Lena Nelson is a writer, teacher and citizen historian who has spent seventeen years researching and documenting the story of Samantha Smith and creating www.SamanthaSmith.info, the online archive of news articles and videos about Samantha Smith. She was a nominee for the Allegra Johnson Prize and has worked with numerous news, educational, and humanitarian organizations around the world. She lives with her family in Southern California.

America's Youngest Ambassador: The Cold War Story of Samantha Smith's Lasting Message of Peace, explores how nuclear paranoia that engulfed the US and the Soviet Union in 1982. Samantha Smith, a fifth grader from Manchester, Maine, wrote a letter to the Kremlin asking the Soviet leader if he was going to start a war. When Pravda, the biggest Soviet newspaper, published her letter—and Samantha received an unprecedented invitation to visit the Soviet Union—her family embarked on a historic journey that helped transform the hearts and minds of two nations on a collision course. 


The Write Process - Season 7

Lena Nelson on America's Youngest Ambassador

Blending personal narrative and investigative reporting, Emmy Award-winning journalist Cole Kazdin reveals that disordered eating is an epidemic crisis killing millions of women.

Women of all ages struggle with disordered eating, preoccupation with food, and body anxiety. Journalist Cole Kazdin was one such woman, and she set out to discover why her own full recovery from an eating disorder felt so impossible. Interviewing women across the country as well as the world’s most renowned researchers, she discovered that most people with eating disorders never receive treatment––the fact that she did made her one of the lucky ones.

Kazdin takes us to the doorstep of the diet industry and research community, exposing the flawed systems that claim to be helping us, and revealing disordered eating for the crisis that it is: a mental illness with the second highest mortality rate (after opioid-related deaths) that no one wants to talk about. Along the way, she identifies new treatments not yet available to the general public, grass roots movements to correct racial disparities in care, and strategies for navigating true health while still living in a dysfunctional world.

What's Eating Us is an urgent battle cry coupled with stories and strategies about what works and how to finally heal—for real.

Cole Kazdin is an Emmy Award-winning television journalist and author of What's Eating Us: Women, Food, and the Epidemic of Body Anxiety (St. Martin's Press 2023). Selected as a Next Big Idea Book Club Must-Read, the book blends personal narrative and investigative reporting to reveal disordered eating as an epidemic crisis killing millions of women. Cole has written for TIME, The New York Times, Los Angeles Times, Los Angeles Magazine, The Daily Beast, MEL Magazine, and more, and was a regular contributor to VICE. She has produced television for Good Morning America, Nightline and World News Tonight. Cole has told stories live on The Moth's Mainstage across the country, The Moth Radio Hour on NPR,, and has performed storytelling all over Southern California where she is a proud, three-time Moth GrandSLAM champion. Her solo performances have garnered national praise and been optioned for film. A contributing author to the bestselling book, The Moth Presents All These Wonders: True Stories About Facing the Unknown, she coaches and teaches writers all over the world, as well as leading workshops and classes for corporations and universities and currently teaches at the UCLA Extension Writers' Program. 


Cole Kazdin on What's Eating Us: Women, Food, and the Epidemic of Body Anxiety

U.S. has to refinance historical amounts of debt requiring Federal Reserve reinstating high money creation. Long term interest rates heading higher but home prices staying historically high.  For the stock market consider avoiding interest rate and consumer industries regardless of tariffs and think about U.S. raw materials producers and hi-tech equipment manufacturers. Reconsider traditional U.S. energy producers. Stay financially conservative by avoid new debt.

Ep. 132 - Prospects for Inflation, Interest Rates, Employment, and Volatility This Year!

This year promises to be the most challenging and risky since the Global Financial Crisis! Europe is becoming more unstable politically at a time when vast amounts of government debts have to be financed/refinanced. The following negative trends are reasserting themselves: return to high inflation in the U.S., growing distance between Western World and BRICS+ countries as well as emerging conflicts between U.S. and European leadership. Like the 1970's gold and many commodities on price uptrends indicating increasing global instability and shortages. In particular, the U.S. is seriously challenged to find new rare earth materials to support the aviation, defense, battery, and IT industries as China controls 90%+ of these materials globally while restricting or disallowing their shipments to the U.S.

