We live in the best of times in which we are able to learn about the world and its incredible diversity of cultures/beings/places/perspectives in a way never historically possible. We live in the worst of times when we are able to isolate ourselves completely from anything different from our own narrow view/conception of the world/reality. The choice is yours!
Danny Mayer's and Josie Mayer's newest episode of Travels with Jo exploring gentrification in the Northside of Lexington - please share with those that would be interested. This is a great exploration of the subject through representations of the Lexington (KY) northside places being described and visual representations of the sources being discussed and a clear visual representation of Danny's critical thinking. Also great music by Wes Houp, Lyle van Outer and Chris Sullivan.
When I got on my plane yesterday I was carrying a book and as I was taking my seat the flight attendant made a production out of the fact I was intending to read a book (she was being playful). Amusingly, people around my seat started gawking in amazement/shock? This was following my observations that out of the sizable crowd of passengers waiting pre-flight for our continental trip I was the only one reading a physical book (or newspaper/magazine). Cell phone usage dominated people's consciousness. I'm not being judgmental, just reflecting on the changes. Amused, gather around folks and see the freakish book-reader ... in that spirit my year-in-books is gathered in this link: "My Year in Books 2017."
Alt, J.D. "The New Poverty."New Economic Perspectives (December 28, 2017)
ENG 282: 2010 - 2014Dialogic Cinephilia (Ongoing archive film studies resources)
ENG 282: 2015 - 2019 Dialogic Cinephilia (Ongoing archive film studies resources)
Gee, Alastair. "“Bussed Out”: How Cities Are Giving Thousands of Homeless People One-Way Bus Tickets to Leave Town."Democracy Now (December 29, 2017) ["A major new investigation by The Guardian examined how cities are struggling to solve the problem of homelessness throughout the year, and found many have come to rely on an old solution: a one-way ticket out of town. Relocation programs that offer homeless people free bus tickets to move elsewhere have been around for at least three decades. But as the homeless population rises for the first time since the Great Recession, relocation programs are becoming more common and are expanding to more cities. We speak with The Guardian’s homelessness editor, Alastair Gee, about many people who were bused out, remained homeless and eventually returned to the city they had left."]
My brother Robert cited these lyrics to me as we were adventuring on the Mushroom Trail (more formally known as Annie's Trail) in Solana Beach last week - we grew up roaming the canyons of San Diego and he said when we walked into the arroyo I would have a strong sensory sensation. He was right - memories flooded back to me of long past youthful days roaming through the interlocked San Diego canyon systems filled with thrilling adventures and flights of fantasy (because the outdoors was my childhood virtual reality where I created new worlds and adventures - in those wild spaces I could be anyone and go anywhere). The lyrics by Twenty One Pilots:
Sometimes a certain smell will take me back to when I was young.
How come I'm never able to identify where it's coming from.
I'd make a candle out of it if I ever found it.
Try to sell it, never sell out of it, I'd probably only sell one.
It'd be to my brother, 'cause we have the same nose.
Same clothes, homegrown, a stone's throw from a creek we used to roam.
But it would remind us of when nothing really mattered.
Out of student loans and tree-house homes we all would take the latter.
Senses of Cinema #85 ["Hello and welcome to Issue 85 of Senses of Cinema. Tying in with the centenary of the fall of the Romanov dynasty in Russia and the ensuing October revolution, the centrepiece of this issue is our blockbuster dossier “100 Years of Soviet Cinema”. Come and see an arsenal of more than 50 articles, on individual films stretching from 1924’s Strike to 2014’s Leviathan, with entries covering works that have been celebrated across the world (even if, at times, their deified directors often found it hard to be a god), as well as those that encountered political repression and critical neglect, and, but for the irony of fate, faced becoming letters never sent. Our dossier not only offers a wide-ranging account of filmmaking in the Soviet Union, whose men (and women) with movie cameras crafted a mirror of life in the country that covered one sixth of the world, it also looks at how Soviet cinema has resonated up to the present day, even after the 1991 collapse of the would-be New Babylon that was the world’s first socialist state. Our sincere thanks go to the many writers, both the old and the new, who contributed their pieces to this critical Russian Ark. ..."]
Duvall, Jamey, Mike White and Alex Winter. "The Tenant (1976)."The Projection Booth #344 (October 10, 2017) ["Adapted from a book by Roland Topor (Fantastic Planet), the film also stars Polanski as Trelkovsky, a man in need of a new apartment. He finds one where the previous occupant has defenestrated herself. After her death, he's able to move in and finds that his neighbors don't like him being noisy... in fact, they don't like him being him at all. Some put this alongside Polanski's Repulsion and Rosemary's Baby as his “apartment trilogy” in which explores the terrors of urban paranoia."]
Hadley, Josh, Moe Porne and Mike White. "Terrorvision (1986)."The Projection Booth #345 (October 19, 2017) ["... offbeat horror comedy TerrorVision (1986). Written and directed by Ted Nicolaou, the film centers on the Putterman Family who, while father Stan (Gerrit Graham) is installing a new satellite dish and accidentally receive a distant transmission of a horrific hungry monster which proceeds to feast on the family including wife Rachel (Mary Woronov), son Sherman (Chad Allen), grandpa (Bert Remsen), daughter Suzy (Diane Franklin), and her metal head boyfriend O.D. (Jon Gries)."]
Koski, Genevieve, Tasha Robinson and Scott Tobias. "Lady Bird / Ghost World (2001) - Part 1."The Next Picture Show #102 (November 14, 2017) ["Greta Gerwig’s fantastic directorial debut LADY BIRD is set in 2002, when its protagonist might have recognized a contemporary kindred spirit in Enid, the protagonist of Terry Zwigoff’s 2001 coming-of-age comedy GHOST WORLD: Both characters are creatively minded outcasts who are leaving high school and facing uncertainty about their futures. In this half of our pairing of the two films, we focus on the prickly and not-quite-lovable iconoclasts who populate GHOST WORLD, discussing its garish version of the turn of the millennium, how it translates Danial Clowes’ comic of the same name for movie screens, and whether it contains the best existential fart joke ever committed to film."]
---. "Lady Bird / Ghost World (2001) - Part 2."The Next Picture Show #103 (November 16, 2017) ["We return to the dawn of the millennium to discuss Greta Gerwig’s new solo directorial debut LADY BIRD, and how it echoes the sardonic coming-of-age comedy that characterizes Terry Zwigoff’s GHOST WORLD. After parsing our individual reactions to and readings of LADY BIRD, we look at how the two films compare in terms of their view of nostalgia and mainstream culture, as well as the respective family dynamics that affect each protagonist’s view of the world."]
Lynch, David. "David Lynch."Pinewood Dialogues (February 16, 1997) [""Jimmy Stewart on Mars" was how Mel Brooks, who produced The Elephant Man, described David Lynch. The collision between the quotidian and the dreamlike has been Lynch's key theme, from the suburban nightmares of Blue Velvet and Twin Peaks to the noir netherworlds of Lost Highway and Mulholland Drive. In this discussion, just before the 1997 release of Lost Highway, Lynch demonstrates his aversion to interpretation, preferring to let viewers take what they will from the mood and texture of his films. He reveals his method of working by instinct and embracing the role of chance in his creative process."]
