Interview with Jerry Caraccioli | Sound Authors Radio

January 8, 2009 | Leave a Comment

Dr. Kent: Welcome to the Sound Authors! Today is Friday again. It’s chilly in the air and it’s starting to feel a little bit like winter. I’ve got four guests on the show today, three authors and a musician and I’m honored to have some great guests on the show today. The first one will be the author of a book called Boycott, a book talking about the 1980 Moscow Olympic Games, which of course was boycotted by the United States. I’ve got some other great guests on the show today, the author of Steel Drivin’ Man: John Henry; its an award winning book and I’ve got New York Times Bestseller Katherine Neville on the show with her new book, talking about her new book called The Fire. At the end of the show we’ll have world famous clarinetist Ken Paplowski on the show. Well, I would like to welcome my first guest on the show, it’s an Olympic year this year and even though it’s over its still on our minds. Even after that huge election season I’ve still got Olympics in my heart. I love the Olympics, I was glued to it every second of every day and of course we all think back to 1980 when this boycott happened. What would have happened to the athletes if they’d been allowed to go? Welcome to the show author of Boycott: Stolen Dreams of the 1980 Moscow Olympic Games, Jerry Caraccioli.

Jerry Caraccioli: Thank you, I’m glad to be here.

Dr. Kent: Did I say your name correctly?

Jerry Caraccioli: ‘Karakolie’ (phonetically spelled) it’s a little harder c.

Dr. Kent: So tell me about this book. It’s got a foreword by the Vice President Walter Mondale, who we remember well. Talk about the stolen dreams of these games as you say in the title.

Jerry Caraccioli: Well, my brother Tom and I wrote this book. We wrote our first book about some untold athletes from the 1972 winter Olympics; the 1972 Olympic Hockey Team that won a silver medal and that book was called Striking Silver. We got to thinking what more? There are many more other stories that have never been told and we were kind of staying on the theme of the Olympics and we got to thinking what better stories to be told that weren’t told than the athletes who had the Olympic experience taken away from them due to things that they had no control over; political issues they had no control over.

Dr. Kent: Talk for a second for folks who may not remember it or if it’s a little hazy, talk about why the boycott happened.

Jerry Caraccioli: Well the boycott was basically the soviet union had invaded Afghanistan and it ultimately the boycott was a response by our government and the Jimmy Carter administration was trying to set a tone and message of disapproval and one thought they had was to say we’re going to boycott the Olympics, which would and spearhead many other countries to boycott the Olympics as well. So it really came down to a show of disapproval from our government to the Soviet Union that we disapproved of them invading Afghanistan and because of that we’re going to do something; make a statement and spearhead an Olympic boycott in 1980. The Olympics were being held in Moscow that summer.

Dr. Kent: Has this ever been done before, a boycott of the Olympic Games?

Jerry Caraccioli: There were yes. There were different countries that had done different things. There were boycotts; Canada had boycotted different Olympics, particularly in different teams and I should say the Canadian Olympic hockey team in 1972 decided they weren’t going to play in that tournament and in 1968 as well and 1976 because of the use of professional amateurs as they call them. So there have been different countries that have done different types of things in terms of boycotting in previous years, yes.

Dr. Kent: And what was the significance of this boycott in particular? How did it affect the athletes, how did it affect the world?

Jerry Caraccioli: I think that the big significance of this particular boycott was that the US didn’t participate of course and certainly as we see in any of these modern Olympics that we’ve just seen in the previous 20 years or so, there’s always been an element of east versus west and particularly in the cold war era that united states versus Russia versus the eastern block countries certainly had a significance to international sports. So the significance of the Americans leading a boycott in 1980 was pretty strong. Obviously it was America, the united states and the soviet union were the superpowers and to have one of the super powers say we disagree with what you’re doing politically and we’re going to spearhead this action and get 64 other countries to do the same, that was a big deal.

Dr. Kent: So obviously our boycott was political in nature. Did it serve the purpose that it was supposed to serve?

Jerry Caraccioli: That’s a good question. That’s something that we really within the book we asked the athletes and these athletes’ stories are so poignant and so heart breaking that we asked the athletes do you think it served the purpose of sending the message? A lot of them said ultimately no and we didn’t as authors, my brother Tom and I didn’t, we tried to let the athletes tell their side of the story and present the facts. So we really want the readers to decide whether it accomplished anything but from a personal standpoint, no. The only people that were truly affected were the athletes and that was the real shame of it. And it wasn’t just the United States athletes. Like I said there were 64 other countries that also boycotted those Olympics so in the end and hindsight being 20/20, it did not have its intended impact. Because the Olympics still went on and again the only people that were truly affected were the athletes caught in the middle of it.

Dr. Kent: Give me an example of one of the athletes that was caught in the middle of it.

Jerry Caraccioli: We focused on 18 athletes and focused on what their story is. Everybody has a story and our big thing was that we focused on 18 athletes that 1980 was their one and only shot. Nobody that we talked to and profiled in the book participated in 76 or 84 or beyond or previous. So this was their one shot and one athlete in particular Gene Mills, who was one of our great if ever there was an athlete that was tabbed that was going to be a golden boy to win the Olympic gold medal, it was Gene Mills. He was probably THE top wrestler in the United States and in the world. He pinned everybody in pre-Olympic tournaments and a four time national championship college at Syracuse University, he was a four time state champion in high school. He won everything. He won the world championships and he was, I hate to say a lock for a gold medal, but if ever there was somebody that looked like he was a lock to win a gold medal and could’ve had his face on the Wheaties box and everything that comes along with that medal it was Gene Mills and he really to this day still talks that he really is hurt. He missed out on something and it really hurts.