Ep. 133 - The Emerging Global Recession, Currency Crisis, and War Risks

Serious stresses in the ECB and the EU, recent and revised data show a serious U.S. recession in place, new political leadership to favor a recession earlier than later, increasing interest rates and serious banking issues to emerge,  increasing layoffs and contraction of U.S. work force in process,  preparations for war,  some positive long term forces but many negative short term ones, and increasing bi-polarization of the global economies.

Many threats we warned about last year are coming to a head now! Be prepared!!

Ep. 134 - Planning for a Year of Massive Change

U.S. Government propped-up housing market, pricewise, starting its fall off a cliff. Good news coming for future first-time home buyers but not so good for us existing homeowners. Covid emergency bailouts artificially kept prices high and false signaled a healthy economy...now coming to an end. Many trends converging to create a significantly negative financial environment but certain investment categories should benefit.

Ep. 135 - U.S. Entering Severe Housing and Economic Crisis, Again!

The EU is experiencing cracks in their foundation that could even threaten their existence over the next several years. China moving to super-money creation to avoid a depression while building aggressively their military and taking a direct move against the U.S. It seems the BRICS+ countries in the near term continue to move counter to U.S. positions while the U.S. shores up its own military while continuing to issue record amounts of new and refinanced debt. This year is shaping up as a year of substantial change for pretty much everyone on the globe involved in market defined economies and world trade. Investment risks continue to grow!

Episode 136: All Markets in Danger of "Unraveling"

The global economy as well as the U.S. is heading for more volatility with 2024's issues becoming more severe in 2025 as expected.

The U.S. stock market is likely in an official "bear market" with more foreign selling ahead. The same expectation applies to the U.S. government debt marketplace with more selling of U.S. securities and higher interest rates continuing. The Federal Reserve’s buying of U.S. debt expected to once again prop up the debt markets but higher inflation expectations likely to continue to force U.S. interest rates higher. 2025, as expected, is shaping up to be a challenging year for both the employment and financial markets.


Ep. 137 - Prior Concerns Coming True... For Better or Worse

It now seems too late to avoid a severe recession or worse given recent data and global political events. The U.S. will likely suffer less than Europe or China but, nevertheless, suffer mightily.  What to consider to mitigate pain is summarized after the global situation is parsed in this podcast.
Please do take advantage of this 8-minute video by Bravos Research which well summarizes issues impacting the U.S. dollar, U.S. debt refinancing, and economic stability: https://bravosresearch.com/youtube/why-the-us-treasury-market-is-on-the-brink-of-total-collapse/



Ep. 138 - Heading Into a Severe Economic Recession: How, Why, and What To Do About It!

The major trends which will not change this year or next regardless of new trade deals and Congressional programs: lower dollar, higher inflation, higher unemployment, higher gold prices and, importantly, a U.S. vs. BRICS+ divided world.

The most recent data continues to demonstrate a weakening employment picture in the context of another round of high inflation and deteriorating real estate prices for both commercial and residential. All in all, the blend of many more home foreclosures hitting the market, little or no new full time job creation, higher consumer prices, and the continuing need to finance new and rollover government debt will keep the overall economy from growing. Add to this the serious economic downturns in China, Japan, and Western Europe we have a most volatile year or more ahead with little to start any new recovery.  Regardless of individual listener political leanings, the good news is that the present administration seems to be making headway in improving relationships with the countries that hold vast amounts of dollars as well as needed natural resources. I'll take whatever we can get during this historically unsettled global economic period.


Ep. 139 - Enduring Global Trends: Inflation, Unemployment, and a Divided World

The Business, Management, and Legal Programs Department at UCLA Extension offers more than 350 courses, conference, and seminars annually and is home to more than 50 professional certificates designed for working professionals and recent college grads who are seeking professional development in the dynamic world of business. Our courses are offered online or in the classroom, making it a flexible option for everyone.

Ep. 139 - Enduring Global Trends: Inflation, Unemployment, and a Divided World

UCLA Extension Business Programs