My guest is writer and lawyer Amy Bach, who has written, Ordinary Injustice, How America Holds Court, “…the exposure and systematic shoddiness at the core of the American criminal justice system…” from Publishers Weekly. Guy Fairstein, now of Legal Services of the Hudson Valley, will join me as a guest panelist.

                                                                        

                             Guy Fairstein                           Amy Bach                          

Amy Bach, a member of the New York bar, has written on law for The Nation, The American Lawyer, and New York magazine, among other publications. For her work in progress on Ordinary Injustice, Bach received a Soros Media Fellowship, a special J. Anthony Lukas citation, and a Radcliffe Fellowship. She was a Knight Foundation Journalism Fellow at Yale Law School. Ms Bach is a graduate of Brown University and the Stanford Law School. After law school she clerked for the Honorable Rosemary Barkett, judge of the 11th Circuit of Appeals in Miami, Fla.

She was raised in NYC and currently lives in Rochester, New York, where she has taught legal studies at the University of Rochester. She is currently a Soros Justice Media Fellow at The Open Society Institute. Recently, she held the Hayward Burns Memorial Fellowship at The Nation Institute, where she wrote a series of articles about injustice for The Nation magazine.
Guy R. Fairstein is a graduate of Williams College (B.A., 1966) and the University of Virginia School of Law (LL.B., 1969). During almost 40 years in the practice of law, Guy has concentrated his practice in the field of civil litigation, mostly cases involving commercial transactions and business entities, and some cases in the field of trusts and estates.  He has represented individuals, privately owned businesses, and some large corporations, in all phases of civil litigation.  Clients for which he has tried cases include Allied Stores Corporation (age discrimination action), KLM Royal Dutch Airlines (injunctive action under the Railway Labor Act), and Simon & Schuster (breach of contract action).  

For almost 20 years Guy has given his time to service as a volunteer mediator in the United States District Court for the Southern District of New York.  Since July 2008 he has provided pro bono representation to indigent clients as a volunteer attorney working in association with Legal Services of the Hudson Valley.  Guy’s niche pro bono practice area concerns default judgments, wage garnishments and frozen bank accounts.

Download | Duration: 00:51:52

My guest is Julie M. Fenster, biographer and historian. Our subject is Louis McHenry Howe, and how he influenced the course of American history with his dedication and friendship with the Roosevelt’s.

         

Julie Fenster at the FDR Library,  and the Summer Bookfest at Hyde Park, NY

Julie M. Fenster is an author and historian who began her career at Automobile Quarterly, where her book Packard: The Pride won the Best Book award from the National Automotive Journalism Conference. The author of six additional books on a wide range of historical topics, she has written for American Heritage, the New York Times, and American History.
Her previous book, Ether Day: The Strange Tale of America’s Greatest Medical Discovery and the Haunted Men Who Made It, received the Anesthesia Foundation Award for best book of 2001. Fenster graduated from Colgate University and lives in upstate New York, where she drives her sports car on roads that trace the route of the 1908 New York to Paris Auto Race.She has starred in a TV commercial for Cheapbooks which was aired in early 2008. She is shown at a book signing for her work "Race of the Century." In 2003 she won The Anesthesia Foundation’s 2003 Book/Multimedia Education Award for Ether Day. In January 2006, she and co-author Douglas Brinkley released Parish Priest, a biography of Father Michael J. McGivney, the founder of the Knights of Columbus..
She is also a regular contributor to American Heritage, Fenster has also written for the New York Times and the Los Angeles Times. She has appeared on NPR and C-Span, among others. Below is a list of her books

 • Ether Day: The Strange Tale of America's Greatest Medical Discovery and the Haunted Men Who Made It (2001)
 • Mavericks, Miracles, and Medicine: The Pioneers Who Risked Their Lives to Bring Medicine into the Modern Age (2003)
 • Race of the Century: The Heroic True Story of the 1908 New York to Paris Auto Race (2006)
 • The Case of Abraham Lincoln: A Story of Adultery, Murder, and the Making of a Great President (2007)
 • FDR's Shadow: Louis Howe, the Force That Shaped Franklin and Eleanor Roosevelt (2009)

Download | Duration: 00:51:50

Today my guest  is financial advisor and consultant to cities, states, and national governments, John Berenyi, who will discuss public policy issues that include: military spending, pension reform, mining the sea, education reform, mass transit, government re-organization, and the pension time bomb!

