Podcasts about Atlantic Ocean

CLICK HERE to listen to episode audio (4:27).Sections below are the following: Transcript of Audio Audio Notes and Acknowledgments ImagesExtra Information Sources Related Water Radio Episodes For Virginia Teachers (Relevant SOLs, etc.). Unless otherwise noted, all Web addresses mentioned were functional as of 5-20-22. TRANSCRIPT OF AUDIO From the Cumberland Gap to the Atlantic Ocean, this is Virginia Water Radio for the weeks of May 23 and May 30, 2022.  This episode, marking the Memorial Day holiday observed this year on May 30, repeats an episode first done in 2015. MUSIC – ~17 sec – instrumental. That tune, composed during the U.S. Civil War, sets the stage for a water-related exploration of the origin of Memorial Day.  Have a listen to the music for about 35 more seconds. MUSIC – ~35 sec – instrumental. You've been listening to a version of “All Quiet Along the Potomac Tonight,” recorded by Chloe Benner and Stewart Scales.  The tune was composed in 1863 by John Hill Hewitt.  The title, and the lyrics associated with the tune, are from “The Picket Guard,” a poem by Ethel Lynn Beers, published in 1861.  The poem relates the loneliness, homesickness, and then sudden death of a rank-and-file soldier patrolling the dark, wooded, and deceptively quiet Potomac riverbank.  As a similar tragic fate befell tens of thousands of Civil War soldiers along rivers, ridges, and battle lines in Virginia and elsewhere, surviving family and friends began honoring fallen soldiers by decorating their graves with flowers, especially during spring.  The practice grew across both North and South, eventually becoming a spring tradition known as “Decoration Day.” On May 5, 1868, Gen. John Logan called for Decoration Day to be an annual, national holiday on May 30, and the first national ceremony was held that year in Arlington National Cemetery, near the banks of the Potomac.  After World War I, the annual observance began to include honoring those who had died in all U.S. military conflicts.  In 1971, Congress declared Memorial Day an official national holiday, to occur on the last Monday of May. Memorial Day invokes very personal and local expressions of honor and remembrance, true to the holiday's origin of individuals decorating Civil War graves with flowers.  In that spirit, we close this tribute to Memorial Day with about 25 seconds of “Flowers of the Forest,” by No Strings Attached, from their 2002 album, “Old Friend's Waltz.” MUSIC – ~26 sec – instrumental. SHIP'S BELL Virginia Water Radio is produced by the Virginia Water Resources Research Center, part of Virginia Tech's College of Natural Resources and Environment.  For more Virginia water sounds, music, or information, visit us online at virginiawaterradio.org, or call the Water Center at (540) 231-5624.  Thanks to Stewart Scales for his banjo version of Cripple Creek to open and close this episode.  In Blacksburg, I'm Alan Raflo, thanking you for listening, and wishing you health, wisdom, and good water. AUDIO NOTES AND ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS This Virginia Water Radio episode revises and replaces Episode 215, 5-25-15, and Episode 318, 5-30-16. The version of “All Quiet Along the Potomac Tonight” heard in this Virginia Water Radio episode was performed by Chloe Benner and Stewart Scales, used with permission.  More information about Mr. Scales and the group New Standard is available online at http://newstandardbluegrass.com.  This music was used previously by Virginia Water Radio most recently in Episode 619, 3-7-22.  Another version of “All Quiet Along the Potomac Tonight,” by Bobby Horton, was featured in Episode 101, 3-5-12. Information on “All Quiet Along the Potomac,” about Ethel Beers, the author of the poem from which the song was derived, and about John Hill Hewitt, who composed the tune, is available from Bartleby.com, online at http://www.bartleby.com/270/13/474.html; from Britannica Encyclopedia, online at www.britannica.com/EBchecked/topic/58438/Ethel-Lynn-Beers; from Library of Congress, “All quiet along the Potomac to-night,” online at https://www.loc.gov/item/ihas.200002411/; and from Song of America, online at https://songofamerica.net/song/all-quiet-along-the-potomac-tonight/. “Flowers of the Forest” and “Old Friend's Waltz” are copyright by No Strings Attached and Enessay Music, used with permission.  More information about the now-retired, Blacksburg/Roanoke-based group No Strings Attached is available online at https://www.enessay.com/index.html.  This music was used previously by Virginia Water Radio most recently in Episode 573, 4-19-21.  Information on “Metsäkukkia,” the original Finnish tune on which the No Strings Attached selection was based, is available from Andrew Kuntz, “The Fiddler's Companion,” online at http://www.ibiblio.org/fiddlers/MER_MIC.htm; and from Jeremy Keith, “The Session,” online at http://thesession.org/tunes/4585. Click here if you'd like to hear the full version (1 min./11 sec.) of the “Cripple Creek” arrangement/performance by Stewart Scales that opens and closes this episode.  More information about Mr. Scales and the group New Standard, with which Mr. Scales plays, is available online at http://newstandardbluegrass.com. IMAGES(Unless otherwise noted, photographs are by Virginia Water Radio.) Looking towards the confluence of the Shenandoah River with the Potomac River at Harper's Ferry, West Va., August 14, 2008.  Harper's Ferry was a strategic location and the site of a federal arsenal during the Civil War era.The confluence of Antietam Creek (foreground) with the Potomac River in Maryland, as seen from the C&O Canal Towpath, August 13, 2008.  The confluence is several miles downstream of where the creek flows through Sharpsburg, Md., the site of a major Civil War battle in 1862.      EXTRA INFORMATION ON THE HISTORY OF MEMORIAL DAYThe following information is quoted from the Library of Congress, “Today in History—May 30/Memorial Day,” online at https://www.loc.gov/item/today-in-history/may-30/. “In 1868, Commander in Chief John A. Logan of the Grand Army of the Republic issued General Order Number 11 designating May 30 as a memorial day ‘for the purpose of strewing with flowers or otherwise decorating the graves of comrades who died in defense of their country during the late rebellion, and whose bodies now lie in almost every city, village, and hamlet churchyard in the land.' “The first national celebration of the holiday took place May 30, 1868, at Arlington National Cemetery, where both Confederate and Union soldiers were buried.  Originally known as Decoration Day, at the turn of the century it was designated as Memorial Day.  In many American towns, the day is celebrated with a parade. “Southern women decorated the graves of soldiers even before the Civil War's end.  Records show that by 1865, Mississippi, Virginia, and South Carolina all had precedents for Memorial Day.  Songs in the Duke University collection Historic American Sheet Music include hymns published in the South such as these two from 1867: ‘Kneel Where Our Loves are Sleeping,' dedicated to ‘The Ladies of the South Who are Decorating the Graves of the Confederate Dead,' and ‘Memorial Flowers,' dedicated ‘To the Memory of Our Dead Heroes.' “When a women's memorial association in Columbus, Mississippi, decorated the graves of both Confederate and Union soldiers on April 25, 1866, this act of generosity and reconciliation prompted an editorial piece, published by Horace Greeley's New York Tribune, and a poem by Francis Miles Finch, ‘The Blue and the Grey,' published in the Atlantic Monthly.  The practice of strewing flowers on soldiers' graves soon became popular throughout the reunited nation. “President Lyndon Johnson proclaimed Waterloo, New York, as the ‘Birthplace of Memorial Day,' because it began a formal observance on May 5, 1866.  However, Boalsburg, Pennsylvania, also claims to have held the first observance, based on an observance dating back to October 1864.  Indeed, many other towns also lay claim to being the first to hold an observance. “In 1971, federal law changed the observance of the holiday to the last Monday in May and extended the honor to all soldiers who died in American wars.  A few states continue to celebrate Memorial Day on May 30. “Today, national observance of the holiday still takes place at Arlington National Cemetery with the placing of a wreath on the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier and the decoration of each grave with a small American flag.  Protocol for flying the American flag on Memorial Day includes raising it quickly to the top of the pole at sunrise, immediately lowering it to half-staff until noon, and displaying it at full staff from noon until sunset. … “Many veterans of the Vietnam War, and relatives and friends of those who fought in that conflict, make a pilgrimage over Memorial Day weekend to the Vietnam Veterans Memorial in Washington, D.C., where they pay their respects to another generation of fallen soldiers.” SOURCES USED FOR AUDIO AND OFFERING MORE INFORMATION On the History of Memorial Day Library of Congress, “Today in History—May 30/Memorial Day,” online at https://www.loc.gov/item/today-in-history/may-30/. Smithsonian Institution/National Museum of American History, “You asked, we Answered: Why do we celebrate Memorial Day?”, by Ryan Lintelman, May 24, 2013; available online at http://americanhistory.si.edu/blog/2013/05/you-asked-we-answered-why-do-we-celebrate-memorial-day.html. Public Broadcasting System, “National Memorial Day Concert/History of Memorial Day,” online at http://www.pbs.org/national-memorial-day-concert/memorial-day/history/. U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs:“America's Wars,” online (as a PDF) at http://www.va.gov/opa/publications/factsheets/fs_americas_wars.pdf;“Memorial Day,” online at https://www.va.gov/opa/speceven/memday; and“Memorial Day Order,” by Gen. John A. Logan, May 6, 1868, online at https://www.cem.va.gov/history/memdayorder.asp. On Rivers and Other Water Bodies in the U.S. Civil War The History PlaceTM, “The U.S. Civil War,” online at http://www.historyplace.com/civilwar/ USA Civil War Web Site, “Civil War Rivers and Streams,” online at http://usa-civil-war.com/CW_Rivers/rivers.html RELATED VIRGINIA WATER RADIO EPISODES All Water Radio episodes are listed by category at the Index link above (http://www.virginiawaterradio.org/p/index.html).  See particularly the “History” subject category. Following are links to some other episodes on Virginia waters in history related to military conflicts. Battle of Yorktown in the Revolutionary War – Episode 390, 10-6-17.Bull Run's present and Civil War past – Episode 223, 7-21-14. Civil War Battle of the Ironclads – Episode 412, 3-19-18.Lincoln's James River trip to Richmond at the end of the Civil War – Episode 459, 2-11-19.Potomac River in the Civil War – Episode 101, 3-5-12.Rivers and attempts to capture Richmond in the Civil War – Episode 164, 6-3-13 (for Memorial Day 2013).River origins of Virginia signers of Declaration of Independence – Episode 220, 6-30-14. Various waters involved in the Revolutionary War – Episode 168, 7-1-13. FOR VIRGINIA TEACHERS – RELATED STANDARDS OF LEARNING (SOLs) AND OTHER INFORMATION Following are some Virginia Standards of Learning (SOLs) that may be supported by this episode's audio/transcript, sources, or other information included in this post. 2020 Music SOLs SOLs at various grade levels that call for “examining the relationship of music to the other fine arts and other fields of knowledge.” 2015 Social Studies SOLs Grades K-3 History Theme1.2 – Virginia history and life in present-day Virginia.1.4 – Lives of people associated with major holidays.2.5 – Lives of people associated with major holidays. Virginia Studies CourseVS.1 – Impact of geographic features on people, places, and events in Virginia history.VS.7 – Civil War issues and events, including the role of Virginia and the role of various ethnic groups. United States History to 1865 CourseUSI.2 – Major land and water features of North America, including their importance in history.USI.9 – Causes, events, and effects of the Civil War.Virginia and United States History CourseVUS.7 – Knowledge of the Civil War and Reconstruction eras.Virginia's SOLs are available from the Virginia Department of Education, online at http://www.doe.virginia.gov/testing/. Following are links to Water Radio episodes (various topics) designed especially for certain K-12 grade levels.Episode 250, 1-26-15 – on boiling, for kindergarten through 3rd grade. Episode 255, 3-2-15 – on density, for 5th and 6th grade. Episode 282, 9-21-15 – on living vs. non-living, for kindergarten. Episode 309, 3-28-16 – on temperature regulation in animals, for kindergarten through 12th grade. Episode 333, 9-12-16 – on dissolved gases, especially dissolved oxygen in aquatic habitats, for 5th grade. Episode 404, 1-22-18 – on ice on ponds and lakes, for 4th through 8th grade. Episode 407, 2-12-18 – on snow chemistry and physics

63 days. 6 hours. 25min.That's how long it took Damian Browne to solo row the Atlantic Ocean. Over two months of being utterly alone with "the monster of the ocean trying to kick the S**t out of you"Can you imagine?Can you imagine the mental and physical preparation it takes to solo row the Atlantic? To run a six day 257K marathon through the Sahara? To scale the highest summits in the world?Damian Browne can. He shares the incredibly powerful mental framework he uses to prepare for these insane challenges along with the rewards he reaps by creating a masterpiece with his life!ON JUNE 8th... he will be doing it again! This time on the extremely dangerous North Atlantic from New York to his home of Galway Ireland. Check out the stunning video trailer here...Project Empower IG: auld_stockDeep Roots PodcastDownload your Success Engineering Blueprint Ebook at... www.successengineering.orgFollow me at:Linkedin:  https://www.linkedin.com/in/michaelbaumanse/Instagram:  https://www.instagram.com/michaelbaumanse/

Jenn wraps up Science Gal Month talking about Marie Tharp who was the first to map the Atlantic Ocean floor! Over time her work showed the existence of mountain ranges that extended over 40,000 miles around the globe. 

