Mixed Mental Arts

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Ep168 - Michael Malice, Part 2 Nov 06, 2014

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Michael Malice is has co-written books with MMA legend Matt Hughes, comedian DL Hughley and legendary rocker Brett Michaels and Dear Reader: The Unauthorized Autobiography of Kim Jong Il. In this second interview, we explore Michael's worldview. For a list of all of Michael's books, please visit: http://www.michaelmalice.com/books/.

Ep167 - Tom Woods Nov 04, 2014

Show notes

Dr. Thomas E. Woods, Jr. began his life as a neoconservative but came to realize that the two political parties were broadly the same. Dissatisfied with the narrow range of options offered by the Republican and Democratic parties, he embarked on a journey to re-examine for himself our most commonly held assumptions about history, politics, foreign policy and the role of government. In this interview, we focus on just two of his twelve books How the Catholic Church Built Western Civilization and Real Dissent: A Libertarian Sets Fire to the Index Card of Allowable Opinion. You can listen to Dr. Woods radio show The Tom Woods Show at http://tomwoods.com. You can follow him on twitter at @ThomasEWoods. All of his books are available through his website and through Amazon.

Ep166 - Jim Seymour Oct 30, 2014

Show notes

Although the concept of the Long Range Reconnaissance Patrol is an ancient one (think scouts), they only began to be used by the US Army in Vietnam in the latter part of the war. Dropped far behind enemy lines, these five to six man Long Range Patrol teams (often referred to as "Lerps") would be tasked with gathering intel on terrain, water supplies and enemy troop movements. Far from significant American military support, these teams had to blend into the jungle and do everything they could to avoid detection. Adopting many of the same techniques as the insurgents gives those who served in these units a unique perspective on the American War in Vietnam.In today's episode, it is our pleasure to have Jim Seymour on the podcast who completed 54 LRP missions during three years spent in Vietnam. In his book, In the Jungle...: Camping With the Enemy Seymour lays out what he learned from his time deep behind enemy lines, how he survived training and how he learned to deal with the possibility that he might not survive the war. Jim's book is a deeply personal account of a war that still has many lessons to teach us today. Many of those lessons are the same as the lessons laid out by John Nagl in his books and in our interview with him.In the Jungle...: Camping With the Enemy is available on Amazon. We strongly recommend it as a first-person account that strongly complements John Nagl's books and Fiasco.

Ep165 - Matthew E May Oct 28, 2014

Show notes

Matthew E. May spent over eight years as a close advisor to Toyota. During that time he developed an appreciation for the power of elegance. As he explains in this interview, all too often in order to make things better we focus on what we can add. However, many of the most powerful pieces of art and engineering achieve their power by having things removed from them. The iPhone was revolutionary because Steve Jobs removed the keyboard. Matt has written four books on business innovation, including In Pursuit of Elegance: Why the Best Ideas Have Something Missing and his latest The Laws of Subtraction: 6 Simple Rules for Winning in the Age of Excess Everything. You can follow him on twitter at @MatthewEMay. All of his books are available on Amazon.

Ep164 - Scott Bullock Oct 23, 2014

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The Institute for Justice has been described (by Hunter and probably others) as the libertarian ACLU. In this interview, Scott Bullock (who joined the Institute for Justice at its founding in 1991 and now serves as a senior attorney) tells us about the cases they're currently fighting and the Institute for Justice's strategy and philosophy. You can follow the Institute for Justice on twitter at @ij.

Ep163 - Adam Grant Oct 21, 2014

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In the wake of countless scandals at the highest corporate levels, it's easy to think that the key to getting ahead in business is to be a taker, but actually it turns out that the success of Enron execs like Jeff Skilling and Ken Lay are the exception rather than the rule. As Adam Grant, the youngest full professor at Wharton has found, Givers are the most successful…and the least successful people. In his fascinating New York Times Bestseller, Give and Take, Adam takes readers through the latest research on the promise and pitfalls of being both a Giver and a Taker. In this interview, Adam shares not only some of his superb book but also some of the other interesting insights in who make the best leaders. (Hint: it's people who are not men.) Give and Take is available on Amazon, Audible and everywhere else. You can follow Adam Grant on twitter @adamgrant.