        

Mr. John Berenyi, has undergraduate and graduate degrees in, engineering, management sciences and applied economics from Columbia University. He has been an investment banker, who has specialized in alternative energy and environmental finance for the past 25 years. In the early part of his career, as a Loeb Fellow in Advanced Environmental Studies at Harvard University, he developed the composite set of environmental indicators to measure the quality of life in cities across the United States. Cities, counties, states, and academic institutions have adopted this work, across America, as a tool for public of public policy and evaluation. Today, after a long career serving companies like Citicorp, HSBC Capital and IF Rothschild, he is the managing director of Ecocite, a Canadian-based company that works as an energy investment trust for eco-property development. He is also the Senior Advisor on Energy to the AJ Congress to implement the US-Israeli Energy Independence. Act. He is directing the Infrastructure & Energy Solutions Group (IESG), which is working on solutions regarding sustainable infrastructure and renewable energy for municipalities. John Berenyi has been an important contributor to The Advocates over the past three years, with his annual year-end predictions, his important and critical contributions on energy independence, financial market analysis and American sustainability.

Download | Duration: 00:52:31

My guest is Neil M. Maher, author of a book about the Civilian Conservation Corp, and its impact on the nation's environmental movement.

 

                Neil Maher at the Roosevelt Summer Bookfest
                     signing his book "Nature's New Deal"

Neil M. Maher is an associate professor in the Federated History Department at the New Jersey Institute of Technology and Rutgers University at Newark, where he teaches environmental history and political history.  He has published articles in academic journals including the Western Historical Quarterly, Environmental History, and the Chronicle of Higher Education, and edited a collection of essays by historians, scientists, and policy analysts titled New Jersey’s Environments: Past, Present, and Future (Rutgers University Press, 2006). He has recently published "Nature’s New Deal:" The Civilian Conservation Corps and the Roots of the American Environmental Movement (Oxford University Press, 2008), which won the Charles A. Weyerhaeuser Book Award for the best monograph in conservation history.  He is currently researching and writing a book on the environmental history of the space race during the long 1960s.

Download | Duration: 00:53:21

My guest is diplomat, scholar, businessman and former Ambassador William vanden Heuval. Our subject is the Four Freedoms Foundation, FDR and the new memorial dedicated to him that will be erected on Roosevelt Island. Information can found at  www.fdrfourfreedomspark.org.

Throughout his distinguished career as a lawyer, diplomat, businessman, and scholar, Ambassador William J. vanden Heuvel has worked tirelessly to realize Franklin and Eleanor Roosevelt’s ideals of social justice, human rights, and collaboration among nations. Born in Rochester, New York, in 1930 of immigrant parents, William vanden Heuvel attended public schools and worked his way through university, graduating Deep Springs College, Cornell University and Cornell Law School where he was Editor-in-Chief of the Cornell Law Review. He began his career in public service as Executive Assistant to William J. “Wild Bill” Donovan during General Donovan’s ambassadorship to Thailand, and subsequently served as Counsel to New York State Governor Averell Harriman.

                

In 1964, as Assistant to U.S. Attorney General Robert F. Kennedy, Mr. vanden Heuvel led the efforts to defeat local resistance to school desegregation in Prince Edward County, Virginia. A Supreme Court landmark secured the legacy of Brown vs. Board of Education and restored free public education to thousands of black children who had been without it since 1959 when the County closed its schools rather than desegregate them. The establishment of the Prince Edward County Free Schools System in 1963, for which Ambassador vanden Heuvel was singularly responsible, is considered a landmark in the civil rights struggle.

As Chairman of the New York City Board of Corrections in the early 1970s, he led a campaign to investigate and ameliorate conditions in the city’s overcrowded prison system and has had a lifelong involvement in the reform of the criminal justice system.

