Free Forum with Terrence McNally

Episode 747: RICHARD HEINBERG (2003) died in July-A NEW COVENANT WITH NATURE, THE PARTY’S OVER

RICHARD HEINBERG, a guest a handful of times on this show  died July 19th, just two weeks after a diagnosis of pancreatic cancer. He was often a few steps ahead of whatever the current conversation might be regarding humanity’s relationships with nature, energy, power, and each other. His books include A New Covenant with Nature; Cloning the Buddha: The Moral Impact of Biotechnology; The End of Growth; Our Renewable Future, Power: Limits and Prospects for Human Survival, and The Party's Over: Oil, War, and the Fate of Industrial Societies - the one we talk about in this episode. It was recorded in 2003, a month into the war on Iraq.

Episode 746: DANIELLE ALLEN-RADICAL DUKE (new book) & the work of Renovating Democracy

I talk with Harvard professor, DANIELLE ALLEN about (1) her latest book, RADICAL DUKE, about the third Duke of Richmond who inspired the colonies’ independence and their establishment of representative democracy; and (2) her ongoing work on the promise and challenges of democracy today. She’s Director of the Allen Lab for Democracy Renovation and the Democratic Knowledge Project at Harvard  and Founder and Chairperson of Partners In Democracy, where she advocates for progress towards a new social contract that serves and includes us all. Learn more at danielleallen.scholars.harvard.edu [http://danielleallen.scholars.harvard.edu/], The Atlantic Magazine and The Renovator  Substack.

Episode 745: ARI BERMAN-Trump’s threats to the 2026 mid-term elections

Trump makes a prime-time speech, lying once again about fraud in previous elections and previewing his intention to disrupt and disable the 2026 mid-terms. Time to talk with ARI BERMAN, national voting rights correspondent at Mother Jones' and the author of Minority Rule and Give Us the Ballot: The Modern Struggle for Voting Rights in America. How realistic are our fears? What are Trump's most likely methods of attack? What scares Berman the most? How are we responding? What can listeners do? You can learn more at aribermanauthor.com [http://aribermanauthor.com/]

Episode 744: 1) ROBERT THURMAN (2011), Buddhist teacher, died in June - 2) JONATHAN SCHELL (2004), late journalist & author reflects on 9/11

We lost perhaps our nation’s most influential Buddhist with the death of ROBERT THURMAN June 16th at the age of 84. A former monk, ordained and partly trained by the Dalai Lama, left the monastery, earned a Harvard doctorate, taught at Amherst & Columbia, and wrote, edited and translated more than 20 books on Buddhism, both scholarly and for the general public. He was a founder of the American Institute of Buddhist Studies at Columbia as well as Tibet House US in New York City, where he served for decades as president. In the first half of this episode you’ll hear our conversation recorded in 2011. In the second half you’ll hear my 2004 conversation with the late JONATHAN SCHELL about his book, A HOLE IN THE WORLD: An Unfolding Story of War, Protest, and the New American Order - his reflections on the experience of 9/11 and its aftermath. Schell passed away in 2014. Both wise men dedicated to working for a better world. This is the first time the Schell conversation has been available as podcast.

Episode 743: CORY DOCTOROW - AI-Use it. Don’t buy the hype. Don’t feed the bubble.

I learned a lot in this conversation with CORY DOCTOROW and in his new book, THE REVERSE CENTAUR’S GUIDE TO LIFE AFTER AI. Rather than fear AI, Doctorow uses it daily, but he is also skeptical. He reminds us that nothing about the way things are unfolding with AI, technology, or society is inevitable, though that is the contention of those who profit from it. He warns that, if - in protesting AI’s threat - we buy into worst-case scenarios of its power, we promote its value.. More than what AI does, we need to pay attention to who AI does it to, and who AI does it for. Timely and useful. His website is craphound.com [http://craphound.com/] and he maintains a daily blog at Pluralistic.net [http://pluralistic.net/]. (Photo: digital trends.com [http://trends.com/]) Doctorow Transcript [http://aworldthatjustmightwork.com/wp-content/uploads/2026/06/FF_Doctorow-06-17-2026_polished-transcript.pdf]