Brooks, Kendra and Helen Gym. "Major Education Victory in Philadelphia as Parents, Teachers & Activists Reclaim Control of Schools."Democracy Now (December 13, 2017) ["We look at a major education victory in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, where parents, teachers and activists mounted a successful campaign to reclaim control of their local public school system after then-Pennsylvania Governor Mark Schweiker declared it financially distressed in 2001. Under the plan, dozens of Philadelphia public schools closed, and the city saw a spike in charter schools. Community groups responded by forming a coalition to pressure Pennsylvania Governor Tom Wolf and Philadelphia Mayor Jim Kenney to return control over the School District to local voters. Last month, Mayor Kenney heeded organizers’ demands and called for the dissolution of the commission. This came as the city also elected civil rights attorney Larry Krasner as district attorney, who campaigned in part on ending the school-to-prison pipeline. We speak with Helen Gym, a longtime community activist and now a Philadelphia city councilmember, and Kendra Brooks of the “Our City, Our Schools” coalition as well as Parents United. She is the parent of two children who attend Philadelphia district schools."]
Srinivasan, Amia. "What is a Woman?"Philosophy Bites (January 1, 2017) ["'What is a woman?' may seem like a straightforward question, but as Amia Srinivasan explains, it is not quite as easy to answer as you might think. Here she discusses key feminist ideas about what a woman is, beginning with Simone de Beauvoir's ideas on the topic."]
1. A meaningful or entertaining story, worth the proverbial price of admission.
2. A cinematic language appropriate for the tale being told and, in the best of cases, a stretching of form that widens cinematic storytelling.
3. A resonance that continues after the film is over - a philosophical or spiritual illumination of behavior that ... makes us better human beings. -- Innsdorf, Annette. Cinematic Overtures: How to Read Opening Scenes. Columbia University Press, 2017: 11. [Criteria used at the Berlin International Film Festival when she was on the judging panel.]
Eisen, Arnold. "The Opposite of Good is Indifference."On Being (September 21, 2017) ["'In a free society, some are guilty, but all are responsible.' A mystic, a 20th-century religious intellectual, a social change agent, Rabbi Abraham Joshua Heschel marched alongside Martin Luther King, Jr., famously saying afterwards that he felt his legs were praying. Heschel’s poetic theological writings are still read and widely studied today. His faith was as much about 'radical amazement' as it was about certainty. And he embodied the passionate social engagement of the prophets, drawing on wisdom at once provocative and nourishing."]
Guevara, Marina Walker. "Paradise Found."On the Media (November 10, 2017) ["A year and a half after the explosive leak of the Panama Papers revealed the shady, yet entirely legal, offshore banking practices of world's richest people and companies, a new trove of documents was announced: the Paradise Papers. This time, the leak discloses the financial dealings of some familiar names and faces, including members of the Trump Administration. The public officials acknowledge and defend the practice of skirting taxes through the use of havens, and deny any possible conflicts of interest. Bob speaks with Marina Walker Guevara, Deputy Director of the International Consortium of Investigative Journalists, which facilitated reporting on the documents along with hundreds of reporters around the globe. She shares how reporters from such a large network collaborate and explores what kinds of questions we should all be asking after learning that the rich and powerful play by a different set of rules than the rest of us."]
Harrington, Brooke. "Lifestyles of the Rich and Hidden."On the Media (November 10, 2017) ["A year and a half after the Panama Papers, the Paradise Papers have again thrown back the curtain on the vast world of wealth that exists in offshore tax havens. But even after the two largest data leaks in history, those in the know say that we have still barely glimpsed the extent of this ecosystem. And according to Brooke Harrington, Professor of Economic Sociology at Copenhagen Business School and author of Capital Without Borders, if we really want to understand the situation, we need to look beyond the wealthy themselves and toward the industry devoted to keeping them rich and hidden. Bob talks to Harrington about the profession of "wealth management," why it's a threat to democracy and what can be done."]
Loewinger, Micah, et al. "Swedish Cowboys & Syrian Refugees."On the Media (November 10, 2017) ["In the middle of nowhere southern Sweden, there’s a popular Wild West theme park called High Chaparral, where Scandinavian tourists relive the action of the old American cowboy films. For over a year, the park served another function: a refugee camp for some 500 of the 163,000 migrants – many from Syria – who applied for asylum in Sweden in 2015. That Syrians would find refuge here actually jibes with High Chaparral’s interpretation of the Old West, which emphasizes the new life that the frontier offered to beleaguered pioneers, and the community that was required to survive there. Americans tend to ignore this history, instead lionizing the gritty traits of the cowboy, the cultural basis for our obsession with rugged individualism. OTM producer Micah Loewinger traveled to High Chaparral last summer, where he met Abood Alghzzawi, a Syrian asylum-seeker, who embarked on an incredible journey to the Wild West of Sweden. This piece explores how politicians seized the cowboy image to further their agendas, and how questioning the narrative of the Old West might influence immigration policy."]
Traister, Rebecca. "'The Anger Window' is Open."On the Media (November 14, 2017) ["New York Magazine writer Rebecca Traister says that every new revelation about sexual harassment confirms what women have always known. In her most recent article she asks "as stories about abuse, assault, and complicity come flooding out, how do we think about the culprits in our lives? Including, sometimes, ourselves.""]
Wick, Julia. "When a Billionaire Buys Your Publication."On the Media (November 10, 2017) ["For the last 20 years, the news industry has been crumbling. In an effort to stay solvent, both legacy media and digital newbies have increasingly looked toward deep-pocketed ownership to stay alive – with mixed results. One such example came last week with the sudden closure of DNAinfo and the Gothamist blog network, hyperlocal digital news outlets that provided vital reporting for the cities in which they operated. For employees, it smacked of retaliation: the closure came just one week after the NYC editorial staff had voted to unionize. When the sites came down, so did their archives, replaced with a note from billionaire owner Joe Rickettsstating that "businesses need to be economically successful if they are to endure." Bob speaks with Julia Wick who, up until that moment, served as editor-in-chief of LAist, the Los Angeles outlet in the Gothamist network."]
Cook, John, Ullrich Ecker and Stephan Lewandosky. "Misinformation and How to Correct It."Emerging Trends in the Social and Behavioral Sciences. ed. Robert Scott and Stephan Kosslyn. John Wiley and Sons, 2015: 1-17.["The increasing prevalence of misinformation in society may adversely affect democratic decision making, which depends on a well-informed public. False information can originate from a number of sources including rumors, literary fiction, mainstream media, corporate-vested interests, governments, and nongovernmental organizations. The rise of the Internet and user-driven content has provided a venue for quick and broad dissemination of information, not all of which is accurate. Consequently, a large body of research spanning a number of disciplines has sought to understand misinformation and determine which interventions are most effective in reducing its influence. This essay summarizes research into misinformation, bringing together studies from psychology, political science, education, and computer science. Cognitive psychology investigates why individuals struggle with correcting misinformation and inaccurate beliefs, and why myths are so difficult to dislodge. Two important findings involve (i) various “backfire effects,” which arise when refutations ironically reinforce misconceptions, and (ii) the role of worldviews in accentuating the persistence of misinformation. Computer scientists simulate the spread of misinformation through social networks and develop algorithms to automatically detect or neutralize myths. We draw together various research threads to provide guidelines on how to effectively refute misconceptions without risking backfire effects"]
Diaz, Junot. "Radical Hope is Our Best Weapon."On Being (September 14, 2017) ["'From the bottom will the genius come that makes our ability to live with each other possible. I believe that with all my heart.' These are the words of the Pulitzer Prize-winning Dominican-American writer Junot Díaz. His hope is fiercely reality-based, a product of centuries lodged in his body of African-Caribbean suffering, survival, and genius."]
