We look at what happened when the embattled F.B.I. agent appeared before lawmakers to explain his controversial text messages.
Listens
Playlist of posts listened to, or scrobbled
🎧 ‘The Daily’: The (Misunderstood) Story of NATO | New York Times
President Trump called U.S. allies “delinquent” on military spending and attacked Germany as “captive” to Russia. We examine the source of his frustration.
🎧 ‘The Daily’: Brett Kavanaugh’s Change of Heart | New York Times
President Trump’s Supreme Court nominee once made the case for impeaching a president. He now says that was a mistake.
There’s some interesting philosophical question here about whether a sitting president should be “distracted” by lawsuits. I can maybe see the case for knucklehead misdemeanors, but for higher level crimes like collusion with foreign countries or crimes that helped get them into office in the first place? Definitely not. If we have to err on the side of caution, then prosecute, prosecute, prosecute. The president is not above the law, they’re bound to execute on it and this doesn’t get them away from prosecuting themselves.
🎧 ‘The Daily’: Trump Picks Brett Kavanaugh | New York Times
Given Judge Kavanaugh’s conservative record and the political math in the Senate, what happens now?
🎧 ‘The Daily’: Trump’s Supreme Court Finalists | New York Times
With the president expected to announce his choice to replace Justice Anthony Kennedy, we look at the top candidates.
🎧 Episode 57: Domination (MEN, Part 11) | Scene on Radio
Host John Biewen dips into the world of sports talk radio, where guys talk not just about sports but also about how to be a man in twenty-first-century America. What John finds is more complicated than he expected, with revelations both encouraging and sobering. With co-host Celeste Headlee and experts David Nylund and Terry Real.
The lie of patriarchy is dominion. The lie of patriarchy is hierarchy—that you’re above the world you’re above nature and you’re imposing your will like a doctor on a patient, or a mechanic on a car—you are above the system. This is called hubris.
—Terry Real, psychologist
Running away from your vulnerability is like running away from your rectum.
—Terry Real, psychologist [33:20]
🎧 ‘The Daily’: A New Climate Tipping Point | New York Times
Last week, a long-awaited report from the United Nations’ scientific panel on climate change showed that the worst consequences of global warming would occur even sooner than previously thought. Here’s the story behind the findings.
🎧 ‘The Daily’: One Family’s Reunification Story | New York Times
Since President Trump ended the practice of separating migrant children from their parents, few families have been reunited. Those that have are becoming national symbols.
🎧 ‘The Daily’: The U.S. as a Place of Refuge | New York Times
As large groups of Central American migrants approach the U.S. border, the Trump administration is making it more difficult for them to apply for asylum. Is the president undermining the original concept of asylum, or is he restoring it?
🎧 Episode 088 The Science & Philosophy of Complexity: An Interview With Carlos Gershenson | Human Current
Haley Campbell-Gross from HumanCurrentIn this episode, Haley interviews research professor and leader of the Self-Organizing Systems Labat UNAM, Carlos Gershenson. Gershenson discusses findings from his book, Complexity: 5 Questions, which is comprised of “interview style contributions by leading figures in the field of complexity”. He also shares his own perspectives on the past, present and future of complexity science, as well as how philosophy plays a role in the emergence of science.
🎧 Episode 101 A Journey of Computational Complexity with Stephen Wolfram | Human Current
Hayley Campbell-Gross from HumanCurrentIn this episode, Haley interviews Stephen Wolfram at the Ninth International Conference on Complex Systems. Wolfram is the creator of Mathematica, Wolfram|Alpha and the Wolfram Language; the author of A New Kind of Science; and the founder and CEO of Wolfram Research. Wolfram talks with Haley about his professional journey and reflects on almost four decades of history, from his first introduction to the field of complexity science to the 30 year anniversary of Mathematica. He shares his hopes for the evolution of complexity science as a foundational field of study. He also gives advice for complexity researchers, recommending they focus on asking simple, foundational questions.
🎧 Episode 116 An Educator’s Guide to Systems Thinking: An Interview With Linda Booth Sweeney | Human Current
Angie Cross from HumanCurrentIn this episode, Angie talks with systems educator and award-winning author, Linda Booth Sweeney. Booth Sweeney describes her work as a systems educator and explains why understanding systems is so important. She shares many wonderful examples and stories of patterns (and feedback loops) that show up in everyday life and explains how seeing a pattern is the very first step toward influencing change. Booth Sweeney also talks about her books and why storytelling is such an instrumental tool in her work.
Some awesome ideas hiding in here. Definitely worth a second listen as well as bookmarking some of Sweeney’s books to read in the future. I particularly like the idea of systems thinking for children via storytelling. Some of the ideas here have some overlap with ideas in Big History.
🎧 Episode 115 The Network Science of Success: An Interview With Albert-László Barabási | HumanCurrent
Haley Campbell-Gross from HumanCurrentIn this episode, Haley talks with Albert-László Barabási. Barabasi is the Robert Gray Dodge Professor of Network Science and a Distinguished University Professor at Northeastern University, where he directs the Center for Complex Network Research. He is also a renowned author of several books including his newly released book, The Formula: The Universal Laws of Success, which he discusses in-depth during his interview. Barabási shares key takeaways and important lessons from his new book and research on the science of success. He also gives us insights from his journey of learning about and pioneering the young field of network science and shares his hopes for the future of this field.
🎧 ‘The Daily’: The Human Toll of Instant Delivery | New York Times
With the rise of online retailers like Amazon, consumers’ expectations about the speed of delivery have been transformed. But at what cost?
🎧 The Daily: Deployed in the U.S., Just Waiting for the Caravan | The New York Times
The midterm elections are over, and President Trump’s talk of the migrant caravan has dwindled. But thousands of troops sent to the southwest border are still there.
At nearly every turn, President Trump’s own generals tried to persuade him not to deploy active-duty troops to the United States border with Mexico. So what are 5,000 troops doing there?
On today’s episode:
Helene Cooper, who covers the Pentagon for The New York Times.
Background reading:
Here’s what life is like for the soldiers deployed to the southwest borderon a mission that is expected to last until Dec. 15.
Since Election Day, President Trump has tweeted about the caravanexactly once.
The president has seemed to relish the spectacle of being commander in chief, but top Defense Department officials say he has struggled with the role.
He’s seriously deployed troops for a political reason and they’re going to be drawn down before the reason they’re supposed to be there happens?!
This is just the height of stupidity and government waste. Government institutions keep being eroded by Trumps ineptitude and fear-mongering. This is money and deployment help that would have been far better spent in Puerto Rico for the hurricane.