Talk Cocktail

In the theater of history, irony often plays a leading role. How did the greatest engine of prosperity the world has ever known — according to the World Bank lifting 1.5 billion people out of crushing poverty — become America’s most dangerous political wager? In this recent WhoWhatWhy podcast I spoke with Journalist David J. Lynch — author of The World’s Worst Bet: How the Globalization Gamble Wen...

Minerva University, has earned the No. 1 ranking in the World University Rankings for Innovation for four consecutive years. Founded in San Francisco in 2012, Minerva reimagined higher education — eliminating campuses, lectures, and tenure while sending students to live and study across seven global cities. In this California Sun podcast , Mike Magee, President of the University discusses how Mine...

More than taking to the streets, a souring economy may be democracy’s last hope. Beneath calm headlines, inflation persists and wealth accumulates. The numbers reveal what matters most. It’s the economy, stupid.” Bill Clinton’s 1992 campaign mantra has never felt more prophetic. In an era when presidential scandals barely register, where lawbreaking and corruption seem consequence-free, where the...

Today, as immigrant families are again separated and detained, Satsuki Ina joins me on the California Sun podcast to talk about her memoir “ The Poet and the Silk Girl . ” Her story chronicles her family’s journey through California’s network of assembly centers and permanent camps during World War II. It’s a reminder, she says, that what happened then is not just history — it’s a warning about ho...

While America fixates on President Donald Trump’s psychology, the real story may be the fundamental mutation of American power itself — one that makes Trump merely a symptom of a deeper transformation reshaping our world. On this recent week’s WhoWhatWhy podcast , I talk with British novelist and essayist Rana Dasgupta, who argues we’re missing the seismic shifts beneath the surface. Author of the...

In March 1998, I had the privilege of sitting down with Jane Goodall, whose pioneering work transformed how we understand chimpanzees and our shared planet. This week, as we mark her passing at 93, we revisit that conversation. The recording has survived nearly three decades — the audio may not be perfect, but her wisdom and spirit shine through. This post is FREE for everyone. Please spread it fa...

How one of California’s corporate crown jewels, Apple, faces an unprecedented rebellion. Tech leaders such as Spotify’s Daniel Ek and Epic Games’ Tim Sweeney are waging a legal war over what they have portrayed as a shakedown operation — the 30% App Store cut that generates massive profits for Apple while stifling competition. On this Califonria Sun podcast I talk with WSJ reporter Tim Higgins to...

We inhabit a fractured information landscape where truth itself has become negotiable. Lying has not only lost its stigma — it’s become a viable strategy for success. My guest on this WhoWhatWhy podcast, Renée DiResta, author of Invisible Rulers: The People Who Turn Lies into Reality , reveals the machinery behind this transformation. Politicians lie with impunity, corporate leaders fabricate narr...

Jeff Chang , in his new biography “ Water Mirror Echo ,” and in our recent California Sun podcast explores how the short of life of Bruce Lee helped shape modern Asian American culture and politics. Born in San Francisco’s Chinatown, Lee was denied the lead role in Warner Bros.’s 1970s TV series “Kung Fu,” which was given instead to David Carradine in yellowface. Lee’s collision with Hollywood rej...

What Ghislaine Maxwell knows about her father Robert Maxwell and Jeffrey Epstein may be the final untold chapter of two of the great scandals of our time Both men were fabulously wealthy, both wrapped themselves in the trappings of power, both had rumored ties to intelligence services, and both of their lives ended in disgrace. Epstein’s death in a Manhattan jail cell remains a source of speculati...

Joan Williams — a UC law professor, author of Outclassed: How the Left Lost the Working Class and How to Win Them Back delivers the prevailing wisdom on Democrats' working-class exodus: how cultural condescension drove voters to Trump. But this tidy narrative misses deeper currents of economic and technological transformation, aspirational politics, and structural failures that shaped today's real...

Violence subsumes us this week, but at the end of the day, it’s still the economy that impacts all of us. Politicians sell tariffs as job protection, but economist Kimberly Clausing cuts through the spin: They’re a direct assault on working families’ wallets while destroying the very manufacturing jobs they claim to save. In this recent WhoWhatWhy podcast The former Treasury official and UCLA prof...