Egan, Jennifer."On Cops and Mobsters."New Yorker Radio Hour (October 6, 2017) ["A lot of people first heard the name Jennifer Egan when her innovative book “A Visit from the Goon Squad,” which contained a chapter written as a teen-ager’s PowerPoint presentation, won the Pulitzer Prize for Fiction, in 2011. But Egan was no overnight success: Goon Squad was her fourth novel—if it was a novel—and she published her first story in The New Yorkernearly thirty years ago. But she’s kept experimenting since then, and a few years ago she wrote a short story entirely in tweets, called “Black Box.” Compared to that, Egan’s new novel, “Manhattan Beach,” is “more of an escapist book,” she tells David Remnick. It starts during the Depression, and it’s about a girl who goes to work in a shipbuilding yard in Brooklyn during the Second World War. It involves false identities, a possible murder, and the mob—an old-fashioned page turner. It also reflects her ethnic identity as an Irish-American, and her grandfather’s life in the Chicago police. But that didn’t make it any easier to write. Putting out a novel, Egan finds, is murder no matter how you slice it."]
Richards, Cecile. "Meet the Miss USA Contestant Accusing Trump of Sexual Misconduct as Senators Call for Him to Resign."Democracy Now (December 12, 2017) ["Five senators are now calling on President Trump to resign over allegations that he sexually harassed or assaulted women, and 56 House lawmakers with the Democratic Women’s Working Group are calling for a congressional investigation into the allegations. This comes as three of the 16 women who have publicly accused Trump of sexual harassment held a press conference Monday in New York, demanding that Congress take action. We speak with one of them: Samantha Holvey, a former Miss USA contestant for North Carolina when Trump owned the pageant. We are also joined by Cecile Richards, president of the Planned Parenthood Federation of America and the Planned Parenthood Action Fund, and we play an excerpt from the Brave New Films documentary 16 Women and Donald Trump."]
Simon, David. "The Deuce Charts the Rise of Pornography."The New Yorker Radio Hour (September 29, 2017) ["David Simon believes in the dignity of labor, “even when it’s undignified.” What “The Wire” (which he created) did for the drug trade in Baltimore, “The Deuce,” also on HBO, does for sex work and the beginnings of the pornography industry in New York, in the seventies. Critics have compared Simon not so much to other television showrunners as to novelists like Dickens; Simon’s work is similarly wide in scope, with large casts, and aims to create a picture of a whole world. At bottom, he wants to follow the money from the street to the bosses to the politicians. But though Simon is sympathetic to the sex workers he depicts in “The Deuce,” and even to some of the pimps and mobsters who exploit them, he is unambiguously critical of porn’s effect on America. He tells David Remnick that porn—universally available on the Internet in its most extreme forms—has warped a whole culture toward misogyny."]
Cheney-Lippold, John. "Introduction."We Are Data: Algorithms and the Making of Our Digital Selves. New York University Press, 2017: 3-36.
Factcheck ["We are a nonpartisan, nonprofit “consumer advocate” for voters that aims to reduce the level of deception and confusion in U.S. politics. We monitor the factual accuracy of what is said by major U.S. political players in the form of TV ads, debates, speeches, interviews and news releases. Our goal is to apply the best practices of both journalism and scholarship, and to increase public knowledge and understanding."]
PR Watch [“Every day, companies and their front groups are spending millions of dollars to benefit narrow corporate interests in ways that hurt the lives and livelihoods of people in every state – and they are trying to do this from the shadows. Our investigative work is focused on giving regular people a clear view into the deep-pocketed billionaires, pay-to-play groups and corporations that that are damaging our democratic institutions.” – Lisa Graves, Executive Director of CMD.]
Rusert, Britt. "Introduction."Fugitive Science: Empiricism and Freedom in Early African-American Culture. New York University Press, 2017: 1-22.
SourceWatch ["The Center for Media and Democracy (CMD) publishes SourceWatch, this collaborative, specialized encyclopedia of the people, organizations, and issues shaping the public agenda.SourceWatch profiles the activities of front groups, PR spinners, industry-friendly experts, industry-funded organizations, and think tanks trying to manipulate public opinion on behalf of corporations or government. We also highlight key public policies they are trying to affect and provide ways to get involved. In addition, SourceWatch contains information about others who help document information about PR spin, such as reporters, academics, and watchdog groups."]
1st Round: warm-up question followed by a word
2nd Round: 3 words in succession for each contestant
3rd Round: Round-robin until we have a winner (keep track of last three - the order they come in)
3 mispelled words and a contestant is out
Pronouncer Information 1. Read carefully the Judges, Recorders, Spellers and Audiences information that is included in the Scripps pronouncers’ guide. 2. Familiarize yourself with all words on the confidential word list. Pronunciation is important. A meeting with the judges to insure pronunciation of words and procedures will be scheduled prior to the Bee beginning. 3. Speak clearly for contestants, judges and audience alike. Grant all requests to repeat a word until the judges agree that the word has been made reasonably clear to the speller. You may request the speller to speak more clearly or louder. 4. “Pace” yourself. You need time to focus attention on the pronunciation of the new word and the judges need a few moments between each contestant to do their tasks.
Speller’s Information 1. Each speller needs to focus on the Pronouncer, to aid his or her hearing and understanding of the context of the word. A speller may ask for the word to be repeated, for its use in a sentence, for a definition, for the part of speech, and for the language of origin. 2. Each speller should pronounce the word before and after spelling it. If the speller fails to pronounce the word after spelling it, the judge may ask if they are finished. If they say yes, the judge will remind the speller to remember to repeat the word the next time. (No speller will be eliminated for failing to pronounce a word.) 3. When a speller is at the podium spelling, the next speller should be standing at a marked location ready to proceed to the podium.
235)spuriousIn what appeared to be a thinly veiled reference to politics in the Age of Trump, Sen. John McCain on Monday warned Americans against "half-baked, spurious nationalism," calling the abandonment of U.S. global leadership “unpatriotic.”
In contrast to many liberals, who view truth and power as often opposed, Nietzsche believed that what we understand as “the truth” is itself always a function of power — the power to dominate how people think about reality. In this view, competing conservative and liberal accounts of global warming, health care, and the Iraq war are part of larger power struggles over describing reality. Nietzsche would ask us to be skeptical of those claiming to be simply telling the truth. Efforts to declare some accounts about reality to be true and others false is always a power move. He meant this not as an indictment of power; he considered the will to power to be the essence of life itself. Instead, he was denouncing the notion of truth as innocent of power plays.
While not going so far as to say that all accounts of reality are accurate, he was saying that all truths must be understood as both perspectival and contingent. Because we all have different bodies, origins, histories, and standpoints, we all have different perspectives and accept different things as true, frequently changing our views over a lifetime. This view foreshadowed the view endorsed by much of today’s cognitive science, social psychology, and behavioral economics, which view reason as more a slave to instinct and power than the other way around.
