Free Forum with Terrence McNally

I believe human beings want more than anything to feel seen and heard. From clergy fighting racism in Charlottesville to a former GOP congressman engaging conservatives on climate change and Appalachian journalists restoring social trust with the public, USA Today reporter NATHAN BOMEY shares stories from his new book, BRIDGE BUILDERS: Bringing People Together in a Polarized Age. Mostly under the radar, heroic citizens and organizations pursue reconciliation, reject misinformation, and rethink compromise. This is necessary work. You can learn more at nathanbomey.com

President Biden will remove all troops from Afghanistan after nearly 20 years, the longest war in our nation’s history. Here are two interviews from 2009: First, MATHEW HOH, a former Marine who resigned from the foreign service in protest. "American families must be reassured their dead have sacrificed for a worthy purpose…and I have lost confidence such assurances can be made." Second, MALALAI JOYA, youngest member elected to Afghan parliament in 2005, expelled in 2007. “The fact that I was kicked out of office while brutal warlords enjoyed immunity from prosecution should tell you all you need to know about the ‘democracy’ backed by NATO troops.”

When a guy who’s written 30,000 recipes, 30 books, and spent decades with the New York Times writes a book with the title – ANIMAL, VEGETABLE, JUNK: A History of Food from Sustainable to Suicidal - I take notice. What drove him to write this? What does someone who clearly knows and loves food have to say about how badly things have gotten - and what we need to do to turn things around before it’s too late?

I sought out LUIS RODRIGUEZ, writer in many genres, activist, and the former poet laureate of Los Angeles, for his sage take on the city, the state, the nation, and the experience of Latinx people in all three as we emerge from the Trump presidency. I got even more than I’d expected. Grounded in his native roots, his latest book, FROM OUR LAND TO OUR LAND: Essays, Journeys, and Imaginings from A Native Xicanx Writer, calls on humanity to reconcile with nature and to reconnect with ourselves, each other, and the divine. You can learn more at luisjrodriguez.com

Attorney AMY BACH spent eight years investigating the chronic lapses in courts across America. Lawyers sleep through trials. False confessions and mistaken eye-witnesses convict the innocent. The rich walk, the poor go to prison. Her book, ORDINARY INJUSTICE, reveals a culture of complicity among prosecutors, defenders, and judges that rewards shoddiness and sacrifices defendants and victims to keep the court calendar moving.

The US holds one national popular vote and Republicans have only won that vote once since 1988. Yet they have held the presidency nearly 12 of those years, and as a result, they dominate the Supreme Court. They hold 50 Senate seats though they’ve received millions fewer votes than Democrats in Senate elections. DAVID DALEY charted the worst of the Republicans’ efforts in his best-seller on gerrymandering, RATF**KED: Why Your Vote Doesn't Count, but he also draws hope from the citizens he writes about in UNRIGGED: How Americans Are Battling Back to Save Democracy

10 years ago last week pro-democracy protests began in Syria as the latest front in the - at the time still hopeful - Arab Spring. Here’s my 2019 conversation with directors Waad al-Kateab and Edward Watts of the Oscar-nominated documentary, For Sama, and with Dr. Hamza al-Kateab, who ran the last hospital in East Aleppo. The film takes us inside Aleppo during the long siege by al Assad and the Russians. In the course of the film, Waad al-Kateab falls in love, gets married, and has a baby - all as bombs fall around them. You can learn more and watch this remarkable film at forsamafilm.com

I believe human beings want more than anything to feel seen and heard. That’s why I wanted to talk again with NOREENA HERTZ economist, journalist, and author most recently of THE LONELY CENTURY: How to Restore Human Connection in a World That’s Pulling Apart. One of the things I appreciate about Hertz’s approach here is that she broadly defines loneliness as a lack of connection, which opens us up to consider all the ways and all the spheres of our lives where we are lacking or losing connection. And how has our ongoing experience of the pandemic making that both better and worse? You can learn more at noreena.com

Increased tax credits contained in the $1.9 trillion Covid relief package signed this week could lower child poverty more In 2021 than any other year In U.S. history. That is a really big deal. It turns Naomi Klein’s notion of “shock doctrine” on its head - enacting policies in response to a crisis that promise to make things better than before the crisis began. So what else could we do for children? Here’s my 2011 conversation with David Kirp about his book, Kids First: Five Big Ideas for Transforming Children's Lives and America's Future. This stuff has all been tried and it works.

SHERRY TURKLE mourned the loss of conversation in ALONE TOGETHER: Why We Expect More from Technology and Less from Each Other and called for its restoration in RECLAIMING CONVERSATION: The Power of Talk in a Digital Age. In THE EMPATHY DIARIES: A Memoir, she turns the conversation on herself, and weaves together her very personal story and her evolving insights on technology, empathy, and ethics. Among her questions: How did her role in keeping family secrets influence her as a researcher, a teacher, a writer, and a woman? To learn more about the book and read an excerpt: bit.ly/3lyo4HS; more about Sherry’s work: sherryturkle.mit.edu