In the early 15th century, just before Europe began its Age of Exploration, China was embarking on a series of voyages that put to shame anything anyone in Europe would do for centuries.
These voyages were led by a man who was the greatest admiral in history up to that point and the ships in his fleet were the largest wooden ships that the world would ever see.
Learn more about the voyages of Admiral Zheng He on this episode of Everything Everywhere Daily.
Scotland’s former National Poet Jackie Kay celebrates the tempestuous life of the great blues singer, Bessie Smith. Born in Tennessee in 1894 Bessie was a street singer before she made it big at a time of racial violence and segregation. Jackie Kay remembers growing up as a young black girl in Glasgow and she tells Kirsty Wark how she idolised this iconic singer.
In Time’s Witness the historian Rosemary Hill explores the historical shift in focus from the grand sweeping narratives of kings and statesmen to a new interest in the lives of ordinary people. She argues that the turn of the 19th century and the age of the Romantics ushered in a more vibrant and serious debate about the importance of oral history, clothes, music, food and art.
The artist Michael Armitage is exhibiting his latest work at the Royal Academy in London until September. Born in Kenya in 1984 but based between Nairobi and London, Armitage is influenced by contemporary East African art and politics, as well as drawing on European art history from Titian to Gauguin. His exhibition Paradise Edict showcases 15 of his large scale works painted on lubugo bark cloth, a material traditionally made in Uganda.
Scotland’s former National Poet Jackie Kay celebrates the tempestuous life of the great blues singer, Bessie Smith. Born in Tennessee in 1894 Bessie was a street singer before she made it big at a time of racial violence and segregation. Jackie Kay remembers growing up as a young black girl in Glasgow and she tells Kirsty Wark how she idolised this iconic singer.
In Time’s Witness the historian Rosemary Hill explores the historical shift in focus from the grand sweeping narratives of kings and statesmen to a new interest in the lives of ordinary people. She argues that the turn of the 19th century and the age of the Romantics ushered in a more vibrant and serious debate about the importance of oral history, clothes, music, food and art.
The artist Michael Armitage is exhibiting his latest work at the Royal Academy in London until September. Born in Kenya in 1984 but based between Nairobi and London, Armitage is influenced by contemporary East African art and politics, as well as drawing on European art history from Titian to Gauguin. His exhibition Paradise Edict showcases 15 of his large scale works painted on lubugo bark cloth, a material traditionally made in Uganda.
Listen to this interview of William Tierney, University Professor Emeritus and Founding Director of the Pullias Center for Higher Education at the University of Southern California. We talk about his book Get Real: 49 Challenges Confronting Higher Education (SUNY, 2020), about what people really believe when it comes to higher education, and also about what people need to do when it comes to higher education.
William Tierney : "Oftentimes the board and the administration and the faculty are in cahoots with one another, in the sense that the marker is only how to improve in the rankings. And you can see this when a teaching college becomes a state university, and then it will try to move away from teaching and move towards research. And a board member will feel good about that: 'Boy, I came in, and my institution was ranked 250th, and now it's a 100. We the board are doing a great job.' And what the administration will say is: 'I transformed the institution. We were 250, and now we're 100.' And the faculty will say, 'Yup, the students are better.' And all this impacts on writing centers like this: Writing centers are often seen as problems–––you know, that kids go to the writing center because they have a problem. Well, then, if we don't have writing centers, then we don't have students who have problems–––which is, of course, the exact wrong way to think about an essential skill that we need for the twenty-first century."
Daniel Shea heads Scholarly Communication, the podcast about how knowledge gets known. Daniel is Director of the Writing Program at Heidelberg University, Germany. Daniel's YouTube Channel is called Write Your Research.
Andy and Dr. Lisa launch into the first chapter of “Our Shot” by remembering the wounds of the beginning of the pandemic. Listener memories of the early days set the scene and Dr. Lisa introduces us to a Seattle physician who was one of the first doctors on the front lines of the pandemic in America and an ER doc in New York City who recalls the lasting mental health effects many of her colleagues are left with as a result of the spring surge that overtook the city. These heroes — and all of us — have come a long way.
