Sara Lerner Videos

Journalism is a vastly different world these days. Print papers are closing. Blogs are dominating. But David Domke isn't crying. He says the public is actually now more engaged in news than ever before! Domke did a study with old and young news consumers. The young ones asked, Why did you let only a few people decide the news for you? The sixty five plus group said, how do you even know what is news? The twenty somethings responded, at least we get to figure it out for ourselves. Domke is the chairman of the University of Washington's Department of Communications. He says the current health care debate, for example, is more dynamic and robust than ever. That's the way it ought to be. Basically: go ahead and rejoice! Our time is now.Domke's talk on October 13, 2009 was the first in a four part series at Town Hall Seattle called, The Revolution Is Here: How Digital Media and Awakened Citizens Are Changing the World. It's coproduced with the UW Department of Communications.

Is it okay to steal a drug your child needs to survive? Would you force one person to die in order to save five others? Would you bid on a baby? These are some of the questions Michael Sandel raises in his extremely popular Justice class at Harvard University. It has so many fans that Harvard turned the course into a TV show, running now on public television. Sandel links moral questions to concrete, hotly contested, political issues like bank bailouts, affirmative action and torture. He shows us how political controversies are really debates about values. Along the way, he sprinkles in history lessons on philosophers like Aristotle, Plato and Immanuel Kant. Michael Sandel spoke at Town Hall Seattle on October 1, 2009. University Book Store and Town Hall Center for Civic Life sponsored the talk. Sandel is the author of many books, including Justice: What's the Right Thing to Do?

Daniel Griswold challenges anyone who says free trade is a bad thing to do a closet survey: look at the tags on every item in your closet and see where the products are made. He says his closet holds 120 items, but only 10 of them are made in America. (Nine of them are neckties.) Griswold says we already vote on trade, with our dollars. He wants to dispel myths floating around about trade. For example, we aren't losing our manufacturing base because of it. We still produce plenty. And he asks, how can we expect hundreds of millions to pull themselves out of poverty if we don't let them participate in the global economy? Griswold says global poverty was cut in half from the 1980s through 2006. Literacy rates are rising, and so is life expectancy. Daniel Griswold is the author of Mad About Trade: Why Main Street America Should Embrace Globalization. He's the director of the Center for Trade Policy Studies at the libertarian think tank, the Cato Institute. Griswold spoke in Seattle at a World Affairs Council event debating free trade and globalization's impact on developing countries. Griswold spoke at the Museum of History and Industry on October 13, 2009.

The place with the oldest history in the world, Iraq, has no history at all, in a way. That's because the past is present and is now. Those are Lesley Hazleton's words. She's talking about the story of the Shia Sunni split which is the subject of her latest book on religion and politics in the Middle East. Seattle author Hazleton says she wants to bring Western readers into this story. It's a story so alive it could have happened yesterday, even though it all went down 1400 years ago. Hazleton says this powerful story inspires people in both good ways and bad. After hearing it, the history seems vital to any attempt at understanding Iraq.Hazleton's latest book is After the Prophet: the Epic Story of the Shia Sunni Split in Islam. Town Hall Center for Civic Life sponsored the event with Elliott Bay Book Company on September 17, 2009.

Comparing America's health care system to the rest of the world may seem like diving into a quagmire. Does all of Europe have socialized medicine? What about Canada? Aren't they happy with their system, where no one ever has to pay a doctor bill? But patients there have to wait long, painful months to see a specialist, right? T.R. Reid pulls out everything you want to know about Canadian, British and German systems, for example, and explains in plain terms how they work. In the end, he says the reason our system is a mess is simple: we are the only nation that offers a patchwork of all the other health care systems. Reid's talk from Town Hall Seattle on Wednesday, September 9, 2009, brings a definitively clear and thorough explainer on health care. His latest book is The Healing of America. Town Hall Seattle and University Book Store sponsored his talk.

