Podcasts about Cold War

#LONDINIUM90AD: MICHAEL VLAHOS. FRIENDS OF HISTORY DEBATING SOCIETY. @MICHALIS_VLAHOS HEADLINE: The Struggle for America: Ruling Elite vs. Populism and the Threat of Revolution The speakers analyze domestic American conflict, using David Brooks's framework of the credentialed elite versus the non-credentialed public. Germanicus argues that the conflict is fundamentally between an entrenched ruling elite, solidified since the Cold War, and the populace, similar to the Roman optimates. This elite maintains power by accumulating wealth across generations while regular people suffer. The elite appropriates an ideology—which Germanicus calls the "church of woke"—to suppress the people, mirroring how the Roman aristocracy co-opted Christianity in late antiquity. The growing wealth inequality and mass migration policies exacerbate this conflict, providing a vehicle for populist leaders like Mr. Trump. The situation is coming to a head, with every election becoming an "existential choice" between the ruling class and the people. Germanicus suggests the resolution will be a revolution: either a restoration (represented incoherently by Mr. Trump) or the elites cementing complete control. He also notes that American global engagement, while enriching the elite, makes them vulnerable; should world situations "go south," the resulting turmoil could overthrow the domestically weakened ruling class. 1917 YALE AND READINESS.

The country of Czechoslovakia was born and died in the 20th century.  It was created after a war, suffered through another war, was occupied during the Cold War, and was finally liberated in 1989.  Once it did become free of Soviet Rule, they decided that maybe they should never have been made into a country in the first place.  Unlike almost every country that came before it, it managed to dissolve without any violence.  Learn more about Czechoslovakia, the Velvet Revolution, and the Velvet Divorce on this episode of Everything Everywhere Daily. Sponsors Quince Go to quince.com/daily for 365-day returns, plus free shipping on your order! Mint Mobile Get your 3-month Unlimited wireless plan for just 15 bucks a month at mintmobile.com/eed Stash Go to get.stash.com/EVERYTHING to see how you can receive $25 towards your first stock purchase. ExpressVPN Go to expressvpn.com/EED to get an extra four months of ExpressVPN for free!w Subscribe to the podcast!  https://everything-everywhere.com/everything-everywhere-daily-podcast/ -------------------------------- Executive Producer: Charles Daniel Associate Producers: Austin Oetken & Cameron Kieffer   Become a supporter on Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/everythingeverywhere Discord Server: https://discord.gg/UkRUJFh Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/everythingeverywhere/ Facebook Group: https://www.facebook.com/groups/everythingeverywheredaily Twitter: https://twitter.com/everywheretrip Website: https://everything-everywhere.com/  Disce aliquid novi cotidie Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

In 2007, Tim Weiner published the book Legacy of Ashes. It was a history of the CIA from its founding to the early 2000s. As a university student in Italy, I bought the book as soon as it came out. The second non-fiction book I ever bought in English. The book was riveting. It kickstarted my interest in the CIA and covert operations. Now, Tim Weiner has published a sequel to Legacy of Ashes. His new book is called The Mission: the CIA in the 21st Century (Mariner Books, 2025). It is a gripping and revelatory history of the from the late 1990s to the present. It ranges from 9/11 through the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq to today's battles with Russia and China--and with the President of the United States.  At the turn of the century, the Central Intelligence Agency was in crisis. The end of the Cold War had robbed the agency of its mission. More than thirty overseas stations and bases had been shuttered, and scores that remained had been severely cut back. Many countries where surveillance was once deemed crucial went uncovered. Essential intelligence wasn't being collected. At the dawn of the information age, the CIA's officers and analysts worked with outmoded technology, struggling to distinguish the clear signals of significant facts from the cacophony of background noise.  Then came September 11th, 2001. After the attacks, the CIA transformed itself into a lethal paramilitary force, running secret prisons and brutal interrogations, mounting deadly drone attacks, and all but abandoning its core missions of espionage and counterespionage. The consequences were grave: the deaths of scores of its recruited foreign agents, the theft of its personnel files by Chinese spies, the penetration of its computer networks by Russian intelligence and American hackers, and the tragedies of Afghanistan and Iraq. A new generation of spies now must fight the hardest targets--Moscow, Beijing, Tehran--while confronting a president who has attacked the CIA as a subversive force.  The book reveals how the agency fought to rebuild the espionage powers it lost during the war on terror--and finally succeeded in penetrating the Kremlin. The key message of the book is that the CIA must reclaim its original mission: know thy enemies. This is made even more difficult by the attacks on the intelligence community deployed by the second Trump presidency, from unqualified senior officials to loyalty tests. The fate of the free world hangs in the balance. The Mission includes exclusive on-the-record interviews with six former CIA directors, the top spymaster, thirteen station chiefs, and scores of top operations officers who served undercover for decades and have never spoken to a journalist before. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/new-books-network

In 2007, Tim Weiner published the book Legacy of Ashes. It was a history of the CIA from its founding to the early 2000s. As a university student in Italy, I bought the book as soon as it came out. The second non-fiction book I ever bought in English. The book was riveting. It kickstarted my interest in the CIA and covert operations. Now, Tim Weiner has published a sequel to Legacy of Ashes. His new book is called The Mission: the CIA in the 21st Century (Mariner Books, 2025). It is a gripping and revelatory history of the from the late 1990s to the present. It ranges from 9/11 through the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq to today's battles with Russia and China--and with the President of the United States.  At the turn of the century, the Central Intelligence Agency was in crisis. The end of the Cold War had robbed the agency of its mission. More than thirty overseas stations and bases had been shuttered, and scores that remained had been severely cut back. Many countries where surveillance was once deemed crucial went uncovered. Essential intelligence wasn't being collected. At the dawn of the information age, the CIA's officers and analysts worked with outmoded technology, struggling to distinguish the clear signals of significant facts from the cacophony of background noise.  Then came September 11th, 2001. After the attacks, the CIA transformed itself into a lethal paramilitary force, running secret prisons and brutal interrogations, mounting deadly drone attacks, and all but abandoning its core missions of espionage and counterespionage. The consequences were grave: the deaths of scores of its recruited foreign agents, the theft of its personnel files by Chinese spies, the penetration of its computer networks by Russian intelligence and American hackers, and the tragedies of Afghanistan and Iraq. A new generation of spies now must fight the hardest targets--Moscow, Beijing, Tehran--while confronting a president who has attacked the CIA as a subversive force.  The book reveals how the agency fought to rebuild the espionage powers it lost during the war on terror--and finally succeeded in penetrating the Kremlin. The key message of the book is that the CIA must reclaim its original mission: know thy enemies. This is made even more difficult by the attacks on the intelligence community deployed by the second Trump presidency, from unqualified senior officials to loyalty tests. The fate of the free world hangs in the balance. The Mission includes exclusive on-the-record interviews with six former CIA directors, the top spymaster, thirteen station chiefs, and scores of top operations officers who served undercover for decades and have never spoken to a journalist before. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/world-affairs

In 2007, Tim Weiner published the book Legacy of Ashes. It was a history of the CIA from its founding to the early 2000s. As a university student in Italy, I bought the book as soon as it came out. The second non-fiction book I ever bought in English. The book was riveting. It kickstarted my interest in the CIA and covert operations. Now, Tim Weiner has published a sequel to Legacy of Ashes. His new book is called The Mission: the CIA in the 21st Century (Mariner Books, 2025). It is a gripping and revelatory history of the from the late 1990s to the present. It ranges from 9/11 through the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq to today's battles with Russia and China--and with the President of the United States.  At the turn of the century, the Central Intelligence Agency was in crisis. The end of the Cold War had robbed the agency of its mission. More than thirty overseas stations and bases had been shuttered, and scores that remained had been severely cut back. Many countries where surveillance was once deemed crucial went uncovered. Essential intelligence wasn't being collected. At the dawn of the information age, the CIA's officers and analysts worked with outmoded technology, struggling to distinguish the clear signals of significant facts from the cacophony of background noise.  Then came September 11th, 2001. After the attacks, the CIA transformed itself into a lethal paramilitary force, running secret prisons and brutal interrogations, mounting deadly drone attacks, and all but abandoning its core missions of espionage and counterespionage. The consequences were grave: the deaths of scores of its recruited foreign agents, the theft of its personnel files by Chinese spies, the penetration of its computer networks by Russian intelligence and American hackers, and the tragedies of Afghanistan and Iraq. A new generation of spies now must fight the hardest targets--Moscow, Beijing, Tehran--while confronting a president who has attacked the CIA as a subversive force.  The book reveals how the agency fought to rebuild the espionage powers it lost during the war on terror--and finally succeeded in penetrating the Kremlin. The key message of the book is that the CIA must reclaim its original mission: know thy enemies. This is made even more difficult by the attacks on the intelligence community deployed by the second Trump presidency, from unqualified senior officials to loyalty tests. The fate of the free world hangs in the balance. The Mission includes exclusive on-the-record interviews with six former CIA directors, the top spymaster, thirteen station chiefs, and scores of top operations officers who served undercover for decades and have never spoken to a journalist before. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/american-studies

In 2007, Tim Weiner published the book Legacy of Ashes. It was a history of the CIA from its founding to the early 2000s. As a university student in Italy, I bought the book as soon as it came out. The second non-fiction book I ever bought in English. The book was riveting. It kickstarted my interest in the CIA and covert operations. Now, Tim Weiner has published a sequel to Legacy of Ashes. His new book is called The Mission: the CIA in the 21st Century (Mariner Books, 2025). It is a gripping and revelatory history of the from the late 1990s to the present. It ranges from 9/11 through the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq to today's battles with Russia and China--and with the President of the United States.  At the turn of the century, the Central Intelligence Agency was in crisis. The end of the Cold War had robbed the agency of its mission. More than thirty overseas stations and bases had been shuttered, and scores that remained had been severely cut back. Many countries where surveillance was once deemed crucial went uncovered. Essential intelligence wasn't being collected. At the dawn of the information age, the CIA's officers and analysts worked with outmoded technology, struggling to distinguish the clear signals of significant facts from the cacophony of background noise.  Then came September 11th, 2001. After the attacks, the CIA transformed itself into a lethal paramilitary force, running secret prisons and brutal interrogations, mounting deadly drone attacks, and all but abandoning its core missions of espionage and counterespionage. The consequences were grave: the deaths of scores of its recruited foreign agents, the theft of its personnel files by Chinese spies, the penetration of its computer networks by Russian intelligence and American hackers, and the tragedies of Afghanistan and Iraq. A new generation of spies now must fight the hardest targets--Moscow, Beijing, Tehran--while confronting a president who has attacked the CIA as a subversive force.  The book reveals how the agency fought to rebuild the espionage powers it lost during the war on terror--and finally succeeded in penetrating the Kremlin. The key message of the book is that the CIA must reclaim its original mission: know thy enemies. This is made even more difficult by the attacks on the intelligence community deployed by the second Trump presidency, from unqualified senior officials to loyalty tests. The fate of the free world hangs in the balance. The Mission includes exclusive on-the-record interviews with six former CIA directors, the top spymaster, thirteen station chiefs, and scores of top operations officers who served undercover for decades and have never spoken to a journalist before. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/politics-and-polemics

It's Sunday, and on Sundays we like to bring you new conversations and conversations from the archives that help provide a little context for the stories playing out today. Today, as we see a chilling effect on free speech around the country, we revisit part of our conversation on the history of universities and government funding, and how a lot of pressure was applied during the Cold War era for academics to pledge loyalty to the United States.Plus, a plug for our upcoming two-parter on the history of chilled speech -- which newsletter subscribers can watch in full right now!Sign up for our America250 Watch newsletter, where you'll also get links and lots more historical tidbits.https://thisdaypod.substack.com/Find out more about the show at thisdaypod.comThis Day In Esoteric Political History is a proud member of Radiotopia from PRX.Your support helps foster independent, artist-owned podcasts and award-winning stories.If you want to support the show directly, you can do so on our website: ThisDayPod.comGet in touch if you have any ideas for future topics, or just want to say hello. Follow us on social @thisdaypodOur team: Jacob Feldman, Researcher/Producer; Brittani Brown, Producer; Khawla Nakua, Transcripts; music by Teen Daze and Blue Dot Sessions; Audrey Mardavich is our Executive Producer at Radiotopia Learn about your ad choices: dovetail.prx.org/ad-choices

Driving Terror: Labor, Violence, and Justice in Cold War Argentina (U New Mexico Press, 2025) by Dr. Karen Robert tells the story of twenty-four Ford autoworkers in Argentina who were tortured and “disappeared” for their union activism in 1976, miraculously survived, and pursued a decades-long quest for truth and justice. In December 2018, more than four decades after their ordeal, the men won a historic human-rights case against a military commander and two retired Ford Argentina executives who were convicted of crimes against humanity. The book uses this David-and-Goliath story to explore issues of labor repression and corporate complicity with Argentina's last military dictatorship as well as to shed light on the enormous obstacles facing victims of such crimes. Its emphasis on working-class activism in the arenas of labor and human rights introduces North American readers to a new narrative of contemporary Argentine history. The Ford survivors' story intertwines with the symbolic evolution of the car the men helped build at Ford: the Falcon sedan. The political polarization and violence of the Cold War era transformed the Falcon from a popular family car to a tool of state terror after the coup of 1976, when it became associated with the widespread practice of “disappearance.” Its meaning continued to evolve after the return to democracy, when artists and activists used it as a symbol of military impunity during Argentina's long-term struggles over justice and memory. This interview was conducted by Dr. Miranda Melcher whose book focuses on post-conflict military integration, understanding treaty negotiation and implementation in civil war contexts, with qualitative analysis of the Angolan and Mozambican civil wars. You can find Miranda's interviews on New Books with Miranda Melcher, wherever you get your podcasts. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/new-books-network

