Free Forum with Terrence McNally

When you pick up a newspaper, do you reach first for the sports section? When you sit down in front of a television, do you look first for ESPN or today's hottest game? Does your mood revolve not just around whether the world is better off today but whether the team you root for won or lost? I love sports. Playing sports, I've probably had more peak moments in which my ego was dissolved and I was...

TEMPLE GRANDIN - Originally aired January 2010 WALTER ISAACSON - Originally aired May 2007 Two extraordinary minds: Interviews about a couple of individuals who, though slow learners as children, grew up to do amazing things. In the first half, I'll talk with Temple Grandin, PhD, probably the most accomplished adult with autism in the world. Now a Professor of Animal Science at Colorado State Univ...

TIM RYAN - Originally aired August 2012 WINIFRED GALLAGHER - Originally aired May 2009 "My experience is what I agree to attend to." -- William James This week we focus on mindful attention - hailed by ancient spiritual traditions and modern neuroscience alike as one of the keys to the quality of our lives. In the first half, I'll be joined by Ohio Congressman TIM RYAN, who offers a radical soluti...

(1) GEORGE McGOVERN A Politician of Principle (Originally aired November 2005) (2) ANDREW BACEVICH THE LIMITS OF POWER: The End of American Exceptionalism (Originally aired September 2008) As Congress debates a new budget this week, I read the following headline, "Defense hawks in U.S. Congress move to boost military budgets." It's worth noting that the US spends more on "defense" than the next 9...

Originally aired 11-25-2008 "Who and what is ROBERT COLES? Social scientist, humanist, political activist, psychiatrist, minstrel, wandering storyteller, mystic, wise man, poet, dissenter, and yes, I'll use the word, secular saint." -- Andrew Greeley, Chicago Tribune I invite anyone to google the books of ROBERT COLES. He has written on a broad range of topics, but consistently on subjects that ma...

Aired 09/08/09 Daniel Ellsberg is an American hero. September 23rd is the 40th anniversary of the first night of copying the Pentagon Papers, which he took from his safe at the Rand Corporation in Santa Monica. America was embroiled in a dirty war based on lies. A president was abusing the power of his office, ignoring the will of the people, Congress and the courts. He promised peace while planni...

Originally Aired 09/09/12 Let’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...

Aired 01/17/10 BRUCE LIPTON, Ph. D., a leading voice in new biology, bridges science and spirit. A cell biologist by training, he taught at the University of Wisconsin's School of Medicine, and later performed pioneering studies at Stanford University. He's the author of The Biology of Belief, and his latest with Steve Bhaerman, SPONTANEOUS EVOLUTION STEVE BHAERMAN is an author, humorist, and poli...

Aired 12/12/09 Attorney AMY BACH spent eight years investigating the chronic lapses in courts across America. Lawyers sleep through trials. False confessions and mistaken eye-witness identifications convict the innocent. The rich walk, the poor go to prison. ORDINARY INJUSTICE goes beyond one particular injustice, one specific court, or one aspect of the legal system. Bach rejects the easy explana...

NYTimes review: “This book hums – with sorrow, outrage and compassion.”- #8 Best-seller GEORGE PACKER has written a remarkable book, THE UNWINDING: An Inner History of the New America. In it, he argues that seismic economic shifts during a single generation have created a country of winners and losers, leaving the social contract in pieces and setting citizens adrift to find new paths forward. Pac...

(Originally aired 10-03-2010) We hear about the trouble Europe is in. The debt crisis in Greece and other countries, the mistaken austerity moves that have slowed recovery from recession. But while the bad news of the Euro crisis makes headlines in the US, what does not made headlines is the good news of a quiet revolution that has been taking place in Europe. The European Union, 27 member nations...

(Originally aired 11-25-2012) To rescue our country from corruption, complacency, and corporate domination, we need fresh ideas and bold solutions. RALPH NADER offers THE SEVENTEEN SOLUTIONS: Bold Ideas for Our American Future. Confronting economic, social, political, and environmental challenges, his ambitious, common-sense proposals address our most pressing concerns, from corporate crime to tax...

