Today's guest is Dr. Ashley Scolaro! She is a cognitive neuroscientist who teaches psychology and whose research includes taboo language, conspiracy theory belief, and memory and decision making. And she is here to tell why maybe it's totally fine to swear around your damn hell ass kids! F yeah! But also we delve into a lot of brain stuff too that's super fascinating regardless of the parenting angle.
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In the United States, the stoicism and importance of the “working class” is part of the national myth. The term is often used to conjure the contributions and challenges of the white working class – and this obscures the ways in which Black workers built institutions like the railroads and universities – but also how they transformed unions, changed public policy, and established community.
In Black Folk: The Roots of the Black Working Class(LIveright, 2023), Dr. Blair LM Kelley restores the Black working class to the center of the American story by interrogating the lives of laundresses, Pullman porters, domestic maids, and postal workers. The book is both a personal journey and a history of Black labor in the United States from enslavement to the present day with a focus on a critical era: after Southern Emancipation to the early 20th century, when the first generations of Black working people carved out a world for themselves.
Dr. Kelley captures the character of the lives of Black workers not only as laborers, activists, or members of a class but as individuals whose daily experiences mattered – to themselves, to their communities, and to “the nation at large, even as it denied their importance.” As she weaves together rich oral histories, memoirs, photographs, and secondary sources, she shows how Black workers of all genders were “intertwined with the future of Black freedom, Black citizenship, and the establishment of civil rights for Black Americans.” She demonstrates how her own family’s experiences mirrors this wider history of the Black working class – sometimes in ways that she herself did not realize before writing the book.
Even as the book confronts violence, poor working conditions, and a government that often legislated to protect the interests of white workers and consumers, Black Folk celebrates the ways in which Black people “built and rebuilt vital spaces of resistance, grounded in the secrets that they knew about themselves, about their community, their dignity, and their survival.” Black Folk looks back but also forward. In examining the labor and challenges of individuals, Dr. Kelley sheds light on reparations and suggests that Amazon package processing centers, supermarkets, and nursing homes can be spaces of resistance and labor activism in the 21st century.
More than a decade since Michael Jackson’s death, his legacy remains complicated and unresolved. Think Twice: Michael Jackson is an exploration of the King of Pop’s life and impact – and an investigation into why his global influence continues to endure, despite the disturbing allegations against him. In this ten-part series, journalists Leon Neyfakh and Jay Smooth bring you a new perspective on the Michael Jackson story, based on dozens of original interviews with people who watched it unfold from up close.
Listen wherever you listen to podcasts. You can binge all ten episodes of Think Twice: Michael Jackson, ad-free on the Amazon Music or Audible: Wondery.fm/Think_Twice
We're telling you about how Russia's war in Ukraine is getting more personal for the Russian people.
And where the U.S. has decided to send a multi-million-dollar aid package besides Ukraine.
Also, what parts of the U.S. are getting some relief from the heat, and where temperatures are still rising.
Plus, one of the largest trucking companies in the U.S. is shutting down, Taylor Swift fans caused record-breaking seismic activity, and one athlete just surpassed a swimming record that was first set by Michael Phelps.
The latest battle over abortion rights is set to begin in Ohio. On August 8th, voters in the Buckeye State will decide on Issue 1, a ballot initiative about ballot initiatives (yes, you read that right). The outcome will determine whether or not Ohioans can decide in November whether to enshrine abortion access into the state's constitution.
And in headlines: Russia's military says it brought down three Ukrainian drones over Moscow, a property manager at Mar-a-Lago charged in the Trump classified documents case will appear in federal court, and rapper Cardi B threw a microphone at a fan who tossed a drink at her on stage in Las Vegas.
Crooked Coffee is officially here. Our first blend, What A Morning, is available in medium and dark roasts. Wake up with your own bag at crooked.com/coffee
Liz and Andrew welcome a very special guest expert to break down redistricting in Alabama, Miami, and elsewhere in light of Allen v. Milligan. This is an unpaid post on Patreon.
Hunter Biden and his lawyers walked into a courtroom prepared to enter a plea deal with the Justice Department last week. The deal fell through.
President Joe Biden’s son was prepared to plead guilty to two misdemeanor tax charges and to lying on a gun purchase form. The DOJ lawyers and the younger Biden’s attorneys were ready to sign off on the deal in court, but U.S. District Court Judge Maryellen Noreika said she had no intention to “rubber-stamp” the deal.
Why?
Mike Howell, director of The Heritage Foundation’s Oversight Project, says the plea deal granted the president's son “global immunity for all other conduct.” Asked if he would sign onto the deal if that immunity agreement was removed, Hunter Biden said “no,” according to Howell. (The Daily Signal is the news outlet of The Heritage Foundation.)
The Justice Department was offering him “a 'get-out-of-jail-free card' for any future charges that may be brought,” Howell says.
Howell joins “The Daily Signal Podcast” to explain the role the Oversight Project played in uncovering the details of the plea deal, and what's likely next for Hunter Biden.
In a recent public hearing, three government officials told Congress that not only are “unidentified anomalous phenomena” real, they’re a major national security concern. But one witness took his testimony even further, claiming the government possesses materials of “non-human origin.” How much do we really know about UAPs – or, as they’re more commonly known, UFOs? And now that Congress is involved, are we about to learn a whole lot more?
Guest: Garrett Graff, contributor at WIRED magazine; author of the forthcoming book, “UFO: The Inside Story of the US Government's Search for Alien Life Here—and Out There”
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Podcast production by Elena Schwartz, Paige Osburn, Anna Phillips, Madeline Ducharme and Rob Gunther.
First things first, Melissa and Leah break down Sam Alito's latest airing of grievances in the Wall Street Journal. Then, Kate joins them for a lesson in actual history from an actual historian. Kate Masur, author of Until Justice Be Done: America's First Civil Rights Movement, from the Revolution to Reconstruction, joins the trio for a conversation about her Pulitzer Prize-nominated book.
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Johannes Vermeer's 1664 masterpiece "The Concert" was stolen from the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum in 1990. That real - still unsolved - case is at the heart of Daniel Silva's new thriller, The Collector. Despite his initial reluctance, art restorer and former Israeli intelligence officer Gabriel Allon is enlisted to hunt down the painting, along with an unexpected collaborator. In today's episode, Silva speaks with NPR's Scott Simon about his distaste for art theft and his reasons for turning villains into protagonists.