Give And Take

My guest is Bob Holman. On December 3, 2019, Bowery Books simultaneously released two new books of poetry by Bob Holman—written 50 years apart. LIFE POEM and THE UNSPOKEN serve not only as bookends to a lifetime immersed in words, performance, and the avant garde, but they also show the evolution of an artist, an art form, and a downtown art scene that’s gone from Allen Ginsberg to Lou Reed to Eileen Myles to Mahogany L. Browne. He's also a New Yorker in the midst of the epicenter of the Corona pandemic. LIFE POEM is a recently rediscovered book-length poem Holman wrote at age 21, new to poetry and first in its thrall. Filled with “jounce and pounce,” as Gwendolyn Brooks says, it’s a hippy diary full of communes, Vietnam, romance, and a driving love for language that ended up lasting a lifetime. THE UNSPOKEN is a collection of recent works, written by Holman, A WIDOWER in his 70s, still devoted to poetry, but now with decades of experience, memories, and loss to inform it. There are poems of all sorts: person

My guest is Jonathan Haber. He's the author of Critical Thinking (https://www.amazon.com/Critical-Thinking-Press-Essential-Knowledge/dp/0262538288). Critical thinking is regularly cited as an essential twenty-first century skill, the key to success in school and work. Given our propensity to believe fake news, draw incorrect conclusions, and make decisions based on emotion rather than reason, it might even be said that critical thinking is vital to the survival of a democratic society. But what, exactly, is critical thinking? In this volume in the MIT Press Essential Knowledge series, Jonathan Haber explains how the concept of critical thinking emerged, how it has been defined, and how critical thinking skills can be taught and assessed. You can check out Jonathan's site, LogicCheck.net (https://www.logiccheck.net), where uses the news of the day to teach practical critical-thinking skills. You can read more about his work in critical-thinking education http://www.degreeoffreedom.org. Special Guest: Jonatha

My guest is Lee McIntyre. He's the author of The Scientific Attitude: Defending Science from Denial, Fraud, and Pseudoscience (https://www.amazon.com/Scientific-Attitude-Defending-Science-Pseudoscience/dp/0262039834). Attacks on science have become commonplace. Claims that climate change isn't settled science, that evolution is “only a theory,” and that scientists are conspiring to keep the truth about vaccines from the public are staples of some politicians' rhetorical repertoire. Defenders of science often point to its discoveries (penicillin! relativity!) without explaining exactly why scientific claims are superior. In this book, Lee McIntyre argues that what distinguishes science from its rivals is what he calls “the scientific attitude”―caring about evidence and being willing to change theories on the basis of new evidence. The history of science is littered with theories that were scientific but turned out to be wrong; the scientific attitude reveals why even a failed theory can help us to understand w

For decades, statisticians, social scientists, psychologists, and economists (among them Nobel Prize winners) have spent massive amounts of precious time thinking about whether streaks actually exist. After all, a substantial number of decisions that we make in our everyday lives are quietly rooted in this one question: If something happened before, will it happen again? Is there such a thing as being in the zone? Can someone have a “hot hand”? Or is it simply a case of seeing patterns in randomness? Or, if streaks are possible, where can they be found? In The Hot Hand (https://www.amazon.com/Hot-Hand-Mystery-Science-Streaks/dp/0062820729), Wall Street Journal reporter Ben Cohen offers an unfailingly entertaining and provocative investigation into these questions. He begins with how a $35,000 fine and a wild night in New York revived a debate about the existence of streaks that was several generations in the making. We learn how the ability to recognize and then bet against streaks turned a business school dr

My guest is Patrick Murrary. He was named the Monmouth University Polling Institute’s founding director in 2005. He is frequently called upon by the media to provide commentary on polling and the political world, including appearances on CNN, MSNBC, Fox News, PBS, and National Public Radio. During federal election years, Murray also serves as a national exit poll analyst for major networks. In the institute’s home state, Murray has appeared on numerous Power Lists of the most influential people in New Jersey politics.

My guest is Carol Ann Davis. Her new book The Nail in the Tree (https://www.amazon.com/Nail-Tree-Essays-Violence-Childhood/dp/1946482269) narrates her experience of raising two sons in Sandy Hook, Connecticut, on the day of and during the aftermath of the shooting there. Part memoir, part art-historical treatise, these meditations lead her to explore crucial subjects, including whether childhood can itself be both violent and generative, the possibility of the integration of trauma into daily life and artistic practice, and the role of the artist. Davis is the author of two previous poetry collections, Psalm (2007) and Atlas Hour (2011), both from Tupelo Press, and a professor of English at Fairfield University. Special Guest: Carol Ann Davis.

