There are two Americas. In one, bankers get golden parachutes, insider traders return to society as well-paid consultants, and influence is for sale. In the other, opportunity is scarce and forgiveness scarcer, jail awaits those caught possessing recreational drugs, and cries for help are ignored. Society preaches forgiveness for the rich and retribution for the poor. Entrenched inequality and its companion, poverty, are the dark side of the American dream for a citizenry united by name, but not by rules.Is the divide fair, the result of natural winners and losers, or is it built into the system? We know that inequality is bad for the rich as well as the poor, and that more equal countries are healthier and happier, but this knowledge won't bring change by itself. What can be done when those with the power to change the divide are those that benefit most from it? As long as the more equal won't let go, the less equal will suffer.From his journalist days on the crime beat through to his work on shows like The Wire and Treme, David Simon has brought the divide between these two America's to life like no other. Simon looks at the oppressed, the victims of manmade disasters such as the war on drugs through to natural disaster such as Hurricane Katrina, and forces us to ask whether the fictional stories he shows us on screen are any less real than the theatre of compassion we see on the news from the very same people who have the power to treat all citizens equally but choose not to. David Simon is a journalist, author, and television writer/producer best known as the creator and showrunner of HBO series The Wire and Treme. He spent twelve years on the crime beat for the Baltimore Sun. He also worked on the adaptations of his books Homicide: A Year on the Killing Streets and The Corner: A Year in the Life of an Inner-City Neighborhood for NBC and HBO respectively.  Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

One of the most extraordinary things about the history of sexuality has been the lack of evidence-based information about women's sexual needs and desires. From folklore to Freud, hysteria to penis-envy, women as sexual beings have been misunderstood, brainwashed, silenced and demonised. Daniel Bergner brings together all of the research on the topic, old and new, in a definitive and groundbreaking account of what we now know and understand about women's sexuality. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

It's been more than 20 years since we first became anxious about sports shoes made in sweatshops, and yet cheap and fashionable clothing still seems like an unqualified good -- another gift of the globalisation boom years to consumers in developed countries. But as the recent factory fires in Bangladesh have reaffirmed, it's a gift that comes at a terrible cost not only to others but also to the environment. As we deal with guilt and the mountain of waste that 'fast fashion' produces, others deal with Dickensian conditions and subsistence wages, while the carbon footprint of our fluctuating wardrobes continue to expand. Is there a way out of this Faustian bargain that has seen fashion become a destructive force? Lucy Siegle is a British journalist focusing on the environmental, sustainability and ethics Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

In 2010, journalist Jennifer Senior's magazine story, All Joy and No Fun, became an overnight sensation with its blunt declaration that parents love their children and hate their lives. Anyone who experiences or observes the agony and ecstasy of modern parenting knows that children bring both happiness and misery. We spend more time with our children, but feel guilty about the quality of our parenting and our children are more accomplished yet more depressed than ever before. What does it all mean? Jennifer Senior has expanded her idea into a new best-selling book and while she might not have all the answers, her questions cast some much needed light on the reality of parenting today. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

When civil war broke out in Somalia in 1991, Elman Ali Ahmed became an ardent peace activist, spreading the mantra "put down the gun, pick up the pen" until his assassination in 1996. Three years ago, his 19-year-old daughter Ilwad Elman returned to Somalia and now runs the Elman Peace and Human Rights Center in Mogadishu with her mother, Fartun Adan. In a country ranked the fifth worst place in the world to be a woman, Ilwad and her mother work with victims of rape, and towards the rehabilitation of child soldiers. For this extraordinary young woman, changing the world means carrying on the work of her parents and rebuilding Somalia, one project at a time. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Egyptian-American journalist Mona Eltahawy has been one of the most visible reporters of the dramatic events in Egypt in recent years. In parallel with her coverage of revolutionary politics has been her call for social and sexual revolutions. Beaten, sexually assaulted and detained by riot police in Cairo in 2011, she called for a holistic campaign against sexual violence in Egypt. Her views on misogyny in the Arab world and what she describes as ' the Islamist hatred of women' have stirred controversy and link the quest for political freedom with radical freedom for women. What does the future hold for both of these revolutions?  Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