Dr. Kent: Hmm, and Gene Mills in his story, what did he become? What did he do after the Olympics were boycotted, after he didn’t have his chance? What happened to his life after that?

Jerry Caraccioli: He tried out for the 1984 team and as with a lot of the athletes and again the ones that we particularly profiled; of the 500 or so that were on the US Olympic Team in 1980, about 250 never got another chance; that was their one chance. Now Gene Mills, and like many of them, they tried out for the next Olympic team and Gene Mills was certainly one of those athletes and unfortunately like several others, he got injured, he tried out but his injury was too much to overcome and he ended up not being able to make the team and went on. He’s a teacher now in upstate New York and is a wrestling coach with many wrestling champs and things like that but he teaches young kids and teaches wrestling but he’s just one of them.

A lot of these athletes, there were swimmers like Craig Beardsley, who was another. He wasn’t like Michael Phelps guarantee-type athlete but he was a world record holder in some of the events that he was going to be swimming in and he wasn’t able to go. He tried out for the 1984 team and ended up missing out making the team by hundredths of a second. So there were several stories like that. Craig Beardsley and Glen Mills, who was another swimmer also had a similar type story where he missed out by hundredths of a second of making that 1984 team. Again, back then, there were no government subsidies for these guys. They were basically training on their own and it was quite a sacrifice and these athletes sacrificed thousands of hours and unfortunately again just did not get to participate due to circumstances that were beyond their control.

Dr. Kent: So what’s your newest project with your brother Tom? Have you started a new project on an Olympic sports team or another kind of book?

Jerry Caraccioli: No, we’re kind of laying low. We’re actually going to try and make a documentary out of our first book about Striking Silver, which is about the 1972 US Olympic Hockey Team. That was kind of a prequel to the miracle of 1980 so we’d like to tell their story in a documentary forum so that’s kind of what we’re trying to do.

Dr. Kent: Well it’s been a real honor chatting with you.

Jerry Caraccioli: I appreciate it.

Dr. Kent: We can go out and get the book Boycott: Stolen Dreams of the 1980 Moscow Olympic Games and Striking Silver: The Untold Story of Americas Forgotten Hockey Team. Where can we find those?

Jerry Caraccioli: You can get those on amazon.com. That’s probably the easiest way and of course in time for the holiday season.

Dr. Kent: All right, well you have a great day.

Jerry Caraccioli: I appreciate it, thank you.

Dr. Kent: My next guest is the author of a book called Steel Drivin’ Man: John Henry, The Untold Story of an American Legend. We’ll chat with him coming up here in a minute; his name is Scott Reynolds Nelson. Come on back for that.

Posted by admin | Filed Under History, Sports, TRANSCRIPTS, AUTHOR INTERVIEW, PODCAST

Interview with Kelly Adair | Sound Authors Radio

December 21, 2008 | Leave a Comment

Dr. Kent: Welcome back to Sound Authors. Today is September 5th and my next guest on the show is on the front cover of Champions Body for Life: The official guide for the body for life challenge. Welcome to the show Kelly Adair.

Kelly Adair: Hey thank you I’m so glad to be here. Actually that’s my daughter on the main cover and I’m the little picture down below.

Dr. Kent: All right, which one is you?

Kelly Adair: The big picture is my daughter and Mark Unger and then I’m in the little picture down below.

Dr. Kent: So you went through the whole challenge with your daughter then?

Kelly Adair: Yes I did. I was actually in the form of a coach, I did my transformation way back in 1998 and so this time around I was there to support her and coach her. So I kind of felt like I was doing it all over again.

Dr. Kent: So what does this mean, the champion’s body for life?

Kelly Adair: Champions body for life is actually the update of the original Body for Life book that came out in 1999 as New York Times Bestseller and its basically Dr. Kent a 12-week transformation program to teach healthy eating, weight training, fundamental exercises and cardiovascular work. I think what I had always done wrong as a woman in my younger years was I would only work one aspect of that. I would either just diet really hard and deprive myself of a lot of calories or I would do excessive amounts of cardiovascular work and I would do one thing and I usually did it at an extreme level and so my program is a balanced approach to giving your body, your mind to be at the healthiest level and better than you’ve ever probably felt.

For me it was for a long time forever so when you work all three components by eating healthy, eating the right foods, learning how to weight train and work the right muscles and then cardiovascular because what I found was my body just and this is not just me this is thousands of people. Basically the body just goes and does what it’s supposed to do and starts ridding the body of fat and you start feeling stronger, gaining more energy, more confidence and you just feel better about yourself than you probably have for a long time.

Dr. Kent: So the original book, the New York Times Bestseller, how did you end up picking that up? How did that become part of you?

Kelly Adair: Actually I did my transformation in 1998 and then the book came out in 1999 and what Bud Phillips did was he took those of us that worked the fundamentals of this program. He just kind of encapsulated it and shared our stories and the techniques that worked for people when you take a balanced approach and he put it in the body for life book. Its very successful, its based on science, its not far fetched, its not outrageous, its not extreme and I think what I love about the Body for Life book is it helps to teach people how to obtain this level of fitness without turning their life upside down and living in the gym or doing this crazy diet.

