The Brian Lehrer Show

This New Year's Eve, enjoy some recent conversations with experts to guide us to 2022: Cheryl Strayed, bestselling author of Wild, Tiny Beautiful Things, and Brave Enough, takes questions from listeners on how to get started on that creative project, push through writer's block, and just keep going. Michelle Singletary, personal finance columnist for The Washington Post and author of What To Do With Your Money When Crisis Hits (Mariner Books May 18, 2021), answers listener questions on finances, from how much to put away each week to how to invest ethically. Jamilah Lemieux , co-host of Slate's weekly parenting podcast, "Mom and Dad Are Fighting," answers listener questions about parenting, from what to do if your kid is afraid of the dentist to playdate etiquette. Amir Levine, MD, adult, child and adolescent psychiatrist and neuroscientist, conducting neuroscience research at Columbia University and co-author of Attached: The New Science of Adult Attachment and How It Can Help You Find - and Keep - Love (TarcherPerigee, 2012), discusses his book and why it continues to be so popular for people who are dating. Julia Cameron , author of several books including The Artist's Way (TarcherPerigee; 25th Anniversary ed. edition, 2016), discusses her book and why it continues to be so popular for people who are tapping into their inner artist. Melissa Brown, assistant professor of communication at Santa Clara University, discusses research examining ways people bully others online and what bystanders can to decrease harmful effects of cyberbullying. These interviews were lightly edited for time and clarity; the original web versions are available here: Cheryl Strayed on How to Get Started (Oct. 13, 2021) Financial Therapy With Michelle Singletary (Oct. 18, 2021) How Do I Help My Kid With Their Vaccine Needle Phobia? And Other Parenting Questions (Oct. 14, 2021) Bigger Than Self-Help: 'Attached' by Amir Levine and Rachel Heller (Dec. 7, 2021) Bigger Than Self-Help: 'The Artist's Way' by Julia Cameron (Dec. 9, 2021) Bystander Intervention on Social Media: Responding to Racist Hate Speech and Cyberbullying (Dec. 13, 2021)

Enjoy catching up with these recent conversations: Hunger strikes are in the news, from youth climate activists to cab drivers in New York City.  Sharman Apt Russell, author of several books including Hunger: An Unnatural History (Basic Books, 2006) and Within Our Grasp: Childhood Malnutrition Worldwide and the Revolution Taking Place to End It (Deckle Edge, 2021),  discusses the history of hunger strikes and explains how they work. John McWhorter, Columbia University linguistics professor, host of the Lexicon Valley podcast and the author of Nine Nasty Words: English in the Gutter: Then, Now, and Forever (Avery, 2021), talks about his book on profanity, where swear words come from and why they hold so much power. Jelani Cobb, New Yorker writer and professor of journalism at Columbia University and the editor of The Essential Kerner Commission Report (Liveright, 2021), talks about his new edition of the 1968 Kerner Commission Report and why he finds it still essential reading. Alex Strada and Tali Keren, artist-in-residence for Queens Museum's Year of Uncertainty, talk about their new multi-media participatory artwork called "Proposal for a 28th Amendment? Is it Possible to Amend an Unequal System?". They are joined by legal scholar Julia Hernandez, associate professor of Law at the CUNY School of Law. As part of our Iconic at 50 series, Marcus Miller, musician, composer and record producer, talks about Miles Davis' classic album Bitches Brew, which was released in 1970 but won a Grammy in 1971, plus more from that year in music, including the birth of jazz-rock fusion, including groups like Weather Report and The Mahavishnu Orchestra. These interviews were lightly edited for timing and rebroadcast; the original web versions are available here: How Do Hunger Strikes Work? (Nov. 15, 2021) What You Can't Say on the Radio (May 13, 2021) Jelani Cobb on The Kerner Commission Report (Aug. 17, 2021) Your 28th Amendment? (Dec. 8, 2021) Iconic at 50: Miles Davis' 'Bitches Brew' (Aug. 12, 2021)

How well did you pay attention to the news in 2021? It’s your chance to prove yourself on this end-of-the-year news quiz. Call-in and get a prize if you answer questions correctly about local and national news, COVID science, and pop culture too. WNYC's Kai Wright and Brooke Gladstone ride along as faithful, all-knowing quizmasters.