Driving Terror: Labor, Violence, and Justice in Cold War Argentina (U New Mexico Press, 2025) by Dr. Karen Robert tells the story of twenty-four Ford autoworkers in Argentina who were tortured and “disappeared” for their union activism in 1976, miraculously survived, and pursued a decades-long quest for truth and justice. In December 2018, more than four decades after their ordeal, the men won a historic human-rights case against a military commander and two retired Ford Argentina executives who were convicted of crimes against humanity. The book uses this David-and-Goliath story to explore issues of labor repression and corporate complicity with Argentina's last military dictatorship as well as to shed light on the enormous obstacles facing victims of such crimes. Its emphasis on working-class activism in the arenas of labor and human rights introduces North American readers to a new narrative of contemporary Argentine history. The Ford survivors' story intertwines with the symbolic evolution of the car the men helped build at Ford: the Falcon sedan. The political polarization and violence of the Cold War era transformed the Falcon from a popular family car to a tool of state terror after the coup of 1976, when it became associated with the widespread practice of “disappearance.” Its meaning continued to evolve after the return to democracy, when artists and activists used it as a symbol of military impunity during Argentina's long-term struggles over justice and memory. This interview was conducted by Dr. Miranda Melcher whose book focuses on post-conflict military integration, understanding treaty negotiation and implementation in civil war contexts, with qualitative analysis of the Angolan and Mozambican civil wars. You can find Miranda's interviews on New Books with Miranda Melcher, wherever you get your podcasts. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/latin-american-studies

Driving Terror: Labor, Violence, and Justice in Cold War Argentina (U New Mexico Press, 2025) by Dr. Karen Robert tells the story of twenty-four Ford autoworkers in Argentina who were tortured and “disappeared” for their union activism in 1976, miraculously survived, and pursued a decades-long quest for truth and justice. In December 2018, more than four decades after their ordeal, the men won a historic human-rights case against a military commander and two retired Ford Argentina executives who were convicted of crimes against humanity. The book uses this David-and-Goliath story to explore issues of labor repression and corporate complicity with Argentina's last military dictatorship as well as to shed light on the enormous obstacles facing victims of such crimes. Its emphasis on working-class activism in the arenas of labor and human rights introduces North American readers to a new narrative of contemporary Argentine history. The Ford survivors' story intertwines with the symbolic evolution of the car the men helped build at Ford: the Falcon sedan. The political polarization and violence of the Cold War era transformed the Falcon from a popular family car to a tool of state terror after the coup of 1976, when it became associated with the widespread practice of “disappearance.” Its meaning continued to evolve after the return to democracy, when artists and activists used it as a symbol of military impunity during Argentina's long-term struggles over justice and memory. This interview was conducted by Dr. Miranda Melcher whose book focuses on post-conflict military integration, understanding treaty negotiation and implementation in civil war contexts, with qualitative analysis of the Angolan and Mozambican civil wars. You can find Miranda's interviews on New Books with Miranda Melcher, wherever you get your podcasts. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

This episode is a release of our sister program The Adnan Husain Show. Adnan discusses a crucial history of US subversion of Syria's sovereignty even before the conclusion of WW2 starting with interference and covert operations by the OSS precursor to the CIA and then through the entire Cold War with Dr. Patrick Higgins, a Middle East historian, co-editor of Liberated Texts and member of the Anti-Imperialist Scholars Collective. His article "Gunning for Damascus: The US War on the Syrian Arab Republic" is mandatory reading and the state of the field on this dark history. https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/19436149.2023.2199487?scroll=top&needAccess=true#abstractart Support the show on Patreon if you can (and get early access to episodes)!  www.patreon.com/adnanhusain  Or make a one-time donation to the show and Buy Me a Coffee: https://buymeacoffee.com/adnanhusain Like, subscribe, share!  Also available in video on YouTube:  https://youtube.com/@adnanhusainshow X: @adnanahusain Substack: adnanahusain.substack.com  www.adnanhusain.org

FOLLOW RICHARD Website: https://www.strangeplanet.ca YouTube: @strangeplanetradio Instagram: @richardsyrettstrangeplanet TikTok: @therealstrangeplanet EP. #1256 The ESP/UFO CONNECTION What if the strangest thing about UFOs isn't metal or motion but the messages lodged in our minds? In The Psychic Phenomenon, filmmaker Darcy Weir pries open a classified history of Cold War psychic programs, whistleblower testimony, astronaut reports, and decades of experiencers whose dreams, intuitions and voices shifted before sightings. The film argues intelligence agencies took ESP seriously — and suggests telepathic signals may be an overlooked mode of contact. Tonight we press Weir on evidence, ethics, and the unnerving possibility that the greatest unknown isn't out there but in here. And what now? GUEST: Darcy Weir is an investigative documentary filmmaker who probes the borderlands between anomalous experience and institutional secrecy. Combining deep archival excavation, whistleblower interviews, and immersive storytelling, Weir spotlights Cold War intelligence programs, UFO contact narratives, and contested scientific voices. His 2025 film The Psychic Phenomenon compiles declassified files and firsthand testimony to argue for a serious reappraisal of ESP's role in modern contact stories. WEBSITE: https://www.occultjourneys.com FILM: The Psychic Phenomenon Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://strangeplanet.supportingcast.fm/

The Vietnam War was perhaps the most significant event that took place in the last half of the 20th century.  It had profound impacts on the United States and, of course, Vietnam. However, many people have a very simplistic view of the causes of the war. They assume it was just a result of Cold War politics. While that was certainly a cause, the root causes go back much further.  Learn more about the origins of the Vietnam War and how and why it happened on this episode of Everything Everywhere Daily.  Sponsors Quince Go to quince.com/daily for 365-day returns, plus free shipping on your order! Mint Mobile Get your 3-month Unlimited wireless plan for just 15 bucks a month at mintmobile.com/eed Stash Go to get.stash.com/EVERYTHING to see how you can receive $25 towards your first stock purchase. ExpressVPN Go to expressvpn.com/EED to get an extra four months of ExpressVPN for free!w Subscribe to the podcast!  https://everything-everywhere.com/everything-everywhere-daily-podcast/ -------------------------------- Executive Producer: Charles Daniel Associate Producers: Austin Oetken & Cameron Kieffer   Become a supporter on Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/everythingeverywhere Discord Server: https://discord.gg/UkRUJFh Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/everythingeverywhere/ Facebook Group: https://www.facebook.com/groups/everythingeverywheredaily Twitter: https://twitter.com/everywheretrip Website: https://everything-everywhere.com/  Disce aliquid novi cotidie Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Fraser McCallum is the author of a new book Cold War Britain: Fifty years in the shadow of the bomb which gives a fascinating insight into a period that shaped the fabric of British society. The Cold War defined the history of Britain in the second half of the twentieth century as much as it did that of the US and the Soviet Union. Cold War Britain is an exploration into the multifaceted dimensions of Britain's experience during the Cold War era. By weaving together history, politics, literature, and popular culture, this book invites readers to immerse themselves in the vibrant tapestry of Cold War Britain, offering fresh insights and perspectives into how this global conflict shaped the fabric of British society. Episode extras https://coldwarconversations.com/episode422 Enter the book giveaway (expires 27th Sep 2025) https://coldwarconversations.com/giveaway/ Related episodes How Cold War Britain Prepared for Nuclear War https://pod.fo/e/172825 The Cold War Atomic Spies https://pod.fo/e/1fa45e Portland Spy Ring Part 1 ⁠https://pod.fo/e/292bd⁠ Portland Spy Ring Part 2 ⁠https://pod.fo/e/4471e⁠ The Happy Traitor - The Life of Soviet Spy George Blake https://pod.fo/e/b8583 The fight to preserve Cold War history continues and via a simple monthly donation, you will give me the ammunition to continue to preserve Cold War history. You'll become part of our community, get ad-free episodes, and get a sought-after CWC coaster as a thank you and you'll bask in the warm glow of knowing you are helping to preserve Cold War history. Just go to ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠https://coldwarconversations.com/donate/⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ If a monthly contribution is not your cup of tea, we welcome one-off donations via the same link. Find the ideal gift for the Cold War enthusiast in your life! Just go to ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠https://coldwarconversations.com/store/⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ Follow us on BlueSky ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠https://bsky.app/profile/coldwarpod.bsky.social⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ Follow us on Threads ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠https://www.threads.net/@coldwarconversations⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ Follow us on Twitter ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠https://twitter.com/ColdWarPod⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ Facebook ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠https://www.facebook.com/groups/coldwarpod/⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ Instagram ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠https://www.instagram.com/coldwarconversations/⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ Youtube ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠https://youtube.com/@ColdWarConversations⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ Love history? Join Intohistory ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠https://intohistory.com/coldwarpod⁠⁠⁠⁠ Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

//The Wire//2300Z September 19, 2025////ROUTINE////BLUF: RUSSIAN AIRCRAFT INCURSION REPORTED IN ESTONIA. POCKETS OF CIVIL UNREST BECOME SOLIDIFIED IN CHICAGO AS LOCALS CONTINUE TO OPPOSE ICE.// -----BEGIN TEARLINE------International Events-Europe: Controversy has continued over the past few days regarding the Online Safety Act. Details are hard to verify, however users noted that they could not access the Bible Gateway app from a British or European IP address yesterday afternoon. In a statement posted to their website, the app was reportedly offline due to "technical issues". Some time after this notice was posted, the main support website was taken down completely.Analyst Comment: It's not clear as to if this is a technical problem unrelated to censorship efforts, or if this website was taken offline due to noncompliance with the Online Safety Act. Either way, this app has a very large userbase, so answers will be sought regarding what is going on.Estonia: This morning several Russian fighter aircraft reportedly violated Estonian airspace. Estonia stated that 3x Russian MiG-31 fighters entered their airspace, remaining inside Estonia for 12 minutes before departing. 3x Italian F-35's were scrambled to respond to the incursion, though it is unclear as to if the Russian aircraft were actually intercepted. This morning Estonia enacted Article 4 of the NATO charter, which mandates a meeting of NATO to discuss the incident.This afternoon, Polish authorities reported that 2x Russian fighter aircraft conducted a low-pass flyover of a Polish oil rig platform in the Baltic Sea.-HomeFront-Utah: A truck driver was arrested yesterday after a minor traffic incident led to the discovery of two children in the back of his truck. Jacob Ortell Scott was arrested after two girls (aged 12 and 14) were found in the refrigerated trailer he was hauling, which turned out to be his sisters.Analyst Comment: Very few details have become public regarding this strange case, but local journalists are set on this not being a human trafficking case, simply because the driver was related to the children in his trailer. This is not a certainty, and the mere act itself is exceptionally suspicious; this could have been trafficking or attempted murder, or anything in between.Illinois: This morning local tensions flared in Chicago as activists have intensified operations to disrupt ICE, with local politicians urging resistance to deportations as well. Various ICE facilities around the city have been targeted by demonstrators attempting to prevent access to the facilities. Several federal vehicles have been attacked and the tires slashed by rioters, and a few dozen protesters (mostly led by local politicians or political candidates) remained demonstrating outside federal facilities throughout the day.-----END TEARLINE-----Analyst Comments: Violating Estonia's airspace is a classic Russian pastime, so even though Estonia is (understandably) freaking out about it, this incident is the fourth time airspace violations have been reported this year alone. This is mostly due to where the airspace violations are taking place...over the Gulf of Finland. Due to the very tight geography of the region, Russia can very easily violate Estonia's airspace by flying across the east-west corridor over the Gulf. Most of the time, Russia uses this as a way of poking Estonia and thus conveying their regional power to NATO. In this case, Russia chose to "poke" this time using MiG-31s...a platform that was a powerhouse during the Cold War, but is a bit dated today and is in the process of being phased out. This is probably an attempt to bully Estonia (again, as Russia is known to do), but in such a manner that is "softer" than sending Su-35's or another more modern platform. Nevertheless, the Cold War antics will continue to escalate as diplomatic effort

In this talk, Jay exposes the hidden history of U.S. nuclear policy—built on lies, profiteering, and Cold War paranoia—and explains how those same forces shape today's politics, from NATO and Trumpism to the growing danger of war with China. Journalist and filmmaker Paul Jay speaks at the Emergency NGO conference in Reggio Emilia, Italy. Sign up for the “How to Stop a Nuclear War” mailing list at stop-nuclear-war.org.

Benjamin Rutledge is a Czech-American Christian with a diverse academic and professional background, which includes military service, international political economy studies, and teaching at a Czech private school.Benji & I met a few weeks ago in Prague and became fast friends. When we met for lunch last Friday, he told me about Charlie Kirk & Iryna Zerutska's memorial in Wenceslas Square. Afterward, I posted an Instagram reel of us laying flowers there and it's been viewed over 600k times! What a worldwide outpouring of support!