It’s all very easy and geared towards people who live in the real world who have children and full time jobs think that in order to get healthy you have to spend all this time in the gym or you have to eat like a bird. It’s just not that way at all.

Dr. Kent: How did you do it? How did you go through the program?

Kelly Adair: I joined a gym, which I had never been in a gym before and I was scared to death. I just started eating small, balanced meals six times a day; you’re eating all the time, which is another misconception people have. They think well how can you lose weight if you’re eating six times a day? Well when you’re on portion control and balance, so I started eating clean and eating frequently and then I went into the gym and learned how to do some fundamental weight training exercises.

All the pictures are in the book, and I do 20 minutes of cardio three days week so I had never done anything like this before. when I did my transformation I was 36 years old and I dropped 40 pounds and I cut my body fat in half and gained muscle. I couldn’t believe it, it’s like I can’t believe what I did and it wasn’t that hard to do. It takes consistency, you have to be consistent but it’s not that hard to do and it’s not as hard as what people make it out to be.

Dr. Kent: So we’ve got all these things in popular culture, one year we’ve got the low carb diet and then suddenly krispy cream does poorly because people were big into donuts and then all of a sudden they were carbs. Every year there’s these changing times, changing weight plans. The South Beach diets and that, Weight Watchers has always stayed around. What makes Body for Life different?

Kelly Adair: You make a great point Dr. Kent. Every decade it seems like they’re saying oh you should do this and not that or you should eat this and not that and it’s so confusing. As I said before the population are trying to do the right thing, we’re being told one thing and then changing but Body for Life, why I like it so much is you’re eating real food, you’re eating healthy food and it’s just the consistency. Anything that’s radical and what I always ask people when they say oh I’m doing this diet or that diet, my question to them is always can you eat that way for the rest of your life?

If they honestly answer the question like well, no I cant live without this the rest of my life and what Body for Life is; it doesn’t remove any food from us. The thing that we’re trying to remove are the obstacles that are saboteurs like the krispy cream donuts but you can get those things on one day, that’s what we call a free day so you do get those things in as a treat one day a week. The rest of the week it’s just eating real, normal foods but the right portions, the right quantity, and the right foods.

Like quality protein like lean chicken and fish and lean red meat, baked potatoes and not just decorating our food on the plate with all the sauces and spreads. I don’t care if you’re smearing it, pouring it or spreading it, you’re probably sabotaging a really good meal. We’re just cleaning up the dinner plate a little bit and by doing that the body loves you and the body will begin to drop that body fat. I had been carrying it around for so many years.

Dr. Kent: Since 1998 you’ve been on this plan. Have you ever found it challenging?

Kelly Adair: You know what? To me it’s easier because it’s such a way of life for me now. Before I started Body for Life I used to live on pizza, snickers bars, and M&Ms. To me, those were the three food groups that I needed to survive and be happy and you just change your attitude and your mindset on food and I see food as strictly a fuel. A fuel for my body, and I have treats you know don’t think I eat perfect all the time because I certainly don’t. 80% of the time throughout the last ten years of my life in attaining this I eat pretty darn good most of the time.

Again I try not to do anything extreme because extreme is something that you can’t maintain. I’ve proved that with Body for Life there is sustainability with it unless you change your mind. You start getting the fat out of your system, the bad stuff out of your kitchen and start eating clean for the most part, you feel better. I used to get sugar headaches all the time because I ate so many carbs and so much sugar. When you get used to being headache free and fatigue free and you get used to having the energy and the confidence you just want to sustain that. I’m 46 years old now and I want to continue to have energy and feel great and be able to do all the stuff that I do.

So much of that is dependent on what you put in your body in the form of fuel. So it’s not hard, I have found that it’s not difficult to maintain. Like I said I have treats every now and then, I’m not so stressed that I don’t have some fun stuff in my life every now and then but for the most part I go back to eating clean.

Dr. Kent: How did you get your daughter involved in this?

Kelly Adair: Well she got involved because she was struggling. She has started college and we’ve all heard of this. I put on the freshman 15 when I was in college and it was weighing very heavily on her and she was as she called herself, the fat girl in her group. She just got tired of it one day and she knew I had been involved with this but she’s watched me do this for ten years and she finally just reached a point where she surrendered I guess, and she said mom help me. I said oh my gosh, I would love to help you.

We started her in college, she was living in the dorms and we bought her all her stuff to prepare every meal in her dorm room. I taught her how to do the exercises and she reached a point Dr. Kent where it was too painful for her to have to go pick out another formal dress that she didn’t like or didn’t fit her right. Then the “pain” that she knew she’d have to go through to get her body in shape and feel better about herself. As a team we just worked together and I supported her. She did all the work; I did nothing for her, I was just there to support her, that’s all I did.

Dr. Kent: So how difficult was it? You talk about she was expecting pain. How difficult is it really?

Kelly Adair: Well when I say pain I mean you know everybody, even whether you’re a college student, a working mom or dad, everyone has demanding schedules and responsibilities and the pain to me is how do you find time to do this? How do you make time? This is something that most people put down at the bottom of their list and I think its something that needs to be at the top of everyone’s list. To take care of themselves and to get healthy, to feel good and have energy for your kids; wherever you are in your life.

