Free Forum with Terrence McNally

Aired 04/07/09FRITJOF CAPRA is a founding director of the Center for Ecoliteracy in Berkeley, California, which promotes ecology and systems thinking in primary and secondary education, and he's is on the faculty of Schumacher College, an international center for ecological studies in EnglandCAPRA is the author also of The Tao of Physics, coauthor of Green Politics and coeditor of Steering Business Toward Sustainability. His most recent book is The Science of Leonardo.I read a book a quarter century ago that greatly influenced my view not only of science, medicine, agriculture, energy, and even politics - it influenced my view of my worldview. That book was THE TURNING POINT by physicist Fritjof Capra. He's got a new book THE SCIENCE OF LEONARDO in which he holds that DaVinci saw the world with a lens that other scientists have only discovered in the last 100 years - and which society has yet to fully grasp.http://www.fritjofcapra.net/http://www.spaceandmotion.com/Philosophy-Fritjof-Capra.htm

Aired 03/24/09In 2006, THOMAS HOMER DIXON, author of Canada's #1 bestseller, THE UPSIDE OF DOWN, wrote, "September 11th and Katrina won't be the last time we walk out of our cities."Whether from economic collapse, terrorism, climate change, pandemic, energy scarcity, or the widening gap between rich and poor, he believes breakdown is inevitable. And if we won't change our ways till we crash, it's up to us to make sure breakdown doesn't spiral into total collapse.Check out the book title. Today "down" is everywhere we look. Okay, there's the "Catastrophe." I'll talk with HOMER DIXON in search of the "Creativity, and The Renewal..."http://www.homerdixon.com

Aired 03/17/09"A world organized around centralized control, strict intellectual property rights, and hierarchies of credentialed experts is under siege. A radically different order of society based on open access, decentralized creativity, collaborative intelligence, and cheap and easy sharing is ascendant." - from VIRAL SPIRALA global brigade of techies, lawyers, artists, musicians, scientists. businesspeople, innovators, and geeks of all stripes are dedicated to creating a digital republic committed to freedom and innovation.From free and open-source software, Creative Commons licenses, Wikipedia, remix music and video mashups, peer production, open science, open education, and open business, the world of digital media has spawned a new "sharing economy" that increasingly competes with entrenched media giants.I will also ask David to comment on the recent - and upcoming - bailouts, from the perspective of citizens and the commons. In other words, rather than fearing socialism, what are we getting for our "common" contributions to giant corporations -- and what should we be demanding?DAVID BOLLIER is Senior Fellow at the Norman Lear Center at the USC Annenberg Center for Communication and co-founder of Public Knowledge, a Washington policy advocacy organization dedicated to protecting the information commons. His latest book is VIRAL SPIRAL: How the Commoners Built a Digital Republic of Their Own. www.viralspiral.cc www.bollier.org www.onthecommons.org

Aired 03/10/09Growing up amongst the oil refineries in Louisiana, JOSH TICKELL experienced the impacts of dirty oil processing at a young age. After watching members of his family suffer from pollution-related cancers, Tickell began a lifelong quest to find sustainable, clean energy sources.In 1997, TICKELL set out on the road with a biodiesel powered "Veggie Van" and a video camera and began filming what would eventually become known as FUEL, the 2008 Sundance Audience Award winning documentary film that investigates the possible replacement of fossil fuels with renewable energy.Over the course of his 11 year journey, TICKELL traveled the worldgoing to over 25 countries, authored two books, founded a nonprofit organization, and jumpstarted America's biodiesel movement."Fuel" is a vital, superbly assembled documentary that presents an insightful overview of America's troubledrelationship with oil and how alternative and sustainable energies can reduce our country's -- and the world's -- addictive dependence on fossil fuels.The film's structure is built around director-narrator Josh Tickell's personal journey of enlightenment, which started in childhood after moving with his family from idyllic Australia to murkier Louisiana, where he came to realize the oil-rich environment was being ravaged by the omnipotent petrochemical industry.Later, as a young adult, he spent 11 years crossing the country in his vegetable oil-powered "Veggie Van," promoting biofuels and compiling footage for what would become this impressively comprehensive film.The events of Sept. 11 and Hurricane Katrina factor in both visually and thematically, providing provocative anchors for the movie's indictment of what Tickell believes is the Big Oil-cozy, ecologically indifferent Bush administration. Johnny O'Hara's WGA Award-nominated script doesn't dwell on muckraking, however; it's more focused on broadly inspiring viewers than preaching to the converted.Interviews with a wide range of environmentalists, policy makers and educators, along with such "green" celebrities as Woody Harrelson, Sheryl Crow and Larry Hagman offer serious fuel for thought -- as well as for action. Smartly animated interstitials, memorable archival material and a lively soundtrack round out the fast-paced proceedings. www.thefuelfilm.com

