Having the Democratic National Convention in Wisconsin was supposed to be a way for the Democrats to atone for 2016. Hillary Clinton was the first presidential candidate from either party to not campaign in the state since Richard Nixon in 1972.
Wisconsin flipped from blue to red in the last presidential election as rural voters voiced their disaffection with the Democratic Party and supported Donald Trump for president. Now, four years later, the Democrats are hoping they can use Trump’s record in office to win them back.
Traditional farming depletes the soil and releases carbon dioxide into the atmosphere. But decades ago, a scientist named Rattan Lal helped start a movement based on the idea that carbon could be put back into the soil — a practice known today as "regenerative agriculture."
Ryan Hall is the author of Beneath the Backbone of the World: Blackfoot People and the North American Borderlands, 1720-1877, published by the University of North Carolina Press in 2020. Beneath the Backbone of the World tells the story of the Blackfoot (Niitsitapi) people who lived and controlled a large region of what is today the U.S. and Canadian Great Plains. Dr. Hall explores how the Blackfoot people were able to hold onto their positions of power within the borderlands as both European and American colonizers encroached on their lands for over a century.
Ryan Hall is an Assistant Professor of History and Native American Studies at Colgate University.
This year’s socially-distanced DNC began last night, with speeches from former First Lady Michelle Obama, Senator Bernie Sanders, and more. Joe Biden went into the convention with a 7-9 point national lead against Trump, but the next few months are still full of unknowns. Watch the convention along with us every night this week at crooked.com/convention
UNC Chapel Hill has decided to pivot to online-only instruction after 130 students test positive for Covid-19. Los Angeles' public schools start remote classes today, and are launching a large-scale testing system for students and staff.
And in headlines: Lebanon sees a Covid-19 surge after the explosion in Beirut, California experiences one of its worst heat waves on record, and the Trump administration finalizes plans to drill in the Arctic.
How has the pro-life movement affected culture and politics? Marjorie Dannenfelser, president of Susan B. Anthony List, examines that impact in her new book, "Life Is Winning: Inside the Fight for Unborn Children and Their Mothers." She joins the podcast to discuss how the pro-life cause went from “an orphaned political problem” to a winning issue "embraced at the highest levels of the Republican Party,” how women built the pro-life movement, and more.
We also cover these stories:
The Trump administration announces plans to begin drilling for oil and gas in 1.5 million acres of the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge in northern Alaska.
Protests against police in Seattle again become violent, and police arrest 18 on Sunday when another riot breaks out.
Chicago Mayor Lori Lightfoot speaks in support of the city's police Sunday after violence erupts again over the weekend.
Juvoni describes himself as someone who helps people explore ideas and strategies for improvement. He focuses on combining multiple skills, better thinking and tools for thought, inner engineering healthy habits, and discovering how systems in the world affect us.
If you are or know a Black software engineer, you can recommend they join /dev/color a community dedicated to helping black software engineers empower each other to become industry leaders. http://devcolor.org/
Amanda Holmes reads Gerard Manley Hopkins’s poem, “Spring and Fall.” Have a suggestion for a poem by a (dead) writer? 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.