When I say pain that’s what I mean. How do work this into your lifestyle? And I think that everybody, if you want something bad enough, if you want it bad enough you will find holes in your lifestyle, holes in your schedule where you can spend 20 minutes doing cardiovascular work. Because that’s all we do is 20 minutes and I told her, lets look at your schedule and we actually looked at her class schedule and said okay, you’ve got an hour here. This is a perfect time for you to delve into your stairwell in your dormitory and walk the stairs for 20 minutes.

That’s all you need to do but you have to make it a priority if you really want this. I did impress on her that I can’t do it but if you want it bad enough we will carve out the minimal amount of time that it takes to do that in your life. This is not hours and hours in the gym, this is minimal, this is 20 minutes of cardio three days a week and 40-45 minutes doing some weight training three times a week. You’re looking at less than four hours a week.

Dr. Kent: So here’s a question for you. Most folks think well, I have to get a personal trainer and a membership to the gym. What exactly do you recommend for folks? What is the plan?

Kelly Adair: I have several thoughts on this. When I did this in 98 Dr. Kent, it changed my life. I wanted to change my career so I am a personal trainer now and this is what I’m doing full time and I’ve been doing for ten years is helping people do this. On that note I will say I did my transformation completely by myself. I did not have a personal trainer but I did join a gym. What I love about the new Champion for Life book is in the book it shows pictures on how to do each exercise in your home with very minimal equipment.

I can help someone transform their body in their basement with a ball and a few sets of weights. Believe it or not it can be done. So there’s no excuse, I mean yeah you’ll have to go out and spend $30 on a stability ball and hit some garage sales and get some dumbbells but I’m telling you do not overlook and a lot of people do it. Overlook that weight training part and it’s so critical. Working your muscles is so important in increasing your metabolism and to help accelerate that fat loss.

So it can be done at home, it can be done without a personal trainer. I’ve seen too many people do it at home with those circumstances. They’ve got kids, I have one gal that I know who does it at home, she’s an executive. She gets home at 9:30 goes into her library and does her workout at 9:30 at night so again it really comes down to how bad do you want to feel good? If you want it that bad you find the time, you carve the time out and you find the equipment that you need to get it done.

Dr. Kent: It’s been a real honor speaking with Kelly Adair. The book is called Champions Body for Life: The official guide for the body for life challenge and of course this is the follow-up to the Body for Life bestseller of I guess ten years ago now. It’s been a real honor speaking with Kelly and we wish you all the best and I hope you can continue to change people’s lives with this.

Kelly Adair: Thank you so much, I appreciate your time very much. I wish everybody good luck.

Dr. Kent: My next guest on the show is a musician. Jesse Harper from Old School Freight Train. I’m going to play one of their songs here and we’re going to get him on the line and chat with him about that song and about their album. This song is called Seems Like Its Over from Old School Freight Train.

Posted by admin | Filed Under Food, Health, Sports, Motivation, AUTHOR INTERVIEW, TRANSCRIPTS, PODCAST

Interview with James Tabor | Sound Authors Radio

December 20, 2008 | Leave a Comment

Dr. Kent: Welcome to Sound Authors. Today is September 5, 2008. On this date in history Russia’s Peter the Great imposed a tax on beards in 1698. Other interesting things happened; On The Road was published on this day. George Bush nominated John Roberts for the Chief Justice and then what I find fascinating is my doctoral degree is in music; John Cage’s birthday is today. He was born in 1912, John Milton Cage Junior. He really revolutionized the classical music world with his music. And another classical composer was born on September 5, 1735, that’s Johan Christian Bach. Jessie James was born on this day so it’s really a packed day in history. Of course the republican convention just finished and people are thinking a lot about politics. On the show today I have four guests. My first three are authors and my fourth as always is a musician. The musician this week are called Old School Freight Train and they are an incredible singing group with a new album out and we’ll listen to them at the end of the show. My other two guests on the show are James M. Tabor and his incredible book Forever on the Mountain. It’s got amazing reviews and its award winning and we’ll talk to him in a minute. Kelly Adair who went through the program Body For Life and she’s going to talk to us about that in the book Champions Body For Life. So welcome to the show today, sound authors this is Dr. Kent. I want to welcome my first guest James M. Tabor. Are you there?

James Tabor: I sure am Dr. Kent, thanks for having me.

Dr. Kent: Forever on the Mountain by James M. Tabor was a Barnes & Noble great new writer’s selection, which is a big deal. It was the winner of the 2007 national outdoor book award for history and biography, a winner of the 2007 band mountain festival book awards grand prize and many others. A quote from Time Magazine says “A riveting account of a long ago mountaineering disaster.” People compare it to Into Thin Air. It’s had quite a few successes. Tell me a little about the story Forever on the Mountain.

James Tabor: Sure here’s the short version. In 1967, 12 young men set out to climb Mount McKinley, which is North America’s highest peak. Its one of the most dangerous mountains on earth. Unfortunately seven of them perished in the attempt and there were only five survivors. There were a number of mysterious things about this particular tragedy. One of them was that none of those seven bodies were ever recovered so we have no diaries, journals, cameras, no evidence of what happened to them or why.

The other mysterious thing is that although they were trapped in a known location for ten days and nothing was done to try to affect a rescue for them. You can imagine what would be happening today if we had seven guys trapped lets say near the summit of Mount Hood and nothing was done. There would be a human cry around the world. So there were several mysterious things about that and being an old mountaineer myself I learned about the story five years ago and was surprised that it hadn’t received more notoriety in the 40 years since then.

