Aired 01/10/10

JIM WALLIS Founder/President, Sojourners; editor, Sojourners magazine; Author, GOD'S POLITICS; THE GREAT AWAKENING; and his newest, REDISCOVERING VALUES on Wall Street, Main Street, and Your Street: A Moral Compass for the New Economy.

In REDISCOVERING VALUES, JIM WALLIS argues that the worst thing we can do now is to go back to normal. Normal is what got us into this mess. We need a new normal, and this economic crisis is an invitation to discover what that means. Some of the principles he offers for a new normal are...
· Spending money we don't have for things we don't need is a bad foundation for an economy or a family.
· Care for the poor is not just a moral duty, but is critical for the common good.
· A healthy society is a balanced society in which markets, the government, and our communities all play a role.

  Aired 01/03/09 MARION BLANK PhD is an accomplished children's therapist with over thirty years of practical experience in helping children with reading and learning challenges. In addition to producing books, articles, tests and software programs, BLANK is currently the director of the A Light on Literacy program at Columbia University in New York and serves as a consultant to a wide range of school districts in New York, New Jersey and Connecticut. Her latest book, THE READING REMEDY, and her new reading system, PHONICS PLUS FIVE, now makes her ideas available to every parent.  

 

Aired 01/03/10

TEMPLE GRANDIN, who believes her autism allowed her to see the world more as an animal might, and led her to design enormous improvements in how we treat livestock. Her latest book is ANIMALS MAKE US HUMAN.

TEMPLE GRANDIN, Ph.D., now a designer of livestock handling facilities and a Professor of Animal Science at Colorado State University, Dr. Grandin didn't speak until she was three and a half years old. Labeled "autistic," her parents were told she should be institutionalized. Roughly 50% of the beef that shows up on your plate came through improvements that she has made to the process of livestock management. Grandin has become a prominent author, speaker and advocate on the issues of Autism and Asperger's Syndrome because she has made a career of overcoming obstacles that have been placed in her path. She tells her story in the book EMERGENCE: LABELED AUTISTIC, and is also the author of ANIMALS IN TRANSLATION, THINKING IN PICTURES AND OTHER REPORTS FROM MY LIFE WITH AUTISM, THE WAY I SEE IT, and her latest, ANIMALS MAKE US HUMAN.

http://www.templegrandin.com/

 

Aired 12/27/09

When I received the book Power and Love, I was struck first by the ambition of anyone who would take on those two big notions. Then I read the subtitle A Theory and Practice of Social Change, and I was really curious. Its author Adam Kahane has been working for social change on a big scale all over the world. In the early 90s he facilitated the Mont Fleur Scenario Project, in which a diverse group of South Africans worked together to effect the transition to democracy. I’d let him tell you more about that, and he had learned some hard lessons that led to this book. Let me just read this quote:

Over the past twenty years of work, I have made two discoveries. I reported the first one in Solving Tough Problems: An Open Way of Talking, Listening, and Creating New Realities. In that book I concluded that the key to creating new social relaites is to open ourselves up and connect: to our own true selves, to one anotherm and to our context and what it demands of us. Five years and many experiences later, I can see that this conclusion was right, but only half right and dangerously so.

That last phrase – "dangerously so" -- really caught my attention.

 

Aired 12/27/09

There’s been a lot of talk about the battle between science and religion the last few years. At the same time, there’s been some fascinating and powerful work bringing science and spirituality closer together. Recent developments in psychology and the neurosciences have led to insights about how our brains work and how these neurological functions shape our experiences of the world. Turns out some of what we’re learning fits very well with the wisdom developed over thousands of years in contemplative practices.

RICK HANSON has been meditating since 1974 the same year he graduated summa cum laude from UCLA. In his new book, written with Richard Mendius MD, BUDDHA’S BRAIN, he pulls a lot of information together to reach all of us from the most scientific to the most spiritual. After all we’ve all got brains and we all seek happiness.

Rick Hanson, Ph.D., is a neuropsychologist, co-founder of the Wellspring Institute for Neuroscience and Contemplative Wisdom (http://www.wisebrain.org/), and editor of the Wise Brain Bulletin. He offers a free newsletter, "Just One Thing" at his website rickhanson.net which offers a simple mindfulness practice each week. Hanson is co-author with his wife, Jan, of MOTHER NURTURE, still the only book that systematically shows how to support the health and well-being of mothers and couples over the long haul of raising a family. His newest book is BUDDHA'S BRAIN: THE PRACTICAL NEUROSCIENCE OF HAPPINESS, LOVE, AND WISDOM.