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David Small: Drawing From Life
David Small's graphic memoir, "Stitches," may not have won the National Book Award in Young People's Literature this year. But it did break new ground in a rapidly evolving medium, tweaking the old "comic books aren't just for kids" formula by showing that comic books can be for the smartest, most sophisticated kids. More importantly, it served as a cathartic act of Read More
November 22, 2009 | In Arts & Culture
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"You Better Not Cry" author Augusten Burroughs treats fans to a second Big Think interview this week, just in time for the holiday season. Famous since his 2001 bestseller "Running With Scissors" as a memoirist of the humorous, painful, and bizarre, Burroughs shares his view of Christmas as an essentially tragic holiday with a tiny nougat of joy inside the bitter candy coating. Read More
November 20, 2009 | In Arts & Culture
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Are you an eligible prospective immigrant to the United States? Are you feeling lucky? If so, you have 10 more days to apply for the random selection process conducted annually by the Diversity Immigrant Visa Program—in other words, the "green card lottery." The entry window, which opened October 2, closes November 30, and your chances of winning are a sobering 1 in 240: 12 million will enter, 50,000 will win. Read More
November 20, 2009 | In Politics & Policy, World
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Jim McManus visited Big Think today to talk about the poker habits of the men who have inhabited the White House. The stories he told come from his new book "Cowboys Full: The Story of Poker." We'll post our video interview with him in the coming days. In the meantime, if you like poker, take a look at our conversation with female gamester Annie Duke. Read More
November 19, 2009 | In Arts & Culture, Politics & Policy
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"Stitches" Win Would Be No Small Feat
Later this evening, the literary community finds out whether David Small's "Stitches" will be the first graphic novel ever to win a National Book Award. This morning, Big Think asked Mr. Small what the honor would mean to him personally and whether he believes (as some of his fans do) that his book was nominated in the wrong category. His answer, which will be posted prior to the ceremony, revealed much about which side he takes in the eternal conflict between young people and grown-ups. Read More
November 18, 2009 | In Arts & Culture
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Special: George Halvorson Interview
Big Think conducted a special interview today with George Halvorson, CEO of Kaiser Permanente. As the world's largest nonprofit health plan and hospital system, Kaiser Permanente is a micro-healthcare system unto itself. As CEO, Halvorson has a uniquely commanding perspective on the challenges America faces in its current healthcare crisis. Throughout this year, Halvorson has emerged as a leading voice on the issue, crusading to eliminate the price differential for healthcare costs between America and other countries. In a previous interview with Big Think, Halvorson outl… Read More
November 18, 2009 | In Health & Medicine, Politics & Policy
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Finding Peace in the Battle With Grief
For all of us, coping with the death of a loved one is intensely traumatic. For sufferers of "complicated" grief, however, the trauma itself never seems to die; rather than dissipating over time, it becomes a vicious attachment cycle that erodes the brain's ability to function normally. In her interview with Big Think, psychiatrist Dr. Katherine Shear of Columbia University drew on her pioneering research on complicated grief to explain how this devastating cycle works, and how it can be broken. Read More
November 18, 2009 | In Health & Medicine, Life & Death
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Stewart Brand's latest book, "Whole Earth Discipline: An Ecopragmatist Manifesto," contains a dagger in its subtitle. To write a manifesto on behalf of "ecopragmatism" is to imply that the current environmental movement has become dangerously impractical. In his Big Think interview today, Brand—one of the intellectual godfathers of the modern green movement—confirmed that the thrust was intentional, citing nuclear power and biotechnology as two developments that activists have un… Read More
November 17, 2009 | In Environment, Future
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Tough guys don't cry. But during what's been called the "he-cession," they have plenty of reason to. As writer/journalist Reihan Salam explained to Big Think in an interview today, not only have traditionally "manly" jobs such as construction been disproportionately affected by the downturn, but the largely male politicians and executives responsible for the crisis are beginning to see their dominance eroded as well. Read More
November 16, 2009 | In Identity
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Since the Republican Party's historic defeat in the 2008 elections, American conservatives have been seeking new ideas to rally around, new leaders to point the way forward. One year later, have they succeeded? Has President Obama's job performance helped or hurt their cause? Are the headline-grabbing "Tea Party" protests a sign of the GOP's weakness, or of its resurgent strength? And does Sarah Palin, whose hotly anticipated memoir debuts this week, have a Read More
