While little known, Harvard University tried a grand experiment starting in the 1940’s as it merged parts of the psychology department with the anthropology and sociology departments into a construct known as the Department of Social Relations. This interdisciplinary approach was meant to help unlock why we humans behave as we do. It made the …
Much attention is paid to mass shootings because they often involve our most precious citizens, our children. Yet, other forms of gun violence such as that between intimate partners, that associated with drugs on city streets and that which involves self harm and suicide get far less. America’s fascination with the gun goes unabated as …
It seems like the oldest false start in the world as a rumor swirls that a local mall is closing. Sometimes, they do. More times than not they are re-created to serve new, and often, public purposes, like libraries, museums and community event spaces. From Victor Gruen’s Southdale Shopping Center–America’s first indoor mall–which opened in …
That’s the question posed by our guest in his new book and on this podcast. The notion of a vital center in American politics has been a subject of inquiry for many years, going back to Arthur Schlesinger, Jr.’s 1949 book “The Vital Center”. This idea of all of us coalescing around solutions that are …
James Madison conceived of the states in our federalist system as being laboratories for democracy where policy innovations can take place. In an era when Congress has become more gridlocked and the parties more rigid ideologically, national partisan and activist groups, often one issue constituencies, have trained their sights on state legislatures, nationalizing state politics …
There is a lot of literature about the sacrifices that professional women make when choosing to have a family. Much has also been written about single moms and their travails. Our guest is exploring new territory as she zeroes in on working class young people and their approaches to caring for a baby while also …
Discrimination has reared its ugly head in America in so many institutions that it’s remarkable that some people still balk at the term ‘institutional racism’. Case in point: the National Football League. For years in the earlier part of the century black players were not allowed to compete at all. Then as pioneers in ownership …
This ain’t Ronald Reagan’s conservative GOP. He favored immigration, international involvement and free trade. So what does the Trump era conservative movement resemble? Calivin Coolidge? Perhaps, the two have little in common personally, but from a policy perspective economic protection, restricted immigration and non-intervention in the world, including mutual defense alliances are back in the …
Remember the Alanis Morrisette song, “Isn’t It Ironic”, well that fits the notion of trying to reform gun laws in America. On virtually the same day as Congress passed a series of measures, not curtailing the types of guns available on America’s streets or universal background checks, but modest measures to help cut back on …
While artificial intelligence is remarkable(right, Alexa?) it is a stretch to believe the science fiction portrayals of future humans being replaced by artificial intelligence is likely…ever. The key reason, according to our guest on this podcast, is because artificial intelligence is based on algorithms and algorithms are mathematical in nature, requiring a human to …