Send us a textBruno Bauer, an intellectual colleague of Marx, wrote two essays to which Marx reacted strongly. The first was called “The Jewish Question” (Die Judenfrage), the second “On The Capacity of Present-Day Jews and Christians to Become Free.”  Marx wrote two essays responding to Bauer's work, using the same titles.  The group of intellectuals of which Marx and Bauer were a part were debating how to achieve freedom (emancipation). Bauer saw Jews in terms of the Jewish religion. While Christians had just to seek freedom, Jews had to go through two steps to achieve freedom, theological and political (universal).  They had to abandon the Torah, and their focus upon themselves, and then join Christians to become politically free.  Bauer thought Jewish political behavior could be completely understood in terms of their ancient teachings.  Marx objected strongly, insisting that the religious issues were superficial and that Bauer had misunderstood the nature of conflict and freedom. These two essays were published in limited circulation and fell from public view when the 1848 uprising failed to achieve democracy and Marx fled into exile. They were only republished (along with several others) after World War II and are commonly called The 1844 Manuscripts or The Economic and Philosophical Manuscripts. These few manuscripts show a very different Marx from the Cold War image.  He was  someone interested in religion and human development. (Note: The first American publication used the title “A World Without Jews,” a term Marx never used, and which sounded very ominous in the aftermath of the Jewish holocaust.             I did this as a class lecture in my Religion and Politics class.  It was a valuable lecture because not a single student had ever heard of these essays.  I hesitated to turn the lecture into a podcast but once I had a text of the lecture, I saw that it had potential and decided to adapt it to podcast format.  I frequently asked students to write a two-page reaction paper (not graded) about how they thought about the lecture.  Almost universally, they liked this lecture because it taught them some things they did not know.  One of my students, a couple of decades ago, offered a unique perspective.  He was a trained Islamic scholar.  He said he had been trained in Koranic studies.  He knew the Koran and the Hadith (opinions and stories from the life and example of Mohammed).  to him those things were very important.  But he now understood that Muslims were also a community of people who lived in the real world.  Much of their behavior could be understood by thinking in that context. His was a reaction that many students had.  Glitch:  Around nine minutes in I accidentally hit the keyboard.  This required some editing.  If you notice a jump around that point, this is why.   

Darrell Castle talks about recent events, in the history of America, from assassinations to simple murders and how we never seem to get the complete and truthful picture of what happened. Transcription / Notes IT ALL SEEMS LIKE A GIANT PSYOP Hello, this is Darrell Castle with today's Castle Report. I will be talking about recent events in the history of America from assassinations to simple murders and how we never seem to get the complete and truthful picture of what happened. If we go back in history only so far as World War ll we find that psychological warfare was an important weapon for all combatants. It was important but also primitive compared to the worldwide grip it holds on us today. Sometimes it was millions of leaflets dropped from airplanes across Europe and sometimes it was Tokyo Rose broadcasting from Japan to American sailors opposing the Japanese navy. There were no video cameras, no satellites, no social media, and no internet whereby everyone was monitored and ordinary people could become celebrities overnight. Sinister forces became the status quo and opposing the status quo became very dangerous. President Eisenhower saw these forces coming to power in the world and he warned President Kennedy about them. President Kennedy, a genuine war hero, and a man of courage and determination took those warnings to heart and tried to oppose the forces that were fast becoming the status quo. He died for his efforts and even though it's been 62 years future leaders have all understood that you oppose the status quo at your own risk. JFK's brother Robert, who was most likely our next president, opposed those same forces and was determined to punish those who murdered his brother. The same year gave us Martin Luther King who also opposed the status quo and a man who argued for peace abroad and racial reckoning at home. Those three men met the same fate at the hands of a lone nut or so we are told. Hardly anyone today believes the demonstrably stupid explanations of their murders but at the time we still had some tiny amount of faith that our leaders might tell the truth occasionally but today, of course, we know better. Recently, in one of his Liberty Reports, Ron Paul, age 90 gave a pretty good explanation as he addressed the assassination of Charlie Kirk. “The turbulent 1960's saw several killings of major US figures, including JFK, RFK, and Martin Luther King, who were challenging the status quo and pushing for a shift away from the Cold War confrontationist mentality. The real assassins of these peace leaders from last century were Nihilists who did not believe in truth. They only believed in power—the power that comes from the barrel of a gun. Rather than compete in the marketplace of ideas they preferred to snuff out any challenges and therefore decapitate any possibility that our country could take a different course.” There were many other assassinations, of course, during that same time period. Those of us who lived through it wondered what had become of us but then as usual it got worse. A couple of others worth mentioning were John Lennon, influential man obviously who talked often about peace and voiced opposition to America's wars. He was killed outside his Manhattan apartment by Mark David Chapman. John Hinckley, connected distantly to the Bush family, tried to assassinate Ronald Reagan who was in the process of peace with our worst enemy, the Soviet Union. I forgot to mention Richard Nixon who was ending the Vietnam War and who opened trade with China. The nation had just experienced several high-profile political murders so killing him might have aroused even the insouciant Americans' ire. Nixon didn't have to be assassinated because we had people who could false flag him and politically assassinate him. I mention all this history of death and destruction to present recent history as a massive psychological warfare experiment on the American people.