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Well listeners, I did it! I rode my bicycle all the way across the United States! I biked with Team Biking to Remember. We started March 12 in San Diego, California and we made our way across 8 states using the Adventure Cycling Southern Tier maps. It took us 64 days and 3,080 miles to pedal from coast to coast and we reached the Atlantic Ocean on May 14th. Along the way we met up with Alzheimer's Association chapters, held events and with the support of family, friends, and complete strangers we were able to raise over $32,000 for the Alzheimer's Association. I met up with Andrea Parrott, my co-host on the Just Go Bike podcast to talk about the second half of the adventure. If you are interested in learning more about my cross country bike tour across the US, go to my website which is Murphologypodcast.com and click on the tab labeled Murph's Biking the U.S. Email me at murphologypodcast@gmail.com if you have a topic or the name of a cyclist you find interesting. Support my podcast at Patreon.com/Murphology and visit my Facebook and Instagram page for daily entertainment. I have more great episodes in the pipeline so I hope you continue to be a Murphology Podcast listener. https://murphologypodcast.com/murphs-biking-the-us www.murphologypodcast.com https://www.patreon.com/murphology

How Religion shapes and influences the trajectory of a country's development path is a subject I have long been curious about - and I found persuasive answers in the work of Economic Historian Jared Rubin. Jared's book is a tour de force on how rulers and elites use religious legitimacy to propagate their rule - and the developmental implications of such equilibrium. The first part of our conversation is to get him to explain some of the fundamental concepts of his book and analysis. It is impossible to capture his work in a single conversation, so curious listeners can check out his book - and his excellent blog posts here, here, and here. He also has a new book out with previous podcast guest, Mark Koyama (episode here).You can also get the podcast on all the popular platforms like Spotify, Google Podcast, Apple Podcast, and the rest. The transcript of the conversation is available below. Thank you for listening and for your support.TRANSCRIPTTobi; Welcome to Ideas Untrapped podcast my guest today is Jared Rubin. Jared is an economics professor at Chapman University in California. He's an economic historian, and he has written a wonderful book titled Rulers, Religion and Riches: Why the West Got Rich and the Middle East Did Not. Welcome to the show, Jared.Jared; Thank you. It's great to be here. It really is.Tobi; Kind of like [an] obvious first question is why religion, really? I mean, so religion has always been this largely accepted but not really systematically defined or studied aspect of the society, especially when it comes to its influence on institutions and economic development. So what motivated you along this line of research?Jared; Yeah, so this goes back a long way. Religion is something I've always been interested in. Not necessarily, for me, a personal conviction and I'll be fine if it were, but it's been something mainly because I've had a hard time understanding its impact. It's something that very obviously influences decision making. So from my undergraduate days, I was interested in economics, which I view as, kind of, how and why people make decisions. And I was also interested in religion for actually similar reasons because it clearly influenced the way that people made decisions. So I took a lot of courses on various religious topics in undergraduate, but it was something that when I went to get my PhD in economics I never really thought I would pursue. I didn't think that it was something that economists studied. And then in my second year of graduate school, I took a class from who would eventually become my advisor, [...] Wright, who has done work on religion in the past, particularly the role that Islamic and Christian cultural attributes fed into economic development in the medieval period and my mind was blown that you could do this, that some economists took religion seriously. So I went to him, this was probably 2003 and I told him that I wanted to do a dissertation on religion and economic development over time. And at the time, precisely the setup to your question, he told me - that's fine if that's what you want to do, and that's what you're interested in, but know that you're going to have a hard time getting a job?Because there were very few economists at the time that were interested in religion. I mean, you could probably count them on two hands, the economists seriously thought about religion... which in retrospect, is kind of mind-blowing.For me, especially, thinking about medieval Europe, say... I don't understand how you can think about European economic development in the medieval period without thinking of the role of the church. If you think about almost any aspect of Middle Eastern economic history since the spread of Islam, very hard to think through the mechanisms through which growth either happens or doesn't without thinking about the role of Islam, and particularly religious authorities. So I decided to go down this path anyway. I knew that it was something I wanted to do with my career. That's the type of thing that got me really excited about working. And my view on things in general is, you only live once. So if you're fortunate enough to be in a position where you can do what you want, do it! I did eventually find a job, which was fortunate. And as I dug more and more into the history, you know, history was also something that I didn't necessarily think I was going to do... I've always read a lot and it always interested me... start to realize that, you know, something I kind of knew anyway, especially Islam-Christianity comparison, there are way more similarities than there are differences between the religion and religious tenets. Now, clearly, there are differences. But when it comes to the things that impinge on economic development, there's a lot of similarities, especially in history. Now, the question is, has religion played a role at all in economic development and that's what I was trying to think through. And when you start really reading the history, I think one of the things you must immediately latch on to, whether it be medieval European history or medieval Middle Eastern history, is the role that religion played in politics really mattered. And when you start getting a [...] that well, maybe even if these religions are pretty similar, actually, (they're not nearly as different as I think a lot of people think they are) the role they played in politics has diverged a lot over time, and the divergence to some degree coincides with the divergence in economic fortunes in the region. So that was the observation that inspired me to write this book. And to really then think through not just the role that religion has played in politics, but why it might differ across societies, and then how it might evolve over time based on the somewhat initial differences, and then what that might mean for economic development. So I ended up writing a few papers on this. But I decided that the time had come to write a book because I had enough, at least, I saw how the connections were made in my mind and between my papers, and that's where that came from. It's kind of a brief background.Tobi; Yeah, just for the audience, your work on religion is not just limited to the book, you've written numerous papers, and publicly available essays, which I'm going to be putting up links to some of it in the show notes. So I'll start my exploration with the evolution of big gods in society, because religion has been with humanity for as long as we know. But tell me, how did big Gods, monotheistic religion become the most popular flavour of human religious practice? I know you've written about this.Jared; Yeah. So this is something that it's certainly more in the field of anthropology. So there's been some really good anthropological work recently done on this, and actually some work by some economists as well. And this is something that's also, you know, as I was just mentioning, it's intimately related with politics. So small gods, this is not a term that is meant to describe them or anything like that in any way, shape, or form. But it's just meant to say [that] we call small gods, like, gods that have a specific purpose. It might be a god that brings water to a population or heals sickness, things like that. That's a small god, you know, it's a god that has a specific purpose.Big gods are gods that has broader powers. So certainly, when we think about monotheistic gods, those are very big gods, it's the God in a sense, but polytheistic gods can be big gods as well. But what big gods can do is what this literature cites as a purpose of big gods is that it can be a way to legitimate rule. It can be a way that if a ruler has the support of a big god, whatever that means, right? And that can be based on some tenet of the society that whoever's ruling is God-ordained, there might be some clerical class in a society that ordains a ruler as God-ordained. But the idea is that big gods, especially centralized gods (and this is where you kind of get towards a more monotheistic faith) are much better at legitimating rule, at keeping rulers in power, and this is where we get autocracy from too. So a lot of these early societies that had big gods, these were the ones that ended up being a little less fair, that kind of really centralized power in a small group of people because gods like that could be used in that way. You know, when you have a variety of gods you can appeal to, when you have these ''smaller gods'', each group can have their own god. And in that way, it's really hard for any one political group to monopolize divine power. So the recent research on this has mainly connected the origin of these types of gods with political power. And this is something I haven't done my own original research on. But I've written a few things, especially online, we have a blog that I worked for that kind of summarizes this works. I think it's really interesting and not just interesting, but it's a really important precursor to my own work to think about where these gods come from in the first place. Because where my own work comes from is well into monotheism. We're talking about the origins of Christianity and Islam that's well past the point where big gods have formed originally. The real idea is big gods start coming about when humans settle down in society. So, around the Neolithic revolution 8,000-10,000 years ago, so...One other thing that really popped immediately in your book is the role of elites in society. And this is something that has been a bit elusive, at least, in my own experience to define. Tobi; I have a friend [and], I mean, when we talk about Nigeria, and how elites are not really doing enough or talking about the right things or doing the right things, the usual retort is, oh, yeah, well, who are the elites? And I find that it's a surprisingly harder question to answer than it sounds. Jared; Yeah. Tobi; So you describe elites as anyone who can influence how people whom they do not know, act. Can you explain that a bit? Who exactly are the elites in society? How do they emerge?Jared; Yeah, I think this is a really important question. And it's a question that I don't think there's one answer to in the sense, like, I wanted to define elites in a certain way, because I wanted to be able to kind of think through what I described as elites, and this was the commonality. But certainly, if you read other works, they'll define elites in a slightly different way. There are certain people we all know are elite, right, like presidents, or people on the highest courts, things like that. But then there are other people that might not be so obvious whether they're a leader or not, like a local priest or imam or something. Is that person an elite? You know, maybe some people would say yes, some people would say no. So yes, for my book and my work more generally, I use this definition, because it has practical value. So it's this idea that to be an elite, you need to be able to influence the actions of other people, particularly people you don't know. Now, you ask two questions, both of which are really good. One is, how do you become an elite? This is something I've been thinking about a lot for work I'm still doing now is, what is the source of power? Because elites have power, almost by the definition of what I described, if you really want to think about why this matters, it's [that] there's some sorts of power that they have.Now, this differs by the type of elite, some of the ones I'm concerned with in the book of religious elites. Now, the idea here tends to be that religious elites (have) either through their study or through their position or something have access to something people care about. Which is, you know, either the Word of God or some places and times actually begin to connect to the supernatural, something like this. And because they have privileged access to ''we'll just call it the supernatural''... something people really care about, that gives them power to do other things to influence the way people act. And it might be in a way that's consistent with religious tenets and might not. There's been plenty of instances where not. In other cases, there's access to coercive power that can make one elite. This is something where you can say warlords could be considered elite in the sense that at the top level, they have access to coercive power, that because people fear the use of coercive power, it allows them to make people act in a way that they don't want to act.You know, more generally, military elites. And there's a lot of grey area here, you know, so in the military, for instance, who's elite who's not? The lowest rank military person probably isn't, you know, they might be able to be on the street with a gun or something, trying to direct people to do something, but it's not really their actions that is causing this, it's the people above them.Then the very top people are elite. Somewhere in the middle, you just have to kind of make a decision if you're thinking about the social scientific definition. And then this other [group] who I describe as economic elite, who with their access to resources, gives them power. Whether through a formal political process or not, you know, oftentimes, especially in the modern world, it's often through formal political processes. But there's a lot of non-formal processes as well through which this happens, certainly through markets, for instance. You know, market power can be really [a] domineering force. So by this definition, my definition is much more broad than many definitions, especially, in the politicacience literature, because by my definition, there's a lot of elites in many societies. And a reason I think that it's important to consider this idea of there being many elites is that there's many people in general and in societies that can influence the political process. Now, to be clear, it doesn't mean that just because you're elite, you'll influence a political process. The way I've described it in my own work is I do use game theory, or at least is the idea of thinking about the interactions between these various people in societies. And when you go through a Game in Game Theory, you think about how they interact with each other, and what are their motivations? What are the outcomes of their interactions, that's really ultimately what you want to get