Frances Haugen, the Facebook whistleblower, could not have been clearer. “Time and again I saw conflicts of interest between what was good for the public and what was good for Facebook. Facebook, over and over again, chose to optimize for its own interests… if they change the algorithm to be safer, people will spend less time on the site, they’ll click on less ads, Facebook will make less money.” Sounds like a good time to listen to my 2011 conversation with Sherry Turkle, Professor of the Social Studies of Science and Technology at MIT, about her book ALONE TOGETHER Why We Expect More from Technology, Less from Each Other.

I turn to ERWIN CHEMERINSKY, Dean of Berkeley Law School, for commentary and analysis re justice, our legal system, and the courts – especially the Supreme Court. Here are two such conversations. In the first half hour, one newly recorded on current issues and his latest book PRESUMED GUILTY: How the Supreme Court Empowered the Police and Subverted Civil RIghts. In the second half, a 2018 conversation on the Trump White House and the book, WE THE PEOPLE: A Progressive Reading of the Constitution for the Twenty-First Century. You can learn more at law.berkeley.edu.

This week’s conversation recorded in 2011 is both timely and untimely. Timely – as we exit from Afghanistan – because in her book When Johnny and Jane Come Marching Home, Paula Caplan asks why it’s a mental illness to be devastated by war and urges us to connect with veterans and listen to their stories, one-on-one. And untimely, because Paula died of cancer July 21st. She was both one of the warmest, most generous people I’ve known, and at the same time, a consistently fierce and passionate advocate for justice. Three words I believe often motivated Paula: “It’s not fair.” And those three words have seldom felt more true.

Need some good news about climate? I’m excited to speak with economist ROBERT POLLIN and union leader DAVE CAMPBELL, Secretary-Treasurer of United Steelworkers Local 675 in Carson CA, about the California Climate Jobs Plan. Initiated and paid for by labor unions, written by Pollin and others, it pursues the state’s clean energy goals through 2030, by creating a million new jobs and offering a fair transition for those who will lose theirs. You can learn more at californiaclimatejobsplan.com

I’m excited to talk with JULIE BATTILANA, professor at Harvard Business School and the Harvard Kennedy School, and founder of its Social Innovation and Change Initiative, about her new book POWER FOR ALL. It’s nothing less than a call for individuals not only to understand and assert power in their own lives, but also to collectively use this power to remake society by rebalancing existing power relationships – including racial, gender, financial and political. To learn more, go to Powerforallbook.com