During the Carter Administration, Mr. vanden Heuvel was U.S. Permanent Representative to the European Office of the United Nations in Geneva and U.S. Deputy Permanent Representative to the United Nations in New York. Ambassador vanden Heuvel has eloquently defended the UN’s mission and importance with leadership roles in the United Nations Association/USA and the World Federation of United Nations Associations. As Co-Chair of the Council of American Ambassadors, he has written reports on Israel and Cuba, and reported on the Northern Ireland Peace Process.

Ambassador vanden Heuvel has served since 1955 as a director of the International Rescue Committee, a non-profit agency assisting refugees from political persecution and violent conflict.  In 1956, he traveled to Hungary and Austria to aid refugees of the Hungarian Revolution.  As President of IRC, he later organized efforts on behalf of Cuban, Chinese, Angolan, and Eastern European refugees. He serves on the Advisory Board of the International League for Human Rights, and has pressed for the U.S. to play a greater role in the developing world. “If we are unable to identify our own well-being in strengthening the economic foundations of the developing world,” he wrote in 1981, “then we are doomed to pay a price that dollars alone will not begin to measure.”
Ambassador vanden Heuvel was a Senior Partner at the law firm of Stroock & Stroock & Lavan, where he practiced international and corporate law.  He is currently Senior Counsel to the firm. He has held directorships in a number of public companies, among them the U.S. Banknote Corporation, Time Warner, Inc., and the North Aegean Petroleum company, and is currently Director of several prominent energy corporations. Since 1984 he has been a Senior Advisor to the investment banking firm Allen & Company.

As President of the Franklin and Eleanor Roosevelt Institute since 1984, and Chairman of the Board since 2000, Ambassador vanden Heuvel has presided over a range of academic conferences and initiatives relating to the Roosevelt Era, and helped to establish the Institute’s Roosevelt Study Centers in the Netherlands, Russia, and South Korea. With Ms. Anne Roosevelt, Ambassador Vanden Heuvel annually presents the prestigious FDR Four Freedoms Medals to outstanding individuals and organizations whose work embodies a commitment to the ideals that President Roosevelt expounded in his historic “Four Freedoms” address of 1941.

Ambassador vanden Heuvel has coauthored a biography of Robert F. Kennedy, and has written frequently on international affairs and the FDR legacy. In 2000 he edited a widely acclaimed book of essays examining current prospects for Russian political and democratic reforms, and he is Co-Editor, with historians Arthur Schlesinger, Jr. and Douglas Brinkley, of the St. Martin’s Press Series on American Diplomatic History.

Download | Duration: 00:52:03

My guest today is author and speaker James Bradley, who has written not only the legendary, "Flag of Our Fathers," but the provocative new book, "The Imperial Cruise," which gives us  a new perspective on President Theodore Roosevelt and his secret diplomatic mission to  the Pacific and to expand our influence to Asia.

             


     The Imperial Cruise                          Flag of Our Fathers
                                                                   Rock from Mount Suribachi

James Bradley is the fourth child of Iwo Jima flag raiser, John "Doc" Bradley. Raised in Wisconsin, Bradley studied at the University of Notre Dame, Sophia University in Tokyo, Japan and graduated with a degree in  East Asian History from the University of Wisconsin. When he was thirteen years old he read an article by James Michener in Reader's Digest which I paraphrase: "When you're twenty-two and graduate from college, people will ask you, 'What do you want to do?' It's a good question, but you should answer it when you're thirty-five." Michener explained that his experiences wandering the globe as a young man later inspired his book on Afghanistan, Spain, Japan and other places.

              

When he was nineteen years old, he lived and studied in Tokyo for one year. He later brought his Japanese friends home to Wisconsin. His father, John Bradley, had helped raise an American flag on the Japanese island of Iwo Jima and had shot a Japanese soldier dead. But his father John Bradley welcomed his friends to his home.

Bradley has vast experience writing and producing corporate films and corporate meetings; he has traveled the world, living and working in more than 40 countries for nearly a decade. Bradley has run companies in the United States, Japan, the United Kingdom, Germany and Italy. He has jumped out of airplanes at 15,000 feet, has scuba-dove in deep waters worldwide, trekked to Mount Everest's base camp and walked among lions in Africa. He is an avid reader of history, enjoys discovering exotic cuisine, cliff diving, golfing and snow skiing.