at. And so I think about the game as being between elites. Now, certainly there are people in the background, right, that aren't elites. The non elites are the people that give elites power in a sense because it's those very non elite states that the elites can influence. And that's the very source of their power. So there is a bit of a tautology here, in a sense that elites power because they can influence people, and then non elites follow elites because they can be influenced. But it's also one of these things. We see it across societies. And I do think that there are many reasons why one can become an elite. And those also differ across societies as well.Tobi; In your book, you also describe a class of people who are still elites, as propagating agents of a ruler. But, one thing became very clear your argument that a ruler seeks to propagate their rule. That's what they desire, you know, isn't this a bit of a public choice assumption, some would question that to say that, Oh, well, just ruling for its sake is not the only desire of a ruler. Some rulers want to do good, some want to, you know, like there are diverse motivations and desires for a ruler. But your mechanism sort of relies on this propagation of rule. What is your argument for choosing to go in that direction?Jared; That's a good question, because this is something that, you know, books have been written on, you know, why do religion? What are the motivations? I mean, you're right, certainly, some have much more altruistic motives, i don't deny that. Some have the exact opposite. Essentially wanting to seek as many rents as possible. And then there are others in the middle. They might be altruistic towards their own ethnic group, and very much the opposite towards others. And this is more of a theoretical concept. Because when we need to think about the interactions between various people or groups in society, we do need to think about what they need, what they want. And what I was trying to do in this book was to think about the most general way of capturing this. And I actually agreed that you can think about it in other ways, and I don't think this captures 100% of motivations, but all of the stuff we've been talking about here, whether it be pure altruism, or you know, something like that, or really wanting to improve society. Or again, on the other hand, wanting to capture as many rents for you or your small group of people. In order to do that, you have to stay in power. And so at its base, I want to minimize the assumptions we make. Because once you make an assumption about, say, wanting to maximize tax revenue, or state revenue or something like that, you know, because certain types of rulers that would really benefit, well then you're you're no longer capturing the type of society where, you know, as you mentioned, maybe the ruler just wants to do best for their society. So what I was trying to do, I was trying to think through a way that we might discuss leadership, rulership in a way that is going to be true of all types of societies. So even in democracies, you have rulers at many levels wanting to be reelected. So they're constrained in ways to do that.Clearly in very autocratic governments, no matter what the autocrat wants to do, they can't do it if they don't stay in power. But yeah, I certainly agree that if you wanted to study, especially, a certain type of rulers or a type of ruler of certain motivation, you could think about this a little different, for sure. Good point.Tobi; Going with your mechanism now, so for a ruler to propagate it's rule, you identify two types of agents. One is legitimizing agents and the other coercive agents. But you see cases, and that transverses many societies... you see cases where there is a sort of overlap between the two where the faction of a ruler has some legitimacy, but also uses force to entrench that legitimacy. So disentangle both types of agents for me slightly.Jared; Yeah, so this is good. Maybe for the sake of listeners, that's a word I use that is not really too common in the literature - this term, propagating agents. To your previous question, I find propagating rulers as staying in power. So a propagating agent is somebody in society that can help you stay in power.If it's a religious agent, they might have access to the Word of God or something like that. A military agent, as you mentioned, is a type of coercive agent - one that has power. And to your question, you're absolutely right and I think nearly every society in human history has had some combination of legitimacy and coercive power. In fact, you know, you really can't have rulership without some degree of coercive power. If a ruler has zero access to coercive power, they will be overthrown quite easily. You can, in theory, have a society that has zero legitimacy, and you know, it's run completely by coercive power. We would say that there have been a few societies that have, at least, come close to that. But again, that ruler is very tenuous in their rule, because there's gonna be a lot of people in society that don't think that they're the rightful ruler. I should also just note quickly that legitimacy is a very complex concept, but we can think about it in a simplistic way, as just that one has political legitimacy when people view that person's having the right to rule. And that can come from a lot of sources. It can come from, certainly, religious elites. It can come from economic elites. It can even come from military elites, depending on, you know, the cultural attributes of the society. So I think, say, certainly, Genghis Khan had this type of legitimacy. And then this was true, at least, in my reading of Mongol societies, that those who could fight have political legitimacy as well as the right to rule. One of the ideas put in my book, to get directly to your question here, is that you can think about it as not necessarily disentangling the two, but what weight do you put on the two. Does the ruler use 95% coercive power, 5% legitimacy or the reverse? Now, one thing that I argue is that there are many types of legitimacy that are relatively inexpensive, from the rulers perspective, you know. So, of course, coercive power is often pretty expensive, for two reasons. One, it's just often expensive in terms of resources, you know, either be outfitting a military or police forces or things like this. And the other thing is that it's expensive in the sense of giving too much coercive power to groups in society is also a threat to your own rule. Because those are the people that are most likely to overthrow you.Now, legitimacy... to gain legitimacy, I think of it as kind of interaction between rulers - I should say, rulers here doesn't necessarily have to be a person, maybe a small group of people [or] something like that... just the ruling elite - and those in society that can provide legitimacy. Again, whether they be religious elites, economic elites, something like that.And we can think about this as a trade-off. There's going to be some types of maybe policies, sometimes it's just pure payments. Like it's certainly in both Christian and Muslim societies that much of their history, religious authorities will say tax-exempt, things like that, you know, as a part of the payoff. They also might want some types of policies. Oftentimes, the religious elite maybe wants suppression of rival religions, things like that. In the grand scheme of things that tends to be relatively inexpensive, relative to other forms of legitimacy. So then it's attractive. And that's one of the outcomes or the way that I'm thinking about it in the interactions between different groups. You know, some kind of basic economic comparison. There's going to be benefits from using different forms of legitimacy or coercion, there are also costs. So we think about what's the cost-benefit trade-offs, and rulers are going to use some types and not others. And that's going to differ by society, it's also going to differ over time. One thing my book tries to do is look at the evolution of these trade-offs over time and why they diverge between the regions.Tobi; You also explained and described something called the rules of the game, as institutions - be it culture, norms and the practices of the society which sort of set the boundaries of what a ruler and the elites can sort of do in a society. So, I mean, describe that to me a bit. How is that a limiting factor? Because a lot of people kind of assume that once you achieve some legitimacy, maybe through religious legitimacy by, say, converting to the most popular religion of population, you can do what you want. But you made it clear that there are some limiting factors in different societies to what rulers and their agents can do. Describe this process.Jared; Yeah, so that term ''the rules of the game'' is a very famous one used by the Nobel Prize-winning economist, Douglass North. And that's, again, even for him, you know... that's like a very simplistic way to think about institutions. And North goes well beyond this. And then they [other economists] have gone even further beyond this. But the way that these work do not mean that actors, or even rulers, can act unilaterally and do whatever they want. They're constrained by various things. And one of the real things that I focus on here is this degree to which religious elites can really legitimate rule and how effective they are at doing this.So in some societies, religious elites are extremely effective at doing this; and this is not just to do with their effort or something like that, it's based on history. It's something that historically, in some societies, religious elites have been very good, so they continue to be very good, at least for the short run. What I do in the book, of course, is you know, look at certain parts of the Middle East. Religious elites can be extremely effective at either propping up rule or the opposite, or challenging rule. Look at the 1979 Iranian Revolution - that's exactly what happened there. On the other hand, religious elites may no longer be powerful where they once were powerful. I mean, Western Europe is like that today. Religious elites tend to not have much power in Western Europe today, in large part because society is not very religious, whereas they used to. So again, that's kind of a constraint that's faced by a ruler at any one given point in time. So maybe a medieval European ruler would have desired to have religious legitimacy because in the medieval period religions are still very effective at legitimating rule. In the modern-day, certainly Prime Ministers, Presidents are going to look elsewhere as they tend to. So when we talk about, you know, the rules of the game, we can think about this as a rule. It kind of sets the stage for how this game as I described it between those who rule and those who can keep them in power, how they interact with each other.So let's get right into the meat of your argument proper, which is how Christianity and Islam emerged when they did, and how the relationship between both religions and their societies and the institutions they propagated, sort of lead to economic divergence, so to speak. Tobi; And so I'm going to ask you two questions. I'm trying not to assume too much knowledge for the audience here. So I'm going to ask you two related questions. So describe for us briefly how the emergence of Islam [happened] when it did, and the emergence of Christianity when and where it did [and] how that came to influence the divergence that was to come later in the society where they sort of propagated these influences. And my second question, just to note, is that you made very clear - which also I should state for the sake of the audience - that you're not arguing that there is something inherently wrong with any religion. Though, some might argue that, well, you kind of have to say that, right? So...Jared; Yeah, no, I think the second question follows from the first question, though, too, because this is actually really important to clarify if the audience hasn't picked up on that yet is, this book doesn't really look at the tenets of religion. In fact, Islam and Christianity are much closer on most fronts than they are apart. So to the extent that religion might have played a role in what ended up becoming a larger economic divergence, it's hard to look at the tenets of religion as the core cause. And moreover, something the book also notes is that a good explanation of any type of divergence...you know, economic divergence in the long run, but especially between Europe and the Middle East has to also account for the fact that the Middle East was far ahead of Europe for a long time. Minimum, 400 years, probably 700 years.[It] doesn't really matter exactly how long in a sense that, you know, it was a while and eventually Europe pulled ahead. But that fact in and of itself suggests that a simplistic argument about there being something about Islam that holds economies back is a foolhardy one. I mean, how do you explain that the Middle East for the first, say, 600 years after the spread of Islam was so far ahead of Western Europe, on every front - economically, scientifically, culturally, technologically, everything? So specifically, your first question, though the book looks at and draws out the implications of one very important difference between not so much the theology or the tenets of the religion but a historical difference between the two that did get involved institutionally into the two regions.This stems from the way that the religions were born and it has to do with their role in legitimating role. And the book argues that, for historical reasons, Islam is more effective at legitimating rule. And it cites numerous passages not just in the Quran, but also the Hadith, which are the kind of the second most important set of religious sayings that's associated with teachings of the Prophet Muhammad. And the reason that the book argues... and I'm not the first person by any means to note this... that Islam is better, or is more effective at legitimating rule is the conditions under which these religions were born. So Christianity was born in the Roman Empire. And for its first 300 years, it was a minority religion, which was essentially trying to survive in the Roman Empire. And for this reason, we see the writings in early Christianity when the real doctrine in the corpus of Christian doctrine is really being formed are not about legitimating rule. In fact, it's quite the opposite. You know, there's the famous quote attributed, at least, to Jesus, you know, ''render unto Caesar what is Caesar's and to God, what is God's''. The idea of being these two separate spheres, and the religious sphere is not part of that of the Caesar, the secular ruler. And then there are plenty of others who at the time, you know, Augustine and numerous Popes that had similar ideas. On the other hand, Islam formed at the same time, what was at the time the world's largest ever empire was formed. Muhammad himself was a political figure, as well as a religious figure.Then, in the first 30 years, the first caliphate, then under the Umayyad Caliphate, within a 100 years of the spread of Islam you have it going from the Atlantic Ocean, you know, in terms of the Iberian Peninsula, all the way to South Asia.This is the largest empire the world has ever seen. And as this empire is expanding, this is the same time that the corpus of Islamic thought is being formed. It's being formed differently in different contexts. But because it's forming alongside a growing empire, there is need for Islamic justification for political rule. So from a very early period, you get Islamic doctrine