My guest is Tony Jones. He's the author of numerous books, including Did God Kill Jesus? (https://www.amazon.com/Did-God-Kill-Jesus-Searching/dp/006229797X) He also is the host of the Reverend Hunter podcast (https://reverendhunter.com/podcastepisodes) and the co-host of the Killer Serials podcast. (https://killerserials.podbean.com) Special Guest: Tony Jones.

My guest is Barbara Freese. Her newest book is Industrial-Strength Denial: Eight Stories of Corporations Defending the Indefensible, from the Slave Trade to Climate Change. (https://www.amazon.com/Industrial-Strength-Denial-Corporations-Defending-Indefensible/dp/0520296281) In it she argues that corporations faced with proof that they are hurting people or the planet have a long history of denying evidence, blaming victims, complaining of witch hunts, attacking their critics’ motives, and otherwise rationalizing their harmful activities. Denial campaigns have let corporations continue dangerous practices that cause widespread suffering, death, and environmental destruction. And, by undermining social trust in science and government, corporate denial has made it harder for our democracy to function. Special Guest: Barbara Freese.

My guest is Luke Conway. He is a professor of psychology at the University of Montana. He just wrote a piece summarizing his research on conservative and liberal experiences of the pandemic. You can find the piece here. (https://heterodoxacademy.org/social-science-liberals-conservatives-covid-19/) Special Guest: Luke Conway.

My guest is Jennifer Briney. She's the host of the wildly popular Congressional Dish podcast (https://congressionaldish.com) which offers granular and entertaining coverage of the U.S. Congress. Special Guest: Jennifer Briney.

My guest is Liel Leibovitz. He's a Senior Writer at Tablet Magazine and a co-host of the wildly popular podcast Unorthodox. His newest book is Stan Lee: A Life in Comics.

My guest is Lauren Sandler. Her newest book is This Is All I Got: A New Mother's Search for Home (https://www.amazon.com/This-All-Got-Mothers-Search-ebook/dp/B07TRXXF6N/ref=sr_1_1?dchild=1&keywords=Lauren+Sandler+this+is+all+I+got&qid=1588628322&sr=8-1). More than forty-five million Americans attempt to survive under the poverty line, day by day. Nearly 60,000 people sleep in New York City-run shelters every night—forty percent of them children. This Is All I Got makes this issue deeply personal, vividly depicting one woman's hope and despair and her steadfast determination to improve her situation, despite the myriad setbacks she encounters. Camila is a twenty-two-year-old new mother. She has no family to rely on, no partner, and no home. Despite her intelligence and determination, the odds are firmly stacked against her. Award-winning journalist Lauren Sandler tells the story of a year in Camila's life—from the birth of her son to his first birthday—as she navigates the labyrinth of poverty and homelessnes

My guest is Edward J. Watts. He holds the Alkiviadis Vassiliadis endowed Chair and is professor of history at the University of California, San Diego. The author and editor of several prize-winning books, including The Final Pagan Generation (https://www.amazon.com/Final-Generation-Transformation-Classical-Heritage-ebook/dp/B00Q6B7FXW/ref=pd_sbsd_14_3/146-5135130-5937969?_encoding=UTF8&pd_rd_i=B00Q6B7FXW&pd_rd_r=0fec29e1-a8b5-4cdd-a3be-2b36f300760e&pd_rd_w=3QCKb&pd_rd_wg=sUeEC&pf_rd_p=2c2d0d3b-b3c5-4110-93fa-2c1270309ac1&pf_rd_r=7R1CRVMDQYG3JJ3YM34C&psc=1&refRID=7R1CRVMDQYG3JJ3YM34C) and Mortal Republic (https://www.amazon.com/Mortal-Republic-Rome-Fell-Tyranny/dp/0465093817), he lives in Carlsbad, California. Special Guest: Edward J. Watts.

My guest is Noah Rothman. He is the Associate Editor of Commentary and the author of Unjust: Social Justice and the Unmaking of America. (https://www.amazon.com/Unjust-Social-Justice-Unmaking-America/dp/1621577929) Special Guest: Noah Rothman.

