Amazon.com: In THE ASCENT OF MONEY, Ferguson whose series War of the World garnered critical attention last summer traces the evolution of money and demonstrates that financial history is the essential back-story behind all history. Everyone needs to understand the complex history of money and our relationship to it, he says. By learning how societies have continually created and survived financial crises, we can find solid solutions to today s worldwide economic emergency. As he traverses historic financial hot spots around the world, Ferguson illuminates fundamental economic concepts and speaks with leading experts in the financial world.
Youtube: Conversations host Harry Kreisler welcomes Harvard historian Niall Ferguson for a discussion of his new book, "The Ascent of Money: A Financial History of the World." In the conversation, drawing on insights from the biological sciences, Ferguson describes the rise and evolution of finance focusing on insurance, banks, and the bond market. Using the examples of housing and the U.S. China economic relationship, Ferguson demonstrates the way history can inform our understanding of the current financial crisis. He also reflects on the implications of the financial crisis for American global hegemony.
Wikipedia: Niall Ferguson specializes in financial and economic history as well as the history of empire. He is a professor of History at Harvard University and a professor of Business Administration at Harvard Business School.
Google Video: Part one of the HarperCollins History lecture, in conjunction with CELL. Niall Ferguson explains how a risk-assessment approach to diplomacy might have changed the course of the Second World War. Runs approx 28 minutes
Google Video: New York Times’ columnist Paul Krugman joined a panel of authors at the Center for American Progress to discuss the 21st Century American economy and the challanges faced by everyday Americans with a government dominated by conservatives
ZDNet: The Internet is not just changing the way people live but altering the way our brains work with a neuroscientist arguing this is an evolutionary change which will put the tech-savvy at the top of the new social order.
NPR.org: Linguist Geoff Nunberg reflects on the life and language of the late comedian George Carlin, who died last month.
In the 1970s, Carlin observed: "There are 400,000 words in the English language, and there are seven of them you can't say on television. What a ratio that is: 399,993 to seven. They must really be bad."
Supercapitalism: Robert Reich on how the unending quest for more power and profits is threatening our democracy.
Robert Reich is professor of Public Policy at the Goldman School of Public Policy at the University of California at Berkeley. He has served in three national administrations, most recently as secretary of labor under President Bill Clinton. He is the author of Supercapitalism: The Transformation of Business, Democracy, and Everyday Life.
The Agenda with Steve Paikin is one of Canada's best news and current events programs that looks at the issues of our time from a more academic approach than the usual.
Google Video: Thomas Friedman, a world-renowned author and journalist, joined The New York Times in 1981 as a financial reporter specializing in OPEC and oil-related news and later served as the Chief Diplomatic, Chief White House, and International Economics Correspondents. A three-time Pulitzer Prize winner, he has traveled hundreds of thousands of miles reporting the Middle East conflict, the end of the cold war, US domestic politics and foreign policy, international economics and the worldwide impact of the terrorist threat. His Foreign Affairs column, which appears twice a week in the Times, is syndicated to 700 other newspapers worldwide. Maureen Dowd, winner of the 1999 Pulitzer Prize for distinguished commentary, became a columnist on The New York Times Op-Ed page in 1995 after having served as a correspondent in the paper's Washington bureau since 1986. She has covered four presidential campaigns and served as White House correspondent. She also wrote a column, "On Washington," for The New York Times Magazine. Ms. Dowd joined The New York Times as a metropolitan reporter in 1983. She began her career in 1974 as an editorial assistant for The Washington Star, where she later became a sports columnist, metropolitan reporter and feature writer. When the Star closed in 1981, she went to Time magazine.
I'm sure you all remember that episode of Star Trek: TNG where Lt. Tasha Yar did the bed bounce with Commander Data...well it turns out they weren't that far ahead of the times according to Hugo award winning sci-fi author Robert Sawyer who claims the advancements of robots and robotics coming out of Japan will spark a debate or the ethics of using robots as the new slave labour class in society (hey...that was a couple episodes of Star Trek: TNG if I recall correctly).
He also claims that we'll be doing the robot nasty with them by 2020 and discusses all this on Canada's largest educational broadcaster TVO with one of Canada's most respected journalists Steve Paikin (seriously!).