The sons of the elite also struggle. Filmmaker Peter Jones turned his camera on his former classmates from the Harvard School for Boys, a former military academy for boys in Los Angeles, for his new PSB documentary “ Fortunate Sons ,” chronicling the lives of the 1974 graduating class through their 50th reunion. In this California Sun podcast , Jones tells me that what started as pandemic Zoom cal...

How did Silicon Valley's best and brightest become Trump's cheerleaders? Journalist Scott Alan Lucas may have found the origins in his investigation of Cash App founder Bob Lee's 2023 murder. When Lee was killed in San Francisco, tech elites immediately abandoned their supposed data-driven principles, blaming liberal governance despite clear evidence pointing elsewhere. The same figures—including...

With China's rising global influence amid America's shifting position worldwide, understanding China's complex history has never been more critical. New York Times diplomatic correspondent Edward Wong offers unparalleled insight in his book " At the Edge of Empire: A Family's Reckoning with China." Through his family's personal story and decades of reporting from Beijing, Wong reveals how China's...

For nearly a decade, we've waited for the "smoking gun" that would expose the Trump-Putin relationship. But what if the scandal isn't hidden at all? On this recent WhoWhatWhy podcast I spoke with Craig Unger , bestselling author of House of Trump, House of Putin and American Kompromat . He has spent years documenting what he argues is a 40-year intelligence operation in plain sight. From Russian m...

Privacy expert Heidi Boghosian argues that America's democratic survival hinges on developing sophisticated digital literacy skills to combat surveillance capitalism and algorithmic manipulation. She connects declining civics education with rising technological dependence, advocating for enhanced cyber hygiene and citizen activism against corporate data collection. While her concerns about digital...

When we stop thinking, we enable harm. In this reprise of my WhoWhatWhy podcast with Elizabeth Minnich, she warns us that systemic evils don’t need monsters — “it takes all of us” through everyday compliance. I talk with moral philosopher Elizabeth Minnich, who delivers a timely warning about collective thoughtlessness. Building directly on her experience as Hannah Arendt’s long-time teaching assi...

On my latest California Sun podcast , Jim Newton joins me to discuss “ Here Beside the Rising Tide ,” exploring how Jerry Garcia and the Grateful Dead emerged from 1960s California to become unlikely architects of America’s counterculture. Newton reveals Garcia as a reluctant icon who feared leadership yet created a multigenerational community that thrives decades after his death. We explore the D...

In a week when two Al Jazeera journalists were killed in Gaza, we’re reminded that foreign reporting isn’t just dangerous—it’s occasionally fatal. In this WhoWhatWhy podcast, I talk with three veteran correspondents— William Dowell, Greg Dobbs, and James Dorsey —they swap stories from Vietnam to Beirut, Iran to South Africa. They trade notes on the life-threatening scrapes they barely walked away...

Discover the hidden force shaping every aspect of your community—from housing costs to racial inequality to environmental sustainability. Architect and attorney Sara Bronin, author of Key to the City, reveals how zoning, one of the most powerful yet misunderstood tools in local government, dictates where we live, work, and play. Learn why this "invisible" regulation holds the key to building more...

My 2024 conversation with Rachel Bergstein explores the lasting political influence of Judy Blume, whose writing shaped a progressive worldview now under siege from conservative forces. As one of America's most frequently banned authors in the 1980s, Blume became an early champion against censorship—a fight that endures today. Discussing Bergstein’s new book, T he Genius of Judy: How Judy Blume Re...

I’m joined by Gene Seroka, executive director of the Port of Los Angeles. The port handles 20% of America’s incoming cargo. In this California Sun conversation, he reveals how the 7,500-acre complex serves as an economic bellwether, highlighting trends months before consumers feel them. From automation debates to tariff-induced cargo swings, Seroka explains how what happens at the port ripples thr...

In 1951, a 25-year-old oil heir with an unplaceable accent declared war on Yale University — and modern American conservatism was born. On this WhoWhatWhy podcast , Sam Tanenhaus, former editor of The New York Times Book Review and the author of Buckley: The Life and the Revolution That Changed America , talks to me about his monumental 1,000+ page biography of Buckley, a project 30 years in the m...

Now that funding has been cut off by Congress, the future of NPR and individual public radio stations remains uncertain. Back in May, on my WhoWhatWhy podcast, I talked with Steve Oney, who has written what may be the definitive history of NPR, On Air: The Triumph and Tumult of NPR . Some of his conclusions may surprise you. While Fox News and right-wing talk radio built empires of outrage, Nation...