Talking Beats with Daniel Lelchuk

“Going out and listening is one of the most enjoyable things we do—and fruitful. By paying attention, we feed our imagination, we feed our creativity, we renew ourselves. We bust out of the algorithms and the fake news into the sensory reality of the living earth.” Biologist and writer David George Haksell joins the podcast, with his new book Sounds Wild and Broken: Sonic Marvels, Evolution's Creativity, and the Crisis of Sensory Extinction. For most of the history of the planet, the only sounds that were made came from the planet itself-- oceans, storms, rivers, rain. No animals made any sound-- until they did. What happened? What is the history of sound itself on planet earth? Fast forward to now...Haskell calls us humans "both great creators and great destroyers." What do we gain when we listen and take in the natural world? Are we losing this ability and habit? Haskell and Daniel discuss this and much more in an in-depth conversation.  Please consider supporting Talking Beats via a one-time or recurring donation. You will contribute to us presenting the highest quality interviews with the world's most compelling people. David Haskell is a writer and biologist. His latest book, Sounds Wild and Broken (Viking), is an Editor’s Choice at the New York Times and explores the story of sound on Earth. Starting with the origins of animal song and traversing the whole arc of Earth history, he illuminates and celebrates the emergence, diversification, and loss of the sounds of our world, including human music and language. Haskell holds degrees from the University of Oxford (BA) and from Cornell University (PhD). He is William R. Kenan Jr. Professor of Biology and Environmental Studies at the University of the South, where he served as Chair of Biology. He is a Fellow of the Linnean Society of London, a 2014-2015 Fellow of the John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Foundation, a Fellow of the American Council of Learned Societies, and an Elective Member of the American Ornithologists’ Union. His scientific research on animal ecology, evolution, and conservation has been sponsored by the National Science Foundation, the Environmental Protection Agency, the Fish and Wildlife Service, the World Wildlife Fund, among others. He has served on the boards and advisory committees of local and national land conservation groups. Haskell’s classes have received national attention for the innovative ways they combine action in the community with contemplative practice. In 2009, the Carnegie and CASE Foundations named him Professor of the Year for Tennessee, an award given to college professors who have achieved national distinction and whose work shows “extraordinary dedication to undergraduate teaching.” The Oxford American featured him in 2011 as one of the southern U.S.’s most creative teachers. His teaching has been profiled in USA Today, The Tennesseean, and other newspapers.

"In our society, you've done your job as a citizen if you've voted, done jury duty, and paid your taxes. But Athenian democracy was direct democracy, not representative democracy-- so every citizen had to hold a public office. A radically different societal make up." Historian of the ancient world Barry Strauss is here, along with his new book, The War that Made the Roman Empire: Antony, Cleopatra, and Octavian at Actium. In the wide-ranging conversation, Barry and Daniel cover many aspects of this pivotal yet little-known battle that was to define the future of the Roman Empire and consequently Western civilization. Besides the intricacies of the relationships between these larger than life figures and their ambitions, Barry connects leadership and its essential qualities to situations of today's world, so the characters of the Ancient World shine in a new relevance. Besides discussing this particular battle, Barry and Daniel also speak about the importance of teaching history in a university setting, and how crucial it is for students of the 21st century to face the tough lesson of the past-- whether pleasant or not.  Please consider supporting Talking Beats via a one-time or recurring donation. You will contribute to us presenting the highest quality interviews with the world's most compelling people. Barry Strauss is a classicist and a military and naval historian and consultant. He is Professor of History and Classics, Bryce and Edith M. Bowmar Professor in Humanistic Studies at Cornell University, the visiting Corliss Dean Page Fellow at the Hoover Institution, Series Editor of Princeton’s Turning Points in Ancient History, and an author of bestselling books. Professor Strauss has spent years researching and studying the leaders of the ancient world and has written and spoken widely of their mistakes and successes. He is also a widely acclaimed military and naval historian whose analyses of the strategies and campaigns of some of history’s great commanders reveal the successful rules of engagement that were true on the battlefield and resonate in today’s boardrooms and executive suites. He is a former Chair of Cornell's Department of History as well as a former Director of Cornell’s Judith Reppy Institute for Peace and Conflict Studies, where he studied modern engagements from Bosnia to Iraq and from Afghanistan to Europe. He also served as Distinguished Visiting Professor in the Department of Defense Analysis at the Naval Postgraduate School. He is an expert on military strategy. He is currently director as well as a founder of Cornell’s Program on Freedom and Free Societies, which investigates challenges to constitutional liberty at home and abroad. He holds fellowships from the National Endowment for the Humanities, the German Academic Exchange Service, the Korea Foundation, the MacDowell Colony, the American School of Classical Studies at Athens, the American Academy in Rome, among others and is the recipient of Cornell’s Clark (now Russell) Award for Excellence in Teaching. In recognition of his scholarship, he received the Lucio Colletti Journalism Prize for literature and he was named an Honorary Citizen of Salamis, Greece. He holds a Ph.D. from Yale and a B.A. from Cornell. Professor Strauss's books have been translated into nineteen languages. He is also the author of over 60 scholarly articles and reviews. Professor Strauss is a well-known television personality with appearances on The History Channel, The Discovery Channel, CNN, PBS, and Netflix. He is the host of the popular podcast, "ANTIQUITAS: Leaders and Legends of the Ancient World," which is accessible on most platforms.

