Talk Cocktail

Think about those things that are usually the most personal, the most intimate and complex. A few of them are what goes on inside a marriage, why and how people give away money (there is a reason many do it anonymously) and the degree to which the business of America is business. These are the elements that make up the story of Ray and Joan Kroc. A story that is part Edward Albee, part Fortune mag...

It’s always so interesting all the assumptions we make about history. They tell us something about the assumptions we might be making about our divide today. When we think about the Civil War era, for example, we think in clear lines...the North vs. the South. Yet in families, in communities and in the states themselves, many were conflicted. Then as now, there were personal and economic interests...

It's hard to imagine today, but the East, what we refer to now as the Middle East, was once a pinnacle of civilization.  Like all great civilizations, it struggled with conflict between personal values and its laws, about succession and tribalism and security. It evolved a form of rule in the Islamic world that lasted for almost 1300 years..by any account a pretty good run.   Today that rule, what...

We are a nation of immigrants.  For 240 years we have opened our arms to those seeking to come to America and for many of those years New York has been ground zero.  But the immigrant story, even in, or especially in New York, has not been one of ease.  The process and pain of assimilation, the fear of the other, the competition for resources have always created wedges between immigrant groups and...

Medicare has often been referred to as the third rail of American politics. Because it has become so woven into the fabric of American life, so necessary and vital for seniors, , both politicians and those that have legitimate interest in improving public policy, are afraid to touch it.  It’s as if the admonition to "do no harm" is first and foremost about medicare. Yet it is a program that at fif...

How many times have we heard that this election is like no other? That this is an extinction level event, threatening the very fabric of the republic.   And yet history tells us that we’ve survived far worse.  Be it the civil war, McCarthyism, violent labor strife at the turn of the last century,  political assassination and of course, the chaos of the 1960’s To try and put all of this in context,...

Looking at the broad sweep of history and change in the 20th and 21st Century,  it’s arguable that the dynamics of Israel, its relationship to its neighbors and the meaning of the Zionist project, remain one of the most complex, historic and creative endeavors of our time. But how did it all get this way and what can the world learn from all the good that’s come out of Israel?  How did the desire...

More than race and more than gender, class and wealth are the great divide in America today.  There was a time when those with wealth represented a kind of noblesse oblige.  They had sense of obligation to the larger society that had allowed them the opportunity to succeed. Today something is different. Something that goes far beyond reaction to the "greed is good" utterances of Gordon Gekko. Ther...

If there is a central political principle that organizes what little policy debate there is in this election it seems to be centered around the idea of “income inequality.” From the embrace of Bernie Sanders by millennials, to boomers and traditional Democrats embracing of Clinton, right on through the angry, populist rage that makes up the core of the Trump supporters. So if this is the core idea...

Part mythology and part the result of the current Presidential campaign, we have this image of the US/Mexican border as divided territory.  We hear folks talking about it as if at one time north was north and south was south and never the twain would meet. The truth is that this has never been the case.  The border has almost always been a porous membrane through which people, drugs, money, and cr...

For any music to be successful, there must be that special bond between performer and listener. Perhaps nowhere has that bond been stronger then in the unique relationship between Bob Dylan and music critic extraordinaire Greil Marcus. Marcus explasins how for over forty years Dylan has drawn upon and reinvented the landscape of traditional American music, its myths, heroes and villains. Throughou...

Back in 1960, in Fellini’s La Dolce Vita, the world took note of the decadence of life in the Italian capital of Rome. Inspired by two major political/sex scandals of the era, the film, which would win the 1960 Palme d'or in Cannes, depicted a Rome that was ultra sophisticated, ultra modern, ultra decadent and ultra cool. This was a sensual world that was a far cry from the overt decadence and sex...

Because we are in the midst of a heated presidential campaign, we know that much coverage goes to the people around the candidate.  We want to know who will be the advisors. Who gets to whisper in the ear of the President and who might have the last word before important decisions are made. During the Presidency of FDR, one of the most influential of those closest to the President was Missy LeHand...