Ep162 - John Nagl Oct 16, 2014

Show notes

After fighting in the first gulf war, John Nagl returned to the United States and took part in a simulated military exercise. As a tank commander, he had all the overwhelming firepower any soldier could hope for…and yet he lost to a group of Alaskan National Guard infantrymen, known as the Nanooks. Nagl's unit was unassailable by any conventional military force but a group of lightly armed troops, defying all the rules of how wars "should" be fought had defeated a much, much stronger force. That failure bothered him so much that he decided to devote the rest of his life to understanding it and making sure it never happened again. During the 90's, the American military trained for the war it wanted to fight: a war just like the first Gulf War. Nagl's experience with the Nanooks had convinced him that no conventional military would ever make the same mistake that Saddam Hussein had made in taking the US Army on head on. Instead, he suspected that the US' major threats would come from small, irregular groups of troops employing hit and run engagements rather than full frontal assaults. Even though it would reduce his chances of rising through the ranks, Nagl convinced the Army to send him to Oxford to study counter-insurgency and figure out how the US could defeat an enemy as irregular as the Nanooks. As he read through the histories and primary sources, he came to realize that what the Nanooks had done was a very old form of warfare. In fact, it was the exact form of warfare used by the Viet Cong in Vietnam. The exact form of warfare that America (focused on the conventional military tactics of World War II) had been unable to defeat. While in traditional war, the goal is to annihilate the enemy this strategy is counter-productive in fighting a counter-insurgency. Counter-insurgency is much more complicated, subtle and time-consuming. It is what T.E. Lawrence (Lawrence of Arabia) described in his book as being like learning to eat soup with a knife. This phrase so inspired Nagl that he made it the title of his own book on the topic, Learning to Eat Soup with a Knife: Counterinsurgency Lessons from Malaya and Vietnam.Throughout the 90's and early 2000's, little attention was paid to this book. By the time Nagl deployed to Iraq for the War on Terror, the book was still virtually unknown. However, as America found itself mired in another insurgency, the American military began to realize the vital importance of Nagl's insights. And so, General Petraeus asked Nagl to write the official Army and Marine Field Manual on Counter-Insurgency. In his most recent book, Knife Fights: A Memoir of Modern War in Theory and Practice, Lt. Col John A. Nagl (Ret.) tells the story of the incredible revolution in military thinking that he has helped pioneer. If you don't want the terrorists to win, you should read all of John Nagl's books.

Ep161 - Michael Malice Oct 14, 2014

Show notes

Michael Malice is has co-written books with MMA legend Matt Hughes, comedian DL Hughley and legendary rocker Brett Michaels but we brought him on to talk about the celebrity biography of one Kim Jong Il. In Dear Reader: The Unauthorized Autobiography of Kim Jong Il, Michael Malice takes you through the life of North Korea's dictator as he would have seen it. All of the weirdness that the Western Media likes to use as comedic fodder, but that is only the reader's way into the book: the real purpose of the book is to bring us face-to-face with the uncomfortable reality of North Korea. In this interview, Michael Malice tells us why he felt compelled the book and gives us a look not just inside the Hermit Kingdom but inside the thoughts and psychology of dictators and the people they oppress. But, as Bryan and Hunter discover, Michael also reveals that he's one interesting dude. So interesting in fact that when Harvey Pekar, creator of the American Splendor comic book series, met Michael in 2003 they ended up talking for hours…and then Harvey realizing that Michael was one of the most creative, unusual, confusing and fascinating people Harvey had ever met…and then Harvey decided to write a book all about Michael. The result is Ego & Hubris: The Michael Malice Story. For a list of all of Michael's books, please visit: http://www.michaelmalice.com/books/.

Ep160 - Hannah Lane Oct 09, 2014

Show notes

Hannah Lane describes herself as a human-centered designer and social entrepreneur. Basically that means she designs systems that help make the world a better place. While she began in the health space (specifically focusing on HIV/AIDS in Africa), she is currently working for a for-profit technology company that believes in using the tools it develops to work for social and economic justice all over the world. Most recently, she's been down in Ferguson, MO helping to connect and organize the ongoing movement around the Aug. 9 shooting of Michael Brown. In the last few years, tools like Twitter and Facebook have been used by social movements from the Arab Spring to the Bring Our Girls Back campaign. They have succeeded in channeling and coordinating people's angry enough to do something; the question is what is that something? With a background in psychology and her current work in technology, Hannah Lane has thought deeply about these questions. How far can technology go in changing the world and to what extent are human problems still fundamentally human? You can find out more about Hannah Lane and the continuing work on what happened in Ferguson at www.handsupunited.org and follow Hands Up United at @handsupunited_ Hannah Lane is on twitter at @hannahmlane; Hannah is also a co-founder of Social Impact House which mentors future social entrepreneurs. You can find out more about the accelerator program at www.socialimpacthouse.com and like them on Facebook.

Ep159 - Vanessa Tyson, Round 4 Oct 06, 2014

Show notes

Vanessa Tyson is a Professor of Government at the Bunche Center for African American Studies at UCLA. In this fourth episode of our series of conversations with Vanessa, Bryan is hunting in the woods! So, Hunter and Vanessa take this one alone. And, finally, they get to discuss districting AND campaign finance which makes Hunter very, very happy. You can follow Vanessa on twitter at @vanessactyson. Her book: Twists of Fate: Multiracial Coalitions and Minority Representation in the US House will be coming out in 2015. We'll be buying it and when it does come out, we'll be bringing her back on to discuss that. In the meantime, stay tuned for round of Tyson. Next up: the media.

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