There are some who will tell you that we’re making great strides in fighting cancer with more of the same approaches we’ve been trying for the last four decades. Dr. Azra Raza is not one of those experts. An oncologist and the Chan Soon-Shiong Professor of Medicine and Director of the MDS Center at Columbia University considers what we are doing in research and treatment a systemic failure. If we have seen any improvements in survival rates in the recent period improved treatments are not the reason. It results from a reduction in smoking and improvements in screening. And given the hydra-headed nature of the uber label ‘cancer’, a dastardly enemy, indeed, the encouraging developments relate to a few common cancers, like lung, colorectal, breast and prostate. And even with these gains, overall cancer death rates are not dramatically different from what they were in the 1930’s. She explains why what we’re doing in the lab is wrong and how the treatment protocols of cut, burn or poison wreak havoc on the patient as we chase the last malignant cell in the body. Her answer is to turn the paradigm around as her book title suggests and get there before ‘The First Cell’. The book is exquisitely written and yet, at the same time, a painful read given our familiarity with what this process looks like. If there was another apt title for this book it would ‘Enough’. We must chart a new course.

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It is really hard for most of us to understand what the Federal Reserve actually does and means to the our pocketbooks. After all it was the former Fed Chairman, Alan Greenspan, who famously quipped ‘never explain, never excuse’. The invisible hand of the Fed became more apparent during the financial meltdown in 2008 as Ben Bernancke became a key player in fashioning a way out of the crisis. Extraordinary measures were taken to provide liquidity to the financial system here and abroad. The monetary stimulus resulted in cheap money upon which much of the economic success of the last decade has been built. As Danielle DiMartino Booth, our guest and a former advisor to the head of the Federal Reserve Bank of Dallas explains in her book, ‘Fed Up’, in the 5000 years of record keeping, debt has never been cheaper than it is today. So we set out in this interview to understand what that means to you and your financial future. We start with the basics so we all have some basic knowledge of the Fed, tie it to fiscal policy, which is governed by Congress and then explains its impacts on Main Street. And while Ron Paul and others have repeatedly raised the notion of ‘end the Fed’, Danielle lays out reforms that she’d like to see to the system to make it work better on behalf of the public. This podcast episode includes additional material describing the unprecedented measures taken by the Federal Reserve in response to the ongoing coronavirus crisis.

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Politics in America has become a zero sum game. My team wins. Your team loses. And this polarization results in a downgrading of our democracy from a ‘full democracy’ to a ‘flawed democracy’ in the eyes of international experts and, more importantly, it results in nothing getting done, which brings on even more frustration. So how do we break this cycle and restore our democracy to better health? According to Lee Drutman, a senior fellow in the Political Reform Program at New America and author of ‘Breaking the Two-Party Doom Loop’ the path forward involves bringing multiparty democracy to the United States. Now before you say that third parties have never worked in this country, you have to hear his argument that for many years in the late 20th century we, in effect, had a four party system. And in the last decade we have developed into a country with a fully nationalized, fully sorted two party system divided over existential questions about American identity. With the stakes riding so high on issues, because of the divide, its nearly impossible to compromise of key issues and get anything done. In the process, our system is becoming unworkable. So, what’s the alternative? Our guest asks you to envision the multiparty system, so common around the globe. He’ll explain the advantages and how we can get there.

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Economist Alan Tonelson writes the independent blog Reality Chek and is author of the book, ‘Race to the Bottom’. He wrote that book many administrations back when he saw the practice of outsourcing growing and manufacturing losses pile up. He was critical of a trade policy that was built more on foreign policy objectives, rather than economic ones. And one that benefited large, multi-national companies more than small manufacturers. So we thought it would be a good time to check back with Alan, who has guested with us before, to get his take on President Trump’s trade policy and its impact on American workers and economy going forward. In general, he thinks the get tough strategy is working and he explains why, particularly in the case of the Chinese Phase One deal. Unlike many other economists in this field of study, he also feels that trade deficits do matter and the fact that ours is shrinking somewhat is a good sign. He walks us through the USMCA, or NAFTA II, and describes what it does, particularly for American farmers, and what it doesn’t do to his chagrin. If you want to understand these issues, and only have thirty minutes of time before the weeds get too tall, this is the podcast for you.

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Okay, so you watch a lot of cable news, chime in with your political take on Twitter or Facebook, text witty banter back and forth with friends during an impeachment hearing and give an occasional donation to a political candidate, there’s a name for that. It’s called being a political hobbyist. Don’t worry, I admit to being one, too, in this podcast. We’re more likely than not to be college educated men over a certain age who satisfy our own emotional and intellectual curiosities by doing so. What we’re not doing is having any real impact in a true political context. And in fact while we channel surf, vent, and give a few bucks, people in the trenches of politics–doing the hard work of organizing, canvassing and staying focused–are winning the game and probably blunting our own political desires. Tufts political science professor, Eitan Hersh, in his book ‘Politics is for Power’ describes us to the ‘T’ and admits to being one of us. Yet, he has great respect for those who do the hard work of politics, with intent, in order to make real change. So, hobbyists, voyeurs, tourists and bystanders, take a listen and then, perhaps, go out and do something. Or as trickster Edward Abbey, famously quipped “saving the world is only a hobby. Most of the time I do nothing’.

