More than 700 cases of COVID-19 in Sioux Falls, South Dakota can be traced back to the city’s Smithfield pork packaging plant. Weeks before the coronavirus outbreak was confirmed, employees were asking for protective measures that didn’t materialize until it was too late. And Smithfield isn’t unique: Meatpacking facilities across the country are also struggling to minimize the spread of the virus.
Guest: Kooper Caraway, president of the Sioux Falls AFL-CIO.
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We compare Covid-19 rates around the world. Headlines say NHS staff are dying in large numbers, how bad is it? And is it just us, or have the birds started singing really loudly?
Welcome back to "Animal Slander," the series where we take common expressions about animals and debunk them with science. Today on the show, we tackle "birdbrained" and to "eat like a bird" with biologists Corina Newsome and Alejandro Rico-Guevara.
Follow Maddie and Emily on Twitter. Their usernames are @maddie_sofia and @emilykwong1234. Plus, send us your animal slander—and questions and praise—by emailing the show at shortwave@npr.org.
Trump is preparing an executive order that will suspend the issuing of green cards for 60 days. We speak to Ali Noorani, executive director of the National Immigration Forum, who says following through on Trump’s order would amount to turning our backs on the same people who are fighting Covid-19 on the front-lines.
The Senate passed the interim relief deal yesterday. It funds small businesses, hospitals and testing, but doesn’t address hazard pay or vote-by-mail -- issues that Dems have been pushing for.
And in headlines: Joe Biden’s fundraising numbers, Idris Elba’s bad quarantine idea, and a major comedy theatre closes its doors in NYC.
Rep. J.C. Watts, a former Republican congressman from Oklahoma and a member of The Heritage Foundation’s National Coronavirus Recovery Commission, joins The Daily Signal Podcast to discuss how the nation can begin to reopen safely amid the coronavirus, why COVID-19 may be affecting the African-American community more than other demographic groups, and the news channel he founded, BNC.
Also on today show:
Attorney General Bill Barr said that governors of some states are violating Americans' rights by policies they have put in place due to the coronavirus pandemic.
Governors across the South are beginning to reopen their state economies and lift coronavirus restrictions.
President Donald Trump says he will work to save oil companies as oil prices continue to collapse.
While we work on a new season of episodes, here’s another podcast to check out: Proof, from America’s Test Kitchen. The Proof team tackles big questions about what we eat and explores the hidden stories behind the foods we love. In this episode, we learn who killed the "Miracle Berry." In the 1970s, it was poised to become the sugar replacement of choice. So why haven’t you heard of it?
Hi all! Another round of profound thanks to our patrons who are keeping the lights on even in these difficult times. Thank you so much and hope you enjoy this special birthday Q and A!
On the Gist, Trump’s always politicizing at pressers.
In the first half of a 2-part interview, Mike talks with Dr. J. Alex Navarro, the co-editor-in-chief of The American Influenza Epidemic of 1918-1919 : A Digital Encyclopedia. Navarro explains how citizens responses 100 years ago weren’t that different from now; there was extreme compliance and tension on the ground. Yes, there were anti-maskers in 1918.
In the spiel, what if we weren’t at each other’s throat’s all the time?
EPISODE 2: African Guangzhou and Coronavoting in Korea
Hello!
Time to Say Goodbye is a podcast—with your hosts, Jay Caspian Kang, Tammy Kim, and Andy Liu. We launched this thing because, like you, we’ve been sheltering in place and wanted an outlet for our thoughts on the coronavirus, Asia, geopolitics, and Asian Americans.
A short introduction to your hosts:
Jay Caspian Kang is a writer-at-large for the New York Times Magazine and the author of the upcoming book The Loneliest Americans.
E. Tammy Kim is a magazine reporter, a contributing opinion writer at the New York Times, and a retired lawyer. She co-edited the book Punk Ethnography.
Andrew Liu is a historian of modern China. He wrote a book called Tea War, about the history of capitalism in Asia. He remains a huge Supersonics fan.
Today’s show is about markets and mandates.
The large African immigrant community in Guangzhou, in southern China, has faced persecution on Covid-19 grounds. We discuss this in the context of China-Africa relations and global racism. Soapboxing about: trade routes, multiculturalism, and ancient explanatory power.
We return, regrettably, to the topic of Asian American discrimination, America-first navel-gazing, and what it means to declare: “Chinatown is not in China.”
Then we welcome our first guest, Victoria Kim, Seoul correspondent for the Los Angeles Times. Victoria tells us about last week’s midterm parliamentary elections in South Korea, the first national vote of the pandemic era. What can we learn from Korea’s election protocols? Why did voters turn out in such large numbers? How has Korea’s successful response to the virus affected its reputation abroad? And how might the ruling liberal Democrats parlay their landslide victory?
Show notes:
3:05 – Why are Chinese people lashing out against Guangzhou’s African immigrant community? What are the international implications and, without resorting to pop anthropology, can we draw parallels to the xenophobia in the U.S.? The latest, plus background here and here.
26:30 – Does a second-generation Chinese American doctor deserve to get “hate-crimed” less than a new immigrant laborer from Hong Kong? Discrimination takes from an Asian American éminence grise and a Joy Luck Club alumna.