The biggest surprise was that I, despite being very well versed in what I had heard of it, I set out to do a little digging and without too much digging there was quite an untold story here so my book set out to answer a number of the unanswered questions that lingered in the aftermath of their seven deaths.

Dr. Kent: How did you get into writing about this kind of disaster? I know you have pretty extensive experience doing writing for Outside and Ski Magazines and things like that. How did you get into writing this long of an account of this story?

James Tabor: To be honest with you this is the first sort of disaster investigation that I had actually written certainly book length. I was intrigued by it because I did find an Alaskan myself in the 1980s and had remained intrigued in the area since then. I’m also a lifelong journalist and author and whenever a story with so much mystery and so much tragedy comes across your desk, I as an author just got hooked. It wouldn’t let me sleep at night so that’s kind of what drew me into it and then the rescue and a lot of research interviewing the survivors, interviewing a lot of people that were onsite in 1967. Maybe most importantly digging out of the government with a Freedom of Information action lots of documents of evidence that had not previously come to light.

Dr. Kent: You have experienced being on Mount McKinley. Tell us about that.

James Tabor: I will tell you quite frankly that it just kicked my butt. I attempted the mountain with a very experienced partner in 1981 and even though he was an averse we both substantially underestimated McKinley in both its size and its weather. We only got to about 14,000 feet, which is as one person said like stubbing your toe on the mountain. Then we turned around and fled back to base camp. I learned in that attempt what an amazingly challenging mountain McKinley is. I did go back some years later to climb other mountains in Alaska but never had the privilege of summiting McKinley. But I learned an awful lot about it in the three weeks I was there I can tell you that.

Dr. Kent: What is it like for the folks like me that haven’t been on a mountain? I’ve seen so much footage of Everest and they talk about you have to get ready with certain altitudes and things like that. What’s the difference with McKinley?

James Tabor: It’s really interesting. Everest is a very apt comparison because that’s kind of the gold standard that most people have for mountaineering accomplishments. The fact is that McKinley is 35 degrees of latitude farther north than Everest, which puts it much closer to the Arctic Circle, which means that it has much, much worse weather all the time. One guy who climbed both mountains multiple times said that he found Everest “tropical” by comparison. It’s also true that to climb McKinley from base to summit you have to ascend 18,000 vertical feet.

On Everest a similar ascent from base to summit is 10,000 so it’s more than a mile and a half extra vertical to climb on Mount McKinley. Finally, McKinley unfortunately holds a unique position east of the Bearing Sea and north of the Gulf of Alaska, which puts it squarely in the sights of some of the worst storm traps on earth. So you have conspiring against you on Mount McKinley many things which make most mountaineers to consider it to be one of the premier challenges on earth for mountain climbing.

Dr. Kent: Why did you get into in the first place writing about this kind of thing? Were you into this outdoor experiences and that’s how you sort of gravitated towards writing about them?

James Tabor: I would have to say from a very young age; my father was a life long outdoorsman. He was a hiker, a horseman, a hunter, a fisherman, and he had me out in the woods by the time I was six years old. I went to college in Vermont, where you’re surrounded by mountains and I think I fell in love with the outdoors at a very young age and a lot of my writing has been about outdoors and about adventure type things. So I guess I’m lucky enough to be able to combine a love of the outdoors with the love of writing and to focus on those things. As I said, when you have a tragedy like this with so many unanswered questions it was something a writer could not pass up. So I feel very fortunate to be able to tell the rest of that story.

Dr. Kent: Tell me about this tragedy. These guys start climbing the mountain and again what did the media report? What did people know from the outside? What was the easy information to find out?

James Tabor: The easy information was in the aftermath, it was asserted by some government agencies and “McKinley experts” that the seven men who died really were incompetent, poorly equipped, ill conditioned and shouldn’t have been on the mountain and in a sense invited their own destruction. One expert even used the word suicidal, that they committed suicide by getting in over their heads. So for 40 years the seven guys who died, they and their family lived under this shadow of death by incompetence if you will.

Well I found out that those assertions were made especially by government agencies who had really failed miserably to locate and rescue them and were in a sense trying to deflect blame and responsibility from themselves onto those seven men. In fact, the seven men were experienced, competent, very well equipped climbers who did everything right and unfortunately were caught by the worst storm in recorded Mount McKinley history up to that point. One of the great fruits for me in writing the book was to be able to clear the names of seven men whose memories had suffered for 40 years under these unfair accusations.

To really point out the fact that while the intentions might have been good by the park service, the United States air force and other agencies; they just really didn’t do a really good job of fulfilling their responsibilities at that time.

Dr. Kent: What’s interesting is now the entire political lens of the world is back on Alaska again.

James Tabor: You’ve certainly got that right. With Sarah Palin’s ascendancy we’re going to see a lot more scrutiny given to all things Alaskan. I will tell you that in the aftermath of the tragedy the scrutiny placed on the park service, the air force and other agencies really produced dramatic change and so on McKinley today you have the best equipped, most experienced, most expertise search and rescue operation on earth. Unfortunately there was not that in 1967 but it is that today and I think Alaskans and the national park service and all of us can be thankful for that.

Dr. Kent: Have you had some contact with the surviving families and is that how you were able to piece together some of these stories?