Aired 03/14/10 Though Atul Gawande is a best-selling author, a Harvard professor, and an innovator in best practices for the W.H.O., he still performs 250-plus surgeries a year. A framed copy of Sylvia Plath's poem "The Surgeon at 2 a.m." stands on the desk in his office." Her surgeon's words: "I worm and hack in a purple wilderness." Gawande likes the Plath poem because it casts the surgeon in an...

Originally aired 08-04-2009 As we celebrate the holidays - religious, cultural, and annual - we're paying more attention than usual to our relationship to God at the same time that winter and the new year call us to reflect and look forward. I want to share with you this interview I recorded June 5, 2009, with ROBERT WRIGHT. That week THE EVOLUTION OF GOD, no light read, was the #8 New York Times...

Originally aired 4-4-2010 After a fight within the Democratic party, the House passed a spending bill this week that rolls back one of the most important provisions of Dodd-Frank. When it passes the Senate, taxpayers will be back on the hook for the big banks' gambles on derivatives and other exotic financial instruments. I thought it was time to play this interview with MICHAL LEWIS about how Wal...

originally aired 7-24-2011 What's good enough for a child you love? What's good enough parenting? Good enough early education? Good enough healthcare? Good enough schools? DAVID KIRP, envisions a national effort to support and develop our children based on a simple "Golden Rule:" Every child deserves what's good enough for a child you love. David Kirp, Kids First In KIDS FIRST, he offers on-the-gr...

Originally aired 12-30-2012 Where do you think the most important changes need to take place to turn things around in terms of big issues like the economy, the environment, and social justice? Some say climate change is the critical global issue so it must be clean energy. Others say nothing will make as much difference for the world's people as educating and empowering girls and women. Closer to...

originally aired 02-13-2011 How much technology do you use? Email, texting, facebook, twitter, second life, etc. Has it freed you up, given you more time, or has it added new demands to your life that actually make you feel you have less time? If you're using social media regularly, do you feel more connected with your friends and family or less? Clinical psychologist SHERRY TURKLE has been studyi...

originally aired 05-05-2013 You're busy trying to make ends meet. The news is filled with celebrity gossip, natural and corporate disasters, the latest mass homicides, and dysfunctional politics. How much do you know about the covert wars the US is involved in around the globe? JEREMY SCAHILL'S best-selling book and Oscar-nominated documentary, DIRTY WARS, begins as an investigation into a US nigh...

originally aired 03-03-2012 In the early 1960s, MARSHALL GANZ dropped out of Harvard to join the Civil Rights Movement in Mississippi. He then spent 16 years working with César Chávez and the United Farm Workers. He returned to Harvard in the 1990's, graduated, earned his Ph. D., and now teaches the power of public narrative at the Kennedy School. Marshall Ganz During Barack Obama's 2008 president...

Originally Aired: 03/16/14 We all deal day to day with a lot of questions and a lot of fears – around work, money, health, politcs, relationships. And at some point, we will all deal with the final fears and the final questions – fear of death and questions about what it means and what if anything comes after. At his request, today’s guest, SARA DAVIDSON met every Friday for two years with 89-year...

Originally aired 07-28-2013 I say that in a past life I worked in the entertainment industry, comedy in particular. I co-wrote and co-produced novelty records THE HOMECOMING QUEEN'S GOT A GUN, I LIKE EM BIG AND STUPID and EARTH GIRLS ARE EASY all performed by Julie Brown. I directed comic music videos for some of these songs, and ended up co-writing and co-producing the film EARTH GIRLS ARE EASY....

Originally Aired 5/6/12 After 3.8 billion years of R&D on this planet, failures are fossils. What surrounds us in the natural world is what has succeeded. Nature, imaginative by necessity, has already solved many of the problems we are grappling with. Animals, plants, and microbes are the consummate engineers. They have found what works, what is appropriate, and most important, what lasts here...

Aired: 3/24/14 I'll share with you my views on a number of issues, large and small. I'll deal with a lot of the questions I ask others about on a regular basis. What are our biggest challenges? Are there some critical issues that don't get enough attention? Can I connect the dots among pieces of the puzzle of a world that just tight work? Can humanity turn things around? What gives me hope? I hope...