Q & A, Hosted by Jay Nordlinger

Dana Perino has written three books, all filled with wisdom and light. Books tend to reflect their authors. She has podcasted with Jay about all three of them. The latest is “Everything Will Be Okay: Life Lessons for Young Women (from a Former Young Woman).” Ms. Perino is a co-host of two shows at Fox News: “America’s Newsroom” and “The Five.” She served a press secretary to President George W. So...

Gulchehra Hoja works at Radio Free Asia, in Washington, D.C. She is a Uyghur, a Uyghur American. The Chinese government has imprisoned more than a million Uyghurs in a new network of concentration camps—a new gulag archipelago. Among the prisoners are many of Gulchehra Hoja’s relatives. She and her colleagues at RFA have paid a terrible price for their truth-telling; so have their families. Ms. So...

As Jay says in his introduction, Donna M. Hughes is “an academic and activist—a righteous warrior.” She is a professor of women’s studies at the University of Rhode Island. Her specialty is sex trafficking. No one knows more about it than she. She works against it day after day. In recent days, she has published an article involving the transgender movement, which caused a furious reaction... Sour...

Ellen Bork is a veteran analyst of Far Eastern affairs—and a devoted friend of freedom and democracy. Perry Link is an eminent professor of Chinese and Chinese literature—and a friend and helper of dissidents, over the years. They are part of a new effort called the Committee for Freedom in Hong Kong. The Chinese government has cracked down ferociously on that city, that outpost. For Taiwan, too.....

That’s a phrase that David French uses in this episode: “a Darwinian mêlée.” He is talking about the survival of the fittest in the NBA—but the phrase applies to other arenas as well. Jay hosts his golden gurus—David, Sally Jenkins, and Vivek Dave—in this discussion of, yes, the NBA, and also the NCAA (including in the Supreme Court), along with the Masters and more. A discussion both lively and.....

Michael Wooldridge is the chairman of the computer-science department at Oxford University. He is a specialist in artificial intelligence, and the author of a new brief history of the subject (which Jay has reviewed). Driverless cars are coming. What else is coming? Should we worry or rejoice? Anyway, a fine talk with the AI Man. Source Get full access to Onward and Upward at www.jaynordlinger.com...

Peter Meijer is a new congressman from Grand Rapids, Mich. He is the son of Hendrik Meijer, with whom Jay did a “Q&A” three years ago (here). The Meijers own a chain of “superstores” in Michigan (and beyond) where virtually everyone shops. Peter went to West Point, Columbia, and NYU. He served in the Iraq War. Three days after he was sworn in as a congressman, a mob attacked the Capitol. To Ja...

Jay talks with Jonah Goldberg about his writing life, his dogs, his political thought. Bill Buckley, Charles Krauthammer, Donald Trump. Music, sports, food. “Life its ownself,” or at least significant slices. Jonah is in splendid form, expressing joy even when the topics are unjoyful, somehow. Source Get full access to Onward and Upward at www.jaynordlinger.com/subscribe

Michael Powell is a national reporter for the New York Times. He has had many beats in his career, including sports. Today, he has a tricky one, you might even say a dangerous one: free speech, campus life, intellectual debate. Recently, he published a blockbuster piece headed “Inside a Battle Over Race, Class and Power at Smith College.” Jay talks with him about this—and about his career... Sourc...

Steven B. Smith is indeed an American, Chicago born. (The line is Saul Bellow’s, cited by Smith in this “Q&A.”) He is a political scientist, a political theorist, a famous professor at Yale. His new book is “Reclaiming Patriotism in an Age of Extremes.” He and Jay talk about patriotism (naturally) and nationalism and many other issues—including “wokeness” on campus and baseball. Source Get ful...

On Twitter, Claire Berlinski bills herself as a “rootless cosmopolitan.” She has styled her new newsletter “The Cosmopolitan Globalist.” There is such a thing as “owning the insult.” In other words, if they’re going to call you those things anyway … Berlinski is a writer and scholar who specializes in international relations. She has lived in various places and is now in Paris. With Jay... Source...

Douglas Carswell grew up in Uganda. For a dozen years—2005 to 2017—he was a member of the British parliament. He is a conservative and a free-market man. In recent weeks, he has come to America to head the Mississippi Center for Public Policy. Jay talks with him about a little bit of everything: Africa; British politics (Thatcher, Cameron, Boris, et al.); Mississippi (how do you sell Thatcher... S...

Jared Genser is an American human-rights lawyer, who has represented many political prisoners and dissidents all over the world. From 2006 to 2010, he served as pro bono counsel to Aung San Suu Kyi, the Burmese democracy leader. A week ago, the Burmese military ousted Aung San Suu Kyi and the government in a coup d’état. Genser wrote about the issue here. And he talks about Burma—and his work... S...

