Free Forum with Terrence McNally

Aired 09/09/12Let's suppose, for a moment, there was a country where the people in charge charted a course that eliminated millions of good-paying jobs. Suppose they gave away several million more jobs to other nations. Finally, imagine that the people running this country implemented economic policies that enabled those at the very top to grow ever richer while most others grew poorer. You wouldn't want to live in such a place, would you? Too bad. You already do.Those are the words of this week's guests,DON BARLETT and JIM STEELE.These are some of the consequences of failed U.S. government policies that have been building over the last three decades - the same policies that people in Washington today are intent on keeping or expanding...Most significant of all, the American dream of the last half-century has been revoked for millions of people - a dream rooted in a secure job, a home in the suburbs, the option for families to live on one income rather than two, a better life than your parents had and a still better life for your children. Barlett and Steele wrote these words in 1992. They are the first words of their Pulitzer Prize winning series of articles in the Philadelphia Inquirer, which led to the #1 best-selling book, America: What Went Wrong. They put their finger on things and connected dots that really established a lens through which to view the next 20 years. The point of view of the 99% movement is basically the one Barlett and Steele described and predicted at the birth of the Clinton era.http://americawhatwentwrong.orghttp://barlettandsteele.com

Aired 09/02/12When I first met TERRY TAMMINEN, he was living on a houseboat in the Marina and filling a position he'd founded as the first Santa Monica Baykeeper. No too long before that, he had been running a pool services company. And not too long after, he was Secretary of the California EPA. Tamminen has reinvented himself successfully in several very different worlds -- business, government, non-profit, foundation, from the grassroots to the halls of power. All of this for a long time now to achieve a sound and healthy relationship between society and the environment. He pursues that consistent vision with whatever works. We'll talk about the ideas in his book, CRACKING THE CARBON CODE: The Key to Sustainable Profits in the New Economy - which is very much a plan of action for companies who figure out that reducing carbon emissions reduces waste and is therefore good for the bottom line. He'll tell stories of companies that have made or saved money by cutting carbon. How has he been able to move things forward through politics and government in an era when so little seems to get done? Bottom line, are we moving fast enough? If not, how do we integrate all these different players to accelerate movement in the right direction?http://seventhgenerationadvisors.org

Aired 08/26/12Humans are not alone in being creatures of habit, but can we do anything about it?Brain science has learned a lot about habits over the last few years. On the one hand, that gives corporations new power with which to manipulate us, but it also gives us greater power over our own behavior. What is a habit? Are habits positive - a sign of cultivation and industry, or negative, a sign of weakness and mindlessness? Or are they neutral, their value up to us?Today's guest, CHARLES DUHIGG an award-winning reporter for the New York Times, has written the best-selling THE POWER OF HABIT: Why We Do What We Do in Life and Business. He tells us that at its most basic level, a habit is a simple neurological loop: a cue (my mouth feels gross), a routine (I should brush my teeth), and a reward (ahhh, minty fresh!). Backing out of the driveway, replying to emails, running before work - many of our most basic daily actions are not, in fact, the products of well considered decision-making, but outgrowths of habits we often don't even realize exist. We'll talk about what a habit is, how they are formed, and how we can put what we've learned about habits into practice, so that we are at least somewhat their masters rather than their slaves.We will also discuss Duhigg's investigative New York Times series on Apple, including their labor practices and why they don't manufacture in the U.S.http://charlesduhigg.com/

Aired 08/05/12ROB MANNING is the Chief Engineer for the Mars Science Laboratory (MSL) mission. MANNING has been designing, testing and operating robotic spacecraft and rovers for 30 years at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) in Pasadena. In the 1990's Rob was chief engineer for Mars Pathfinder, the first to send a rover to Mars. He also led flight system engineering for the Rover Entry, Descent and Landing teams. Rob is in the Aviation Week Magazine Space Laureate Hall of Fame in the Smithsonian Air and Space Museum. We talk just hours before the rover Curiosity landed on Mars. Using a never-before-tried landing system called a "sky crane," the degree of difficulty of this landing is enormous. After parachuting to within one mile of the surface, the sky crane fires thrusters to lower itself to hover over the surface. While hovering, Curiosity is lowered to the ground on cables. Once the cables are released, the sky crane jets to a safe distance before crashing to the ground, leaving the rover to explore the planet's surface. We'll talk with Manning about the aims as well as the challenges of this mission.