and this being kind of ingrained institutionally that a rightful ruler is one who follows islam, however that is defined. And again, what this ends up doing is, eventually, after the Islamic clerical classes eventually come about in the ninth and 10th century, this ends up giving them a lot of power because they're the ones who can define whether a ruler is acting like a good Muslim or not. And because of the principles, you know, the kind of what we might call a cultural principle of what makes legitimate rule, it gives religious authorities a lot of power on the one hand, because they can be the ones that describe it. But then, when a ruler has this legitimacy, it gives the ruler a lot of power to act however they like because they're viewed as legitimate and they might not necessarily need as much coercive powers as they otherwise would.Tobi; You sort of answered my second question. I agree with you, by the way. But what I've noticed with people who get defensive about this kind of argument is to insist on the tenets argument and say, Oh, no, one of these two religions, Islam, in particular, is quite politically prescriptive. And because of that you cannot just separate the tenets of each religion from its institutional or social or political influence, right. But you are saying that, because there was a divergence in the rules of the game, so to speak, when these two religions started growing, influenced the text, the tenants, the practices, and how much legitimacy each can command, you know? So I guess my next question would be, at what point... because like you said, the Middle East, the Ottoman Empire was a pretty successful Empire for hundreds of years. Jared; Yes. Tobi; When did it change? When did religious legitimacy and the way it worked in the Middle East become a sort of economic albatross?Jared; So this is the great question. And I think this is the important question to answer because I would actually argue, and I do argue in the book, that initially, this was something that actually was economically beneficial relative to what, say, post-Roman Europe was going through at the time; and even relative to what, you know, societies, especially in the Arabian Peninsula, but even throughout the Middle East North Africa look like, you know, there were empires at the time. But one thing early Islam did was it helped unite these various regions under one rule, which meant fairly consistent rule of law, even though you know, we don't think of these as pure rule of law societies, but there was consistent rule, they use the same currencies, they could expect similar protections. One thing that religion does do, you know, this isn't unique to Islam, but because Islam at least, was mainly initially spread amongst merchants, so this was something that [for] the broader populations of these regions, it took a while for them to more broadly Islamise, but merchants were among the first to convert. And this is something that, at least, brought them into similar social circles, it improved their networks. And I think this helps explain - it's not the only thing, but it helps explain the economic growth of what we might think of as a broader Islamic world for its first 400 years.This is known in the historical literature as the golden age of Islam from the mid-seventh century till about 1000 or so. And I think you can make the case that the fact that these rulers were in fact strong, for the most part, was a reason for this. And certainly, at least up until like the late 9th century, when the Abbasid Empire which was the large empire, beginning the mid 8th century was kind of at its peak. This is a reason I think that Islam plays its role. And again, I mentioned a few minutes ago that I think an explanation that focuses on religion also does need to explain why Islam was associated for so long with a relatively economic successful region. Whereas, you know, this is the same period - that period mid-seventh century to 1000 or so where Europe is not nearly as successful, you know, it's still kind of in its post-Roman doldrums. Even when you get some type of unification like under Charlemagne, the Carolingian Empire, there's no real capacity to rule in most of those places. And I think, in part at least, that's due to differences in the way that these rulers - to use my term of propagating rule. Now to get at your big question, what we really need to explain then is actually a reversal. So the year 800, ironically enough, is often a year that's pinpointed, because on the one hand, in Western Europe, it's kind of a famous year because it's the year that the Pope crowned Charlemagne. But it's also right at the height of the Abbasid Empire in terms of its economic power, in particular. And this is a year that, you know, around this time, early ninth century, that economic divergence between the two regions was probably at its greatest. So we then say, well, what was the source of reversal? Now, I want to make it clear that I'm pinpointing one source, this is by no means the only source. There are many different reasons, I mean, nothing as big as 1000 years of economic history is going to be mono-causal. But one thing I look at is, we can start with the Middle East and North Africa and say, because religion was so effective at propagating rule, there was very little incentive for political authorities to change this. They stayed in power, by ceding relatively little to religious authorities, they certainly had to have access to coercive powers, which they did. There's been a lot of good work that has looked at what access to coercive powers meant for the stability of Muslim empires as well as their economic strength. But it meant that religious authorities remained powerful and, importantly, what I then got to argue is that it meant that economic elites were kept out of the ruling coalition. Before I go too deeply into this, I want to also make it clear that, you know, having a society run by economic elites is generally not a good thing. You know, purely economic elites. Because economic elites, you know, people that are engaged in commerce, maybe merchants, things like that, we should be thinking about them just like we think about all actors as being somewhat selfish.They have their own desires that they want satisfied. And in this case, it may benefit them at the expense of society. One thing I note, though, is that the big things that economic elites want from the political bargain are things that tend to benefit society more broadly.And the two big ones I point out in the book because these come up again and again in our history are some types of protections often for their property. But you know, more broadly for especially commercial interactions, you know, so you have some type of means to appeal when you're being cheated, or certainly when your rights are being infringed in any way. And there's a very large literature in economics that suggests these types of rights are really important for economic development. And the other thing is investment in large scale public goods. Things like transport networks, roads, bridges, canals, things like that. And a whole host of other public goods, eventually education becomes something, even though that's actually quite a bit later. There's a long, long history of economics that suggests that those things are typically most efficiently provided by government. Again, the economic elites want these types of things, because they benefit themselves. They do benefit themselves, but they also happen to benefit society more broadly. So on this front, you could say, Well, if the economic elite really don't have a seat at the bargaining table, in this case they don't have a seat because rulers don't need them. They have plenty of legitimacy, say, through religion and giving up stuff like property rights is among the most expensive things that can be asked for. So rulers really don't want to give that up if they don't have to. On the other hand, in Europe, what ends up happening around the year 1000 or so... it starts in northern Italy, in the low countries, is you start to get some seeds of commercial development. Trade, actually, a lot of the trade at least begins with the Byzantine Empire and the Muslims. And with this, as trade starts to expand, some of the things that the religious authorities might impinge upon, while we look at say like moneyed interest or stuff like that. But that's actually I think less important in the broader scheme of things.What's probably more important is that economic elites gain more power. And, you know, to go back to the broader narrative in the book, because Christian religious authorities actually have less legitimating power, they're less effective at legitimating rule. [And] once there are these other sources of power that come up in a society that can provide rulers with things like tax revenue, rulers seek them out. So this is precisely the period where Europe goes through a major kind of overhaul in its Church-State relations. So the most famous episode and this is called the investiture crisis, where it essentially pits the papacy versus various secular rulers. And this is a period, a medieval period where religious legitimacy remains important, but it loses some of its value and where it loses its power, it's economic elites that gain. I fast forward a little bit to the Reformation, which where it takes place kind of permanently undermines the role of, certainly, the Catholic Church, but just more generally, [the role of] religion in legitimating rule. And in those places, that's where you really start to see economic elites, mainly in the form of Parliaments becoming much more powerful. And there again, that's where you start to see these economic elites bargaining for various things that improve the economic development in the region. Again, they're doing it for their own personal reasons. it's not to say that economic elites are altruistic, kind-hearted people that want what's best for society. Oftentimes, it's quite the opposite, they just want things that benefit themselves. But some of the things they want are the types of things that we think of that portend broader economic success. So in a nutshell, that's kind of the very broad scope of the argument. Certainly, there's historical detail that the book goes into. But yeah...Tobi; Some of the implications of your work are so deep, that I'm not quite sure I can do it enough justice. But one thing I want to now get at is the issue of persistence. I mean, the period you called in the book, and also your research, they are pretty long enough, some will say, for us to see maybe some convergence. I mean, there has been the Industrial Revolution, the first one, the second one, and I mean, now we live in an age of globalization. And some of this divergence can still be observed. So specifically, speaking of religious legitimacy and how growth retarding it can be in certain conditions, how persistent is that effect? And secondly, how does legitimacy wither?Jared; I think that this is kind of a key question in terms of thinking about these long-run processes. And I think one answer to this is that, in part, at least, it comes down to incentives.It comes down to incentives of the ruling elite to continue to use religious legitimacy. And to kind of go back to what we're talking about initially, we can think about this in terms of cost benefits. And what we might think about as the costs here are what economists think about costs as - it includes opportunity cost, the foregone cost of using something, a different form of legitimacy in this case.As long as the costs are relatively low, which we might think of that as broadly being the case with religious legitimacy, then it's likely to persist. This doesn't necessarily entail anything deterministic about... you know, just because a religion is good at legitimating rule, it's definitely going to persist, there might be other things in societies that come about. In fact, you know, we have seen this here and there, you know, so say, after World War One, Turkey became a fairly secular society, at least in terms of its politics. So there's nothing absolute at all here in terms of it persisting, but what we can say, and I think this is where if you do economics correctly enough is strong. But if you use economics in a good way, you never want to say something's definitely going to happen. But you can say things are more likely to happen because people are incentivized to do something in a certain way. And that's what I think I would describe here in terms of persistence. And I think this same logic also helps us understand why in this case, things don't persist. Why the use of religious legitimacy doesn't persist. And these might be things outside of what we might think of as the ruling elite or the religious elite's control. When, you know, what I was just describing... when you have a reemergence of commerce in Europe, for instance, in what is known in the historical literature as the commercial revolution, happening approximately between 1000 - 1300, that changes the cost-benefit calculation. And because the benefits of religious legitimacy were lower, and now the costs are higher, because you're essentially keeping this increasingly powerful economically outside the political circle if you continue to rely on religious legitimacy, that changes the calculation. And maybe you do want to start offering these economic elites political rights, but it would come at the expense of political power for the religious elite. But that's precisely what ends up happening in the medieval period in Europe, is that these economic elites increasingly get rights throughout central Europe and actually in other parts of Europe as well.They start forming communes, which are like the city-states, which are mainly made for merchants by merchants to trade with each other, but they gain a lot of rights and these rights come at the expense of the religious elite. The religious elites have relatively little power in these areas, and these areas become the economic workhorses of medieval Europe. And they benefit the rulers, in some cases, immensely and this becomes one of the primary sources of tax revenue and a whole host of things. So again, you know, I think if we think about it in terms of this cost-benefit framework, we have to know the history, certainly, to know why these costs and benefits might change. But I think it does give us a framework for thinking about why things persist as well.Tobi; Thinking about incentives the way you just described it, especially of the elites, and this is not just about religion, you see some societies that may be too reliant on rent from resource revenue and their struggles to diversify also struggle with this incentive problem. So I guess my point would be, is it fair or, should I say, reasonable to conclude that a lot of modernization projects that we are seeing whether in terms of foreign aid or interventions or setting up democracies in, perhaps, states that have no history of that form of governance, are they all efforts that are doomed to fail if the incentives of local elites remain the same?Jared; Oftentimes, yes. And this is where I think that this question is extraordinarily deep in that this gets at so many different things in human history. And I think, you know, we can broadly say that transporting something that worked, whether it be institutional design, whether it be just funding for certain types of things that worked in one society, it doesn't necessarily work in another society if, in this case, the institutions... and you could even say that there are cultural incentives too that, you know, when