporary art of man and machine.

Ep. 61 — He became a celebrated anti-landmine crusader after a horrific landmine accident but then began questioning his superhero narrative / Jerry White, Nobel Peace Laureate / Author / Professor of Practice, University of Virginia.

In 1984, Jerry White went to Israel for his junior year, “study abroad” program at Hebrew University. On their spring break that April, White, and his two American roommates went out hiking in the Golan Heights in northern Israel, tracing the footsteps of Biblical prophets. They got off the beaten path to set up camp. One morning, White walked ahead of his friends and stepped on a landmine. He was just 20 years old.

The tragedy of losing his right leg to a landmine transformed White into a student of resilience and survivorship and an advocate for landmine victims. He became a charismatic activist, who worked closely with Princess Diana, Queen Noor, Paul McCartney, and others to fight for a global ban on anti-personnel mines.

White's high-impact campaigns in the wake of his landmine injury which cost him his right leg resulted in three major treaties, The Landmine Ban Treaty, the U.N. Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities, and the Cluster Munitions Ban.. In 1997, he shared the Nobel Peace Prize awarded to the International Campaign to Ban Landmines.

White also served as U.S. Deputy Assistant Secretary of State under President Barack Obama and Secretary of State, Hillary Clinton, looking at data-driven outcomes in conflict negotiations. And he became a Senior Ashoka Fellow.

But over time, White began to question his landmine survivor hero-narrative and dreamed of retiring his “landmine cape” as he likes to call it.

His soul-searching on how that accident changed his relationship with nature and why that landmine came to be on that Israeli hill in the first place, has resulted in a prolific body of thinking, speaking, and writing. White has a new book out this November, called Religicide: Confronting the Roots of Anti-Religious Violence. The book is now available for pre-order on Amazon. White also wrote a 2004 book on resilience, titled, “I Will Not Be Broken.”

Today, White is an award-winning teacher, activist, and leader. He currently serves as a Professor of Practice in Religion and Political Science at the University of Virginia and teaches the popular course: Religion, Violence, and Strategy: How to Stop Killing in the Name of God.

My conversation with Jerry White about what happens when you dare to question your own narrative and when you lose touch with the earth was a profound experience and I am so glad to share it with you today.

Ep. 60 — How history, geography, lineage, and duty converged to shape this retired four-star General’s decorated career / James L. Jones, Commandant, United States Marine Corps, Commander, United States European Command, Former Supreme Allied Commander, Europe, & Chairman, Jones Group International.

It was by no means pre-ordained but perhaps it was inevitable. Born in 1943, the son of a Marine in WWII, in a family of Marines, and spending his early childhood and formative years in France, inspired James L. Jones to join the United States Marines Corps, where he spent a distinguished four-decade career — retiring from the Marine Corps on February 1 as a decorated four-star general. 

It’s a real honor to speak with my guest this week, General James Jones, who during his military career, served as Commandant of the Marine Corps, Commander, United States European Command, and Supreme Allied Commander Europe. 

Upon his retirement, Jones served as Chairman of the Congressional Independent Commission on the Security Forces of Iraq and later as Special Envoy for Middle East security. President Barack Obama then invited Jones to serve as his National Security Advisor. In that capacity, Gen. Jones had the rare opportunity to see then-Prime Minister, now-President, Vladimir Putin, up close and personal. 

In this fascinating wide-ranging narrative, Jones describes how over breakfast with him and President Obama in July 2009, Putin shared his litany of grievances that Jones believes have shaped the Russian leader’s hostility and aggression towards NATO and towards Ukraine, with an imminent threat to invade that country, potentially triggering a global conflict. Jones now leads a global strategic advisory firm, Jones Group International, based here in the Washington DC area. I know you’ll enjoy this conversation as much as I did and will find it both highly informative and relevant given Putin’s potential invasion of Ukraine.

Ep. 59 —  A Portuguese Roman Catholic janitor and immigrant to Canada becomes the “Bar Mitzvah Photography king” of Montreal / Braulio Rocha, Photographer & Co-Founder, Rocha Studio.

