Free Forum with Terrence McNally

Aired 01/15/12In the winter of 1417, a short, genial, cannily alert man in his late thirties plucked a very old manuscript off a library shelf, saw with excitement what he had discovered, and ordered that it be copied. The man was Poggio Braccionlini, the greatest book hunter of the Renaissance. His discovery was the last surviving manuscript of an ancient Roman philosophical epic, On the Nature of Things by Lucretius—a beautiful poem of the most dangerous ideas: that the universe functioned without the aid of gods, that religious fear was damaging to human life, and that matter was made up of very small particles in eternal motion, colliding and swerving in new directions.The copying and translation of this ancient book fueled the Renaissance, inspiring artists such as Botticelli and thinkers such as Giordano Bruno; shaped the thought of Galileo and Freud, Darwin and Einstein; and had a revolutionary influence on writers such as Montaigne and Shakespeare and even Thomas Jefferson.Stephen Greenblatt is John Cogan University Professor of the Humanities at Harvard University. Among his books are Will of the World: How Shakespeare Became Shakespeare, a Finalist for the 2004 National Book Award in Nonfiction and a New York Times best seller, and Hamlet in Purgatory. He holds honorary degrees from Queen Mary College of the University of London and the University of Bucharest.

Aired 01/08/12This will be a conversation about the state of things as we embark on 2012. I will be joined by TOM FRANK (What's the Matter with Kansas?) and EDGAR CAHN (founder of Legal Services and Time Dollars). We will talk about their passions and projects.http://www.tcfrank.com/In his new book, PITY THE BILLIONAIRE, Frank examines how the crash that has hurt so many millions of Americans has delivered wildly perverse political results. He gives us a diagnosis of the cultural malady that has transformed collapse into profit, reconceived the Founding Fathers as heroes from an Ayn Rand novel, and enlisted the powerless in a fan club for the prosperous. Edgar Cahn was a serial social entrepreneur before the term was invented. In 1974, he and his wife co-founded the Legal Services Program to deliver legal services to the poor, then co-founded Antioch School of Law, where students learned through providing legal services to the poor. Two decades later Cahn created TIme Dollars, a system to bank and exchange services rather than currency.In the larger conversation, I want to take a fairly big picture, historical, and forward-looking perspective. While I assume we will talk about global economics and international conflicts, the emphasis would be on the US. Though I assume we will talk about the fall election, I want to look more broadly. Questions like: Where are we as a society - socially, culturally, economically, and politically? What's working and why is it working? What are your fears and hopes for the year ahead? What stories and narratives will you be paying attention to in the next year? Maybe something about the battle over the narrative of America's founding and the American dream. Is there a story in which humanity turns things around? THOMAS FRANK, a former opinion columnist for The Wall Street Journal, is the founding editor of The Baffler and a monthly columnist for Harper's. He is the author of The Conquest of Cool; What's the Matter with Kansas? One Market Under God; and his newest, PITY THE BILLIONAIRE. EDGAR CAHN teaches Law and Justice, and directs the Community Service Program at the University of the District of Columbia School of Law. A co-founder with his late wife Jean Camper Cahn of the Antioch School of Law, UDC-DCSL's predecessor; the first law school in the United States to educate law students primarily through clinical training in legal services to the poor. In the late 1980s, Professor Cahn began the Time Dollars project, a service credit program that now has more than 70 communities in the US, UK and Japan with registered programs (www.timebanks.org). He's the author of several books, including Hunger USA, Time Dollars and No More Throw-Away People.

Aired 01/01/12I'll be joined by writer-director STEVE STOCKMAN whose new book HOW TO SHOOT VIDEO THAT DOESN'T SUCK has a great deal of smart things to say - not just about shooting videos of your kids' parties or your company's new products, but also about the essential role of story in the movies you see in theatres. Stick around. I believe you'll learn something no matter who you are.http://www.stevestockman.com/

Aired 12/25/11As an activist, presidential advisor, cofounder of the Enough Project, and the author of ten books on Africa, including his most recent, The Enough Moment, John is passionate about ending genocide and raising awareness about human rights issues in Africa. But the not-so-public face of John Prendergast is the life he’s led as a Big Brother to Michael Mattocks. As an emotionally wounded twenty-one-year-old, John made the life-changing decision to form a “Big Brother/Little Brother” relationship with then seven-year-old Michael, who was living out of plastic bags and roaming from one homeless shelter to the next with his mother and siblings.In a book they wrote together, UNLIKELY BROTHERS: Our Story of Adventure, Loss, and Redemption, John and Michael share their experiences over the past twenty-five years. As John became more and more involved with Africa, he became less and less involved with Michael, who dropped out of school and into drug dealing. The two slowly disconnected and then reconnected at a critical moment for both of them.JOHN PRENDERGAST is the co-founder of the Enough Project, an initiative to end genocide and crimes against humanity affiliated with the Center for American Progress. John has worked for the Clinton White House, the State Department, two members of Congress, the National Intelligence Council, UNICEF, Human Rights Watch, the International Crisis Group, and the U.S. Institute of Peace, and is the author or co-author of ten books.  His previous two books were co-authored with Don Cheadle:  Not On Our Watch,  and  The Enough Moment: Fighting to End Africa's Worst Human Rights Crimes. John is a board member and serves as Strategic Advisor to Not On Our Watch. MICHAEL MATTOCKS lived in homeless shelters as a child and began dealing drugs as a teenager. He is now a husband and father of five boys, working two jobs at once in order to support his family. He helps coach his sons on their football teams.