"How do we make the case for and understand the necessity for intact forest ecosystems in a way that will resonate with people, and in a language that's accessible to the non scientist and the non specialist? People should be concerned about what's happening-- but also marvel at what still exists. We should marvel at what exists as the energy drink of action." Conservationist John W. Reid joins the podcast with new book in hand, co-written with the late Thomas E. Lovejoy. The book, called Ever Green: Saving Big Forests to Save the Planet, explores the role forests play in our climate. What are some of the issues conservationists face today? How do major naturalistic figures like John Muir figure into today's movements? John also takes the listener on a tour of some of the most hidden indigenous peoples in the Amazon, and their intense relationship to the trees. There are five so-called "mega forests" in the world, and all are at risk. What can humans stand to gain if we put nationalistic enterprises aside and work to cooperate on the preservation of our treasured woodlands? How can an urban dweller in 21st century America become more connected to nature? Please consider supporting Talking Beats via a one-time or recurring donation. You will contribute to us presenting the highest quality interviews with the world's most compelling people. John W. Reid is a conservationist and economist whose writing has appeared in the New York Times, Atlantic, and Scientific American. In 1998 he founded Conservation Strategy Fund, a group that delivers innovative training and analytical collaborations for activists, governments, and development agencies. The organization has worked with the governments of Brazil, Indonesia, Peru, Bolivia, Uganda, Mexico, California, and others; with the World Bank, USAID, the Inter-American Development Bank, and UN agencies; and with hundreds of environmental and Indigenous organizations in over 90 countries. This practical applied brand of “conservation economics” won CSF the 2012 MacArthur Award for Creative and Effective Institutions. Through it all, John got the greatest satisfaction teaching and mentoring emerging environmental leaders from around the world. It was also clear that economics, while strategically handy, was failing to appropriately value very big forests. It really could only see the value of their parts, often after disassembly. A new logic—or perhaps old wisdom—needed to guide the policies that would save our big places and planet in the process. Puzzling over these questions would eventually draw him into partnership with Tom Lovejoy, and to his current post with Nia Tero, an organization that supports Indigenous guardianship of vital ecosystems. John serves as Senior Economist and leads partnerships with several Indigenous peoples in the Brazil, Peru, and the US. Thomas E. Lovejoy was a pioneering biologist who led and championed forest conservation efforts for over 50 years. Tom’s first encounter with a large forest was when he arrived at Belem, Brazil, the port city of the Amazon, in June of 1965. The dreams he had of a PhD in East Africa were immediately and permanently eclipsed by the experience of being in the world’s largest tropical forest, which was the size of the contiguous 48 states. It was beyond a biologist’s wildest dreams, vast, brimming with biological diversity (a term yet to be coined) myriad indigenous peoples, and encompassing parts of eight countries. Part of Tom’s role in conservation has been generating new ideas. He was the first to use the term “biological diversity,” in 1980. That year he produced the first projection of global extinctions for the Global 2000 Report to President Carter.

"We are going to be facing food shortages because there's less pollination and more people. We need to be able to grow food, and insects are the only ones that can do what they do." Oliver Milman, environment reporter for Guardian US is here, sounding the alarm for what might surprise many: the demise of insect populations world wide. In many cases insect populations have plummeted by 50%, 75%, and even higher. Milman, who is here with his book The Insect Crisis: The Fall of the Tiny Empires That Run the World, dives into the torrent of recent evidence that suggests this kaleidoscopic group of creatures is suffering the greatest existential crisis in its remarkable 400-million-year history. What is causing the collapse of the insect world?  Why does this alarming decline pose such a threat to us? And what can be done to stem the loss of the miniature empires that hold aloft life as we know it? If you like what we do, please support the show. By making a one-time or recurring donation, you will contribute to us being able to present the highest quality interviews with the world's most compelling people. Oliver Milman is a British journalist and the environment correspondent at the Guardian. He lives in New York City.

"How do we create a better free speech culture? How do students learn things like the first amendment in school and in their peer groups? What if at sports events before we sing the National Anthem we recite the first amendment?" First amendment specialist Stuart Brotman joins the podcast, new book in hand. The book, called The First Amendment Lives On: Conversations Commemorating Hugh M. Hefner's Legacy of Enduring Free Speech and Free Press Values, is a series of interviews between Brotman and some of the leading free speech figures of the past half century. From Geoffrey R. Stone to Floyd Abrams to Nadine Strossen and others, Brotman paints a picture of some of the free speech pioneers of recent history. What is the state of free speech today? What is the difference between free speech in a legal sense and a culture of free speech? What are universities doing -- or not doing -- to protect that which we hold sacred? And what does the future hold, as we look to exercise the freedoms of the first amendment in new and robust ways? If you like what we do, please support the show. By making a one-time or recurring donation, you will contribute to us being able to present the highest quality substantive, long-form interviews with the world's most compelling people. Stuart N. Brotman is the inaugural Howard Distinguished Endowed Professor of Media Management and Law and Beaman Professor of Journalism and Electronic Media at the University of Tennessee, Knoxville. Brotman is an honorary adjunct professor at the Jindal Global Law School in India and an affiliated researcher at the Media Management Transformation Centre of the Jönköping International Business School in Sweden. He serves as an appointed arbitrator and mediator at the World Intellectual Property Organization in Geneva, Switzerland, and as a Fellow of the Salzburg Global Seminar, where he was a Visiting Scholar in its Academy on Media and Global Change. He also is an Eisenhower Fellow. He currently serves on the editorial boards of the Federal Communications Law Journal, Journal of Information Policy and the Journal of Media Law and Ethics, as a director of the Telecommunications Policy Research Institute, and on the Future of Privacy Forum Advisory Board. He is the first Distinguished Fellow at The Media Institute, where he also serves on its First Amendment Council. At Harvard Law School, he was the first person ever appointed to teach telecommunications law and policy and its first Visiting Professor of Law and Research Fellow in Entertainment and Media Law. He also served as a faculty member at Harvard Law School's Institute for Global Law and Policy and the Harvard Business School Executive Education Program. He served as the first concurrent fellow in digital media at Harvard and MIT, at the Berkman Klein Center for Internet and Society and the Program on Comparative Media Studies, respectively. He held a professorial-level faculty appointment in international telecommunications law and policy at Tufts University’s Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy. He also chaired both the International Communications Committee and the International Legal Education Committee of the American Bar Association’s Section of International Law and Practice.

