Russ Feingold, the former US Senator from Wisconsin, is taking the campaign finance world by storm.  His Progressives United movement is working to tackle “Super PACs” and the corporate influence he feels is bastardizing democracy.  This is a critical time for Russ.  Continue pushing for change through his organization or go for another opening in the US Senate or the governorship of Wisconsin.

As Feingold so eloquently said in this speech:

Sound off in the comments.

What a view! But the ride up La Brea was treacherous dodging cars and hipsters. Man does Los Angeles need some urban bike trails! See map of LA and its bike trails. Ouch.

I think we should have a ‘walk / bike grid’ with dedicated trails every mile east to west and north to south. It would take cars off the road and encourage good exercise and green commuting.

What is YOUR city doing to accommodate bikers and provide a more ‘green’ environment for those who want some exercise or just want to go out for some fresh air? Would our representatives even listen to our requests?

Join the conversation!

Where are all the bike trails?

Don’t… tuck… ever!

This great article on 4 Reasons Men Should Not Tuck in a Shirt really made me laugh… and then I thought, “what the heck have I been doing all these years?”.

Although the author of the article is adamantly against tucking, there are a range of differing view points on this VERY controversial topic.

Countless videos on YouTube are devoted to the topic, including this one:

What are your thoughts?

To tuck or not to tuck…?

Young Bradley Rowe violates Rule #2!

Hi Everyone!

So excited to be entering 2011. With a new year, comes new inspiration, dedication and creativity. To that end, Noam Dromi and I will be providing a new level of insight, conversation and worlds of fun through regular postings, interviews and contributions from our correspondents at large. It’s going to be epic!

Anyhoo, that’s it for now… Just wanted to say hi and welcome everyone on to the ride to come!

1st Photo is of UW fans led by Bucky Badger full of Rose Bowl dreams — only to have TCU crush them hours later — That’s OK, Wisconsin football is still alive as the Packers are in the playoffs after taking down da Bears of Chicago on Sunday.

2nd Photo is friends and family ringing in the New Year with a proper tail-gate of homemade sausages and delicious cheese… and beverages

Brad

You may have noticed that things have been a bit quiet around here lately so we figured it was time to give you a quick update on some of the exciting developments going on behind the scenes. For starters, the MIPtalk site will soon relaunch with a new look and a whole bunch of cool new features.

In the year and a half that we’ve been doing this, our goal has consistently been to find truly unique individuals and garner insights into their profession, their passion and their world view. We’ve interviewed over 100 amazing thought leaders in multiple states and different countries – and we’re just getting started.

The feedback that you’ve given has been amazing and incredibly helpful.  Whether on this site, through Facebook, Twitter, YouTube or wherever else you congregate online you’ve let us know what’s working and what isn’t and continually inspired us to keep moving forward.

Our relaunch is focused on two major areas; categorizing our content in a way that makes it much easier for you to find what interests you and making video a much bigger element of the site while still maintaining the downloadable audio that many of you enjoy.

We’ve got a significant batch of new episodes in the pipeline that we’re excited to share with you in the next few weeks. You’ll see a lot of familiar faces and meet some incredible new people who are transforming the world.

But wait, there’s more…

We’re also going to be launching a Talk Back section to enable you to be an active part of the conversation and help guide MIPtalk’s programming going forward.

There’s still a lot to be done. We’ll continue to experiment to ensure that we’re creating a program that you enjoy watching as much as we enjoy making it.

Thanks for your continued support.

We’re excited that you’re sticking around as we begin this next chapter.

Your MIPtalk maestros,

Brad & Noam

Warning – Some of the audio in this interview is slightly distorted. We apologize for the inconvenience.

This week’s guest is Chaske Spencer.  An emerging actor and activist, he was born of the Lakota Sioux tribe, and raised on Indian Reservations in Montana and Idaho.  When he was young, he dreamt of becoming a photographer, and before long he found himself in front of the camera instead, in pursuit of an acting career.  Chaske moved to New York City and in between bartending and waiting tables to make a living, he was cast in his very first off off-Broadway play, Dracula, playing the title role. From there he did a number of New York Theatre pieces, performed at The Public Theater in NYC and The Roundabout and was fortunate enough to be discovered by television/film casting director Rene Haynes.

Rene cast him in his first feature Skins as well as the lead in Dream Keeper and Steven Spielberg’s Into the West. Rene also cast him in his recent and most buzzworthy role to date, playing Sam Uley (the leader of the werewolves); in the popular Summit Entertainment Twilight film series sequels: New Moon and Eclipse. New Moon premiered on November 20, 2009 with record-breaking numbers, and the DVD was released 3/20.  Eclipse is set to premiere June 30th 2010.

Image Credit: Life & Style

His work as a spokesperson for United Global Shift gives him the opportunity to impact many areas he is committed to shifting (poverty, sustainable communities, global empowerment)   Through his personal project Shift the Power to the People, he is shining a spotlight on initiatives designed to create sustainability and prosperity. www.shiftthepowertothepeople.org  The goal is to have 1 million letters go to congress by the release of Eclipse.

