Medical errors are America's third largest cause of death. Only heart disease and cancer have a higher body count. A new report estimates that about 250,000 Americans die each year because of screw-ups in hospitals, doctors' offices and other medical settings. In 2013, research by NASA's chief toxicologist put the number at as many as 440,000. In this episode of "How Do We Fix It?", Pittsburgh-based lawyer James Lieber brings a passion for practical solutions to a widespread problem. James has s...
Jun 01, 2016•26 min
It's the biggest issue of the Presidential campaign that the candidates are not talking about: bloated government and the poor delivery of services. From very long TSA airport security lines to the dysfunction at your local DMV, our interactions with government can be extremely frustrating. Exceedingly complex rules and laws make things even worse. For decades, Philip K. Howard has been a leading voice on how to streamline government and make it work for all of us. His latest book is " The Rule ...
May 25, 2016•12 min
With technology in overdrive, self-driving cars are no longer a fantasy. The first autonomous cars and trucks made by major auto manufacturers could be on the road within several years. But "Fix It" guest Eddie Alterman, Editor-in-Chief of Car and Driver magazine says not so fast. "It's a scary concept anyway you look at it," he tells us. "The autonomous car is a very inelegant, very complex and a very fraught solution to the problem of texting while driving... and of information coming into the...
May 18, 2016•25 min
The numbers are alarming. A 2015 Gallup poll found nearly 70% of U.S. employers say they're either bored or disengaged at work. The cost to employers has been put at more than $500 billion in lost productivity. The cost to workers is incalculable - in human misery, unnecessary stress and lost opportunity. Workplace psychologist Ron Friedman is the author of "The Best Place to Work: The Art and Science of Creating an Extraordinary Workplace." Ron says there's an astonishing gap between the latest...
May 11, 2016•26 min
"Stuff happens," says homeland security expert and mom of three, Juliette Kayyem. The government has got to find a better way to talk about the threat of terrorism and natural disasters. Most of us need to have a better plan to prepare. "We talked in a way when people would either tune out or freak out," says Juliette of her time as a top official at The Department of Homeland of Homeland Security. "We are all in this together," she tells on this episode of "How Do We Fix It?" Her new book is "S...
May 04, 2016•20 min
"At the end of the day everybody is biased," says our guest,John Gable, founder CEO of AllSides. "You're biased by what youknow. You're biased by what you know and you're biased by yourentire human existence before then." AllSides is unique in how it covers the news - displayingstories on its front page - from different points of view. It urgesreaders to "engage in civil dialog and discover a deeperunderstanding of the issues." The left-hand column at AllSides has stories fromliberal-leaning sit...
Apr 26, 2016•27 min
Too often, news coverage is all about clashes, controversies andcontests. The way the media cover major events can have aprofound impact on our view of the world. In this episode, Jim and Richard - both journaliststhemselves - are joined by DavidBornstein , who writes for theFixes blog of The New York Times and is co-founder of SolutionsJournalismNetwork.org . "The news tends to focus far more on what's wrong than onthe credible efforts around the world of people who are trying tofix things, whe...
Apr 20, 2016•25 min
With the approach of Earth Day, this show looks at the cleanair, carbon-free case for nuclear power. And it challenges the viewheld by many environmentalists that the only way to save the planetis for all of us to get by with less. Guest Michael Shellenberger is is coauthor of AnEcomodernist Manifesto , a which argues that human prosperityand an ecologically vibrant planet go hand-in-hand. In 2007,Michael received the Green Book Award and Time magazine's" Heroof the Environment. " His recent TED...
Apr 13, 2016•25 min
You can't have too much of a really good thing. That's why we decided to invite Lenore Skenazy, founder of Free Range Kids, to make a welcome return to "How Do We Fix It?" She was a guest on an earlier show. Lenore is the passionate and playful campaigner, who says most American kids don't have nearly enough unstructured free time, when they can be curious and engage the world on their own terms. "Free time is unsupervised time," Lenore tells us. "It's not a parent sitting there saying 'oh, that...
Apr 06, 2016•28 min
We have a problem in our society. Too many people don't understand science or the importance of the scientific method. Many children aren't learning the basics of math and science, which closes off a broad range of career opportunities. It's also a problem in our civil society. A broader understanding of how science works would help parents know why they need to vaccinate their kids or what's going on with climate change. Science evangelist Ainissa Ramirez has some great fixes. She's the author ...