people are imbued with a certain view of the world, then they're not just going to be able to adopt new things in a whole host of ways. So yes, I would argue pretty strongly that certainly elites that govern the political process, when incentives don't change, you're unlikely to get a change in political behaviour. So if you really want to think about what might be a driver of societal change, at some point, the incentives of the elites have to change. So this can come from a variety of ways. This can come from certainly international, either pressure or incentives, or, you know, it can be financial incentives. It can come from the ground up. What I just described in Europe was more of a ground up thing, in that the incentive of political elites only changed after commerce really started to reemerge. And on the other hand, talking about commerce reemerging in Europe, it still wasn't flowing, as far as we can tell, nearly as much as it was in the Middle East at the time. So what that indicates is that... at least to me, is that the incentives for Middle Eastern rulers or North African rulers at the time to employ religious legitimacy was just so much stronger that it was going to take a lot more to undermine those incentives. So again, that's where I think to your question, really understanding the incentives that authorities face, [that] the various parts of the ruling coalition face is really important to even begin to understand what is possible in terms of change.Tobi; My final question to you, which is also a bit of a tradition on the show, is what's the one big idea that you would like to see spread everywhere? It may be something you're working on new [or] old, it may be something that you find interesting. So what is it?Jared; By spread everywhere, you mean [the] broader population? Tobi; Yes.Jared; I think it's [the] implications of my work. It's not my work in particular, but it's the type of stuff that got me interested in this in the first place. It is that if you really want to take a grand, grand, grand view, I think with both myself and I think a large fraction of people who go into economics, why we get in the field is to understand both wealth and poverty. Because for me understanding poverty, you have to understand wealth as well, you have to understand how it's created. Because I think what most of us, I would hope one, at least one of the main reasons we're interested in this is because understanding the way economies work as a source to help people.You know, the people that need it the most. And, you know, something I've long been interested in is the role that religion has played in this because I think it's one of many factors. And again, I want to be very clear, I have a book coming out early next year with Mark Koyama. He's been a guest on your show in the past about how the world became rich, and we look at a lot of different reasons in that book. So this is one of the reasons but I do think that there are massive misconceptions in the role that religion has played and can play in the future. And I think that if we want to say think about the broader Muslim world, for instance... you know, what worked to raise the economic profile and improve the economic development of, say Western Europe initially, my argument was that it was in part getting religion out of politics. I don't think that's going to work, though, in large parts of the Muslim world for reasons we just discussed. So an implication of both my work but also something that is long interested me is this idea that tenets of religion themselves are not things that have a massively damaging impact on economic development. And I think that oftentimes, that's something that is easy to pinpoint, especially for people who want to blame religion for something. But when we think about the role that religion plays in politics, and this is not unique to religion, it can be the role that the military plays in politics, can be the role that actually, frankly, certain types of economic elites play in politics. And if we really want to improve the lot of... there's still a billion or so people in the world that live on $3 a day or less...the role of local politics plays a role in depressing the capacity for those people to just get to a point where thinking about what they're going to eat is not dominating their lives.And it differs by society. But I do think that attempts to improve the lots of those people that aren't as concerned with the political are not going to get far. And that's a lot of, you know, especially Western NGO types. And this is not to say, I mean, many of them do extremely good and important work. But if we really want to get at the source of lifting, you know, at least the most dire of poverty out of the world, I think it's the political that we really need to address. And we need to address it in different ways in different societies. This is not by any means to say that all we need to do is impose democracy. It's exactly the opposite in many cases because democracy when it's imposed, and does not arise organically often does not work that well. So it's thinking about local context, it's thinking about how rulers stay in power, it's all of these things, and including religion. This is in part to say, there's no panacea. There's no silver bullet that's going to affect the politics in various places in the same way. But I do think that if we can pull on generality out which, much more importantly, can help alleviate the most dire of poverty, it's to really try to affect the political. That's the thing that I'm frankly hoping to continue to work on for the next 40 or so years to thinking about the historical determinants of this and what that can teach us for the present.Tobi; Thank you so much. My guest today has been Jared Rubin, economic historian and professor of economics at Chapman University. Thank you very much, Jared, for joining me.Jared; Thank you so much. This has been really fun. 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Peggy Lanumhttps://navigatinguncertaintybook.com/Peggy Lanum is the owner of Better Working Together, LLC and author of Navigating Uncertainty: An A To Z Guide For Well-Being. She has a Master of Science degree in Organizational Psychology and is a certified Human Resource Professional (SHRM-CP) and an ICF Associate Certified Coach. Her work is dedicated to the betterment of individuals and organizations by using the latest research in leadership, neuro-science, and positive psychology. Dr. Loren Olson, author of NO MORE NECKTIEShttps://www.lorenaolson.com/no-more-neckties/Loren A. Olson, MD, is the award-winning author of Finally Out: Letting Go of Living Straight and a distinguished life fellow of the American Psychiatric Association. A physician for over 50 years, he served as a flight surgeon in the US Navy and continues to practice psychiatry. A well-regarded essayist and popular speaker on mental health and LGBTQ issues, he has been interviewed on regional and national television, national and international radio, and in multiple print and online publications. In his latest book, No More Neckties: A Memoir in Essays, Dr. Loren Olson shares the story of his life and its hard lessons.Travel Expert Julie Ellis of Visit Myrtle Beachhttps://www.visitmyrtlebeach.com/Julie Ellis is the Public Relations & Communications Manager for Visit Myrtle Beach. Myrtle Beach, South Carolina is where you can find 60 miles of beautiful coastline and 14 unique communities. Discover stunning sunrises over the Atlantic Ocean, sprawling sandy beaches, lush natural wonders, and grand new adventures.******Frankie Boyer is an award winning talk show host that empowers listeners to live healthy vibrant lives http://www.frankieboyer.com

In this episode we head to Victorian Britain, where leaps in technology were making the world seem smaller and faster than ever before. Our guide is the author and film-maker Paul Fischer whose new book, The Man Who Invented Motion Pictures, charts the incredible race to invent the first film camera and projector.  The late nineteenth century was a world full of contradictions. Categorically Victorian but also undeniably modern. Technological developments were exhilarating and anxiety-inducing. For the first time in history, it was possible to speak to people miles away using a telephone. You could sail across the Atlantic Ocean in a week. But this was also a world where the fastest mode of individual transport was still a horse, where the electric lightbulb was barely ten years old and where the idea of motion pictures was still a beautiful idea waiting to be made a reality. In this episode we meet Louis Le Prince, the enigmatic hero at the heart of The Man Who Invented Motion Pictures. We join him as he becomes the first person to successfully capture and replay moving images, as well as visiting two other telling scenes in the rise of modern Britain. Paul Fischer was born in Saudi Arabia. He is the author of A KIM JONG-IL PRODUCTION, the true story of the kidnapping of two South Korean filmmakers to Kim Jong-Il's North Korea, which was translated into fourteen languages, nominated for the Crime Writers' Association Non-Fiction Book of the Year Award, and chosen as one of the best books of 2015 by NPR and Library Journal. His writing has appeared in the New York Times, Los Angeles Times and the Independent, among others. This episode is sponsored by ACE Cultural Tours, the oldest and most experienced provider of study tours and cultural travel in the United Kingdom. Find out more via their website at www.aceculturaltours.co.uk or speak to their friendly team on 01223 841055. Show Notes Scene One: 30-31 August 1888, the Frying Pan public house, Whitechapel, London. Mary Ann Nichols is drinking in the pub in Spitalfields. By morning, she will be found dead — the first victim of the killer who will come to be known as Jack the Ripper. Scene Two: 8 September 1888, Pikes Lane Football Ground, Bolton. Kenny Davenport scores the first-ever goal in the first match in the newly-formed Football League. Scene Three: 14 October 1888, Roundhay Gardens, Yorkshire. Louis Le Prince assembles his family on the lawn of their home — to film the world's first ever motion picture. Momento: Some of the missing negatives from Le Prince's early films.  People/Social Presenter: Artemis Irvine Guest: Paul Fischer Production: Maria Nolan Podcast partner: Ace Cultural Tours Follow us on Twitter: @tttpodcast_ Or on Facebook See where 1888 fits on our Timeline  

Aristotle thought they were born out of mud. A young Sigmund Freud dedicated himself to finding their testicles (spoiler alert, he failed). And a legendary Danish marine biologist spent 18 years and his wife's fortune sailing around the Atlantic Ocean to find their birthplace. The creature that tormented all of these great thinkers? It was the eel, perhaps the most mysterious fish in the world—and one of the most expensive per pound. So why are tiny, transparent, worm-like baby eels worth so much? Why have eels remained so mysterious, despite scientists' best efforts? And how has one pioneering farmer in Maine started raising eels sustainably, despite the species' endangered status? All that this episode, plus a nighttime fishing trip, suitcases full of cash, and a compelling argument that when it comes to the American Thanksgiving dinner plate, we should consider ditching the turkey—and replacing it with eel. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

A wayward final stretch has cost Kiwi golfer Ryan Fox a second win on the DP Tour this year, finishing in a share of second at the Soudal Open in Belgium.Fox blew a three-shot lead with 11 holes to play, losing a head-to-head battle with England's Sam Horsfield who captured his third DP World Tour title.Horsfield shot a final round 68 to finish at 13-under, two shots clear of Fox and German Yannick Paul who both took home €166,385 ($NZ277,043) for second.It was there for the taking for Fox who went into the final round with a one-shot lead, and stretched it to three after bouncing back from a second hole bogey with three straight birdies.With Fox and Horsfield tied at the 16th tee, the Kiwi went bogey-birdie-bogey to card an even par 71 and finish two shots behind the Englishman.Fox will now head jets to the US PGA Championship at Southern Hills in Oklahoma for his 12th major appearance. A consolation from today's result is that the second placing secures him a spot in next month's US Open at The Country Club in Massachusetts.The Kiwi world number 106 could also jump back into the world top 100 tomorrow as he takes plenty of form into the second major of the year and his first since last year's Open Championship.It's been an impressive run of form for Fox since returning to Europe following a two-month break in New Zealand in the wake of his victory at the Ras al Khaimah Classic in February.Today's result at the Rinkven International Golf Club in Antwerp was his third straight top 10 finish and places him sixth on the DP World Tour standings. Fox has already amassed €566,439 (NZ$943,160) in prizemoney in 2022 as he heads to the lucrative US PGA Championship where first place earns US$2,160,000.But there will probably be a feeling on that flight across the Atlantic Ocean that he let one get away leading what wasn't the strongest chasing pack with a three-shot lead and 11 holes to play.Starting with a one-shot lead, Fox lipped out a par putt at the second hole to move back to 10-under and a tie at the front with what was just his second three-putt of the week.He then took the solo lead straight back with a 26-footer for birdie at the third and followed that up with a brilliant approach at the fourth to get within five feet and another birdie. Fox then nearly chipped in for eagle at the fifth and rolled in a third straight birdie to take a three-shot lead.Horsfield made an impressive 33-foot birdie to cut the lead to two at the seventh hole before Fox picked up another shot with a nine-foot birdie putt at the eighth.The lead was reduced to two at the turn when Fox found the trees on the par fourth ninth, and then stuck by a tent for his third shot and needed a drop. A brilliant chip gave Fox a chance to save par but he walked away with bogey.Fox still had a two-shot lead on the 12th tee but a birdie for Horsfield on the par three and a bogey for Fox at the 13th saw the two players level with five to play.The Kiwi gave up the lead for the first time since the third round on the 16th hole with his fourth bogey of the final round but rebounded with an eagle putt on the penultimate hole, getting to within two feet to take birdie. Horsfield however responded with a birdie putt to retain a one-shot lead heading to the last.The Englishman found a sandy path with his tee shot on the last but hit a brilliant approach to the green while Fox mis-hit his second from the rough and found the greenside bunker, all but conceding the tournament.- by Cameron McMillan, NZ Herald

#Full Moon #Lunar Eclipse #Blood Moon #Guided MeditationHappy May Blood Moon Lunar Eclipse, #Wayshowers

Katie Spotz wanted a big challenge. Something that would make her dig deep and have her only option to overcome the challenge or fail. She chose to row a boat, solo, across the Atlantic Ocean. She holds the record as the youngest person to do this.It was a challenge that gripped her, and she realized that she couldn't live with the regret if she didn't answer the challenge.  She's continued to find ways to challenge herself, competing in triathlons and running ultramarathons. She especially enjoys designing her own adventures, running across numerous states and inline-skating the keys in Florida. 