Nietzsche leaves us with a notion of objectivity as multiple, fractured, partial, and contingent:1
There is only a perspective seeing, only a perspective “knowing”; and the more affects we allow to speak about one thing, the more eyes, different eyes, we can use to observe one thing, the more complete will our “concept” of this thing, our “objectivity” be.
In place of God’s eye we would have countless eyes with divided perspectives, unconsciously projecting mental preconceptions onto external reality. What results is a kind of deep pluralism — not simply the recognition of different socioeconomic standpoints, but also an acknowledgment of the ways in which these perspectives are shaped by animal instincts, culture, and ideology. If we want the fullest picture of a thing, we need to consult other people’s perspectives, and the more we consult, the better. -- Kathleen Higgins, "Post-Truth Pluralism: The Unlikely Political Wisdom of Nietzsche." (September 2013)
Benton, Michael Dean. "Thinking ..."Dialogic Cinephilia (December 10, 2017)
Bernstein, Barbara. "Sacrifice Zones (Part 1)."Making Contact (October 18, 2017) ["Since 2003 a rash of proposals have surfaced in communities throughout the Northwest to export vast amounts of fossil fuels to Asian markets via Oregon, Washington, and British Columbia. If these plans go through the Northwest would become home to the largest oil terminal in North America, the largest coal export facility in North America, and the largest methanol refinery in the world. This week we present Part One of Sacrifice Zones by Barbara Bernstein. It’s the first in a two-part series on the pressure to transform a region of iconic landscapes and environmental stewardship into a global center for shipping fossil fuels. Bernstein investigates how proposals for petrochemical development in the Pacific Northwest threatens the region’s core cultural, social, and environmental values."]
---. "Sacrifice Zones (Part 2)."Making Contact (October 25, 2017) ["Since 2003 a rash of proposals have surfaced in communities throughout the Northwest to export vast amounts of fossil fuels to Asian markets via Oregon, Washington, and British Columbia. If these plans go through the Northwest would become home to the largest oil terminal in North America, the largest coal export facility in North America, and the largest methanol refinery in the world. As the fossil fuel industry turns up its pressure to turn the Pacific Northwest into a fossil fuel export hub, a Thin Green Line stands in its way."]
Farid, Mujahid. "Release Aging People in Prison Campaign."Law and Disorder (November 20, 2017) ["The number of persons 50 years and older in New York State has risen more than 98% since 2000; it now exceeds 10,000—nearly 20% of the total incarcerated population. This reflects a national crisis in the prison system and the extension of a culture of revenge and punishment into all areas of our society. The organization Release Aging People in Prison, or RAPP, works to end mass incarceration and promote racial justice by getting elderly and infirm people out of prison. Led by Mujahid Farid, a 2013 Soros Justice Fellow who was incarcerated for 33 years in New York before his release in 2011, RAPP focuses on aging people in prison, many of whom are long-termers convicted of serious crimes. Many of these human beings have transformed their lives and developed skills and abilities they lacked before incarceration. They could be released from prison with little or no threat to public safety. Yet many are denied release, often for political reasons, and they needlessly remain imprisoned into old age. These elders could return to their communities if current mechanisms such as parole and compassionate release were correctly utilized. We also support legislation in New York to correct the parole system and increase the number of releases."]
Garvie, Clare. "Perpetual Line Up: Unregulated Police Face Recognition in America."Law and Disorder (November 20, 2017) ["The presence of surveillance cameras across the United States has enabled targeted facial recognition surveillance at essentially any place and any time. Each day law enforcement puts in place more and more cameras, including CCTV cameras, police body cameras, and cameras on drones and other aircraft. The FBI’s Next Generation Biometric Identification Database and its facial recognition unit, FACE Services, can search for and identify nearly 64 million Americans, either from its own databases or through access to state DMV databases of driving license photos. It’s likely that government agencies will soon be able to pinpoint your location and even with whom you’ve been, just by typing your name into a computer. The release of Apple’s IPhone X has drawn scrutiny to this technology. Despite civil liberties and privacy concerns, there are few limits on facial recognition technology. In March 2017 Congress held a hearing to discuss the risks of facial recognition surveillance. There is concern that facial recognition can be used to get around existing legal protections against location tracking, opening the door to unprecedented government monitoring an logging of personal associations, including protected First Amendment-related activities. Knowledge of individual’s political, religious and associational activities could lead the way to bias, persecution and abuse. As with many technological advances, there are benefits, too. Facial recognition can assist in locating missing persons or for other public safety purposes."]
Gonet, Adam and Joakim Thiesen. "Vampyr."Masters of Cinema Cast #55 (February 22, 2017) ["The first sound-film by one of the greatest of all filmmakers, Vampyr offers a sensual immediacy that few, if any, works of cinema can claim to match. Legendary director Carl Theodor Dreyer leads the viewer, as though guided in a trance, through a realm akin to a waking-dream, a zone positioned somewhere between reality and the supernatural. Traveller Allan Gray (arrestingly depicted by Julian West, aka the secretive real-life Baron Nicolas de Gunzburg) arrives at a countryside inn seemingly beckoned by haunted forces. His growing acquaintance with the family who reside there soon opens up a network of uncanny associations between the dead and the living, of ghostly lore and demonology, which pull Gray ever deeper into an unsettling, and upsetting, mystery. At its core: troubled Gisèle, chaste daughter and sexual incarnation, portrayed by the great, cursed Sybille Schmitz (Diary of a Lost Girl, and inspiration for Fassbinder’s Veronika Voss.) Before the candles of Vampyr exhaust themselves, Allan Gray and the viewer alike come eye-to-eye with Fate — in the face of dear dying Sybille, in the blasphemed bodies of horrific bat-men, in the charged and mortal act of asphyxiation — eye-to-eye, then, with Death — the supreme vampire. Deemed by Alfred Hitchcock ‘the only film worth watching… twice’, Vampyr’s influence has become, by now, incalculable."]
Glenn Greenwald is one of my favorite journalist/commentators (if pressed I would easily place him in a list of ten essential thinkers we should pay attention to). I've been following him through his early Slate days providing commentary on Constitutional issues (he was a constitutional lawyer and had cases before the Supreme Court), his stint at The Guardian writing on security/surveillance issues, his role in the aftermath of the Edward Snowden leaks, and his work at The Intercept. In these two videos from the Lannan Lectures he demonstrates why he is so important to thinking through the issues/problems of our current moment as not being unique to the current administration and cutting through the BS of our binary political (dis)order.
Greenwald, Glenn. "Glenn Greenwald."Lannan Lectures (September 27, 2017) ["Glenn Greenwald is an investigative journalist and author. A former constitutional lawyer, he founded the online global media outlet The Intercept with Laura Poitras and Jeremy Scahill in 2014. He is the author of several best sellers, among them, How Would a Patriot Act?; With Liberty and Justice for Some: How the Law is Used to Destroy Equality and Protect the Powerful and the recent No Place to Hide: Edward Snowden, the NSA, and the US Surveillance State. Greenwald has received numerous awards for his investigative journalism. In 2009 he was awarded the Izzy Award by the Park Center for Independent Media for his “path breaking journalistic courage and persistence in confronting conventional wisdom, official deception, and controversial issues.” In 2010 he received an Online Journalism Award for his investigative work on the arrest and detention of Chelsea Manning. In 2013 he led The Guardian’s reporting team that covered Edward Snowden and the NSA, which earned the newspaper the 2014 Pulitzer Prize in Public Service. Foreign Policy magazine named him one of the top 100 Global Thinkers for 2013."]