The news is everywhere and we check it constantly - but what is it doing to our minds?A part of modern society that we take for granted, almost a replacement for religion, the news can be all consuming – but at what cost to the individual? Alain de Botton, bestselling author of Religion for Atheists and sell out success at the Opera House in 2012, dismantles our fixations and neuroses on a range of news categories in News: A User’s Manual. From politics to murders, from economics to celebrities, from the weather to paparazzi shows— he will submits them to unusually intense analysis.He raises questions like: How come disaster stories are often so uplifting? What makes the love lives of celebrities so interesting? Why do we enjoy politicians being brought down? Why are upheavals in far off lands often so . . . boring?In The News: A User’s Manual, De Botton shares the ultimate manual for our news-addicted age, one sure to bring calm, understanding and a measure of sanity to our daily (and sometimes even hourly) interactions with the news machine. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Drug taking has moved from being outlawed behaviour, seen only on the fringes of society, to a widely accepted activity, even when illegal. In Britain, for all the talk of a "war on drugs," no one ever tried to wage one. Instead, drug taking has become more and more legally and socially acceptable. We frame drug-taking as either a harmless diversion or, when taken to excess in the form of addiction, as an illness that needs to be cured. Regardless of the impact on physical and mental health, the hard truth is that self-stupefaction of any kind is morally wrong. Drug taking is pure self-indulgence. It prioritises personal pleasure and instant gratification in a way that wreaks havoc with any kind of ethical framework. If we don't want to succumb to a culture of violence, greed, and selfishness, we should make sure that the moral argument about drugs is not pushed aside. Not even the most rabid advocate of legalisation would argue that more drug taking would be a good thing, so let's have the courage to deter it by clearly saying: "it's wrong."Peter Hitchens is an English journalist and author. His latest book is The War We Never Fought: The British Establishment's Surrender to Drugs. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

When natural resources like timber, water and mineral deposits can be extracted from ecosystems, they become assets with dollar values that can be bought and sold internationally and enable developing countries to grow and participate in the global economy. If growth is the key to emerging from poverty, then this might seem like a good thing. But what if these same resources being sold to richer nations come from an ecosystem that people depend on for their livelihood? What if new growth is actually proportional to the creation of new poverty?The cult of 'growth' has dictated policy for decades. But if well-being, not growth, is our goal, selling resources that bring long term wellbeing to communities for short term gain is a very bad deal. Hard as it may be for the West to understand, protecting the ecological resources of communities might be more important than GDP figures.Vandana Shiva holds a PhD in physics, but is best known as an environmental, and anti-globalisation activist and as a leading figure of 'ecofeminism.' Shiva is based in India and is the author of over twenty books, including Staying Alive and Biopiracy. She is a former recipient of the Sydney Peace Prize.Chair: Simran Sethi is an award-winning Indian American journalist. She is currently undergoing a research fellowship at the University of Melbourne in Australia on the loss of agricultural biodiversity in our food system. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

When someone commits a crime, we want them punished. If wrongdoers go to prison more often and for longer, everyone seems happy. But we live in a system where people do eventually come out of prison and rejoin the community. And this is where what has happened to them in prison really starts to matter. If prisons are a rank breeding ground for recidivism, where drug use is unchecked and non-violent offenders are initiated into the criminal world, do you want someone who has spent time there living near you? Or would you rather see them going straight back to jail? As incarceration rates grow, if we want anyone who has been to jail to have a chance in life, maybe we need to look at a different approach: the kind of prison model that could make a killer a good neighbour.Erwin James is a convicted murderer and Guardian journalist. James was released in August 2004 having served 20 years of a life sentence.Chair: Hamish Macdonald is an Australian broadcaster and news presenter. He is the host and creator of the Network Ten show The Truth Is...?, for which he travelled to Afghanistan, Chernobyl, and a Norwegian jail to reveal surprising truths about issues that seemed mistakenly settled in public debate. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.