Episodes

Wednesday Jun 26, 2024
Peter Goodman on what happened to the Supply Chain in 2020
Wednesday Jun 26, 2024
Wednesday Jun 26, 2024
In HOW THE WORLD RAN OUT OF EVERYTHING: Inside the Global Supply Chain (Mariner Books; on sale June 11), Peter S. Goodman, award-winning journalist and global economics correspondent at the New York Times, reveals the fascinating inner workings of our unstable worldwide supply chain and the factors that have led to its fragility. While the pandemic put a spotlight on the supply chain's state of distress, it merely laid bare the vulnerabilities that had building up over decades, underscoring the troubling reality that the system was always at risk of collapse-and still is.
Among the issues the book examines:
. How China rose to become the center of global manufacturing, and the key elements that shaped the era of China-centric globalization-the advent of container shipping and the embrace of "Just in Time" manufacturing (disdaining extra inventory as a threat to the bottom line)
. How the supply chain depends on myriad forms of labor exploitation and has been constructed by and for the benefit of shareholders, at the expense of reliability and the welfare of workers
. How the industries at the center of the supply chain-from shipping and rail to meat processing- liberated themselves from rules imposed to limit their dominance, and how these monopolists have engineered scarcity to boost their prices while profiting off calamity
. How a critical reconfiguration of the supply chain may be underway, with China's central dominance in manufacturing giving way to an emphasis on regional supply networks to safeguard society through greater resilience
Pulling back the curtain on how the supply chain truly operates, Goodman highlights the triumphs and struggles of the human players behind this intricate system-from factories in Asia to an almond grower in Northern California, from a group of striking railroad workers in Texas to a truck driver whom Goodman accompanies across hundreds of miles of the Great Plains. Diving deep into the heart of the supply chain, exposing the ruthless business logic and complex networks that underpin our daily lives,
HOW THE WORLD RAN OUT OF EVERYTHING issues an urgent wake-up call to reshape the way we obtain the essential goods on which we rely. As Goodman warns, we can't predict when the next shock to the system will arrive, but we can be certain it is coming.
Peter S. Goodman is the global economics correspondent at the New York Times. He was previously the Times's European economics correspondent, based in London, and the national economics correspondent, based in New York, where he played a leading role in the paper's award-winning coverage of the Great Recession, including a series that was a Pulitzer Prize finalist. Previously, he covered the Internet bubble and bust as the Washington Post's telecommunications reporter and served as the Post's China-based Asian economics correspondent. He is the author of Davos Man: How the Billionaires Devoured the World and Past Due: The End of Easy Money and the Renewal of the American Economy. He graduated from Reed College and completed a master's in Vietnamese history from the University of California, Berkeley.
KEY FACTS FROM HOW THE WORLD RAN OUT OF EVERYTHING
1. Between 2009 and 2018, the largest American companies distributed more than 90 percent of their profits to shareholders via dividends and buybacks of shares. This was a major reason why their inventories were minimal heading into the pandemic-a key factor in the shortages of many products.
2. By the middle of 2021, roughly 13 percent of the world's container shipping fleet was stuck in floating traffic jams off major ports around the globe, waiting for a chance to load and unload. More than $1 trillion worth of product was caught in this congestion.
3. Chinese factories made more than 80 percent of face masks sold in the United States before the pandemic, and more than 90 percent of many basic antibiotics.
4. During the worst of the pandemic, patients were unable to secure life-saving medical devices because manufacturers could not purchase enough computer chips. Chipmakers prioritized sales to their most important customers-Apple, Google, Samsung and other producers of electronic gadgets.
5. By May 2021, the cost of moving a container of goods across the Pacific from the factories of China to retailers in the United States had reached $25,000, a more than ten-fold increase compared to before the pandemic.
6. By the spring of 2022, California almond farmers were stuck with 1.1 billion pounds of nuts left from the previous year's harvest because cargo ships were refusing to pick up agricultural exports at American ports. They preferred to haul empty containers back to China to cash in on astronomical prices for moving factory goods.
7. American railroads have become so devoted to satisfying Wall Street's craving for statistical markers that they routinely attach loaded freight cars to the wrong trains-yielding delays and product shortages-rather than leaving them in yards and increasing so-called "dwell time."
