Free Forum with Terrence McNally

Aired: 04/21/13"If it doesn't spread, it's dead," is the simple consistent message of a new book, SPREADABLE MEDIA: Creating Value and Meaning in a Networked Culture, that maps the changes taking place in our media environment. For all their consolidation, concentration, and money, corporations can no longer control media distribution. Millions are now directly involved in the creation and circulation of content. "Stickiness" - focusing attention in centralized places -- has been the measure of success in the broadcast era. No more. "Spreadability" - dispersing content through formal and informal networks, with and without permission - is the new goal.What does this mean for media? For information? For culture? For the distribution of power? And how can you take advantage of the new realities to have greater impact and influence?I'll be talking about all of that this week with one of the book's authors, HENRY JENKINS. He coined the term "participatory culture" and he's been paying attention for decades to the crowd on the other side of the camera, the microphone, and the screen.

When someone approaches you to donate to a non-profit, how many of you want to know how much of of its money goes to salaries and fund-raising and how much goes to actual program services? If you're like most people, that question probably figures into your decision.I myself have factored that question of how much is spent on overhead into my charitable giving. But is it a valid or wise way to make such decisions? According to today's guest, DAN PALLOTTA, while it may be helpful, much more important is how well they serve their mission, how good a job they're doing solving the problems you care about. In his earlier book, UNCHARITABLE, Pallotta, who has a record of helping to raise hundreds of millions of dollars for causes, made the case that the way we think about non-profits and the rules we set for them, makes it harder for them to succeed on a truly significant scale. Too many nonprofits, he says, are rewarded for how little they spend -- not for what they get done. Instead of equating frugality with morality, he asks us to start rewarding charities for big goals and big accomplishments (even if that comes with big expenses). Where other folks suggest ways to optimize performance inside the existing paradigm, UNCHARITABLE suggests that the paradigm itself is the problem and calls into question our fundamental beliefs about charity. With a new book, CHARITY CASE: How the Non-Profit community Can Stand Up for Itself and Really Change the World and in a recent very popular TED talk, he says "My goal ... is to fundamentally transform the way the public thinks about charity within 10 years."

In the preface to an article entitled A National Strategic Narrative, Anne-Marie Slaughter of Princeton says we need a narrative that confronts some of the following questions, "Where is the United States going in the world? How can we get there? What are the guiding stars that will illuminate the path along the way? We need a story with a beginning, middle, and projected happy ending that will transcend our political divisions, orient us as a nation, and give us both a common direction and the confidence and commitment to get to our destination." She also writes, "In one sentence, the strategic narrative of the United States in the 21st century is that we want to become the strongest competitor and most influential player in a deeply inter-connected global system, which requires that we invest less in defense and more in sustainable prosperity and the tools of effective global engagement."Mark Mykleby, one of the authors of that article, A National Strategic Narrative, is my guest today. He writes that the complexity, competition, and interconnectedness of a new century require a fresh perspective on how best to secure our enduring national interests of prosperity and security and that our current path is simply unsustainable. The time has come for our military to evolve from a strategy based on containment to a strategy focused on the sustainability of our security and prosperity in a dynamic and uncertain strategic environment. Over time, the best way to shape the force of the future is to invest in the science, technology, education, and training that will equip our soldiers, sailors, airmen, and marines to adapt to an increasingly complex and dynamic environment. The hardware and software we buy and build are secondary to the gray matter we must cultivate now.When I hear that someone high up in the military is talking seriously about sustainability, I take notice.

Aired: 03/31/13I do my best to question conventional wisdom, but I had heard and repeated the fact that the US had lost its manufacturing and it was never coming back so often that I assumed it must be true. But I pick up the December 2012 issue of the Atlantic magazine recently and two articles jump out at me - both declaring that manufacturing is re-emerging. James Fallows writes of US startups exploiting new technologies to speed up the process of design-to-product, and Charles Fishman writes about US corporations like GE moving production back to the US. James Fallows' article, Mr. China Comes to America, opens with these words: "For decades, every trend in manufacturing favored the developing world and worked against the Unites States. But new tools that greatly speed up development from idea to finished product encourage start-up companies to locate here, not in Asia." That got my attention! Charles Fishman's article The Insourcing Boom goes even a step further. It's opening words: "After years of offshore production, General Electric is moving much of its far-flung appliance-manufacturing operations back home. It is not alone."I make no bones about the fact that I like to report good news, but I don't want to make nice or play Pollyanna. This information from these reporters strikes me as the real thing and I'm only too glad to admit I may have prematurely buried "made in America".

Aired: 03/24/13This week I'm joined by RON SCHULTZ, editor of a new book, CREATING GOOD WORK, that brings together essays by social entrepreneurs that share their experiences as well as their insights and advice for others. Ron has invited a few of his book's contributors (PAUL HERMAN, founder/CEO, HIP Investor Inc; JIM FRUCHTERMAN, founder/CEO Benetech; CARRIE FREEMAN, Second Muse; formerly Intel) to join us, and I want to tap each person's individual story while asking some of these bigger questions -- What is a social entrepreneur? What's working in the field? Why is it working? What is the larger goal or vision? Why is social entrepreneurship important? What are the big challenges? What lessons have they learned? Where can listeners learn more?I hope someone new to the concept will understand what we're talking about and a knowledgeable listener will learn things they can put to use.