"Ethics is everywhere. It's in the arts, it's in entrepreneurship, it's in family, and business. No matter what walk of life, no matter your passion, ethics is the great connector both for individuals and for the larger society." Ethics expert Susan Liautaud joins the podcast. She has written a book called The Little Book of Big Ethical Questions, in which she poses situations and questions to the reader that we all come into contact with in our daily lives. “Would you apply for a job you know your friend is applying for?” Or “Should voting be mandatory?” Or "what about police using facial recognition technology?" "What would I have done?" "Is there one correct answer?" And ultimately: "How can ethics help us navigate these situations to find the best outcome for ourselves and others?" In a wide ranging conversation that goes in many directions, Susan and Daniel talk broad themes-- ethics and social media, for example-- and also connect ethics, structure, harmony and dissonance to Ukraine, COVID preparedness, the world of music, and more.  If you like what we do, please support the show. By making a one-time or recurring donation, you will contribute to us being able to present the highest quality substantive, long-form interviews with the world's most compelling people. Dr. Susan Liautaud is Founder and Managing Director of Susan Liautaud & Associates Limited (SLAL), a consultancy in ethics matters internationally. She brings broad global experience with ethics and governance to business, non-profit, governmental and academic organizations and leaders. Susan is the Author of The Power of Ethics and of The Little Book of Big Ethical Questions. She also teaches cutting edge ethics courses at Stanford University and was a Visiting Scholar at the Stanford Center of Philanthropy and Civil Society from 2012 to 2015. She also founded a non-profit, independent, cross-sector laboratory and collaborative platform for innovative ethics called The Ethics Incubator. She serves as Chair of Council of the London School of Economics and Political Science (LSE) and as Vice Chair of the Global Partnership for Education (GPE). Susan has been appointed to the UK Cabinet Office’s Advisory Committee on Business Appointments (ACoBA), to the Stanford HAI (Stanford Institute for Human- Centered Artificial Intelligence) and to SAP’s AI Ethics Advisory Panel. She also serves on a number of other boards and advisory boards, including: the French Ambassador’s Foreign Trade Advisory Council in the UK; member of the board of directors of the Pasteur Institute, and the American Hospital of Paris Board of Governors. She formerly served as Chair and member of the Doctors Without Borders/Médecins Sans Frontières US Advisory Board, to the Advisory Council to the UK Centre for Data Ethics and Innovation board, and as member of Care International Supervisory Board. Susan holds a PhD in Social Policy from the London School of Economics and Political Science; a Juris Doctor from Columbia University Law School; a M.A. in Chinese Studies from University of London School of Oriental and African Studies; a M.A. and two B.A.s from Stanford University. She speaks fluent French and Spanish, as well as advanced intermediate Chinese and intermediate Italian.

“We have a privileged position. It has always been grand in the thinking that we humans are unique and special. We must look back to see how connected we are. That we are part of a continuum.” Two neuroscientists -- Ogi Ogas and Sai Gaddam -- have teamed up to provide a history of the brain and thinking beings on this earth. What was the planet like three billion years ago? How did oxygen and breathing develop simultaneously and make the planet hospitable? What is a sense of "self" that humans have that others lack? Where did language come from? Using all these fundamental questions as jumping off points, Daniel and his guests take a dive into the origins of thinking beings. The conversation also traces the development of the brain, from the simplest, tiny forms, through worms, fish, birds, dolphins, monkeys, humans, and...? As we look back and place our species on a continuum, where do we, where can we go from here? If you like what we do, please support the show. By making a one-time or recurring donation, you will contribute to us being able to present the highest quality substantive, long-form interviews with the world's most compelling people. Ogi Ogas, PhD, was a Department of Homeland Security Fellow at the Department of Cognitive and Neural Systems at Boston University and a research fellow at the Harvard Graduate School of Education. He coauthored Dark Horse, The End of Average, and Shrinks, which was longlisted for the PEN/E. O. Wilson Literary Science Writing Award. Sai Gaddam PhD, was a postdoctoral fellow in the Center for Adaptive System at Boston University. He coauthored A Billion Wicked Thoughts. He lives in Mumbai.

