Free Forum with Terrence McNally

Aired 11/22/09 NICHOLAS KRISTOF, oped columnist at the New York Times, and author with his wife, former Times editor Sheryl WuDunn, of HALF THE SKY: From Oppression to Opportunity for Women Worldwide." Kristof grew up on a sheep and cherry farm near Yamhill, Oregon. He graduated Phi Beta Kappa from Harvard College and then studied law at Oxford University on a Rhodes Scholarship, graduating with f...

Aired 11/15/09 Malalai Joya is an Afghan politician who has been called "the bravest woman in Afghanistan." As an elected member of the Wolesi Jirga from Farah province, she has publicly denounced the presence of what she considers warlords and war criminals in the parliament. The daughter of a former medical student who lost a foot while fighting the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan, Malalai Joya w...

Aired 11/15/09 A former Marine captain with combat experience in Iraq, Matthew Hoh, also served in uniform at the Pentagon, and as a civilian in Iraq and at the State Department. This summer he was the senior US civilian in Zabul province, a Taliban hotbed. In September Hoh became the first US official known to resign in protest over the Afghan war. His four page letter of resignation explains tha...

Aired 11/08/09 STEWART BRAND's Whole Earth Catalog introduced millions to new ways of thinking and doing and probably contributed to the birth of environmentalism in the US. Confronting today's challenges to global civilization in his new book, Brand questions environmental positions against GMO foods, Geo-engineering, and nuclear power. In 1968 a totally original cultural item appeared. It owed s...

Aired 11/01/09 ZACHARY KARABELL argues that the economies of China and the US have melded over the past 20 years, as billions of dollars flow east from the US for Chinese-made goods and return to this country from China in exchange for IOUs. "This mega-economy is hiding in plain sight, unrecognized, unacknowledged, and unwanted by many millions whose lives are being reshaped by it." Karabell's not...

Aired 10/20/09 In Lester Brown's new book, PLAN B 4.0: MOBILIZING TO SAVE CIVILIZATION, Brown lays out the symptoms, the diagnosis, and the cure. He estimates that we could solve all the world's greatest problems for $200 billion a year - less than half the US defense budget. PLAN B 4.0 is a comprehensive plan for reversing the trends that are undermining our future. Its four overriding goals are...

Aired 10/13/09 JODIE EVANS is the co-founder the International Occupation Watch Center in Iraq, and of CODE PINK, with, among others, Medea Benjamin. Jodie's Baghdad Journals are at the center of the book, Twilight of Empire, and she is co-editor with Benjamin of Stop The Next War Now. JODIE - "I am just returning from my 10-day trip to Afghanistan. As we left, a farm was bombed and eight members...

Aired 10/13/09 More than just a reflection on his life, Cornel West says his new memoir Brother West: Living and Loving Out Loud is "an intensified dance with mortality." Following West's diagnosis of advanced prostate cancer -- now in remission -- he decided to write about his life in a way that might touch other souls. West calls the memoir his "most unique, delicate and difficult book to write,...

ìSpontaneous Evolution introduces the notion that a miraculous healing awaits this planet once we accept our new responsibility to collectively tend the Garden rather than fight over the turf. When a critical mass of people truly own this belief in their hearts and minds and actually begin living from this truth, our world will emerge from the darkness in what will amount to a spontaneous evolutio...

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...

Aired 08/01/09 "You don't have to choose between making money and making sense.... Green business practices are good for business and for the world. They can increase profits, lower costs, and attract customers." Those are the words of Gil Friend. Gil and I met in 1973 when I directed a video documentary of a Buckminster Fuller World Game Workshop. Each in our own ways, we've been plugging away at...

Aired 08/25/09 Michael Lind is a Senior Research Fellow and Policy Director of New America's Economic Growth Program. Lind's first three books of political journalism and history, The Next American Nation: The New Nationalism and the Fourth American Revolution; Up From Conservatism: Why the Right Is Wrong for America; and Vietnam: The Necessary War were all selected as New York Times Notable Books...

Aired 08/11/09 It is my privilege to have Latin America's most acclaimed writers, EDUARDO GALEANO. I confess I was not aware of him until Hugo Chavez presented Barack Obama with one of his books. For that introduction, I thank the Venzuelan President. GALEANO's works are a unique blend of history, fiction, journalism and political analysis, and his life is so much more than that. Born in Uruguay i...