Youtube: John Waters, American filmmaker, director, writer, personality, visual artist and art collector talking about his films, work, biography, ideas and philosophy. John Waters, born 1946, in a public open lecture with students and faculty of the European Graduate School EGS, Media and Communication Studies department, film and movie program, Saas-Fee, Switzerland, Europe, 2000. John Waters. John Waters rose to fame in the early 1970s for his transgressive cult films. John Waters' early films were all shot in the Baltimore area with his company of local actors, the Dreamlanders. In addition to Divine, the group included Mink Stole, Cookie Mueller, Edith Massey, David Lochary, Mary Vivian Pearce, and others. These early films were among the first picked up for distribution by New Line Cinema. John Waters' films premiered at the Baltimore Senator Theatre and sometimes at the Charles Theatre. John Waters' early campy movies present filthily lovable characters in outrageous situations with hyperbolic dialogue. His early films, Pink Flamingos, Female Trouble, and Desperate Living, which he labeled the Trash Trilogy, pushed hard at the boundaries of conventional propriety and movie censorship. A particularly notorious final segment of Pink Flamingos, simply added in as a non sequitur to the end of the film, featured, in one take without special effects, a small dog defecating and Divine eating the feces. The 1981 film Polyester starred Divine opposite once-teen-idol Tab Hunter. John Waters films have become less controversial and more mainstream, although works such as Hairspray, Cry-Baby and Serial Mom still retain his trademark inventiveness. The film Hairspray was turned into a hit Broadway musical, which swept the 2003 Tony Awards, and a movie adaption of the Broadway musical was released in theaters on July 20, 2007. John Waters' most recent film, the NC-17-rated A Dirty Shame, is a move back toward his earlier, more controversial work of the 1970s. He also had a cameo in Jackass: Number Two, which starred Dirty Shame co-star Johnny Knoxville. John Waters has stated that his next movie will be a children's film titled "Fruitcake". John Waters is currently a professor of Cinema and Subcultural Studies at the European Graduate School. In 2007, he also became the host (as "The Groom Reaper") of 'Til Death Do Us Part, a program on America's Court TV network featuring dramatizations of real-life marriages that soured and ended in murder. A gay American, Waters is an avid supporter of gay rights and gay pride.[4] He is also a supporter of the United States Democratic Party. Waters has been known to create characters with alliterated names for his movies including Tracy Turnblad, Motormouth Maybelle, Dawn Davenport, Donald Dasher, Link Larkin, Penny Pingleton, Sylvia Stickles, Wade Walker, Wanda Woodward, Mona Malnorowski, David Divine, Bo-Bo Belsinger, Francine Fishpaw, Sandra Sullivan, Prudy Pingleton, Todd Tomorrow, Mole McHenry, Ursula Udders, Fat Fuck Frank, and Ramona Rickettes.
From TVO, Canada's largest educational broadcaster, comes a discussion with the always entertaining Gore Vidal from one of Canada's most respected commentators Allan Gregg.
TVO.org: Gore Vidal-literary lion, political gadfly, raconteur and friend of the famous. Vidal is renowned for his historical novels, essays, plays and more. For more than half-a-century, he has been an outspoken critic of American imperialism and more. Now at the age of 81, Vidal looks back on his remarkable life in the second volume of his memoirs. The book is called Point to Point Navigation.
UC Berkley: John Micklethwait, the newly appointed Editor of The Economist, talks with Orville Schell, Dean of the Graduate School of Journalism about the direction he is taking the magazine, and about America's role in the world.
Presented by: The Graduate School of Journalism, The Economist, Haas School of Business, Institute of International Studies at UC Berkeley, and the World Affairs Council. Credits: Producer:UC Berkeley Graduate School of Journalism
Introduced by Chancellor of UC Berkley Robert J. Birgeneau
George Soros: Founder and Chairman of the Open Society Institute, Financier, Philanthropist, and author of The Age of Fallibility: The Consequences of the War on Terrorism
Lowell Bergman: Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist for Public Service, and the Reva and David Logan Distinguished Professor of Investigative Reporting at UC Berkeley's Graduate School of Journalism
Dana Priest: Author, Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist and National Security Correspondent for The Washington Post
Mark Danner: Author of "The Secret Way to War" and "Torture and Truth," MacArthur Fellow and Professor of Journalism, UC Berkeley
Google Video: The inside story on transcending the brain, with David Lynch, Award-winning film director of Blue Velvet, Twin Peaks, Mullholland Drive, Inland Empire (filming); John Hagelin, Ph.D., Quantum physicist featured in "What the bleep do we know?;" and Fred Travis, Ph.D., Director, Center for Brain, Consciousness and Cognition Maharishi University of Management.
Canada's largest educational public broadcaster, TVO, and one of Canada's most respected journalists, Steve Paikin, takes a closer look at what the Internet has done to older notions of truth, knowledge and authority.
Smithsonian.com: Museum Day is a nationwide event taking place on Saturday, September 29, 2007, where participating museums and cultural institutions across the country offer free admission to Smithsonian readers and Smithsonian.com visitors. Museum Day celebrates the country’s cultural offerings, allows the dissemination of knowledge and brings Americans together.
Museum Day is open to all Smithsonian readers and friends. Participants must present the Museum Day Admission Card available in the September 2007 issue of Smithsonian Magazine or downloadable via this site to receive FREE GENERAL ADMISSION. The Museum Day Admission Card is valid for you plus one guest and is limited to one per household.
The following Museum Day restrictions apply:
One time use on Saturday, September 29, 2007. Card must be presented for free general admission.
Admission Card will be collected upon entry.
General admission only. Does not include entry to special exhibits or IMAX screenings.
Admission Card is good for general admission for you plus one guest.
No fat chicks (ok...Naked Gord made that one up :p)
One Admission Card per household.
Not for use with any other offer.
No rain checks.
Some participating museums may already have a free admission policy year round and are participating in the "spirit" of the day.
Museums and cultural institutions participating in Museum Day are doing so voluntarily and Smithsonian Magazine is not responsible for individual institution participation or for individual institution content.
Click here to play (right click to download in MP3) direct from TVO.org
Click to watch in embedded video direct from Youtube.com