“There’s this kind of visceral dimension to art that is at the core of art. Understanding the why and how is very important too, but we all want to keep in touch with that immediate pow—that thing that art does for us.” Art critic Jed Perl is here, to talk defense of the arts and why now more than ever the arts need defending. Radical, liberal, conservative, reactionary—through decades and centuries people try to push the arts into one of these boxes to fit certain social or political agendas. But Perl argues that the arts inhabit their own sphere and operate with their own set of rules. As he says, figuring out the politics of Mozart or Jane Austen would be a fool's errand. But in a time of increased pressures, identity politics, and certain "box checking," can art have the freedom it needs to thrive and grow in modern day America? If you like what we do, please support the show. By making a one-time or recurring donation, you will contribute to us being able to present the highest quality substantive, long-form interviews with the world's most compelling people. JED PERL is the author of the two-volume biography of Alexander Calder. For twenty years, he was the art critic of The New Republic. His previous books include Magicians & Charlatans, Antoine’s Alphabet, and New Art City. He lives in New York City.

“Food can help with world peace. Food can bring two groups of people together who cannot see eye to eye on anything. If you just get them to the dinner table—the armor comes off.” Celebrity Chef Ming Tsai joins the podcast, talking charity, giving back, the meaning of food and community, the power of music, and the role of food across cultures. What has this beloved chef been doing for the past two years? What has he learned throughout the COVID-19 pandemic about food and the role he can play? From food trucks to gourmet restaurants, food gives us a special sense of community and belonging. Chef Tsai and Daniel, in this wide-reaching discussion, touch on some of the most important aspects of this most essential aspect of happy and healthy living, for both mind and body. If you like what we do, please support the show. By making a one-time or recurring donation, you will contribute to us being able to present the highest quality substantive, long-form interviews with the world's most compelling people. Ming's passion for food was forged in his early years working in his family's restaurant, and although he earned a degree in mechanical engineering from Yale, he never strayed far from the kitchen. After spending a summer studying at Le Cordon Bleu cooking school in Paris, he went on to train under such greats as renowned pastry chef Pierre Hermé and sushi master Kobayashi, and receive a master's degree in hotel administration and hospitality marketing from Cornell. Bringing his dream to reality in 1998, Ming and his wife Polly opened the doors to the highly acclaimed Blue Ginger, a bistro-style restaurant dedicated to East-West cuisine in the Boston suburb of Wellesley, Massachusetts. Ming began cooking for television audiences on the Food Network, where he was the 1998 Emmy-winning host of East Meets West, Cooking with Ming Tsai and Ming's Quest. In addition to television, Ming is also the author of three cookbooks, including Blue Ginger: East Meets West Cooking with Ming Tsai (now in its 8th edition and selected by Food and Wine magazine as one of 1999's 25 best cookbooks), Simply Ming, and Ming's Master Recipes. Thanks to a partnership with Target stores, home cooks have the chance to experiment and create their own versions of Ming's East-West fare, with Ming's Blue Ginger line of quality cookware and delicious Asian-inspired ingredients and snack foods. Ming was also honored by Esquire Magazine as "Chef of the Year 1998," and The James Beard Foundation crowned him as the "2002 Best Chef in the Northeast."

"Lincoln's prescription was unconditional surrender followed by a magnanimous peace. He combined strength with mercy, and understood if you don't win the peace, you don't really win the war." John Avlon joins the podcast, new book in hand, called Lincoln and the Fight for Peace. What is required for real leadership? Lincoln possessed a unique blend of strength, mercy, and magnanimity. What happened between the end of the Civil War and Lincoln's death? What did Lincoln do and plan that was so crucial to find a lasting peace? Who was the man and what was his character? As we look towards history as our guide in a polarized and divided modern day America, what can Abraham Lincoln teach us today? While we all may wish for a modern day Lincoln, we know there isn't. So can we use his spirit and his wisdom to guide us to better times? If you like what we do, please support the show. By making a one-time or recurring donation, you will contribute to us being able to present the highest quality substantive, long-form interviews with the world's most compelling people. John Avlon is senior political analyst and fill-in anchor at CNN, appearing on New Day every morning. Previously, he was the editor-in-chief and managing director of The Daily Beast between 2013 and 2018, during which time the site's traffic more than doubled to over one million readers a day while winning 17 journalism awards. He is the author of the books Independent Nation: How Centrists Can Change American Politics, Wingnuts: How the Lunatic Fringe is Hijacking America, and Washington's Farewell: The Founding Father's Warning to Future Generations as well as co-editor of the acclaimed Deadline Artists anthologies of America's greatest newspaper columns.  In his twenties, Avlon served as chief speechwriter to New York City Mayor Rudy Giuliani. After the attacks of September 11th, 2001, he and his team were responsible for writing the eulogies for all firefighters and police officers murdered in the destruction of the World Trade Center. Avlon's essay on the attacks, "The Resilient City" concluded the anthology Empire City: New York through the Centuries and won acclaim as "the single best essay written in the wake of 9/11." He's appeared on the Late Show with Stephen Colbert, Real Time with Bill Maher and The Daily Show. He won the National Society of Newspaper Columnists award for best online columnist 2012.  He lives with his wife Margaret Hoover, host of Firing Line on PBS and a CNN contributor, and their two children in New York.