Aired 08/11/09 I like it when someone does something better than they have to, or takes stands or risks they don't have to take. RICK STEVES has a comfortable business and a comfortable place in our culture and media. He helps people learn how to make travel less stressful and more enjoyable. But in TRAVEL AS A POLITICAL ACT, he sticks his neck out. He has traveled to and written about Iran, El Sa...

Aired 07/28/09 MICHAEL LEWIS is one of my favorite popular writers. He writes about sports, business, Wall Street, Silicon Valley, political campaigns, now fatherhood - in bestselling books and for the New York Times Magazine and Vanity Fair, among others. He's smart and he has a sense of humor. Malcolm Gladwell says he's one of our best storytellers. LEWIS was a trader at Salomon Brothers before...

Aired 07/21/09 HENRY JENKINS is the Provost's Professor of Communications, Journalism, and Cinematic Art at the University of Southern California. Until recently, he served as the co-founder of the Comparative Media Studies Program at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. His newest books include Convergence Culture: Where Old and New Media Collide and Fans, Bloggers and Gamers: Exploring Par...

Recorded 06/05/09 Christianity, Judaism and Islam are both peaceful and violent. Robert Wright discusses what circumstances bring out the best and worst in religion. Is religion a force for good or ill? This question has been more energetically debated over the last few years, globally, due to the West's confrontation with radical Islam, and in the U.S., to the political emergence and activism of...

Aired 06/30/09 JANE MAYER, one of our nation's foremost investigative journalists will join us for at least the last half hour, maybe a bit more. Her best-selling 2008 book, THE DARK SIDE, was chosen by the New New York Times, The Economist, Salon, Slate, and Bloomberg as one of the best books of the year. In THE DARK SIDE, MAYER reported (to quote a review by Andrew Basevich), "Since embarking up...

Aired 06/23/09 LYME DISEASE and the documentary, UNDER OUR SKIN (opening in LA Friday June 26) ANDY ABRAHAMS WILSON producer/director/camera LORRAINE JOHNSON CEO, California Lyme Disease Association RICHARD HORWITZ MD Physician, President, International Lyme and Associated Diseases Education Foundation MANDY HUGHES Lyme disease patient Lyme disease is one of the most misunderstood and controversia...

Aired 05/19/09 REZA ASLAN is the author of "NO GOD BUT GOD" and his new book, "HOW TO WIN A COSMIC WAR: God, Globalization and the End of the War on Terror" REZA ASLAN says the only way to win a cosmic war is not to engage in one. That may seem obvious to some, but he's also saying that unless we recognize that we've been pulled into a cosmic war -- what that means and how it changes things -- we...

Aired 05/12/09 DAVID KORTEN author, AGENDA FOR A NEW ECONOMY: From Phantom Wealth to Real Wealth DAVID KORTEN is the author of WHEN CORPORATIONS RULE THE WORLD and THE GREAT TURNING: From Empire to Earth Community. He is co-founder and board chair of YES! Magazine, and a board member of the Business Alliance for Local Living Economies (BALLE) http://www.yesmagazine.org http://www.livingeconomies.o...

Aired 05/05/09 MATT TAIBBI is a fire-breathing, shoot-from-the-hip reporter, columnist and blogger, whose March Rolling Stone article, "The Big Takeover," paints a dark picture of greed, corruption and power. http://www.alternet.org/module/printversion/132859 You can learn more about Taibbi's work at: www.trueslant.com www.alternet.org www.rollingstone.com

Aired 05/05/09 One of Ronald Reagan's most famous and successful quotes is from his 1980 debate with Jimmy Carter, "There you go again..." No one can remember what it was about or whether it was accurate, but it worked. I bring it up because a new book makes clear that that same line applies all too well to the right in this country. "There you go again..." - bringing up the same old stereotypes,...

Aired 04/21/09 Currently a fellow at the Carr Center for Human rights Policy at Harvard Kennedy School of Government, previously a Special Assistant to Ambassador Richard Holbrooke, BEN SKINNER has written for Newsweek, LA Times, Foreign Policy and others. He was named one of National Geographic's Adventurers of the Year 2008. His first book, now out in paperback, is A CRIME SO MONSTROUS: Face to...

Aired 04/10/09 KGNU is an independent, noncommercial community radio station licensed in Boulder and Denver. Story vs. Substance with panel Chip Berlet, Terry McNally, James Trengrove and host Kathy Partridge. http://www.colorado.edu/cwa/index.html