Thomas Frank's The Wrecking Crew Conservatives have run against big government for decades. Thomas Frank says it's no accident then, that when conservatives rise to power, they get to work dismantling it. Frank says the modern conservative movement puts fundraising and patronage ahead of governing. When the public grows cynical over the ensuing waste, fraud and abuse, Frank says it helps to spread the conservative belief that government is the problem. Thomas Frank is founder of The Baffler magazine and author of What's the Matter With Kansas? His latest book is The Wrecking Crew: How Conservatives Rule. He spoke at University Book Store in Seattle on August 11, 2008. President Obama's Back to School Speech President Obama gave a back to school speech in Arlington, Virginia this week. The talk was met with some controversy as conservatives said it was a political intrusion into the school day and inappropriate to push politics in that setting. The President avoided mention of specific programs and stuck to urging the students to do good, set goals and work hard. He said it's not always easy to do well in school. He said there are plenty of challenges that make it tough to do things like homework. He talked about being raised by a single mom and not having some things other kids had. The President said he missed having a father in his life. In the end, though, he said there's no excuse for talking back to teachers, cutting class or not trying.

Dr. Audrey Young says she went to work at Seattle's Harborview Medical Center because she loves the attitude there. She says the staff acts like every person who comes through the door needs to be given the best care possible, no matter whether the patient is homeless or some sort of VIP. Young writes about the hospital's daily dramas in her book The House of Hope and Fear: Life in a Big City Hospital. Here, she shares some of those stories, like one about Dr. Alice Brownstein, drinking coffee and trying like mad to find beds for patients, every day. Young also lets us in on her personal thoughts about the raging health care debate. Dr. Young now practices medicine at Evergreen Hospital in Kirkland. She spoke at Elliott Bay Book Company on August 14, 2009.

In movies, the scientist is either a nerdy, socially inept goofball or a scary Dr. Evil with intentions to destroy the world. Chris Mooney says that silly stereotype seeps into kids' perceptions of the field and not enough people choose careers in science. Mooney says we need to step up our science respect. He wonders why politicians won't talk about it and he asks why few Americans can name a single science role model. Mooney says we need to bridge the divides between science and politics, entertainment media, the news world, and yes, even religion. Mooney wrote The Republican War on Science. Now, he and his co blogger Sheril Kirshenbaum have another book, Unscientific America. Their blog is called The Intersection. Chris Mooney spoke at University Book Store on August 6, 2009, as part of the Seattle Science Lectures by Town Hall, with Pacific Science Center and University Book Store.

Liberal talk radio host Thom Hartmann says we're in the middle of a cultural crisis. He says we've reached crucial thresholds with overwhelmingly large issues like the economy, politics and most definitely the environment. But unlike many of his counterparts, Hartmann is optimistic. If we recognize this crisis, he believes we can change. He points to cultural norms that already have manifested themselves in society, like the fact that many people are now intentionally putting hookworms into their bodies to cure diseases like asthma, Crohn's disease and multiple sclerosis. To make his point, Hartmann shares many stories, including one about his visit with the Dalai Lama. Hartmann's latest book is Threshold: The Crisis of Western Culture. He spoke at Town Hall Seattle on July 30, 2009. Town Hall Center for Civic Life sponsored his talk, with KTPK AM 1090 and Elliott Bay Book Company.

Chris Hedges says America is gone. It's lost to consumer culture and the cult of the self. We're barreling towards collapse. Hedges points to Michael Jackson's funeral, made into a maudlin form of entertainment where a celebrity attendee like Magic Johnson could plug his sponsor, A.K.A Kentucky Fried Chicken. In Hedges' view of this world, lies and manipulation win over truth, as evidenced everywhere from Wall Street to reality television. Over time, says Hedges, corporations have morphed our consumption into a constant, nagging compulsion. One homogenous culture sold to us by large companies has stamped out our nation's distinct regional differences, and there's no turning back. In this talk at Town Hall Seattle, Hedges makes his case against consumerism, celebrity culture, mainstream media and unfettered capitalism. His latest book is Empire of Illusion: The End of Literacy and the Triumph of Spectacle. Elliott Bay Book Company co sponsored his talk on July 22, 2009.

