Interview with E.J. Dionne Jr. on Why the Right Went Wrong

by | Jun 16, 2016 | Blog

Why the Right Went Wrong by EJ Dionne JrThis Saturday at 2PM ET, my guest is E.J. Dionne Jr. He is a senior fellow in Governance Studies at the Brookings Institution, a government professor at Georgetown University and a frequent commentator on politics for NPR, ABC’s “This Week” and MSNBC. He is also a long-time columnist for the Washington Post and spent 14 years at the New York Times, where he covered politics and reported from Albany, Washington, Paris, Rome and Beirut. He is the author of six books including his latest and the subject of our discussion, Why the Right Went Wrong: Conservatism from Goldwater to the Tea Party and Beyond.

Dionne tells the story of the evolving (or rather devolving) Conservative movement, starting with Barry Goldwater and resulting in the politics of today, with the extremist views of Donald Trump, who is now the Republican party’s presidential nominee. Dionne weaves together the cast of characters that have shaped the Republican party and the political right, interviewing many of them in the hopes of understanding their movement from within. What happened to mainstream Conservatism? What role has religion played in its development? How has liberalism grappled with the evolving political right and how should honest journalists grapple with the vitriol and extremism of it?

All this and more on Saturday’s show! Tune in to 99.5FM WBAI in the NY Metro area or visit the live stream  at 2PM, and don’t forget to comment and share!

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The Rise of Trump – Psychology and History with Dr. Leon Seltzer and Tom and Judy Turnipseed

by | Apr 1, 2016 | Blog

For this show we will explore the psychology, history, and political climate that has fueled the rise of the right-wing and its most prominent symbol of today, Donald J. Drumpf.

leon_seltzer_2

Dr. Leon Seltzer

Our first guest will be Dr. Leon Seltzer, a psychologist practicing in Del Mar, California. Dr. Seltzer is the author of Paradoxical Strategies in Psychotherapy, and is a frequent writer for Psychology Today, where he writes on subjects such as anger management and conflict resolution. He most recently published 3 parts of a 5-part series in Psychology Today called “Outrage and Outrageousness: The Secret to Drumpf’s Popularity.”

Following Dr. Seltzer, we will speak with attorney Tom Turnipseed, who served

Tom Turnipseed

Tom Turnipseed

as the executive director to conservative George Wallace’s 1968 campaign. Joining him will be his wife, Judy, who also worked in the Wallace campaign. The Turnipseed’s experienced dramatic political and personal changes since then. Mr. Turnipseed later served as Chairman of the Board of the Center for Democratic Renewal, worked as the co-council for Macedonia Baptist Church in Clarendon County, S.C. in their case against the Ku Klux Klan for burning their church in 1997, and has promoted additional progressive causes.

What leads people to promote and support racism, and what led some of them to change? What is the psychology behind Donald Drumpf and his most adamant supporters? What can we learn from the past to change the present? All this and more this Saturday at 2PM on WBAI 99.5FM.

Interview with Michael Shermer airing Jan 23 on 99.5FM

Interview with Michael Shermer airing Jan 23 on 99.5FM

by | Jan 18, 2016 | Blog

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Michael Shermer by Jeremy DangerFrom a 10-step “Baloney Detection” guide to investigations into alien abductions, 9/11 conspiracy theories,  creationism, therapeutic magnetism, and Bigfoot, Dr. Shermer’s new book, Skeptic, presents readers with the tools necessary to think critically about everything, from innocent but misguided assumptions, to baloney, bunkum, balderdash, and bullsh*t.

Buy the Book

Buy the Book

Dr. Michael Shermer is the founding publisher of Skeptic magazine, founder of the Skeptics Society, author of books including Why Darwin Matters, The Believing Brain, The Moral Arc, and the subject of our discussion, Skeptic: Viewing the World with a Rational Eye, released last week and published by Henry Holt. In addition to Dr. Shermer’s books and magazine, he is also a monthly columnist for Scientific American, a regular contributor to Time.com and a Presidential Fellow at Chapman University. For more on Dr. Shermer, visit his website.

Tune in Saturday, January 23rd at 2PM ET to 99.5FM in the NY Metro area, or listen to our LIVE STREAM

Saudi Arabian government to behead, crucify 21-year-old

by | Sep 30, 2015 | Blog

Credit: International Business Times

Ali Mohammed al-Nimr. Credit: International Business Times

Ali Mohammed al-Nimr was arrested by Saudi authorities at the age of 17 for participating in protests and allegedly committing firearms offenses. He was subsequently denied access to lawyers, tortured, forced to sign a confession, and despite lacking evidence of the weapons charges, the Saudi Specialized Criminal Court has sentenced him to death by crucifixion and beheading. Ali and his family’s final appeal has been dismissed. The same fate awaits Ali’s uncle, an outspoken critic of the Saudi Arabian government, Sheikh Nimr, was also arrested and tortured.