Original Airdate:This week's guest, MICHAEL LIND, has written an economic history of the United States. In his new book, LAND OF PROMISE, he lays out a pattern in which the US has reinvented itself economically and politically a number of times based on the emergence of new technologies. From wind and water, to steam, to electricity and internal combustion, and finally the computer. Each new dominant technology overwhelms the existing political and regulatory system and American government lags a generation or two behind technology-induced economic change. It takes a crisis or a war or both to overthrow the old regime and usher in the new. When the U.S. economy has flourished, Lind argues, government, business, labor and universities have worked together as partners in a project of economic nation building. Today, as the United States struggles to emerge from the Great Recession, Land of Promise says that Americans, since the earliest days of the republic, have repeatedly reinvented the American economy-and have the power to do so again.

This week's guest is DAVE ZIRIN. Dave is the first sports editor for 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.

The Academy Awards will be given out in two weeks and we are lucky to have the co-directors of one of the nominated films with us today. 5 BROKEN CAMERAS, one of five nominees for best documentary, tells the story of a Palestinian farmer who lives with his wife and four small children in the village of Bil'in, in the central West Bank.EMAD BURNAT got his first camera in 2005, when his youngest son, Gibreel, was born. Almost simultaneously, the Israeli army began building a separation wall between Bil'in and a nearby Israeli settlement, separating residents from the olive tree groves that are their livelihood. Burnat turned his camera on his fellow villagers as they responded with nonviolent protests, including marches to the wall every Friday. I am joined in the studio today by Burnat and his Israeli co-director, GUY DAVIDI. Structured in chapters around the destruction of each one of Burnat's cameras, we witness Gibreel grow from a newborn baby into a young boy, as from behind the lens Burnat watches as olive trees are bulldozed and protests intensify in this cinematic diary of life in the West Bank. Upon hearing of the Oscar nomination for their film, EMAD BURNAT stated, "The truth is powerful, it can heal. I hope this film can help heal misunderstanding about us. A filmmaker's dream is winning an Oscars® however my dream is freedom for Palestine, we all have lots of work to do."And the words of Co-director GUY DAVIDI, "I am hopeful this will be a milestone on the road to ending the occupation and securing a brighter and more just future for Palestinians and Israelis."

Aired: 02/03/13This week, my guest is DAVID GOLDHILL. After the death of his father, Goldhill, a business executive, began a personal exploration of a health-care industry that for years has delivered poor service and irregular quality at astonishingly high cost. His September 2009 Atlantic cover story rocked the health-care world, and Goldhill has written a book expanding on the topic, Catastrophic Care: How American Health Care Killed My Father-And How We Can Fix It. It is a system, he argues, that is not worth preserving in anything like its current form. He asserts Obamacare will not fix it, and offers his own radical solution. * As a nation, we now spend almost 18% of our GDP on health care. * In 1966, Medicare and Medicaid made up 1% of total government spending; now that figure is 20%.* The federal government spends - 8 times as much on health care as it does on education-- 12 times what it spends on food aid to children and families-- 30 times what it spends on law enforcement-- 78 times what it spends on land management and conservation-- 87 times the spending on water supply-- 830 times the spending on energy conservation.* For every two doctors in the U.S., there is now one health-insurance employee-more than 470,000 in total. In 2006, it cost almost $500 per person just to administer health insurance.* Of the 52 industries represented on Fortune's 2007 list, pharmaceuticals and medical equipment ranked third and fourth, respectively, in terms of profits as a share of revenue. From 2000 to 2007, the annual profits of America's top 15 health-insurance companies increased from $3.5 billion to $15 billion.

We hear a lot these days about Armageddon, the Apocalypse, the Rapture, End Times. More than a current cultural phenomenon, they appear to be a persuasive motivating force for millions of Americans. These words are now part of our vocabulary, and as metaphors, they show up all over the map -- Carmageddon as the nickname for the I-405's weekend closure in July 2011.But, where do they come from? As many of you may know, they come from the Book of Revelation, the last book of the Christian New Testament. But how did they get there? Who wrote this? What does it mean?This week's guest, religious scholar ELAINE PAGELS, author of The Gnostic Gospels, considers the Book of Revelation to be wartime literature. She points out that it was written by a Jew following Rome's resounding defeat of a Jewish uprising, and interprets it as an attack on the decadence of the Empire. Soon, however, a new sect known as "Christians" seized on it as a weapon against heresy and infidels of all kinds. I believe that weapon is still active today in American culture and politics. We'll talk about Revelations, and we'll talk a bit about the Gnostic Gospels and the over 50 texts discovered hidden and preserved in Nag Hammadi Egypt in 1945. And about the impact of politics and culture on religion, highlighted by the moment when Constantine converted to the Church of Rome. Christianity went from being the religion of outsiders and freethinkers, to being the religion of the Empire. And we'll talk about how all of this plays out today in the US and around the world.