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Michael Pollan’s How To Change Your Mind, once as high as #4 on the NYTimes best-seller list, currently #4 in LA, tells the story of the scientific research as well as his personal experience of guided sessions with psychedelics. Award-winning LA Weekly columnist, Seven McDonald, does the same in an article for Playboy on the therapeutic use of MDMA (ecstasy) to treat PTSD. I’m joined by McDonald and Cole Marta MD, the principal investigator at the Los Angeles site of FDA-sanctioned phase II and III trials with MDMA-assisted psychotherapy for PTSD.

In this podcast, I go solo. Rather than interviewing others, I share with you the best of the work I do to help organizations develop more engaging narratives and tell better stories. Learn why narrative is uniquely powerful as well as the recipe for a good story – whether in a Hollywood screenplay or a one-to-one conversation. 

Under John Roberts, Supreme Court decisions are consistently pro-business, recently based on corporate rights of free speech and freedom of religion. How did we get here? Will it only get worse with the nomination of Brett Kavanaugh? Listen to my conversation with ADAM WINKLER, constitutional law professor at UCLA and author of Gunfight: The Battle over the Right to Bear Arms in America and his latest, We the Corporations: How American Businesses Won Their Civil Rights.

https://law.ucla.edu/faculty/faculty-profiles/adam-winkler/

As alarming as the news may be, we must not only oppose and alter the bad news, but we must also envision a possible future for the US that people deserve – as well as a path to get there. That is the mission of historian, political economist, activist, and writer, GAR ALPEROVITZ, co-chair of the Next System Project at the Democracy Collaborative, and someone who’s thinking seriously about what replaces corporate capitalism. You can learn more at garalperovitz.com

Midterm elections take place November 7th – less than 20 weeks from the day we record this interview. Our democracy is under threat and the validity, accuracy, and reliability of our voting and vote-counting is as well. I talk about those threats and what we can do about them with BRAD FRIEDMAN, an independent investigative blogger, journalist, and muckraker who’s broken numerous stories over the past 15 years. You can learn more at BradBlog.com

On a national level and in many states, the GOP know that if politics and elections are played fair and square, they lose. So they turn to gerrymandering, voter suppression, the refusal to act on Obama’s nomination of Merrick Garland to the Supreme Court, etc. I talk with DAVID FARIS about the ideas in his new book, IT’S TIME TO FIGHT DIRTY: How Democrats Can Build a Lasting Majority in American Politics.

http://theweek.com/authors/david-faris

If the service is free, you’re the product. How Facebook, Google and the rest use our data against us. My May 2nd 2018 conversation with JONATHAN TAPLIN, Director Emeritus of the USC Annenberg Innovation Lab, former tour manager for Bob Dylan and The Band, producer of films including Scorsese’s MEAN STREETS. His book, MOVE FAST AND BREAK THINGs: How Facebook, Google and Amazon Cornered Culture and Undermined Democracy comes out in paperback in June.

www.jontaplin.com

Mark Hertsgaard and Mark Dowie wrote a cover story at the Nation magazine: How Big Wireless Made Us Think That Cell Phones Are Safe. This is a big deal. 95 out of 100 American adults owns a cellphone. Big Wireless copied the playbook of Big Tobacco & Big Oil to hide the facts about their products – an example of the unethical abuse of science and the truth by power and wealth that is all too common and sadly pre-dates Trump.

http://markhertsgaard.com

In The Patterning Instinct: A Cultural History of Humanity’s Search for Meaning, JEREMY LENT writes, “The right wing has not won on the issues, but by telling a grand story of America – a story that is false and based on a set of values that are driving civilization to a precipice. It’s been successful because there has been no coherent counter-narrative.” We look at that history and look ahead for a new story.

https://www.jeremylent.com/

What will Trump do if there’s a terror attack? MARK DANNER points out that it’s been 16 years since the attacks of 9/11, and thanks to Bush, Cheney, and Obama, “Donald Trump inherited a government on a permanent wartime footing, actively fighting in six countries, using means both public and secret – including drone strikes and attacks by covert special forces – and doing so with the benefit of never-ending war powers granted by Congress.” What could go wrong?

http://www.markdanner.com

JAMIE BARTLETT, a Director of the Centre for the Analysis of Social Media for Demos in the UK, is the author with William Heinemann in 2014 of THE DARK NET about hidden internet subcultures. His newest book, just out, is RADICALS CHASING UTOPIA: Inside the Rogue Movements Trying to Change the World. We’ll also talk a lot about a recent column he wrote in the Guardian, Forget far-right populism – crypto-anarchists are the new masters.

https://www.demos.co.uk/people/jamie-bartlett/

Ever since he dropped out of college to sample the Summer of Love, DANNY GOLDBERG has been an active participant in culture, counterculture, and politics. In addition to his career in the music business – manager of artists from Bonnie Raitt to Nirvana, chairman of Warner Brothers records – he was co-producer/director of the rock doc No Nukes and CEO of Air America. We talk about all of that as well as his latest book, In Search of the Lost Chord:1967 and the Hippie Idea.

http://www.dannygoldberg.com

Nukes – How do we deal with North Korea, Iran, Russia, and Trump?
Remember 2015 when the big nuclear weapons news was the deal negotiated by the Obama administration with Iran? Why is the UN now voicing fears of catastrophe? What role is the new Trump administration playing in the escalation of provocation? Are the UN’s fears real and if so, what can we do about it? JOE CIRINCIONE is President of the Ploughshares Fund which supports people and organizations working to reduce and eventually eliminate the dangers posed by nuclear weapons.