This is an all too common practice in Saudi Arabia. At least 90 people were executed (almost exclusively by public beheading) in Saudi Arabia in 2014.  Despite this, the United Nations recently chose Saudi Arabia to head a UN Human Rights Council panel under some suspect conditions.

Assuming American politicians are predominantly anti-crucifixion/beheading, their public silence is disheartening. In any other context, conducting business-as-usual with any entity that beheads people multiple times a week (with the occasional crucifixion thrown in for good measure) would be, to say the least, a public relations nightmare. Diplomacy is different.

King Salman with President Obama at the White House. Sept 4, 2015. Image from Business Insider

King Salman met with President Obama in the Oval Office on September 4th. The President cited the “long standing friendship” between our two countries, and explained that “His Majesty is interested, obviously, ultimately in making sure that his people, particularly young people, have prosperity and opportunity into the future.”

The president ended his remarks on a gracious note, stating “Your Majesty, welcome, and let me once again reaffirm not only our personal friendship but the deep and abiding friendship between our two peoples.”

Are we to take President Obama at his word, or was he blowing smoke? If the latter is true, it only provides further confirmation that our country is at the mercy of Big Oil. After all, it is difficult to imagine that President Obama would invite King Salman over his house for a drink and a few laughs, were he not the president of a nation heavily dependent on foreign oil. If the former is true, then we can say unequivocally that Barack Obama is indeed a “personal friend” of a man who supports and permits the beheading and crucifixion of his citizens.

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Created by Snapsr

I cannot save the young al-Nimr or his uncle, but I can only imagine how the family must feel about not only its government’s barbarism, but about our continued silence. In the meeting on the 4th in the Oval Office, King Salman said “we want to work together for world peace.” If President Obama is indeed a personal friend of the King, then he should tell the king it is time to that commitment seriously. If that does not convince him to halt their execution, perhaps he can send the King a Snap with the line “personal favor?”

My Guest for Saturday – Steven Pinker on Better Angels and Sense of Style

by | Sep 23, 2015 | Blog

Steven Pinker

Steven Pinker

This Saturday at 2PM, I will interview Steven Pinker live on WBAI 99.5FM. Listen Live

We will discuss his books, The Better Angels of Our Nature and The Sense of Style (scroll down for more).

Short bio from Prof. Pinker’s website.

Steven Pinker is an experimental psychologist and one of the world’s foremost writers on language, mind, and human nature. Currently Johnstone Family Professor of Psychology at Harvard University, Pinker has also taught at Stanford and MIT. His research on vision, language, and social relations has won prizes from the National Academy of Sciences, the Royal Institution of Great Britain, the Cognitive Neuroscience Society, and the American Psychological Association. He has also received eight honorary doctorates, several teaching awards at MIT and Harvard, and numerous prizes for his books The Language Instinct, How the Mind Works, The Blank Slate,and The Better Angels of Our Nature. He is Chair of the Usage Panel of the American Heritage Dictionary, and often writes for The New York Times, Time, and other publications. He has been named Humanist of the Year, Prospect magazine’s “The World’s Top 100 Public Intellectuals,”Foreign Policy’s “100 Global Thinkers,” and Time magazine’s “The 100 Most Influential People in the World Today.”

Better Angels of Our Nature

Better Angels of Our Nature

From Amazon – “A provocative history of violence—from the New York Times bestselling author of The Stuff of Thought and The Blank Slate

Believe it or not, today we may be living in the most peaceful moment in our species’ existence. In his gripping and controversial new work, New York Times bestselling author Steven Pinker shows that despite the ceaseless news about war, crime, and terrorism, violence has actually been in decline over long stretches of history. Exploding myths about humankind’s inherent violence and the curse of modernity, this ambitious book continues Pinker’s exploration of the essence of human nature, mixing psychology and history to provide a remarkable picture of an increasingly enlightened world.”

The Sense of Style

The Sense of Style

From Amazon – “‘Charming and erudite . . . The wit and insight and clarity he brings . . . is what makes this book such a gem.’ —Time.com

Why is so much writing so bad, and how can we make it better? Is the English language being corrupted by texting and social media? Do the kids today even care about good writing—and why should we care?

In this entertaining and eminently practical book, the cognitive scientist, dictionary consultant, and New York Times–bestselling author Steven Pinker rethinks the usage guide for the twenty-first century. Using examples of great and gruesome modern prose while avoiding the scolding tone and Spartan tastes of the classic manuals, he shows how the art of writing can be a form of pleasurable mastery and a fascinating intellectual topic in its own right. The Sense of Style is for writers of all kinds, and for readers who are interested in letters and literature and are curious about the ways in which the sciences of mind can illuminate how language works at its best.”

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