James Tabor: I had indeed. The first people I met with were the five survivors themselves, the climbers who are now in their mid 60s, and they were all very generous. They all shared their diaries, their logs, their pictures and most importantly their personal recollections. I was able to contact some of the deceased fellows’ families and interview them but more important because they were not on site so more important really were the survivors and people in the immediate area of Mount McKinley; park service employees, the pilots and folks like that who volunteered their recollections. Equally important were the records, its like radio tape, transcripts, and actual radio broadcasts and things like that allowed me to piece together things probably in a way that let me know more about what happened than anybody at that time or since then. It was a lengthy research project, it took about two years.

Dr. Kent: Going into it, when you first thought okay this will be a great book, have you uncovered things that you didn’t think you would uncover?

James Tabor: I did indeed. One of the major accusations that had been leveled in the wake of the tragedy was that the leader, a man named Joe Wilcox, who survived was one of the major agents of the tragedy by being a bad leader by just a number of bad judgments by him and he invited what happened. That turned out not to be true at all. He had for 40 years had been unfairly scapegoated so that was one thing. Another thing was that and no one really knew about this but on the mountain at the same time in 67 there were five young Alaskan men who pretty much volunteered to become a defacto rescue attempt.

Government agencies weren’t going to do anything and these five young men performed heroically. They didn’t save any lives but they risked their own trying to. So being able to tell their story for the first time in 40 years. I discovered that. I don’t think anybody else knew about these five young, now older men, and telling their story for the first time was really rewarding. It made me feel very good to be able to give them credit that they had never gotten before.

Dr. Kent: This is such a fascinating thing. Speaking to people that have done that kind of extreme rescue and extreme adventure. I have some contact with some people that do those kinds of extreme sports and certainly you have. What can you tell the listeners about those kind of extreme athletes, extreme rescuers?

James Tabor: One thing is that they have levels of commitment and courage that are almost impossible to really understand. I sat across the table from these fellows and said how could you do this day in and day out for five or six days in 40 below temperature, 100 mile an hour winds, and continue to pursue the goal of trying to help your fellow mountaineers? And they looked at me and said well we never thought about doing anything different. That’s just how mountaineers feel about each other. So that was certainly one thing, the lengths. They were like soldiers in combat, that’s what.

Dr. Kent: I think we just lost James. We’re going to try and get him back. In the meantime, I’m going to play a quick commercial. Be back in one minute.

[Commercial-ad]

Dr. Kent: We’re back on the show with James Tabor. Sorry about that.

James Tabor: Me too doctor, its good to be back.

Dr. Kent: Let’s talk about where folks can find this book. I know its now out in paperback.

James Tabor: That’s right. It was issued in paperback in July. Of course you can buy it at many of the popular online sites like Amazon. All your independent bookshops will also be carrying it because it has been reviewed very well and popularly. You can learn more about me if you like at my website at jamesmtabor.com. So yeah, that’s where it can be found.

Dr. Kent: What are you doing next?

James Tabor: My next book I’ve been working on for about a year now and is actually about the search for the deepest cave on earth. It’s the last great terrestrial discovery that was made in 2004. It’s like climbing Mount Everest in reverse is the way one person put it. It requires weeks and weeks underground, multiple camps, just an astonishing adventure that again to an outdoor reader who loves adventure this will be a great story. It will be out by the end of the year.

Dr. Kent: Is that something you’ve experienced also, cave diving?

James Tabor: I have, I did a bit of caving back in the late 80s and early 90s. Some very extreme caving in super deep caves. Some diving; I am a master diver and it’s another world down there. It’s like through the looking glass if you will. It’s an incredible underground wonderland and I hope to be able to bring readers through the book down there so they can experience it themselves.

Dr. Kent: Where did you get this bug and how does your family feel every time you go on these great adventures?

James Tabor: That’s why I don’t do them anymore actually. My family’s patience finally ran out but I guess there are some people who sort of biochemical need more stimulation than others just to feel comfortable and I think I might have been born with a brain like that. I’ve always liked things like hang gliding and scuba diving, climbing, and those kinds of things. As my children were born and began to grow older I really had to taper off those things so no, my life is a good bit tamer these days than it used to be.

Dr. Kent: I hope the next book does really well. Of course that’s the kind of adventure I’ve not seen on shelves and I hope it gets the same kind of exposure this one has. It’s been a real honor speaking with James M. Tabor, author of Forever on the Mountain: The truth behind one of mountaineering’s most controversial disasters. We can find him on the website at jamesmtabor.com. There’s some good stuff on there. Thank you so much for being on the show.

James Tabor: The pleasure is mine Dr. Kent, take care.

Dr. Kent: My next guest on the show is going to be Kelly Adair and she is a participant in a project called Champions Body for Life. It’s become a bestselling book and we’re going to talk with her next about how her life has changed and about this book itself. So come on back for that.

Posted by admin | Filed Under Travel, History, Sports, AUTHOR INTERVIEW, PODCAST

Interview with James D. Stein | Sound Authors Radio

December 11, 2008 | Leave a Comment

Dr. Kent: Welcome back to Sound Authors. We’ve all been glued to the TV set watching Michael Phelps and all the rest and it makes us think about numbers. He won by one hundredth of a second; I don’t even know how fast that is. With the physics and all of that, of swimming, of volleyball, we’re all thinking about how mass explains the world. So my next guest on the show hopefully can give us some enlightenment about that. His name is James D. Stein and he’s the author of How Math Explains the World: A Guide to the Power of Numbers from Car Repair to Modern Physics. Welcome to the show.