November 16, 2009 | In Future, Politics & Policy
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For centuries, the dominant image of college in America has been that of a secluded campus, full of 18-22 year-olds educating themselves for the future. Yet, as Big Think’s recent guest Gerald Chertavian explains, this notion is not only wrong, it is entirely contradictory to the needs of the new, knowledge-based economy. Currently, only about 29% of Americans obtain a college degree, a mere 8% of which do so by the age of 22, while the truly typical college student completes their post-secondary education at the age of 27&md… Read More
November 15, 2009 | In Business & Economics, Politics & Policy
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Ending the Tragedy of the Commons
It is becoming increasingly common knowledge that our world is on the brink of an unprecedented environmental crisis. However slow the reaction has been, it is beginning to take tangible form and, from petroleum to water, the need to preserve and reduce is becoming a mainstay of the global conservation. One of the essential—and painfully under-acknowledged—factors in this discussion is the question of just how collective societies deal with a scarcity of resources. As the work of Big Think’s recent guest Read More
November 14, 2009 | In Business & Economics, Environment
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How do you know someone's just caught the jazz bug? According to Village Voice critic and "Jazz" author Gary Giddins, when Ken Burns started loving Louis Armstrong as a fan and not just a filmmaker, he got a "glow on his face" that "you can't fake." Read More
November 13, 2009 | In Arts & Culture
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Cities Rise and Fall; Stories Are Forever
Paul Auster is associated with two things, both in constant flux: the novel and New York City. The author of "The New York Trilogy," "The Brooklyn Follies," and the new "Invisible" estimates in his Big Think interview that he's spent at least 55 total years in the Big Apple, during which he has witnessed countless changes to the "gracious place" of his childhood. Yet while he remains unsure as to whether the city is ascending or decl… Read More
November 13, 2009 | In Arts & Culture, Future
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Who are the "Tea Party" activists, and what do they hope to accomplish? Will their crusade purify American conservatism or factionalize it further? Former Republican House Minority leader Dick Armey, a key Tea Party supporter, offered his take at Big Think today. Read More
November 11, 2009 | In Politics & Policy
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GE's Former Lawyer Recalls his Worst Day
Ben Heineman’s book, High Performance with High Integrity, is a sort of memo to CEOs on how to run a major company. He would know; Heineman was GE’s general counsel for years. A few weeks ago, he sat down with Big Think to talk about what it was like advising the CEOs of America’s largest company. Read More
November 11, 2009 | In Business & Economics
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Bed Shopping & Self-Loathing With Jonathan Ames
There are only a few careers that can be launched over a campfire in a New Hampshire artist colony. Luckily for Jonathan Ames, storytelling is among them. Though--as the author, storyteller and creator of “Bored to Death” discussed in his Big Think interview--finding inspiration in the New England woods is not nearly as unlikely as the muse for his early novels: evenings in Times Square … Read More
November 11, 2009 | In Arts & Culture
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It was a mystery: how does the chromosome replicate itself precisely during repeated cell divisions without degrading over time? Structures called telomeres (the "caps" on chromosome ends) seemed to provide some clues, but their exact function was poorly understood. The solution to the puzzle, which molecular biologist Carol Greider explained to Big Think this week, won her a share of this year's Nobel Prize in Medicine. Read More
November 10, 2009 | In Health & Medicine, Science & Tech
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Exploring the Contours of Female Sexuality
Today, and over the next two days, Big Think will be posting a series of videos called "What Do Women Really Want?" Of course, there is not just one answer to this question, especially when it comes to what women desire in the bedroom. Yet the particulars of female sexual behavior, and how those particulars contrast with those of men, are the subjects of increased observation by neuroscientists, psychosexual researchers, and clinicians. Big Think interviewed six of these sexologists. We begin our series today with what two of our experts had to say about female orgasm. Specifically, why… Read More
November 10, 2009 | In Identity, Love, Sex, & Happiness
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What just passed through the House of Representatives? Will it help relieve the century-long constipation that has plagued American health care reform? In a conversation with Big Think today, Yale political science professor Jacob Hacker—whose 2007 proposal, "Health Care for America," first raised the public option to national prominence—rated the quality of the new bill. Read More
November 9, 2009 | In Health & Medicine, Politics & Policy
