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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

25:15

Parents should be Gardeners and not Carpenters

Talk Cocktail ·

2016/08/26

For those of us that are parents, or grandparents, we are told over and over that parenting is the most important job we will ever have. The assumption is that if we buy Baby Einstein, enroll our kids in the best preschool, (sometimes costing as much as college) provide just the right mix of extracurricular activity and teachers and pour in the right measure of self esteem, we will turn out, as if from a factory, the perfect child. One ready to take on the challenges and leadership of their

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18:09

"Stoking the Star-Maker Machinery"

Talk Cocktail ·

2016/08/18

Hollywood has always served a dual role, as both a reflection of the times is operates in and a projector sending out its light showing the broader changes taking place in society. Just as the original Hollywood moguls, people like Warner and Selznick and Mayer, represented a generation that changed the “white shoe” world of business, people like the founders of CAA, men like Mike Ovitz and Ron Meyer, personified and were the apotheosis of the buttoned down world of Wall Street coming to

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19:39

An American Heiress in a Time Far More Violent Than...

Talk Cocktail ·

2016/08/10

There are many defining markers of particular eras in American history. One of them is notorious crimes. Think about it. Sacco and Vanzetti , the Lindbergh kidnapping, Jeff McDonald, Charles Manson, Ted Bundy, O.J. Simpson and the kidnapping of Patty Hearst. All are indelibly etched into the American psyche and each represents a set of fears and cultural markers. Today, when domestic terrorism is on all of our minds, the story of Patty Hearst, the Symbionese Liberation army and its rag tag

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25:53

Back to School

Talk Cocktail ·

2016/08/07

People used to joke that the one subject that everybody talked about was the weather. Today, it may very well be that the subject is education. Listen at school events, at the grocery store, at sporting events, everywhere there are parents and children, education is often topic one. Along with that conversation are lots of buzzwords, opinions, traditional talk and the desire for change. Dr. Thom Markham is at the cutting edge of that change. In the world of work, where people like

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20:47

Why Streisand Still Matters

Talk Cocktail ·

2016/08/06

Pick up any celebrity magazine in any grocery store line and the people gracing the cover were almost certainly unknown five years ago and most likely will be forgotten in another five years. Such is the transitory nature of celebrity culture today. Of course there are exceptions. Mostly these exceptions are celebrities that are famous not just for being famous, but because they have given the public something unique in terms of their art, their personality and the narrative of how they

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17:30

How the World is Getting Faster, Faster

Talk Cocktail ·

2016/08/04

We throw around words and ideas about technology, about disruption, about progress and the impact of technology in speeding up our lives. The fact is, it’s more than just technology. As we move to cities at increasing rates, as the workplace demands greater productivity, as global competition abounds, as we experience the globalization of acceleration, the pressures to speed up are everywhere. But how fast is fast? How fast exceeds our evolutionary and biological ability to cope? And what

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19:59

Why the nuclear codes still really matter

Talk Cocktail ·

2016/08/02

In this time of asymmetrical warfare, terrorism, and the war images that have been projected into our living rooms since Vietnam, it's easy for those not alive fifty years ago to forget, or even not even consider, the fear, the horror and the specter of nuclear annihilation. The President's recent trip to Hiroshima and the fear of Trump having nuclear codes are both reminders that the nuclear reality still lives among us. That reality is what motivated three unlikely activists in the summer

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33:16

From Kabul to the Oval Office

Talk Cocktail ·

2016/07/27

Daniel Patrick Moynihan is often quoted as saying that “you can have your own opinion, but not your own facts.” This is as true in looking at the world, as it is here at home. There are lots of opinions about the US role and US actions in the world, specifically the Middle East. However, facts come first. And part of those facts include an understanding of the people, the history and the nuance of the region. Our domestic politics has debates every day about who best understands the

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24:00

Can We Really See Russia From Any Window?

Talk Cocktail ·

2016/07/27

In October of 1939, Winston Churchill said of Russia that “I cannot forecast to you the actions of Russia. It is a riddle, wrapped in a mystery, inside an enigma; but perhaps there is a key. That key is Russian national interest." Today, almost 25 years after the collapse of the Soviet Union, we could say exactly the same thing about Russia. The Russia that Gorbachev ushered in as the Cold War ended is seemingly a far cry from the Russia today of Vladimir Putin. What happened? Did the

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21:26

Could Star Wars Help Us Solve The World's Problems?

