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AW: Jennifer Burns, "Milton Friedman - The Last Conservative" Dec 03, 2023

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Stanford University history professor Jennifer Burns discussed the life and career of economist Milton Friedman. She was interviewed by CATO Institute vice president for economic and social policy studies Alex Nowrasteh.

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BN: Historians Douglas Brinkley, Joanne Freeman, Edna Medford and H.W. Brands on the Experiment of Democracy in America Nov 28, 2023

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At the beginning of November, the George Washington Presidential Library in Mount Vernon celebrated its 10th anniversary with a symposium titled, "The Great Experiment – Democracy from the Founding to the Future." Guests on this panel included: Historians H.W. Brands of the University of Texas, Douglas Brinkley of Rice, Joanne Freeman of Yale, and Edna Medford of Howard University. One point of the discussion was the Mount Vernon poll that found that 2/3rds of Americans are pessimistic about the country's direction and dissatisfied with the political climate.

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Q&A: Jesse Holland, "The Invisibles: The Untold Story of African American Slaves in the White House" Nov 27, 2023

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Jesse Holland talked about his book, The Invisibles: The Untold Story of African American Slaves in the White House.

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BN: Sarah Ogilvie, "The Dictionary People" Nov 21, 2023

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Sarah Ogilvie spent 8 years studying the creation of the Oxford English Dictionary. Her book is called "The Dictionary People." Ogilvie, who has a PhD in linguistics from Oxford University, studied over 3,000 original contributors to the dictionary. In her introduction to the book, she writes: "I was thrilled to discover not one but three murderers, a pornography collector, Karl Marx’s daughter, a president of Yale, the inventor of the tennis-net adjuster, a pair of lesbian writers who wrote under a male pen name, and a cocaine addict found dead in a railway station lavatory."

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Q&A: Gerald Blaine and Clint Hill, "The Kennedy Detail: JFK’s Secret Service Agents Break Their Silence.” Nov 20, 2023

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Gerald Blaine and Clint Hill, two former Secret Service agents, spoke about the day that President Kennedy was assassinated. They also talked about the assassination’s conspiracy theories and their lives after retirement from the Secret Service.. Gerald Blaine is author of the new book, “The Kennedy Detail: JFK’s Secret Service Agents Break Their Silence.” Clint Hill wrote the prologue for the book as well as cooperating in interviews for the book’s content.

Gerald Blaine worked for the Secret Service from 1959 to 1964. Blaine worked for several businesses after his time as an agent. Clint Hill was in the U.S. Army for three years before working for the Secret Service from 1958 to 1975. Mr. Hill was the Secret Service agent who jumped onto the trunk of the motorcade seconds after Kennedy was shot. Both men are currently retired.

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AW: Fei-Fei Li, "The World's I See: Curiosity, Exploration, and Discovery at the Dawn of AI" Nov 19, 2023

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Stanford University's Fei-Fei Li spoke about her life and journey to becoming one of the leading scientists in the field of artificial intelligence. She's interviewed by New Scientist technology reporter Jeremy Hsu.

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BTSA: "The Words of Cesar Chavez" with historian Miriam Pawl Nov 17, 2023

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Born in Yuma, Arizona, César Chávez began his working life as a manual laborer. After serving in the U.S. Navy, Chávez moved to California to join an organization that helped laborers register to vote. This week's guest is historian Miriam Pawl. He later began organizing strikes among farm workers, calling for better pay and working conditions. Chávez eventually co-founded the labor union that became known as United Farm Workers. In this first published anthology, from 2002, the editors of The Words of César Chávez reveal how the labor leader presented his calls to action and sought to inspire his audiences.

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BN: Martin Gurri, "The Revolt of the Public and the Crisis of Authority in the New Millennium" Nov 14, 2023

Show notes

Martin Gurri is a former CIA analyst who writes about the relationship between politics and media. Gurri was born in Cuba and came to the United States with his parents in the 1950s. In 2014 he self-published an e-book titled "The Revolt of the Public and the Crisis of Authority in the New Millennium." It was republished in hardback in 2018. Martin Gurri says his thesis is a simple one: "The information technologies of the twenty-first century have enabled the public, composed of amateurs, people from nowhere, to break the power of political hierarchies of the industrial age."

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Q&A: Rosemary Stevens, "A Time of Scandal: Charles R. Forbes, Warren G. Harding, and the Making of the Veterans Bureau" Nov 13, 2023

Show notes

Rosemary Stevens talked about her book, A Time of Scandal: Charles R. Forbes, Warren G. Harding, and the Making of the Veterans Bureau.

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AW: Greg Lukianoff, "The Canceling of the American Mind" Nov 12, 2023

Show notes

Foundation for Individual Rights & Expression president Greg Lukianoff argues that the right to free speech is being threatened by cancel culture. He was interviewed by Reason Magazine's Matt Welch.

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