I thought it would be so nice to start the New Year with a heartwarming success story. This is the rags-to-riches journey of a Portuguese Roman Catholic immigrant to Canada named Braulio Rocha, who, just five years ago, was a humble janitor at the majestic Shaar Hashomayim Ashkananze synagogue, known affectionately to its congregants as “The Shaar.” But one day, Rocha, an amateur photographer, seized a rare opportunity to trade in his mop for a camera to shoot a bris when the real photographer was a no-show. It was one of the most consequential moments of a life filled with adversity. That bris led to other brises and bar mitzvahs. And today, Rocha has become the “Bar Mitzvah photography king of Montreal!” as proclaimed in this lovely recent New York Times profile. 

This is a story that transcends geography, culture, language, and religion. It’s a story of hope and above all, about second chances. I hope you enjoy it!  

And if you like this episode, you may enjoy my other photography episodes both on this podcast, When It Mattered, and my technology podcast, Techtopia, listed below.

 

When It Mattered: 

Ep. 35 — A war photographer confronts her own mortality as she bears witness to the world’s worst wars / Lynsey Addario, Pulitzer Prize-winning photojournalist.

Ep. 12 — A brain cancer diagnosis leads a 27-year old mental health worker to use photography to help parents of critically ill children reconcile with death and dying /  Caroline Catlin, writer, photographer.

Techtopia: 

Ep. 18 — A War Photographer Assesses the Ramifications of the U.S. Pullout of Afghanistan / Lynsey Addario, Pulitzer Prize-Winning Photojournalist.

Ep. 58 — A shocking loss leads a grieving daughter and budding communications leader to rethink the meaning of human connectivity / Susan McPherson, founder and CEO of McPherson Strategies, and author, “The Lost Art of Connecting: The Gather, Ask, Do Method for Building Meaningful Relationships.”

When Susan McPherson was 22 years old, her parents were on vacation in Puerto Rico when the unthinkable happened. It was New Year’s Eve, December 31, 1986. Her dad had dropped her mother off at the casino of what then was the Dupont Plaza hotel in San Juan.

At 3:30 pm, three disgruntled employees of the hotel who were embroiled in a labor dispute with the owners, set fire to the hotel, killing nearly 100 people — including McPherson’s mother — and causing hundreds of injuries. It was the most catastrophic hotel fire in Puerto Rican history and the second deadliest fire in U.S. history. The three men who set the fire were brought to justice and received long jail sentences and there were big changes to hotel fire safety laws and protocols.

But it was small comfort for McPherson, for whom the shocking loss of her mother was a profound moment of grief and transformation.

I recently had the privilege of talking with McPherson about her amazing life story and how her parents inspired her to be who she is today. She is the founder and CEO of McPherson Strategies, a communications consultancy focused on the intersection of brands and social impact.  McPherson is a super-connector, angel investor, and corporate responsibility expert with 25+ years of experience in marketing, public relations, and sustainability communications. She’s a popular speaker and a regular contributor to high-profile business publications. McPherson also is the author of The Lost Art of Connecting: The Gather, Ask, Do Method for Building Meaningful Relationships — particularly relevant in today’s pandemic fueled anti-social world.

Ep. 57 — The Journalist and Author who Predicted the Rise of Osama bin Laden and al Qaeda Examines the Legacy of the 9/11 Mastermind and the Global Jihad that he Spawned / Peter Bergen, CNN National Security Analyst & Author, “The Rise and Fall of Osama bin Laden.”

In 1983, a British university student named Peter Bergen traveled to Pakistan with two friends to make a documentary called Refugees of Faith, about the Afghan refugees fleeing the Soviet invasion of their country.

Little did he know it at the time. But that trip would be the first of many and one of the most consequential in Bergen’s life. It led to a nearly four-decade body of work documenting the rise and fall of 9/11 mastermind Osama bin Laden, his group al Qaeda, and the global jihad they spawned, rooted in Afghanistan.

Today, as we approach the 20th anniversary of the 9/11 attacks, and against the backdrop of the disastrous U.S. pull out of Afghanistan, I have as my guest, CNN National Security Analyst Peter Bergen, here to reflect on bin Laden’s legacy.

Bergen produced the first television interview of bin Laden in 1997, aired on CNN. And he was the only journalist to visit the Abbottabad, Pakistan, compound where bin Laden was killed, in a 2011 raid by U.S. Navy Seals. The building was later demolished.