Become a Patreon supporter at www.themidnighttrainpodcast.com   This week we're taking the train across the pond for another creepy adventure. That's right, we are doing one of our creepy episodes! It's been a while so we figured it was time. This week we are headed to what some people say is one of the top scariest countries in the world! Not only that…we know we have some awesome listeners here. This week we are headed to creepy Portugal! We are gonna try our best to find the coolest, creepiest places for you guys. I'm just going to assume there's going to be a bridge in here someplace.  So without further Ado.. Let's fucking rock and roll!!!   So first up we're gonna do a little history lesson. Will keep it somewhat sorry and sweet since if we got into the complete history of a country of the age of Portugal, it would be an entire episode on its own. To get there history of this country we went to the source, portugal.com and an article written by Goncarlo Costa.    The history of Portugal starts many ages ago, when the so-called Iberian tribes inhabited the territory of today's Portugal. Then, in the beginning of the first millennium BC, Celtic tribes invaded and intermarried with the local Iberians, creating what is now known as the Celtiberians.   The Lusitanians, who inhabited the interior region of Portugal since the Iron Age, are considered the forefathers of the Portuguese nation. This is why today we have names like Lusophone, someone who speaks Portuguese, or Luso-American, a Portuguese American person. They were known for successfully fending off the Roman armies until the death of their leader, Viriathus, known as a hero in Portugal.   The tribe was considered a worthy adversary by the Romans, so much that they named the province of the whole territory of modern Portugal (south of the Douro River) and part of western Spain after them.   The Romans left various works, such as baths, temples, bridges, roads, theaters and statues; some of them are still found in different parts of the country.   This lasted until the Barbarian invasions, when Germanic tribes migrated to various parts of the Roman Empire. In Portugal, the territory became controlled by the Germanic in the 5th century. The Kingdom of the Suebi controlled Galicia and the North and Center of Portugal, while the Visigothic Kingdom controlled the rest of the Iberian Peninsula, including the rest of Portugal, until eventually conquering the Suebi and, consequently, the whole of Iberia. This is when the rigid class structure appeared in the country, with a Nobility and Clergy getting more and more political and social power.   In the 8th century, the Islamic Umayyad Caliphate invaded the Iberian Peninsula from the North of Africa. Al-Andalus, the Islamic name for the Peninsula, became a part of the Caliphate, and Portugal with it. The Portuguese kept lots of things from their Muslim past, like many of their words, architecture and the famous ‘azulejos'.   The Christians held on in the North of the Peninsula, creating the Kingdom of the Asturias. This was until the Reconquista, when they reconquered the lands from the Moors, the Muslims.   In this Kingdom, at the end of the 9th century, a county based in the now north of Portugal was established, the County of Portugal. The county grew in power and, at the end of the 11th century, a Burgundian knight named Henry, who was fighting in the Reconquista, was crowned as ‘Count of Portugal' and merged it with the County of Coimbra.   Henry's son, Afonso Henriques, proclaimed himself King of Portugal in 1139 with Guimarães as its capital. This city remains known until this day as the “Cradle of the Nation' by the Portuguese.   However, it was only in 1179 that a papal bull officially recognized Afonso I as king. The Reconquista continued with the Algarve, the south of the country, finally being conquered in 1249, and Lisbon becoming the capital in 1255. Since then, Portugal's land borders have remained almost unchanged, being considered one of the longest standing borders in Europe.   The Kingdom of Portugal remained very important in Europe's (and especially Iberian) politics, waging several wars against Spain, creating an alliance with England (the longest standing alliance in the world, lasting until today) and starting the “Age of Discovery”.   In this Age, the country built a vast empire, having territory all over the world, from South America to Oceania. They started by exploring their coast and adventuring into the Moroccan coast, hoping to continue the Reconquista to the North of Africa. Then, the Portuguese sailors started to adventure into the open sea, when they discovered the islands of the Canaries, Madeira, Azores and Cape Verde. Subsequently, the Portuguese explored the coast of Africa, setting trading ports, and tried to discover the maritime route to India, which they did in 1498, under the explorer Vasco da Gama.   They continued to explore and look for trade around the world, from Africa, passing through Arabia, and reaching Japan, setting several outposts, many of them having developed into colonies later on. In 1500, they reached South America and started the colonization of Brazil.   The Empire started to decline, however, when the Dutch, English, and French got in the game. They started to surround or conquer the scattered Portuguese trading posts and territories, diminishing their power. On the Battle of Alcácer-Quibir, in 1578, Portugal lost its king, becoming part of a dynastic union with Spain that lasted until 1640, when it finally gained its independence again.   After that, the country never became the great power it once was. It lost several colonies (including its largest one, Brazil) and trade routes, it saw its capital being destroyed by an earthquake in 1755 and it was occupied during the Napoleonic Wars.   From then on, Portugal was a minor power in Europe, having just some colonies in Africa and Asia and never becoming an economic powerhouse.   Then, in 1910, due to corruption, dissatisfaction with the several Kings and the loss of claimed African lands to the English, the monarchy ended and a Republic was created. Fiercely secular, to the point where it was antichurch, filed with corruption, government instability and near to bankruptcy, the regime came to an end with a military coup in 1926.   A military dictatorship was installed and then, a fascist-like regime, the ‘Estado Novo' (‘New State'), headed by António de Oliveira Salazar. This period was marked by authoritarianism, lack of freedom and, from 1961, by the Portuguese Colonial War.   All of this ended when, in April 25th 1974, the Carnation Revolution happened, carried out by the Armed Forces Movement (Movimento das Forças Armadas – MFA), a movement of young left-leaning captains of the Portuguese Armed Forces. With the Revolution, democratic reforms were made and the first free elections with multiple parties happened, as well as the independence of all of Portugal's colonies.   It also started the PREC (Processo Revolucionário Em Curso – Ongoing Revolutionary Process), a period when conservative and left-leaning forces inside the MFA confronted each other, marked by political turmoil, violence, instability, and the nationalization and expropriation of private lands. It came to an end on the 25 November 1975, when the MFA moderates appeared as the main force.   Nevertheless, revolutionary achievements were not forgotten, with the Constitution pledging until this day to realize socialism, as well as declaring extensive nationalizations and land seizures as irreversible, many, however, now overturned.   Nowadays, Portugal is one of 15 most sustainable states in the world and considered the third most peaceful. It has high living standards and a good economy. It was a founding member of NATO, the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD), the European Free Trade Association (EFTA) and the Community of Portuguese Language Countries. It entered the European Economic Community (now the European Union) in 1986 and is one of its fiercest supporters, even having produced a European Commission President.   Ok so that's a brief…incredibly brief mini history of Portugal. Really the take aways are…super old, plenty of things happened to make the place creepy over that many years. So let's see what creepy stuff Portugal has to offer!   What better way to start than with a sanatorium! Valongo Sanatorium to be exact. The construction of the Mont'Alto Sanatorium began in 1932. Due to the appearance of a large number of people who had contracted tuberculosis, there was a need to expand the facilities, and these expansion works were completed in 1958. construction of these hospital units were carried out in high altitude places, due to the purity of the air, and also because they were away from the populations to avoid the effects of contagion. The sanatorium only operated for a short period, having been inaugurated in 1958 and closed in 1975, after which it entered a profound state of disrepair. Due to its dimensions, it is considered one of the most imposing buildings of its type in Portugal.Its building is large, with an area of ​​approximately 88,000 m², having been built with a view to housing about 300 patients. The building was designed by the architect José Júlio de Brito , who was also responsible for other prominent structures in the city of Porto, such as the Coliseu or Teatro Rivoli . The sanatorium complex, which occupied nine hectares, also included a school, a laundry room, a water reservoir, and a chapel dedicated to Our Lady of the Sick.    The installation of the Sanatorium in Valongo was part of a phase in the history of health in Portugal, during which the government undertook the construction of several specialized establishments to combat tuberculosis, a disease that was ravaging the country at the time. This period began in 1899, with the foundation of the National Institute of Assistance to Tuberculosis, which began the construction of several sanatoriums in different parts of the national territory. In 1930, efforts against tuberculosis were renewed in the north of the country, with the creation of the Assistance to Tuberculosis of Northern Portugal by António Elísio Lopes Rodrigues, and at that time, planning began to build a sanatorium that would house the sick in that region, who had lower economic resources.  Serra de Santa Justa was chosen, where the air was healthier, in addition to being isolated from urban centers, in order to reduce the risk of contagion.   Shortly after, the Sá family donated a plot of land in Serra de Santa Justa, allowing the construction of the building, whose works began in 1932.  However, the works were suspended due to lack of funding, having been resumed due to the support of the local populations.  On July 5, 1940, ATNP began building the Casa de Nossa Senhora da Conceição, to support the children of the sanatorium's patients. According to the Diário Popular of 3 January 1956, the finishing works and equipping of the sanatorium were already under way, and it was expected to be completed during the following year, and that it would have a capacity for 350 beds.  However, the works were only completed in 1958.  Another reason for the delay in the work may have been the opposition by the Companhia das Minas de São Pedro da Cova to the construction of the building, because it was being installed inside an area destined for coal mining, a few kilometers away from the mines.  However, at the time of the sanatorium's inauguration, mining was already entering its final phase, ending up closing in 1970.  Some of the users of the hospital were the mine workers themselves, who suffered from occupational diseases such as tuberculosis and silicosis . The Sanatorium of Monte Alto was inaugurated on 1 November 1958,  being the last one to be opened in Portugal. The inauguration ceremony included a religious service at the Chapel of Nossa Senhora dos Enfermos, the unveiling of a commemorative tombstone, a tribute to the League of Combatants of theFirst World War, and concluded with a port of honor offered by the board of directors. of the sanatorium.  During the ceremony, the admission and accommodation process of the first clients, all veterans of the First World War, was also carried out. Although it was planned for three hundred patients,  its initial capacity was only fifty beds, and during its operation it accommodated 350 people.    In the early 1970s, there began to be greater control over the tuberculosis disease, which began to be fought in a different way, through the outpatient system.  In this way, the sanatoriums ceased to be useful, and were progressively abandoned or underwent a process of readaptation for other purposes.  In the case of the Montalto Sanatorium, the closure process began in 1972,  due to the low number of tuberculosis patients in the Porto District.  At that time, the building already had only a few patients, having been thought of its adaptation as a psychiatric hospital or for the returnees from overseas, which did not advance.  Due to the process of closing the Sanatorium, Casa Nossa Senhora da Conceição ceased to function as a boarding school, starting to support only external students. The building was abandoned after the April 25 Revolution , when the last employee left, although it was only officially closed in 1975.  Following its closure, it was completely looted, being a of the main reasons its connection to the Estado Novo, as it was mostly built and used during that regime.  This connection to the Estado Novo also had a negative impact on the collection of funds, making it impossible to carry out works on the building. It was also used as a training ground by firefighters and civil protection, who performed drills there and destroyed some walls.  Later, the sanatorium was used for paintball games and photo shoots, and various ceremonies related to the supernatural, such as rituals, were also performed there. The building was also hit by several fires, accentuating its degradation. History is awesome and fun and you know we love it but…. The reason we're here is for creepiness! There are stories abound of how haunted this place is. Given the numerous people who died there it makes sense to us! So what kind of stuff are we talking about here ? Well, let's look.    Well paranormal investigators have been spending time here for years, when there's no paintball matches going on, to try and find crazy shit! There have been numerous reports of strange noises and things moving around. There have been entities seen and apparitions spotted. It's hard to find much in English so finding pages from Portuguese websites and trying to find studies was tough but we managed to find one study where a group of friends were exploring the abandoned hospital and had some interesting things happen. They talked about how they started hearing strange noises while they were exploring. The noises seemed to be following them around the building. They talked about how they had a heavy feeling around them as they explored. The sounds seemed to keep getting closer to them. They claim that things started getting knocked over and moved on their own. At one point, one of the group claimed they saw a shadowy figure seemingly watching them. At that point they all decided it was time to go! Sounds like a pretty crazy experience!  