Jay hosts two of his young colleagues from National Review: Madeleine Kearns, of Glasgow, and Cameron Hilditch, of Belfast (or nearby). He has had them as guests before—singly. This show is more of a roundtable. Under discussion: the British Isles, with its accents and whatnot; the critical importance of “loser’s consent” in a democracy; great literature (including “Jane Eyre”and George Herbert).....

John Hare is an eminent philosopher—a professor of philosophical theology at Yale. Among his books are “Why Bother Being Good? The Place of God in the Moral Life.” Hare is also a renowned teacher, prized by his students. He is the son of another eminent philosopher, R. M. Hare. He and Jay talk about that. What else do they talk about? Young Hare’s adventures in India, as a teenager. His time on a....

A sportscast with Jay’s favorite gurus: Sally Jenkins, Vivek Dave, and David French. Bill Belichick and the Pats. The coach’s turning down of the Presidential Medal of Freedom. The miraculous career of Tom Brady. Too “miraculous”? Anything illicit going on? Urban Meyer, the Washington Football Team, James Harden as Brooklyn Net, and more. Very lively, very informed—very entertaining. Source Get fu...

Jay talks once more with one of his favorite writers and people — Kevin D. Williamson, whose new book is “ Big White Ghetto: Dead Broke, Stone-Cold Stupid, and High on Rage in the Dank Woolly Wilds of the ‘Real America.’” Among the topics: poverty, drugs, gambling, porn, and despair. But don’t worry: The conversation is much more pleasurable than it sounds. Source Get full access to Onward and Upw...

In 2017, Bryan Fogel made “Icarus,” a film about Russia, sports, and doping. It was a highly consequential film. It won the Academy Award for Best Documentary Feature. Now Fogel has made “The Dissident,” about Jamal Khashoggi and his murder by the Saudi government. Jay talks with Fogel about his life and his work. An interesting, admirable fellow, Fogel. Source Get full access to Onward and Upward...

The latest of Richard Brookhiser’s many excellent and useful books is “ Give Me Liberty: A History of America’s Exceptional Idea.” What can Americans rally around, diverse as we are? Liberty. What is the wellspring of these United States? Liberty. In this “Q&A,” Brookhiser touches on the Founding, Gettysburg, Seneca Falls, and more. Rick Brookhiser has the gift of understanding, and the gift o...

Once more, Tim Alberta, the ace reporter from Politico, is Jay’s guest. He has done some of the best writing in the post-election (as in the pre-election). Try this, for instance, and this. He and Jay talk about their home state, Michigan: dramatic hearings; dramatic other things, including a plot to kidnap the governor. They go beyond Michigan, too, to talk about the state of the union... Source...

Declan Walsh is a veteran foreign correspondent, whom Jay has read and cited for years. Walsh has reported from many spots, most of them troubled – very. He has recently been Cairo bureau chief for the New York Times. Now he is in Africa for that paper. He has just written a book about Pakistan (a country from which he was expelled). Jay tours the world with Declan Walsh – or a bit of it... Source...

Harvey Mansfield, the professor of government and political philosopher at Harvard, is one of the great teachers in America. He does some splendid teaching in this hour with Jay. He talks about manliness – what it is and what it isn’t. (Mansfield published a book on the subject in 2006.) He talks about “conservative” and “liberal” – what do those things mean? He addresses the question... Source Ge...

In these post-election days, Jay wanted to talk to his old friend and colleague Robert Costa: national political reporter of the Washington Post; analyst for NBC News and MSNBC; host of PBS’s “Washington Week.” They do indeed talk it over: R’s, D’s, media, inaugurations, and more. Costa is a man who knows – because he finds out. Source Get full access to Onward and Upward at www.jaynordlinger.com/...

A wide-ranging conversation with Sally Jenkins, columnist of the Washington Post, and David French, senior editor of The Dispatch. An NBA season. A Major League Baseball season. College football, sort of. A Masters tournament in November. Should there be a college sports major? And more. Two seasoned and eloquent gurus, questioned by Jay. Source Get full access to Onward and Upward at www.jaynordl...

In the middle of the World Series, you want to talk baseball with George F. Will. You want to talk baseball with him anytime, actually, and a number of other subjects, too. In this “Q&A,” Will speaks of the “angelic, superb Mookie Betts,” of the Los Angeles Dodgers. He also talks about the presidential campaign, the Supreme Court, and the Republican Party. There’s Big Tech, too. Is it to be fe...