Keep up with Andy on Twitter @ASlavitt and Instagram @andyslavitt.
Follow Dr. Lisa on Twitter @askdrfitz.
Dr. Tsion Firew is on Twitter at @DrTsion.
Check out In the Bubble’s Twitter account @inthebubblepod.
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Order Andy’s book, Preventable: The Inside Story of How Leadership Failures, Politics, and Selfishness Doomed the U.S. Coronavirus Response: https://us.macmillan.com/books/9781250770165
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What to know about the path of a deadly storm that's left a trail of damage in at least five U.S. states so far. It's expected to get worse before it gets better.
Also, nearly a dozen American mayors promising to pay reparations to Black residents.
Plus, a possible turning point for the cruise industry, a major U.S. airline cutting flights during a travel boom, and what to buy and what to skip on Amazon's Prime Day.
Last August, as Americans watched the fallout from a police shooting in Kenosha, Wis., pastor James E. Ward Jr. found himself in a position to help. The victim, Jacob Blake, had been shot seven times in the back. Violence erupted in Kenosha. Ward, pastor and founder of INSIGHT Church in the north Chicago suburb of Skokie, Ill., turned to prayer.
“I get this phone call on my cellphone from Julia Jackson,” Ward tells The Daily Signal. “Julia Jackson is one of our faithful intercessory-prayer team members in our church. Julia happens to be the mother of Jacob Blake Jr. … And we prayed that Jacob would live and not die. And we’re thankful that he’s alive today, and he’s doing well.”
The shooting left Blake paralyzed below the waist. Yet both Jackson, Blake’s mother, and Ward, her pastor, decided “to speak a different narrative. We weren’t calling for a hatred. We weren’t calling for destruction. We’re calling for peace and speaking the love of God over the city. And it really went viral.”
Ward rejects “victim mentality” and ideologies like critical race theory. He purposefully took a different approach from Black Lives Matter and found himself working with President Donald Trump last year. Now, he’s preaching this “new attitude” in a book called “Zero Victim.”
Ward visited The Daily Signal to discuss “Zero Victim: Overcoming Injustice With a New Attitude” and his experience in Kenosha last year.
The anus is an evolutionary marvel. But how and when did this organ evolve into what it is today? Today on Short Wave, Maddie gets to the bottom of these questions with The Atlantic's science writer Katherine Wu.
OUTLINE:
Here’s the timestamps for the episode. On some podcast players you should be able to click the timestamp to jump to that time.
(00:00) – Introduction
(08:33) – The most entertaining outcome is the most likely
(14:52) – Meme theory
(18:12) – Writing process
(24:59) – Engineered viruses as a threat to human civilization
(32:45) – Gain-of-function research on viruses
(44:54) – Did COVID leak from a lab?
(52:15) – Virus detection
(1:00:04) – Failure of institutions
(1:07:48) – Using AI to engineer viruses
(1:12:07) – Evil and competence
(1:21:26) – Where are the aliens?
(1:25:19) – Backing up human consciousness by colonizing space
(1:34:48) – Superintelligence and consciousness
(1:46:12) – Meditation
(1:54:20) – Fasting
(2:00:20) – Greatest song of all time
(2:05:46) – Early days of music streaming
(2:17:39) – Startup advice
(2:30:50) – Podcasting
(2:46:12) – Advice for young people
(2:55:15) – Mortality
(3:00:41) – Meaning of life
This all started with a guest essay by Tom Hanks for The New York Times called "You Should Learn the Truth About the Tulsa Race Massacre," in which Hanks made the case for a more widespread teaching of American history involving Black Americans, especially of events like the Tulsa Race Massacre. He wrote: "History was mostly written by white people about white people like me, while the history of Black people — including the horrors of Tulsa — was too often left out. Until relatively recently, the entertainment industry, which helps shape what is history and what is forgotten, did the same. That includes projects of mine."
Eric speaks to host Audie Cornish about the reaction to his column, and how Hollywood reckons with its own power. (And no, he is not trying to cancel Tom Hanks.)