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While the right of privacy may not be explicit in the United States Constitution, as a tenet it is sprinkled liberally throughout and the U.S. Supreme Court has concurred time and again, particularly as it relates to married couples’ access to contraceptives in Griswold v. Connecticut in 1965 and subsequently in cases relating to abortion and same-sex marriage. So why is it that we feel that we have lost the right in this digital age and that any type of anonymity is nearly impossible? Maybe it’s because we are all carrying little spies in our pockets and affirming our connectedness to others in all transactions. While we may have the right to disappear, the reality of doing so becomes more complex with every device we bring into our homes. Did you hear that, Alexa? In his book, ‘None of Your Damn Business’, Lawrence Cappello, a constitutional historian, takes us through the history of this precious right and what we can do to preserve it as a societal, as well as individual, benefit. At the conclusion of the episode, we discuss the implications of health surveillance in the era of COVID-19 and whether Americans will be wito give up their privacy for a better chance of defeating the coronavirus.

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Our guest is Terry Jones, founder of Travelocity.com and co-founder of Kayak.com. He has written a new book called ‘Disruption Off: The Technological Disruption Coming for Your Company and What to Do About It’. Having this conversation with him during the coronavirus pandemic begged us to spend time imagining what impact this will all have on the already convulsive period of change in the way America does business, from teleconferencing to working at home to the deployment of new technologies to better understand customer needs and enhance the ability to meet them more quickly. He has disrupted the travel business, more than once, and now sees that business in a dramatic period of adjustment. While he reminds us that one company’s disruption is another company’s innovation, the pace and the inevitability of change far outstrips anything we’ve seen in the past. And there’s virtually no sector untouched. He’s an in-demand speaker and you’ll hear why on this podcast.

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Each generation has its capstone event defining the way it looks at the world.  As a baby boomer, with the civil rights movement, the first moonwalk, as well as the Vietnam War and the assassinations of our leaders, it was a complicated mix of hope and despair.  For those now going off to college for the first time, being eligible for military service and joining first responder ranks in their community, the signal event in their lifetime was 9-11.  It may have been the first time they saw their parents grieve openly and admit that the world isn't as safe as they tried to make it for their children.  When you couple this with the financial meltdown of 2008 and this generation has seen a more vulnerable America than the one that owned the world stage at the close of the last century. So how does that affect the way they look at the world?  We got a glimpse of it in the wake of the killing of an Iranian general by an American drone when social media shared the concerns of a generation about WWIII.  As a podcast that focuses on social change, we thought it would be a good time to talk about the 9-11 generation at this crucial stage as they are poised for new challenges.  And when many will, for the first time, vote in the 2020 presidential election.  We discussed this with Garrett Graff, author of 'The Only Plane in the Sky: An Oral History of 9-11'. 

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Backyard birdwatchers, you’re eyes aren’t deceiving you. The number of birds in the United States and Canada has dropped by 29 percent since 1970. The head of the National Audubon Society, calls it a ‘full blown crisis’. Birds are the most studied group of animals on Earth given the ease by which they can be found and the many who make that their hobby. The sad story in the skies above is how many fewer of the species that give us such joy are there to be found. So how did this happen and what can we do about it? For answers we turn to Kenneth Rosenberg, perhaps America’s greatest authority on bird populations. He’s a professor at Cornell University’s celebrated program on ornithology and the author of the definitive study on the losses. This work published in the journal ‘Science’ is a product of Cornell and the American Bird Conservancy. More than 90 percent of the losses(2.5 billion birds)come from just 12 families including sparrows, blackbirds, warblers, larks and finches. The most disheartening part of this picture is occurring in our forests and grasslands. Habitat degredation is key to all of this. You will come away from this podcast understanding the problem and what we can do to reverse this trend. There is hope, but to restore these lovely sights and sounds, we must take action.

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With many young people deciding that the city, once again, is their destination of choice, we wanted to find out whether urban planning today is meeting the needs of this generation. Generations past gave us public water and sanitation, zoning, building codes and roadways that did more to influence our health and well being than medical care. So what about today’s designers? The development of every aspect of the urban landscape–from streets and sidewalks to green spaces, mass transit and housing–fundamentally influences the health and safety of the people who live there. Following on to out previous podcast on the social determinants of health, we take a look at the impacts of the built environment on all aspects of our life and ways in which those who can best design these spaces are often not involved. In the book ‘Changing Places’ John MacDonald, Robert Stokes and our guest, Charles Branas urge us to look anew at the disconnect between those who implement place-based changes, such as planners and developers, and the urban scientists who are now able to rigorously evaluate these changes on how we live. In doing so, we paint the broad picture of what is needed to improve outcomes for those of all socioeconomic backgrounds sharing an urban space. Hot button issues like gentrification, open space, transportation and street environments as well as recreation opportunities are touched upon.

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