Jennings, Tom and Mike White. "Pickup on South Street."Masters of Cinema Cast #56 (December 28, 2016) ["Samuel Fuller's sensational film noir casts a steely eye at America in the dawn of the Cold War, and brings 1950s New York City alive on the screen in a manner rarely equaled in the annals of film. In one of his greatest roles, Richard Widmark plays Skip McCoy, a seasoned pickpocket who unknowingly filches some radioactive loot: microfilm of top-secret government documents. Soon after, Skip finds himself mixed up with federal agents, Commie agents, and a professional stool pigeon by the name of Moe (played by Thelma Ritter in her finest role this side of Rear Window). With its complex ideology, outrageous dialogue, and electric action sequences, Pickup on South Street crackles in a way that only a Sam Fuller movie can, and is widely considered one of the director's finest achievements."]
Jones, Mark, et al. "Rosa Luxemburg."In These Times (April 13, 2017) ["Melvyn Bragg discusses the life and times of Rosa Luxemburg (1871-1919), 'Red Rosa', who was born in Poland under the Russian Empire and became one of the leading revolutionaries in an age of revolution. Shewas jailed for agitation and for her campaign against the Great War which, she argued, pitted workers against each other for the sake of capitalism. With Karl Liebknecht and other radicals, she founded the Spartacus League in the hope of ending the war through revolution. She founded the German Communist Party with Liebknecht; with the violence that followed the German Revolution of 1918, her opponents condemned her as Bloody Rosa. She and Liebknecht were seen as ringleaders in the Spartacus Revolt of 1919 and, on 15th January 1919, the Freikorps militia arrested and murdered them. While Luxemburg has faced opposition for her actions and ideas from many quarters, she went on to become an iconic figure in East Germany under the Cold War and a focal point for opposition to the Soviet-backed leadership."]
O'Berry, Anne. "Lawyers You'll Like: Anne O'Berry."Law and Disorder (November 13, 2017) ["As part of our Lawyers You’ll Like series we’re joined by attorney Anne O’Berry, she’s the Vice President of the Southern Region of the National Lawyers Guild and the author of The Law Only As An Enemy: The Legitimization of Racial Powerlessness Through the Colonial and Antebellum Criminal Laws of Virginia. While in law school, she served as Director of the Women in Prison Project at Rikers Island, where she taught incarcerated women how to prevent termination of their parental rights. Anne clerked for federal judges in New York, New Jersey and Pennsylvania, including Judge A. Leon Higginbotham, Jr. of the U.S. Court of Appeals in Philadelphia, with whom she co-authored an article on the law as a tool of oppression against slaves and free blacks in pre-Civil War Virginia and taught civil rights and South African apartheid law at the University of Pennsylvania. She later taught Race and the Law at St. Thomas University Law School in Miami, Florida. In the last 12 years, Anne has served as counsel at a Florida law firm that specializes in class action litigation, particularly in the areas of securities, consumer and economic fraud, as well as some environmental and privacy rights litigation."]
Stanley, Jason. "Introduction: The Problem of Propaganda."How Propaganda Works. Princeton University Press, 2015: 1 - 26. ["Our democracy today is fraught with political campaigns, lobbyists, liberal media, and Fox News commentators, all using language to influence the way we think and reason about public issues. Even so, many of us believe that propaganda and manipulation aren't problems for us―not in the way they were for the totalitarian societies of the mid-twentieth century. In How Propaganda Works, Jason Stanley demonstrates that more attention needs to be paid. He examines how propaganda operates subtly, how it undermines democracy―particularly the ideals of democratic deliberation and equality―and how it has damaged democracies of the past. Focusing on the shortcomings of liberal democratic states, Stanley provides a historically grounded introduction to democratic political theory as a window into the misuse of democratic vocabulary for propaganda's selfish purposes. He lays out historical examples, such as the restructuring of the US public school system at the turn of the twentieth century, to explore how the language of democracy is sometimes used to mask an undemocratic reality. Drawing from a range of sources, including feminist theory, critical race theory, epistemology, formal semantics, educational theory, and social and cognitive psychology, he explains how the manipulative and hypocritical declaration of flawed beliefs and ideologies arises from and perpetuates inequalities in society, such as the racial injustices that commonly occur in the United States. How Propaganda Works shows that an understanding of propaganda and its mechanisms is essential for the preservation and protection of liberal democracies everywhere."]
Taylor, G. Flint. "Lessons From the Greensboro Massacre."Law and Disorder (November 13, 2017) ["Thirty eight years ago, on November 3, 1979, 35 heavily armed members of the Ku Klux Klan and the American Nazi party drove nine vehicles through the city of Greensboro, North Carolina, and opened fire on a multi-racial group of demonstrators who were gathering at a black housing project in preparation for an anti-Klan march. Using semi automatic rifles, shotguns and pistols the Nazis and Kukluxers fired 1000 projectiles in 88 seconds killing five march leaders and wounding seven other demonstrators. Most of the victims were associated with the Communist Workers Party, a multi racial group which had been organizing in the south for workers rights in the cotton mills and against the Ku Klux Klan. The Greensboro police, the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, and Firearms, and the Federal Bureau of Investigation were all aware of the planned attack. Four TV stations captured the massacre on video. A reluctant local district Attorney obtained six indictments under pressure from the Greensboro Justice Fund which had been organized by the windows of the victims, and the public outcry. A six-month trial resulted in the acquittal of all six defendants. Then a reluctant Reagan administration Department of Justice tried nine of the Klansmen and Nazis on civil rights conspiracy charges. After a three-month trial all nine were acquitted. A year after the massacre a civil rights suit was brought on behalf of the 16 victims. It exposed the depth and contours of official involvement. After an extraordinary dramatic 10 weeks civil trial a southern jury finally convicted a good number of the actors in the massacre. The verdict was national news."]
(Recently someone told me that I think too much--so I am reposting/revising this ...)
Thinking
It started out innocently enough. I began to think at parties now and then -- just to loosen up.
Inevitably, though, one thought led to another, and soon I was more than just a social thinker. I became concerned about America's global wars. I would ask others about our reasons for being there, but no one wanted to talk about it. This caused me to think about it more...
Soon, I began to think alone, "just to relax" I told myself, but I knew it wasn't true. Thinking became more and more important to me, and finally I was thinking all the time. That was when things began to sour at home.
One evening, insisting that we turn off the finals of American Idol, I asked my wife about the meaning of life. She spent that night at her mother's.
I began to think on the job. I knew that thinking and employment don't mix, but I couldn't stop myself. I began to avoid friends at lunchtime so I could read Karl Marx and Adam Smith. I would return to the office dizzied and confused, asking, "What is it exactly we are doing here and how do we contribute to our community?" One day the boss called me in. He said, "Listen, I like you, and it hurts me to say this, but your thinking has become a real problem. If you don't stop thinking on the job, you'll have to find another job." This gave me a lot to think about.
I came home early after my conversation with the boss.
"Honey," I confessed, "I've been thinking..."
"I know you've been thinking," she said, "and I want a divorce!"
"But Honey, surely it's not that serious."
"It is serious," she said, lower lip aquiver. "You think as much as college
professors, and college professors don't make any money, so if you keep on
thinking, we won't have any money!"
"That's a faulty syllogism," I said impatiently.
She exploded in tears of rage and frustration, but I was in no mood to deal with the emotional drama.
"I'm going to the library," I snarled as I stomped out the door.
I headed for the library, in the mood for some Nietzsche.
I roared into the parking lot with National Public Radio on and ran up to the big glass doors...They didn't open. The library was closed.
To this day, I believe that a Higher Power was looking out for me that night.
Leaning on the unfeeling glass, whimpering for Zarathustra, a poster caught my eye. "Friend, is heavy thinking ruining your life?" it asked. You probably recognize that line. It comes from the standard Thinker's Anonymous poster.
Which is why I am what I am today: a recovering thinker.
I never miss a TA meeting. We start off by telling each other everything is just fine and there is no need to question how our world is organized and run. Then we share experiences about how we avoided thinking since the last meeting. Luckily, my boss approved of my attempt at recovery, so I still have my job, and things are a lot better at home.
Life just seemed...easier, somehow, as soon as I stopped thinking.
I think the road to recovery is nearly complete for me.
Tonight I'm going to a Trump rally, he says we are doing "really, really great" and that makes me happy. I'm glad we have decisive leaders like him that encourage the people to avoid the dangers of thinking too much!
"The only way he could heal was to learn how to dream. ... Before he can become a warrior, a man has to leave everything behind and go into the jungle, guided only by his dreams. In that journey he has to discover completely alone, who he really is. Some get lost and never come back. Those who do, will be ready to face all that will come." - The shaman Karamakate in Ciro Guerra's 2015 film Embrace of the Serpent
Ellsberg, Daniel. "Daniel Ellsberg Reveals He Was a Nuclear War Planner, Warns of Nuclear Winter & Global Starvation."Democracy Now (December 6, 2017) ["Could tension between President Trump and North Korean leader Kim Jong-un bring us to the brink of nuclear war? As tensions ramp up, we discuss what nuclear war would look like with a former nuclear war planner and one of the world’s most famous whistleblowers—Daniel Ellsberg. In 1971, Ellsberg was a high-level defense analyst when he leaked a top-secret report on U.S. involvement in Vietnam to The New York Times and other publications, which came to be known as the Pentagon Papers. He played a key role in ending the Vietnam War. Few know Ellsberg was also a Pentagon and White House consultant who drafted plans for nuclear war. His new book, published Tuesday, is titled “The Doomsday Machine: Confessions of a Nuclear War Planner.” We speak with Ellsberg about his top-secret nuclear studies, his front row seat to the Cuban missile crisis, whether Trump could start a nuclear war and how contemporary whistleblowers Chelsea Manning and Ed Snowden are his heroes."]
Botton, Alain De. "The True Hard Work of Love and Relationships."On Being (February 9, 2017) [This is a wise discussion about personal relationships that has ramifications for how we relate in general to the broader world! Doesn't this seem like something that should be taught at an early age and that we should be having very frank discussions about. Lets dispel the myths/mystification surrounding personal relationships!]
Buckingham, Ben, Kat Ellinger and Mike White. "Happy End (1966)."The Projection Booth #342 (September 26, 2017) ["We wrap up the first Czechtember series with a film from director Oldřich Lipský, 1966's Happy End, an experimental comedy (which is as unusual as that sounds) that puts shots in opposite order and runs motion backward from the death of our main character (Vladimír Menšík) while he gives the voice-over account of life from birth. Of course, this provides us with constant ironic juxtapositions. The film was co-written by Lipský and Milos Macourek, the screenwriter behind some of the best comedies out of Czechoslovakia in the '60s and '70s."]
Deans, Bob and Regina Lopez-Whiteskunk. "Native American Tribes Join to File Historic Lawsuit Against Trump Attack on Bears Ears National Monument."Democracy Now (December 5, 2017) ["Five Native American tribes have joined to file what they are calling an historic lawsuit against President Donald Trump, Interior Secretary Ryan Zinke and several other members of the administration. The move came just hours after Trump visited Utah Monday, where he announced his plan to open up protected federal lands to mining, logging, drilling and other forms of extraction. The plan calls for shrinking the 1.3 million-acre Bears Ears National Monument by more than 80 percent and splitting it into two separate areas. Trump would slash the state’s 1.9 million-acre Grand Staircase-Escalante National Monument by 50 percent. Bears Ears National Monument was created in 2016 by then-President Barack Obama. President Bill Clinton created the Grand Staircase-Escalante National Monument in 1996. The national monuments were designated under the century-old Antiquities Act, a law meant to protect sacred sites, artifacts and historical objects. We speak with Regina Lopez-Whiteskunk, a member of the Ute Mountain Ute Tribe and former co-chair of the Bears Ears Inter-Tribal Coalition, and with Bob Deans, director of strategic engagement at the Natural Resources Defense Council."]
Merler, Silvia. "The Economics of Healthcare."Bruegel (October 2, 2017) ["Healthcare reform has been a thorn in the side of the US administration for several months, prompting President Trump to declare that “Nobody knew that healthcare could be so complicated.” We review recent economists’ views on the issue."]
---. "On the Cost of Gun Ownership."Bruegel (October 11, 2017) ["On 1 October 2017, 59 people were killed and another 489 injured in what is currently the deadliest mass shooting in US modern history. The author reviews recent contributions on the economic cost of gun violence, as well as the impact of regulation."]
Scahill, Jeremy, et al. "Very Bad Men: Trump, the Saudi Crown Prince, Sexual Assaulters, and Robert Mugabe."Intercepted (November 29, 2017) ["THE UNCONSCIONABLE GENOCIDAL destruction of Yemen is continuing unabated. This week on Intercepted: Sen. Chris Murphy blasts the U.S. government for its support of Saudi Arabia and lays out his fight to end the carnage in Yemen. Jeremy tears apart Thomas Friedman’s gross love letter to the Saudi crown prince and talks about the bi-partisan war against journalism from Bill Clinton to Donald Trump. As more women come forward to name their sexual assaulters and harassers, Intercept Editor-in-Chief Betsy Reed and BuzzFeed’s Katie Baker analyze this unprecedented moment. Robert Mugabe was removed in a military coup, but his successor is a brutal thug from the same party. We get analysis from Harare, Zimbabwe, about why the U.S. and Britain supported Mugabe’s repressive regime, who is in control now, and what the future holds in this mineral rich country. Comedian Joe Pera performs a dramatic re-enactment of a secret Snowden document about a summer intern at the National Security Agency who experiences culture shock. And Donald Trump stars in the exciting finale of ‘Merican Beauty.'"]
Michael Benton -- Excellent episode analyzing the toxic effect of one of the worst organizations in America and the need to fight for stricter gun control laws.
Beckett, Lois. "How to Report on Gun Violence in America."On the Media (September 6, 2019) ["In August, 53 people died in mass shootings in the United States. Following the shootings in El Paso, Texas and Dayton, Ohio, Washington Post columnist Margaret Sullivan wrote, “When a mass shooting happens, even when it happens twice in a 24-hour period — even when the death toll soars into the dozens — we reflexively spring into action. We describe the horror of what happened, we profile the shooter, we tell about the victims’ lives, we get reaction from public officials. It’s difficult, gut-wrenching work for journalists on the scene. And then there’s the next one. And the next one. If journalism is supposed to be a positive force in society — and we know it can be — this is doing no good.” Lois Beckett is a senior reporter for The Guardian and has covered gun violence for seven years. She says that mainstream coverage of the issue is flawed because it's focused mainly on one type of tragedy. She explains to Brooke how better coverage would mean focusing on the root causes of gun violence."]
Carlin, Dan. "Gunning for Violence."Common Sense #244 (December 28, 2012) [The archived episode costs 99 cents, but definitely worth it "In the wake of another mass shooting, Dan looks at ways to alter a society that glorifies gun violence. He ties together culture, mental health and powerful lobbying groups in a fashion sure to upset everyone.']
Chomsky, Noam. "Nuclear Weapons, Climate Change & the Undermining of Democracy Threaten Future of Planet."Democracy Now (April 12, 2019) ["As President Trump pulls out of key nuclear agreements with Russia and moves to expand the U.S. nuclear arsenal, Noam Chomsky looks at how the threat of nuclear war remains one of the most pressing issues facing mankind. In a speech at the Old South Church in Boston, Chomsky also discusses the threat of climate change and the undermining of democracy across the globe."]
Drone Survival Guide [Website: "Our ancestors could spot natural predators from far by their silhouettes. Are we equally aware of the predators in the present-day? Drones are remote-controlled planes that can be used for anything from surveillance and deadly force, to rescue operations and scientific research. Most drones are used today by military powers for remote-controlled surveillance and attack, and their numbers are growing. The Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) predicted in 2012 that within 20 years there could be as many as 30.000 drones flying over U.S. Soil alone. As robotic birds will become commonplace in the near future, we should be prepared to identify them. This survival guide is an attempt to familiarise ourselves and future generations, with a changing technological environment. This document contains the silhouettes of the most common drone species used today and in the near future. Each indicating nationality and whether they are used for surveillance only or for deadly force. All drones are drawn in scale for size indication. From the smallest consumer drones measuring less than 1 meter, up to the Global Hawk measuring 39,9 meter in length."]
Ellsberg, Daniel. "Daniel Ellsberg Reveals He Was a Nuclear War Planner, Warns of Nuclear Winter & Global Starvation."Democracy Now (December 6, 2017) ["Could tension between President Trump and North Korean leader Kim Jong-un bring us to the brink of nuclear war? As tensions ramp up, we discuss what nuclear war would look like with a former nuclear war planner and one of the world’s most famous whistleblowers—Daniel Ellsberg. In 1971, Ellsberg was a high-level defense analyst when he leaked a top-secret report on U.S. involvement in Vietnam to The New York Times and other publications, which came to be known as the Pentagon Papers. He played a key role in ending the Vietnam War. Few know Ellsberg was also a Pentagon and White House consultant who drafted plans for nuclear war. His new book, published Tuesday, is titled “The Doomsday Machine: Confessions of a Nuclear War Planner.” We speak with Ellsberg about his top-secret nuclear studies, his front row seat to the Cuban missile crisis, whether Trump could start a nuclear war and how contemporary whistleblowers Chelsea Manning and Ed Snowden are his heroes."]
"Emma González at Home, and a Crown Prince Abroad."The New Yorker Radio Hour (April 6, 2018) ["Emma González is a survivor of the Parkland attack, and a leader of the #NeverAgain movement. She talks with David Remnick about the ways her life has changed since the shooting, and why activism comes naturally to the teens spearheading this newest push for gun control."]
Gusterson, Hugh and Elaine Scarry. "Are We Numb to Nukes?"Radio Open Source (April 10, 2014) ["We’re thinking our way through a plausible nuclear emergency with Elaine Scarry who reminds you – we’ve got a weapons monarchy in this democracy. Two decades after the fall of the Berlin wall and a nuclear football still accompanies the president at all times, nuclear missile silos still dot the great plains, and hundreds of nukes remain constantly on alert. How can we call it a democracy, the rule of the people, when there’s one man’s finger on the trigger that could destroy us all?"]
Hennessey, Martha and Carmen Trotta. "Kings Bay Plowshares: Meet Two of the Seven Activists Who Secretly Entered a Nuclear Submarine Base."Democracy Now (July 24, 2018) ["We look at the resistance against nuclear weapons here in the United States. On April 4, 2018—the 50th anniversary of Martin Luther King’s assassination—seven Catholic Plowshares activists secretly entered Naval Submarine Base Kings Bay in Georgia, one of the largest nuclear submarine bases in the world. They were armed with just hammers, crime scene tape, baby bottles containing their own blood, and an indictment charging the U.S. government for crimes against peace. Their goal was to symbolically disarm the nuclear weapons at the base, which is home to at least six nuclear ballistic missile submarines. Each submarine carries 20 Trident thermonuclear weapons. The activists said they were following the prophet Isaiah’s command to “beat swords into plowshares.” It was the latest of 100 similar anti-nuclear Plowshares actions around the world beginning in 1980 in King of Prussia, Pennsylvania. The first Plowshares action in 1980 was led by the late Daniel Berrigan and Phil Berrigan. Phil’s wife, Liz McAlister, was one of seven arrested at the April 4 action. McAlister and two other activists, Jesuit priest Stephen Kelly and Mark Colville, remain locked up in pretrial confinement in Brunswick, Georgia. Four others—Patrick O’Neill, Carmen Trotta, Martha Hennessy and Clare Grady—are under house arrest. All seven could face years in prison, if convicted. We speak with Martha Hennessy and Carmen Trotta. Hennessy is the granddaughter of Dorothy Day, the founder of the Catholic Worker movement. Carmen Trotta helps run the St. Joseph Catholic Worker House in New York."]
Horwitz, Josh. "Republican Lawmakers Refuse to Adopt Gun Control Despite 200 School Shootings Since Sandy Hook."Democracy Now (February 15, 2018) ["Since the Sandy Hook Elementary School massacre in Newtown, Connecticut, in 2012, there have been 200 school shootings. But on Capitol Hill and in many state legislatures, Republican lawmakers have blocked efforts to enact gun control. Wednesday’s shooting in Florida comes just days after President Trump released his budget, which proposes cutting millions of dollars from the National Instant Criminal Background Check System. We speak to Josh Horwitz, executive director of the Coalition to Stop Gun Violence. He is the co-author of “Guns, Democracy, and the Insurrectionist Idea.”"]
Kimball, Daryl. "'Counterproductive and Dangerous': : Nuclear Arms Race Feared as U.S. Quits Key Treaty with Russia."Democracy Now (October 22, 2018) ["President Trump has announced plans to pull the United States out of a landmark nuclear arms pact with Russia, in a move that could spark a new arms race. President Ronald Reagan and former Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev signed the Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces (INF) Treaty in 1987. The INF banned all nuclear and non-nuclear missiles with short and medium ranges. The treaty helped to eliminate thousands of land-based missiles. On Saturday, Trump vowed to build new nuclear weapons. We speak with Daryl Kimball, director of the Arms Control Association. He previously led the Coalition to Reduce Nuclear Dangers. He has been advocating for the U.S. and Russia to preserve the INF Treaty."]
"March For Our Lives Special Broadcast."Democracy Now (March 24, 2018) ["Democracy Now! was on the ground broadcasting live from the March For Our Lives in Washington, D.C. on March 24, 2018, a historic event created, inspired and led by students. The four-hour special program featured the voices of students and people of all ages who converged on the capital and over 800 other cities around the world to demand action on gun control."]
Merler, Sylvia. "On the Cost of Gun Ownership."Bruegel (October 11, 2017) ["On 1 October 2017, 59 people were killed and another 489 injured in what is currently the deadliest mass shooting in US modern history. The author reviews recent contributions on the economic cost of gun violence, as well as the impact of regulation."]
Nasser, Latif, et al. "Nukes."Radiolab (April 7, 2017) ["President Richard Nixon once boasted that at any moment he could pick up a telephone and - in 20 minutes - kill 60 million people. Such is the power of the US President over the nation’s nuclear arsenal. But what if you were the military officer on the receiving end of that phone call? Could you refuse the order? This episode, we profile one Air Force Major who asked that question back in the 1970s and learn how the very act of asking it was so dangerous it derailed his career. We also pick up the question ourselves and pose it to veterans both high and low on the nuclear chain of command. Their responses reveal once and for all whether there are any legal checks and balances between us and a phone call for Armageddon."]
Oliver, Manuel and Patricia Oliver. "Parents of Murdered Parkland Student Joaquin Oliver on Using Art to Demand End to Gun Violence."Democracy Now (August 15, 2018) ["Students at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, Florida, return to class today, amid heavy security, after summer break. It was six months ago Tuesday when a former student, armed with a semiautomatic AR-15, gunned down 17 students, staff and teachers in just three minutes. It was one of the deadliest school shootings in U.S. history. After the horrific attack, many of the students who survived the shooting became leading activists for gun control. Among the students killed at Stoneman Douglas High School was Joaquin Oliver. On Tuesday, Democracy Now! spoke to Joaquin’s parents, Manuel and Patricia Oliver, who have started a new nonprofit called Change the Ref to promote the use of urban art and nonviolent creative confrontation to expose the disastrous effects of gun violence."]
"Parkland High School Shooting Survivor Emma Gonzalez’s Powerful Speech Demanding Gun Control."Democracy Now (February 19, 2018) ["In Florida, as funerals continue for the 17 people killed in at the Stoneman Douglas High School in Broward County, Florida, survivors of the school shooting have launched an unprecedented youth-led movement to demand gun control. At a rally on Saturday, survivors of the school shooting demanded politicians stop accepting money from the National Rifle Association. For more, we broadcast the full speech of Emma Gonzalez, a senior at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School."]
Phelan, Stephen. "Watching the End of the World."The Boston Review (June 11, 2019) ["The Doomsday Clock is set to two minutes to midnight—the same position it held in 1953, when the United States and USSR detonated their first hydrogen bombs. So why don't we make movies about nuclear war anymore? "]
Schlosser, Eric. "Command and Control: Nuclear Weapons, the Damascus Accident, and the Illusion of Safety."Book TV (October 6, 2013) ["Using recently declassified documents, Eric Schlosser details the ease with which an accident can occur when handling nuclear weapons and how little control military leaders and missile designers have over them. He speaks with Lynn Davis, the former U.S. undersecretary for arms control and the director of the RAND corporation's Washington office."]
Scruggs, Ed. "Texans Decry “Extremist” Gun Lobby & Inadequate Background Checks After Mass Shooting Kills 26."Democracy Now (November 6, 2017) ["On Sunday, suspected shooter Devin Patrick Kelley walked into the First Baptist Church in Sutherland Springs, Texas, wearing a ballistic vest and carrying a Ruger AR-556 assault-style rifle and opened fire, killing at least 26 people and wounding at least 20 more. Among the victims was a pregnant woman, the 14-year-old daughter of the church’s pastor and other children as young as five years old. In April 2016, Kelley purchased the Ruger AR-556 rifle at an Academy Sports + Outdoors store in San Antonio, Texas, despite having been court-martialed and jailed for a year for assaulting his wife and child. In filling out the background check paperwork, Kelley indicated he did not have a criminal history that disqualified him from purchasing the firearm. For more on gun control and background checks, we speak with Ed Scruggs, vice chair and spokesperson for Texas Gun Sense."]
---. "Texas Weakens Gun Laws One Day After Odessa Massacre Leaves 7 Dead, 22 Injured."Democracy Now (September 3, 2019) ["A gunman killed seven people and injured 22 others on Saturday, including a 17-month-old girl. Police have identified the shooter as 36-year-old Seth Ator. He went on the rampage just hours after being fired from his trucking job. The deadly string of events began when a Midland police officer pulled over Ator for failing to use his signal. Police say Ator then opened fire using an AR-15-style weapon before speeding away. He then began shooting at random residents and motorists. The rampage ended 20 miles away when the gunman died in a shootout with police outside a movie theater in Odessa. Meanwhile, eight new laws easing gun restrictions went into effect in Texas on Sunday. It is now easier to carry guns in Texas churches, schools and apartment buildings. We speak to Ed Scruggs, president of the board of directors and spokesperson for Texas Gun Sense."]
Thompson, Geraldine. "When Will This Stop? 17 Shot Dead in Florida School Massacre, the 18th School Shooting of Year."Democracy Now (February 15, 2018) ["In Parkland, Florida, 17 people died Wednesday in one of the deadliest school shootings in U.S. history. The massacre at the Stoneman Douglas High School was the 18th school shooting this year, according to Everytown for Gun Safety. This means there has been a school shooting on average every 60 hours so far this year. Police have identified the gunman as a 19-year-old former pupil named Nikolas Cruz. He was carrying an AR-15 with multiple magazines of ammunition. In addition to the 17 dead, 15 people were injured. We speak to Geraldine Thompson, a former Florida Democratic state senator. She represented the Orlando district where the 2016 Pulse nightclub massacre took ."]
"'The Time to Act Is Now': Florida School Shooting Survivors Confront Trump, Rubio on Gun Control."Democracy Now (February 22, 2018) ["“The time to act is now.” That’s the message of survivors of last week’s school shooting in Florida. On Wednesday, the nation witnessed grieving students, parents and teachers powerfully confront the president and lawmakers over gun control in pointed—and often tense—televised exchanges. The day began with students across the United States—from Minnesota to Colorado to Arizona—walking out of class to demand stricter gun laws. Meanwhile, survivors of the shooting descended on the Florida state Capitol in Tallahassee to demand lawmakers pass legislation addressing gun violence before the legislative session ends. In the afternoon, President Trump—along with Vice President Mike Pence and Education Secretary Betsy DeVos—hosted a listening session with survivors of recent shootings, including students at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School. Wednesday evening, survivors of the massacre at Stoneman Douglas High School sparred with politicians during a town hall hosted by CNN."]