Mar 30, 2016•28 min
This episode looks at the simple, highly personal way that living room conversations allow people of different viewpoints to really hear each other. A progressive activist, Joan Blades was deeply involved in starting MoveOn.org in the late 90's. More recently she has also worked on ways to encourage respect and dialog among liberals, independents and conservatives. She is the cofounder of LivingRoomConversations.org. In part one last week (episode 43), we looked at why Americans need to find new...
Mar 22, 2016•18 min
How can you talk to people you disagree with? We Talk to Joan Blades, the founder of MoveOn.org about how to bridge the partisan divide. This show is another response to the deep partisan divide in America - part one of a fascinating conversation with Joan Blades. Much of our political campaign has been dominated by personal insults, name-calling and dogma. Voters have rewarded politicians who use anger and blame others for the country's problems. Individual citizens are part of the problem and ...
Mar 16, 2016•21 min
Let's face it. Donald Trump and Bernie Sanders have won far more votes than almost any "expert" forecast. The reason may well be that emotions and learned behavior from others play a far bigger role in our decision making than most of us realize. Our "Fix It" guest Mark Earls - the HERDMeister - is an award-winning British writer and consultant on marketing, communications and human behavior. In his latest book, " Copy, Copy, Copy, " Mark shows how we vote and buy stuff by copying others - our f...
Mar 09, 2016•27 min
More than any time in recent decades, American politics aredeeply divided. Compromise is a dirty word. "The way that we're running the country is that we're notrunning the country," says our guest Mark Gerzon, author of the newbook, " TheReunited States of America. " As President of Mediators Foundation, the group he founded 25years ago, Mark has brought people together in conflict zonesaround the world Concerned about increasing polarization in theU.S., Mark is working on the ideological fronti...
Mar 02, 2016•28 min
From the AmericanRevolution and the Founding Fathers - through wars, economic changeand the struggle for civil rights, American history isoverwhelmingly dominated by the achievements and errors ofmen. Women - because they were largely excluded from public andprofessional life for most of our history - play a relatively smallrole in the established narrative of our past. "Role models have a hugeimpact on the way young girls and women in general think aboutthemselves," says Joan Wages, President a...
Feb 24, 2016•21 min
For its opponents, Obamacare is a disaster - a classic exampleof over-reach by an Administration that wants to expand the sizeand scope of the Federal government. Supporters say The Affordable Care Act is a triumph, benefitingcountless millions of Americans, while reducing the threat ofpersonal bankruptcies in medical emergencies crippling healthcarecosts. "We have decreased the rate ofthe uninsured by about a third," says our guest Megan McArdle, acolumnist at Bloomberg View. But Obamacare pose...
Feb 17, 2016•34 min
Debbie Galant talks about what it's like to livewith breast cancer. What she learned along the way amount tosolutions for what can be a desperate, lonelyexperience. From the shock of herfirst diagnosis to sometimes wrenching, sometimes funnyconversations with her doctors and family, Debbie gives us valuablelessons about how to survive and recover, physically andemotionally. "You are pitched intothis world of fear... this incredible world of fear," she tells us."You're making a lot of decisions i...
Feb 10, 2016•26 min
Anti-lock brakes make many motorists drive faster. Introducing helmets and face masks in football raised the risk of concussions. Financial regulators and central bankers played a role in creatingconditions that led to the 2008 mortgage meltdown. The illusion of safety can lead to reckless behavior. These fascinating insights are part of "Foolproof - Why SafetyCan Be Dangerous and How Danger Makes Us Safe", the recentlypublished book by Greg Ip, chief economics commentator at The WallStreet Jour...
Feb 03, 2016•22 min
Before The U.S. and other nations can be successful againstIslamic State (ISIS) and other global jihadists, we must understandthe difference between Islam and Islamism. That's the argument fromour guest on this week's episode, Maajid Nawaz. "It happens to be that today we are dealing with an insurgencythat's rising and growing within my own Muslim community," he says.It doesn't help to deny it." A Sunni Muslim and a former Islamist fundamentalist, who isfounding chairman of the London-based coun...
Jan 26, 2016•24 min
We'd like to think that science should exist outside of politics and researchers follow the truth wherever it goes. But the ideal of rational non-ideological science is under attack at many colleges and universities, says our guest, Alice Dreger. An historian who studies human sexuality and the ethics of medical research, Alice is the author of the provocative new book, "Galileo's Middle Finger." "I'm really looking at how activists go after scientists who have ideas that the activists don't lik...