"The truth is a very complicated concept, perhaps now more than ever. I would hesitate to say there is such a thing as absolute truth in most issues that arise." News personality Stephen Sackur joins the podcast. The host of HARDtalk from the BBC, he is no stranger to geopolitics, news cycles, and the rapidly changing way information is disseminated. What is a reporter’s job? How does one arrive at “the truth?” Does truth even exist, especially when one person’s fact is another’s fiction? What does the rise of authoritarian strongmen around the world mean for Western democracies, for the institutions that 30 years ago seemed the de facto best solution? This and much more is covered in thoughtful and intense discussion. If you like what we do, please support the show. By making a one-time or recurring donation, you will contribute to us being able to present the highest quality substantive, long-form interviews with the world's most compelling people. Stephen Sackur, the presenter of HARDtalk, BBC World News' flagship current affairs interview programme, has been a journalist with BBC News since 1986. Broadcasting across BBC World News, BBC News Channel and BBC World Service, Stephen has interviewed many high-profile guests. In November 2010, Stephen was awarded the "International TV Personality of the Year Award" by the Association of International Broadcasters. Before taking over HARDtalk, Stephen was based in Brussels for three years as the BBC's Europe Correspondent. He travelled across Europe to cover major stories around the continent, including Europe's worst terror attack of recent times in Madrid in 2004, and the expansion of the European Union from 15 countries to 25. Prior to this, Stephen was the BBC's Washington Correspondent from July 1997. With a keen interest in politics, he has interviewed President George W. Bush, covered the 2000 US Presidential Elections, the Clinton scandal and impeachment trial, and the ways and means of lawmaking, including campaign finance reform. He also made a documentary for the BBC's current affairs programme Panorama on the topic of guns and weapon manufacturer lawsuits in the US. Stephen has also been the BBC Middle East Correspondent in both Cairo (from 1992 to 1995) and Jerusalem (from 1995 to 1997), covering the peace process, the assassination of the Israeli Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin and the emergence of the Palestinian Authority under the late Yasser Arafat. To prepare a documentary on Islamic fundamentalism, he lived with Hezbollah guerrillas in south Lebanon for two weeks. In 1990, Stephen was appointed as a BBC Foreign Correspondent. He was part of the BBC's team of correspondents covering the Gulf War, spending eight weeks with the British Army when the conflict began. He was the first correspondent to break the story of the mass killing on the Basra road out of Kuwait City, marking the end of the war. He travelled back to Iraq just after the downfall of Saddam Hussein and filed the first television reports on Iraq's mass graves which contained the bodies of thousands of victims of Saddam’s regime. In Eastern Europe, as witness to Communism's last days, Stephen offered a unique perspective on the rocky road to democracy and stability for this area. Serving as correspondent for BBC national radio, he reported on Czechoslovakia's Velvet Revolution and Germany's reunification. He has contributed countless articles to The Observer, The London Review of Books, New Statesman, The Guardian and The Daily Telegraph. Born in Lincolnshire, England, Stephen was educated at both Cambridge and Harvard University.

"There's a growing realization that great power competition is back. That Russia and China are much more serious competitors than we thought they were." Expert on American intelligence Amy Zegart joins the show, along with her new book Spies, Lies, and Algorithms: The History and Future of American Intelligence. A look at the past, present, and future of the American intelligence world, the book pushes readers to think more deeply about the institutions charged with keeping our country safe. As Amy and Daniel discuss, America cannot function properly if the citizens do not trust the major institutions of the country-- and that includes our massive intelligence apparatus. With forays into spy novels, music, figures such as Edward Snowden and Julian Assange, and the deep polarizing tenor of today's conversation, the conversation goes in surprising and sometimes shocking direction.  If you like what we do, please support the show. By making a one-time or recurring donation, you will contribute to us being able to present the highest quality substantive, long-form interviews with the world's most compelling people. Amy Zegart is the Morris Arnold and Nona Jean Cox Senior Fellow at the Hoover Institution and Professor of Political Science (by courtesy) at Stanford University. She is also a Senior Fellow at Stanford’s Freeman Spogli Institute for International Studies, Chair of Stanford’s Artificial Intelligence and International Security Steering Committee, and a contributing writer at The Atlantic. She specializes in U.S. intelligence, emerging technologies and national security, grand strategy, and global political risk management. Zegart has been featured by the National Journal as one of the ten most influential experts in intelligence reform. Most recently, she served as a commissioner on the 2020 CSIS Technology and Intelligence Task Force (co-chaired by Avril Haines and Stephanie O’Sullivan) and has advised the National Security Commission on Artificial Intelligence. She served on the Clinton administration’s National Security Council staff and as a foreign policy adviser to the Bush 2000 presidential campaign. She has also testified before the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence and advised senior officials on intelligence, homeland security, and cybersecurity matters. The author of five books, Zegart’s award-winning research includes the leading academic study of intelligence failures before 9/11 — Spying Blind: The CIA, the FBI, and the Origins of 9/11 (Princeton 2007). She co-edited with Herbert LinBytes, Bombs, and Spies: The Strategic Dimensions of Offensive Cyber Operations (Brookings 2019). She and Condoleezza Rice co-authored Political Risk: How Businesses and Organizations Can Anticipate Global Insecurity (Twelve 2018) based on their popular Stanford MBA course. Zegart’s forthcoming book is Spies, Lies, and Algorithms: The History and Future of American Intelligence(Princeton 2022). Her research has also been published in International Securityand other academic journals as well as Foreign Affairs, the New York Times, Washington Post, and Wall Street Journal. A native of Louisville, Kentucky, Zegart received an A.B. in East Asian studies magna cum laude from Harvard University and an M.A. and Ph.D. in political science from Stanford University. She serves on the board of directors of Kratos Defense & Security Solutions (KTOS) and the Capital Group.

