EP 830 Stadiums Are America’s Public Squares
While we may attend games at stadiums, the way in which these cavernous facilities are erected, located, financed and owned is serious business. They represent the epicenter of many cities and have over the years reflected the cultural changes going on in our society. They have also hosted a range of activities beyond the sporting and entertainment events generally considered their sole domain. Home to political rallies, protests, awakenings, as well as charlatans and hucksters, they reflect the strengths and weaknesses inherent in the pendulum of democracy. The 21st century stadiums and arenas are being erected at a record pace and like the second Gilded Age which we are experiencing, they are gaudy, high tech and domains that cater to the wealthy strata of our society with sky boxes and private corporate suites. You will never think about these facilities in the same way once you read Frank Andre Guridy’s much acclaimed book “The Stadium: An American History of Politics, Protest and Play.” He is our guest on today’s podcast.
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Bad customer experiences are costing businesses more than ever, according to new research by experience management company Qualtrics. Its work projects global losses of $3.7 trillion annually–a staggering 19 percent increase from last year’s $3.1 trillion projection. You don’t need to see the macro picture when daily you suffer the frustrating indignities of calls to businesses not answered by a person on the other end who knows what they are talking about or the inability to ever get to that ill-informed person in the first place because the automated attendant won’t let you through. It can be maddening as a consumer. Michael Levine, the author of the influential business book “Broken Windows, Broken Business” saw this trend developing almost 20 years ago and has been writing about it ever since. The smallest things he notes can make the biggest difference in the success of a company. For example, if the cabin of an airplane is dirty, it makes you wonder whether the mechanical part of the plane is actually being attended to with care. Yikes! It’s the basis for a fun and wide- ranging discussion today.
Once the party of the working class, the Democratic Party is now the home of highly educated citizens with progressive social views who prefer credentialed experts to make policy decisions, while Republicans have become the populist champions of white voters who increasingly distrust scientists, journalists, universities, Hollywood, and even corporations. The result of this new ‘diploma divide’ is the most consequential transformation in American politics since the New Deal realignment back in the 1930’s. Well into the 1980’s, as Ronald Reagan took the Southern strategy to new regions of the country, Democrats could count on the members of organized labor to back their party. Cultural shifts, perhaps even more than economic ones, ended their dominance. Our guest, Matt Grossmann, along with David Hopkins have written a book that explains the change. It’s called “Polarized by Degrees: How the Diploma Divide and the Culture War Transformed American Politics.”
When you experience grief, the world can feel overwhelming. It can be difficult to imagine a future. You feel lost and hopeless. This can happen because of the death of a parent, partner, sibling, child or even a longtime companion. Or it can occur because of the death of a relationship, marriage or even a promising career path. Regardless, we all experience it throughout our lifetimes, and we all have to find ways to cope. Our guest, international grief expert and noted author, David Kessler, a long-time colleague of Elisabeth Kubler-Ross, and the co-author on her last two books, has added to their scholarship on the subject by developing a sixth stage of grief, beyond acceptance, the fifth stage, to the point of ‘finding meaning’ in the loss. Kessler’s understanding of this new stage was hastened by the death of his 21-year- old son eight years back. His new book “Finding Meaning: The Sixth Stage of Grief Workbook” provides tools for releasing pain and remembering with love. This podcast gives him time to share his wisdom and the benefits of having this workbook when you may need it.
We have been talking about returning manufacturing jobs to the Rust Belt of the Midwest and the once vibrant manufacturing hubs of the Northeast for a long time. Almost since much manufacturing moved offshore about 50 years ago, leaving behind empty husks of buildings, environmental damage and broken lives. Yet doing so is easier said than done. America has become an economy known for its innovation, strong service sector and a consumer-driven economy. Yet, manufacturing jobs, not the old sooty ones, but advanced manufacturing has a multiplier effect on an economy, helping to generate five times its value for every person on the factory floor. While the Biden Administration passed major pieces of legislation to reshore, for example, our chips and clean energy industry, it is not enough to make us the once great manufacturing engine we were in the mid twentieth century. The incoming Trump 2 administration is looking to tariffs to do the trick. The reasons for our demise in this area are many. How we regain that dominance is an open question given the remarkable advances by China and others in supplanting us in this regard. To discuss all of is Harry Moser, the founder and president, of the Reshoring Initiative(reshorenow.org).
Interconnected technological change is happening more rapidly than at any time in history and on such a scale that its impacts will be profound in fields as diverse as health, food production, and the strength of the overall economy. It may even bail us out from our assaults on the planet. In a clear-eyed and easily understood manner, Jamie Metzl, a leading futurist and One Shared. World founder, explains all of this in his new book, “Superconvergence: How the Genetics, Biotech, and AI Revolutions Will Transform Our Lives, Work and World.” The challenge we face is that while our ability to engineer the world around us is advancing exponentially, our processes for understanding the scope, scale, and implications of these changes, and for managing the “godlike” powers wisely, are not keeping pace. His thinking is bold and inspiring as he explores with us the transformative nature of human knowledge, with a particular focus on biology and the life sciences. CRISPR babies? Doctors performing gene therapy? Analysts storing data in genes? What is happening here? A brave new world, indeed. Find out on this podcast.
There was a time that America sensed that the right leader came along at the right time and pulled us through many crises–war, The Depression, pandemics and other economic travails. I am not certain we feel that way about some of the recent commanders in chief. Yet history reminds us we have had many forgotten chief executives who made it necessary for us to replace them with someone who could fix the mess they left behind. I am referring to a number before and after the Civil War. Is it that they didn’t live up to expectations or that we simply made the wrong choices? In any event, William Haldeman, in his new book, “Meeting the Moment: Inspiring Presidential Leadership that Transformed America,” singles out the qualities needed in a President-like judgment, ingenuity, dedication, courage, confidence and optimism and points to those who had these qualities and the telltale signs of their greatness. As we approach a transfer of power at this moment, it is a good time to reflect on these values and fall back on them as we evaluate our leaders going forward.
Math is used by campaign strategists to help politicians decide where to travel and spend money when running for office. The same kinds of calculations can help ordinary citizens make the best use of their time and resources. And for change agents who want a more representative democracy, these simulations and ‘what-if’s’ might give us the empirical data to evaluate what might occur if, for example, we eliminated the electoral college and went to a popular vote method, had open primaries for congressional districts and other offices and employed some form of rank-choice voting. Our guest, Sam Wang, is a Neuroscience Professor at Princeton University and the Director of the Electoral Innovation Lab, where they developed the Voter Maximizer, which performs a non-partisan mathematical and strategic analysis to identify races and ballot questions where the per-voter impact is greatest. Their work does not center on campaigns, but rather on the individual voter. It’s a fascinating lens into our political and electoral systems.
When we think of institutions that define welcoming spaces to convene and conduct business in virtually every community in America the local library is first and foremost. It represents the one place in which you can build social cohesion, promote civic renewal, and advance the ideals of a healthy democracy. And where you can get a potboiler of a new novel, share your computer skills for research with others, attend a multitude of programs or watch children’s eyes light up as part of story time programs and other tactile experiences, like learning a percussive instrument. All of that and so much more takes place within libraries which are staffed by creative professionals who are engaged in designing new learning experiences for young and old. In his new book, “Meet Me at the Library: A Place to Foster Social Connection and Promote Democracy”, Shamichael Hallman reminds us of all that libraries represent in a time when loneliness and isolation demand that we find public spaces to bond and forge new relationships. The library serves this purpose…and so much more.