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    • TIFFANY SHLAIN – 24/6: The Power of Unplugging One Day a Week

      Surgeon General: “There are ample indicators that social media can have a profound risk of harm to the mental health and well-being of children and adolescents.” June’s here. How about a weekly “vacation” from screens? In this 2019 conversation about her book, 24/6, TIFFANY SHLAIN, filmmaker and Internet pioneer – she founded the Webbies (digital Oscars) –  offers a strategy her family has employed for a decade – turning off all screens for 24 hours one day a week. She says this practice has completely changed their lives, giving them more time, productivity, connection, and presence. What could it do for you?

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    • MICKEY HUFF (Director, PROJECT CENSORED) & NOLAN HIGDON-Let’s Agree to Disagree: Critical Thinking, Communication, and Conflict Management

      Here’s my conversation with MICKEY HUFF & NOLAN HIGDON. Huff is Director of PROJECT CENSORED. Since 1976, its annual book reports the year’s top-25 news stories ignored, misrepresented, or censored by mainstream media. Huff & Higdon co-authored LET’S AGREE TO DISAGREE. Its first lines: In an age defined by divisive discourse and disinformation, democracy hangs in the balance. {This book] seeks to foster constructive dialogue through critical thinking and media literacy. Learn more at ProjectCensored.org

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    • NAOMI ORESKES & ERIK CONWAY – THE BIG MYTH: How American Business Taught Us to Loathe Government and Love the Free Market
      When I talk about the relentless push of Big Business, the Right, and the GOP toward our current crisis of inequality, injustice, minority rule, and an inability to solve problems, I usually start around 1970. Today’s guests go back to the early 20th century. I talk with NAOMI ORESKES and ERIK CONWAY, authors together of the best-selling and Important MERCHANTS OF DOUBT: How a Handful of Scientists Obscured the Truth on Issues from Tobacco Smoke to Global Warming, about their new book, THE BIG MYTH: How American Business Taught Us to Loathe Government and Love the Free Market. Learn more at thebigmythbook.com

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    • NOREENA HERTZ (2021) -THE LONELY CENTURY – How do we restore human connection?
      I believe human beings want more than anything to feel seen and heard. Last week the US Surgeon General declared loneliness a public health epidemic, as deadly as smoking up to 15 cigarettes a day, raising the risk of premature death by 30%, with higher rates of heart disease, stroke, anxiety, depression, dementia, and suicide. Here’s my 2021 conversation with NOREENA HERTZ about her book, THE LONELY CENTURY: How to Restore Human Connection in a World That’s Pulling Apart. You can learn more at noreena.com

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    • WALT BOGDANICH-WHEN McKINSEY COMES TO TOWN: The Hidden Influence of the World’s Most Powerful Consulting Firm
      I talk with three-time Pulitzer Prize winning NY Times investigative reporter WALT BOGDANICH about his book, WHEN McKINSEY COMES TO TOWN. The company brands itself one of the good guys, but Bogdanich and co-author MIchael Forsythe point out that, shielded by NDAs, McKinsey has so far escaped scrutiny for advising tobacco companies, opioid manufacturers including Purdue, oil companies, and repressive governments. We pull back the curtain on its role in pursuit of the bottom line above all that has made this country less equal, less just, less healthy, less safe, and less democratic.  

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    • SHEILA KUEHL looks back on 20 years in office. She got things done.
      SHEILA KUEHL has long been one of my favorite elected officials. A true public servant, she served 8 years in CA’s State Senate, 6 in the State Assembly, and 8 more on LA County’s Board of Supervisors. Kuehl was the first openly gay or lesbian person elected to the Legislature, first woman named Speaker pro Tem of the Assembly, and authored 171 bills signed into law. One of my go-to sages re state and local politics, now retired, we look back together at how she was so successful – not just at overcoming prejudice but also at achieving real world results. Is it possible to still succeed in today’s political climate?

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    • SAM MYERS, PLANETARY HEALTH: Protecting Nature to Protect Ourselves – Exhibit A: the pandemic
      April is Earth Month. My environmental goals: a healthy relationship with the rest of nature and an effective reckoning with climate change. Here’s my 2020 conversation with SAM MYERS, Harvard research scientist, Founding Director of the Planetary Health Alliance, and one of the editors of PLANETARY HEALTH: Protecting Nature to Protect Ourselves. The book offers solutions to the challenging  impacts of environmental change on human health by reimagining cities, food, energy systems, economics, and ethics. Learn more at planetaryhealthalliance.org.

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    • EUNICE NICHOLS, Co-CEO, CoGenerate – bringing older and younger together to solve problems & bridge divides
      While we live in the most age-diverse society in human history, with almost equal numbers of people of every age, the US has become an age-segregated nation, with few opportunities for generations to connect. Here’s my conversation with EUNICE NICHOLS, Co-CEO of CoGenerate – the recently chosen new name for what had been called Encore.org. The organization’s focus evolved from seniors’ purposeful second and third acts to cogeneration – bringing older and younger people together to solve problems and bridge divides. In the words of Encore founder and Eunice’s co-CEO, Marc Freedman: “in our new chapter – in Encore’s encore – we are not just asking what older people can do for the next generation, but what older people can do with the next generation.” You can learn more at cogenerate.org.

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    • THOMAS FRANK, What’s the Matter w Kansas? & EDGAR CAHN, late serial social justice entrepreneur-Jan 2012 conversation-the year ahead…
      I was a virtual attendee last week at an inspiring and humbling memorial for the late EDGAR CAHN, on what would have been his 88th birthday. Cahn, an unsung hero of 20th century America, authored articles and books that intentionally led to national policy, including The War on Poverty (1964) which led to the establishment of Legal Aid, Hunger, U.S.A (1968), Our Brother’s Keeper: The Indian in White America (1969), and Time Dollars (1992). He and his late wife, Jean Camper, co-founded Antioch School of Law, now the District of Columbia Law School. Here’s my 2012 conversation with Edgar and THOMAS FRANK, influential social critic and author of What’s the Matter with Kansas? and One Market Under God.

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    • Podcast: KATHRYN PAIGE HARDEN, THE GENETIC LOTTERY: Why DNA Matters for Social Equality – though many want to pretend it doesn’t.
      Though most people now accept that genes influence our height, weight, heart health, etc., many get nervous when we apply that same perspective to things like our mental health, intelligence, or educational attainment. Here’s my conversation with KATHRYN PAIGE HARDEN, Professor of Psychology at the University of Texas, about the ideas in her first book, THE GENETIC LOTTERY: Why DNA Matters for Social Equality, which attempts to reconcile the findings of behavior genetics with her commitment to social justice. You can learn more at kpharden.com.

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