"We should stop thinking of food as nutritional instructions-- thou shalt eat this-- and think of eating as an opportunity to enjoy food. Because that's what we were meant to do." Food writer Mark Schatzker is here, armed with his new book The End of Craving: Recovering the Lost Wisdom of Eating Well. Far from a book about diets and what we should and shouldn't eat, Mark blends science, history, and travel in a way to make us feel more connected to the true flavor of the foods that taste best and happen to be excellent sources of nutrition. Why does Italy have an obesity rate around 8% while in the US the rate is 42%? How do our brains process taste, pleasure, dopamine, craving, and urges? Why do diets fail? And what are the amazing links between music and food? Daniel and Mark dive into this and much more in this wide-ranging conversation.  If you like what we do, please support the show. By making a one-time or recurring donation, you will contribute to us being able to present the highest quality substantive, long-form interviews with the world's most compelling people. Mark Schatzker is an award-winning writer based in Toronto. He is a writer-in-residence at the Modern Diet and Physiology Research Center at Yale University, and a frequent contributor to The Globe and Mail (Toronto), Condé Nast Traveler, and Bloomberg Pursuits. He is the author of The Dorito Effect: The Surprising New Truth about Food and Flavor and Steak: One Man’s Search for the World’s Tastiest Piece of Beef.

“In the list of things in danger, it’s truth above all that worries me the most.” Legendary political philosopher Michael Walzer joins the podcast. Democracy is on his mind, now more than ever. In the course of a long lifetime observing the American political scene, he has never seen our system so close to the edge. Where do America’s liberal ideals stand? How are we doing at delivering on the promise of America? The conversation goes in many directions, from the political successes and failures of Barack Obama to the intractable situation of the current US congress, from the cult of personality of Donald Trump to the anti-intellectual cancel culture and "speech commissars" rampant across American elite universities-- and wider society.  If you like what we do, please support the show. By making a one-time or recurring donation, you will contribute to us being able to present the highest quality substantive, long-form interviews with the world's most compelling people. One of America’s foremost political thinkers, Michael Walzer has written about a wide variety of topics in political theory and moral philosophy, including political obligation, just and unjust war, nationalism and ethnicity, economic justice, and the welfare state. He has played a critical role in the revival of a practical, issue-focused ethics and in the development of a pluralist approach to political and moral life. Walzer’s books include Just and Unjust Wars (1977), Spheres of Justice(1983), On Toleration (1997), Arguing About War (2004), and The Paradox of Liberation (2015); he served as co-editor of the political journal Dissent for more than three decades, retiring in 2014. Currently, he is working on issues having to do with international justice and the connection of religion and politics, and also on a collaborative project focused on the history of Jewish political thought. His book, The Paradox of Liberation: Secular Revolutions and Religious Counterrevolutions, was published in March of 2015, and his new book, A Foreign Policy for the Left, was published in 2018.

“The single reason why the Democrats have lost rural America is because rural America doesn’t think the Democrats respect them, appreciate them, or know them.” Former United States Senator Heidi Heitkamp, Democrat of North Dakota, returns to the podcast. Since ending her career in the Senate, Heitkamp has focused on connecting to rural America and figuring out what Democrats can do to make gains in these crucial swathes of the country. With midterm elections looming, how does this veteran of the Democrats see her party’s odds of survival come November 2022? What are the Democrats doing— or not doing— particularly in rural America to ensure a viable path to the next elections? If you like what we do, please support the show. By making a one-time or recurring donation, you will contribute to us being able to present the highest quality substantive, long-form interviews with the world's most compelling people. Heidi Heitkamp served as the first female U.S. senator elected from North Dakota from 2013-2019. Senator Heitkamp grew up in a large family in the small town of Mantador, ND. Throughout her time in public service, Senator Heitkamp has stood up for tribal communities and worked to improve outcomes for Native American children, women, and families. The first bill she introduced in the Senate, which became law in 2016, created a Commission on Native Children. Her bill with former Senator John McCain became law to create Amber Alerts in Indian Country. She introduced Savanna’s Act to help address the crisis of missing and murdered indigenous women. On the Senate Committee on Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs, Senator Heitkamp pushed to provide training and resources for first responders and worked to combat human trafficking in North Dakota, across the country, and around the world. Senator Heitkamp has a long record with energy development in North Dakota. She continued those efforts in the Senate, working to responsibly harness North Dakota’s energy resources, and successfully pushed to lift the 40-year old ban on exporting U.S. crude oil while expanding support for renewable energies, like wind and solar energy development. Senator Heitkamp sat on the Senate Committee on Agriculture, Nutrition, and Forestry, where she helped write, negotiate, and pass two long-term, comprehensive Farm Bills which Congress passed. Senator Heitkamp previously served as North Dakota’s Attorney General where she helped broker an agreement between 46 states and the tobacco industry, which forced the tobacco industry to tell the truth about smoking and health. It was one of the largest civil settlements in U.S. history. Prior to her time as Attorney General, Senator Heitkamp served as North Dakota’s Tax Commissioner. Senator Heitkamp received a B.A. from the University of North Dakota and a law degree from Lewis and Clark Law School. She currently serves as a contributor to CNBC and resides in Mandan, North Dakota with her husband.

