The former Secretary of Defense did another and earlier book when he finished his term as Director of the CIA. Here he is, telling Milt how the Air Defense Command almost got us into a full nuclear war with the Soviet Union because somebody goofed down under the mountain in Colorado. This is a short five-minute conversation Milt had with him in the mid-90s.

You can figure out the other four, but here’s Charles Lipson, a colleague at the University of Chicago. Charles says that he is officially a Democrat, but he hasn’t talked or written like one in all the years we have known him. Instead, he analyzes politics and politicians with appropriate but amused cynicism. And on foreign policy and international relations he is as sharp as a moralist Machiavelli. He is also – as you will discover by listening – simply one of the best talkers to be heard anywhere within academic precincts.

Something has gone profoundly wrong in  American higher education. It is visible at the top – that is, at the leading universities – and, as usual, it then tends to filter down to the more standard institutions.  Yale University gave me my first academic job (Assistant Professor of Psychology) many years ago and, since then, I have often heard from former colleagues about disorder and decline in its “sacred halls.”

Nathan Harden, a frequent contributor to Ricochet and recent graduate of Yale, has done a  book telling the sad story and trying to search out its causes. Here’s our recent discussion about how hedonism and mindlessness have undermined tradition and intellectual seriousness at one (and not the only one) of our great educational strongholds.

Harry Stein, former liberal and now aggrieved conservative (it happens a lot in New York) has run all the risks in his book of last year, now retitled Why We Won’t Talk Honestly About Race. Honesty begins, he asserts, with the full recognition and examination of the two separate Black  Americas.  In this conversation he holds forth on the various “let’s pretends” that help to perpetuate the dysfunctional world to which “inner city” young blacks have been consigned. Among the great pretenses are: fathers don’t matter; crime has nothing to do with race; multiculturalism makes for better education. Yes, to be sure,  Stein risks being defamed as “politically incorrect.” But someone has to do it and no other we know does it with as much clarity, verve and restorative good humor.

We’re joined by Virginia Morell, a science writer and author of the new book Animal Wise: The Thoughts and Emotions of Our Fellow Creatures. We talk with Morell about animal emotion, feeling and consciousness – and whether any of those actually exist! It’s a fascinating discussion we thoroughly enjoyed.