True or not? We like to think so!   Can't go and episode without fucking tuberculosis… Teatro Lethes:   The building that today is called Teatro Lethes, began as a Jesuit College – Colégio de Santiago Maior, founded by the then Bishop of the Algarve, D. Fernando Martins Mascarenhas -, whose license was granted to them on 8 February 1599. of learning, above all of a religious nature – the “first university in the Algarve”, as someone has called it. In 1759, the Society of Jesus was banned from the country and its goods were confiscated. The College of Santiago Maior closed its doors. With the occupation of Napoleonic troops commanded by General Junot, the premises of the former College were raided and desecrated in order to enlist the soldiers there. Years later, in 1843, the College was auctioned off by Dr. Lazaro Doglioni, who had publicly expressed his intention to build a theater in Faro similar to S.   The Latin inscription on the facade of the building, monet oblectando , can be translated as “instructing, playing”, thus emphasizing the cultural concerns of the promoter of the construction of this concert hall.   The inauguration of Teatro Lethes took place on 4 April 1845, as part of the celebrations for the birthday of Queen Maria II. Later, in 1860, it was expanded by Dr. Justino Cumano, nephew of Lázaro Doglioni. On September 11, 1898, the so-called animatograph was exhibited for the first time in Faro., installed in the Lethes Theater as it is the largest and most distinguished cultural space in the city. It was restored between 1906 and 1908 to improve acoustics and comfort. The decline of the shows and, consequently, of the hall, begins in 1920, with the Theater closing in 1925, having sold the property to the Portuguese Red Cross, in whose possession it still remains. The Lethes Theater room was later ceded, by protocol, to the Algarve Regional Delegation of the Ministry of Culture. In the North wing, restored and adapted in 1991, the regional services of the Ministry of Culture operated. On October 5, 2012, by protocol between the Municipality of Faro and the Portuguese Red Cross, Teatro Lethes recovered its initial design. The Algarve Theater Company – ACTA was installed as a resident structure. ACTA, in addition to presenting shows of its own creation, also promotes hospitality at the Lethes Theater, and is also responsible for managing the equipment. this history was taken directly from the theatre website!   There are a couple stories about this place that prettier day lead to its hauntings. The first is the story of a ballerina who was in love but was not loved back. She was so distraught that she hung herself in the middle of the stage. Some versions say that she was driven to the brink by the demands of theater life. The second is that of a soldier's body that was found inside one of the walls. There isn't as much info on that story as the ballerina. Staff and visitors claim you can hear the ballerinas footsteps in the theater to this day. There are also reports of a shadowy figure moving about as well. Could this be the ballerina still performing for the people? Or the soldier patrolling the theater? Who knows but it sounds like a cool place to visit!! The Castelinho of Sao Joao, Estoril   The area between Estoril and Cascais, out on Lisbon's Atlantic coast, is rife with buildings of character. Many of them are designed to give the impression of miniature castles, indeed some of them were fortified because they were built during times of instability within the Iberian peninsula.   In the 1980s, a wealthy socialite, José Castelo Branco, was looking for just such a property and found one that seemed ideal in Sao Joao, a district on the edge of Estoril. The day he went to view the property was a beautiful sunny one and so he decided to walk along the cliff path which adjoined the property. As he was walking back to the building, he saw a young girl. She didn't speak, but simply stared at him. In his own account of the events of that day, Mr Castelo Branco said that he felt a compulsion to jump from the edge. This feeling was, he believed, coming from the young girl. He immediately elected to leave the property and ruled out buying it.   On hearing what had happened, someone from the local town hall did some research into the building and discovered that a young blind girl had fallen from the cliffs to her death in the eighteenth century and that several people had reported seeing her at the castelinho since, each claiming that they felt a strong will to jump while she looked at them.   Let's check out a cemetery now…cus those are always fun!    This one is called the cemetery of pleasures. After the city of Lisbon was hit by an outbreak of cholera in 1833, causing thousands of deaths,  it was urgent to create a large cemetery for both rich and poorer victims. It has the weird name of  Cemetery of ‘Pleasures', called after the nearby neighborhood (Prazeres) with the same name. Many of its tombs are big mausoleums, some with the size of small chapels.    Most of the Prazeres mausoleums belong to rich, old or ‘important' families, like  the Palmela family. Many of the mausoleums are richly elaborate, have fine sculptures and decorations. There are also statues of the deceased. It's like a ‘city in a city' for the dead, with well-defined lanes (70! ) and funerary chapels that were built to look like little houses.   The unusual thing about a lot of these graves is that they have little “front doors” with glass windows through which you can see the caskets and remnants of the dead and their visitors. Most of the trees are a species of cypress (Cupressus sempervirens), much used in Portuguese cemeteries.   The cemetery is one of the largest in Lisbon.    The Autopsy Room , which was in the chapel until the Morgues were created in 1899, is one of the curiosities that can be seen, as well as the Sala do Acervo , where some of the oldest funeral records can be consulted. This is another way of helping the visitor to interpret the different ways that human beings have had to culturally, socially and psychologically approach Death, throughout different times.   As with the many famous families and celebrities, another thing that adds to some people thinking there's more going on at this place is the presence of many freemason symbols and you know how that gets people talking!    At any rate, being a cemetery you can imagine the tales of hauntings surrounding this place! Everything from apparitions being seen wandering the grounds, to Disembodied voices. People have seen orbs in person and in pictures. I mean being able to see into these little houses and see the caskets and remains is creepy enough…add haunting to that…and it's definitely a place we want to go!   Next up, Quinta Das Conchas   The Quinta das Conchas (or the garden of shells) in Lisbon is best known for its expansive parkland, just to the north of the city centre. Families can be found playing here during the warmer months and countless dog walkers can be seen at any time of the year. The house at the heart of the estate though has a darker past which is lesser known. In the early part of the twentieth century, when Portugal was still a colonial power, the owner of the estate was a wealthy man called Francisco Mantero Belard. Like many of his countrymen, he was accustomed to having servants who took care of the running of his home. So, when he moved into the quinta, he acquired the services of a slave from Sao Tomé and Principe. There was nothing unusual about this at the time, other than that he elected to keep this slave woman in a small cage. She was made to live like an animal and, according to local myth, subjected to a variety of cruel treatment for several years. People working in the manor house in modern times have reported hearing wailing coming from empty rooms, as well as dramatic changes in temperature.   Let's switch it up and talk a little about Portuguese folklore! We're gonna talk about the coco or coca. There are also many other names for this guy or gal including Cucuy, Cuco, Cuca, Cucu or Cucuí. It is a mythical ghost-monster, equivalent to the bogeyman, found in many Hispanophone and Lusophone countries. It can also be considered an Iberian version of a bugbear as it is a commonly used figure of speech representing an irrational or exaggerated fear. A bugbear is described as  a legendary creature or type of hobgoblin comparable to the boogeyman and other creatures of folklore, all of which were historically used in some cultures to frighten disobedient children. The Cucuy is a male being while Cuca is a female version of the mythical monster. In Spain, Portugal, and Latin America, parents sometimes invoke the Coco or Cuca as a way of discouraging their children from misbehaving; they sing lullabies or tell rhymes warning their children that if they don't obey their parents, el Coco will come and get them and then eat them.    Continuing with the mystery surrounding this child scarer, the Coco also does not take on a specific physical form. For the Portuguese it is a dragon that is represented every year in the celebration of Corpus Christi…at least that is what I've source says.. another says: "In Portuguese côco, refers to a ghost with a pumpkin head. The male form is known as Coco, and the female form as Coca. It is said it's hard to tell the difference between the two. It seems that parents are to blame for the invocation of the Coco as a way of punishment for their wayward children. They would sing rhymes warning their children if they did not obey their parents the Coco would come and eat them.".... So a pumpkin headed goblin… Although the Coco was ghostly monster like in appearance, that wasn't the most frightening thing about them. Children would be scared out of their wits at the idea of a monster that could eat them and not leave a trace. So imagine being a child forced to sleep with a lullaby of a monster that was coming to devour them.    Duermete niño, duermete ya…que viene el cuco y te comerá (sleep child, sleep now…or else comes the coco to eat you).   Creepy, so this folk tale seems to have many different versions depending on where you look. We think that due to the fact that many Latin American countries also use this in folklore as well as there being a certain in Brazil, it's hard to actually put the facts together. Every place we looked about this tale had a little bit of a different take, hopefully we got it close as we mean no disrespect to the tales!   You know what else Portugal has…aliens, at least a few. He's a couple stories!    On September 4, 1957, four Portugal Air Force pilots claimed to have seen and chased some UFOs. They took off with their bomber aircraft from the Ota Air Base in Portugal under Captain José Lemos Ferreira leadership (the others pilots were sergeants Alberto Gomes Covas, Salvador Alberto Oliveira e Manuel Neves Marcelino). When they were heading towards the city of Portalegre, Captain Ferreira noticed a light above the horizon and warned the others. The light changed its own sizes a couple of times, first increasing, then shrinking. After several minutes the pilots noticed a small yellow circle getting out of the craft, and 3 more circles appeared later. When the UFOs were near Coruche, the bigger aircraft climbed out of the Earth as the smaller ones disappeared. The bombers landed without any problems and Captain Ferreira declared: "after this, do not come to us with that Venus, weather balloons, aircraft and similar stuff which have been being used as general explanations for almost every case of UFOs".   On September 10, 1990, around 9:30AM and for about 50 minutes, a small "balloon" was seen hovering towards a small football field, on a small village called Alfena in the outskirts of Porto. The object was described as "a small turtle with long legs" with a metallic shine. The people present got scared and a group of construction workers started throwing stones at it, and the object hovered backed away, leaving the site. An amateur photographer took several pictures of the shapeshifting object; the pictures were considered by several experts as real and the witness accounts by the simple folks were not considered hoax.    We also found this first hand account.. "My name is Cristina Marto de Pimental. I am a reporter. On New Year's Eve, December 31, 1997, my husband and I were at a seaside party in Funchal, which is on the South shore of Madeira Island, in the Atlantic Ocean, 912 kilometres East of Morocco. We were watching the New Year's festivities, all the fireworks in the sky. Then several people at the party called my attention to a red and motionless light above Funchal. The OVNI suddenly made a very tight circle, returned to its initial position, and, a few seconds later, it accelerated at great speed in a vertical direction. We were all quite amazed at the sight. A British couple at the festival videotaped the UFO as it hovered. The next day I telephoned the Fuerzas Aereas Portugeses (FAP) headquarters in Lisboa. The Portuguese air force told me that they'd had no flights, neither planes nor helicopters, and no satellites were over Madeira at that time."   Whoooooo aliens!!!   Time for some quick hitters, you beautiful bastards!   Quinta da Paulicea, Agueda:   Not far from the city center of Águeda, Quinta da Paulicea sits in the middle of large unkept plot of land surrounded by a wrought iron fence. It is the classic image of what a Hollywood haunted house should look like. It was inhabited by an Águedense family, who had moved to Brazil in the late 1800s, but returned in the early 1900s, naming the home after the city of São Paulo. Much of the family succumbed to the influenza pandemic in 1918, with the exception of Neca Carneiro. He was a patron of the community's sports and cultural programs but died childless at the young age of 37. The home has sat vacant ever since, due to legal constraints with the family back in Brazil. Although not certified as haunted, there are many reports of supernatural encounters at Quinta da Paulicea. Some have heard the neighing of horses where the stables once stood. Others have been frightened by the sound of a shotgun blast or a gentle pulling on hair. A worker in the garden suddenly experienced such an intense headache that he fled and never returned. Whether haunted or not, this beautiful home has many stories to tell.   Mines of São Pedro de Cova – Gondomar:   The village of São Pedro da Cova was largely an agricultural community until the discovery of coal in the 1802. The exhausting and dangerous industry of mining soon took over. Several generations of miners worked here until low oil prices forced the mines to shut down in the 1970's. All that's left of the mines are these ruins. Neighbors say spirits of the miners protect the ruins and the mine shafts. Others claim to hear screaming from the deep holes.   