Aired 09/16/12

Last week I interviewed longtime reporters Don Barlett and James Steele regarding their new book, THE BETRAYAL OF THE AMERICAN DREAM, looking at the relentless economic, financial, and governmental process over the last 40 years to enrich the largest corporations and richest individuals at the expense of the middle class. This week I’ll talk with another wise and experienced Pulitzer prize winner with a long term perspective, HEDRICK SMITH, about his newest book, WHO STOLE THE AMERICAN DREAM?

I don’t think it’s a coincidence nor do I think it’s redundant to turn so soon to the same questions being pursued by another savvy journalist. HEDRICK SMITH had already won a Pulitzer by 1973, the year that the post-WWII boom for the middle class began to wane. Real wages for all Americans had risen pretty consistently from the war years, and have done so almost not at all ever since. I point this out to highlight the fact that Smith has witnessed first-hand the rise and long fall of the middle class and brings that experience to this book and this conversation.

http://americawhatwentwrong.org/

http://barlettandsteele.com/

 

Aired 09/02/12

When I first met TERRY TAMMINEN, he was living on a houseboat in the Marina and filling a position he’d founded as the first Santa Monica Baykeeper. No too long before that, he had been running a pool services company. And not too long after, he was Secretary of the California EPA.

Tamminen has reinvented himself successfully in several very different worlds — business, government, non-profit, foundation, from the grassroots to the halls of power. All of this for a long time now to achieve a sound and healthy relationship between society and the environment. He pursues that consistent vision with whatever works.

We’ll talk about the ideas in his book, CRACKING THE CARBON CODE: The Key to Sustainable Profits in the New Economy – which is very much a plan of action for companies who figure out that reducing carbon emissions reduces waste and is therefore good for the bottom line. He’ll tell stories of companies that have made or saved money by cutting carbon.

How has he been able to move things forward through politics and government in an era when so little seems to get done? Bottom line, are we moving fast enough? If not, how do we integrate all these different players to accelerate movement in the right direction?

http://seventhgenerationadvisors.org

From Outer Space to Inner Space

ROB MANNING, Chief Engineer,
Mars Science Laboratory
hours before rover CURIOSITY lands on Mars

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Congressman TIM RYAN, A MINDFUL NATION
How a Simple Practice Can Help Reduce Stress, 
Improve Performance, Recapture American Spirit

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Aired 08/05/12

ROB MANNING is the Chief Engineer for the Mars Science Laboratory (MSL) mission. MANNING has been designing, testing and operating robotic spacecraft and rovers for 30 years at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) in Pasadena. In the 1990’s Rob was chief engineer for Mars Pathfinder, the first to send a rover to Mars. He also led flight system engineering for the Rover Entry, Descent and Landing teams. Rob is in the Aviation Week Magazine Space Laureate Hall of Fame in the Smithsonian Air and Space Museum.

We talk just hours before the rover Curiosity landed on Mars. Using a never-before-tried landing system called a “sky crane,” the degree of difficulty of this landing is enormous. After parachuting to within one mile of the surface, the sky crane fires thrusters to lower itself to hover over the surface. While hovering, Curiosity is lowered to the ground on cables. Once the cables are released, the sky crane jets to a safe distance before crashing to the ground, leaving the rover to explore the planet’s surface. We’ll talk with Manning about the aims as well as the challenges of this mission.

 

Aired 08/05/12

I am joined by Ohio Congressman Tim Ryan, who offers a radical solution to the stresses and problems that face Americans today — radical in its original meaning of having to do with roots of things. He has written a book, A MINDFUL NATION: How a Simple Practice Can Help Us Reduce Stress, Improve Performance, and Recapture the American Spirit. Ryan has a daily practice of meditation and now he’s advocating that the spread of similar practices could help heal us, not just as individuals but as a nation. His book is filled with examples of how mindfulness is already being successfully applied in education, healthcare, even the military.