Chatting Up A Storm - Claudia Cragg

@claudiacragg speaks with The Washington Post's David Ignatius @ignatiuspost about his new novel, The Paladin. He is a prize winning novelist who has been covering the Middle East and the CIA for nearly four decades.  The story is this: when a daring, high-tech CIA operation goes wrong and is disavowed, the protagonist Michael Dunne sets out for revenge. A CIA operations officer Dunne is tasked with infiltrating an Italian news organization that smells like a front for an enemy intelligence service. Headed by an American journalist, the self-styled bandits run a cyber operation unlike anything the CIA has seen before. Fast, slick, and indiscriminate, the group steals secrets from everywhere and anyone, and exploits them in ways the CIA can neither understand nor stop. Dunne knows it’s illegal to run a covert op on an American citizen or journalist, but he has never refused an assignment and his boss has assured his protection. Soon after Dunne infiltrates the organization, however, his cover disintegrates. Wh

Claudia Cragg @claudiacragg speaks with astrophysicist  @Mario_Livio about his new book, Galileo and the Science Deniers. This work aims for distinction in trying to place the original Renaissance man, Galileo, and his discoveries in modern scientific and social contexts. In particular, Livio argues, the charges of heresy that Galileo faced for his scientific claims in the seventeenth century have their counterparts in science deniers’ condemnations today.  Born in 1564 in Pisa, Italy, into an intellectual family of declining fortune, Galileo pursued medicine at the University of Pisa. But he soon abandoned his course to study mathematics, his enduring passion. The Universe, he famously wrote, “is written in the language of mathematics”. It was an argot that allowed him to break reliance on the Aristotelian cosmology prized by the Catholic Church, and to forge a new, quantitative study of nature. Many consider Galileo to have been the Stephen Hawking of his day – both famous and respected. Nonetheless, he was

A growing number of businesses and individuals worldwide have stopped using banknotes in fear that physical currency, handled by tens of thousands of people over its lifetime, could be a vector for  Public officials and health experts have said the risk of transferring the virus person-to-person through but they don't rule it out. While it is of course eminently sensible to avoid every possible source of Covid 19 contamination, the consequences of a cashless society inevitably hit hard the credit-poor, those who can least afford it. 'And the cashless society', says Brett Scott, is a euphemism for the "ask-your-banks-for-permission-to-pay society". Rather than an exchange occurring directly between the hotel and me, it takes the form of a "have your people talk to my people" affair. Various intermediaries message one another to arrange an exchange between our respective banks. That may be a convenient option, but in a cashless society it would no longer be an option at all. You'd have no choice but to conform

Claudia Cragg @claudiacragg speaks here with David Rohde @RohdeD who is two-time recipient of the Pulitzer Prize, an executive editor of The New Yorker website, an MSNBC contributor, and a former New York Times, Reuters, and Christian Science Monitor reporter.  He is the author of the just published ': The FBI, the CIA, and the Truth about America’s “Deep State”  Today, three-quarters of Americans polled believe that a group of unelected government and military officials are secretly manipulating national policy. Americans increasingly distrust the politicians, lobbyists and journalists who they believe unilaterally set the country’s political agenda. American democracy faces its biggest crisis of legitimacy in a half century. Based on dozens of interviews with CIA operatives, FBI agents, current and former White House officials and members of Congress, IN DEEP chronicles forty years of FBI and CIA scandals and exposes the erosion of the post-Watergate system of checks and balances designed to prevent preside

According to a new report from the CDC, the Center for Disease Control, African Americans are being “disproportionately affected by COVID-19.” The data showed that 33% of those hospitalized are black, a rate that outstripsrelative population size.   KGNU's Claudia Cragg, @claudiacragg speaks here with Daniel E. Dawes, a nationally recognized leader in healthcare law and policy, who has been an instrumental figure in shaping the Affordable Care Act, aka 'Obamacare' and who also founded and chaired the largest advocacy group focused on developing comprehensive legislation to reform the US health care system. This advocacy group of more than 300 national organizations and coalitions, the National Working Group on Health Disparities and Health Reform, worked to ensure passage of the landmark health reform law and to include provisions to improve healthcare quality and delivery.  

