As a teenager growing up, Bill Mauldin thought he’d be an airline pilot or a submarine captain. He didn’t have ambitions to be a cartoonist until he realized that drawing was the one thing he was good at. Mauldin’s book, “The Brass Ring: A Sort of Memoir,” covers his background, his influences, and stories from time spent in the Army.*Please note: some sections have been edited out from the original recording due to copyright considerations 

Interviewing author and former Attorney General Ramsey Clark. He discusses law, crime, and violence in the United States. Content Warning: This conversation includes racially and/or culturally derogatory language and/or negative depictions of Black and Indigenous people of color, women, and LGBTQI+ individuals. Rather than remove this content, we present it in the context of twentieth-century social history to acknowledge and learn from its impact and to inspire awareness and discussion.

The government, explains Bernadette Devlin McAliskey, is to blame for the slums they've built and for not providing proper housing. McAliskey contends there are no Black or white problems but rather that the slums and ghettos exist in the first place.

"The New Legions," is partly an autobiography of Donald Duncan's time spent in the military, in the special forces in Vietnam. Duncan, a former master sergeant, explains how the military teaches its men how to kill. He further explains how the sole purpose of special forces is to go into a country and organize its people against unpopular governments.

Content Warning: This conversation includes racially and/or culturally derogatory language and/or negative depictions of Black and Indigenous people of color, women, and LGBTQI+ individuals. Rather than remove this content, we present it in the context of twentieth-century social history to acknowledge and learn from its impact and to inspire awareness and discussion. While reading a passage from his book, Donald Duncan questions why he and other military personnel are in Vietnam. He finds other men that feel the same way, too,

Donald Duncan shares a letter that was written in response to American aid to the Vietnamese people. In conclusion, Duncan offers his reflections about why he was against the Vietnam War.

Ray Girardin, Detroit Police Commissioner, is opposed to capital punishment. In 1930, he witnessed a man being put to death and he says it's a horrible sight to behold. Representative Robert Canfield of Rockford, explained that the state doesn't have the right to put a man to death. He further explained that the death penalty does more harm than good. Springfield freshman representative Jim Moran talks about House Bill 28 and the abolishment of the death penalty going through.

Lastly, with his book, "The Library of Great American Writing," Louis Untermeyer talks about Mark Twain, Emily Dickinson and personal friends of his, Robert Frost and Carl Sandburg. Twain, said Untermeyer, started out as a humorist but then became more pessimistic with "The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn". Emily Dickenson wrote in secret and she only gave permission for six of her poems to be published.