“I relate to the idea that music can be a kind of a home, but also the restlessness…the idea that you might want to leave home, the idea that you might want to try and chose something different from what your life, your parents have chosen for you." Kelefa Sanneh, staff writer at The New Yorker, joins the podcast. Music, now more than ever, is in. Pop, country, rock, R&B, Hip Hop… Americans are listening to more, and a wider range of music, than ever before. In his recent book Major Labels: A History of Popular Music in Seven Genres, Sanneh delves into the history of popular music in America, genre by genre. He attacks some of the questions we all wonder about. How can divisiveness in culture shape the character and tone of music? How does music help us both self-identify and escape our surroundings at the same time? How does the history of race in America play in to our music? Can we partially credit racial struggles with the production of such an extraordinarily varied uniquely American musical songbook? Sanneh takes us on a guided tour through the past fifty years of American popular music, from Bob Dylan to Lil Nas X. If you like what we do, please support the show. By making a one-time or recurring donation, you will contribute to us being able to present the highest quality substantive, long-form interviews with the world's most compelling people. Kelefa Sanneh has been a New Yorker staff writer since 2008, before which he spent six years as a pop-music critic at The New York Times. He is also a contributor to CBS Sunday Morning. Previously, he was the deputy editor of Transition, a journal of race and culture based at the W. E. B. Du Bois Research Institute at Harvard University. His writing has also appeared in a number of magazines and a handful of books, including Shake It Up: Great American Writing on Rock and Pop from Elvis to Jay Z, a Library of America Special Publication, and Da Capo Best Music Writing (2002, 2005, 2007, and 2011). He lives in New York City with his family.

"In poetry there's so much flexibility to see how things come together to form one poem in the end." Poet and writer Ananda Lima is here, discussing her new poetry compilation Mother/Land. With words and phrases in her native language Portuguese mixed in with the English text, it’s a unique work from a linguistic point of view. In the poems, many themes of immigration, violence, and motherhood are discussed — but what are this artist’s views of her adopted home country, America? Lima has many varied views of the country that gave her illustrious degrees and publications. What isn’t sitting right? What is the promise and allure of America— and is it not resonating with some people who come here seeking to better their lives? If you like what we do, please support the show. By making a one-time or recurring donation, you will contribute to us being able to present the highest quality substantive, long-form interviews with the world's most compelling people. Ananda Lima is the author of Mother/land (Black Lawrence Press, 2021), winner of the Hudson Prize, shortlisted for the Chicago Review of Books Chriby Awards. She is also the author of four chapbooks: Vigil (Get Fresh Books, 2021), Tropicália(Newfound, 2021, winner of the Newfound Prose Prize), Amblyopia (Bull City Press, 2020), and Translation (Paper Nautilus, 2019, winner of the Vella Chapbook Prize). Her work has appeared in The American Poetry Review, Poets.org, Kenyon Review Online, Gulf Coast, Colorado Review, Poet Lore, Poetry Northwest, Pleiades, and elsewhere. She has served as the poetry judge for the AWP Kurt Brown Prize, as staff at the Sewanee Writers Conference, and as a mentor at the New York Foundation for the Arts (NYFA) Immigrant Artist Program. She has been awarded the inaugural Work-In-Progress Fellowship by Latinx-in-Publishing, sponsored by Macmillan Publishers, for her fiction manuscript-in-progress. She has an MA in Linguistics from UCLA and an MFA in Creative Writing in Fiction from Rutgers University, Newark.

"As I scientist I ask-- where's the data on COVID vaccines? How many women, how many men, how many shots? Which arm? Did it cause their diabetes to get better? Did it affect their time off of work? What kind of reaction? We need to know this." Renowned physician and executive Dr. James Weinstein is here, talking public health, policy, wasteful spending, and transparency— or lack of— in our medical system. Life can throw us medical curveballs, sometimes one after another. How is a patient, regardless of having healthcare or not, supposed to know what is best for him or her? Jim Weinstein’s model, conceived at Dartmouth-Hitchcock Medical Center, is one he calls “informed choice.” Can doctors and patients work together to find a way to better decision-making? Where is the basic data on responses to mRNA vaccines that the public can access and look through? Why is public messaging often so muddled? With a deeply personal story interwoven with family tragedy and a wealth of expertise in the corporate and academic medical worlds, this is a unique perspective on the complex inner workings of the system most close to us all— our health. If you like what we do, please support the show. By making a one-time or recurring donation, you will contribute to us being able to present the highest quality substantive, long-form interviews with the world's most compelling people. Dr. James N. Weinstein joined Microsoft in July 2018 as Senior Vice President, Microsoft Healthcare, leading strategy, and innovation. During the pandemic, he has worked with Operation Warp speed and various organizations around the world, including, WHO, CDC as well as state and local government efforts to bring the Microsoft vaccine platform for enrolling, disseminating, and tracking vaccine participants. He serves as executive sponsor for some the largest health delivery systems in the world, including, NHS, HCA, CVS, MGB (the Harvard system), John’s Hopkins, Centene, Kaiser and many others. Dr. James N. Weinstein is the immediate past Chief Executive Officer and President of Dartmouth-Hitchcock Health. The $2.5 billion system includes New Hampshire's only academic medical center and a network of affiliated hospitals and clinics across Vermont and New Hampshire, serving a patient population of about 2 million. Under his leadership, Dartmouth-Hitchcock worked to create a “sustainable health system” for the patients and communities it serves, for generations to come. As leader of a bi-state health system, he created an operating model based in population health locally and nationally. The 7 hospital system ranked in the top 1% for quality. He created a joint venture with Harvard Pilgrim to create a new health plan for Northern New England. He worked with Congress during three prior administrations, and helped lead the ACO, population-based strategies and led national efforts in Patient Reported Outcome Measures (PROM’s) and Health Equity. In the past few years, he’s helped lead the formation of the Advanced Regenerative Manufacturing Institute (ARMI), funded initially by an $80 million grant from the Department of Defense and more than $300 million in private sector funding. ARMI uses 3D technology to print human organs, a development that could transform the world of organ transplantation and the lives of millions affected by diseases such as kidney disease and diabetes. He is a member of the Board of Directors of ARMI/BioFab.

