We Have Not Had Enough Campus Protest in the US / Erik Baker

On this day in 1876 – (139 years ago) – during the final act of a play called The Two Little Orphans at the Brooklyn Theater in New York, a canvas drop curtain behind the stage was set aflame by a gas-powered stage lamp. The play continued while the audience of about a thousand heard stagehands yelling and swearing as they tried to put the fire out. Only when the flames became visible to the audience did the actors fall out of character and urge the crowd to stay calm. One actor actually told the audience that the fire was “part of the play”—only to break and run a moment later, when a flaming chunk fell to the stage at her feet. After that, all hell broke loose—and while the main floor audience got out of the building safely, the gallery and balcony areas became death traps. Almost three hundred people were killed.

On this day in 1933 – (82 years ago) – organized crime and the bootlegging industry took a major hit as Utah became the thirty-sixth US state to ratify the Twenty-first Amendment to the Constitution, which repealed the Eighteenth Amendment and thus ended Prohibition. After fourteen “dry” years—during which violent crime had soared and thousands had died from drinking industrial alcohol, bathtub gin, and other poison concoctions—law-abiding Americans could once again purchase and consume alcoholic beverages. Millions of others, meanwhile, simply moved their stocks of wine and liquor up from the secret cellar and back to the kitchen. But some 38 percent of Americans continued to live under various forms of state or local prohibition for many years to come. The last completely “dry” state, Mississippi, did not repeal its law until 1966—and some two hundred counties across the United States remain “dry” to this day.    

On this day in 1952 – (63 years ago) – the city of London came to a near standstill as cold weather and heavy fog combined with coal smoke and other air pollution to produce the most severe smog event in the history of the UK. For three days, the so-called Great Smog of 1952 was so thick that visibility was limited to a few yards. Not only was driving impossible, but even walking down the street became difficult, as people could not see their own feet or the streets and sidewalks they were walking on. The smog even penetrated indoors, to the point that... read more

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9:10 - Journalist Antony Loewenstein explores the merger between disaster capitalism and endless global war.

Antony is author of Disaster Capitalism: Making a Killing out of Catastrophe from Verso Books.

10:05 - Live from Sao Paulo, Brian Mier reports on a massive student protest movement against school closings in Brazil.

Brian covered the protest movement in the Brasil Wire article We Rule the School.

10:35 - Writer Barbara Ehernreich links a rise in low-income white deaths to the GOP's deathwish politics.

Barbara wrote the article Dead, White, and Blue The Great Die-Off of America's Blue Collar Whites for TomDispatch.

11:05 - Authors Anna Bernasek and D.T. Mongan explain how personal data is being turned against consumers.

Anna and Dan are authors of All You Can Pay: How Companies Use Our Data to Empty Our Wallets from PublicAffairs.

12:05 - Brandon Smith and Jamie Kalven talk about fighting the City of Chicago to break the Laquan McDonald story.

Brandon and Jamie's story is covered in the Columbia Journalism Review story How a little-known, Uber-driving freelancer brought the lawsuit that forced Chicago to release a police shooting video. Follw Brandon's writing at brandonsmith.com and Jamie's work at Invisible Institute.

12:45 - Jeff Dorchen exercises his Baffler-approved right to be an anti-Hillary misogynist.

No clue how The Baffler got involved in this one, send the hate mail Jeff's way, we still want to book guests from the magazine!

Here is what Chuck is reading to prepare for Saturday's show:

Disaster Capitalism: Making a Killing out of Catastrophe - Anthony Lowenstein [Verso Books]

We Rule the School - Brian Miier [Brasil Wire]

Dead, White, and Blue The Great Die-Off of America's Blue Collar Whites  - Barbara Ehrenreich [TomDispatch]

All You Can Pay: How Companies Use Our Data to Empty Our Wallets -  Anna Bernasek And D.T. Mongan [PublicAffairs Books]

How Chicago tried to cover up a police execution - Curtis Black [Chicago Reporter]

On this day in 1908 – (107 years ago) – an enormous explosion ripped through the Pittsburgh-Buffalo Coal Mine near Marianna, Pennsylvania. The blast was so loud that it could be heard for miles, and hardware and debris from the mine opening was later found half a mile away. The explosion killed 154 miners. Only one survived. Experts later found that the explosion had been caused by an ignition of concentrated coal dust triggered by a routine dynamite charge being used to loosen the coal in a mine wall.

On this day in 1942 – (73 years ago) – the dance orchestra was about to begin its second set for an over-capacity crowd at Boston’s ritzy Cocoanut Grove supper club when a sixteen-year-old busboy in the downstairs lounge lit a match. Moments later, flames raced across the lounge ceiling and quickly spread up the stairwells into the main ballroom, which was heavily festooned with fake palm trees, bamboo furniture, cloth draperies, and paper decorations, many of which covered the exit signs. As fire spread to the restaurant kitchen, the refrigerators, running on flammable propellant due to a wartime shortage of freon, exploded. In minutes the club was a raging inferno as screaming patrons pounded on padlocked exits and jammed both sides of a revolving door, rendering it useless. Other unlocked doors which opened inward were also useless in the chaos, and a plate glass window had been boarded over. When firefighters finally got inside, they found 492 dead people – some charred to cinders, others still seated at tables with drinks in their hands, overcome by poisonous smoke. It was the deadliest nightclub fire in US history. Barney Welansky, the Cocoanut Grove’s mob-connected owner, was convicted of nineteen counts of manslaughter, and died of cancer after four years in prison. 

