Winnipeg, Canada

Driving into the city this morning, I heard a great interview with prominent American social critic Chris Hedges on CBC’s The Current. Chris was expounding on ideas and observations expressed in his new book, Empire of Illusion: The End of Literacy and the Triumph of Spectacle, in which he argues that western society (led by the U.S.) is being eroded by a celebrity-obsessed culture that encourages a form of narcissism that clouds our sense of reality (reminded me of similar thoughts I expressed six years ago in a HOW Magazine editorial).

Chris is an American journalist and author, specializing in American and Middle Eastern politics and societies. He spent nearly two decades as a foreign correspondent in Central America, the Middle East, Africa and the Balkans, has reported from more than fifty countries, and has worked for The Christian Science Monitor, National Public Radio, The Dallas Morning News, and The New York Times, where he was a reporter for fifteen years (and was part of team that won the 2002 Pulitzer Prize for the paper’s coverage of global terrorism). That same year, he received the Amnesty International Global Award for Human Rights Journalism. Chirs has taught at Columbia University, New York University, and Princeton University, and is currently a senior fellow at The Nation Institute in New York City. Read more about Chris and his weekly contributions to truthdig (where he is also a columnist) here.