x

75% of people globally want unbiased news (Pew Research) but are concerned they're not getting that.

Get balanced coverage with Symby. See how stories are covered across diverse outlets and spot when one side covers a story the other skips.

PODCAST

Talk Cocktail

Jeff Schechtman

Jeff Schechtman talks with authors, journalists, newsmakers and opinion shapers, and sheds light on the issues of the day, from local stories to national and international headlines and ideas. jeffschechtman.substack.com

news & politics

All Episodes

20:17

Cities Represent the Ultimate Achievement of Mankind

Talk Cocktail ·

2019/06/17

Today, more than one-half of the world's population lives in cities. In every corner of the world, people are moving to cities at a rapid and geometric pace. The urban migration taking place today is both historic and inevitable. Our cities represent the ultimate triumph and organizing principle of humanity. They are more than either the concrete jungle portrayed by Billy Wilder in the Lost Weekend, or the human zoo, that Desmond Morris claimed. The great San Francisco columnist, Herb Caen, one said

en

23:02

Professor Ed Hess talks about Saving Capitalism

Talk Cocktail ·

2019/06/05

Never before in human history has so much change been so rapidly foisted on human beings. Not during the Renaissance, the Enlightenment or the Industrial Revolution. Today, technology in all of its forms; from smart machines to robotics, from AI to VR to 3D manufacturing, to genetic and biomedical engineering, will make sure we are never the same It's estimated by some that almost eighty million jobs could be gone in our lifetime. Certainly, the psychological and political consequences of this

en

29:15

Imagine If We All Could Have Esther Wojcicki As A Parent

Talk Cocktail ·

2019/05/28

The evidence is overwhelming that in our schools today, the successful curriculums are those that are directed toward deeper learning, project-based learning, and social and emotional learning. Learners that feel empowered and hands-on, that collaborate and learn empathy are the ones who excel academically. So why shouldn't the same be true of parenting? The recent cheating scandal certainly shows the other extreme. What happens amidst helicopter parenting run amuck, of parents not having faith in

en

25:11

We Are Not Descended From Fearful Men: David Maraniss...

Talk Cocktail ·

2019/05/23

Mark Twain is reported to have said that history does not really repeat itself, but it often rhymes. Today we live in a climate, not unlike the late ’40s and early ’50s, where fear is weaponized, and where suspicion of the other is exploited as a salve for change. Yet there always seem to be brave men and women trying to rise above. As Ed Murrow said in his takedown of Senator Joe McCarthy,” we were not descended from fearful men. They were not men who feared to write or to speak,” who, again in

en

19:42

A Multi-Cultural Society, An Elite Senate, Good and...

Talk Cocktail ·

2019/05/21

Today as we sometimes contemplate the real possibility of the end of the American experience. We think about its roughly 250-year history, often in the context of the people that have led us, good and bad, and taken us to where we are today. So perhaps it might be instructive to look at the 500 years history of the Roman Empire, and look at some of its leaders. Some who drove it to great heights and others who were responsible for taking it over the proverbial cliff. Barry Strauss, professor of

en

22:55

Fear, Loathing and Immigration: The Battle Was Once...

Talk Cocktail ·

2019/05/17

Immigration and the fear of outsiders is a deep strain in the American psyche. It didn’t start with Donald Trump. In fact, it hasn’t even reached its full flowering under this administration. When Trump talked of murderers and rapists coming to the border, of other nations not sending us their best, he was merely echoing a historical context that has actually played out in far worse ways in our history From the Chinese Exclusion Act through the highly restrictive immigration acts passed in the early

en

25:39

Democracies Are Not Forever...Is The US Headed Down...

Talk Cocktail ·

2019/05/09

Every day, no matter what the issue — whether it’s election integrity, rule of law, climate change, guns, impeachment, or the Mueller report — what’s at stake is not just daily political wins and losses, but the very survival of the republic. As was the case at its founding, during the Civil War, and at a select few times in US history, Americans would be making a huge mistake if they took the survival of the nation for granted. History tells us that the Roman Republic had a very good 400-year run,

en

23:11

Outright Lies Are Posing As Today's Conspiracy Theories

Talk Cocktail ·

2019/05/07

Long before the Internet, in the early days of talk radio, the all-night hosts were the progenitors of modern-day conspiracy theory. Hosts spent hours talking about crop circles, animal mutilation, Area 51, the Kennedy assassination and all manner of events and evidence that could be used to construct a hidden narrative. The idea was that strange things were happening, that evidence in plain sight could be interpreted in ways that evolved to different conclusions. The narrative was always about the

en

26:05

The Klan and White Supremacy...Then and Now

Talk Cocktail ·

2019/05/02

Even though it may not seem like it, domestic terrorism, particularly built around white supremacy, is nothing new. Given that racism is our nation's original sin, it should not be surprising that in the post Civil War period, the historical efforts to deal with the Ku Klux Klan are both instructive in their own right, but at the same time foreshadows the thru lines that lead us to where we are today. This is the story that the Washington Post’s Charles Lane shares in his book Freedom's Detective:

en

27:05

We'll Be OK If We Can Make It to 2040

Talk Cocktail ·

2019/05/02

America has often been a divided nation. Battles at our founding were often settled at 50 paces.The western ethos that is part of half of America fueled many of those divisions. Brother fought against brother in the civil war. The industrial revolution gave us riots, and death and violence. The cold war and fear of communism gave rise to whole careers and lives ruined just by accusation. The ’60s didn’t just produce great music but led to the death of students on the safety of a college campus. But,

en

31:17

If Democracy Requires Critical Thinking, Are We Doomed?