At 3:00 a.m., Novella Carpenter is in the backyard of her home in downtown Oakland. Her neighbor has lent her a gun. She holds it, thinks about it, but decides her trusty shovel is the weapon of choice. She kills the opossum who's just broken the neck of her beloved goose and also sent her duck to an early death. Carpenter's doing farm work. She says urban farming isn't a new concept. It's just new to the first world. In her talk at Town Hall Seattle on June 24, 2009, she explains how she got started, tells more city farming stories, and shares tips on getting going yourself. Namely: begin with bees, the gateway animal. Carpenter's the author of Farm City: The Education of an Urban Farmer. Elliott Bay Book Company co sponsored her talk with Town Hall Center for Civic Life.

When the Iraq War started, Tyler Boudreau was practically giddy. He'd already been in the Marines for a decade, training for the day he'd get to fight for real. He was excited to finally see some serious action. In Iraq, he even journaled about the joy of killing. But in that same diary entry he also wrote about the guilt he anticipated feeling as a result of his actions. At Elliott Bay Book Company in Seattle, Boudreau talks about these strange, mixed thoughts of enjoyment and grief and guilt, about misguided orders, bad decisions made by his comrades, and PTSD. On Monday, June 15, Boudreau kicked off a cross country bike trip at Seattle's Gas Works Park. He hopes to deepen the conversation about war and how it exists in the individual and collective consciousness. Boudreau's memoir is called Packing Inferno: The Unmaking of a Marine. He spoke on Sunday, June 14, 2009.

Aid to Africa. What does that sound like to you? It's got to be a good thing, right? It's aid. It means help. A trillion dollars of Western aid have gone to countries in Africa over the last 50 years. It's part of the fabric of the African economy. But Dambisa Moyo says it's doing damage. She says aid leaves citizens unable to hold their governments accountable as politicians court NGOs and the World Bank instead of their countrymen. Here, Moyo explains more about why aid hurts Africa and how to phase it out. Moyo grew up in Zambia and studied at Harvard and Oxford. She has worked for The World Bank and Goldman Sachs. The World Affairs Council sponsored Dambisa Moyo's talk at the University of Washington in Seattle on May 7, 2009. The African Chamber of Commerce co sponsored the event along with the Global Business Center at the UW Foster School of Business.

A special this week: Speakers' Forum brings you President Obama's highly anticipated Cairo speech. It's considered his address to the Muslim world. How will he handle Egypt's tarnished human rights record? What will he say about peace between Palestinians and Israelis? Will he have specific proposals? President Obama speaks at Cairo University on June 4, 2009.

A teenager from Concrete was found guilty yesterday of second degree manslaughter for a fatal hunting incident last summer at Sauk Mountain.

For hundreds of hikers, summer means hours in the sun, high in the mountains, next to an Alpine Lake, fishing rod in hand. But for North Cascades National Park users, fishing may soon be an impossibility.

Michael Pollan says our diet has changed more in the last 125 years than in the last 10,000, and that's because of the invention of modern industrialized food. He says the Western diet consists of refined carbohydrates, refined oils, lots of meat and lots of calories. Basically, he says, lots of everything except whole grains, fresh fruits and vegetables. He says this diet is making us sick. We're suffering from diabetes and obesity. He gives twelve rules to live by, like: Eat foods that will eventually rot. Pollan wants people to see their bodies not as machines to put good or bad things into, but as a crucial part of a circle that includes people, bodies, plants, and soil.

Bishop Gene Robinson is the Episcopal Bishop of New Hampshire and the first openly gay bishop in the worldwide Anglican Communion. He delivered an invocation that kicked off days of President Obama's Inauguration ceremonies. Robinson was invited to be a part of the ceremonies. The same day the news about that broke, January 12, Robinson spoke in Seattle. He was excited and so was the crowd there to see him. Robinson has written a memoir, called In The Eye of the Storm: Swept to the Center by God. The Diocese of Olympia, Integrity Puget Sound, and St. Andrew's Episcopal Church sponsored his talk at Town Hall Seattle.