Was there a conspiracy to assassinate JFK? Is this universe real, or merely a simulation? How far would you go to be included in an elite, shadowy cabal? In this episode, the guys join special guest Dan Harmon, creator of Community, Rick and Morty and more, to explore these questions and more in what may well be described as their strangest episode yet.
Amanda Holmes reads E. E. Cummings’s poem, “[hist whist].” Have a suggestion for a poem? Email us: podcast@theamericanscholar.org. If we select your entry, you’ll win a copy of a poetry collection edited by David Lehman.
This episode was produced by Stephanie Bastek and features the song “Canvasback” by Chad Crouch.
We team up with the award-winning Brexitcast team to bring you a special update on what Britain leaving the EU means for you. You’ve sent us questions from around the world and Jackie Leonard puts them to the experts from the podcast that’s all about Brexit. There’s also cake, phew.
Spread the word! #GlobalNewsPod #Brexitcast
Find the Brexitcast podcast here: http://www.bbc.co.uk/brexitcast
On October 7, 2019, the Supreme Court heard oral arguments in Kahler v. Kansas and Ramos v. Louisiana, both of which raise questions of constitutional criminal law. In Kahler, a jury convicted James Kahler of capital murder. Among other things, he objected at trial to a Kansas statute limiting any “mental disease or defect” defense to formation of the requisite mental state for the charged offense. The statute, Kahler argued, denied him due process by depriving him of the ability to present an insanity defense. The Supreme Court of Kansas, following its precedent, noted that state law had deliberately “abandon[ed] lack of ability to know right from wrong as a defense,” and rejected Kahler’s argument. The U.S. Supreme Court subsequently granted certiorari to consider whether the Eighth and Fourteenth Amendments to the U.S. Constitution permit a state to abolish the insanity defense. In Ramos, Evangelisto Ramos was convicted of second-degree murder by the vote of 10 of 12 jurors. Challenging his conviction, Ramos argued that Louisiana’s statutory scheme permitting non-unanimous jury verdicts in non-capital felony cases violated his right to equal protection under the Fourteenth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution. Relying on its precedent, the Louisiana Supreme Court rejected Ramos’ argument. The U.S. Supreme Court subsequently granted certiorari to consider whether the Fourteenth Amendment fully incorporates the Sixth Amendment guarantee of a unanimous jury verdict (in criminal cases) against the states. To discuss the cases, we have GianCarlo Canaparo, Legal Fellow at the Heritage Foundation.
Britain’s prime minister is making a risky move by calling for a general election in December. Will it succeed any more than it did for his predecessor? In Japan, both the government and the people take a dim view of soft-drug use; we ask why. And tourists make a dangerous and defiant last-minute dash up Uluru, Australia’s most famous rock. For full access to print, digital and audio editions of The Economist, subscribe here www.economist.com/radiooffer
Shares of Amazon dropped 7% on word 1-day shipping is really, really costly. Twitter plummeted 21% on its midlife ad crisis. And Barclays pulled the switcheroo on its ATM-in-post-offices plan, ultimately caving to pressure.
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Over the last week, Facebook and Mark Zuckerberg have been under fire for declining to fact-check political ads. But a former insider says this is the wrong debate to be having—and it misses a more fundamental problem: Facebook’s business model itself.
Guests: Yael Eisenstat, former head of global elections integrity operations at Facebook and Charlie Warzel, an opinion writer at the New York Times.
For a sustainable future, we need to turn away from fossil fuels and turn towards electricity. But to electrify everything — our cars, our buildings, our entire neighborhoods — we'll need to make some big changes first.
In this episode, hosts Eric Jaffe and Vanessa Quirk explore the future of electrification with Gretchen Bakke, author of The Grid: The Fraying Wires Between Americans and Our Energy Future, and Sidewalk Labs' director of sustainability Charlotte Matthews. For a link-rich transcript of this episode, click here.
City of the Future is produced by Benjamen Walker and Andrew Callaway. Mix is by Zach Mcnees. Art is by Tim Kau. Our music is composed by Adaam James Levin-Areddy. If you want to hear more of Adaam’s work, you can check out his band, Lost Amsterdam.
NPR science correspondent Geoff Brumfiel shares the story of Nazi Germany's attempt to build a nuclear reactor — and how evidence of that effort was almost lost to history. It's a tale he heard from Timothy Koeth and Miriam Hiebert at the Department of Materials Science and Engineering at the University of Maryland in College Park. Read more on their original story in Physics Today. Follow host Maddie Sofia on Twitter @maddie_sofia. Email the show at shortwave@npr.org.
Shortly after the first Europeans arrived in seventeenth-century New England, they began to import Africans and capture the area’s indigenous peoples as slaves. By the eve of the American Revolution, enslaved people comprised only about 4 percent of the population, but slavery had become instrumental to the region’s economy and had shaped its cultural traditions. This story of slavery in New England has been little told. In this concise yet comprehensive history, Jared Hardesty, Associate Professor of History at Western Washington University, focuses on the individual stories of enslaved people, bringing their experiences to life. He also explores larger issues such as the importance of slavery to the colonization of the region and to agriculture and industry, New England’s deep connections to Caribbean plantation societies, and the significance of emancipation movements in the era of the American Revolution. Thoroughly researched and engagingly written, Black Lives, Native Lands, White Worlds: A History of Slavery in New England (Bright Leaf, An Imprint of University of Massachusetts Press, 2019), is a must-read for anyone interested in the history of New England.
Ryan Tripp is part-time and full-time adjunct history faculty for Los Medanos Community College as well as the College of Online and Continuing Education at Southern New Hampshire University.
