On the Lean Out podcast, we’ve been diving into pandemic school closures — and trying to get to the bottom of why there was so little debate over this. Tara's guest on the podcast today has some insights to share. She’s a mother of four and an open schools advocate, and she’s been outspoken on the issue from the very start. Jennifer Sey is an American author, former gymnast, filmmaker , and business executive. Her new book is called Levi’s Unbuttoned — The Woke Mob Took My Job But Gave Me My Voi...
Nov 02, 2022•36 min
When schools were closed at the beginning of the pandemic, we did not have a robust public debate. The issue, unfortunately, was politicized — and it has only been recently, with the data now emerging , that a mainstream conversation has been possible. Back in 2020, Tara's guest on the podcast today warned what school closures could mean for children , and particularly for the most vulnerable kids. Anya Kamenetz is a former education reporter for NPR. Her new book is The Stolen Year: How Covid C...
Oct 25, 2022•26 min
The Lean Out podcast has just celebrated its 50th episode. So, today, for episode 51, we have a special Canada-themed show for you. We’re going to be hearing from a much-respected Canadian broadcaster who’s written a riveting biography about a much-discussed Canadian politician, former Prime Minister John Turner, Canada’s version of JFK. As we take a trip back in time — hearing about John Turner’s role in the invocation of the War Measures Act, and his liaisons with Princess Margaret and Marilyn...
Oct 19, 2022•39 min
It’s hard to believe that it has been five years since #MeToo. The culture has moved on many times since then. But it’s worth returning to the movement, to take stock of what it did, and did not, accomplish — and how it’s influenced the moment we now find ourselves in. Tara's guest on the podcast today does just this in a new piece for The Spectator, “ So much for #MeToo .” Phoebe Maltz Bovy is a Toronto writer, editor, and contributing columnist at The Globe and Mail. She’s also co-host of the ...
Oct 14, 2022•20 min
Washington is known to be a city of secrets. And, for many decades, one of the most dangerous secrets was that of homosexuality. Its spectre haunted the halls of power, and the true stories are only now coming to light. Tara's guest on today’s podcast has written a sweeping history of gay involvement in government. And he has much to say about the past’s lessons for the present moment — for free speech, for open debate, and for a free press. James Kirchick is an American journalist and a columni...
Oct 12, 2022•38 min
The American journalist H. L. Mencken once said that “puritanism is the haunting fear that someone, somewhere may be happy.” This comment resonates now more than ever, with the emergence of a new sanctimonious, humourless movement that targets all of the things that make life most worth living, from sports and comedy to art and food and special occasions. Tara's guest on the podcast today argues that history will likely not remember these “woke” zealots well — and that, at the heart of their mov...
Oct 05, 2022•32 min
We talk a lot on this podcast about the ascendent woke ideology. But there is not yet anything like consensus on what this political movement actually is, what values define it — and who advances its agenda. Tara's guest on the podcast today has tackled these questions in a new book. She argues that woke ideology is an elite phenomenon. That it has breathed new life into old prejudices like sexism, racism, and homophobia. And that elites are unaware how unpopular these ideas are with the public....
Sep 28, 2022•33 min
One of the big debates in journalism right now is over the role of objectivity . Is this an ideal worth upholding — or should we be moving on to other models, like the “moral clarity” ideal recently proposed in the New York Times ? This debate resurfaced last week at a panel discussion hosted by the Columbia Journalism School, “ The Objectivity Wars .” Tara's guest on the program today was on that panel. David Greenberg is a professor of history and of journalism and media studies at Rutgers Uni...
Sep 21, 2022•34 min
Advocates against pandemic school closures have been ringing the alarm for some time. They were all but ignored two years ago. But the tide is now starting to turn, with mainstream media outlets reporting on the impacts of these closures on children . Tara's guest today has been speaking out about these policies since 2020. And he recently published a powerful paper arguing that extended school closures were, in fact, a moral catastrophe — and one that we must ensure never happens again. Shamik ...
Sep 16, 2022•33 min
With school back in session for the year, it’s a good time to take a look at the lessons that we’re passing on to the next generation of children. Are we giving them the tools that they need to succeed in life? Tara's guest on the program today thinks there’s room for improvement. And his new book takes aim at the “blame the system” and “blame the victim” cultural narratives that he believes impede kids’ ability to recognize, and harness, their own agency. Ian Rowe is an educator and entrepreneu...
