Wisconsin Public Radio produces some of the best programming in the country, and I was delighted to hear from producer Jim Packard (also of Whad’ Ya Know? announcer fame) that Paul Kinzer would be a guest on Conversations with Larry Meiller.

Here’s a link to the interview >>

Kinzer is a Wisconsin astronomer and educator; author of Stargazing Basics, one of the most elegantly useful introductions to buying equipment and stargazing we’ve seen. That’s why we published it!

One of our field reps, Bob Barnett, just informed me of some great news out of his hometown of Louisville, Kentucky. Many thanks to Michael Boggs at Carmichael’s Bookstore in Louisville for bringing it to our attention.

The University of Louisville awards major prizes–the Grawemeyer Awards–every year in five different categories: Music Composition, Education, World Order, Psychology, and Religion.

This year’s World Order prize goes to Cambridge author Michael Johnston. Johnston’s book, Syndromes of Corruption: Wealth, Power, and Democracy seeks to understand corruption by looking at how it manifests in different countries, including bribes, cartels, and outright plunder. According Rodger Payne, a Louisville political science professor who directs the award:

Corruption is a pervasive global problem that undermines economic and political systems, Johnston’s approach is particularly useful because it puts forward a practical agenda for reform.

Johnston is Professor of Political Science at Colgate University. They recently interviewed him on their blog.

Future Imperfect author David Friedman spoke at the CATO Institute earlier this month. The edited podcast and Book Forum video are now live.

Listen to the Podcast >>

The full video of the presentation can be found here.

Diane Rehm interviewed Cambridge author Yasheng Huang yesterday, and the streaming audio is now live!

Give it a listen >>

Huang is author of Capitalism with Chinese Characteristics, recently featured in my favorite magazine, The Economist.

Future Imperfect author David Friedman was recently interviewed on KCSB Santa Barbara’s The Marketplace of Ideas.

Have a listen!

Lew McCreary, writing for Harvard Business review, recently commented on Future Imperfect.

We want the world to be orderly, but too often it is simply a mess. Friedman, a law professor, gleefully sorts out a host of messes having to do with a wide range of world-changing technologies. For every manifest benefit (say, reducing crime through universal surveillance), there’s a gnarly negative (adios, privacy). Friedman doesn’t duck the big issues: the death of copyright protection; nanotechnology; cloning, genetic engineering, and other advanced reproductive therapies; cognitive enhancement through pharmacology; the growing difficulty (due in part to tools that allow users to veil their identities) of enforcing contracts in cyberspace.

Friedman is honest enough not to claim to be a seer—the future is both imperfect and uncertain. But he frames the possibilities evenhandedly, with energetic comprehensiveness.