Zoe talks to people in the county who believe the Bladen Improvement PAC has been cheating for years. She tries to get beyond the rumors and into specifics, and comes face to face with the intense suspicion and scrutiny leveled against the organization. In the middle of another election, Zoe goes out with members of the PAC to watch how they operate and try to make sense of all these allegations against them.
Audio Poem of the Day - To Judgment: An Assay
By Jane Hirshfield
Everything Everywhere Daily - Elizabeth Swaney: The Power of Just Showing Up
Elizabeth Swaney was born in 1984 in Oakland, California. She attended the University of California Berkley where her only athletic accomplishment consisted of serving as the coxswain of the men’s rowing team.
Elizabeth, however, desperately wanted to be an olympian. The only thing standing in her way was a complete lack of athletic ability.
Her lack of athletic ability didn’t stop her, and in 2018, she managed to achieve her goal of competing in the Olympics.
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60 Songs That Explain the '90s - A Tribe Called Quest—“Scenario”
Rob explores A Tribe Called Quest’s “Scenario” by discussing the chemistry at the center of the group’s excellence and where the song ranks among the best posse cuts in rap history.
This episode was originally produced as a Music and Talk show available exclusively on Spotify. Find the full song on Spotify or wherever you get your music.
Host: Rob Harvilla
Guest: Shea Serrano
Producers: Isaac Lee and Justin Sayles
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Audio Poem of the Day - To You
Read Me a Poem - “Everyone Sang” by Siegfried Sassoon
Amanda Holmes reads Siegfried Sassoon’s poem, “Everyone Sang.” 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.
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Everything Everywhere Daily - Ancient Colors
When people from prehistory created the first works of art on the walls of caves, they used the colors that they found around them. Almost all of the early cave art is drawn in black or dark red.
As time progressed, humans figured out how to create more colors and they began using them in more and different ways.
However, some colors were very difficult to create and those who could do it became fabulously rich.
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The Improvement Association - Chapter One: ‘The Big Shadoo’
Following a notorious case of election fraud in Bladen County, North Carolina, in 2018, the reporter Zoe Chace gets an invitation from Horace Munn, the leader of the Bladen County Improvement Association PAC, a Black political advocacy group whose name was dragged into the scandal. Horace asks Zoe to come down and investigate for herself and find out who is really cheating.
Sudhir Breaks the Internet - 1. Designed to Tear Us Apart
When online anger turned to offline violence at the U.S. Capitol on January 6, the big social media companies responded by kicking some users — including the president himself — off their platforms. What led to that decision? Was it an overreach? And what role did they really play in the events that took place? Sudhir explores how social media is built to encourage bad behavior, and why one afternoon of unrest can’t overcome a decades-old mindset in Silicon Valley that blinds them to this reality.
Audio Poem of the Day - Death
By Donald Revell