8. At the same time that American meatpackers were citing the threat of food shortages in persuading the Trump administration to keep slaughterhouses open during the pandemic-resulting in the deaths of hundreds of workers-the industry was sitting on huge surpluses of frozen pork while increasing exports to China.
9. By 2020, four companies controlled 85 percent of the American slaughterhouse capacity for beef-a monopolistic grip greater than during the era of the Robber Barons.
10. By the spring of 2022, more than half of the increase in American prices for goods was the result of fatter profits for corporations, while only 8 percent of the increases stemmed from higher pay for workers.

Thursday Jun 27, 2024
Elesha Coffman on the Turning Points in Amercan Church History
Thursday Jun 27, 2024
Thursday Jun 27, 2024
“Turning Points in American Church History: How Pivotal Events Shaped a Nation and a Faith” by Elesha J. Coffman (Baker Academic, a division of Baker Publishing Group)
This is a fascinating look at how 13 different events changed the course of world and American history, particularly as it affected the church in America. You might be surprised at some of the author’s choices until you read the explanations!
1.The Spanish Armada is defeated in 1588. (This kept England a Protestant nation, setting the stage for the later Puritans and Pilgrims.)
2.Roger Williams is banished from Massachusetts colony in 1635 (this ultimately resulted in “a wall of separation between church and state”, giving American religious expression “a continuous lively vitality”.)
3. The King Phillip’s War of 1675-76 (this regional conflict between Indigenous People and American settlers in southern New England could have been an opportunity for humility, but instead it was an archetype for the manner in which White settlers and Native Americans interacted ever since.)
4. George Whitfield and the First Great Awakening, 1740 (the first superstar preacher of the American colonies, George Whitfield was a powerful Methodist speaker who traveled across the colonies, exciting revival and “democratizing impulses” that set the spiritual stage for the American Revolution)
5. The First African-American Church is founded at Silver Bluff, SC in 1773 (the collaboration between White and Black church leaders; Brother George Liele, their first Black pastor; and how the Revolutionary War affected Black Americans.)
6. The election of John Carroll as the first Roman Catholic Bishop in the USA, 1789 (as Catholics found their growing place in a primarily Protestant nation)
7. The American Bible Society is founded in 1816 (as a result of the Second Great Awakening, we needed more Bibles, but it also became a battle between the Catholic translation and the Protestant KJV.)
8. The Methodist Church splits over slavery, 1844 (and most of the rest of the Protestant churches followed suit over the same serious issue. Its echoes continued in Civil War, Reconstruction and Jim Crow)
9. Student Volunteer Movement Is Launched in 1886 (missionaries from college students to international posts)
10. the Azusa Street Revival catalyzes Pentecostalism, 1906 (A new, more inclusive racially and gender-wise branch of the Christian faith is born and spreads across the world. )
11. The Scopes “Monkey” Trial, 1925 (atheists seek to undermine the church with science, and propaganda wins the day)
12. The 16th Street Baptist Church Bombing, Birmingham, AL 1963 (galvanized white and black Christians who were on the fence over civil rights. There would be no turning back. )
13. With the Election of President Ronald Reagan, Religion moves Right, 1980 (Christians with conservative/orthodox positions became more outspoken, but failures became more injurious to the Body of Christ)

Tuesday Jul 09, 2024
Nat Segaloff looks at Hollywood Sensors & Movies 1934-1968
Tuesday Jul 09, 2024
Tuesday Jul 09, 2024
Given today's cancel culture, here's a look at how Hollywood, of all places, was America's first "woke" system. We look at more than 50 classic films such as Gone with the Wind, Casablanca, East of Eden, The Ten Commandments, Convention City, and Lawrence of Arabia through the eyes and blue pencils of the Production Code Administration, the industry's censors. What emerges is not a gaggle of prudes but a staff with deep knowledge and sensitivity despite their mission to cleanse. Here is a time capsule of American mores and Hollywood's excesses over nearly four decades that led to today's letter rating system.