For the past ten years, the James Bradley Peace Foundation and Youth For Understanding have sent American students to live with families overseas. Perhaps in the future when we debate whether to fight it out or talk it out, one of these Americans might make a difference.  He remains a professional motivational speaker and he is the author of Flag of Our Fathers, Flyboys, and The Imperial Cruise. He divides his time between homes in New York's Westchester County, and Jamaica.

Download | Duration: 00:51:51

My guests today are Brian Lee Crowley and Jason Clemens. and our subject is “The Canadian Century and Moving out of America’s Shadow”

           

              Jason Clemens                                Brian Lee Crowley                         
                                                 
Brian Lee Crowley is the Managing Director, Macdonald-Laurier Institute. MLI is the only think tank in Ottawa dealing with the full spectrum of issues falling under the jurisdiction of the federal government. The Institute, which opened its doors officially in March 2010, fills a glaring gap in Canada’s democratic infrastructure. Canada is the only G7 country not to have such a full-service think tank in its national capital speaking to the national electorate, policy decision-makers and opinion leaders, about national policy.
Crowley has a long and distinguished record in the think tank world. He was the founder of the Atlantic Institute for Market Studies (AIMS) in Halifax, one of the country’s leading regional think tanks. AIMS is one of the world's most honored think tanks. It is a four time winner of the prestigious Sir Antony Fisher Award, which recognizes excellence in public policy think tank publications and projects. No think tank in the world has won this honor more times than AIMS. Crowley is a former Salvatori Fellow at the Heritage Foundation in Washington DC and is a Senior Fellow at the Galen Institute, a health care policy think tank also based in Washington. In addition, he is a member of the "Conseil scientifique" (Research Advisory Board) of l'Institut Turgot (Paris, France); the Research Advisory Board of the Frontier Centre for Public Policy (Winnipeg); and the Nigerian Institute for Public Policy (Lagos, Nigeria).
 
In September 2009, Key Porter Books published Crowley's fourth book, Fearful Symmetry: the fall and rise of Canada’s founding values, which quickly found its way onto the Canadian best sellers lists. Among his many other books and other publications, Crowley co-authored two projects on the Canadian health-care system both of which won the Sir Antony Fisher Award. In recognition of his health-care work, he was named to the most influential recent provincial health-care inquiry in Canada, the Alberta Premier’s Advisory Council on Health (the Mazankowski Committee).

Other major policy areas where Crowley has taken a leadership role include its work on equalization, Canada-US relations, public school performance and accountability, EI reform, natural resources and public finances, and regional development policy.
 
From 2006-08 Crowley was the Clifford Clark Visiting Economist with the federal Department of Finance. This is the most senior independent economic policy advisory position within the federal government and carries with it the rank of an Assistant Deputy Minister. During his time in Ottawa, Crowley worked on a broad range of policy files and redesigned the pre-budget consultation process. In 2007 he was named one of the 100 most influential people in Ottawa by The Hill Times.
 
Crowley has headed the Atlantic Provinces Economic Council (APEC), taught politics, economics and philosophy at Dalhousie University, University of Manitoba, University of Winnipeg, le Collège Universitaire de Saint-Boniface, the City of London Polytechnic (UK) and the Université d'été at Aix-en-Provence (France) and been constitutional advisor to the governments of Nova Scotia (Charlottetown negotiations) and Manitoba (Meech Lake negotiations). He has been a Salvatori Fellow at the Heritage Foundation in Washington, a diplomat for the EEC Commission, an aid administrator for the UN in Africa, an advisor to the Quebec government on parliamentary and electoral reform and a Parliamentary Intern at the House of Commons in Ottawa.


        

                    Richard J. Garfunkel
 
Crowley is a frequent commentator on political and economic issues for the CBC, Radio-Canada and many other media, and is a former member of the Editorial Board of The Globe and Mail (one of Canada's two national newspapers). He holds degrees from McGill and the London School of Economics, including a doctorate in political economy from the latter.