At least 10 percent of American workers have lost their jobs in the past three weeks amid the coronavirus pandemic and a record 6.6 million new claims for unemployment benefits were filed last week. Weekly new claims topped 6 million for the second straight time last week as tough measures to control the novel coronavirus outbreak abruptly ground the country to halt. The Labor Department said today that first-time claims for unemployment benefits in the week ending April 4 totaled 6.6 million, down slightly from an upwardly revised 6.87 million the week before. In total, at least 16.8 million Americans have now filed for unemployment aid in the past three weeks as the coronavirus spread throughout the country and businesses closed. In response the Administration has passed To discuss this act, and with suggestions on how best perhaps the federal government should move forward with truly effective efforts to help the most people in the quickest time, Claudia Cragg, @claudiacragg, speaks here with Ellen Brown.

Isabel Allende @isabelallende has been through a great deal in her life and that is why perhaps listening to her story now might be helpful to some? Believe it or not, the esteemed poet  once called  "the worst journalist he had ever met..." This was because she had the effrontery to try and write his memoirs. Nevertheless, today Allende is the  of her own which together have sold fifty-one million copies. Her debut novel in 1982, , told the tale of four generations of a Chilean family and at ths time of this interview her latest work was  a memoir . This picks up the story where her last memoir, Paula, ended. She recently discussed politics and Pinochet, feminism, her home in Marin County with her second husband, the lawyer Willie Gordon and her extended family, the death of her daughter Paula, as well as the death of Willie's daughter, Jennifer. from a drug overdose and other details of her fascinating life with Claudia Cragg. Allende started the  on December 9, 1996 to pay homage to her daughter,  who exp

In this COVID 19 environment, Karen Masterson, a leading academic expert on the US 'malaria project' has been made aware that there is an alleged plan as this interview goes out to roll out the drug Chloroquine nationwide through doctors' offices as a de facto trial for 2020. Masterson thinks that this would unleash serious reactions and death.    President Trump appears to be on the hunt for a 'magic bullet' he probably also seeks but the vast profits and the monopoly that will come to the US corporation that discovers and implements it.    Just this afternoon, Greg Rigano posed as a Stanford Medical School advisor as he pushed using chloroquine to tackle coronavirus. He previously asked for investors to help 'cure death' through his crypotocurrency firm. He set up a secretive LLC in mid-February then went viral with the help of Elon Musk - but Google has removed the document which he formatted to look like a scientific paper, with two universities demanding their names be removed from it. Rigano, a 34-year

Claudia Cragg @claudiacragg speaks here with Jennifer Steinhauer @jestei @nytimes about her lively study, “ The Inside Story of the Women Reshaping Congress.” In January 2019, the largest number of women ever elected to Congress was sworn in—87 in the house and 23 in the Senate - this was a dress rehearsal for the 2020 primary and general election. Democratic women won largely on painting the GOP as incompetent especially around health care.  This history-making Class of ’19 included many remarkable firsts: the youngest woman ever to serve; the first two Muslim women; the first two native American women, one openly gay; a black woman from a nearly all-white Chicago suburb; and a Hispanic woman from a heavily Republican border region. In many instances, these were the first women and/or persons of color and/or youngest persons to serve from their state or district. Veteran New York Times Capitol Hill reporter Jennifer Steinhauer has been following this historic transition from day one. She uses her rare vantag

Claudia Cragg @claudiacragg speaks here with @ValWalkerAuthor about her friendly, candid, and comforting guide for isolating times when we have no one to count on, As we potentially enter a time for mass isolation, the guide may just help some to cope a little more and also encourage those who ARE coping to help those who are not.  Despite the inclusive promise of social media, loneliness is in any case, even in far more 'normal' times, a growing epidemic in the United States and throughout the world. Social isolation can shatter our confidence. In isolating times, we’re not only lonely, we’re also ashamed because our society stigmatizes people who appear to be without support. As a single, fifty-eight-year-old woman, Val Walker found herself stranded and alone after major surgery when her friends didn’t show up. As a professional rehabilitation counselor, she was too embarrassed to reveal how utterly isolated she was by asking for someone to help, and it felt agonizingly awkward calling colleagues out of t