Between 1934 and 1968, no Hollywood studio could make a movie without the permission of and a seal of approval from the Production Code Administration. The Production Code was Hollywood's official censor. Screenplays, books, plays, costumes and even story ideas and songs had to be okayed by the Code before they could be filmed, and the Code monitored every stage of the production process to ensure compliance. The correspondence between the Code and the studios was confidential, and the memos within the Code office itself were even more so.
Well, not any more. The Naughty Bits pores through those files to show how the censors did their job. What was the world prevented from seeing in some of the greatest movies ever made, including Stagecoach, Some Like It Hot, Psycho, and His Girl Friday? Here is the sometimes funny, sometimes outrageous, always riveting history of movie censorship on a nitty-gritty level.
Nat Segaloff is a writer-producer-journalist. He covered the film industry as commerce (rather than as gossip) for The Boston Herald, but has also variously been a studio publicist (Fox, UA, Columbia), college teacher (Boston University, Boston College), and broadcaster (Group W, CBS, Storer, and independent stations).
He is the author of fourteen published books including Hurricane Billy: The Stormy Life and Films of William Friedkin, Arthur Penn: American Director, and Mr. Huston/Mr. North: Life, Death, and Making John Huston's Last Film in addition to writing career monographs on Stirling Silliphant, Walon Green, Paul Mazursky and John Milius. He later turned his Silliphant work into a full-length biography of the Oscar®-winning screenwriter, The Fingers of God. His writing has appeared in such varied periodicals as Film Comment, Written By, International Documentary, Animation Magazine, The Christian Science Monitor, The Boston Globe, Boston After Dark, Time Out (US), MacWorld, Documentary Magazine, and American Movie Classics Magazine.
Nat was senior reviewer for AudiobookCafe.com and contributing writer to Moving Pictures magazine. His The Everything® Etiquette Book, The Everything Trivia Book and The Everything® Tall Tales, Legends & Outrageous Lies Book are in multiple printings for Adams Media Corp.
As a TV writer-producer, Segaloff helped perfect the format and create episodes for A&E Network's flagship Biography series. His distinctive productions include episodes on John Belushi, Stan Lee, Larry King, Shari Lewis & Lamb Chop, and Darryl F. Zanuck. He wrote and co-produced the Rock 'n' Roll Moments music series for The Learning Channel/Malcolm Leo Productions, and has written and/or produced programming for New World, Disney, Turner Classic Movies, and USA Networks. He is co-creator/co-producer (with Gayle Kischenbaum) of Judgment Day with Grosso-Jacobson Communications Corp. for HBO.
His extraterrestrial endeavors include When Welles Collide, the cheeky sequel to the Orson Welles Invasion From Mars radio hoax that featured a Star Trek cast. Written with John deLancie, it was produced by L.A. Theatre Works and has become a Halloween tradition on National Public Radio. In 1996 he formed the multi-media production company Alien Voices® with actors Leonard Nimoy and John de Lancie and produced five best-selling, fully dramatized audio plays for Simon & Schuster: The Time Machine, Journey to the Center of the Earth, The Lost World, The Invisible Man and The First Men in the Moon, all of which featured Star Trek casts. Additionally, his teleplay for Alien Voices' The First Men in the Moon was the first-ever dramatic TV/Internet simulcast and was presented live by The Sci-Fi Channel. He has also written narrative concerts for the Los Angeles Philharmonic, written special material for celebrity award events, and is a script consultant. He contributes Hollywood-themed fiction to Nikki Finke's celebrated website, HollywoodDementia.com.
Nat is the co-author (with Daniel M. Kimmel and Arnie Reisman) of the play The Waldorf Conference, a comedy-drama about the secret meeting of studio moguls in 1947 that triggered the Hollywood Blacklist. Waldorf had its all-star world premiere at L.A. Theatre Works. and was acquired for production by Warner Bros. Nat produced a subsequent production to benefit the Hollywood ACLU and the Writers Guild Foundation and has also produced such other celebrity events as a public reading of censored books and a recreation of the classic anti-HUAC broadcast, Hollywood Fights Back. He was staff producer for The Africa Channel, wrote the stage comedy Closets (produced at the Gloucester Stage Company), and was co-writer on the long-running public radio word/game show Says You! after having run the gauntlet as a guest panelist.