For additional reference we’ve included links to some of the people, places and things discussed in this episode:*

*coming soon

As many of you know, we’re gradually expanding MIPtalk to include a range of new features including video. We continue to revise the program to make sure that it suits the needs and interests of our audience.

When we first launched our show in early 2009 it took some time to “find our groove’. Listener feedback helped us improve dramatically. The same is true of our new foray into video. As you’ll see in the videos we’ve posted from the 2010 Innovation and Humanity Summit, the immediacy of video creates a different experience than what we’ve done thus far. And while we’re incredibly excited about the journey ahead, we still want to hear from you. Tell us what you think; what’s working, what’s not and what should we be doing differently? All feedback is greatly appreciated and don’t worry about sparing our feelings.

There’s much more to come so stay tuned and thanks for your continued support.

Brad and Noam

As much as we enjoy doing MIPtalk we realize that it can be a daunting experience for many of you to commit to listening to an entire episode in a single sitting. In an effort to continue improving on and evolving the program we’re pleased to announced the launch of MIPtalk Minutes, a new feature that will give you a bit of an appetizer before you gorge yourself on the main course.

We’ll be introducing excerpts from a variety of episodes so you can get a better idea of what you’re getting yourself into. If you still want to go “all in” — we salute you. Just don’t forget to tip your servers.

This week we’re giving you selections from some of the episodes produced as part of our partnership with the 2010 Innovation and Humanity Summit.  Here’s an overview:

This week’s guest is K.C. Cole. For the past ten years, K.C. Cole has been a science writer and columnist for the Los Angeles Times; she has also written for The New York Times, The New Yorker, The Smithsonian, Discover, Newsweek, Newsday, Esquire, Ms., People and many other publications. Her articles were featured in The Best American Science Writing 2004 and 2005 and The Best American Science and Nature Writing 2002. She has also been an editor at Discover and Newsday.

Cole is the author of seven nonfiction books, including Mind Over Matter: Conversations with the Cosmos; The Hole in the Universe: How Scientists Peered Over the Edge of Emptiness and Found Everything; and The Universe and the Teacup, the Mathematics of Truth and Beauty. She is also a regular commentator on science issues for KPCC-FM (Visit Cole’s KPCC archive).  She has developed and taught courses in science, culture and society as a Fellow at Yale and Wesleyan Universities and as adjunct professor of Science, Society and Communication at UCLA.

Cole particularly likes to show how science is integral to the arts and politics (and vice versa), and firmly believes, in the words of an artist friend that, “the worst disease afflicting human kind is ‘hardening of the categories’.” To that end, she runs a monthly series of informal events on science/art/politics known as Categorically Not! She’s made a point of writing about science in unlikely venues (such as women’s magazines) and unlikely forms (at the LA Times, she wrote about the mathematics of voting, the science of affirmative action and why the OJ Simpson trial had everything to do with the discovery of the top quark).

She has been honored with the American Institute of Physics Science Writing prize; the Los Angeles Times award for deadline reporting; the Skeptics’ Society Edward R. Murrow Award for Thoughtful Coverage of Scientific Controversies; Los Angeles Times award for best explanatory journalism, and the Elizabeth A. Wood Science Writing Award from the American Crystallographic Association.

Cole has been associated with San Francisco’s “museum of human awareness,” the Exploratorium, since 1972, and is currently working on a philosophical biography of its founder (and her mentor), the late physicist Frank Oppenheimer. Before getting into science writing, she wrote about international politics, travel, women’s issues, education and humor. She is an active member of JAWS (Journalism and Women Symposium).

To learn more about K.C. Cole visit her official website here.

For additional reference we’ve included links to some of the people, places and things discussed in this episode:

Port Washington, Long Island
Rio de Janeiro
Samba
Cachaça
Gulf of Tonkin Incident
Frank Oppenheimer
Sweet Briar College
Columbia University – 1968
Tricia Nixon
Prague Spring
Radio Free Europe
Miloš Forman
The Fireman’s Ball
Citizen Exchange Corps
Moon Landing
Chappaquiddick Incident
Lyndon Johnson
Leonid Brezhnev
Iron Curtain
American Revolution
Prague, Two Years After by K.C. Cole
Victory Navasky
Alan J. Friedman
Thomas Humphrey
The Exploratorium: A Participatory Museum
Philip Morrison
Robert R. Wilson
Uranium Isotopes
Radio Liberty
General Groves
The Oppenheimer Case: Security on Trial by Philip M. Stern
Trinity
Atomic Bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki
J. Edgar Hoover
Official Noticers of Society
The Feynman Lectures on Physics
The Practical and Sentimental Fruits of Science
Complementarity
Neils Bohr
Quarks
Symmetry
String Theory
Gravitation
Hers Column
Entropy
Stephen Jay Gould
Lewis Thomas
Wave
Interference
Resonance
Coupled Pendulums
Neutrinos
A Tough Act to Follow
Categorically Not
Something Incredibly Wonderful Happens by K.C. Cole
The Hole in the Universe by KC Cole
Roald Hoffmann
Cornelia Street Cafe
Santa Monica Art Studios
Bob Miller
Bubbleology
Sterling Johnson
Categorically Not – Bubbles
Autism The Musical
The Constant Fire by Adam Frank
Holes
Awesome
Dark Matters
Harcourt
First You Build A Cloud by K.C. Cole
The Universe and the Teacup by K.C. Cole
Multiverse
Mind over Matter by K.C. Cole
Drake Equation
Scientists and Bush Administration at Odds
Moon to Mars
National Academy of Sciences
One on One with Nancy Pelosi
Steven Chu
Stem Cell Research
Aesthetics
Drop City by TC Boyle
Coraline
Big Love