The author of nine books including six on bin Laden, Bergen has a fascinating new biography of the terrorist, titled, “The Rise and Fall of Osama bin Laden." The new biography is based on Bergen’s body of work, plus thousands of documents, journals, and other materials seized in the Abbottabad raid, along with hundreds of interviews — including with many in bin Laden’s inner circle.

Using these documents, Bergen paints an intimate portrait of the terrorist in isolation in the final months, weeks, and days before he was killed by U.S. Navy Seals. In a 228-page family journal, bin Laden looks back on his global jihad revolution, concerned that his legacy and that of al Qaeda’s will be lost in the peaceful Arab Spring revolution in the Middle East. Bin Laden and his family worry that he had waited too long to speak and that he was becoming irrelevant. And he was worried about the al Qaeda brand being tarnished by the killings of Muslim civilians by groups such as ISIS.

For these and more fascinating details about bin Laden’s final days, what Bergen calls, “bin Laden unplugged,” do tune in to this riveting episode.

Ep. 56 — A Retired Police Executive Returns to Duty to Help Rebuild the United States Capitol Police after the Violent January 6 Insurrection  / J. Thomas Manger, USCP Chief of Police.

After 42 years in policing, including for two of the largest police agencies in the National Capital Region, J. Thomas Manger had retired and was enjoying his life as a security consultant and public citizen. Then on January 6, thousands of white extremists — incited by former President Donald Trump and his minions — breached the U.S. Capitol, vandalizing the building and grounds, threatening the lives of members of Congress, of Vice President Mike Pence and his family, and mercilessly heckling, beaing, tear gassing, and injuring hundreds of ill-equipped and vastly outnumbered U.S. Capitol Police.

Manger watched the events unfolding on TV, horrified and near tears as the rioters roamed freely across the Capitol, hanging nooses, taking selfies, shattering windows, breaking doors and assaulting cops, in a ruthless challenge to democracy.

When Manger was invited to become the new police chief, he was reluctant to leave retirement behind. But haunted by the January 6 images, he couldn’t  turn down the call of duty.

Sworn in on July 23rd, Chief Manger is a little more than a month into his job and confronting some of the biggest challenges of his long and distinguished career. His 1800 rank and file sworn officers are still struggling to absorb and recover from the magnitude of those violent attacks. Hundreds are recovering from their injuries and are emotionally traumatized, scores have already left the force, and then there are the memories of two of their own who lost their lives to a stroke and to suicide after the insurrection. Put simply, many officers are experiencing a crisis of confidence in their leadership like never before.

Can Tom Manger fix it?

Ep. 55 — A fighter pilot and great-granddaughter of a SciFi pioneer sees a UFO and connects with the vast community of UFO believers / Lt. Cmdr. Alex Dietrich, U.S. Navy (retired).

Lt. Cmdr. Alex Dietrich was going about her business this spring, getting ready to retire from active duty as one of the first female fighter pilots in the US. Then she got an unexpected feeler from 60 Minutes, the CBS television show.

The U.S. Government was preparing to release a report on Unidentified Flying Objects or UFOs. Would Dietrich be willing to go on the show and talk about the strange sight that she and her four teammates had seen up in the air during a training mission back in 2004, the producer asked.

Dietrich thought hard about it and decided that taxpayers needed to know more about the videos (now unclassified) that had been captured that day —  videos that you all may have seen on the news over the past few weeks. That decision to go public and help remove the stigma associated with reporting strange sightings has put the introverted and media-shy Dietrich in the spotlight.

It has also connected her to many UFO believers via social media - a strange spot for someone to be in for someone who is not a science fiction fan, despite a rich family history in science fiction writing.

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Chitra Ragavan:

US Navy Lieutenant Commander Alex Dietrich was going about her business this spring, getting ready to retire from active duty as one of the first female fighter pilots in the US. Then she got an unexpected feeler from 60 Minutes, the CBS television show. The US government was preparing to release a report on unidentified flying objects, or UFO's. Would Dietrich be willing to go on the show and talk about the strange site that she and her four teammates had seen up in the air during a training mission back in 2004? The 60 Minutes producer asked. Hello, everyone I'm Chitra Raghavan, and this is When it Mattered.

