On this “The Weekly Show” podcast with Jon Stewart, his guest is journalist Michael Lewis, author of such books as The Big Short, Liar’s Poker, and Moneyball..  As the show rites, “As the Trump administration targets the federal workforce, we're joined by Michael Lewis, editor of and contributor to the New York Times bestselling collection "WHO IS GOVERNMENT?: The Untold Story of Public Service.” Together, they explore the vital yet uncelebrated work of civil servants, discuss why negative perceptions of them persist, and consider what we may lose amid DOGE’s chainsawing. Plus, learn what your relationship with your mother says about your relationship with government.
 
Here is the show’s "breakdown" of when specific topics are covered during the conversation, so you can jump to the sections that most interest you.  Those time codes are hyperlinked to the video on YouTube and will jump you automatically to the right spot.  But for those who watch it here, this is the schedule.
 
 
0:00 - Intro
5:00 - Michael Lewis Joins
5:40 - The Backstory of "WHO IS GOVERNMENT?"
27:30 - Michael's Story of Government Failure & Personal Heroism
35:52 - Why Do We Forgive Business But Not Government?
40:38 - Michael's Coal Miner Story
48:18 - How Do We Empower People in Public Service?
54:32 - Trump is a Trust-Destroying Machine
57:28 - The Government Sets Up an Adversarial Position to its Constituents
59:19 - We Should Have Learned More From Covid
1:11:19 - Breaking Down the Discussion

I came across this video totally by accident.  E.A. Hanks is a journalist who was on the staff of Vanity Fair and has contributed to such publications as Time, the Guardian, and the New York Times.  She is also the daughter of Tom Hanks.  She’s just written a book, The 10: A Memoir of Family and the Open Road which is about (well, I’m going to simplify it here a lot) a journey she took driving her minivan from California to Florida (on U.S. 10), to make sense of her upbringing in Sacramento with an incredibly difficult, deeply troubled mother.  She follows the same route she took on a trip with her mother when she was 10, and uses her mother’s diaries as a sort of guide.  What makes this stand out is that she’s interviewed at the 92nd Street Y by her father.
 
(In other interviews – and in the book – she notes that her father was aware of the problems in Sacramento, but her mother had custody.  However, around when she was 12, she was able to get out of the situation and moved down to Los Angeles.  She also gives much praise to her older brother Colin.)
 
The conversation is fascinating – ranging between riveting, matter-of-fact, amusing, dark, upbeat, unexpected, charming, open, offbeat and thoughtful.  Tom Hanks largely keeps himself and his perspective out of it all, putting all the focus (properly) on his daughter whose book and life story this is, despite one of the focal personalities being his first wife, and the other being, of course, his daughter.  But he’s able to occasionally bring his knowledge of events into some of his questions – though, again, keeping the focus on the author.  The conversation runs for 53 minutes.

If you didn't see Jon Stewart's Monday hosting of The Daily Show, his Main Story was about the hyperbolic "bombshell" coverage of the book on Joe Biden.  I'll just say it's scathing and laugh-out-loud hilarious throughout.

I've written in the past a few times about my friend Steve Fiffer back in Chicago (okay, Evanston...).  Steve is a wonderful writer, with many non-fiction books to his credit -- including most recently collaborating on the memoir of Civil Rights legend C.T. Vivian. His wife Sharon is also an accomplished writer of the "Jane Wheel" mystery series.  And his mother was a medical technician in my dad's doctor office for years.

A few years ago, Steve and Sharon come up with the idea for a website that they called Storied Stuff, which I've mentioned here.  They call it "Show-and-Tell for grownups."  Basically, they get people to write in brief stories about treasured items them have, which they've kept for decades. The site came about during the Pandemic, as a way to draw people close together -- but it's continued on since with great success, now with over 500 stories, many of them deeply touching, some of them fascinating.  As Sharon has said about the project, "Every bit of stuff we hang on to or are drawn to, tells a story. The universal, after all, is found in the specific.”