Operaspymaster you may ask? Read on and listen to this episode. In this powerful and multifaceted episode of Unstoppable Mindset, we welcome Kay Sparling, former opera singer, PTSD survivor, and now debut novelist—as she shares her incredible life journey from international stages to the shadowy world of espionage fiction. Kay talks about the creation of her first novel, Mission Thaw, a gripping spy thriller based on her own real-life experiences volunteering with refugees in post-Cold War Europe. Kay and Michael discuss the inspiration behind her protagonist, CIA agent Caitlin Stewart, and how real-world trauma and service led Kay to use fiction as both a vehicle for healing and a call to action on the modern crisis of human trafficking. This is a conversation that transcends genres—music, espionage, activism, and resilience—all converging through the unstoppable spirit of a woman who refuses to stay silent. About the Guest: Kay Sparling was raised in the Midwest. At the age of seven, she began her professional singing career as Gretl in “The Sound of Music” and she continued to perform through high school. After graduation Kay attended University of Kansas and earned a BME in music education and a minor in Vocal Performance. She then attended graduate school in opera voice performance for one year at UMKC Conservatory of Music. She was awarded a grant to finish my graduate studies in Vienna, Austria. From there she won an apprenticeship at the Vienna State Opera. After moving to NYC to complete her second apprenticeship, Kay lived in Germany, Austria, and Italy for many years. In 1999 Kay returned to NYC and continued singing opera and became a cantor for the NYC diocese. After 9/11, she served as a cantor at many of the funeral and memorial masses for the fallen first responders. In 2003, Kay moved from NYC to the upper Midwest and started a conservatory of Music and Theatre where her voice students have been awarded numerous prestigious scholarships and won many competitions. In 2020, the pandemic shut down her conservatory, so she began training to be a legal assistant and now works in workers compensation. Back in 2013, Kay had started writing a journal as a PTSD treatment. She was encouraged to extend the material into a novel. After much training and several drafts, Mission Thaw was published in 2024. Kay is currently writing the second book in the Kaitlyn Stewart Spy Thriller Series. Ways to connect with Kay: Website: https://www.kaysparlingbooks.com X: https://x.com/MissionThaw/missionthaw/ Bluesky: https://bsky.app/profile/missionthaw.bsky.social Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/groups/505674375416879 Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/kay-sparling-8516b638/ Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/missionthaw/ Litsy: https://www.litsy.com/web/user/Mission%20Thaw About the Host: Michael Hingson is a New York Times best-selling author, international lecturer, and Chief Vision Officer for accessiBe. Michael, blind since birth, survived the 9/11 attacks with the help of his guide dog Roselle. This story is the subject of his best-selling book, Thunder Dog. Michael gives over 100 presentations around the world each year speaking to influential groups such as Exxon Mobile, AT&T, Federal Express, Scripps College, Rutgers University, Children's Hospital, and the American Red Cross just to name a few. He is Ambassador for the National Braille Literacy Campaign for the National Federation of the Blind and also serves as Ambassador for the American Humane Association's 2012 Hero Dog Awards. https://michaelhingson.com https://www.facebook.com/michael.hingson.author.speaker/ https://twitter.com/mhingson https://www.youtube.com/user/mhingson https://www.linkedin.com/in/michaelhingson/ accessiBe Links https://accessibe.com/ https://www.youtube.com/c/accessiBe https://www.linkedin.com/company/accessibe/mycompany/ https://www.facebook.com/accessibe/ Thanks for listening! Thanks so much for listening to our podcast! If you enjoyed this episode and think that others could benefit from listening, please share it using the social media buttons on this page. Do you have some feedback or questions about this episode? Leave a comment in the section below! Subscribe to the podcast If you would like to get automatic updates of new podcast episodes, you can subscribe to the podcast on Apple Podcasts or Stitcher. You can subscribe in your favorite podcast app. You can also support our podcast through our tip jar https://tips.pinecast.com/jar/unstoppable-mindset . Leave us an Apple Podcasts review Ratings and reviews from our listeners are extremely valuable to us and greatly appreciated. They help our podcast rank higher on Apple Podcasts, which exposes our show to more awesome listeners like you. If you have a minute, please leave an honest review on Apple Podcasts. Transcription Notes: Michael Hingson ** 00:00 Access Cast and accessiBe Initiative presents Unstoppable Mindset. The podcast where inclusion, diversity and the unexpected meet. Hi, I'm Michael Hingson, Chief Vision Officer for accessiBe and the author of the number one New York Times bestselling book, Thunder dog, the story of a blind man, his guide dog and the triumph of trust. Thanks for joining me on my podcast as we explore our own blinding fears of inclusion unacceptance and our resistance to change. We will discover the idea that no matter the situation, or the people we encounter, our own fears, and prejudices often are our strongest barriers to moving forward. The unstoppable mindset podcast is sponsored by accessiBe, that's a c c e s s i capital B e. Visit www.accessibe.com to learn how you can make your website accessible for persons with disabilities. And to help make the internet fully inclusive by the year 2025. Glad you dropped by we're happy to meet you and to have you here with us.   Michael Hingson ** 01:16 Well, hi everyone. Welcome to another episode of unstoppable mindset. I'm your host, Mike hingson, and our guest today is a very fascinating individual. I was just teasing her a little bit about her email address, which is operaspy master@gmail.com I'm telling you, don't cross her. That's all I gotta say. Anyway, we'll, we'll get into all of that. But I really am glad that she is with us. Kay Sparling is a fascinating woman who's had an interesting career. She's written, she's done a number of things. She's used to be an opera, gosh, all sorts of stuff. So anyway, we'll get to all of it and we'll talk about it. I don't want to give it all away. Where would the fun in that be? Kay, welcome to unstoppable mindset.   Kay Sparling ** 02:11 Well, thank you. I'm glad to be here. Well,   Michael Hingson ** 02:13 we're glad you're here. You're from up in Wisconsin. We were going to do this a couple of weeks ago, but you had all the storms, and it stole your internet and your power away, didn't   Kay Sparling ** 02:23 it? It sure did. Yeah, that was a terrible storm we had.   Michael Hingson ** 02:28 Yeah, that's kind of no fun. I remember years ago, I was talking to somebody on the phone. We were doing a sales call, and he said, I might not be able to stay on the phone because we're having a really serious storm, and he said it is possible that the lightning could hit the phone lines, and if it does, it could come in the house. And we talked for a few minutes, and then he said, I'm going to have to hang up, because I just felt a small shock, because the lightning obviously hit the phone line, so we'll have to talk later. And and he was gone. And we did talk later, though he was okay, but still, wow, yeah, there's a lot of crazy weather going on, isn't there? And we were just talking about the, we were just talking about the Canadian wildfires. They're No fun.   Kay Sparling ** 03:15 No, no. Just everywhere is having crazy weather.   Michael Hingson ** 03:20 Well, tell us a little bit about you growing up and all that sort of stuff, and telling me about the the early K   Kay Sparling ** 03:32 Well, growing up, I grew up in a farm community in the in the central Midwest, just you know, right in the middle of the bread basket, you might say, not near where you are now. No no, no further south and in very much agriculture time, I mean skipping ahead. I remember talking to a famous opera conductor when I was an apprentice, and I made some reference, and he goes, Well, how would you know that? And I said, because I grew up on a farm. And he went, Oh, get out here. Nobody makes it, you know, to a major European opera house from a farm. And I went, Well, I did. And later, I asked my mom to send me a picture, because we had had an aerial view taken of our homestead, and it was obvious for miles, all the way around the house and the barn and all, it was just corn fields and soybeans. You know what they showed   Michael Hingson ** 04:40 Illinois, Illinois, and so you showed it to him, yeah,   Kay Sparling ** 04:44 I showed it to him, and he was like, well, doggone, you're not lying. Like, No, I wasn't kidding you. I really did.   Michael Hingson ** 04:51 It shows how good I really am. See how far I progressed.   Kay Sparling ** 04:55 Well, you know, I was one of these kids. I. At five years old, I my parents took me to see sound and music at the theater, and during the intermission. Now I'm five years old, it's pretty late for me, right? But when we're in the concession stand, I tug at my mom's skirt, and I say, Mom, that's what I want to do. And she looks at me kind of funny, and she's kind of funny, and she's kind of confused. Well, what do you want to do work in a theater? You know, a movie theater? No, no, I want to do what those kids are doing on that on the movie screen. And she was like, Well, honey, you know, that's that's really hard to get somewhere like that. So that was when I was five. And then when I was seven, she just, you know, the all the school and the church were telling her, this kid's got a great voice, and they kept giving me solos and stuff. And so when I was seven, she put me in the Sangamon County Fair Little Miss competition. And of course, my talent was singing, so I just sang away. I really can't remember what I sang, but afterwards, a fellow came up to my parents and introduced himself, and he said that he was there, he had family, not, you know, in the area, and that he had grown up there, but since then, he he was in St Louis, and he said, we are, I'm a scout, and I'm looking, I'm an entertainment Scout, and I'm actually looking for, you know, the von trop children. We're going to do a big production, and we'd love to audition your daughter. Well, we were about, think it was an hour and a half away from St Louis, so my parents are like, wow, that'd be quite a commitment. But long story short, I did it, and that started my professional career. I was the youngest Bon Troy. You know, over cradle, yeah. And so it just went from there. And, you know, it was all Broadway, of course, and I did a lot of church singing, you know, it got to be by the time I was, you know, in high school, people were hiring me for weddings, funerals, all that kind of thing. And so I was a Broadway and sacred singer. Went to college. My parents said, you can't depend on a vocal performance degree. What if things don't work out? You have to have something fall back. So I went into vocal music ed at a very, very good school for that, and also music therapy, and, you know, continue being in their shows. And when I when I graduated, continued the Broadway, and one night I was also singing a little bit of jazz in Kansas City, where I was living, someone approached me. She was a voice teacher at the conservatory there, and that conservatory had an apprenticeship with the Kansas City Lyric Opera. And she said I knew you was an undergrad. My husband works where you, where you went to school, and I have been watching you for a long time. And I wish you quit this nonsense of singing Broadway and jazz and rock and everything and get serious, you know, and try opera. So I thought she was crazy to bring that up, but it wasn't the first time it had been brought up. So I have been teaching for a year, and at the end of that school year, I announced everyone I was going to graduate school and I was going to study opera. And so   Michael Hingson ** 08:55 what were you teaching?   Kay Sparling ** 08:57 I was teaching high school choir, okay, at a very big high school, very, very good choir department.   Michael Hingson ** 09:03 Now, by the way, after doing Gretel, did you ever have any other parts as you grew older in Sound of Music?   Kay Sparling ** 09:11 Okay, that's a very cool question. I am one of the few people that I know that can say I have sang every major role in Sound of Music sometime in my life. Ah, okay, because it was so popular when I was Oh, yeah. And as I would grow older, well now you're going to sing, you know, you just kept graduating up. And then pretty soon I sang quite a few Marias. And then after I was an opera singer. During covid, I was asked to sing Mother Superior. Mother Superior. Yeah, literally, have sung, you know, in a decades long career, I've sung every role in Sound of Music.   Michael Hingson ** 09:56 Cool. Well, that's great.   10:00 Yeah, so, so, anyway, so   Michael Hingson ** 10:02 you said that you were going to go study opera,   Kay Sparling ** 10:07 and I did a graduate school, and then I got the chance to get an international grant over to Europe, and so I decided to not finish my masters at that time and go over there and finish it, and most of all, importantly, do my first apprenticeship in Europe. And so I thought that was a great opportunity. They were willing. They were going to willing to pay for everything. And I said I would be a fool to turn this down. Yeah, so off I went, and that's kind of the rest of the story. You know, got a lot of great training, left Europe for a while, moved to New York City, trained best coaches and teachers in the world at the Metropolitan Opera and then, you know, launch my career.   Michael Hingson ** 11:04 So you Wow, you, you've done a number of things, of course, going to Europe and being in Vienna and places like that. Certainly you were in the the right place.   Kay Sparling ** 11:16 Yes, yes, definitely. You know, at that time in the in the middle 80s, United States was we had some great opera houses Iran, but we had very few. And it just wasn't the culture that it was in Europe, in Europe. And so, yes, there was a lot more opportunity there, because there was such a culture established there already.   Michael Hingson ** 11:44 So you went off and you did Europe and saying opera, what were you a soprano? Or what were you that sounds like a way a little high for your voice?   Kay Sparling ** 11:59 Well, you have to remember, I'm a senior citizen now. So this is the way it worked for me, because we're talking decades from the age 27 and I quit singing at 63 so that's a very long time to sing opera. So I started out, as you know, there is a voice kind of category, and each one of those, we use a German word for that. It's called Foch, F, A, C, H, and you know, that is determined by the kind of vocal cords you have, and the kind of training and the literature you're singing, and hopefully that all meshes together if you have good coaches and a good agent and such. And I literally have seen so many different Fox lyric, lyric mezzo, then to, very shortly, lyric soprano, and then for a long time, spinto soprano, which would be the Puccini and a lot of them really popular things. And then I was, I felt I was quite lucky that my voice did have the strength and did mature into a Verdi soprano, which is a dramatic soprano, not many of those around. And so that was, that was an endeavor, but at the same time, that was a leg up. And so most of the time in my career, I sang the bigger Puccini, like, let's say Tosca, and I sang a lot of Verdi. So I was an Italian opera singer. I mostly sang in Italian, not to say that I didn't sing in German or French, but I did very little in comparison to the   Michael Hingson ** 13:56 Italian Well, there's a lot of good Italian opera out there, although mostly I don't understand it, but I don't speak Italian well.   Kay Sparling ** 14:07 The great thing about most houses now is, you know, you can just look at the back of the seat in front of you, and there's the translation, you know, yeah, that   Michael Hingson ** 14:18 doesn't work for me. Being blind, that doesn't work for you. Yeah, that's okay, though, but I like the music, yeah. So how long ago did you quit singing?   Kay Sparling ** 14:32 Um, just about, well, under, just a little under three years ago, okay?   Michael Hingson ** 14:38 And why did you quit? This was the right time,   Kay Sparling ** 14:42 senses or what I had a circumstance, I had to have throat surgery. Now it wasn't on my vocal cords, but it was on my thyroid, and unfortunately, the vocal cord nerve. They had to take out some Cyst On. My right thyroid, and then remove it too. And unfortunately, my vocal cords were damaged at that time, I would have probably be singing still now some you know, I mean, because dramatic sopranos just can go on and on and on. One of my mentors was Birgit Nielsen, famous singer from Sweden, and she was in my grandmother's generation, but she didn't, I went to work with her, and she demonstrated at 77 she could still pop out of high C. And I believe, I believe I would have been able to do that too, but you know, circumstances, you know, changed, but that's okay. Yeah, I had sung a long time, and at least I can speak. So I'm just very happy about that.   Michael Hingson ** 15:51 So when you did quit singing, what did you decide to go do? Or, or, How did, how did you progress from there?   Kay Sparling ** 16:01 Well, I had already made a transition where I had come in 2003 to the Midwest. I came back from New York City, where I lived many, many years, and I started a conservatory of music and acting, and then that kind of grew into a whole conservatory of music. So I was also a part time professor here in Wisconsin, and I taught voice, you know, one on one vocal lessons, so high school and college and graduate school, and so I had this huge studio. So when that happened, I wasn't getting to sing a whole lot, because I was much more focused on my students singing me at that point, especially the older ones, professional ones, and so, you know, I just kept teaching and and then I had started this book that I'm promoting now, and so that gave me more time to get that book finished   Michael Hingson ** 17:10 and published. What's the name of the book?   Kay Sparling ** 17:13 The book is called Mission, thaw.   Michael Hingson ** 17:16 Ah, okay, and what is it about   Kay Sparling ** 17:22 mission thaw is feminist spy thriller set at the very end of the Cold War in the late 80s, and the main protagonist is Caitlin Stewart, who it who has went over there to be an opera singer, and soon after she arrives, is intensely recruited by the CIA. They have a mission. They really, really need a prima donna Mozart soprano, which is what Caitlin was, and she had won a lot of competitions and won a grant to go over there, and so they had been vetting her in graduate school in the United States. And soon as she came to Europe, they they recruited her within a couple weeks of her being there, and she, of course, is totally blindsided by that. When they approach her, she had she she recognized that things were not exactly the way they should be, that people were following her, and she was trying to figure out who, are these people and why are they following me everywhere? Well, it ends up being young CIA agents, and so when the head chief and his, you know, the second chief, approach her, you know, she's not real happy, because she's already felt violated, like her privacy has been violated, and so she wasn't really too wonderful of listening to them and their needs. And so they just sort of apprehend her and and throw her in a car, in a tinted window Mercedes, and off they go to a park to talk to her, right? And so it's all like crazy movie to Caitlin. It's like, what is going on here? And, you know, she can tell they're all Americans, and they have dark suits on, even though it's very, very hot, and dark glasses, you know? So everything is just like a movie. And so when they approach her and tell her about what they need her to do, you know, and this would be in addition to the apprentice she is doing that, you know, she just gets up and says, I'm sorry I didn't come over and be in cloak and dagger. A, you know, ring, I'm getting out of here. And as she's walking away, the chief says, Well, what if you could help bring down the Berlin Wall? Well, now that stops her in her tracks, and she turns around. She goes, What are you kidding? I'm just a, you know, an opera apprentice from the Midwest grew up on a farm. What am I gonna do? Hit a high C and knock it down. I mean, what are you talking about?   Michael Hingson ** 20:28 Hey, Joshua, brought down the wealth of Jericho, after all. Well, yeah, some   Kay Sparling ** 20:34 later, someone tells her that, actually, but, but anyway, they say, well, sit down and we'll explain what we need you to do. And so the the initial job that Caitlin accepts and the CIA to be trained to do is what they call a high profile information gap. She has a wonderful personality. She's really pretty. She's very fashionable, so she can run with the jet set. And usually the jet set in Europe, the opera jet set is also where all the heads of states hang out, too. And at that time, the the Prime Minister was pretty much banking the Vienna State Opera where she was apprenticing. So he ends up being along with many other Western Austrian businessmen in a cartel of human trafficking. Who they are trafficking are all the the different citizens of the countries that USSR let go. You know, when you know just got to be too much. Remember how, oh yeah, we're going to let you go. Okay? And then they would just pull out. And there was no infrastructure. There was nothing. And these poor people didn't have jobs, they didn't have electricity. The Russian mafia was running in there trying to take, you know, take over. It was, it was chaos. And so these poor people were just packing up what they could to carry, and literally, sometimes walking or maybe taking a train into the first Western European country they could get to. And for a lot of them, just because the geographical area that was Austria. And so basically, the Austrians did not want these people, and they were being very unwelcoming and arresting a lot of them, and there was a lot of lot of bad behavior towards these refugees. And so the Catholic church, the Catholic Social Services, the Mennonite Relief Fund, the the UN and the Red Cross started building just tent after tent after tent on the edge of town for these people to stay at. And so the businessmen decide, well, we can traffic these people that have nothing over to the East Germans, who will promise them everything, but will give them nothing. But, you know, death camps, basically, just like in World War Two. So you have work camps, you have factories. They they don't feed these people correctly. They don't they don't give them anything that they promise to them in in the camps. And they say, Okay, be on this train at this time, this night. And then they stop somewhere in between Vienna and East Germany, in a very small train station in the middle of the Alps. And they have these large, you know, basic slave options. And unfortunately, the children in the older people get sent back to the camp because they don't need them or want them. So all the children get displaced from their families, as well as the senior citizens or anyone with a disability. And then, you know, the men and the women that can work are broken up as well, and they're sent to these, you know, they're bought by these owners of these factories and farms, and the beautiful women, of course, are sold to either an individual that's there in East German that just wants to have a sex aid, pretty much. Or even worse, they could be sold to an underground East Berlin men's club. And so terrible, terrible things happen to the women in particular, and the more that Caitlin learns. As she's being trained about what's happening, and she interviews a lot of these women, and she sees the results of what's happened, it, it, it really strengthens her and gives her courage. And that's a good thing, because as time goes through the mission, she ends up having to be much, much more than just a high profile social, you know, information gather. She ends up being a combat agent and so, but that that's in the mission as you read, that that happens gradually and so, what? What I think is really a good relationship in this story, is that the one that trains her, because this is actually both CIA and MI six are working on this, on this mission, thought and the director of the whole mission is an very seasoned mi six agent who everyone considers the best spy in the free world. And Ian Fleming himself this, this is true. Fact. Would go to this man and consult with him when he was writing a new book, to make sure you know that he was what he was saying is, Could this really happen? And that becomes that person, Clive Matthews become praying, Caitlyn, particularly when she has to start changing and, you know, defending herself. And possibly, you know,   Michael Hingson ** 26:38 so he becomes her teacher in   Kay Sparling ** 26:42 every way. Yes. So how   Michael Hingson ** 26:45 much? Gee, lots of questions. First of all, how much of the story is actually   Kay Sparling ** 26:50 true? All this story is true. The   Michael Hingson ** 26:53 whole mission is true. Yes, sir. And so how did you learn about this? What? What caused you to start to decide to write this story?   Kay Sparling ** 27:08 So some of these experiences are my own experiences. And so after I as an opera singer, decided to be a volunteer to help out these refugees. I witnessed a lot, and so many years later, I was being treated for PTSD because of what I'd witnessed there. And then a little bit later in Bosnia in the early 90s, and I was taking music therapy and art therapy, and my psychiatrist thought that it'd be a good idea if also I journaled, you know, the things that I saw. And so I started writing things, and then I turned it in, and they had a person that was an intern that was working with him, and both of them encouraged me. They said, wow, if, if there's more to say about this, you should write a book, cuz this is really, really, really good stuff. And so at one point I thought, Well, why not? I will try. So this book is exactly what happened Caitlin, you know, is a real person, and everyone in the book is real. Of course, I changed the names to protect people and their descriptions, but I, you know, I just interviewed a lot of spies that were involved. So, yes, this is a true story.   Michael Hingson ** 29:06 Did you do most of this? Then, after your singing career, were you writing while the career, while you were singing?   Kay Sparling ** 29:13 I was writing while I was still singing. Yeah, I started the book in 2015 Okay, and because, as I was taking the PTSD treatment and had to put it on the shelf several times, life got in the way. I got my my teaching career just really took off. And then I was still singing quite a bit. And then on top of it, everything kind of ceased in 2018 when my mother moved in with me and she was diagnosed with Alzheimer's, but Louie body Alzheimer's, which is a very, very rough time, and so I became one of her caretakers. So I quit singing, put that on hold, and I. I had to really, really bring down the number in my studio I was teaching and spend time here at home. And so I would take care of her, but then after she would go to bed, and she'd go to bed much earlier than I wanted to, that's when I write, and that's when I got the lion's share of this book written. Was during that time, it was a great escape from what I was dealing with, believe it or not, you know, even though there's some real graphic things in the book and all it wasn't, it was a nice distraction.   Michael Hingson ** 30:36 Wow, so you, you lived this, needless to say,   Kay Sparling ** 30:41 Yes, I did, and yes.   Michael Hingson ** 30:45 So you've talked a little bit about what happened to these countries after the collapse of the USSR and communism and so on, these eastern companies, companies, countries. Has it changed much over the years.   