Claudia Cragg (@claudiacragg) speaks here with Dr. Richard J. Davidson (@healthyminds) about the book he co-wrote, ' In the last twenty years, meditation and mindfulness have gone from being kind of cool to becoming an omnipresent Band-Aid for fixing everything from your weight to your relationship to your achievement level. Unveiling here the kind of cutting-edge research that has made them giants in their fields, Daniel Goleman and Richard Davidson show us the truth about what meditation can really do for us, as well as exactly how to get the most out of it. Sweeping away common misconceptions and neuromythology to open readers’ eyes to the ways data has been distorted to sell mind-training methods, the authors demonstrate that beyond the pleasant states mental exercises can produce, the real payoffs are the lasting personality traits that can result. But short daily doses will not get us to the highest level of lasting positive change—even if we continue for years—without specific additions. More than shee

Claudia Cragg @claudiacragg speaks here with @Anne_S_Kim about those millions of young people Kim considers 'Abandoned'.  Anne Kim is a writer based in northern Virginia and the author of . She was special projects editor at the in 2013 and senior writer from 2015 to 2018. Americans under the age of 25 grab headlines when they launch flashy startups or become activists for social change. However, as Washington Monthly Anne Kim shows, both in this discussion and her book, the success of such leaders masks an alarming reality ill-served by current public policy: “In 2017, as many as 4.5 million young people” ages 16-24 were neither in school nor working. Social scientists call them “disconnected youth” (or, in Europe, s, for “not in employment, education, or training”), and many of them have aged out of foster care or spent time in prison and lack the support of trusted adults. A vice president of the , Kim shows clearly how their plight tends to result from years of systemic failures. 

Claudia Cragg (@claudiacragg) speaks here with Frederic Martel (@martelf) for the new paperback publication of his latest book, In The Closet of The Vatican. Pope Francis declared that "behind rigidity there is always something hidden, in many cases a double life." These are the disturbing words that the Pope himself has used to unlock the “closet.” In the new paperback edition of this New York Times bestseller,(Bloomsbury Continuum; 9781472966186; paperback now out), author and renowned French journalist Frédéric Martel reveals new events that have occurred since the original text’s publication.  In the Closet of the Vatican provides a shocking and detailed account of the abuse and malpractice—sexual, political and financial—in the Catholic Church. Now in a revised translation and with updated material, this brilliant piece of investigative writing is based on four years’ authoritative research, including extensive interviews with those in power.

Soulful jazz singer Billie Holliday is remembered these days for her unique sound, troubled personal history, and a catalogue that includes such resonant songs as and Claudia Cragg, @claudiacragg, speaks here with about the surprising ways in which Holiday and her music were also strongly shaped by religion. is not a new biography of the jazz legend, nor does the book come up with many new findings about the life of the much-studied singer or the thoroughly documented jazz milieu she inhabited. Rather, the book offers a subtle recontextualization of Holiday’s life. It presents a vivid portrait of an iconic jazz artist not known for piety or ties to organized religion. Fessenden does investigate in greater detail than previous books the influence of Holiday’s Catholic upbringing, in particular her two stints at the . Mixing elements of biography with the history of race and American music, she will explore the multiple religious influences on Holiday’s life and sound, including her time spent as a child in

(At the end of this interview, Cleo Z. reads s poem, ''. To learn more or contact Cleo Z., please DM @claudiacragg) Claudia Cragg @claudiacragg speaks here with #MichaelKorda about his new book, #. It is a legendary editor's unflinching love song about his radiant wife, #MargaretMogford, and her battle with cancer.  Born in London, Michael Korda is the son of English actress Gertrude Musgrove, and the Hungarian artist and film production designer . He is the nephew of film magnate  and brother , both film directors.Korda grew up in England but received part of his education in France where his father had worked with film director  Michael Korda is Editor-in-Chief  for where he ruled for 48 years. Among the many books Korda has written personally are Charmed Lives, the story of his father and his two uncles, and the novel , which is a  about his aunt, actress , which was later adapted into a television miniseries. His mother, Gertrude Musgrove was an actress known for The Scarlet Pimpernel (1934), The Fugitiv