Jan 20, 2016•26 min
The armed occupation of the Malheur National Wildlife Refuge in the dry prairies of Southeast Oregon by members a small militia group is the most recent chapter in the very long-running dispute over land in The West. Our guest is environmental historian Nancy Langston, author of “Where Land and Water Meet. A Western Landscape Transformed.” In some western states the Federal Government owns more than half the land. This set the stage for impassioned arguments between ranchers, conservationists, c...
Jan 13, 2016•29 min
It's easy to make resolutions to improve our lives, but how do we boost our chances of following through? The first two guests on this New Year's Resolutions special are Dave McRaney of the podcast, "You Are Not So Smart" and Dr. Peter Whybrow,Director of the Semel Institute at U.C.L.A., author of The Well-Tuned Brain: Neuroscience And The Life Well Lived."Dave dives in to confirmation bias, when we seek out information that confirms our world view, rather than challenging ourselves with the tru...
Dec 31, 2015•24 min
If you want to get of sense of what we're about, this highlights show may be a good place to start. We've put together a "best of" podcast that reflects our values and makes the argument for why we're worth listening to. From Episode 4, released in June, reformer Philip K. Howard made the case for better government and simpler, shorter laws, instead of all the red tape and tangled mess that we have today. In his Ted Talk lecture and his latest book, “The Rule of Nobody,” Philip argues passionate...
Dec 29, 2015•30 min
We love our smartphones, tablets, and laptops. But what is the explosion in mobile technology doing to our brains?Our guest, Professor Abigail Baird,is a developmental psychologist,expert on the teenage brain and mother of two young children. She says technology has great benefits, but also could have a negative impact on our conversations, memory and social life. The brain's craving for novelty - for constant stimulation and instant gratification - makes our tech toys seem irresistible. So how ...
Dec 23, 2015•25 min
From angry scenes over Halloween costumes at Yale to protests against racism at the University of Missouri, student activism is back. More than at any time since the late 1960's, America is in the middle of a wave of college unrest. To what extent do students today have genuine grievances? Are at least some of them rebels without a cause - angry because their feelings have been hurt? “ Step by step colleges are being transformed into something more akin to mental health wards rather than citadel...
Dec 15, 2015•24 min
From Paris to San Bernardino, terrorist attacks have sparked an outcry from many politicians in Europe and the U.S. - including calls for new controls on immigration, refugees and the free movement of labor across national borders.The leading Republican Presidential candidate, Donald Trump, called for a total and complete ban on Muslims entering the United States.Our guest in episode 29, Peter Coy, Economics Editor for Bloomberg Businessweek, makes a strong case for more - not less - immigration...
Dec 07, 2015•27 min
How can we get more sleep? If you have at least seven hours of interrupted sleep each night, consider yourself very lucky indeed. Problems with sleep are remarkably widespread. Many millions of adults and children either don't spend enough time in bed or suffer from sleep disorders, resulting in illness, obesity, depression, mood swings and loss of creativity.Our guest is Jeff Koyen, Editor-in-Chief of Van Winkle's, a new website "obsessed with sleeping, waking and everything in between. He shar...
Dec 01, 2015•24 min
The holiday shopping season is underway and finding the right toy or game for his or her kids is the goal of every parent. A vast range of new toys has been introduced in recent months. Joining us in this episode to look at the recent changes is consultant and branding expert, Richard Gottlieb, of Global Toy Experts . "The toy industry is a nineteenth century industry that's trying hard to break into the twenty first," says Richard. "It's had a lot of difficulty dealing with the digital aspect o...
Nov 24, 2015•25 min
The demand for energy around the world continues to grow each year. And so does the amount of carbon dioxide that's pumped into the earth's atmosphere. What happens if the world fails to bring down CO2 emissions in the coming decades? What if all the treaties and negotiations over climate change don't succeed in reducing the threat of global warming?Our guest is Peter Kelemen, Chair of Columbia University's Earth and Environmental Sciences Department and Arthur B. Storke Professor of Geochemistr...
Nov 16, 2015•23 min
The Federal Reserve plays a fundamental role in our economy. But many Americans loathe The Federal Reserve - furious that The Fed bailed out banks and other huge financial firms during the 2008 financial crisis.Our guest, Roger Lowenstein, is the author of "America's Bank - The Epic Struggle to Create The Federal Reserve." His book is a dramatic account of the chaotic years before The United States became the last major industrialized nation to form a central bank.Our podcast features a lively d...
Nov 09, 2015•23 min