Kay Sparling ** 31:03 Oh, yeah, for instance, one, you know, I went to Budapest after they were freed, I guess is what usr would say. Stayed in a five star hotel, and we were lucky if we had running water and electricity at the same time. And every time you went down on the streets, all you'd see is lines, you know, I mean, just because there'd be all like, Red Cross, etc, would be there, and they'd have these big trucks they drove in every day, and it just got to be because they had nothing. If you saw a truck, you'd start running towards it and get in line. You didn't care what it was, you know, and it was. And then fights would break out because they wouldn't have enough for everyone. And then, like, you know, maybe someone's walking away with a bag of rice, and some of us knock them over the head and take, you know, and it was very hard, you know, I was a volunteer there, and it was very, very hard to see this, you know, desperation, one story that I'd like to tell, and I put it in the book. I was riding my bike, you know, on a Friday afternoon to get some groceries at the nearest supermarket where my apartment was, and at that time, they still had the European hours, so they were going to close at five o'clock, and they weren't going to open until seven or eight on Monday morning. So you had to make sure you got there to get your weekend supply. So I was on my way, and I was parking my bike, and this woman, refugee woman, runs up and she has two small children with her, and she's carrying a baby, and she's speaking to me in a language I did not know. I do speak several languages, but I don't know Slavic languages and so, but I'm getting the gist of it that she has nothing to eat, neither do her children, and so I'm patting her on the shoulder, and right when I do that, a policeman that was guarding the door of the supermarket came up to me and, like, grabbed me really hard, and told me in German that I was not To speak to them, and I was not to help them, because if you help them, they'll stay. And I said to him in German, I'm an American. I am not Austrian. I am here on a work visa, and I can do whatever the hell I want to do. Well, he didn't like that. And so I just walked away from him, and I went in the store. And so I got up everything I get. Think of the big need, you know, I never had a baby, so I was trying to kind of figure that out, yeah, and I had to figure it out in German, you know, looking at labels now. And so finally I got, I got some stuff, you know, the stuff I needed, and, and, and the stuff that I got for the family, and I checked out, and I'm pushing the cart, you know, towards them. And he runs up beside me and stops me, and he says, I am going to arrest you if you bring that. I told you not to help them. And I said, again, I don't think I'm breaking any laws. And he said, Oh yes, you are. And I said, Well, I didn't read that in the papers. I didn't see it on TV where anyone said. That you cannot help a refugee. And so we're going back and forth. And so, you know, I'm pretty strong, so I just keep pushing it towards it. Well, she's kind of running down the park, and I'm like, wait, wait, you know, because she's getting scared of this guy, you know, he has a gun, he has a nightstick. Of course, she's scared, and so, you know, I would say, No, no, it's okay, because I can't speak for language, right? And so I'm just trying to give her body language and talk. Well, finally she does stop, and I just throw I give the one sack to the little boy, and one second little girl, they just run and and then, you know, I'm talking to her and saying, you know, it's okay, it's okay. And he grabs me, and he turns me around and he spits in my face.   Michael Hingson ** 35:53 Wow. Talk about breaking the law. But anyway, go ahead.   Kay Sparling ** 36:00 Welcome to Austria in the late 80s. You have to understand their Prime Minister Kurt voltheim won on the Nazi ticket. Mm, hmm. At that very time, if you got on a bus and you saw these businessmen going to work, at least 50% of them were reading the Nazi paper. Okay, so we kind of know what, where his affiliations lie. You know, this policeman and, you know, and I was very aware, you know, of of that party being very strong. And so you have to watch yourself when, when you're a foreigner. And I was a foreigner too, just like her. And so after wiping my face, I mean, I really, really wanted to give him a kick or something, yeah, and I do, I do know martial arts, but I was like, no, no, gotta stay cool. And I just told her to run. And she did and caught up with the children, and, you know, kept running. So that was the first experience I had knowing how unwelcome these people were in Austria. Yeah, so I got involved, yeah, I got involved because I was like, this is absolutely not right.   Michael Hingson ** 37:31 And so the book is, in part, to try to bring awareness to all that. I would think   Kay Sparling ** 37:36 absolutely there are, there are bits of it are, they're pretty darn graphic, but it's all true, and it's all documented. Sometimes people about human trafficking, they think, oh, it's not in my backyard. I'm not going to think about that. Well, I live in a very small college town, around 17,000 people, and two months ago, on the front page of this small paper here in town, there were seven men that were arrested for many counts of human trafficking of underage women and prostitution. So guess what, folks, it is in your backyard. If it's in this little town, it's probably in yours too. And we have to be aware before we can do anything. So we have to open our eyes. And I hope this book opens the eyes of the reader to say, Oh, my God, I knew things were bad, but I didn't realize that torture, this kind of thing went on. Well, it does, and I the International Labor Union estimates that 21 million people are being you. You are victims of human trafficking right now, as we speak, throughout the world, that's a lot of people, a lot of people. So most likely, we've all seen some hint of that going on, it didn't register as it at the time. You know, if you're just walked out of a restaurant, and you're walking to your car that's parked on the street, and you happen to go by an alley and there's restaurants on that row, and all of a sudden you see people being kind of shoved out and put in a truck. That's probably human trafficking, you know? And you know, a lot of people don't pay attention, but like, if they stop and think that doesn't look right, and if those people look like they may be from another country, yeah. And all you have to do is call the authorities, you know, and other ways that you can help are by you know, that that you can get involved. Are, you know, donate to all the different organizations that are finding this now.   Michael Hingson ** 40:19 Was the book self published, or do you have a publisher?   Kay Sparling ** 40:25 I self published, but it's more of a hybrid publishing company that's kind of a new thing that's going on, and so I cannot learn all those different facets of publishing a book, right? It just wasn't in my, you know, skill set, and it also wasn't even interesting to me. I don't want to learn how to do graphic illustration. Okay? So what I did is I hired a hybrid company that had all these different departments that dealt with this, and I had complete artistic control, and I was able to negotiate a great deal on my net profits. So I feel that, after looking into the traditional publishing world and not being exactly pleased with it to say the least, I think that was the right business choice for me to make, and I'm very happy I did it.   Michael Hingson ** 41:46 How do you market the book then?   Kay Sparling ** 41:48 Well, that was, that was the tricky part that that publisher did have some marketing they started, but obviously now they agreed it wasn't enough. So at that point, I attended a virtual women's publishing seminar, and I really paid attention to all the companies that were presenting about marketing. And in that time, I felt one that I just was totally drawn to, and so I asked her if we could have a consultation, and we did, and the rest is history. I did hire her team and a publicist, Mickey, who you probably know, and, yeah, it's been going really great. That was the second smart thing I did, was to, you know, hire, hire a publicity.   Michael Hingson ** 42:50 Well, yeah, and marketing is one is a is a tricky thing. It's not the most complicated thing in the world, but you do have to learn it, and you have to be disciplined. So good for you, for for finding someone to help, but you obviously recognize the need to market, which is extremely important, and traditional publishers don't do nearly as much of it as they used to. Of course, there are probably a lot more authors than there used to be too. But still,   Kay Sparling ** 43:19 yeah, their their marketing has changed completely. I remember I had a roommate that became a famous author, and just thinking about when he started, you know, in the 80s, how the industry is completely changed. Mm, hmm, you know. So, yeah, it's, it's really tricky. The whole thing is very tricky. One thing that I also did is one of my graduate students needed a job, and so I've known her since, literally, I've known her since eighth grade. I have been with this student a long time, and she's done very well, but she really is a wiz at the social media. And so she made all my accounts. I think I have 12 altogether, and every time I do something like what I'm doing tonight, soon as it's released, she just puts it out there, everywhere and and I have to thank her from again that that's probably not my skill set.   Michael Hingson ** 44:37 Well, everyone has gifts, right? And the the people who I think are the most successful are the people who recognize that they have gifts. There are other people that have gifts that will augment or enhance what they do. And it's good that you find ways to collaborate. I think collaborating is such an important thing. Oh, yeah. All too many people don't. They think that they can just do it all in and then some people can. I mean, I know that there are some people who can, but a lot of people don't and can't.   Kay Sparling ** 45:12 Well, I've got other things. I've got going, you know, so maybe if I only had to do the book, everything to do with the book, that would be one thing, but I, you know, I have other things I have to have in my life. And so I think that collaboration is also fun, and I'm very good at delegating. I have been very good at delegating for a long time. When I started my school. I also started a theater company, and if you know one thing, it's a three ring circus to produce an opera or a musical, and I've done a lot of them, and yeah, I would have not survived if I didn't learn how to delegate and trust people to do their own thing. So what are you   Michael Hingson ** 45:58 doing today? What are you doing today? Besides writing?   Kay Sparling ** 46:04 Well, during covid, everything got shut down, and I didn't have an income, and I had to do something. And one of, believe it or not, one of my parents, of one of my students, is an attorney for the state of Wisconsin, and she was very worried. I mean, it looked like I might lose my house. I mean, I literally had no income. And so, you know, I was a small business person, and so she offered me very graciously to come work in the department of workers compensation in the legal Bureau at the state of Wisconsin. So I never have done anything like that in my life. I have never sat in a cubicle. I've never sat in front of a computer unless it was in its recording studio or something like that. So it was a crazy thing to have to do in my early 60s, but I'm a single woman, and I had to do it, and and I did, and it put me on solid ground, and that was one reason I couldn't finish the book, because I didn't have to worry about a live cookie. And so I am continuing to do that in so as in the day, that is what I do. I'm a legal assistant, cool.   Michael Hingson ** 47:32 And so when did mission thought get published?   Kay Sparling ** 47:38 Mission thought almost a year ago, in August of 2024 it launched, yes, okay, yeah. And it was very scary for me, you know, because my hybrid publishers up in Canada, and they were telling me, Well, you know, we're going to get you some editorial reviews and we're going to have you be interviewed. And you know, those very first things where my editor at at the publisher had told me it was one of the really a good book, and that was one of the cleanest books she ever had to edit. And so that kind of gave me some confidence. But you understand, look at my background. I I didn't go to school to be a writer. I had never studied writing. I hadn't done any writing up until now, and so to that was my first kind of sigh of relief when the editor at the publisher said it was really a good book, and then I started getting the editorial reviews, and they were all stellar, and they continue to be. And I'm, I'm still a little shocked, you know, because it takes time, I guess, for a person to switch gears and identify themselves as an author. But you know, after a year now, I'm feeling much more comfortable in my shoes about that. But at first it was, it was trying because I was scared and I was worried, you know, what people were going to think about the book, not the story, so much as how it was crafted. But it ends up, well,   Michael Hingson ** 49:15 it ends up being part of the same thing, and yeah, the very fact that they love it that that means a lot. Yeah, so is, is there more in the way of adventures from Caitlin coming up or what's happening?   Kay Sparling ** 49:30 Yeah, this is hopefully a trilogy, um of Caitlin's most important standout missions. And so the second one is set in the early 90s during the Bosnian war. And this time, she cannot use opera as a cover, because obviously in a war zone, there's no opera. And so she has to. To go undercover as either a un volunteer or Red Cross, and this time, her sidekick is not the Clive Matthews. He has actually started a special squad, combat squad that's going in because, of course, we, none of us, were really involved with that war, right? But that's what he's doing. And so, believe it or not, her, her sidekick, so to speak, is a priest that very early, goes on and sees, you know, this absolute ethnic cleansing going on, you know, massacres and and he tries to get the Catholic Church to help, and they're like, no, no, we're not touching that. And so he goes AWOL. And had been friends in Vienna with the CIA during the first book. He goes to the CIA and says, This is what's going on. I saw it with my own eyes. I want to help. And so he becomes Caitlin's sidekick, which is a very interesting relationship. You know, Caitlin, the opera singer, kind of, kind of modern girl, you know, and then you know, the kind of staunch priest. But they find a way to work together, and they have to, because they have to save each other's lives a couple times. And this is my favorite book of the three. And so basically what happens is called Mission impromptu, and I hope to have that finished at the end of this month. And the reason we call it impromptu is because her chief tells her to just get the information and get out, but her and the priest find out that there is a camp of orphaned boys that they are planning to come massacre, and so they they they basically go rogue and don't follow orders and go try to help the boys. Yeah. And then the third book, she has actually moved back to New York, and she's thinking, well, she does retire from the CIA, and it's the summer of 2001 and what happened in September of 2001 911 and so they call her right back in she literally had been retired for about three months.   Michael Hingson ** 52:35 Well, to my knowledge, I never met Caitlin, so I'm just saying Mm hmm, having been in the World Trade Center on September 11, but I don't think I met Caitlin anyway.   Kay Sparling ** 52:43 Go ahead. No, she wasn't in the towers, but no, I was in New York. And yeah, so they called her back right away. And so the third one is going to be called Mission home front, because that's been her home for a very long time. She's been living in New York.   Michael Hingson ** 53:01 Are there plans for Caitlin beyond these three books? I hope so.   Kay Sparling ** 53:08 I think it would be fun for her to retire from the CIA and then move back to the Midwest. And, you know, it turned into a complete fiction. Of course, this is not true stuff, but, you know, like kind of a cozy mystery series, right, where things happen and people can't get anyone to really investigate it, so they come to Caitlin, and then maybe her ex boss, you know, the chief that's also retired, they kind of, you know, gang up and become pi type, you know, right? I'm thinking that might be a fun thing.   Michael Hingson ** 53:46 Now, are mostly books two and three in the mission series. Are they also relatively non fiction?   53:53 Yes, okay,   Michael Hingson ** 53:57 okay, cool, yes. Well, you know, it's, it's pretty fascinating to to hear all of this and to to see it, to hear about it from you, but to see it coming together, that is, that is really pretty cool to you know, to see you experiencing have the book, has mission thought been converted by any chance to audio? Is it available on Audible or   Kay Sparling ** 54:21 anywhere it has not but it is in my plans. It's there's a little bit of choice I have to make do. I use my publisher and hire one of their readers you know to do it, someone you know, that's in equity, that type of thing. Or you know, my publicity, or people are also saying, well, because you're an actor, and, you know, all these accents, it might be nice for you to do to read your own book. Well, the problem is time, you know, just the time to do it, because I'm so busy promoting the book right now. And really. Right writing the second one that you know, I just don't know if I'm going to be able to pull that off, but I have my own records, recording studio in my voice studio downstairs, but it's just and I have all the equipment I have engineers. It's just a matter of me being able to take the time to practice and to get that done. So it's probably going to be, I'll just use their, one of their people, but yes, yeah, it's coming. It's coming. Well, it's,   Michael Hingson ** 55:29 it's tough. I know when we published last year, live like a guide dog, and the publisher, we did it through a traditional publisher, they worked with dreamscape to create an audio version. And I actually auditioned remotely several authors and chose one. But it is hard to really find someone to read the book the way you want it read, because you know what it's like, and so there is merit to you taking the time to read it. But still, as you said, there are a lot of things going on,   Kay Sparling ** 56:09 yeah, and I have read, you know, certain portions of the book, because some podcasts that I've been on asked me to do that, and I and I practiced and that, it went very well. And of course, when people hear that, they're like, Oh, you're the one that has to do this. You know Caitlin. You can speak her, you know her attitudes and all. And then you also know how to throw all those different accents out there, because there's going to be, like, several, there's Dutch, there's German, there's Scottish, high British and Austrian. I mean, yeah, yeah, Austrians speak different than Germans. Mm, hmm,   Michael Hingson ** 56:53 yeah, it's it's a challenge, but it's still something worth considering, because you're going to bring a dimension to it that no one else really can because you wrote it and you really know what you want them to sound like, Yeah, but it's a it's a process. I and I appreciate that, but you've got lots going on, and you have to have an income. I know for me, we started live like a guide dog my latest book when the pandemic began, because I realized that although I had talked about getting out of the World Trade Center and doing so without exhibiting fear, didn't mean that it wasn't there, but I realized that I had learned to control fear, because I learned a lot that I was able to put to use on the Day of the emergency. And so the result of that was that, in fact, the mindset kicked in and I was able to function, but I never taught anyone how to do that. And so the intent of live like a guide dog was to be a way that people could learn how to control fear and not let fear overwhelm or, as I put it, blind them, but rather use fear as a very powerful tool to help you focus and do the things that you really need to do. But it's a choice. People have to learn that they can make that choice and they can control it, which is kind of what really brought the book to to mind. And the result was that we then, then did it. And so it came out last August as well.   Kay Sparling ** 58:27 Oh, well, if you read my book, you'll see Caitlin developing the same skills you were just talking about. She has to overcome fear all the time, because she's never been in these situations before, and yet she has to survive, you know?   Michael Hingson ** 58:44 Yeah, well, and the reality is that most of us take too many things for granted and don't really learn. But if you learn, for example, if there's an emergency, do you know where to go in the case of an emergency? Do you know how to evacuate, not by reading the signs? Do you know? And that's the difference, the people who know have a mindset that will help them be a lot more likely to be able to survive, because they know what all the options are, and if there's a way to get out, they know what they are, rather than relying on signs, which may or may not even be available to you if you're in a smoke filled environment, for example, yeah,   Kay Sparling ** 59:22 yeah, you should know ahead of time. Yeah, you know, I know the state where I work. I I mostly work at home. I'm able to do that, but we do have to go in once a week, and we just changed floors. They've been doing a lot of remodeling, and that was the first thing, you know, the supervisor wanted us to do was walk through all the way for a tornado, fire, etc, and so we did that, you know, and that's smart, because then you're like, you say you're not trying to look at a chart as you're running or whatever,   Michael Hingson ** 59:56 and you may need to do it more than once to make sure you really know it. I know for me. I spent a lot of time walking around the World Trade Center. In fact, I didn't even use my guide dog. I used a cane, because with a cane, I'll find things that the dog would just automatically go around or ignore, like kiosks and other things. But I want to know where all that stuff is, because I want to know what all the shops are down on the first floor. Well, now that that is the case anymore, but it was at the time there was a shopping mall and knowing where everything was, but also knowing where different offices were, knowing who was in which offices, and then knowing the really important things that most people don't know about, like where the Estee Lauder second store was on the 46th floor of tower two. You know, you got to have the important things for wives, and so I learned what that was. Well, it was, it was, those are important things, but you'll learn a lot, and it's real knowledge. Someone, a recent podcast episode that they were on, said something very interesting, and that is that we're always getting information, but information isn't knowing it. Knowledge is really internalizing the information and making it part of our psyche and really getting us to the point where we truly know it and can put it to use. And that is so true. It isn't just getting information. Well, that's great. I know that now, well, no, you don't necessarily know it now, until you internalize it, until you truly make it part of your knowledge. And I think that's something that a lot of people miss. Well, this has been a lot of fun. If people want to reach out to you, is there a way they can do that?   Kay Sparling ** 1:01:40 Yeah, the best thing is my book website, K, Sparling books.com spelled and it would K, a, y, s, p, as in Paul, A, R, L, I N, G, B, O, O, K, s.com.com, okay, and you can email me through there. And all the media that I've been on is in the media section. The editorial reviews are there. There's another thing that my student heats up for me is the website. It's it's really developed. And so lots of information about the book and about me on on there. And one thing I want to mention is, just because of my background and all the all the people that you know, I know, a friend of mine is a composer, and he wrote a song, a theme song, because we do hope that someday we can sell this, you know, yeah, to for movie and, or, you know, Netflix, or something like that. And so he wrote a theme song and theme music. And I just think that's fun. And then I wanted my students saying, saying it. And then, you know, it's with a rock band, but it's, it's very James Bond, the kind of with a little opera, you know, involved too. But, you know, not a lot of authors can say that on their website, they have a theme song for their books.   Michael Hingson ** 1:03:16 And where is   Kay Sparling ** 1:03:18 it? It would be under, it's going to be about the author. And there's a nice one of my other students is a graphic artist. She She did a graphic a scene of Caitlin with her ball gown, and she's got her foot up on a stool, and she's putting her pistol in her thigh holster, in I think, you know, it's kind of like a cartoon, and it quotes Caitlin saying, I bet you I'm going to be the only bell at the ball with this accessory pistol. And then right underneath that, that song, you can click it and hear it. We also are on YouTube mission. Thought does have its own YouTube channel, so you can find it there as well.   Michael Hingson ** 1:04:05 So well, I want to thank you for being here and for telling us all the stories and especially about mission. I hope people will get it and read it, and I look forward to it coming out in audio at some point. Yes, I'll be lazy and wait for that, I I like to to get books with human readers. You know, I can get the print book and I can play it with a synthetic voice, but I, I really prefer human voices. And I know a lot of people who do AI has not progressed to the point where it really can pull that off.   Kay Sparling ** 1:04:38 Well, no, it cannot. Yeah, I totally agree with you there.   Michael Hingson ** 1:04:42 So Well, thank you for being here, and I want to thank all of you for listening and watching us today. This has been fun. And as some of you know, if you listen to many of these podcasts, we have a rule on the podcast, you can't come on unless you're going to have fun. So we did have fun. We. You have fun? Yeah. See, there you go. I was gonna ask if you had fun. Of course, yes. So thank you all for listening. Love to hear from you. Love to hear what your thoughts are about today's episode. Feel free to email me at Michael H, i@accessibe.com that's m, I, C, H, A, E, L, H, I at accessibe, A, C, E, S, S, i, b, e.com, also, please give us a five star rating. We appreciate it. K, I'll appreciate it. And when this goes up, when you hear it, we really value those ratings and reviews very highly. If you know anyone else who ought to be a guest and KU as well, love to hear from you. Please introduce us. Kay, you'll have to introduce us to Caitlin, but But seriously, we always are looking for more guests. So if anyone knows of anyone who ought to come on and tell a story, we'd love to hear from you. But again, Kay, I want to thank you one last time. This has been great, and we really appreciate you being here.   Kay Sparling ** 1:05:59 Well, thank you for having me.   Michael Hingson ** 1:06:04 You have been listening to the Unstoppable Mindset podcast. Thanks for dropping by. I hope that you'll join us again next week, and in future weeks for upcoming episodes. To subscribe to our podcast and to learn about upcoming episodes, please visit www dot Michael hingson.com slash podcast. Michael Hingson is spelled m i c h a e l h i n g s o n. While you're on the site., please use the form there to recommend people who we ought to interview in upcoming editions of the show. And also, we ask you and urge you to invite your friends to join us in the future. If you know of any one or any organization needing a speaker for an event, please email me at speaker at Michael hingson.com. I appreciate it very much. To learn more about the concept of blinded by fear, please visit www dot Michael hingson.com forward slash blinded by fear and while you're there, feel free to pick up a copy of my free eBook entitled blinded by fear. The unstoppable mindset podcast is provided by access cast an initiative of accessiBe and is sponsored by accessiBe. Please visit www.accessibe.com . AccessiBe is spelled a c c e s s i b e. There you can learn all about how you can make your website inclusive for all persons with disabilities and how you can help make the internet fully inclusive by 2025. Thanks again for Listening. Please come back and visit us again next week.