Chitra Ragavan:

Dietrich thought hard about it and decided that taxpayers needed to know more about the videos, now unclassified that had been captured that day, videos that you all may have seen on the news over the past few weeks. That decision to go public and help remove the stigma associated with reporting strange sightings, or inexplicable phenomena, has put the introverted and media shy Dietrich in the spotlight. It has also connected her to legions of UFO believers on social media, a rather strange spot for someone to be in who is not a science fiction fan, despite a rich family history in science fiction writing.

Chitra Ragavan:

Joining me is retired Lieutenant Commander Alex Dietrich. She served as an F/A-18F strike fighter pilot from the VFA-41 “Black Aces” of Lemoore, California. Dietrich retired from the US Navy after 20 years of service, having logged more than 1,250 hours and 375 carrier arrested landings. She served two combat deployments in support of Operation Iraqi Freedom, and Operation Enduring Freedom in Afghanistan. Dietrich is now serving at the National Center for Atmospheric Research on their talent learning and development team, with a mission of science and service to society. Alex, welcome to When it Mattered.

Alex Dietrich:

Thank you.

Chitra Ragavan:

Why did you decide to join the Navy and become a fighter pilot? It's a rather non-traditional career, pretty formidable barriers and a daunting challenge, in addition to putting your life on the line in service of your country?

Alex Dietrich:

Well, I would say that I was a typical teenager. I went to an atypical high school, it was the Illinois Math and Science Academy, but I had the typical teenage angst, and I wanted to have fun, I wanted to have an adventure. And so when college counselors and teachers were asking me what I wanted to do, I had to declare a major for college and I had to take all of these standardized tests, I said, "Oh,

Ep. 54 — How writing a best-selling book on the deadly 1918 influenza pandemic positioned this author to become a prescient thought leader on the COVID-19 pandemic / John M. Barry, Author, Distinguished Scholar, Tulane School of Public Health and Tropical Medicine.

John Barry remembers the exact moment he gave up his boyhood dream of doing medical research for his other boyhood dream of writing. He was 13 years old and had returned from summer camp eager to examine some bacteria cultures he had grown and left in the freezer, only to find them gone. Little did he know it at the time, but after a long detour away from his childhood love for medical research, Barry would write an award winning book on science and medicine called, The Great Influenza: The Story of the Deadliest Pandemic in History. The acclaimed book, which he dreaded writing because of its complexity, positioned Barry to give timely history, context and framing for the COVID-19 pandemic when it exploded on the world stage last year. The crisis of pandemics and how to deal with them would largely take over Barry's life. Don’t miss my fascinating conversation with John M. Barry, prize winning and New York Times bestselling author of six books, two of which, The Great Influenza and Rising Tide: The Great Mississippi Flood of 1927 and How It Changed America, have pulled Barry into various policy advising roles with state, federal, United Nations, and World Health Organization officials on influenza, water related disasters, and risk communication. Barry is currently a distinguished scholar at the Tulane School of Public Health and Tropical Medicine in New Orleans.

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Chitra Ragavan:

John Barry remembers the exact moment he gave up his boyhood dream of doing medical research for his other boyhood dream of writing. He was 13 years old and had returned from summer camp eager to examine some bacteria cultures he had grown and left in the freezer, only to find it gone.

Chitra Ragavan:

Hello, everyone. I'm Chitra Ragavan. Welcome to When It Mattered. This episode is brought to you by Goodstory, an advisory firm helping technology startups with strategic brand positioning and narrative. Little did he know it at the time, but after a long detour away from his childhood love for medical research, Barry would write an award-winning book on science and medicine called, The Great Influenza: The Story of the Deadliest Pandemic in History.

Chitra Ragavan:

The acclaimed book positioned him to give timely history, context, and framing for the COVID-19 pandemic when it exploded on the world stage last year. The crisis of pandemics and how to deal with them would largely take over Barry's life. I'm joined now by John M. Barry, prize-winning and New York Times bestselling author of six books, two of which, The Great Influenza and Rising Tide: The Great Mississippi Flood of 1927 and How It Changed America, have pulled Barry into various policy advising roles with state, federal, United Nations, and World Health Organization officials on influenza, water related disasters, and risk communication.

