The news to know for Thursday, December 30th, 2021!
What to know about the verdict in the Ghislaine Maxwell trial and why President Biden is once again meeting with Russia's President Putin.
Also, what the FDA is now saying about at-home Covid-19 tests when it comes to the new variant, omicron.
Plus, the Red Cross wants to send you to the Super Bowl, finding your favorite bubbly may be harder than you expect this New Year's, and one type of music is making a comeback decades later.
Top 5 of 2021 Day 4: During this Christmas season, we're sharing some of our favorite interviews of the year to allow our team to take time off for the holidays.
The Bible and the Torah have served as sources of inspiration and guidance throughout the ages. Accounts in the Book of Genesis of the Tower of Babel and the Garden of Eden are among those that have helped people from ancient times to understand God and to navigate personal issues.
“Wow, this is super-relevant for modern times and modern challenges, this kind of timeless wisdom,” Eisenberg says about the Torah, which encompasses the first five books of the Hebrew Bible. “It has a modern feel to it, despite its nature as an ancient text.”
Eisenberg joins “The Daily Signal Podcast” to talk about his book and some of the lessons we can take from the Book of Genesis.
To end 2021, Paris Marx provides a quick update on the podcast and what’s coming next year.
Tech Won’t Save Us offers a critical perspective on tech, its worldview, and wider society with the goal of inspiring people to demand better tech and a better world. Follow the podcast (@techwontsaveus) and host Paris Marx (@parismarx) on Twitter, and support the show on Patreon.
Baratunde asks how can we citizen with tech when we disconnect millions from technology and from society as a whole by incarcerating them? He closes the season in conversation with two people who’ve served time for felony convictions and are now working in tech to expand opportunities for all: Shaka Senghor, author and head of DEI for TripActions, and Teresa Hodge, president of Mission: Launch and co-founder of R3 Score which changes how employers use background checks.
Guest: Shaka Senghor
Bio: Bestselling author and speaker; Head of Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion at TripActions
Go to howtocitizen.com for transcripts, our email newsletter, and your citizen practice.
ACTIONS
- PERSONALLY REFLECT
Are we that bad?
The United States has five percent of the world’s population and 25 percent of the world’s prison population. Ask yourself the question Teresa wants us all to ask: are we that bad?
- BECOME INFORMED
Who is leading the spaces you spend time in?
Take stock of the companies whose products and services you use the most and the non-profits you may be supporting. Now go take a look at their boards and senior leadership. Do they reflect the experiences of the communities they serve?
The Last Mile is an incredibly effective organization that prepares incarcerated individuals for successful reentry through business and technology training. Support their work through donation, volunteering, or better yet, hire their graduates!
Redeemed Sole, an organization Shaka founded, highlights a number of organizations helping people avoid or return from incarceration. Find an initiative there, and donate, amplify, or join in some way.
Find out if your workplace, school, or even landlord uses traditional criminal background checks to determine someone’s suitability. If they do, encourage them to join Teresa’s Bank on 100 Million initiative, and take the pledge yourself.
We’re re-running some of our favorite episodes from the past year. This episode originally aired in August 2021.
Last week, the northern California mountain town of Greenville was wiped out by the Dixie Fire, which lasted for two months and is now the second largest wildfire in California history. As Greenville residents assess the damage to their homes and businesses, is it safe to rebuild? Is it even ethical, when wildfires are expected to only get worse?
Guest: Margaret Garcia, also known as Meg Upton, reporter at Plumas News.
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Podcast production by Mary Wilson, Danielle Hewitt, Elena Schwartz, Davis Land, and Carmel Delshad.
Lot of people took up bird watching in some form during the pandemic, including Short Wave editor Gisele Grayson. She edited this episode about 2021's #BlackBirdersWeek — it about celebrating Black joy. Co-organizer Deja Perkins talks about how the week went and why it's important to observe nature wherever you live.
Poet and author Kwame Alexander was feeling the weight of being Black in America last summer and didn't know how to make sense of his feelings. So, he made sense of them through his book of poetry, Light For The World To See: A Thousand Words On Race And Hope. It's three poems on three historic events: the murder of George Floyd, Colin Kaepernick's protests, and Barack Obama being elected president. Alexander told NPR's Rachel Martin he wrote this as a call for Black people to remember their humanity.
We're taking a break from recording for the holidays. Enjoy this unlocked Patreon episode.
As the Federal Trade Commission files suit to block the merger between Nvidia and Arm, we take the opportunity to revisit the excellent and necessary work of the FTC’s Chair, Lina Khan. We discuss a recent profile of Khan in the New Yorker. Then dig deeper into a very long, very important paper by Khan making the legal case for reviving the antitrust doctrine of structural separation and applying it to break up platform giants like Amazon, Alphabet, and Facebook.
Some stuff we reference
••• The Separation of Platforms and Commerce | Lina Khan https://columbialawreview.org/content/the-separation-of-platforms-and-commerce/
••• Lina Khan’s Battle to Rein in Big Tech | Sheelah Kolhatkar https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2021/12/06/lina-khans-battle-to-rein-in-big-tech
••• Lina Khan Cashes in Her Chips | David Dayen https://prospect.org/economy/lina-khan-cashes-in-her-chips/
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Hosted by Jathan Sadowski (twitter.com/jathansadowski) and Edward Ongweso Jr. (twitter.com/bigblackjacobin). Production / Music by Jereme Brown (twitter.com/braunestahl)
We're halfway through another intense pandemic school year. As many teachers are taking a well-deserved holiday break, we'll hear why these past few months in the classroom have gotten harder – and what that could mean for students and parents.