On this day in 1979 – (36 years ago) – an Air New Zealand DC-10 airliner departed from Auckland on a sightseeing flight over Antarctica, having received erroneous flight programming information the night before. The airplane veered from its usual course, was caught in a whiteout, and crashed into Mount Erebus, the southernmost active volcano on earth. All 257 passengers on board the plane were killed instantly, along with the ten-member crew. Crash investigators later determined that the crew had been unaware of danger until six seconds before their impact with the mountain. It was Air... read more

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9:10 - Anthropologist Scott Atran warns that the West is giving ISIS exactly what it wants.

Scott is co-author of the New York Review of Books essay Paris: The War ISIS Wants.

10:05 - Lawpagandist Brian Foley presents a guide to making lots of money for your lawyer.

Brian just started his own law practice in Philadelphia.

10:35 - Black Agenda Report's Glen Ford explains how Democratic money is cashing out #BlackLivesMatter.

Glen has been writing about #BlackLivesMatter for Black Agenda Report, including the recent pieces “Black Lives Matter” Groups Hoping for a Big Payday

11:05 - Journalists Valerie Brown and Elizabeth Grossman examine bad science and worse politics at the EPA.

Valerie and Elizabeth are authors of the In These Times investigation Why the US Leaves Deadly Chemicals on the Market.

12:05 - Historian Suzanna Reiss traces the history of American empire though the travels of its drugs.

Suzanna is author of We Sell Drugs: The Alchemy of US Empire from University of California Press.

12:45 - Jeff Dorchen reports live from South Carolina on the surreal self-image of the USA.

This day in rancid, ugly, horrible, putrid, rotten history . . .

On this day in 1386 – (629 years ago) – the Turco-Mongol conqueror Timur of Samarkand, known to Europeans as Tamerlane, captured and sacked the Georgian capital of Tbilisi, took King Bagrat V of Georgia captive, and—according to the ancient chronicles—forced the Christian monarch to convert to Islam. Tbilisi was just one of Timur’s many conquests. His domain stretched from the western edge of China into what is now Turkey, but it was short-lived. On his deathbed, Timur designated a favorite grandson as his successor—but his other descendants ignored his wishes and went to war with each other, and the empire disintegrated in a few years.

On this day in 1918 – (97 years ago) – amid the armed conflict that persisted between Poland and Ukraine after the end of World War I, Polish soldiers and lawless civilians in the eastern European city of Lviv subjected its Jewish population to a pogrom that would last three days. Between 50 and 150 Jewish people were massacred, while about two thousand lost their homes, and some five hundred businesses were destroyed.

On this day in 1920 – (95 years ago) – in Dublin, Ireland, thirty-one people were killed in a day of deadly violence during the Irish War of Independence. It was the second and bloodiest of four different historical incidents in Ireland that have since become known as “Bloody Sunday.” It started in the morning with a series of carefully planned killings of British spies at various locations around the city by members of an assassination unit operating under the Irish military leader Michael Collins. Late that afternoon, a unit of militarized British police responded to the assassinations by showing up at a well-attended football match and firing upon the crowd of Irish spectators. By day’s end, the death toll on both sides included fourteen Irish civilians, fourteen British spies, and three IRA prisoners.

On this day in 1927 – (88 years ago) –about five hundred striking miners and I.W.W. activists outside the Columbine Coal Mine near Boulder, Colorado, were attacked by a detachment of state police armed with tear gas and machine guns. The month-old strike, prompted by wage theft and dangerous work conditions, had been uneventful for more than a month until the arrival of cold weather... read more

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9:10 - Writer Curtis White sees new (and old) problems when he looks ahead to our futuristic robot economy.

Curtis is author of We, Robots: Staying Human in the Age of Big Data from Melville House.

10:05 - Anuradha Mittal profiles the dangerous lives of land rights activists in Ethiopia and Cameroon.

The Oakland Institute just posted the release International Civil Society Alarmed by Conviction of Cameroonian Environmental Human Rights Defender.

10:35 - Laura Carlsen explains how marijuana legalization trends are shifting US-Mexico drug war policies.

Laura was just on CCTV talking about legalization trends in Mexico and the United States..

11:05 - Sociologist Brooke Harrington opens the door to the hidden world of elite wealth management.

Brooke is author of the Atlantic article Inside the Secretive World of Tax-Avoidance Experts.

11:35 - Kyle Lydell Canty talks about why racism and police violence have him seeking political asylum in Canada.

Kyle wrote the Guardian opinion piece It's so dangerous to be a black American, I've sought asylum in Canada. To help with Kyle's legal fees, contribute to his GoFundMe here.

12:05 - Live from Beirut, Rania Masri calls out Western complicity, and silence, in the wake of Middle East violence.

Rania was quoted in the Intitute for Public Accuracy's news release From Beirut After Bombing: 'We are Not Numbers'.

12:45 - Jeff Dorchen apologizes to fiscal conservatives for not telling them what he thinks of them sooner.

Not sure if this program is the most effective forum for that, but we're with you Jeffy.