Many thought a five-year timeline was too ambitious. But even as France’s politics falls apart, it has managed to put the cathedral back together with aplomb. As an election takes place in Ghana, its status as a leading light of African democracy is looking shaky (10:11). And remembering John Kinsel, among the last of the second world war’s Navajo code-talkers (17.44).
This week we’re looking at a political agreement that will hand back sovereignty of the Chagos Islands to Mauritius. In the 1970s, the UK removed the entire Chagossian population to make way for a US military base. The islanders have been fighting for their right to return ever since. If deal can be agreed, the islanders are hoping they will have the chance to go home.
And this got us thinking about all things home-related.
First up, we discover the intriguing reasons why you can’t smell your own home, then we take a closer look at our homes and all the creatures that live there, before finding out about the ‘home scars’ created by limpets.
Next we hear from Dr Nadescha Zwerschke, a scientist who spent time on Rothera research station in Antarctica. She reveals how she made this isolated outpost feel like home.
Also, we reveal that global talks to agree a reduction in plastics have collapsed, which could have an impact on all our homes from a pollution perspective.
And finally – a type of pasta that would be no good for your homecooked recipes.
Presenter: Marnie Chesterton, with Tristan Ahtone and Godfred Boafo
Producer: Alice Lipscombe-Southwell, with Harrison Lewis and William Hornbrook
Sound engineer: Gavin Wong
OA1096 - The President of the United States has just pardoned a blood relative and it’s--fine, actually. We review the full pardon of Hunter Biden in the greater context of presidential pardons before moving on to our main story: this week’s oral arguments in the trans rights case U.S. v. Skrmetti. The most important and very likely the most consequential case of this Supreme Court term featured the first openly trans lawyer ever to appear before the high court patiently trying to explain to some of our finest legal minds why a Tennessee law denying life-saving healthcare to certain people based on which letter is printed on their birth certificates is in fact unconstitutional discrimination. Finally, Matt drops a quick footnote to acknowledge one of the shortest periods of martial law in democratic history and to see what we might be able to learn from it.
What really separates emancipatory thinking from its opposite? The prevailing Left defines itself against neoliberalism, conservative traditionalism, and fascism as a matter of course. The philosophical differences, however, may be more apparent than real.
The Right-Wing Mirror of Critical Theory: Studies of Schmitt, Oakeshott, Hayek, Strauss, and Rand (Rowman & Littlefield, 2023) argues that dominant trends in critical and radical theory inadvertently reproduce the cardinal tenets of the twentieth century’s most influential right-wing philosophers. It finds the rejection of foundationalism, rationalism, economic planning, and vanguardism mirrored in the work of Schmitt, Oakeshott, Hayek, and Strauss. If it is to be more than merely an inverted image of the Right, critical theory must reevaluate its relationship to what Julius Nyerere once called “deliberate design” in politics. In the era of anthropogenic climate change, a substantial—not merely nominal—departure from right-wing talking points is all the more necessary and momentous.
Morteza Hajizadeh is a Ph.D. graduate in English from the University of Auckland in New Zealand. His research interests are Cultural Studies; Critical Theory; Environmental History; Medieval (Intellectual) History; Gothic Studies; 18th and 19th Century British Literature. YouTube channel. Twitter.
Armand Garnet Ruffo's staggeringly powerful poetry collection, The Dialogues: The Song of Francis Pegahmagabow, was published in spring 2024 by Wolsak & Wynn. This collection of poems and lyric essays brings to life not only the story of the famed WWI Indigenous sniper, but also the complexities of telling Indigenous stories.
From Wasauksing (Parry Island) to the trenches of WWI to the stage, Ruffo moves seamlessly through time in these poems, taking the reader on a captivating journey through Pegahmagabow’s story and onto the creation of Sounding Thunder, the opera based on his life. Throughout, Ruffo uses the Ojibwe concept of two-eyed seeing, which combines the strengths of western and Indigenous ways of knowing, and invites the reader to do the same, particularly through the inclusion of the Anishinaabemowin language within the collection.
These are poems that challenge western conventions of thinking, that celebrate hope and that show us a new way to see the world. The collection also just won the Betsy Garland Award for hybrid genre books.
Armand Garnet Ruffo is an Anishinaabe writer from Treaty #9 territory in northern Ontario. A recipient of an Honourary Life Membership Award from the League of Canadian Poets and the Latner Griffin Writers’ Trust Poetry Prize, he is recognized as a major contributor to both Indigenous literature and Indigenous literary scholarship in Canada. His publications Norval Morrisseau: Man Changing into Thunderbird (2014) and Treaty # (2019) were finalists for Govenor General’s Literary Awards. He teaches at Queen’s University in Kingston, Ontario.
Hollay Ghadery is a multi-genre writer living in Ontario on Anishinaabe land. She has her MFA in Creative Writing from the University of Guelph. Fuse, her memoir of mixed-race identity and mental health, was released by Guernica Editions in 2021 and won the 2023 Canadian Bookclub Award for Nonfiction/Memoir. Her collection of poetry, Rebellion Box was released by Radiant Press in 2023, and her collection of short fiction, Widow Fantasies, is scheduled for release with Gordon Hill Press in fall 2024. Hollay is the host of the 105.5 FM Bookclub, as well as a co-host on HOWL on CIUT 89.5 FM. She is also the Poet Laureate of Scugog Township. Learn more about Hollay at www.hollayghadery.com.
Gravity is the weakest of the fundamental forces of nature, yet, if you have enough of it, it can create the most powerful thing in the known universe: a black hole.
The very idea of a black hole didn’t really exist until the early 20th century, and now they are regularly found by the world’s most powerful telescopes.
As much as we know about them, there is, even more we don’t know and probably will never know.
Learn more about black holes, what they are, and how they work on this episode of Everything Everywhere Daily.
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There are only two weeks left for the 118th Congress to legislate. And there’s a lot to do. Lawmakers must pass a federal spending package to prevent a government shutdown, approve a defense budget, and decide how much money to set aside for relief after a rough year of natural disasters—no big deal. In the Senate, Democrats also need to confirm as many as President Joe Biden’s remaining judicial nominations before they lose power. Nevada Senator Jacky Rosen joins us to discuss what’s on the Senate Democrats’ agenda for the remainder of the year.
And in headlines: Elon Musk and Vivek Ramaswamy paraded around Capitol Hill to push their vision for DOGE, the Justice Department says the Memphis Police Department violates residents' constitutional rights, and Republicans face a historically small House majority in the next Congress.