We welcome veterans of the now-gone Army Security Agency, which was first created on September 15, 1945, in the immediate aftermath of World War II. ASA veterans John Peart and others will share their stories of service with this shadowy intelligence agency that played a critical role in the Cold War. The Army Security Agency (ASA) operated under the authority of the National Security Agency (NSA) and was tasked with intercepting, analyzing, and exploiting enemy communications. Its mission included codebreaking, electronic intelligence gathering, direction finding, and secure communications. The ASA played a central role during the early Cold War period, collecting intelligence on the Soviet Union and its allies. ASA units were composed of highly trained personnel, often fluent in foreign languages, skilled in radio operations, cryptography, and electronic surveillance. The ASA's role expanded during the Korean War and reached a peak of operational activity during the Vietnam War. ASA personnel were deployed across Southeast Asia, conducting covert and direct support operations for U.S. and allied forces. They established field stations and remote intercept sites near conflict zones and along the Ho Chi Minh Trail. Using direction-finding equipment and advanced signal processing tools, they intercepted enemy radio traffic, provided early warning of enemy movements, and monitored North Vietnamese and Viet Cong communications. Their intelligence was vital to strategic planning and tactical decision-making. One of the most significant and symbolic events involving the ASA during the Vietnam War was the death of Specialist 4 James T. Davis on December 22, 1961. Davis, part of the 3rd Radio Research Unit—the ASA cover name in Vietnam—was on a joint operation with South Vietnamese forces near Saigon when his convoy was ambushed. He and ten South Vietnamese soldiers were killed. Davis became the first American battlefield casualty of the Vietnam War recognized by the Department of Defense. His death marked a turning point, highlighting the increasing U.S. involvement in Vietnam and the dangerous nature of ASA missions in the field. The ASA compound at Tan Son Nhut Air Base was later named “Davis Station” in his honor. Throughout the Vietnam War, ASA personnel worked in close coordination with the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA), Air Force Security Service, and Navy intelligence units. Their work remained classified for decades. Despite the high-risk nature of their missions, ASA soldiers were generally non-combatants operating in a military intelligence capacity, though many saw combat or were exposed to hostile fire due to their proximity to enemy forces. The ASA continued its global intelligence operations through the 1970s but was eventually dissolved in 1977. Its functions were absorbed into the U.S. Army Intelligence and Security Command (INSCOM), consolidating Army intelligence efforts under a single command structure. Though no longer active, the ASA's legacy endures in the modern electronic warfare and signals intelligence capabilities of the U.S. Army. We're grateful to UPMC for Life  for sponsoring this event!

