I Wish More Interviews are Conducted Like These

Jon Stewart has to be the best interviewer on television. This video is just one example of why I think so:

Part 1:



Part 2:

I've always been impressed with how he asks tough questions that dig to the heart of the issues. A favorite of mine is when he had Alan Greenspan as a guest and asked big, intelligent questions. Taken from this website, here's what Stewart had for Greenspan:

The first question was, essentially, "if you're such a believer in free markets, why do we need a Federal Reserve to set interest rates at all?".

The second question... Look what happened when the Fed slashed rates, said Stewart: the stock market, where rich people keep their money, skyrocketed. Now most of us work for a living, and keep our money in the bank, and the Fed has just reduced the interest rates that banks pay while rewarding the speculators in the stock market. Isn't it essentially taking from the working stiff and giving to the rich?

Watch the interview here:

 

Colbert-Stewart-Conan Showdown

These three TV talk show hosts (Stephen Colbert, Jon Stewart, and Conan O'Brien) duke it out to settle their feud: "Who made Mike Huckabee?"

It started earlier on The Daily Show:





Continued on to The Colbert Report:



And led to this classic, can't-miss showdown on Conan's Late Night:

 

Harvard's Most Popular Course

Guess what is said to be Harvard's most popular course? Hint: It's closer to dealing with emotions than economics.

The course Positive Psychology is said to have attracted about 855 students, making it Harvard's most popular course. The alert blog-reader who checks the links I provided might notice that the articles I referenced were written in 2006 and that the popular course claim might be applicable only for school year 2005-2006. I concede that I am unable to verify the latest statistics regarding this. However, a recent (August 9) interview by Jon Stewart with the course's lecturer, Tal Ben-Shahar, on The Daily Show with Jon Stewart suggests that it is still so. As Stewart introduces his guest, he says, "He teaches Harvard University's most popular class, Positive Psychology..."

I find it interesting that the most popular course in reputedly to world's top university talks about "happiness, self-esteem... empathy... goalsetting, love, achievement..." etc. It sound like something from a self-help book although, of course, this is "grounded in serious psychological research."

Here's a link to the course description at the Harvard website and Jon Stewart's interview with the lecturer of Positive Psychology, Tal Ben-Shahar, follows: