Posted by Alexander Jerri
Listen live from 9AM - 12:45PM Central on WNUR 89.3FM / stream at www.thisishell.com / subscribe to the podcast
9:10 - Attorney Nnennaya Amuchie explains how activists bailed out Black mothers in time for Mother's Day.
Nnennaya worked with BYP100 DC on a local fundraising effort, part of a larger national campaign by the group Southerners On New Ground.
9:30 - Historian Julia Ott details the ways a century of American tax policies valued wealth over work.
Julia wrote the article How Tax Policy Created the 1% for Dissent.
10:05 - Economist Mark Weisbrot explains why Marine Le Pen's electoral defeat is not a victory for the French left.
Mark wrote the articles Curb Your Enthusiasm: Macron Is Just The Beginning Of A New Fight For France And Europe for Huffington Post and How the Eurozone Damaged French Politics—and This Year’s Presidential Election for The Nation.
10:35 - Immigration researcher Karina Moreno profiles Muslim/Latino solidarity in the Trump era.
Karina wrote the artilce A Politics of Solidarity for Jacobin.
11:05 - Zoologist Bill Schutt examines our long, bloody, somewhat recent history of cannibalism.
Bill wrote the book Cannibalism: A Perfectly Natural History from Algonquin Books.
12:00 - Journalist Sharon Lerner reports on the large-scale poisoning of a small, poor town in Louisiana.
Sharon wrote the article The Plant Next Door for The Intercept.
12:30 - In a Moment of Truth, Jeff Dorchen gets his money back from Adam Smith.
Jeff is hosting the "What Is Capitalism" Contest at Seattle's Red May on Sunday.
Posted by Alexander Jerri
On This Day in Rotten History...
In 1527 – (490 years ago) – mutinous troops of the Holy Roman Emperor Charles V invaded and sacked the city of Rome, which at the time was part of the Papal States. Pope Clement VII had allied with the Kingdom of France to resist growing pressure from the northern empire and the Habsburg dynasty, so he was seen as an enemy by Charles’s troops, who numbered some twenty to thirty thousand and — to make matters worse — were angry because they weren’t getting paid on time. The unruly soldiers poured into Rome, killing everyone they encountered, and forcing almost two hundred of the Vatican’s Swiss Guards into desperate hand-to-hand combat on the very steps of Saint Peter’s Basilica. Before being massacred, the Swiss Guards managed to hold off the intruders long enough for the pope to escape to his bunker. But Rome was devastated, and some forty-five thousand people were killed, wounded, or exiled. The invaders remained for months as corpses lay rotting in the streets, until the city was finally overcome by the plague.
In 1757 – (260 years ago) – the English poet Christopher Smart, having been deemed insane, was committed to Saint Luke’s Hospital for Lunatics, in London, one of two asylums where he would be confined for the next six years. It was a time of great debate about the nature of mental illness, but methods of treatment were still primitive, and some doctors even advocated physical beating. For his part, Smart never considered himself insane, and some acquaintances felt he’d been sent to the asylum without due cause. During his years there he was given to intense religious fervor, and he wrote obsessively, producing what are seen today as his greatest works — including the long poem “Jubilate Agno,” which was not published until 1939.
In 1937 – (80 years ago) – the German airship Hindenburg was about to land at Lakehurst, New Jersey, when it mysteriously caught fire and went down in a hellish inferno, killing thirty-six of its ninety-seven passengers and crew. The Hindenburg used explosive hydrogen as its lifting gas, instead of the much safer helium, because the United States had a worldwide monopoly on helium and would not export it to Nazi Germany. Even so, the builders of the Hindenburg were so confident in its safety that the high-end amenities included not only a... read more
Posted by Alexander Jerri
Listen live from 9AM - 1:00PM Central on WNUR 89.3FM / stream at www.thisishell.com / subscribe to the podcast
9:15 - Economist Kate Raworth outlines the ideas re-shaping our understanding of 21st century economics.
Kate is author of Doughnut Economics: Seven Ways to Think Like a 21st-Century Economist from Chelsea Green.
10:00 - Consumer advocate Ralph Nader discusses ways of challenging power in the 21st century.
Ralph is author of Breaking Through Power: It's Easier Than We Think from City Lights.
10:35 - Our Man in San Juan, Dave Buchen reports back from the May Day general strike in Puerto Rico.
Dave got teargassed twice, if you were wondering about his credentials.
11:05 - Mathematician Eugenia Cheng explores the beautiful dream of infinity.
Eugenia is author of Beyond Infinity: An Expedition to the Outer Limits of Mathematics from Basic Books.
12:05 - Christine Ahn explains why everyone on the Korean Peninsula wants peace but the United States.
Christine wrote the article The High Costs of US Warmongering Against North Korea for Truthout.
12:45 - In a Moment of Truth, Jeff Dorchen just mostly babbles about sanity.
Jeffy is hosting the "What Is Capitalism" Contest at Seattle's Red May next weekend. Go to it.
Posted by Alexander Jerri
On This Day in Rotten History...
In 1903 – (104 years ago) – an enormous limestone shelf more than half a mile wide, and weighing some ninety million tons, broke away from the side of Turtle Mountain and came crashing down on the outskirts of a coal-mining town called Frank, in Canada’s Northwest Territories. Turtle Mountain was known not only for its rich coal veins, but for its periodic shakes and tremors. The local Blackfoot Indians called it “the mountain that moves,” and had long avoided camping anywhere near it. The landside destroyed houses, businesses, mine buildings, and more than a mile of railroad track. The noise was heard more than a hundred miles away. At least seventy to ninety people were killed, but that number may have been higher, because it’s believed that an unknown number of itinerant hobos looking for work had pitched camp in the area. Experts said the landslide was triggered by mining activity inside the unstable mountain, but the mine owners denied any responsibility. They quickly rebuilt the damaged railway, and the coal mine stayed in operation for another fourteen years.
In 1991 – (26 years ago) – Bangladesh was hit by one of the most deadly tropical cyclones on record. A twenty-foot storm surge flooded the highly populated coast, which was also whipped by winds above 120 miles an hour for more than twelve hours. The storm killed an estimated 138 thousand people, destroyed about a million homes, and left more than ten million people homeless.
In 1992 – (25 years ago) – a jury acquitted four Los Angeles police officers of using excessive force in their arrest of Rodney King, who had led them on a high-speed freeway pursuit after failing to pull over for a traffic stop. King’s arrest had been captured on video, and the footage had received widespread play on cable TV for more than a year. In it, one could see the police repeatedly kicking King and pounding on him with clubs as he lay immobilized on the roadway. Even LA police chief Daryl Gates had expressed shock at what he saw on the tape, as had police and community leaders nationwide. In the face of such blindingly obvious evidence of police brutality, the jury’s acquittal of the four cops sparked immediate outrage across the country — and especially in South Central LA, where riots broke out and continued over the next several days. Troops from the... read more
Posted by Alexander Jerri
Listen live from 9AM - 1:00PM Central on WNUR 89.3FM / stream at www.thisishell.com / subscribe to the podcast
9:15 - Historian Timothy Snyder examines our present for signs of tyranny in our future.
Timothy is author of the new book On Tyranny: Twenty Lessons from the Twentieth Century from Tim Duggan Books.
10:05 - Live from St. Petersberg, writer Yasha Levine reports on hacking hysteria and myth of cyber security.
Yasha wrote the article From Russia, With Panic for The Baffler.
11:05 - Peace activist Kathy Kelly reports on the US-supplied slaughter of innocents in Yemen.
Kathy wrote the piece The Shame of Killing Innocent People for Common Dreams.
11:35 - The Oakland Institute's Anuradha Mittal explores the military occupation of land in post-war Sri Lanka.
The Oakland Institute just published the report Justice Denied: A Reality Check on Resettlement, Demilitarization and Reconciliation in Sri Lanka.
12:10 - Julia Buxton examines the persistently dysfunctional nature of Venezuela's anti-Chavista opposition.
Julia wrote the article Situation Normal in Venezuela: All Fouled Up for NACLA Report on the Americas.
12:45 - In a Moment of Truth, Jeff Dorchen eulogizes one of his organs.
Organ TBD, BTW.
