Jason
Merchey's Internet-Radio Interviews
Jason Merchey
— founder of the Values of the Wise organization, author of Building
a Life of Value, and Editor/Author of Living a Life of Value
— was for several years host of a program on World Talk Radio called
Values and Ethics: From Living Room to Boardroom. World Talk Radio
no longer exists, but the program episodes do. Jason has created
an
archive
of program episodes,
and invites you to browse this varied and perpetually timely collection
of perspectives on values and wisdom.
Wisdom Page Related Interviews
Among the people who Jason interviewed are Cop Macdonald and several other Wisdom Page contributors. Those particular episodes can be reached via the links below. Also below are brief biographical sketches of the interviewees.
Get
a Life!
Jason Merchey interviews Cop Macdonald and Alan Nordstrom about Cop's
book Getting a Life and its use in Alan Nordstrom's Rollins College
writing class. (1 hour total, in one segment.)
Wisdom:
We Need a Revolution
In this program Jason Merchey interviews Nicholas Maxwell and Copthorne
Macdonald about the need to transform academia from a knowledge focus
to a wisdom focus. (1 hour total in three segments..)
An
Exploration of Wisdom
Here Jason Merchey interviews Wes Nisker and Copthorne Macdonald about
the nature and development of wisdom. (1 hour total in three segments.)
The Interviewees:
About Wes Nisker
Wes “Scoop” Nisker is an author, radio commentator, Buddhist
meditation teacher, and performer. His books include The Big Bang, The
Buddha, and the Baby Boom (HarperSanFrancisco, 2003), the newly edited
version of his national bestseller, Essential Crazy Wisdom (Ten Speed
Press, 2001), and Buddha’s Nature (Bantam, 1999). Mr. Nisker is also
the founder and co-editor of the international Buddhist journal “Inquiring
Mind.”
For over 30 years, Mr. Nisker has worked in radio, first as a news anchor,
and more recently as a commentator, during his career winning the Billboard
Magazine, Columbia School of Journalism, and San Francisco Media Alliance
awards for excellence in FM radio programming.
Mr. Nisker has studied Buddhist meditation for three decades with teachers
in Asia and America, and for the past 15 years has been leading his own
retreats and workshops in Buddhist insight meditation and philosophy at
venues internationally. He is an affiliate teacher at the Spirit Rock
Meditation Center in Woodacre, California, and does regular workshops
at Esalen Institute and other venues.
For the past year and a half Mr. Nisker has been performing his monologue
to critical acclaim in venues around the country. A CD recording of “Be
Here Wow” (Previously titled “The Big Bang, the Buddha, and
the Baby Boom”) is his newest creation.
About
Cop Macdonald
Copthorne Macdonald is a writer, independent scholar, and former communication
systems engineer. He has written extensively about the nature of reality
(including consciousness and mind), the development of wisdom, the global
problematique, and the challenge of creating a sustainable future. Three
of his seven published books — Toward Wisdom, Getting a Life, and
Matters of Consequence — deal with aspects of wisdom. He developed
the slow-scan TV system used worldwide in amateur radio, founded New Directions
Radio to foster socially-relevant communication, established an Internet-based
compilation of wisdom-related resources called THE WISDOM PAGE, and has
done extensive educational work in the field of energy alternatives and
energy conservation. He was formerly a columnist with CQ and The Mother
Earth News, an Associate Editor of the latter, and on the Editorial Board
of INTEGRALIS: Journal of Integral Consciousness, Culture, and Science.
His engineering positions included Manager of the Electronic Design Department
at Ball Brothers Research Corporation in Boulder Colorado, and Director
of Research at Vidcom Electronics in New York City. He lives in Prince
Edward Island, Canada.
About
Alan Nordstrom, PhD
Professor of English at Rollins College, Alan Nordstrom received his BA
from Yale University and his MA and PhD from the University of Michigan.
His fields of specialization are Shakespeare, English Renaissance literature,
personal and creative writing, human frontier studies and Robert Frost.
Selected publications include:
Ped•antics, a book of poetry,
1980
The Good Life, According to Me, A
book of essays and poems, 2000
Living the Questions, Verse Meditations,
2001 and
Soul Search Sonnets, 2002
About
Nicholas Maxwell
Nicholas Maxwell has devoted much of his working life to arguing that
we need to bring about a revolution in academia so that it comes to seek
and promote wisdom and does not just acquire knowledge. He has published
five books on this theme: What’s Wrong With Science? (Bran's Head
Books, 1976), From Knowledge to Wisdom (Blackwell, 1984), The Comprehensibility
of the Universe (Oxford University Press, 1998), The Human World in the
Physical Universe (Rowman and Littlefield, 2001) and Is Science Neurotic?
(Imperial College Press, December 2004). He has also contributed to a
number of other books, and has published numerous papers in science and
philosophy journals on problems that range from consciousness to quantum
theory. For nearly thirty years he taught philosophy of science at University
College London, where he is now Emeritus Reader in Philosophy of Science
and Honorary Senior Research Fellow. He has given lectures at universities
and cConferences all over Britain, Europe and north America.