James D. Stein: Thank you very much Dr. Kent, thanks for inviting me on this show. Incidentally, in the time that Michael Phelps, the one one hundredths of a second, a radio program can travel from Chicago to Los Angeles at that.

Dr. Kent: Can you give us some enlightenment about how they could possibly get one hundredth of a second faster?

James D. Stein: Its always amazed me that there are certain activities which it seems like the winners win by very small amounts and of course what they do is in the old days when they had mechanical stop watches I can remember that with the mechanical stopwatches you saw hands go around and they stopped time to within about 1/5 or 1/10 of a second. But nowadays the timing is electronic and actually what NBC did was they showed you the underwater view and at the moment that Phelps’ finger touched the end wall, it registered on the sensor system and the other swimmer who came next, I think he was ###, touched a very small amount later, but you could actually see it because its interesting that your eye can actually pick up the difference of 1/100 of a second. Of course because their all within the same second, the same machine, it was easy to see that Phelps touched first and it registered on the machine.

Dr. Kent: So do you watch the Olympics and find yourself calculating through mathematical situations? Do you see the math in the Olympics?

James D. Stein: I certainly see it but I must admit where I find that it’s most interesting and where it’s actually discussed with some extent in my book is the way that the scoring in events like gymnastics is so difficult. The same happens virtually in any sport that is subject to scoring by human beings rather than the electronic scoring of races. It turns out that the problem of deciding who won the gymnastic event is very similar to the problem of deciding who wins an election and one of the great results of mathematics in the 20th century is something known as Harold’s Impossibility Theorem in which he showed that there was no perfect way of implementing a democracy and that’s very similar with the problem of deciding who won an Olympic gymnastics performance.

If you take a look at a contested election in which you have three people, it’s very difficult to decide who should be the winner in case one person doesn’t win a clear majority of the votes. One of the ways this happens and one of the ways that we decided was the person who gets the most first place votes but there are lots of people lots of areas where the elections are decided by taking the top two contenders and having them run off. And you can get different results depending upon which way you decide the election.

I happened to see for the Olympic high beam, what they did was they had a tie breaking procedure between the Chinese girl who ended up winning and Nastia Luiken who ended up finishing second and they actually had the same number of votes initially. They both had exactly the same score, but there was a very complicated tie breaking procedure, which ended up with the Chinese girl winning it. Had they adopted a different equally sensible tie breaking procedure, Luiken would have won.

Dr. Kent: So there is a lot of subjectivity every day of our lives.

James D. Stein: Yes, it occurs with some frequency. What mathematics does, mathematics is perfect with regard to the things that it discusses, the computation it makes et cetera, but when it comes to solving problems that actually exist in the real world math turns out practically like any other endeavor and it has its limitations. That was my motivation in writing the book. There are three very important results which show the limitations of what we can know about the universe and these results were discovered in the late 20th century. One of them which I just talked about was the impossibility theorem of Kenneth Arrow which showed that you can’t come up with a perfect method for implementing a democracy, a perfect method for electing people when you have more than two candidates. That’s actually impacted our lives in several different ways. It impacted us during the 2000 election for instance.

One of the things which also affects our lives is it turns out that we can’t measure everything precisely in the universe. We can’t know everything about the universe. This was the Heisenberg Uncertainty Principle and it turns out that has fantastic ramifications. If you look at much of the electronic equipment that has been invented over the past 75 years; the computers, the lasers, the magnetic implements and imagers, they all depend on quantum mechanics which in essence tells us that there are limitations to what we can know. And finally, mathematics itself is not impervious to its inability to know things.

One of the key results in mathematics in the 20th century was known as Riddell’s Incompleteness Theorem; it’s a theorem about the limitations of logic by the Austrian mathematician (Kirk Ridell) and he showed that there are mathematical truths which logic is incapable of proving.

Dr. Kent: The way you speak is so similar to the actor on television on the show Numbers, and I’m sure you get all the time students and others that say, “Oh, that’s just like on that show Numbers.” What’s your opinion of the math on that show?

James D. Stein: Well I’ve only seen a few shows of it. I think anything that brings a higher level of awareness of mathematics is good because quite frankly mathematics you can go through you could go through months of the newspaper and never see an article about mathematics. So for there to be a hit show about mathematics is I think wonderful. My only objection to the show and there’s a Cal Tech mathematician who acts as advisor so in some respects in fact in many respects the show is pretty accurate when it talks about mathematics. But I think in order to add to the drama of the show, the things that mathematics can do are probably in the real world not as impressive as the things that go on in the show.

I think there is a tendency on the part of the people who haven’t really studied mathematics to think that there’s sort of this mystical or magical aspect to mathematics. For instance, when you talk about the television show Numbers, there are lots of mystical disciplines which rely to some extent upon numbers and relationships between mathematical quantities. In fact the original numerical mystics were the partheganons.

The parthagerists, the guy who invented the theorem about the right triangle, he was very much into the sense that numbers explained everything. It turned out that he found out that there were limitations to what the arithmetic of the Greeks could do. I think that if people were more educated about mathematics they would be able to realize that this is a tremendously useful tool but its not a mystical or magical tool and it’s a tool that they can acquire a facility with beyond the arithmetic of balancing their checkbook and whatever else they might use arithmetic for on a daily basis.