It is the original sin of America.  240 years later the issue of race still animates a significant portion of political and social discourse in this country. A nation founded on the idea of all men being created equal, has at its corresponding co-founding principle slavery, racial violence and inequality. The symbols, even today, are everywhere; Birmingham, Selma, Ferguson and even Los Angeles. Th...

We throw around a lot of words and ideas about technology, about disruption, about progress and about the impact of technology in speeding up our lives.  The  fact is the speed up is more than just technology. As we move to cities at increasing rates, as the workplace demands greater productivity, as global competition abounds, the pressures to speed up are everywhere. But how fast is fast?  How f...

Few modern day political figures have had more written about them than Henry Kissinger.  From his own three volume, almost 4000 page memoir, to scores of books and articles.  So why another we might ask historian Niall Ferguson. Partly because beyond the policy and papers, in Ferguson's view Kissinger personified that George Bernard Shaw quote,  “Some men see things as they are and say, why; I dre...

No matter how close or estranged any of us may be for our parents, there always linger the questions of how well do we know them...that is really know who they are.  Think about the questions kids wonder about, what their parents really do a work, their sex lives, the conversations that go on after they go to bed. And as kids become adults they often still wonder...and sometimes they even transfer...

We are awash in information.  Estimates are that 2.5 quintillion bytes of data are produced every day.  That’s everything from data from space probes to your photos on Facebook.  Google alone process approximately 3.5 billion requests per day.   But as TS Eliot so aptly said back in 1934, “where is the knowledge we have lost in information?” From the billions of items posted on Facebook, to the te...

It is the job of historians and journalists to take contemporary information and give context and connection to events far beyond the time in which they happened. This is true for wars, for politics and for religion.  It’s true even in these highly polarized times, when we all hear the admonition, especially around get togethers of family and friends, to make sure you never discuss politics or rel...

Nothing in the medical world is the way it used to be.  Change is everywhere.  The economic pressures, the political pressures and the very men and women who choose medicine as a career, has all being undergoing disruption. Add to this maelstrom the issue of race.  The shocking lack of black physicians, diseases that overwhelming impact black communities and the inherent complexities of race in th...

We’ve all seen the pushback to Michelle Obama as she has attempted to improve food quality and nutrition in our nation’s schools.  In part, it reflects the degree to which everything is politicized these days.  But it also reflects the degree to which food is and has been a political, cultural and historical touchstone It’s long been observed that if we want to understand the history of a nation o...

The very fact that an unqualified, demagogic, racist could be close to the Presidency tells us less about the candidates and more about the shape and mood of America in the 21st Century.   The red/blue divide is after all, not about pure politics. It’s not about classical liberalism vs. Burkean or Randian conservatism.  It’s not Disraeli vs. Gladstone.   What we see in America today is a cultural...

It’s a funny thing, all this talk about trade and globalization.  On the one hand it’s used to divide us. To create walls and differences.  But in fact, it has been one of the most powerful forces in shrinking the world.  In allowing us to move personally, not unlike goods and dollars, freely between nations and cultures. But even with the cultural homogenization of globalization, it has allowed u...

We think that events move at a rapid pace today.  But back in the late 1960’s, events spiraled out as if in a whirlwind.  In 1967 San Francisco experienced the Summer of Love. Just two summers later, we would all experience men landing on the moon, Woodstock, the Manson killings and the concert at Altamont that would perhaps mark the end of the era of Peace Love and Music. It wasn’t long after Alt...

When the national conversation does turn to real economic issues, it’s usually about numbers. Growth, GDP, home ownership and of course, the ongoing and too slow recovery. What we often overlook is the impact of those number on real people. Not just those at the bottom, not those left behind. But those struggling to maintain a middle class life.  The psychological impact that it has on their famil...