Aired 11/07/11From a small town in Northern Michigan to the mountains of Afghanistan and back, a raw and powerful documentary WHERE SOLDIERS COME FROM follows the four-year journey of childhood friends, their families, and their town. At its heart a story about growing up, the film is an intimate look at the young men who fight our wars, where they come from, and their struggles when they return and try to fit back into their previous daily routines. On the podcast, HEATHER COURTNEY, producer/director of the documentary, is joined by DOMINIC FREDIANELLI, one of the young veterans she follows in the film.Heather Courtney has directed and produced several documentary films including award-winners LETTERS FROM THE OTHER SIDE and LOS TRABAJADORES. She was recently named one of Film Independent's Top 10 Filmmakers to Watch. LETTERS FROM THE OTHER SIDE was the Closing Night film at the Slamdance Film Festival in January 2006. LOS TRABAJADORES won the Audience Award at SXSW and the International Documentary Association David Wolper award. She spent eight years writing and photographing for the United Nations and several refugee and immigrant rights organizations, including in the Rwandan refugee camps after the 1994 Rwandan genocide.Just a quick reminder that the Indie Spirit Award-nominated film WHERE SOLDIERS COME FROM is now available on DVD, and if you order today, you'll get it by Christmas! You can go to http://www.wheresoldierscomefrom.com/dvd.php or see info below for more info on ordering, to read some reviews and to watch the trailer.

Aired 12/11/11Economists, politicians, and pundits insist recovery is at hand, yet unemployment remains high, real estate values continue to sink, and governments face record deficits. Today's guest, RICHARD HEINBERG has a new book, The End of Growth, in which he proposes a startling diagnosis: humanity has reached a fundamental turning point in its economic history. He talks about the new normal that recognizes the limits to growth imposed by resource and disposal limits, climate change, and population growth. http://richardheinberg.com/http://www.postcarbon.org/

Aired 12/04/11ELISE WHITAKER, Action Committee, OccupyLA DAVID DeGRAW, OWSnews.org, AmpedStatus.com TODD GITLIN, The Sixties; Letters to a Young Activist SARAH VAN GELDER, YES magazine,editor, THIS CHANGES EVERYTHINGI have invited four guests to have a conversation about the movement referred to as the Occcupy movement, the Occupy Wall Street movement, or the 99% movement. From a group of people encamping in New York city September 17th, to affiliated actions or camps in 900 cities in the US and the world, through the removal of most of the physical camps -- where do we stand now, where do we go from here?I will ask for a brief update of status reports from around the country and then I want to explore the impact so far, its meaning, its prospects, its challenges and possibilities. How does OWS/99% interact with other movements and other political entities, including the 2012 elections and the Democratic party? How much of our hopes can we fulfill through this movement? How wide can it be? How far can it go? And what will it demand of us?SARAH VAN GELDER is co-founder and Executive Editor of YES! Magazine and YesMagazine.org. She was a television and radio producer, a community organizer, founder of a cooperative of food co-ops, and a founding board member and resident of Winslow Cohousing. She is editor with the staff of YES Magazine of THIS CHANGES EVERYTHING: Occupy Wall Street and the 99% Movement.TODD GITLIN, a professor of journalism and sociology and chair of the Ph. D. program in Communications at Columbia University, holds degrees from Harvard University, University of Michigan, and UC Berkeley (sociology). Giltin was the third president of Students for a Democratic Society in 1963-64, and is the author of fourteen books, including, and Letters to a Young Activist; The Sixties: Years of Hope, Days of Rage; aND The Whole World Is Watching. He gave three lectures on media, revolutions, and democracy as a Distinguished Visiting Professor at the American University in Cairo between March 23 and 29 of this year. DAVID DeGRAW is an investigative journalist, founder and editor of AmpedStatus.com, as well as OWSnews.org, formerly editorial director of MediaChannel.org, and author of The Economic Elite Vs. The People of the United States. In DeGraw's expanded "reports" he piles on (amply footnoted) data with a relentless fury that makes a reader want to cry uncle. Then he connects the dots, building a narrative that makes clear "uncle" is not an option. DeGraw's challenge: Will we the people come together to take on our common enemies - the economic elites who have stolen our money, our media, and our democracy - before they steal our future?" http://www.occupylosangeles.org/https://www.facebook.com/occupyLAhttp://owsnews.org/http://www.ampedstatus.com/http://www.yesmagazine.org/http://www.toddgitlin.net/