Aired 03/03/09AZADEH MOAVENI is a contributing writer on Iran and the Middle East for TIME magazine. She spent two years in Iran, from 2005 to 2007, and just returned from three weeks there at the first of the year. As one of the few American correspondents allowed to work continuously in Iran since 1999, she has reported widely on youth culture, women's rights, and Islamic reform for Time, The New York Times Book Review, The Washington Post, and The Los Angeles Times. She is author of LIPSTICK JIHAD and co-author, with Nobel Peace Prize winner Shirin Ebadi, of IRAN AWAKENING. Her newest book is HONEYMOON IN TEHRAN: TWO YEARS OF LOVE AND DANGER IN IRANIn his 2002 State of the Union address George W. Bush coined the term "axis of evil" to describe his vision of North Korea, Iraq, and Iran. The US has a new president who has made a fairly big and controversial deal about his willingness to meet with Iran's leaders without preconditions. Iran's last presidential election in 2005 brought the world Mahmoud Ahmadinejad. Another presidential election is coming soon to Iran.AZADEH MOAVENI has spent a good deal of time in Iran since the year 2000 and written two books about Iranian society. I'll talk with her about life and politics behind the caricatures and rhetoric that so often clouds US perceptions of Iran.http://www.azadeh.info/

Aired 02/10/09I bought this book when it originally came out in 1992. Much of it made profound sense then, at the dawn of the high-tech, Clinton era boom: Notice what really matters. Learn to say enough. Simplify. Choose. Today as we descend into the deepest financial crisis in over 60 years, its message is no longer a lifestyle choice. For most of us - and ideally for the entire American culture - it is a necessity.YOUR MONEY OR YOUR LIFE shows readers how to gain control of their money and finally begin to make a life, rather than just make a living.The new edition contains updated resources and anecdotes and examples particularly relevant today. It tells you how to: · get out of debt and develop savings · reorder material priorities and live well for less · resolve inner conflicts between values and lifestyle · save the planet while saving money ...and morewww.yourmoneyoryourlife.org http://victoriaroserobin.blogspot.com/

Aired 02/05/09 Part 2 of 2 Now National Affairs Correspondent for the Nation, WILLIAM GREIDER has spent forty years examining how powerful institutions affect ordinary people. For 17 years he was the National Affairs Editor at Rolling Stone magazine, and is a former assistant managing editor at the Washington Post, where he worked for fifteen years as a national correspondent, editor and columnist. He is the author of national bestsellers ONE WORLD, READY OR NOT, SECRETS OF THE TEMPLE and WHO WILL TELL THE PEOPLE. Greider also served as a correspondent for six Frontline documentaries on PBS, including "Return to Beirut," which won an Emmy in 1985. www.thenation.com

Aired 02/03/09 Part 1 of 2I have been trying to book this week's guest every week since at least last September, and finally I got him. WILLIAM GREIDER has been right for so long about so many things that last fall I wanted his take on the emerging financial crisis and the prospects of Barack Obama's being elected. Once both of those things happened, I've wanted to talk with him about how we got here, what we need to do to deal with the crisis, and what a true progressive platform for turning things around would look like.Now National Affairs Correspondent for the Nation, WILLIAM GREIDER has spent forty years examining how powerful institutions affect ordinary people. For 17 years he was the National Affairs Editor at Rolling Stone magazine, and is a former assistant managing editor at the Washington Post, where he worked for fifteen years as a national correspondent, editor and columnist. He is the author of national bestsellers ONE WORLD, READY OR NOT, SECRETS OF THE TEMPLE and WHO WILL TELL THE PEOPLE. Greider also served as a correspondent for six Frontline documentaries on PBS, including "Return to Beirut," which won an Emmy in 1985. www.thenation.com

Aired 01/27/09NIALL FERGUSON is Lawrence A. Tisch Professor of History at Harvard University, a Senior Research Fellow at Jesus College, Oxford, a Senior Fellow of the Hoover Institution at Stanford, an op ed columnist for the LA Times, and the other of several books, the newest is THE ASCENT OF MONEY: A Financial History of the World.In THE ASCENT OF MONEY, NIALL FERGUSON says that finance is the foundation of human progress, and that financial history is the essential back-story behind all history.He explains how banks provided the material basis for the the Italian Renaissance, while the bond market was the decisive factor in conflicts from the Seven Years' War to the American Civil War. Ferguson points out the origins of the French Revolution in a stock market bubble, and shows how a financial revolution is propelling the world's most populous country from poverty to power in a single generation.The single most important lesson of financial history is that sooner or later every bubble bursts - sooner or later the bearish sellers outnumber the bullish buyers - sooner or later greed flips into fear.We'll discuss how history can be helpful at a moment like this. And, what can it tell us about our current crisis and the way out?http://www.niallferguson.com

Aired 01/20/09DAVID CAY JOHNSTON, who won a Pulitzer Prize for his innovative coverage of our tax system, retired this year as a investigative reporter for The New York Times. He is the author of PERFECTLY LEGAL: The Covert Campaign to Rig Our Tax System to Benefit the Super Rich--and Cheat Everybody Else and FREE LUNCH: How The Wealthiest Americans Enrich Themselves at Government Expenses (and Stick You with the Bill).DAVID CAY JOHNSTON knows about money, finances, and the economy. More than anything else, he knows about taxes. We'll talk about how we can make the most of the opportunity presented by our current financial catastrophe. Do the bailouts make sense? What could we do that would be smarter, more efficient, more effective - that might work?