What if the real world isn’t 'REAL' but just some kind of computer program? Claudia Cragg (@claudiacragg) speaks here with @Rizstanford  As Virk () puts it, “The fundamental question raised by the is: Are we all actually characters living inside some kind of giant, massively multi-player online video game, a simulated reality that is so well rendered that we cannot distinguish it from ‘physical reality’?” These ideas may well have first been most discussed because of the films, but many people have been fascinated with the potential for far longer than video games have been around. suggests a similar concept, as do the teachings of Buddhism, Islam and Hinduism. Carl Jung,  Swiss psychiatrist and psychoanalyst, was interested in the while —who frequently imagined such situations in his fiction—firmly believed that the world was a simulation. Virk says the Simulation Hypothesis is not as far-fetched as it may seem. He explains computer science, humanity’s understanding of physics, and mystical traditions g

Claudia Cragg speaks with Dr. Jennifer Neitzel of the  Their mission is to facilitate authentic engagement and relationships that empower communities to guide the work of systems change throughout the halls of learning nationwide.  Barriers to educational equity include disproportionate poverty. This type of poverty remains one of the most significant moral dilemmas that US society faces today. Labor, housing, and education laws, particularly during Jim Crow, primarily set-up a racial caste system. This system continues to make it very difficult for people of color to achieve upward mobility. According to the National Center for Children in Poverty (2016), 12% of White children are poor compared to 34% of Black children. Similarly, 17% of Black children live in deep poverty, while only 5% of White children experience the same living conditions. (Koball and Jiang 2018). Nearly two out of three children born into the bottom fifth of the income distribution remain in the bottom two-fifths of the income distribut

Today is the 127 anniversary of what many Hawaiians consider to be an "illegal occupation" of their lands.  On Jan. 17, 1893, Queen Lili`uokalani of the independent kingdom of Hawai`i was overthrown as she was arrested at gunpoint by U.S. Marines. Native Hawaiians say they are now fighting to stop the construction Thirty Meter Telescope on sacred Mauna Kea. As Patrick Wolfe theorized, "settler colonialism is a structure, not an event. The violence of colonialism — and the fight for Indigenous sovereignty — continue. " (visit ) #neweconomycoalition In this interview, Claudia Cragg (@ClaudiaCragg) speaks with Hawaiian journalist, AK Kelly (@KealaKelly)

As of production time, the 2020 Presidential Race has only 'Old White Men' contenders. We could debate why endlessly, but perhaps something deeper is at play? Claudia Cragg (@ClaudiaCragg) speaks here with , (@maxklau) who as a Harvard doctoral student was researching the topic of 'youth leadership'. Klau stumbled upon a provocative educational exercise, he says, that changed the course of his life. Klau is an author, leadership scholar, educated and Chief Program Officer @NewPoliticsAcad. To inquire about joining the New Politics Leadership Academy team, email . This is a a non-profit, Klau says, is dedicated to recruiting and developing military veterans and alumni of national service programs to seek political office. The education-focused AmeriCorps program that engages more than 3,000 young adults across 27 U.S. cities in a year of demanding, full-time citizen service. But, back to Klau's epiphany, on the last morning of a week-long residential youth leadership program focused on teaching about social ju

Claudia Cragg (@claudiacragg) speaks here with Devin Fergus (@devin_fergus), the Distinguished Professor of History and Black Studies, at the University of Missouri, about his new book, '"Land of the Fee: The Decline of the Middle Class and the Making of the New World Financial Order". "Consumer financial fees have helped to choke off dreams of the middle class and middle class aspirants alike," argues Fergus (History and Black Studies/Univ. of Missouri; Liberalism, Black Power, and the Making of American Politics, 1965-1980, 2009, etc.). In particular, Fergus investigates several common financial transactions that he contends involve hidden or excessive fees so egregious that they are damaging the economic well-being of Americans, including subprime mortgages, student loans, and payday lending. The damage these forms of borrowing have done to American households during and after the Great Recession is already well-known. Fergus traces in detail the discouraging story of congressional inaction by both politic