Larry Hertzog was born. There have been rumors to the contrary but his mother insists that the event occurred late in the sweltering summer of 1951. When the residents of Flushing, N.Y. became aware of his existence in their neighborhood, the family was soon forced to flee into the suburbs of New Jersey.

Fate would have it that Larry was destined to grow up in the John Hughes world of Teaneck, New Jersey. It was in the flames of suburban heat that this more-than-slightly-twisted personality was forged.

Growing up, Larry got along well with his peers. He admired many girls and though his admiration was rarely returned, he made sure to repay their generosity by indulging in copious evening fantasies. There were a few boys that he managed to befriend though many drew the line when he requested they join him in singing show tunes.

At the extremely mature age of 16, Larry quit Teaneck High School to pursue a career in horticulture. When that failed, he briefly attended NYU Film School. When it became apparent that kissing Marty Scorsese’s ass was part of the curriculum, Larry saw yet another opportunity to cut bait and leave another institution of higher education behind him.

Untethered in the late 60′s, Larry realized he now had a chance to pursue his generation’s foray into “free love.” He discovered, to his delight, that although no one of the opposite sex would pay attention to him, his fantasies were, indeed, free.

With horticulture behind him and a promising future ahead of him, Larry packed up his bags and moved to Los Angeles to pursue a career in the film industry. He soon found himself behind Camera 1 covering the Los Angeles Thunderbirds, an all-female Roller Derby team. Though these women appeared to be “on a similar intellectual plane,” they, too, ignored him. (Except for an incident in which he was upended with a flying crotch block.)

With his career in athletics a shamble, he turned to the only avenue left to him. Writing. He was counseled to write about what he knew best. He soon discovered there was little market for scripts about “night fantasies.”

The rest of the story involves his work on “Kate Loves a Mystery,” “Hart to Hart,” “Hardcastle and McCormick,” “Stingray,” “J.J. Starbuck,” “seaQuest,” “Nowhere Man,” “Profiler,” “Walker, Texas Ranger,” “Hunter,” “La Femme Nikita” and “Missing” (referred to by his biographers as “The Canadian Years.”)

The end of the story hasn’t been written yet though many are anxious to hear it. When it comes, it’s reasonably sure that the headlines will be HUGE. “Failed Horticulturist Chokes on Double-Whopper with Cheese.”

——–

Sadly, friend of MIPtalk Larry Hertzog passed away on April 19, 2008.

Brad and Noam have decided to honor his memory by reairing an episode of his podcast series Drinks with Larry and Lauren.  This episode is a bit longer that usual but definitely worth the listen.

For additional reference we’ve included links to some of the people, places and things discussed in this episode:

City of Prescott, Arizona
Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars
Woodrow Wilson
The League of Nations
The Heritage Foundation
The Andre Agassi Foundation
Children for Tomorrow
Lou Ruvo Center for Brain Health
Frank Gehry
Oscar Goodman – Mayor of Las Vegas
Oscar Goldman – Character in Bionic Woman
GLAAD Media Awards
Shelter
Here! Network
Regent Entertainment
Shelter DVD Audio Commentary
Trevor Wright
Jonah Markowitz
Noah’s Arc
JD Disalvatore – The Smoking Cocktail
Paul Colichman
Carolyn Coal
Gay and Lesbian Elder Housing
Same Sex Marriage in Iowa
Gary Gates
A Place to Live: The Story of Triangle Square
Cleveland International Film Festival
The 23rd London Lesbian and Gay Film Festival
The 25th Annual Boston LGBT Film Festival
Highlander: The Series
Hercules: The Legendary Journeys
Xena: Warrior Princess
UPN
DuMont Television Network
Star Trek Voyager
Star Trek directed by JJ Abrams
Nowhere Man
The Prisoner
Bruce Greenwood
Nowhere Man Opening
Nowhere Man: Fact or Fiction?
Joel Surnow
Nowhere Man DVD
La Femme Nikita
Oyster House
Drinks with Larry and Lauren episodes
Lawrence Hertzog Dead at 56
Lauren Proctor
Drinks with Larry and Lauren on MySpace