In this episode, Avis Kalfsbeek marks the final chapter of The Great Disfarmament—and the quiet rise of a different kind of power. As war tactics evolved from Cold War standoffs to post-9/11 surveillance and global contracting, the logic of control continued to infiltrate the land. Seeds were genetically modified, patented, and, in some cases, designed never to reproduce. Farmers were no longer growers but users—dependent on licensing, chemicals, and contracts. The soil was stripped. Sovereignty was sold. And the disfarmament, it seemed, was complete. Yet even as these systems tightened their grip, something ancient stirred beneath the surface. This episode honors the seed savers, the land listeners, and the quiet movements that began to push back. We meet Indigenous leader Winona LaDuke, whose work on food sovereignty and cultural memory reminds us that “food is medicine—not only for the body, but for the soul.” We also reflect through the lens of Braiding Sweetgrass by Robin Wall Kimmerer, who teaches that reciprocity, not ownership, defines our relationship with the earth. In a time of mechanized control, these voices call us to remember the seed not as a product, but as a promise. This is the story of regeneration and resistance— Of choosing ceremony over commodity, memory over monopoly, and kinship over control. Next, we begin Part II: The Great Disarmament.

I was traveling this week, so today is mostly sharing a podcast with Pedro Lopez, who created the remarkable series Gloria on Netflix. Regarding investments, I want to share a brief follow-up on last week's post about the impact of AI on labor. A fun fact: there are over 6 million jobs in the US tied to driving a vehicle of some sort, making up 5% of the workforce. While regulations and unions discourage this, many of these jobs could be replaced today by a computer, which would be both safer and cheaper. The consensus is that AI will only slowly impact the labor force. I suspect this is wrong and it will only become obvious after it has happened. A possible straw in the wind is that youth unemployment is higher in the US and China, the two countries at the forefront of AI application. I show both charts below.Source: Haver.I know anecdotally from college-age kids and their parents that it is hard to find work. This is certainly true in the US, Canada, and China. AI is particularly good at entry-level work. This is less evident in Europe, and it stands to reason that Europe's labor laws might make it harder to gut the IT department, creating a delayed effect and staving off the inevitable. Regarding the podcast, in addition to AI, we are living through a period of media creative destruction. The internet gave birth to Netflix and signaled the decline of the major television networks and film studios. Pedro created a story about another media revolution—Radio Free Europe in Portugal in 1968. The story takes place during the height of the Cold War and Portugal's own dictatorship and is full of fascinating contradictions. When I grew up in the 1970s, the odds of me consuming Pedro's art were close to zero. Now I don't know what airs on television but pass along good Netflix shows like precious currency in a new bazar. Enjoy.If you like this writing, you might enjoy one of my books:Raising a Thief, Master, Minion, The Uncomfortable Truth About MoneyThis document is strictly confidential and is intended for authorized recipients of “A Letter from Paul” (the “Letter”) only. It includes personal opinions that are current as of the date of this Letter and does not represent the official positions of Kate Capital LLC (“Kate Capital”). This letter is presented for discussion purposes only and is not intended as investment advice, an offer, or solicitation with respect to the purchase or sale of any security. Any unauthorized copying, disclosure, or distribution of the material in this presentation is strictly forbidden without the express written consent of Paul Podolsky or Kate Capital LLC.If an investment idea is discussed in the Letter, there is no guarantee that the investment objective will be achieved. Past performance is not indicative of future results, which may vary. Actual results may differ materially from those expressed or implied. Unless otherwise noted, the valuation of the specific investment opportunity contained within this presentation is based upon information and data available as of the date these materials were prepared.An investment with Kate Capital is speculative and involves significant risks, including the potential loss of all or a substantial portion of invested capital, the potential use of leverage, and the lack of liquidity of an investment. Recipients should not assume that securities or any companies identified in this presentation, or otherwise related to the information in this presentation, are, have been or will be, investments held by accounts managed by Kate Capital or that investments in any such securities have been or will be profitable. Please refer to the Private Placement Memorandum, and Kate Capital's Form ADV, available at www.advisorinfo.sec.gov, for important information about an investment with Kate Capital.Any companies identified herein in which Kate Capital is invested do not represent all of the investments made or recommended for any account managed by Kate Capital. Certain information presented herein has been supplied by third parties, including management or agents of the underlying portfolio company. While Kate Capital believes such information to be accurate, it has relied upon such third parties to provide accurate information and has not independently verified such information.The graphs, charts, and other visual aids are provided for informational purposes only. None of these graphs, charts, or visual aids can of themselves be used to make investment decisions. No representation is made that these will assist any person in making investment decisions and no graph, chart or other visual aid can capture all factors and variables required in making such decisions. This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit paulpodolsky.substack.com

Still Lives: Jewish Photography in Nazi Germany (U Pennsylvania Press, 2025) is a systematic study of the ways Jews used photographs to document their experiences in the face of National Socialism. In a time of intensifying anti-Jewish rhetoric and policies, German Jews documented their lives and their environment in tens of thousands of photographs. German Jews of considerably diverse backgrounds took and preserved these photographs: professional and amateurs, of different ages, gender, and classes. The book argues that their previously overlooked photographs convey otherwise unuttered views, emotions, and self-perceptions. Based on a database of more than fifteen thousand relevant images, it analyzes photographs within the historical contexts of their production, preservation, and intended viewing, and explores a plethora of Jews' reactions to the changing landscapes of post-1933 Germany. Ofer Ashkenazi is a Professor of History and the director of the Richard Koebner-Minerva Center for German History at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem. While on sabbatical, in 2025-2026 he is the Mosse Visiting Professor at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. He is the co-author of the recently published monograph Still Lives: Jewish Photography in Nazi Germany (2025) , as well as Anti-Heimat Cinema (2020); Weimar Film and Jewish Identity (2012); and Reason and Subjectivity in Weimar Cinema (2010). He edited volumes and published articles on various topics in German and German-Jewish history including Jewish youth movements in Germany; the German interwar anti-war movement; Cold War memory culture; Jewish migration from and to Germany; and German-Jewish visual culture. Rebekka Grossmann is Assistant Professor of Migration History at Leiden University. In her research, she explores the connections of visual culture, migration and politics with a special focus on Jewish history. Her dissertation, which will be published in 2026, investigates the role of the camera as agent, chronicler and critic of Jewish nation-building. In her new project, she looks at the entangled stories of the legacies of Jewish forced migration, post-war memory culture and peace activism through the lens of different artistic projects. Shira Miron is a PhD candidate at the Department of Germanic Languages and Literatures at Yale University. Her research explores aesthetics as a mode of investigation for human experience and social formation and studies the particularities of different artforms alongside their conceptual and practical cross-pollination. She pursues theoretical questions as they relate to history and culture and vice versa. Her dissertation project, Composition and Community: The Extra-Musical Imagination of Polyphony 1800/1900/1950, explores the advent of western polyphony as a modern aesthetic, communicative, and ethical phenomenon that extends beyond the field of music. Shira published on the relationship between music and literature, German-Jewish literature and culture, visual studies, theories of dialogue and communication, and on a wide range of authors including Novalis, Adorno, Kleist, and Gertrud Kolmar. Shira holds B.Mus. and M.Mus. degrees in piano performance from the Jerusalem Academy of Music and Dance and studied German literature at the Hebrew University in Jerusalem and at the Freie Universität Berlin. Currently, she is a DAAD research fellow at the Leibniz Center for Literary and Cultural Research (ZfL) in Berlin. Sarah Wobick-Segev is a research associate at the Institute for Jewish Studies at the University of Hamburg. Her research explores the multiple intersections of European-Jewish cultural and intellectual history with gender studies, everyday life history, and visual and religious studies. Her current project analyzes the religious writings of Jewish women in German-speaking Central Europe from the mid-19th to the mid-20th century. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/new-books-network

Still Lives: Jewish Photography in Nazi Germany (U Pennsylvania Press, 2025) is a systematic study of the ways Jews used photographs to document their experiences in the face of National Socialism. In a time of intensifying anti-Jewish rhetoric and policies, German Jews documented their lives and their environment in tens of thousands of photographs. German Jews of considerably diverse backgrounds took and preserved these photographs: professional and amateurs, of different ages, gender, and classes. The book argues that their previously overlooked photographs convey otherwise unuttered views, emotions, and self-perceptions. Based on a database of more than fifteen thousand relevant images, it analyzes photographs within the historical contexts of their production, preservation, and intended viewing, and explores a plethora of Jews' reactions to the changing landscapes of post-1933 Germany. Ofer Ashkenazi is a Professor of History and the director of the Richard Koebner-Minerva Center for German History at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem. While on sabbatical, in 2025-2026 he is the Mosse Visiting Professor at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. He is the co-author of the recently published monograph Still Lives: Jewish Photography in Nazi Germany (2025) , as well as Anti-Heimat Cinema (2020); Weimar Film and Jewish Identity (2012); and Reason and Subjectivity in Weimar Cinema (2010). He edited volumes and published articles on various topics in German and German-Jewish history including Jewish youth movements in Germany; the German interwar anti-war movement; Cold War memory culture; Jewish migration from and to Germany; and German-Jewish visual culture. Rebekka Grossmann is Assistant Professor of Migration History at Leiden University. In her research, she explores the connections of visual culture, migration and politics with a special focus on Jewish history. Her dissertation, which will be published in 2026, investigates the role of the camera as agent, chronicler and critic of Jewish nation-building. In her new project, she looks at the entangled stories of the legacies of Jewish forced migration, post-war memory culture and peace activism through the lens of different artistic projects. Shira Miron is a PhD candidate at the Department of Germanic Languages and Literatures at Yale University. Her research explores aesthetics as a mode of investigation for human experience and social formation and studies the particularities of different artforms alongside their conceptual and practical cross-pollination. She pursues theoretical questions as they relate to history and culture and vice versa. Her dissertation project, Composition and Community: The Extra-Musical Imagination of Polyphony 1800/1900/1950, explores the advent of western polyphony as a modern aesthetic, communicative, and ethical phenomenon that extends beyond the field of music. Shira published on the relationship between music and literature, German-Jewish literature and culture, visual studies, theories of dialogue and communication, and on a wide range of authors including Novalis, Adorno, Kleist, and Gertrud Kolmar. Shira holds B.Mus. and M.Mus. degrees in piano performance from the Jerusalem Academy of Music and Dance and studied German literature at the Hebrew University in Jerusalem and at the Freie Universität Berlin. Currently, she is a DAAD research fellow at the Leibniz Center for Literary and Cultural Research (ZfL) in Berlin. Sarah Wobick-Segev is a research associate at the Institute for Jewish Studies at the University of Hamburg. Her research explores the multiple intersections of European-Jewish cultural and intellectual history with gender studies, everyday life history, and visual and religious studies. Her current project analyzes the religious writings of Jewish women in German-speaking Central Europe from the mid-19th to the mid-20th century. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/german-studies

Still Lives: Jewish Photography in Nazi Germany (U Pennsylvania Press, 2025) is a systematic study of the ways Jews used photographs to document their experiences in the face of National Socialism. In a time of intensifying anti-Jewish rhetoric and policies, German Jews documented their lives and their environment in tens of thousands of photographs. German Jews of considerably diverse backgrounds took and preserved these photographs: professional and amateurs, of different ages, gender, and classes. The book argues that their previously overlooked photographs convey otherwise unuttered views, emotions, and self-perceptions. Based on a database of more than fifteen thousand relevant images, it analyzes photographs within the historical contexts of their production, preservation, and intended viewing, and explores a plethora of Jews' reactions to the changing landscapes of post-1933 Germany. Ofer Ashkenazi is a Professor of History and the director of the Richard Koebner-Minerva Center for German History at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem. While on sabbatical, in 2025-2026 he is the Mosse Visiting Professor at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. He is the co-author of the recently published monograph Still Lives: Jewish Photography in Nazi Germany (2025) , as well as Anti-Heimat Cinema (2020); Weimar Film and Jewish Identity (2012); and Reason and Subjectivity in Weimar Cinema (2010). He edited volumes and published articles on various topics in German and German-Jewish history including Jewish youth movements in Germany; the German interwar anti-war movement; Cold War memory culture; Jewish migration from and to Germany; and German-Jewish visual culture. Rebekka Grossmann is Assistant Professor of Migration History at Leiden University. In her research, she explores the connections of visual culture, migration and politics with a special focus on Jewish history. Her dissertation, which will be published in 2026, investigates the role of the camera as agent, chronicler and critic of Jewish nation-building. In her new project, she looks at the entangled stories of the legacies of Jewish forced migration, post-war memory culture and peace activism through the lens of different artistic projects. Shira Miron is a PhD candidate at the Department of Germanic Languages and Literatures at Yale University. Her research explores aesthetics as a mode of investigation for human experience and social formation and studies the particularities of different artforms alongside their conceptual and practical cross-pollination. She pursues theoretical questions as they relate to history and culture and vice versa. Her dissertation project, Composition and Community: The Extra-Musical Imagination of Polyphony 1800/1900/1950, explores the advent of western polyphony as a modern aesthetic, communicative, and ethical phenomenon that extends beyond the field of music. Shira published on the relationship between music and literature, German-Jewish literature and culture, visual studies, theories of dialogue and communication, and on a wide range of authors including Novalis, Adorno, Kleist, and Gertrud Kolmar. Shira holds B.Mus. and M.Mus. degrees in piano performance from the Jerusalem Academy of Music and Dance and studied German literature at the Hebrew University in Jerusalem and at the Freie Universität Berlin. Currently, she is a DAAD research fellow at the Leibniz Center for Literary and Cultural Research (ZfL) in Berlin. Sarah Wobick-Segev is a research associate at the Institute for Jewish Studies at the University of Hamburg. Her research explores the multiple intersections of European-Jewish cultural and intellectual history with gender studies, everyday life history, and visual and religious studies. Her current project analyzes the religious writings of Jewish women in German-speaking Central Europe from the mid-19th to the mid-20th century. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/jewish-studies