Dr. Kent: I’m intrigued by a couple of things. One is the book itself; How Math Explains the World. It’s a fun topic now and I got to say Numbers is part of the reason that I’m so intrigued by it but I grew up loving math so there’s two issues there. One is maybe you could give us an example or two of how math explains the world in your book and the second part is how is math taught in schools today? When I was a kid I had wonderful math teachers and I spent a lot of time on it. Is it the same these days?

James D. Stein: First of all let me say that I’ve had several radio interviews. I’ve had a bunch but you are the first talk show host who has said “I loved math when I was growing up.” Most of them had bad experiences with it so Dr. Kent, you are unique. But one of the examples in the book, in fact the one that I lead off with is one of the dilemmas that we constantly face. Why doesn’t the garage have our car ready when they say they were going to? It turns out that it’s a very competent scheduling that a garage has to do; it’s a very complicated problem.

If you look at what mathematicians would call a problem; paying the monthly bills. When you finally decide to pay your monthly bills you have a stack of envelopes, you got your checkbook, you write out a check, you put it in the envelope, you put a stamp on it and you continue doing this and you can see the stack of envelopes dwindling and you can get a sense of when the job is going to be done. If you look at what a car garage has to do during repairs.

Let’s say that they have four different cars in the shop and they have a bunch of mechanics and each car needs different things to be done to it. So you start constructing a hypothetical schedule and you get close to the end and all of a sudden you realize all of those four cars in the shop need the hydraulic lift at exactly the same time. This is obviously a bad schedule; you’ve run into a bottle neck. So you tear up the schedule and start again. Even when you get the schedule completed you can look at the schedule and say if I’d only changed the spark plugs on the Chevy I could have been through a half an hour sooner. That’s what makes scheduling an extremely difficult problem.

Mathematics looks at all sorts of problems from the very simple ones to the very difficult ones and it assesses how difficult the problem is, whether or not they’re going to be able to solve it and what the best way to do it is. One of the things that has always fascinated me is that in the 20th century it turns out the difficulty of solving the mathematical problem turns out in many aspects to be an asset to us. That’s exactly how the password on your bank account and ATM machines is protected because it’s related to a mathematical problem factoring a very large number that’s a product of two prime numbers. These turn out to be immensely difficult problems. They put a computer network on factoring such a problem and it turned out that the computer network took nine months to do it.

That gives you a lot of faith that your bank account is secure. It’s nice to know that this is a really difficult problem and this is one of the things that mathematics tells us. In fact it was the reason that they adopted this method of password security on ATM machines and computer various accounts that we use passwords on. That takes care of your first question. As far as teaching mathematics today, I think that mathematics has always to some extent become a hard sell the older you get. Younger kids almost always find mathematics intriguing. Because it’s not just a fact that they’re given, its something they can explore and see for themselves. They can see that two plus four equals six and five times four equals twenty and that the facts in the multiplication table are true and they can perform more complicated tasks. But as they get older they do not stay so interested in it.

There are people of course who do get interested in it and math teachers today are every bit as dedicated as the ones who you had whom you enjoyed when you were younger. I was lucky that I had some great mathematics teachers too, starting with my father but I think part of the problem today is that there is so much in the way of competition for someone’s time, especially students. I remember when I was growing up what you did was you had school, then you played baseball and at the end of the day you went home and did your homework.

Now you have school, you have soccer practice, you got to make sure that you have your Facebook entries up to date; you have to IM and text all your friends et cetera. It’s a more complicated process growing up today and as a result, that time has to come from somewhere and sadly it tends to come from school because kids are reluctant to give up their enjoyable time.

Dr. Kent: Well, it’s been a real honor speaking you; I could speak with you all day about how math explains the world. That’s the title of James D. Stein’s book, A Guide to the Power of Numbers from Car Repair to Modern Physics. It’s put out by Smithsonian Books and that’s part of Harper Collins. It’s been a real honor chatting.

James D. Stein: Thank you very much Dr. Kent. I enjoyed it too.

Dr. Kent: My next guest on the show is a musician. Her name is Carol Ann and she plays with Red Molly. I’m going to play a song from Red Molly called The Mind of a Soldier, and then we’re going to chat with her about that. Come on back.

Posted by admin | Filed Under History, Science, Sports, TRANSCRIPTS, AUTHOR INTERVIEW, PODCAST

Jerry Caraccioli | Olympic Boycott 1980

December 9, 2008 | Leave a Comment

Interview with Jerry Caraccioli [14:28m]: Play Now | Play in Popup | Download

It was very cool speaking about the 1980 Olympic boycott with the authors of “Boycott.” More about their book:

With a thorough exploration of the political climate of the time and the Soviet Union’s invasion of Afghanistan, this book describes the repercussions of Jimmy Carter’s American boycott of the 1980 Olympic Games in Moscow. Despite missing the games they had trained relentlessly to compete in, many U.S. athletes went on to achieve remarkable successes in sports and overcame the bitter disappointment of a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity dashed by geopolitics. The book is written by identical twins and sports PR superstars Tom and Jerry Caraccioli. Tom is the president of Lions Roar, LLC, a communications and public relations firm, and a former executive for NBC and USA networks. Jerry is a television network executive in the CBS Sports division. They are the coauthors of Striking Silver: The Untold Story of America’s Forgotten Hockey Team.

Posted by admin | Filed Under History, Sports, AUTHOR INTERVIEW, PODCAST