Originally Aired April 2012
CHRIS MOONEY wrote the best-selling THE REPUBLICAN WAR ON SCIENCE in 2005. This book asks a deeper question. Does science have anything to teach us about why? And it turns out science does. Political parties reflect psychological needs – GOP wedded to certainty, Dems to novelty – and there lies at least one root of our divide.

http://chrismooneybooks.com

First, the incomparable ARUNDHATI ROY, award-winning novelist, activist and essayist who speaks truth to power. “It was wonderful that on February 15th [2003], in a spectacular display of public morality, 10 million people in five continents marched against the war on Iraq. It was wonderful, but it was not enough.”
Then my interview with DAVIDSON LOEHR, minister, Texan, and author of AMERICA, FASCISM AND GOD. “When fascism comes to America, it will gain power by poisoning the channels of communication…and creating an Orwellian kind of 1984.”

Welcome to DISRUPTIVE the podcast from Harvard’s Wyss Institute for Biologically Inspired Engineering.

In this episode of DISRUPTIVE, we will focus on: CONFRONTING SEPSIS.

Sepsis is a bloodstream infection in which the body’s organs become inflamed and susceptible to failure. The leading cause of hospital deaths, sepsis kills at least eight million people worldwide each year. It can be caused by 6 species of fungi and 1400 species of bacteria. Diagnosis takes two to five days, and every hour you wait can increase the risk of death by 5-9%.

“Even with the best current treatments, sepsis patients are dying in intensive care units at least 30% of the time,” says one of today’s guests, Wyss Senior Staff Scientist Mike Super.

A new device developed by a team at Wyss may radically transform the way we treat sepsis. Their blood-cleansing approach can be administered quickly, even without identifying the infectious agent. In animal studies, treatment with this device reduced the number of targeted pathogens and toxins circulating in the bloodstream by more than 99%.

The mission of the Wyss Institute is to: Transform healthcare, industry, and the environment by emulating the way nature builds, with a focus on technology development and its translation into products and therapies that will have an impact on the world in which we live. Their work is disruptive not only in terms of science but also in how they stretch the usual boundaries of academia.

http://wyss.harvard.edu

Don Ingber and Mike Super’s Interview transcript

Welcome to the second episode of my new monthly podcast series produced with Harvard’s Wyss Institute for Biologically Inspired Engineering.

Originally Aired: 2/19/15

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 able to merge body, mind, and spirit in the pursuit of a goal in full collaboration with others than doing anything else. Sports have always served as a bridge among strangers as well as friends – whether the ability to show up at a basketball court anywhere in the world and join a game within minutes or to strike up a conversation with anyone anywhere regardless of race, class, faith, or nationality. How many fathers and sons have had sports in common when all else seems strained or broken between them?

All of which has a streak of purity about it. But what about professional sports? This week’s guest DAVE ZIRIN fills a fairly unique role in our culture. He takes sports seriously enough to be the first sports editor in the 150 year existence of The Nation magazine. He has for years in books, columns, and commentaries examined both the politics of sports as well as the intersection of the two.

Howard Cosell said “rule number one of the jockocracy” was that sports and politics don’t mix. In his newest book, Game Over, Zirin asserts that modern professional athletes are breaking that rule like never before. From the NFL lockout and the role of soccer in the Arab Spring to the Penn State sexual abuse scandals and Tim Tebow’s on-field genuflections, Dave reveals how our most important debates about class, race, religion, sex, and political power are being played out both on and off the field.

I’ve left my overzealous interest in sports out of the studio for years, but this week — a couple of weeks after the Super Bowl, not long after Lance Armstrong finally admits to doping, and a few hours before the NBA All Star game – I break that barrier. Dave Zirin and I will talk about specific events and athletes, but we’ll also examine the role sports plays in our individual lives and in society.

www.davezirin.com

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 University and a designer of livestock handling facilities, Grandin, who didn’t speak until she was three and a half years old, has become a prominent author, speaker and advocate on the issues of Autism and Asperger’s Syndrome. The 2010 HBO film based on her life won seven Emmys, including Outstanding Movie Made for Television, Outstanding Directing – Mick Jackson, and Outstanding Actress – Clare Danes.
In the second half, my guest will be WALTER ISAACSON, former managing editor of TIME magazine and Chairman of CNN, current head of the Aspen Institute, and the author of several bestselling books, including his biography of Steve Jobs. We’ll talk about his biography, EINSTEIN: His Life and Universe.

Einstein discovered, merely by thinking about it, that the universe was not as it seemed. His contributions changed the way we conceive of reality. A new biography makes the point that his scientific imagination sprang from his rebellious questioning of authority – a testament to the connection between creativity and freedom. In addition to his scientific genius, he was also noted for his social conscience Besides campaigning for a ban on nuclear weaponry, he denounced McCarthyism and pleaded for an end to bigotry and racism.

www.templegrandin.com

http://www.aspeninstitute.org/about/about-walter-isaacson