Talk Cocktail ·

2016/07/25

It’s no surprise that the influence of western popular culture is everywhere, even in our affairs of state. Remember when Ronald Reagan spoke the phrase “evil empire?” It was just five years after the release of the original Star Wars. The Empire was on all of our minds and the comparisons were immediate. When was the last time your were pulled over and wished you could just wave your hand and call on the power of the the force? When George Lucas created Star Wars he was fully aware of

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21:04

The War at Home

Talk Cocktail ·

2016/07/20

Confucius may have said it first, but the oft quoted and repeated phrase, “wherever you go, there you are,” can certainly apply to families in the military. Even in a culture as mobile and connected as ours, the reality of constantly moving, long separations, anxiety, stress, and danger are all realities that are not easily offset by Skype or Facetime. We’ve seen and read a lot about military families. But what’s it like today in a mobile/global culture and with warfare, not cold but hot,

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26:38

Success and Luck

Talk Cocktail ·

2016/07/15

As a society, we’ve all been brought up to believe deeply in the idea of the self made man. The power of persistence and hard work. The Horatio Alger mythology of pulling oneself up by your own bootstraps. In modern political theology we hear about “makers” and “takers,” and Randian and libertarian ideas. We embrace that quote by Jefferson that, “the harder I work, the luckier I get.” What we leave out of the equation is the role of pure dumb luck. Being in the right place at the right

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27:28

Bobby Kennedy

Talk Cocktail ·

2016/07/14

For those of us that old enough, when we think back to JFK and Camelot, we think of a time of innocence, of renewal and of possibility. And then the 60’s happened. There has been a lot of talk lately about the 60’s. About the fissures it opened up, and about the fact that we are still trying to heal them. Sydney Schanberg, the great reporter who died last week, once told me in an interview that he thought Vietnam represented the end of consensus politics in America. Since then we have been

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29:05

How Digital Memory May Change What Makes Us Human

Talk Cocktail ·

2016/07/08

Back in 320 BC Socrates worried about how written language would impact our ability to remember. This was long, long before moveable type, the computer, the pda or any form of digital technology. Socrates worried that reliance on simply writing would erode memory. But also and maybe more importantly, that reading would mislead students to think that they had knowledge, when they only had data. Today, similar debates are going on with respect to the digital world. Leading a great deal of this

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25:12

Campaign 1776 - The War That We Almost Lost

Talk Cocktail ·

2016/07/03

On this day, upon which we celebrate the birth of the “American Experiment,” it’s important to remember that it was not preordained. In spite of today's overheated patriotic rhetoric, the revolution, the victory of the Continental Army, the success of Washington and the country that followed, could have easily gone another direction. There were many times when the revolution might have failed. (Given the state of our politics today, that may not have been such a bad idea) Just as important

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18:23

Love Wins

Talk Cocktail ·

2016/06/27

Oliver Brown, the lead plaintiff in Brown v. the Board of Education was a parent of a child denied access to a Topeka Kansas School. Clarence Gideon changed the way poor defendant are treated in court. Ernesto Miranda and Jane Roe both, in their own ways, were part of cases that expanded the rights of individual citizens. The latest name added to that pantheon is that of Jim Obergefell. He was the named plaintiff in the Obergefell vs. Hodges which , just one year ago, enshrined the civil right

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29:15

Who Started the War On Government?

Talk Cocktail ·

2016/06/23

In 1953 in his first Inaugural Address, Dwight Eisenhower talked about the positive impacts of government. Thirty years later Ronald Reagan castigated the role of government. Twelve years after that we heard this from Bill Clinton that “the era of big government is over.” So what happened? What happened to the partnership between business, the government and citizen that resulted in so much success and prosperity in the post war years? What happened to the progressive agenda once

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20:20

The Future is Inevitable

Talk Cocktail ·

2016/06/17

If there is one overriding meme today it’s about fear. Fear of change, fear of a shrinking world, fear of the impact of technology; in short fear of an unknown future. Regardless of that fear, the future is inevitable. It’s the place we are all going to be living. Even for those that are afraid to embrace it, they should at least understand it. Few see the future more clearly and are better able to explain it than WIRED founder Kevin Kelly. He lays out the agenda for future in The Inevitable:

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29:34

Before the Play, There Was the Book

Talk Cocktail ·

2016/06/15

Before Lin-Manuel Miranda, before the Play there was the book. Miranda has talked about how his inspiration was Ron Chernow's 2004 book about Hamilton. Here is my May 2004 conversation with Ron Chernow about HAMILTON.

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22:38

The Power of Grit

Talk Cocktail ·

2016/06/13

We are a nation that believes deeply in the Horatio Alger story of hard work and pulling oneself up by their bootstraps. In political terms this has translated into an ethos of individualism, which arguably has been corrosive to our body politic. In part, it grew in response to the culture of monarchy and inheritance that America was founded in opposition to. It is certainly far more egalitarian to believe that we are the masters of our fate. In economic terms, the Right has taken this to the

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1,369 results

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