Aired 08/05/12I am joined by Ohio Congressman Tim Ryan, who offers a radical solution to the stresses and problems that face Americans today -- radical in its original meaning of having to do with roots of things. He has written a book, A MINDFUL NATION: How a Simple Practice Can Help Us Reduce Stress, Improve Performance, and Recapture the American Spirit. Ryan has a daily practice of meditation and now he's advocating that the spread of similar practices could help heal us, not just as individuals but as a nation. His book is filled with examples of how mindfulness is already being successfully applied in education, healthcare, even the military.

Aired 07/29/12I'll be joined by DOUG FINE to talk about his new book,TOO HIGH TO FAIL: Cannabis and the New Green Economic Revolution. As the economy continues to limp along for most Americans and California cities declare bankruptcy, one action -- the legalization of marijuana -- would save government billions per year while raising huge sums in taxes. According to TIME, the legal medicinal cannabis economy already generates $200M annually in taxable proceeds from a mere 500,000 registered medical users in just 16 states. 51% of Americans support full legalization (cannabis regulated for adults like alcohol), and 80% support medicinal cannabis legalization.In the last few minutes, DON DUNCAN, CA director of Americans for Safe Access will give us a brief report on the LA City Council's recent vote to ban all cannabis dispensaries within city limits.

Aired 07/22/12Did you know that LSD is being tested as a treatment for alcoholism? Or that psilocybin is being taken to ease the anxiety of late stage cancer patients? In government-sanctioned studies.Psychedelic substances have been used for ceremony and as medicine for millennia. Such properties were being cultivated and studied in the US in the 60s and early 70s until widespread and careless use of psychedelics and sensational media reports produced a backlash. I will talk with CHARLES GROB MD about the latest scientific research, including his own ground-breaking studies. And with JAMES FADIMAN about the vision, ideas and advice in his book, PSYCHEDELIC EXPLORERS: Safe, Therapeutic and Sacred Journeys. CHARLES S. GROB, M.D, Director of the Division of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry at Harbor-UCLA Medical Center and Professor of Psychiatry and Pediatrics at the UCLA School of Medicine, conducted the first government approved psychobiological research study of MDMA, was the principal investigator on a research project in the Amazon studying the visionary plant brew, ayahuasca, and investigated the efficacy of psilocybin to treat anxiety in terminally ill patients. A founding board member of the Heffter Research Institute, devoted to fostering research on psychedelics, he is the editor of Hallucinogens: A Reader and co-editor with Roger Walsh of Higher Wisdom: Eminent Elders Explore the Continuing Impact of Psychedelics.JAMES FADIMAN did his undergraduate work at Harvard and his graduate work at Stanford, doing pioneering research with the Harvard Group, the West Coast Research Group in Menlo Park, and Ken Kesey. A former president of the Institute of Noetic Sciences and a professor of psychology, he currently teaches at the Institute of Transpersonal Psychology in Palo Alto, CA, which he helped found in 1975. He is the author of PSYCHEDELIC EXPLORERS: Safe, Therapeutic and Sacred Journeys.

Aired 07/08/12My guest will be NORA BATESON, and we'll talk about AN ECOLOGY OF MIND, the wonderful documentary she's made about her father, the late anthropologist GREGORY BATESON. He saw reality as made up of relationships and systems and had a big impact on a lot of people's worldview in the late 60s and early 70s, myself included. NORA BATESON is a media producer and educator. Her work includes documentaries, multimedia productions, magazine columns, and developing curriculum for elementary and high school students. Central to all her pursuits is the idea of utilizing media and storytelling to encourage cultural understanding, social justice, and environmental awareness.http://anecologyofmind.com/

Aired 07/08/12I seldom interview writers of fiction, but the debut novel THE AGE OF MIRACLES got my attention. It's being heavily promoted as one of THE books of the summer. Enough so that I read the first couple of pages and I really like the writing. It's about how one family in Southern California responds to a global crisis, the slowing of the earth, and the lengthening of days and nights. The writer, KAREN THOMPSON WALKER joins me for a delightful interview.http://www.theageofmiraclesbook.com/

Aired 06/24/12JOHN FULLERTON has spent a career at the highest reaches of the financial world, including as chief investment officer of a division of JP Morgan. He is the founder and director of Capital Institute, which describes itself as "a non-partisan, transdisciplinary collaborative space, whose mission is to explore and effect economic transition to a more just, resilient, and sustainable way of living on this earth through the transformation of finance." That's a big, bold, and daunting mission and I'm eager to learn how they plan to do that and a sense of their progress so far. JOHN FULLERTON is also principal of Level 3 Capital Advisors, LLC. whose investments are primarily focused on sustainable, regenerative land use, and food, and water issues. Fullerton is the creator of the weekly Blog, "The Future of Finance" on the Capital Institutehttp://capitalinstitute.org