Sep 14, 2022•34 min
The fall is here, and the Lean Out podcast is back — renewed, refreshed, and ready to dive in on the debates of the day. There’s no better way to kick off the season than with our brilliant guest today, who’s been ringing the alarm on pessimism about the West. He grew up in the Soviet Union under communism, and moved to the UK in his youth, forging successful careers as a translator, a comedian, a political commentator, and most recently, a podcaster. Konstantin Kisin is co-host of the Triggerno...
Sep 07, 2022•38 min
With summer winding down and the Lean Out podcast about to go on hiatus for several weeks, Tara wanted to leave you all with a really compelling story — a story of one of Canada’s most famous journalists, an investigative reporter and war correspondent who cared deeply about the truth. This is also the story of that reporter’s son and his quest to understand his father, a quest that took him around the world and inspired him to put pen to paper. Eric Reguly is the European bureau chief for The G...
Aug 17, 2022•38 min
“Workers across the developed world have been moving away from traditional working-class parties, while the left has shed most of its connections to anyone outside the email economy, and working-class concerns increasingly meet with progressive resentment and hostility…” These are the opening lines of a recent piece from Tara's guest today, titled “ The New Workers’ Movement” and published in Compact Magazine . In it, he argues that by 2022, this has all become pretty obvious. And that the reall...
Aug 12, 2022•20 min
In recent years, Canada — like the United States — has been engaged in a national conversation on race. But Tara's guests on today’s program say that that conversation does not always acknowledge the diversity of opinion within communities of colour. Particularly when it comes to critical race theory. Jamil Jivani is a lawyer, an author and a columnist at the National Post. He’s also a senior fellow at the Macdonald-Laurier Institute, where he helped found the Speak For Ourselves initiative. It ...
Aug 10, 2022•41 min
If you follow Tara's Substack, you know that over the past six months she has frequently covered the vaccine mandates in Canada . She has been raising questions about the scientific rationale for these mandates — and this week Canada got some answers. Tara's guest on today’s podcast published new reporting at Bari Weiss’s Substack, Common Sense , in a piece titled “ Court Documents Reveal Canada’s Travel Ban Had No Scientific Basis .” Rupa Subramanya is a columnist for the National Post. Her rep...
Aug 05, 2022•22 min
In 2008, at the age of 44, Tara's guest on today’s program left Yale University, where he taught English, and became a full-time writer. In the years since leaving academia, he’s amassed an impressive body of work — much of it challenging the status quo. Tara knew she had to talk to him when she read his excellent essay in UnHerd, “ Escaping American tribalism ,” about his defection from the progressive left. William Deresiewicz is an essayist and cultural critic, and the author of Excellent She...
Aug 03, 2022•29 min
When Dave Chappelle’s recent show at First Avenue in Minneapolis was cancelled amid protests , it reignited the debate around cancel culture, with all of the old arguments resurfacing once again. So the timing could not have been better for Tara's guests on today’s podcast, who published a comprehensive essay that same week on Substack, titled “ Cancel Culture: It’s real and on the rise, on the left and the right .” The piece examines the dominant myths about this phenomenon — and debunks them. ...
Jul 30, 2022•29 min
Since the sexual revolution, women’s lives have undergone dramatic changes. The dominant narrative is that liberal feminism has freed women in profound ways. So why does data show that women’s happiness has actually declined? Tara's guest on the podcast today argues that the sexual revolution has, in fact, failed women. Louise Perry is a British writer and activist. She’s a columnist at The New Statesmen and a features writer for The Daily Mail . Her brilliant debut is called The Case Against th...
Jul 27, 2022•39 min
For many journalists, it’s a point of pride to consume as much media as possible, as much of the time as possible. We think this makes us informed, better at our jobs. So it caused a stir last week when American journalist Amanda Ripley admitted, in The Washington Post no less, that she’s been avoiding the news for years — like an increasing number of Americans , and Canadians . And, it turns out, journalists. Amanda Ripley’s piece is titled, “ I stopped reading the news — is the problem me, or ...
Jul 22, 2022•27 min
How do we arrive at truth? Tara's guest on the podcast today argues that it is through reality-based communities — in government, media, the law, and science and academia — which collectively determine truth through trial and error, rules and norms, and discussion and debate. All together, he calls this system “the constitution of knowledge.” But this system is under threat, he says, from both the right and the left. On the right, through the flooding of the public sphere with what's called a "f...