Talk Cocktail ·

2019/04/29

Ukraine just elected a comedian as its president. A reality TV character holds the most powerful office on the planet. Talk show hosts are driving the agenda of US policy and not a day goes by that we don’t hear talk about more celebrities running for office The membrane that separates news, governance, and entertainment has all but disappeared and efforts to raise any conversation above the noise drives our celebrity culture. The debate about this goes to the core of our democratic system. The

en

24:52

According to the World Health Organization, Superbugs...

Talk Cocktail ·

2019/04/22

Sometimes the personal is professional. It’s not all that common when ones work and one's survival is linked so inexorably together. They are in the story Tom Patterson and Steffanie Strathdee. Imagine, you're climbing a mountain, you slip and your spouse is the clinging to the rope above you and that’s the only thing keeping you alive. In the story of Tom and Steffanie, it was Steffanie clinging to science, history and medical bravery that Tom would have to hang on to. They tell their remarkable

en

15:07

The Remembered Past vs. The Real Past

Talk Cocktail ·

2019/04/17

Old songs, like old memories, are the purveyors of a kind of double imagery. Triggers of thought that somehow short circuit time and make yesterday's events today's reality. So when we write or read about the past, particularly in novels or memoirs, what we are reading, or writing, is not necessarily factual, but represents our remembered past..almost a separate world unto itself. Award winning novelist Siri Hustvedt looks at this in her latest novel, Memories of the Future My conversation with Siri

en

19:00

Why Coders Matter and Why They Control Our Future

Talk Cocktail ·

2019/04/10

Think of the millions of hours we spend thinking and talking about technology. About the future, what it all means, and how it impacts us. But before any this happens, before robots or AI, or even making a phone call, someone had to sit down at a screen and create the code to make it possible. A process that is not just about abstraction, but about both art and craft. Like Chomsky said of language itself, “it etches a groove through which thought flows.” It’s been said that when we study human

en

18:56

Who We Connect With Impacts Who We Become, and Who We...

Talk Cocktail ·

2019/03/31

Several years ago, the tech company Cisco ran an ad campaign talking about the “human network.” It tried to humanize their networking products as more than just wires and routers but focused on the human beings at the other end of those wires, and the collective experience of connection. Social connections that have been with us since man first stepped out of the cave and talked to his neighbor. All of that was before today’s social networks that have been like steroids to the idea of

en

24:18

The Brave New World of Immunotherapy

Talk Cocktail ·

2019/03/31

It’s hard to believe today, but leaching was once considered a legitimate and effective medical practice. Years from now, we may look back upon chemotherapy and radiation treatment for cancer in much the same way we now look upon leaching. In labs today, all across the world, new forms of treatment for cancer and many other diseases under the general heading of immunotherapy are being discovered. The magic of the body’s own immune system is being brought to the task. However, there is no one size

en

32:42

Should We Negotiate With Hostage Takers?

Talk Cocktail ·

2019/03/28

In a world that is increasingly more authoritarian, in a political atmosphere that is more and more polarized and tribal everywhere, the threat of global hostage-taking has increased exponentially. As the murder of Jamal Khashoggi illustrates, this threat has particularly increased for journalists, many of whom are on the front lines of reporting on repression and brutality. A record 262 journalists were jailed around the world at the end of 2018. All of this raises the far larger question, one that

en

17:39

Brave, Not Perfect

Talk Cocktail ·

2019/03/25

A couple of years ago, Senator Elizabeth Warren made headlines with the phrase “nevertheless she persisted.” Sheryl Sandberg told women they had to “lean in.” These approaches, while certainly valuable for dealing with the symptoms of the problems that many girls and women face, ignores the core of why these actions might, in fact, be necessary. Men, for the most part, don't have to make the effort to persist or to lean in, because they are socialized from the beginning to do that. To be fearless,

en

18:53

How Our Lives Are Being Run By Algorithms: From the...

Talk Cocktail ·

2019/03/21

When Hal asked Astronaut David Bowman to “open the pod bay doors,” it was as if our most primal fear of machines came rushing headlong into the 20th century. Today, in our 21st-century world, we understand the artificial intelligence behind HAL. We see on display every day our reliance on automation and AI and algorithms in flying our planes and soon our self-driving cars. It’s the full blossoming of the promised brave new world. But is there anything we should or could do about it? Is it out of our

en

33:13

Facebook and Zuckerberg Not Only Screwed Up...

Talk Cocktail ·

2019/03/12

When we talk about the broad swath of technology and its progenitors in Silicon Valley rarely are we talking about great breakthroughs. A new app for dating or dog walking, the one-hundredth messaging app or new forms of enterprise collaboration are hardly the stuff of Steve Jobs, or Bill Gates or Mitch Kapor or Robert Noyce or Bill Hewlett. But every once in a while there is a new new thing that really matters. Like the PC or the smartphone or Microsoft Word and Excell. For years, many thought

en

1,369 results

Similar Podcasts

Journal Monde

RFI

Chương trình 60"

RFI Tiếng Việt

NHKラジオニュース

NHK (Japan Broadcasting Corporation)

برامج

مونت كارلو الدولية / MCD

Boletines RNE

RNE