Well, it turns out that Steve and Sharon have just published the first volume of what they expect to be a three-volume anthology. 
​

I mention this for two reasons.  The first and most important is because their effort is such a good one.  The other, because they include one of the two short pieces I wrote for the site.  

It's a story I wrote about baseball cards, though not the general idea of collecting them, but rather deals with two very special cards that I still have to this day which stand out in baseball history for a particular reason.  It's a story about an event that half a century later is still galling to Cubs fans, but no doubt gives the inveterate Chris Dunn great pleasure -- what is considered the worst trade in the history of baseball, known in baseball lore as "Brock-for-Broglio."  And I have cards for the players involved from before the trade,  This is that tale.

This is just great.  As in – just great
 
It doesn’t require any background, but putting it in context helps the enjoyment, I think.
 
This comes from a wonderful program I accidentally came across on C-SPAN 2 when scrolling through my television’s on-screen guide.  It was a three-hour event on CSPAN-2, and only had about 45 minutes left, but the subject looked interesting, so I thought I’d check it out.  And it was spectacular – I watched the last 45 minutes and set the DVR for one of its repeats.  The event was originally broadcast last April – a three-hour celebration of the 100th anniversary of Simon & Schuster.  All it is, is authors coming on stage and telling anecdotes and stories about writing, each story about 3-4 minutes, and then leaving the stage, and another author comes on.  It was so good, very thoughtful, insightful, and mostly, often really funny.  (One author said, “If I’d know how much I’d be laughing backstage, I’d have prepared something funny, but unfortunately I didn’t.”

I didn’t know most of the authors, but they were all wonderful.  (Okay, almost all.  Awo writer friends “interviewed” each other, and they were a bit much.  But even they were okay.)  I did see a few well-known people – Judith Viorst, Hilary Clinton, Walter Isaacson and Bob Woodward.  And the description of the show mentions Stephen King, Jerry Seinfeld, Judy Blume, John Irving, and Charlamagne tha God.
 
After recording the full event, I’ve watched it all now, and it holds up to how terrific those final 45 minutes are.
 
I don’t expect most people to watch the whole thing, but this one speech was just a total gem.  I was going to just type out some of the author’s best lines, but his delivery is too bone dry to not see him deliver it, since that makes it all the better.  I dearly hoped that there would be a singled-out video of his four-minute presentation, so I did a search on YouTube…and happily there was.
 
In fairness, they aren’t all this good – but in equal fairness, most are in this range of at least being fun and entertaining.
 
And yes, I know I’m raving about this so much that it’s hard to live up to – but I feel confident it will.  The video has 7,400 “Likes” – and zero “Not likes.”  The User Comments are just glowing.
 
I was originally going to write that I don’t know the author, Fredrik Backman (who’s Swedish).  But then I decided to check out his work – and it turns out that I do know of him!!!  He wrote the novel that the wonderful Swedish movie A Man Called Ove is based on, that was nominated for a Foreign-Language Oscar.  It’s funny, sardonic, dramatic, and wistful.  So, that explains his speech!!  The movie got remade in the U.S. with Tom Hanks, as A Man Called Otto, which I’m sure more people here saw.  They did a very good job with the remake (though the original is my preference).  I’ll now have to check out some of his other books.  In fact, I’ve already bought his second novel -- with a glorious title, My Grandmother Says to Tell You She's Sorry.  I'm about two-thirds through, and it's excellent.  Unexpected, thoughtful, inventive and often very funny.
 
If you do decide you want to see the full event – or just scroll through it, it’s available on the C-SPAN website.  I highly recommend it.  And the good thing is, being made up for basically 4-minute speeches, a person can watch it in segments, and just pick up where you left off.  You can find it here.
  
Anyway, here is Fredrik Backman’s speech.  Full of laughs, insightful comments and some extremely clever observations…and a perfect ending line.  It’s only four minutes.  Really, do yourself a favor and watch it --