Jul 20, 2022•53 min
Those on the political left have long seen free speech as a core tenet — so it’s been bizarre for many of us to watch the left abandon it, and, in many cases now even campaign against it. Tara's guest on the podcast today has written a new piece for Tablet Magazine arguing that, in fact, this trend is not particularly new. The essay is titled “ Who Really Benefits From the First Amendment? ,” and it takes a look back in history at attacks on free speech originating on the left — and stresses tha...
Jul 15, 2022•20 min
How do you regulate the Internet? It’s a question that the federal government in Canada is in the process of trying to answer. But its approach is generating controversy, with several bills raising concerns around freedom of expression. Bill C-11, the Online Streaming Act , was recently rushed through the House of Commons in a remarkable manner that led one Conservative MP to call it an “ affront to democracy .” And Tara's guest on the podcast today says a subsequent ruling from the CRTC — the C...
Jul 13, 2022•30 min
If you’re a fiction reader and you’ve noticed that novels are getting more political — and more overtly aligned with the progressive political project in particular — there’s a reason for this. Big publishing houses are increasingly hiring what are called “sensitivity readers,” to vet authors’ work to ensure that it doesn’t cause offence. Tara's guest on the podcast today has written a piece about this trend for Reason Magazine. It’s titled “ Sensitivity Readers Are the New Literary Gatekeepers ...
Jul 07, 2022•17 min
For all of the mainstream media’s coverage of Donald Trump, there’s not a very deep understanding of the Republican Party under that president, or, indeed, the forces that led up to his election. In the liberal press, there just has not been that much curiosity about the nuances of the American conservative movement — and the historical and political forces driving it. But Tara's guest on the program today says the history of the American right is actually a rich and complex one, with numerous d...
Jul 06, 2022•35 min
As the pandemic winds down, another public health emergency rages — and it is not getting as much attention. We're speaking, of course, about the opioid crisis. Theresa Tam, Canada’s chief medical officer of health, recently tweeted that the latest data shows that in 2021, 7,560 people died of opioid-related overdose. On average, 21 people died and 17 were hospitalized every day. Tara's guest on the program today penned an opinion piece in the Vancouver Sun in 2020 warning that our pandemic resp...
Jun 29, 2022•40 min
The realignment of left and right is something we talk about a lot on this podcast, as we try to make sense of the current moment. This political shakeup is producing new politics, new alliances, and new conversations. To keep up with the pace of such shifts, Lean Out is now expanding to two episodes a week, to better document these developments in real time. Tara will still be interviewing an author every week, but now she'll also be interviewing a journalist — about a newly-published piece tha...
Jun 28, 2022•17 min
Last week, amid growing pressure, the Canadian government suspended vaccine mandates for domestic and outbound international air and rail travel — as well as for the federal civil service and the federally regulated transportation sectors. But this debate is far from over, as the government stated that it will not hesitate to reimplement vaccine mandates in the future. The question is: Is such a policy backed by science? A recent peer-reviewed paper in the BMJ Global Health medical journal argue...
Jun 22, 2022•34 min
There was big news out of the United States last week for those who follow the ongoing debate over the state of free speech. FIRE , the preeminent free speech organization for higher education, is expanding beyond campus. And the organization has been renamed the Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression. Tara's guest on the podcast today says its expanded mandate is a result of 2020, the worst year for free speech in his entire career. And he wants us all to think deeply about why free sp...
Jun 17, 2022•33 min
The pandemic, as we know, has been a different experience for different people. Some of us, the laptop class, isolated and worked from home. But others of us, the essential workers, were out there every day doing the work that it took to keep society from collapsing. The stories of the working class have often gone untold, but Tara's guest on the podcast today has dedicated himself to interviewing working people — on his podcast, in his reporting, and in his new book. And he believes their exper...
Jun 15, 2022•37 min
“Men and women exist. Occasionally, we even like each other. We exist because of these two simple truths.” These are the opening lines of a powerful new book that dives into the crisis in contemporary heterosexuality. It’s been called a “feminist defence of masculinity,” and it is a clear-headed and compassionate look at where we’ve gone wrong. Nina Power is a British writer, philosopher, and fellow Substacker. She’s also a senior editor at the new American journal of radical politics, Compact M...
Jun 08, 2022•30 min