Termas de Água Radium, Sortelha:    Legend has it that this beautiful structure, in the Guarda District, was built by Spanish Count Don Rodrigo after learning that the natural “healing waters” might cure his daughter's skin disease. News of the waters quickly spread. In the 1920s, the site became a restorative spa known as the Hotel Serra da Pena. In actuality, the waters were radioactive, seeping from a uranium mine not far away. Radioactivity was all the rage in the 20's and 30's, so the site bottled the spring water and sold it under the name “Radium Water.” Of course, after radioactivity was studied further in the 40's, it became apparent that the healing qualities of radium water actually carried the opposite effect. The hotel went out of business in the 50's and has been abandoned ever since. It is said the site is haunted by the many people who drank from the contaminated spring.   Sanatório da Serra da Estrela – near Covilhã:   This massive structure was built in 1936 by Portugal's railway department as a treatment facility for its employees suffering from Tuberculosis. The building was later leased to the Portuguese Society of Sanatoriums on condition of receiving all patients needing treatment.  However it was closed in the 1980's and left to deteriorate for decades to come.  Rumors circulate that it is haunted by its many former patients.  The Sanatório has now been refurbished and transformed into the luxurious new Pousada Serra da Estrella.   Quinta da Juncosa – Penafiel, Rios de Monihos:    This old farmhouse was home to the Baron of Lages and his family.  The Baron was very jealous, and suspected his wife of infidelities.  Legends have it, the Baron tied his wife to a horse and dragged her around the farm until she died.  After discovering his wife was innocent, the Baron killed his children and committed suicide.  They say the Baron's guilt keeps him from resting in peace.  Ghosts of the Baron and his wife are said to be seen around the property.   So we did this episode in honor of our Portuguese listeners who have keep us in the top 10 in Portugal for quite some time. We thank you guys so much for that. But we have one request for you…in every creepy episodes so far until this one…we've found a haunted bridge, Texas had like 50. In all of my searching the recesses of the Internet, I could not find a single reference to a haunted bridge in Portugal, we need our Portuguese listeners to hit us up and let us know any stories about haunted bridges. It was tough to find a ton of information on a lot of these places so hopefully we did them right! If we made any mistakes or got anything wrong, you know what we say…blame the Internet!! Movie list   https://www.indiewire.com/gallery/best-body-horror-movies/

BUBS promo code: canyousurvive Matt Dawson was a successful investment banker who became an adventurer and philanthropist.  He is the creator of Project 7 for Soldiers, and the founder of the “Dawson's Peak” foundation. He has summited Everest, Denali, Kilimanjaro, Elbrus, Vinson and Aconcagua. He is the 1st person to trek solo/unsupported across the Mojave desert and Death Valley (213 miles). He has skied to South Pole, and most recently, rowed 3,100 miles across Atlantic Ocean.  Project Seven for Soldiers is an attempt by sponsored-athlete Matt Dawson (“Dawson”) to set seven world records. Activities include: multiple polar expeditions, global mountain climbing, a global circumnavigation flight, an oceanic crossing and a desert traverse. Activity information is to be made available as each phase is undertaken.  100% of net proceeds from Project Seven for Soldiers will benefit the Gary Sinise Foundation and Hope For The Warriors as they provide comprehensive support to meet the critical needs of military veterans and their families in their transition from military service to civilian life.       See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

CLICK HERE to listen to episode audio (5:05).Sections below are the following: Transcript of Audio Audio Notes and Acknowledgments ImagesExtra Information Sources Related Water Radio Episodes For Virginia Teachers (Relevant SOLs, etc.). Unless otherwise noted, all Web addresses mentioned were functional as of 5-6-22. TRANSCRIPT OF AUDIO From the Cumberland Gap to the Atlantic Ocean, this is Virginia Water Radio for the weeks of May 9 and May 16, 2022.   This episode from is part of a series this year of episodes related to trees and shrubs. MUSIC – ~14 sec – instrumental. That's part of “New Spring Waltz,” by the late Madeline MacNeil, who was a well-known and highly regarded musician based in Virginia's Shenandoah Valley. Each new spring brings a chance to focus on the life cycles of wildlife.  This mid-spring episode of Water Radio explores some connections among nesting birds, trees, and water.  Have a listen for about 30 seconds to three mystery sounds, and see if you know these three bird species who nest in trees near water, either always or at least sometimes.  And here's a hint: you'll be singing a melodious trill, if you hit this mystery out of the park. SOUNDS  - 29 sec. If you guessed two warblers and an oriole, you're right!  And you get bodacious bird bragging rights if you recognized, first, the Prothonotary Warbler; second, the Northern Parula, also a kind of warbler; and third, the bird for which Baltimore's baseball team is named, the Baltimore Oriole.  All three of these songbirds are found in Virginia in the spring and summer breeding season.  During that period, the Prothonotary Warbler is common in Virginia's central and southern Coastal Plain and can occasionally be found in some other parts of the Commonwealth; the Baltimore Oriole is common outside of the Coastal Plain; and the Northern Parula is common statewide.  The three species show a range of attachment to water-side trees as their nesting habitat.  The Prothonotary Warbler is particularly known for nesting in cavities in trees around water; in fact, the bird is sometimes called the “Swamp Warbler” in the southeastern United States.  The Northern Parula typically nests in trees along rivers and wetlands, especially in areas where it can find the materials it prefers for making its hanging nests: Spanish Moss or a kind of stringy lichen; this bird is also known to make nests out of debris left in trees after floods.  The Baltimore Oriole is the least water-attached of these three species, being found nesting high in trees in many areas outside of deep woods, including parks and yards; however, streamsides are among the species preferred areas for the bird's fibrous, hanging nests. If you're near streams, rivers, or wetlands and you see or hear any of these three birds, look to nearby trees for cavities or hanging materials that may be harboring the birds' next generation. Thanks to Lang Elliott for permission to use the bird sounds, from the Stokes Field Guide to Bird Songs.  Thanks also to Janita Baker of Blue Lion Dulcimers and Guitars for permission to use Madeline MacNeil's music, and we close with about 25 more seconds of “New Spring Waltz.” MUSIC – ~26 sec – instrumental. SHIP'S BELL Virginia Water Radio is produced by the Virginia Water Resources Research Center, part of Virginia Tech's College of Natural Resources and Environment.  For more Virginia water sounds, music, or information, visit us online at virginiawaterradio.org, or call the Water Center at (540) 231-5624.  Thanks to Ben Cosgrove for his version of “Shenandoah” to open and close this episode.  In Blacksburg, I'm Alan Raflo, thanking you for listening, and wishing you health, wisdom, and good water. AUDIO NOTES AND ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS “New Spring Waltz” is from Madeline MacNeil's 2002 album “Songs of Earth & Sea”; copyright held by Janita Baker, used with permission.  More information about Madeline MacNeil is available from Ms. Baker's “Blue Lion Dulcimers & Guitars” Web site, online at https://www.bluelioninstruments.com/Maddie.html. The sounds of the Baltimore Oriole, Northern Parula, and Prothonotary Warbler were from the Stokes Field Guide to Bird Songs-Eastern Region CD set, by Lang Elliott with Donald and Lillian Stokes (Time Warner Audio Books, copyright 1997), used with permission of Lang Elliott.  Lang Elliot's work is available online at the “Music of Nature” Web site, http://www.musicofnature.org/. Click here if you'd like to hear the full version (2 min./22 sec.) of the “Shenandoah” arrangement/performance by Ben Cosgrove that opens and closes this episode.  More information about Mr. Cosgrove is available online at http://www.bencosgrove.com. IMAGES Baltimore Oriole at the U.S. Fish and Wildlife's National Conservation Training Center in Shepherdstown, W. Va., August 2015.  Photo by Michelle Smith, made available for public use by the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service's National Digital Library, online at http://digitalmedia.fws.gov; the specific URL for the photograph washttps://digitalmedia.fws.gov/digital/collection/natdiglib/id/17342/rec/2, as of 5-9-22.Northern Parula at Kennebago Lake in Maine, July 2011.  Photo by Bill Thompson, made available for public use by the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service's National Digital Library, online at http://digitalmedia.fws.gov; the specific URL for the photograph was https://digitalmedia.fws.gov/digital/collection/natdiglib/id/12961/rec/1, as of 5-9-22.Prothonotary Warbler bringing food to its nest in South Carolina, March 2012.  Photo by Mark Musselman, made available for public use by the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service's National Digital Library, online at http://digitalmedia.fws.gov; the specific URL for the photograph was https://digitalmedia.fws.gov/digital/collection/natdiglib/id/14152/rec/3, as of 5-9-22. EXTRA INFORMATION ABOUT THE BIRDS IN THIS EPISODE The scientific names of the birds in this episode are as follows: Baltimore Oriole – Icterus galbula;Northern Parula – Setophaga Americana (formerly Parula americana);Prothonotary Warbler – Protonotaria citrea. SOURCES Used for Audio Chesapeake Bay Program, “Birds,” online at https://www.chesapeakebay.net/discover/field-guide/all/birds/all.  The Baltimore Oriole entry is online at https://www.chesapeakebay.net/discover/field-guide/entry/baltimore_oriole. Cornell University Lab of Ornithology, “All About Birds,” online at http://www.allaboutbirds.org.The Baltimore Oriole entry is online at https://www.allaboutbirds.org/guide/Baltimore_Oriole;the Northern Parula entry is online at https://www.allaboutbirds.org/guide/Northern_Parula/;the Prothonotary Warbler entry is online at https://www.allaboutbirds.org/guide/Prothonotary_Warbler. Cornell University Lab of Ornithology, “Birds of the World,” online at https://birdsoftheworld.org/bow/home (subscription required). The Baltimore Oriole entry is online at https://birdsoftheworld.org/bow/species/balori/cur/introduction; the Northern Parula entry is online at https://birdsoftheworld.org/bow/species/norpar/cur/introduction; the Prothonotary Warbler entry is online at https://birdsoftheworld.org/bow/species/prowar/cur/introduction. Merriam-Webster, “Warble,” online at https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/warble. Chandler S. Robbins et al. A Guide to Field Identification of Birds of North America, St. Martin's Press, New York, N.Y., 2001. Virginia Department of Wildlife Resources (formerly Department of Game and Inland Fisheries):“Fish and Wildlife Information Service,” online at https://services.dwr.virginia.gov/fwis/.The Baltimore Oriole entry is online at https://services.dwr.virginia.gov/fwis/booklet.html?&bova=040348&Menu=_.Taxonomy&version=19117;the Northern Parula entry is online at https://services.dwr.virginia.gov/fwis/booklet.html?&bova=040312&Menu=_.Taxonomy&version=19117;the Prothonotary Warbler entry is online at https://services.dwr.virginia.gov/fwis/booklet.html?&bova=040303&Menu=_.Taxonomy&version=19117. Virginia Department of Wildlife Resources (formerly Department of Game and Inland Fisheries), “List of Native and Naturalized Fauna in Virginia, August 2020,” online (as a PDF) at https://dwr.virginia.gov/wp-content/uploads/virginia-native-naturalized-species.pdf. For More Information about Birds in Virginia and Elsewhere Cornell University Lab of Ornithology, “Merlin Photo ID.”  The application for mobile devices allows users to submit a bird photograph to get identification of the bird. Information is available online at http://merlin.allaboutbirds.org/. Cornell University Lab of Ornithology and the Audubon Society, “eBird,” online at https://ebird.org/home.  Here you can find locations of species observations made by contributors, and you can sign up to contribute your own observations. Stan Tekiela, Birds of Virginia Field Guide, Adventure Publications, Inc., Cambridge, Minn., 2002. University of Michigan Museum of Zoology, “Animal Diversity Web,” online at https://animaldiversity.org/. Virginia Society of Ornithology, online at http://www.virginiabirds.org/.  The Society is a non-profit organization dedicated to the study, conservation, and enjoyment of birds in the Commonwealth. Xeno-canto Foundation, online at http://www.xeno-canto.org/.  This site provides bird songs from around the world.  For More Information about Trees and Shrubs in Virginia and Elsewhere Center for Watershed Protection, “Trees and Stormwater Runoff,” online at https://www.cwp.org/reducing-stormwater-runoff/. Chesapeake Bay Program, “Field Guide: Plants and Trees,” online at https://www.chesapeakebay.net/discover/field-guide/all/plants_trees/all. eFloras.org, “Flora of North America,” online at http://www.efloras.org/flora_page.aspx?flora_id=1. Sanglin Lee and Alan Raflo, “Trees and Water,” Virginia Water Resources Research Center, Virginia Water Central Newsletter, pages 13-18, online at https://vtechworks.lib.vt.edu/handle/10919/49367.   (A Virginia Cooperative Extension version of this article—“Trees and Water,” by Sanglin Lee, Alan Raflo, and Jennifer Gagnon, 2018—with some slight differences in the text is available online at https://www.pubs.ext.vt.edu/content/pubs_ext_vt_edu/en/ANR/ANR-18/ANR-18NP.html.) Texas A&M University AgriLife Extension, “How Trees Grow,” online at https://agrilife.org/treecarekit/introduction-to-tree-care/how-trees-grow/. U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) Forest Service, Forests of Virginia, 2018, Resource Update FS-264, Asheville, N.C., 2020; available online at https://www.fs.usda.gov/treesearch/pubs/59963. U.S. Department of Agriculture/U.S. Forest Service, “State and Private Forestry Fact Sheet—Virginia 2022,” online (as a PDF) at https://apps.fs.usda.gov/nicportal/temppdf/sfs/naweb/VA_std.pdf. U.S. Department of Agriculture/Forest Service/Climate Change Resource Center, “Forest Tree Diseases and Climate Change,” online at https://www.fs.usda.gov/ccrc/topics/forest-disease. U.S. Department of Agriculture/Forest Service/Northern Research Station (Newtown Square, Penn.), “Forest Disturbance Processes/Invasive Species,” online at https://www.nrs.fs.fed.us/disturbance/invasive_species/.” U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA)/Natural Resources Conservation Service, “PLANTS Database,” online at https://plants.usda.gov. Virginia Botanical Associates, “Digital Atlas of the Virginia Flora,” online at http://www.vaplantatlas.org/index.php?do=start&search=Search. Virginia Department of Conservation and Recreation/Natural Heritage Division, online at https://www.dcr.virginia.gov/natural-heritage/. Virginia Department of Forestry, “Virginia's Forests,” online at https://dof.virginia.gov/.  Some of the useful pages at that site are the following:“Benefits of Trees,”