With surging cases, a winter break couldn't come a better time. There's news this morning that when schools reopen after the break, they'll do so with ramped-up testing. Christina Veiga, Chalkbeat New York reporter, joins us to discuss this and more on the COVID situation in schools—plus, we take calls from parents and teachers about how they're coping right now.

Daniel Griffin, MD, PhD, infectious disease clinician and researcher at Columbia, ProHEALTH chief of the division of Infectious Disease, senior fellow for Infectious Disease at UHG Research and Development, president of Parasites Without Borders, and co-host of the weekly clinical updates in the podcast This Week in Virology, discusses the latest on the Omicron surge, isolation, and quarantine protocols. 

Kenneth C. Davis, author of Don't Know Much About History: Everything You Need to Know About American History but Never Learned talks about the myths and realities of the 1621 first Thanksgiving.

Timothy Gardner, climate and energy correspondent at Reuters breaks down why the price of oil is so high and what, if anything, the Biden administration can do to fix it while also meeting climate goals.

Listeners who work in retail share their thoughts ahead of a busy, complicated Black Friday on which some have planned to strike.

As massive backlog overwhelms the city's criminal courts, nearly 1,700 people detained at Rikers Island have waited over a year for their cases to go to trial. George Joseph, investigative reporter with WNYC's Public Safety Unit, shares his reporting on Rikers as the pandemic exacerbated underlying issues in the system's bureaucracy. Read his latest piece here. 

McKay Coppins, staff writer at The Atlantic and the author of The Wilderness: Deep Inside the Republican Party's Combative, Contentious, Chaotic Quest to Take Back the White House (Little Brown, 2015) joins to discuss the venture capital fund that's buying up local newspapers and driving them into bankruptcy and how the loss of local media is contributing to the polarizing political climate.

Patrick Casey, head of the Government Relations Committee for The Guides' Association of New York City (GANYC) and professional tour guide for many years, discusses the future of the tour bus guide profession, as many tour bus companies in New York City eliminate the position.

As migrants from Middle Eastern countries remain in limbo between Belarus and the European Union through Poland, Monika Pronczuk, New York Times reporter in Brussels covering the E.U., has updates on the ongoing humanitarian crisis where thousands spent days forced against the fortified border in dangerous conditions. Plus, Charlotte McDonald-Gibson, journalist and author of Cast Away: True Stories of Survival from Europe s Refugee Crisis, explains how immigration policy in the E.U. led to this conflict and gives leverage to authoritarian regimes. 

Before we head for dinners with folks with different media diets, Kai Wright, host of the WNYC's The United States of Anxiety, and Kousha Navidar, senior digital producer for WNYC's The United States of Anxiety, offer an experiment to get past the filter bubbles that define what information gets to us. If two people search broad terms like "patriot" or "vaccine" in YouTube, they might get very different results. Now, @kai_wright + @KoushaNavidar on the concept of "filter bubbles," and how our different digital worlds inform our real life beliefs. https://t.co/20NQjvN7re — The Brian Lehrer Show and A Daily Politics Podcast (@BrianLehrer) November 23, 2021

Roy Freiman, Democratic Member of the New Jersey General Assembly, discusses his legislative proposal to offer tax breaks for subscriptions to local New Jersey newspapers.

On Friday, Kyle Rittenhouse was acquitted on all counts in his trial for first-degree intentional homicide. Carol Anderson, professor of African American Studies at Emory University and the author of The Second: Race and Guns in a Fatally Unequal America (Bloomsbury Publishing, 2021), discusses the verdict and what comes next.