My guest is Katherine Stewart. Her newest book is The Power Worshippers: Inside the Dangerous Rise of Religious Nationalism. (https://www.amazon.com/Power-Worshippers-Dangerous-Religious-Nationalism/dp/1635573432) For too long, she argues, the Religious Right has masqueraded as a social movement preoccupied with a number of cultural issues, such as abortion and same-sex marriage. In her deeply reported investigation, Katherine Stewart reveals a disturbing truth: this is a political movement that seeks to gain power and to impose its vision on all of society. America’s religious nationalists aren’t just fighting a culture war, they are waging a political war on the norms and institutions of American democracy. Stewart pulls back the curtain on the inner workings and leading personalities of a movement that has turned religion into a tool for domination. She exposes a dense network of think tanks, advocacy groups, and pastoral organizations embedded in a rapidly expanding community of international alliances an

My guest is Isaac Ariail Reed. He's the author of Power in Modernity: Agency Relations and the Creative Destruction of the King’s Two Bodies. (https://www.amazon.com/Power-Modernity-Relations-Creative-Destruction/dp/022668945X/ref=sr_1_1?dchild=1&keywords=power+in+modernity+Isaac&qid=1587237920&sr=8-1) In it he proposes a bold new theory of power that describes overlapping networks of delegation and domination. Chains of power and their representation, linking together groups and individuals across time and space, create a vast network of intersecting alliances, subordinations, redistributions, and violent exclusions. Reed traces the common action of “sending someone else to do something for you” as it expands outward into the hierarchies that control territories, persons, artifacts, minds, and money. He mobilizes this theory to investigate the onset of modernity in the Atlantic world, with a focus on rebellion, revolution, and state formation in colonial North America, the early American Republic, the Englis

My guest is David French. He is a senior editor for The Dispatch and was formerly a senior writer for National Review. David is a New York Times bestselling author, and his next book, The Great American Divorce, will be published by St. Martin’s Press later this year. He is a graduate of Harvard Law School, the past president of the Foundation for Individual Rights in Education, and a former lecturer at Cornell Law School. He has served as a senior counsel for the American Center for Law and Justice and the Alliance Defending Freedom. David is a former major in the United States Army Reserve. In 2007, he deployed to Iraq, serving in Diyala Province as Squadron Judge Advocate for the 2nd Squadron, 3rd Armored Cavalry Regiment, where he was awarded the Bronze Star. He lives and works in Franklin, Tennessee, with his wife, Nancy, and his three children.

My guest is Daniel Cohen. Rabbi Cohen is the author of What Will They Say About You When You Are Gone? Creating a Life of Legacy. (https://www.amazon.com/What-Will-They-About-Youre/dp/0757319513)He is co-host of the nationally syndicated radio show, The Rabbi and the Reverend, with Reverend Greg Doll, writes for the Huffington Post Blog, and is a Bottom Line Inc. Expert. He serves as Senior Rabbi of Congregation Agudath Sholom, the largest modern orthodox synagogue in New England.

My guest is Thane Rosenbaum. His newest book is Saving Free Speech...from Itself (https://www.amazon.com/Saving-Speech-Itself-Thane-Rosenbaum/dp/1941493262). In an era of political correctness, race-baiting, terrorist incitement, the ‘Danish’ cartoons, the shouting down of speakers, and, of course, ‘fake news,’ liberals and conservatives are up in arms both about speech and its excesses, and what the First Amendment means. Speech has been weaponized. Everyone knows it, but no one seems to know how to make sense of the current confusion, and what to do about it. Thane Rosenbaum’s provocative and compelling book is what is needed to understand this important issue at the heart of our society and politics. Our nation’s founders did not envision speech as a license to trample on the rights of others. And the Supreme Court has decided cases where certain categories of speech are already prohibited without violating the Constitution. Laws banning hate speech are prevalent in other democratic, liberal societies,

My guest is Katherine Rowland. Tens of millions of American women are dissatisfied with their sex lives. In her provocative and meticulously researched new book, The Pleasure Gap: American Women and the Unfinished Sexual Revolution (https://www.amazon.com/Pleasure-Gap-American-Unfinished-Revolution/dp/1580058361/ref=sr_1_1?keywords=the+pleasure+gap&qid=1582049486&sr=8-1), Katherine Rowland, a public health researcher and journalist explores our culture's troubled relationship with women's sexuality and the many complex factors that have thrust us into an epidemic of low desire, guilt, and experiencing sex as a form of labor rather than an act of lust. Drawing on interviews with more than 120 women and dozens of sexual health professionals, Rowland considers how factors like education, bias in scientific research, social messaging, long-term monogamy, and sexual and gendered violence contribute to women's sexual malaise. She finds no silver bullet to close the pleasure gap, but her wide-ranging foray into wome