Jason Clemens is the Director of Research at the Pacific Research Institute. He also directs strategic planning and budgeting for the Institute. Prior to joining PRI he held a number of positions at the Canadian-based Fraser Institute over a ten-plus year period, including the director of research quality, resident scholar in fiscal studies, and the director of strategic planning and budgeting. He has an Honors Bachelors Degree of Commerce and a Masters’ Degree in Business Administration from the University of Windsor as well as a Post Baccalaureate Degree in Economics from Simon Fraser University.

He has published over 50 major studies on a wide range of topics, including taxation, government spending, labor market regulation, banking, welfare reform, productivity, entrepreneurship, public choice economics, and economic prosperity. He has published over 250 shorter articles, which have appeared in such newspapers as The Wall Street Journal, Investors Business Daily, The National Post, The Globe & Mail, and all major daily papers in Canada as well as in major U.S. papers and websites such as the Washington Post, L.A. Daily News, San Francisco Chronicle, San Diego Union-Tribune, Detroit Free Press and Detroit News, Pittsburgh Tribune-Review, Sacramento Bee, Human Events, Townhall.com, and the Flash Report. Mr. Clemens has been a guest on numerous radio and television programs across Canada and the United States, including ABC News. He has appeared before committees of both the House of Commons and the Senate in Canada as an expert witness and testified before state legislatures in California. In 2006, he received the prestigious Canada’s Top 40 Under 40 award presented by Caldwell Partners as well as an Odyssey Award from the University of Windsor.
                                           

Download | Duration: 00:51:43

Wednesday, June 9, 2010, at 12:00 Noon, I am hosting my show, The Advocates on WVOX- 1460 AM, or you can listen to the program’s live streaming at www.wvox.com. One can call the show at 914-636-0110 to reach us on the radio.  My guest today is Dr. Isamettin A. Aral. Our subject is “Cancer: The fight and the role of screenings!”

Dr. Isamettin A. Aral, M.D is a Board Certified Radiation Oncologist with more than 15 years of clinical practice experience.  He has distinguished himself as a leader in the field of Radiation Oncology.  He is currently engaged in a private practice of Radiation Oncology, near his home on Long Island. 

Dr. Aral has held many senior positions over the past 10 years, functioning as both a physician executive and administrator.  Most recently he served as the Chairman of Radiation Oncology at Staten Island University Hospital (SIUH), which is one of the largest facilities in the North Shore-LIJ Hospital system.  While at SIUH, Dr. Aral developed an active oncology service that saw in excess of 600 new patients annually.  Prior to joining the Staten Island team, Dr. Aral held similar positions in Lutheran Medical Center in Brooklyn, the New York Harbor VA, and the Northport VA. 

Prostate cancer therapy has been an ardent focus of Dr. Aral’s clinical and research efforts.  His writings have been published in numerous peer reviewed journals.  He has been requested to provide information on prostate cancer screening and therapy for many national media organizations. With the assistance of local new personalities, Dr. Aral has provided detailed information regarding the current status of prostate cancer screening.   This information has regularly aired on ABC’s, Good Morning America show.   Dr. Aral’s public service efforts extend to his involvement in patient centered events, including the National Cancer Survivors Day events that are held annually in June. 

Dr. Aral holds a clinical appointment at the State University of New York, where he serves as a Clinical Assistant Professor in the Department of Radiation Oncology.  He has been an educator to many residents and was awarded the distinguished faculty educator award, by the Resident and Fellows Alumni Society.  Education of medical students, residents and fellows has been an important focus of Dr. Aral’s efforts. 

In addition to his clinical practice of medicine, Dr. Aral is a member of the New York Air National Guard and Air Force Reserves.  He holds the rank of Major and is currently stationed near his home on Long Island  You can reach Dr. Aral directly by dialing 516-222-2020/ext#7427 or his email at tomotherapy@nrad.com .


                                                                      

Download | Duration: 00:53:38

My guest today is Guy Fairstein. Our subject is “Legal Aid, the Legal Services of the Hudson Valley and equal justice under law.”

Guy R. Fairstein is a graduate of Williams College (B.A., 1966) and the University of Virginia School of Law (LL.B., 1969). 