Aired 11/27/11At a time when social media is being utilized to coordinate protests against the domination of our economy, our government, and our society by corporations and the very wealthy individuals who profit most from them, SIMON MAINWARING sees a hopeful path to save society from capitalism's worst excesses. http://wefirstseminar.com/A social media expert with global experience with brands such as Nike, Toyota and Motorola- he offers a new brand model in which they leverage social media to earn consumer goodwill, loyalty and profit, while promoting sustainable social change through contributions from customer purchases. The goal of We First is a sustainable practice of capitalism. It is based on the belief that selfish Me First thinking hurts our businesses and the lives of millions of people around the world. It asserts that a brighter future depends on an integration of profit and purpose within the private sector. To achieve this, companies and customers must become partners in social change to build a better world.Could such innovative partnerships (with shared goals) practice capitalism in a way that satisfies the need for both profit and a healthy, sustainable planet? How realistic is his vision at a time when greed keeps consolidating gains? How much difference could it make even if successful? What has MAINWARING seen in working with these brands that makes him talk about his vision as a likely alternative? http://wefirstbranding.com/http://simonmainwaring.com/

11/20/11This week's show is about a Los Angeles institution and source of local pride, nurtured to greatness as a family-owned business, purchased by someone from out-of-town who knew little about the business, put up little of his own money, and ran the property into the ground so that it is now a shell of its former self. And many customers have reacted by not buying the product.No, we're not talking about the Dodgers, but the Los Angeles Times. After buying Times Mirror, The Tribune Company sent JAMES O'SHEA to LA to run the Times. Sam Zell bought the Tribune Company in a deal that even I - no financial expert - thought was both bad and doomed, and soon the Tribune Company was in bankruptcy where it remains.O'Shea refused to do his bosses' bidding in terms of cutbacks and he was let go. Over the next two years the Times cut nearly 40% of its journalists. JAMES O'SHEA has since founded a Chicago news cooperative of which he is editor, attempting a new model of journalism. JAMES O'SHEA is editor and co-founder of the Chicago News Cooperative, former editor-in-chief of the Los Angeles Times and past managing editor of the Chicago Tribune. Under his leadership, the Tribune's news staff received six Pulitzer prizes. O'Shea is the author of THE DAISY CHAIN about the savings-and-loan crisis of the 1980s, DANGEROUS COMPANY, an examination of management consultants' role in corporate decision making, and his latest THE DEAL FROM HELL: How Moguls and Wall Street Plundered Great American Newspapers.http://thedealfromhell.com/http://www.chicagonewscoop.org/

Aired 11/13/11Some bad news:In 2008 more than 50% of all US harvested cropland grew only two crops - corn and soybeans and more than 40% of the food calories consumed worldwide came from just three crops: wheat, corn and rice.30% of Detroit residents receive food stamps, but 92% of Detroit's food stamp retailers offer few or no fresh fruit or vegetables.The average plate of food eaten in our homes or restaurants travels 1,500 miles from where the food is grown. Our food system consumes 10.3 calories of fossil fuel energy to produce 1.4 calories of food energy."And some good news:There are now 8000 farm to school programs across the US. Eight years ago there were only 4. There are now 6000 farmers' markets in the US three times as many as in 1995. 330 hospitals in the US and Canada have pledged to purchase food that is grown according to Fair Food principles.In recent years a number of books and films have documented the dangers of our current food system, and a number of those have been featured on Free forum. Just as you can't alter the course of climate change by simply switching to efficient light bulbs, today's guests believe that you can't fix the broken food system by simply growing a backyard garden. It requires redesigning our food system.My first guest, ORAN HESTERMAN has a new book FAIR FOOD, a guide to changing not only what we eat, but how our food is grown, packaged, delivered, marketed and sold. Hesterman opens the book talking about Detroit, Michigan, an unlikely beacon of hope in the fight for fair food.Prior to starting the Fair Food Network, where he is President & CEO, ORAN HESTERMAN was the inaugural president of Fair Food Foundation, leading their sustainable food systems programs. Before that, he researched and taught in the crop and soil sciences department at Michigan State University in East Lansing, and for more than 15 years he co-led the Integrated Farming Systems and Food and Society Programs for the W.K. Kellogg Foundation, during which time the Foundation seeded the local food systems movement with over $200 million. FAIR FOOD is his first book.My second guest LEILA CONNERS, a founder of Tree Media in Santa Monica, is a producer of URBAN ROOTS, a documentary on the food revolution taking place in Detroit. Directed by Detroit-native Mark McInnis the film tells the powerful story of a group of dedicated Detroiters working tirelessly to fulfill their vision for locally-grown, sustainably farmed food in a city where people -- as in much of the county -- have found themselves cut off from real food and limited to lifeless offerings of fast food chains, mini-marts, and grocery stores stocked with processed food from thousands of miles away. LEILA CONNERS is Founder and President of Tree Media Group. Conners is director, producer, and writer on THE 11TH HOUR, as well as the short films "Global Warning" and "Water Planet" (all with Leonardo DiCaprio). She was Associate Editor at New Perspectives Quarterly and Global Viewpoint, focusing on international politics and social issues. She is producer of URBAN ROOTS.fairfoodbook.org, fairfoodnetwork.org, urbanrootsamerica.com, treemedia.com