Videos

Were politics chess, liberals had white; they moved first. Conservatives had black; they countered liberalism’s opening moves. In time, the initiative changed hands. Conservatives, who began as anti-moderns, came to master modernity, for the right was in telling ways the stronger contestant. So write Edmund Fawcett in his exemplary intellectual…

So what’s exceptional about America? According to the writer, film producer and scholar Jonathan Taplin, American exceptionalism lies its uniquely global cultural influence. For Taplin - the tour manager for Bob Dylan & producer of Martin Scorcese’s masterpiece Mean Streets - this reflects what he calls America’s right-brain power which…

Much of the critical writing about authoritarianism warns that contemporary populism threatens democracy. But as Stephen Hanson and Jeffrey Kopstein argue in their interesting new book, The Assault on the State (https://www.wiley.com/en-us/The+Assault+on+the+State%3A+How+the+Global+Attack+on+Modern+Government+Endangers+Our+Future-p-9781509563166) , this global attack on legalistic government by wannabe dictators like Putin, Erdogan and Modi endangers not just…

In the 1970’s, J. Doyne Farmer built the first wearable computer which he used to predict the game of roulette. While this didn’t make him particularly popular in casinos, it did mark the beginning of a glittering scientific career in complexity and systems theory, as well as in theoretical physics…

According to the historian Matthew Warshauer, (https://themindfulprofessor.org/) there was no giant conspiracy on 9/11. The real story about September 11, 2001, he argues in his provocative new book Creating and Failing the 9/11 Generation (https://www.routledge.com/Creating-and-Failing-the-911-Generation-The-Real-Story-of-September-11/Warshauer/p/book/9781032503875?srsltid=AfmBOooYfT0shvpw-VZE0CLil3eN0wKf0CdtL_TxQcwTde6AHeAsFS3m) , is its impact on Gen Z who he believes should be renamed the 9/11…

Earlier this year, the prolific American political journalist Sasha Issenberg (https://keenon.substack.com/p/episode-1999-sasha-issenberg-offers) came on the show to offer a playbook for winning elections in our disinformation age. And, on a recent trip to Los Angeles, I sat down with Issenberg in his Venice home to talk more broadly about the American…

Many are called, but few are chosen. In her late twenties, Deesha Dyer (https://www.deeshadyer.com/) was still in community college. By the age of 31, however, she had become Michelle Obama’s social secretary in the White House. So how did this self-styled undiplomatic (https://www.hachettebookgroup.com/titles/deesha-dyer/undiplomatic/9781668640197/) young woman become a member of the…

What’s it like to discover a Klansman in one’s own family? A few weeks ago, R. Derek Black (https://podcasts.apple.com/fi/podcast/episode-2057-r-derek-black-on-his-life-as-the-son/id1448694012?i=1000654941044) , the son of a KKK Grand Wizard and an intimate family friend of David Duke, came on the show to confess the exceptional nature of his own family history. But…

We’ve been on a food & farming run this week. First, we talked with America’s “lunatic farmer,” Joel Salatin (https://keenon.substack.com/p/episode-2139-joel-salatin-explains) , about how regenerative agriculture can regenerate the United States. And we followed that up with the food blogger and writer Nicola Twilley (https://keenon.substack.com/p/episode-2041-nicola-twilley-on-how) who explained about how refrigeration has…

While Kamala Harris has announced that she wants to become the first Silicon Valley President, Donald Trump is speaking today at Bitcoin2024 in Nashville in a self-serving attempt to make Bitcoin Great Again. So where should Silicon Valley be putting its (ample) money in 2024? According to That Was The…

A couple of days ago, America’s most controversial regenerative farmer, Joel Salatin, came on the show (https://keenon.substack.com/p/episode-2139-joel-salatin-explains) to explain how industrialized farming is killing our soil, our bodies and our souls. Today, the Los Angeles based food writer and podcaster Nicola Twilley (https://www.nicolatwilley.com/bio/) offers a more nuanced account of the…

Yesterday, we were in rural Virginia interviewing (https://keenon.substack.com/p/episode-2139-joel-salatin-explains) the pioneering regenerative farmer, Joel Salatin. Today, we are on an equally innovative farm in Houston, Texas, in conversation with Kimberley Meyer, author of Accidental Sisters. (https://www.ucpress.edu/book/9780520384675/accidental-sisters) It’s called Shamba Ya Amani (https://www.famhoustontx.org/shamba-ya-amani) (Farm of Peace) and, as Meyer explains in her…

As one of America’s most outspoken pioneers of regenerative agriculture, Joel Salatin is popularly known as The Lunatic Farmer (https://www.thelunaticfarmer.com/) . Others have accused him of being a bio-terrorist, Typhoid Mary, a charlatan, and starvation advocate. Less of a lunatic and more of an agricultural visionary, however, Salatin has transformed…

A hundred episodes ago (https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/episode-2033-batya-ungar-sargon-on-how-american-elites/id1448694012?i=1000652520207) , we had the author of Second Class, Batya Ungar-Sargon (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Batya_Ungar-Sargon) , on the show to talk specifically about how America’s elites have betrayed the country’s working men and women. So when I bumped into her at the recent Braver Angels convention in Wisconsin, we…