During almost 40 years in the practice of law, Guy has concentrated his practice in the field of civil litigation, mostly cases involving commercial transactions and business entities, and some cases in the field of trusts and estates.  He has represented individuals, privately owned businesses, and some large corporations, in all phases of civil litigation.  Clients for which he has tried cases include Allied Stores Corporation (age discrimination action), KLM Royal Dutch Airlines (injunctive action under the Railway Labor Act), and Simon & Schuster (breach of contract action).  

After having spent 20 years as an associate and a partner in a Manhattan law firm, followed by 14 years of counsel to a White Plains law firm, Guy is currently a solo practitioner in White Plains, New York. For almost 20 years Guy has given his time to service as a volunteer mediator in the United States District Court for the Southern District of New York.  Since July 2008 he has provided pro bono representation to indigent clients as a volunteer attorney working in association with Legal Services of the Hudson Valley.  Guy’s niche pro bono practice area concerns default judgments, wage garnishments and frozen bank accounts.

Last month the New York State Bar association honored Guy’s pro bono work by awarding him its President’s 2010 Pro Bono Service Award for the Ninth Judicial District (Westchester, Rockland, Putnam, Dutchess and Orange Counties). Guy is a life-long Westchester County resident and was raised in Mount Vernon, NY. In addition to his wife, two children and two granddaughters, Guy’s interests outside the practice of law include classical music, in particular the music of Gustav Mahler.  He is the brother of the renowned author and former NYC Assistant District Attorney Linda Fairstein.

                                                         

Download | Duration: 00:50:59

My guest today is David Leven. Our subject is “The Family Health Care Decisions Act,” which goes into force on June 1st and its implications.

David C. Leven has been the Executive Director of Compassion & Choices of New York since 2002. The mission of Compassion & Choices is to improve health and end-of-life care, expand choices at the end of life and provide high quality counseling, support and advocacy services to the terminally ill and family members and to those planning for the end of life.  Mr. Leven is a graduate of the University of Rochester and Syracuse University College of Law. Before assuming his current position he practiced public interest law for 30 years, legal services for the poor and prisoners’ rights law. Between 1973 and 1979 he was Executive Director, Monroe County Legal Assistance Corporation and between 1979 and 1999 he was Executive Director of Prisoners’ Legal Services of New York.  He has also served as Executive Director of the Westchester Council on Crime and Delinquency and as Deputy Director, Drug Policy Alliance. 

  Mr. Leven is a leading proponent for expanding choice at the end of life. He is also an expert on the under treatment of pain and advance directives. Mr. Leven played a leadership role in having legislation introduced and enacted in New York, in 2007, to improve pain and palliative care and to increase the number of people who complete health care proxies. He also was active in efforts to secure passage of the Family Health Care Decisions Act, enacted in 2010.  He is continuing legislative advocacy efforts to ensure that patients have their pain treated effectively and that their health and end-of-life wishes are respected.   

Mr. Leven speaks and lectures frequently to diverse professional groups and citizens, including physicians, nurses, psychologists, social workers, seniors, lawyers, college, law and nursing students, business men and women and religious congregants. He is a regular guest lecturer at College of New Rochelle School of Nursing and has spoken at most of the New York City area law schools as well as at Yale, Syracuse and Albany law schools. Mr. Leven has appeared on Fox Cable TV, CBS TV, Channel 2 Local News, Regional News Network TV, Fox Radio, CBS AM radio, BBC, WNYC, WVOX and WLIB. He is a periodic guest on the WBAI Health Styles program.
 
Mr. Leven has served on numerous boards and committees including the Westchester End-of-Life Coalition Board of Directors, Family Decisions Coalition, Legal Aid Committee of the New York State Bar Association, which he chaired between1978-83, and the board of the New York State Coalition for Criminal Justice, which he chaired twice. Mr. Leven is a recipient of numerous awards. These include, among others, the Public Interest Law Award of the New York State Bar Association, Committee on Public Interest Law and the Westchester Civil Liberties Union, Civil Liberties Award. In 1999 he was the Distinguished Public Interest Lawyer in Residence at Touro Law School.

Download | Duration: 00:52:30