Join the most important conversation in crypto and Web3 at Consensus 2023, happening April 26-28 in Austin, Texas. Come and immerse yourself in all that Web3, crypto, blockchain and the metaverse have to offer. Use code BREAKDOWN to get 15% off your pass. Visit consensus.coindesk.com.
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“The Breakdown” is written, produced by and features Nathaniel Whittemore aka NLW, with editing by Rob Mitchell and research by Scott Hill. Jared Schwartz is our executive producer and our theme music is “Countdown” by Neon Beach. Music behind our sponsor today is “Foothill Blvd” by Sam Barsh. Image credit: Screenshot of ordinals.com feed, modified by CoinDesk. Join the discussion at discord.gg/VrKRrfKCz8.
America faces two inextricable problems: a growing homelessness crisis, and a dire lack of affordable housing. As the gravity of those issues grows more visible, lawmakers are under increasing pressure to solve them. We sat down with The New York Times' Binyamin Appelbaum to talk about how the state of California -- so often the poster child for how not to handle homelessness -- is making gradual progress, taking a critical yet hopeful look at what the rest of the country can learn from their example. We discuss the unique position land occupies in our society, the persistent phenomenon of NIMBYism, and why the first step to fighting homelessness is both hugely complicated and squarely simple: build more housing.
Leave us a voicemail with your thoughts on the show! 321-200-0570
One day every year, the United States celebrates its biggest non-official holiday: Super Bowl Sunday.
The championship game of the National Football League is almost always the biggest television audience of the year, and one of the most expensive tickets for any sporting event.
However, it wasn’t always that way. In fact, it wasn’t even called the Super Bowl.
Learn more about the Super Bowl and how it became so big on this episode of Everything Everywhere Daily.
InIndia after the 1857 Revolt: Decolonising the Mind (Routledge, 2022), M. Christhu Doss brings together some of the most cutting-edge thoughts by challenging the cultural project of colonialism and critically examining the multi-dimensional aspects of decolonization during and after the 1857 revolt. He demonstrates that the deep-rooted popular discontent among the Indian masses, followed by the revolt, generated a distinctive form of decolonization movement—redemptive nationalism that challenged both the supremacy of the British Raj and the cultural imperatives of the controversial proselytizing missionary agencies. Doss argues that the quests for decolonization (of mind) that got triggered by the revolt were further intensified by the Indocentric national education; the historic Chicago discourse of Swami Vivekananda; the nonviolent anti-colonial struggles of Mahatma Gandhi; the seditious political activism displayed by the Western Gandhian missionary satyagrahis; and the de-Westernization endeavours of the sandwiched Indian Christian nationalists.
Tiatemsu Longkumer is a Ph.D. scholar working on ‘Anthropology of Religion’ at North-Eastern Hill University, Shillong: India.
It's Super Bowl Sunday! We're pleased to present the latest episode of America Dissected, tackling America's love of what can be a dangerous (and sometimes deadly) sport just in time for the big game. Host Dr. Abdul El-Sayed reflects on his complicated relationship with football, then interviews Garrett Bush, sports commentator and former college football player, who recently went viral over a rant about the sport.
Listen and subscribe to America Dissected wherever you get your podcasts
It’s hard to put a number on it but judging from the number of videos emerging online, there are more and more contraband cell phones finding their way into the hands of people in prison, who use them to record TikTok dances, take online courses, and alert the outside world to what’s happening on the inside.
If you enjoy this show, please consider signing up for Slate Plus. Slate Plus members get benefits like zero ads on any Slate podcast, bonus episodes of shows like Slow Burn and Dear Prudence—and you’ll be supporting the work we do here on What Next TBD. Sign up now at slate.com/whatnextplus to help support our work.
In the early hours of Monday, a powerful earthquake hit Kahramanmaras in Turkey. Nine hours later another struck. When this edition of Science in Action first aired, 19,000 people were reported to have died, but that number was expected to rise.
Back in 2016, Professor Asli Garagon and her colleagues accurately predicted that an earthquake of this size was coming. Using GPS, they were monitoring the East Anatolian fault to calculate energy building between the plates. With such accurate insight could Turkey have been better prepared?
Ross Stein, seismologist and founder of Temblor, a Californian consultancy that specialises in assessing hazard risk, estimates the plates moved at 5,000 mph. The movement of the plates may have built up pressure in other parts of the country.
And finally, Tiziana Rossetto, a civil engineer at University College London, knows better than most that earthquakes do not kill, buildings do. She tells Roland how the combination of earthquakes and subsequent aftershocks appear to have even destroyed buildings that were purposely built to withstand them.
Also, Why does the thought of giving a talk to an audience fill so many of us with sheer terror? Marnie Chesterton investigates for listener Nhial, who has seen his fellow students in Morocco become panic stricken at the prospect and wants to know the reason for our anxiety. According to one study, 77 per cent of us share that fear.
Marnie finds out about the relationship between stress, our brains and our voices from research associate Dr Maria Dietrich at the University Hospital, Bonn University. She talks to Nhial’s tutor, Professor Taoufik Jaafari, at Hassan II University of Casablanca about the challenges facing his students. And she visits the National Theatre in London to get some expert training from Jeannette Nelson, head of voice, who works with some of the world’s leading actors.
Could there be an evolutionary explanation for the purpose of public speaking? Is it something we actually need to be good at? Marnie asks evolutionary psychologist Professor Robin Dunbar at Oxford University and gets some surprising answers. She meets psychologist Dr Preethi Premkumar at London South Bank University, who has developed virtual reality therapy with colleagues at Nottingham Trent University, and tries out the treatment herself.
Image: Aftermath of the deadly earthquake in Gaziantep
Credit: REUTERS/Dilara Senkaya
Haiti, a country long besieged by political turmoil, was plunged further into chaos in 2021 when then president Jovenel Moïse was assassinated. Today, gangs run large swaths of the capital city of Port-au-Prince. Schools and businesses have shuttered, food, water and gas shortages have spiraled, and Haitians desperate to leave the country have overrun immigration offices hoping for a passport.
Prime Minister Ariel Henry has been the de facto ruler since Moïse's assassination. There have not been official elections in the country since 2016. In January, its ten remaining senators left office, leaving no single regularly elected official. Henry, whose rule is heavily criticized by many Haitians, says there cannot be new elections until the country is made safer.
Amidst the chaos, calls have risen for the US to help stabilize the country, but a fraught history of US intervention in Haiti has created a climate of mistrust.
Host Michel Martin talks to Pamala White, former ambassador to Haiti, about what options are available to Haiti to quell the country's unrest.
And Marlene Daut, a professor at Yale of French and African-American studies, unpacks the history of US intervention in Haiti.
In this installment of Best Of The Gist, with Super Bowl Sunday upon us, we listen back to Mike’s September 11, 2017 interview with former Raider (and Eagles) cornerback, Nnamdi Asomugha. Despite being one of the best cornerbacks ever to play in the NFL, Namdi sees his time in football as a prep course for acting. Then we’re replaying Mike’s Spiel about San Francisco sex workers who are clogging up the streets.