Chitra Ragavan:

Barry is currently a distinguished scholar at the Tulane School of Public Health and Tropical Medicine in New Orleans. John, welcome to the podcast.

John M. Barry:

Thanks for having me.

Chitra Ragavan:

You were pretty serious about medical research even when you were 11. How did that start?

John M. Barry:

I was just fascinated by it. I was one of those kids that had a lab in their home. I actually had a pretty good quality though ancient microscope. It had lights, lens, and things like that, an expensive microscope. Grew my own media, agar-agar, and all these dyes. I was playing with E. coli, which can kill you, but seemed pretty tame because I could use that in my school class. I figured if it was in school, it wasn't very exciting. I sent away to the American Bacteriological Supply House in Wa...

Ep.53 — A journalist upends her life and career to help identify and bring to justice the network of militants who murdered her friend and fellow correspondent at The Wall Street, Daniel Pearl / Asra Nomani, journalist, author, activist and co-founder, The Pearl Project.

On January 23rd, 2002, Asra Nomani was waiting at her home in Karachi, Pakistan, for her dear friend, Daniel Pearl, a correspondent at The Wall Street Journal, to return from a reporting assignment. Pearl and his wife, Mariane, who was pregnant with their first child were staying with Nomani while he was investigating the Al-Qaeda networks that had conspired to pull off the 9/11 terrorist attacks on U.S. soil just a few months earlier. But Pearl never returned home. Pakistani militants kidnapped and held Pearl hostage before murdering him a week later. His captors then released a video of the beheading, shocking the world and galvanizing Nomani in her long and difficult quest to identify Pearl's killers and help bring them to justice.

In this riveting episode, Nomani describes how Pearl’s murder helped shape her as a journalist, author and a feminist Muslim. And she shares how the tragedy gave her the courage to become an activist challenging the rise of Islamic extremism and what she perceives as the dangerous influence of Islamists in American politics — particularly on the Democratic Party. Nomani also discusses why she is speaking up against the growing influence of “critical race theory,” both in the U.S. public school systems and on American society as a whole.

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Chitra Ragavan:

On January 23rd, 2002, Asra Nomani was waiting at her home in Karachi, Pakistan, for her dear friend, The Wall Street Journal correspondent, Daniel Pearl to come back from a reporting assignment. Pearl and his wife, Mariane, who was pregnant with their first child were staying with Nomani while he was investigating the Al-Qaeda networks that had conspired to pull off the 9/11 terrorist attacks on U.S. soil just a few months earlier. But Danny Pearl never returned home. Pakistani militants kidnapped and held Pearl hostage before murdering him a week later. His captors then released a video of the beheading, shocking the world and galvanizing Nomani in her long and difficult quest to identify Pearl's killers and help bring them to justice.

Chitra Ragavan:

Hello everyone. I'm Chitra Ragavan. Welcome to When it Mattered. This episode is brought to you by Goodstory an advisory firm helping technology startups with strategic brand positioning and narrative. I'm joined now by Asra Nomani. She's a journalist, author, activist and co-founder of The Pearl Project, a 31,000 word award-winning global investigative journalism report identifying the network of militants who perpetrated the heinous. Asra, welcome to the podcast.

Asra Nomani:

Oh, thank you so much, Chitra. I feel like I'm with such a good dear friend going into one of the darkest moments of my life, but I hope we can share some light with everyone.

Chitra Ragavan:

It's been 19 years, almost exactly two days shy of that fateful day, January 23rd, 2002, when your world and that of Danny Pearl and his whole family turned upside down. Tell me when you found out that something had badly gone wrong.

Asra Nomani:

Well, that day began like any other day for journalists in, posting overseas. We all wakened, Danny and his wife Mariane were visiting a house that I had rented in Karachi, Pakistan. And Danny, went about the business of all his flurry of interviews he had planned for the day. I found a car for him and we stood outside this home that I'd rented and waved goodbye to Danny. And I said, "See you later, buddy," because it was just an interview like any other that we go off to do and then come back home and write down our notes and write our dispatches. But that night, Mariane kept calling and calling Danny's phone number and he never picked up.