“We all have our biases and work through them. As journalists we strive for impartiality— that is the mandate.” Veteran CNN journalist Antoine Sanfuentes is here, offering his take on the state of the American media apparatus, the twenty-four hour news cycle, truth-seeking, and much more. With a degree in anthropology and a passion for music and photography, he brings a unique vantage point to that all-important anchor of liberal democracy: a free press. In a time as starkly and viciously divided as ours, where does this stalwart of the so-called "mainstream media” see his business fitting in? Does objective truth exist-- and do Americans even care one way or another? If you like what we do, please support the show. By making a one-time or recurring donation, you will contribute to us being able to present the highest quality substantive, long-form interviews with the world's most compelling people. Antoine Sanfuentes is the Vice President and Managing Editor for CNN's Washington Bureau, where he oversees the White House and Capitol Hill beats. Sanfuentes joined the network in 2014 by way of NBC News, with over 20 years of experience. During his 24 years at NBC News, Sanfuentes served as the Senior Vice President and managing Editor, Vice President and Washington bureau chief, deputy bureau chief, Senior white house producer and was part of Ann Curry's team that won an Emmy Award for compelling reports on the refugee crisis in Darfur in 2007. In his various roles for NBC News he led the editorial and content direction of NBC News nationwide and oversaw the "Meet the Press" production team. Sanfuentes has earned various awards for his news coverage including the highly coveted Murrow award in 1999, the News and Documentary Emmy Award for Outstanding Live Coverage of a Breaking News Story, Gracie Allen Award, as well as a Headliner Award in 2009. He graduated from American University with a Bachelor of Science (BS), in anthropology and resides in Bethesda, Maryland with his wife and two daughters.

"We're living in a time of shrinking borders and a rise of ethnonationalism. Literature is a privileged means of accessing other parts of the world and other peoples." World literature expert David Damrosch is here, armed with his new book Around the World in 80 Books. With the lofty goal of bringing the reader on an entire world tour through 80 literary works, Damrosch creates many hurdles through which he must jump. First off, how does one go about compiling such a list? How does one judge quality of works from far away places and times? How can great literature even exist in a world of cancellations and trigger warnings? This and much more is explored in the wide-ranging conversation.  Support Talking Beats.  David Damrosch is Ernest Bernbaum Professor of Literature and Chair of the Department of Comparative Literature at Harvard University. He is a past president of the American Comparative Literature Association, and is the founder of the Institute for World Literature (www.iwl.fas.harvard.edu). He was trained at Yale and then taught at Columbia from 1980 until he moved to Harvard in 2009. He has written widely on issues in comparative and world literature, and is the author of The Narrative Covenant: Transformations of Genre in the Growth of Biblical Literature (1987), We Scholars: Changing the Culture of the University (1995), Meetings of the Mind (2000), What Is World Literature? (2003), The Buried Book: The Loss and Rediscovery of the Great Epic of Gilgamesh (2007), How to Read World Literature (2009, 2017), Comparing the Literatures: Literary Studies in a Global Age (2020), and Around the World in 80 Books (2021). He is the founding general editor of the six-volume Longman Anthology of World Literature (2004, 2009) and of The Longman Anthology of British Literature (4th ed. 2009), and editor of Teaching World Literature (2009) and of World Literature in Theory (2014). Co-edited works include The Routledge Companion to World Literature (2d ed. 2022), Approaches to Teaching the Works of Orhan Pamuk (2017), Futures of Comparative Literature: ACLA State of the Discipline Report (2017), Crime Fiction as World Literature (2016), and The Princeton Sourcebook in Comparative Literature (2009). His translation of Georges Ngal's Giambatista Viko, ou le viol du discours africain is forthcoming from the Modern Language Association in 2022. He has lectured in some fifty countries around the world, and his work has been translated into an eclectic variety of languages, including Arabic, Chinese, German, Hungarian, Japanese, Polish, Spanish, Turkish, and Vietnamese.