Nat's 2017 biography of award-winning speculative fiction writer Harlan Ellison was nominated for Hugo and Locus awards and was updated with a second edition in 2020, both from NESFA Press. His first celebrity memoir, Screen Saver: Private Stories of Public Hollywood, was published in 2016 by Bear Manor Media and its sequel, Screen Saver Too: Hollywood Strikes Back, appeared the next year and pissed off a lot of people. He also personally recorded their audiobooks.
His additional books include an expanded second edition of Arthur Penn: American Director, Guarding Gable, Shari Lewis & Lamb Chop (with Mallory Lewis), More Fire! The Building of The Towering Inferno, The Town That Said No, The Exorcist Legacy: 50 Years of Fear, Say Hello to My Little Friend: A Century of Scarface, Breaking the Coder: Otto Preminger vs. Hollywood's Censors (with Arnie Reisman), and many other books and audiobooks.
He lives in Los Angeles waiting for his phone calls to be returned.

Friday Jul 19, 2024
Ed Glaser on how the world's moviemakers imitated Hollywood films!
Friday Jul 19, 2024
Friday Jul 19, 2024
For decades, filmmakers worldwide have been remaking Hollywood movies in colorful ways. They've chronicled a singing and dancing Hannibal Lecter in India, star-crossed lovers aboard the doomed Nigerian ship Titanic, a Japanese expedition to the planet of the apes, and an uncivil war in Turkey between Captain America and a mobbed-up Spider-Man. Most of these films were low budget and many were unauthorized, but all of them were fantastic-and lately have begun to resurface thanks to cherry-picked YouTube clips. But why and how were they made in the first place? This book tells the little-known stories of the wily filmmakers who made an Italian 007 flick by casting Sean Connery's tradesman brother, produced a Turkish space opera by stealing a print of Star Wars for its effects footage, and transported a full-fledged Terminator to the present day-not from a post-apocalyptic future, but from the vibrant mythology of Indonesia(!)
Their stories reveal more than mere imitations; they demonstrate the fascinating ways ideas evolve as they cross borders.
Ed Glaser is a six-time Telly Award-winning filmmaker and film historian based in Champaign, Illinois. In addition to writing about international remakes, he has restored and remastered Turkish adaptations of Rambo and Star Wars, as well as published the first English translation of Dracula in Istanbul (the 1928 pirated Bram Stoker rewrite that formed the basis of a 1953 Turkish film).

Tuesday Aug 06, 2024
Ivan Hernandez with a fictionalized biography of his dad
Tuesday Aug 06, 2024
Tuesday Aug 06, 2024
Based on a true story, Isla Vulnerable—a CIBA Hemingway Book Awards Finalist and Amazon Bestseller: Biography, Espionage, and Thriller—shares the journey of a poor farm boy named Victor Gomez who transforms into a US spy, while falling for the very public Sarita Rodriguez at the height of the Cuban revolution.
Victor wasn’t supposed to be anything more than a farmer. But when he is suddenly orphaned, one of Cuba's most esteemed judges adopts him at the pivotal moment in history when Fidel Castro is overthrowing President Batista and taking control of the island.
When Castro raids his adoptive family’s estate and arrests his father, Victor narrowly escapes by concealing his identity and fleeing to the US. Determined to rescue his family from political revenge, Victor accepts an unconventional, deadly deal with the CIA that exposes him to some of the most sensational moments in US history. In a whirlwind twist of events, he reunites with a childhood crush, Sarita Rodriguez, whose newfound fame as an actress in New York puts their opposite lives through unimaginable danger.
A product of 18 years of research and interviews, Isla Vulnerable reveals new insights through captivating character points of view during some of history's most fascinating moments. The book features eyewitness accounts of Cold War events and the Cuban missile crisis; the CIA’s covert operations in foreign affairs, including Operation Mongoose; never disclosed, private conversations surrounding JFK's assassination; and real life accounts that defined 1950’s “Cuba de ayer” and the “Golden exile”.
A cinematic piece first written as a screenplay, Isla Vulnerable delivers the edge-of-your-seat pacing of Jack Ryan with telenova-style high-stakes drama, perfect for fans of biographies, documentaries, spy mysteries, political thrillers, historical fiction, and romance novels.