Minneapolis homicide detectives Leo Magozzi and Gino Rolseth arrest a sadistic pair of killers for the murder of several women with the help of Monkeewrench, their eccentric, cyber-sleuth friends and partners. One of the killers dies in custody and the other, Wolfgang Mauer, is sent to a maximum security mental hospital in a rural corner of Minnesota.There, Mauer plots his escape–and his vengeance. With the help of his mother, a former militia leader and assassin living an extravagant, reclusive life, he schemes to get out of the mental hospital and hunt down the detectives and the Monkeewrench crew that got him a life sentence.When Mauer successfully escapes, an inexperienced county sheriff is thrown head-first into a massive manhunt for the murderer. When she finds three bodies and discovers that Mauer has kidnapped a young boy, she realizes that Mauer's escape was just the beginning. With many lives on the line, Magozzi, Gino, and Monkeewrench join in the desperate search effort. The longer he's at large, the more people will die, and Mauer is on a mission to find those who sentenced him, so they all have targets on their backs.P. J. Tracy was the pseudonym of mother-daughter writing team P. J. and Traci Lambrecht. Traci spent most of her childhood riding and showing horses. She graduated with a Russian Studies major from St. Olaf College in Northfield, Minnesota, where she also studied voice. Her aspirations of becoming a spy were dashed when the Cold War ended, so she began writing to finance her annoying habits of travel and singing in rock bands. Much to her mother's relief, she finally realized that the written word was her true calling. They had a long, prolific career together in multiple genres before P. J.'s passing in December 2016. Traci continues to write.#pjtracy

Still Lives: Jewish Photography in Nazi Germany (U Pennsylvania Press, 2025) is a systematic study of the ways Jews used photographs to document their experiences in the face of National Socialism. In a time of intensifying anti-Jewish rhetoric and policies, German Jews documented their lives and their environment in tens of thousands of photographs. German Jews of considerably diverse backgrounds took and preserved these photographs: professional and amateurs, of different ages, gender, and classes. The book argues that their previously overlooked photographs convey otherwise unuttered views, emotions, and self-perceptions. Based on a database of more than fifteen thousand relevant images, it analyzes photographs within the historical contexts of their production, preservation, and intended viewing, and explores a plethora of Jews' reactions to the changing landscapes of post-1933 Germany. Ofer Ashkenazi is a Professor of History and the director of the Richard Koebner-Minerva Center for German History at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem. While on sabbatical, in 2025-2026 he is the Mosse Visiting Professor at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. He is the co-author of the recently published monograph Still Lives: Jewish Photography in Nazi Germany (2025) , as well as Anti-Heimat Cinema (2020); Weimar Film and Jewish Identity (2012); and Reason and Subjectivity in Weimar Cinema (2010). He edited volumes and published articles on various topics in German and German-Jewish history including Jewish youth movements in Germany; the German interwar anti-war movement; Cold War memory culture; Jewish migration from and to Germany; and German-Jewish visual culture. Rebekka Grossmann is Assistant Professor of Migration History at Leiden University. In her research, she explores the connections of visual culture, migration and politics with a special focus on Jewish history. Her dissertation, which will be published in 2026, investigates the role of the camera as agent, chronicler and critic of Jewish nation-building. In her new project, she looks at the entangled stories of the legacies of Jewish forced migration, post-war memory culture and peace activism through the lens of different artistic projects. Shira Miron is a PhD candidate at the Department of Germanic Languages and Literatures at Yale University. Her research explores aesthetics as a mode of investigation for human experience and social formation and studies the particularities of different artforms alongside their conceptual and practical cross-pollination. She pursues theoretical questions as they relate to history and culture and vice versa. Her dissertation project, Composition and Community: The Extra-Musical Imagination of Polyphony 1800/1900/1950, explores the advent of western polyphony as a modern aesthetic, communicative, and ethical phenomenon that extends beyond the field of music. Shira published on the relationship between music and literature, German-Jewish literature and culture, visual studies, theories of dialogue and communication, and on a wide range of authors including Novalis, Adorno, Kleist, and Gertrud Kolmar. Shira holds B.Mus. and M.Mus. degrees in piano performance from the Jerusalem Academy of Music and Dance and studied German literature at the Hebrew University in Jerusalem and at the Freie Universität Berlin. Currently, she is a DAAD research fellow at the Leibniz Center for Literary and Cultural Research (ZfL) in Berlin. Sarah Wobick-Segev is a research associate at the Institute for Jewish Studies at the University of Hamburg. Her research explores the multiple intersections of European-Jewish cultural and intellectual history with gender studies, everyday life history, and visual and religious studies. Her current project analyzes the religious writings of Jewish women in German-speaking Central Europe from the mid-19th to the mid-20th century. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/photography

What's REALLY Going On Behind the Scenes of the CIA, the Media, and the U.S. Government? On Mayim Bialik's Breakdown, former CIA agents and intelligence officers Andrew & Jihi Bustamante (creators of the EverydaySpy podcast, authors of Shadow Cell: An Insider Account of America's New Spy War & popular guests on Diary of a CEO & The Joe Rogan Experience) pull back the curtain in this explosive, no-holds-barred conversation. From the moment you marry a spy (can you ever truly trust your partner?) to the shocking 4 categories of lies the CIA teaches—Mayim & Jonathan dive deep into the secretive world of espionage, national security, and the collapse of trust in modern institutions. Andrew and Jihi break down the shrinking middle class caused by American politics post-Trump, what it means for our future, whether the U.S. is moving closer to dictatorship (and if so, can we stop it?), and why the wealthy elite are leaving the U.S. (and which countries they're fleeing to). These whistleblowers expose what the CIA doesn't want you to know: - The 4 categories of lies every CIA officer is trained to tell - The agency's current use of psychics and Cold War-era remote viewing programs - The loneliness and psychological toll of living a covert life - How the news & media is manipulated—and why even “trusted” outlets are failing us - Post-Trump politics: is the U.S. sliding toward dictatorship or already in it? - Why wealthy elites are fleeing America (and where they're going) - The global fallout if a U.S. president is jailed, and what it means for our standing - The CIA's take on Israel, rising global conflicts, and the risk of world war - How AI is dehumanizing warfare and reshaping the battlefield - Why Epstein's case continues to expose cracks in our institutions Andrew and Jihi also reveal how influence, persuasion, and dialogue can still be used productively—even in a fractured society. From Venezuela's collapse as a warning sign to the everyday challenge of separating real news from propaganda, this is more than an interview—it's a wake-up call. Get the truth behind headlines, corruption, and the secret machinery of the U.S. government & change the way you see everything! Find your Spy Superpower: ⁠https://yt.everydayspy.com/4mjywCV⁠ Andrew & Jihi Bustamante's book, Shadow Cell: ⁠https://geni.us/ShadowCellBook⁠ Andrew Bustamante's YouTube Channel: ⁠https://youtube.com/@Andrew-Bustamante⁠ Explore Spy School: ⁠https://everydayspy.com/⁠ Andrew Bustamante's Podcast: ⁠https://youtube.com/@EverydaySpyPodcast⁠ Follow us on Substack for Exclusive Bonus Content: ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠https://bialikbreakdown.substack.com/⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠BialikBreakdown.com⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠YouTube.com/mayimbialik⁠⁠⁠ Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

The countdown to October 7, 2025, continues. Jack Carr's most visceral novel yet—CRY HAVOC—is almost here.Chapter 1 captures one of the most dramatic real-world flashpoints of the Cold War - the 1968 seizure of the USS Pueblo by North Korean forces. This moment in history becomes the spark that thrusts Tom Reece into a world of war, espionage, and sacrifice.Brought to life by the legendary voice of Ray Porter, this exclusive excerpt places you on the icy waters of the Sea of Japan—where a naval standoff becomes the opening shot in a shadow war that threatens to bring the world to the brink.“Cry ‘Havoc!,' and let slip the frogs of war.”Buy the audiobook, https://bit.ly/CryHavocAudioOrder your copy of CRY HAVOC, HERE.Copyright: Audio excerpt courtesy of Simon & Schuster Audio from CRY HAVOC by Jack Carr, read by Ray Porter. Copyright © 2025 by Tomahawk Creative, Inc. Used with permission of Simon & Schuster, Inc.FOLLOW SIMON & SCHUSTER AUDIOInstagram:@simon.audioTikTok: @simon.audioThreads: @simon.audioX: @SimonAudioFacebook: @SimonAudioFOLLOW RAY PORTERInstagram:@the.ray.porterFacebook: @NarratorRayPorterFOLLOW JACK CARRInstagram: @JackCarrUSA X:  @JackCarrUSAFacebook:  @JackCarr YouTube:  @JackCarrUSASPONSORSCRY HAVOC – A Tom Reece Thriller https://www.officialjackcarr.com/books/cry-havoc/Bravo Company Manufacturing - https://bravocompanyusa.com/ and on Instagram @BravoCompanyUSATHE SIGs of Jack Carr:Visit https://www.sigsauer.com/ and on Instagram @sigsauerinc Jack Carr Gear: Explore the gear here https://jackcarr.co/gear 

Charlie Kirk's assassination: How should Christians respond to tragedy, hate, & division? We explore biblical principles for a courageous church.Michael Rowntree reflects on the recent death of Charlie Kirk and other tragic events in September, exploring how Christians can navigate grief, anger, and division in a world of increasing lawlessness. We'll examine biblical examples of mourning, the dangers of selective outrage, and the importance of maintaining a warm heart while standing for truth. Learn how to avoid being discipled by your anger and how to cultivate a courageous and compassionate witness in a divided nation.Subscribe to The Remnant Radio newsletter and receive our FREE introduction to spiritual gifts eBook. Plus, get access to: discounts, news about upcoming shows, courses and conferences - and more. Subscribe now at TheRemnantRadio.com.Support the showABOUT THE REMNANT RADIO:

We reach for the Cold War as if it were a really good pocket tool: compact, familiar, ready to deal with any problem in today's world. U.S.–China rivalry? “Cold War 2.0.” Russia and the West? “Cold War redux.” The appeal is obvious: the Cold War offers a story we already know how to tell—great-power tension, nuclear standoff, ideological blocs, and finally, a tidy ending.But as Francis J. Gavin argues, analogies always smuggle in assumptions. To label something a “new Cold War” is to commit to a whole strategic script: decades of rivalry, fixed blocs, and an expectation of how the story ends. But what if the conditions that defined the 20th-century Cold War—its nuclear stability, its institutions, even its duration—don't apply now? And what if these words “Cold War”that you use do not mean what I mean by the words “Cold War”?Francis J. Gavin is the Giovanni Agnelli Distinguished Professor and Director of the Henry A. Kissinger Center for Global Affairs at the Johns Hopkins School of Advanced International Studies (SAIS). He is the author of Nuclear Statecraft: History and Strategy in America's Atomic Age and Thinking Historically: A Guide for Policymakers.For notes, links, and a vast archive, go to www.historicallythinking.org

Give us about fifteen minutes daily, and we will give you all the local news, sports, weather, and events you can handle.   SPONSORS: Many thanks to our sponsors... Annapolis Subaru, the SPCA of Anne Arundel County, Fish For A Cure, the Annapolis Sailboat and Powerboat Shows, Interim HealthCare of Annapolis, and Hospice of the Chesapeake.  Today...  Today we'll cover the preliminary results from the Annapolis Democratic Primary, an Indiana man charged after last week's Naval Academy lockdown and shooting, millions in local grants announced by Live! Casino, and the surprising Cold War history—and chemical legacy—of Bay Head Park from a Broadneck Senior. All that, and more in today's DNB. Link to daily news recap newsletter: https://forms.aweber.com/form/87/493412887.htm Back with her weekly Annapolis After Dark is BeeprBuzz. She'll keep you up to speed on all of the fantastic live music we have in the area! DAILY NEWSLETTER LINK: https://forms.aweber.com/form/87/493412887.htm The Eye On Annapolis Daily News Brief is produced every Monday through Friday at 6:00 am and available wherever you get your podcasts and also on our social media platforms--All Annapolis and Eye On Annapolis (FB) and @eyeonannapolis (TW) NOTE: For hearing-impaired subscribers, a full transcript is available on Eye On Annapolis.

From space to the sea, and deep into history—this week's stories span it all.  An Air Force test pilot has been chosen to command a year-long Mars simulation mission (02:59), while President Trump says U.S. forces have sunk a third suspected drug boat off Venezuela (14:16). The Army tightens grooming standards and hairstyles under new orders, sparking debate among soldiers (19:19). We also rewind to the Battle of Glorieta Pass in 1862, often called the “Gettysburg of the West” (29:09) and dive into Operation Ivy Bells, the top-secret submarine mission that ran from 1970 to 1981 (35:16). A mix of modern headlines, battlefield history, and Cold War secrets—don't miss it! https://lateforchangeover.com/

This is a free preview of a paid episode. To hear more, visit www.theflyingfrisby.comBefore we begin today's piece, let me flag this video I made based on my recent article about Triffin's Dilemma. 13 mins long and hopefully worth the effort. Might be the most important thing you watch this week.With all the narratives that come with a gold bull market - and also a bitcoin bull market - that we're heading to some kind of money reset, the dollar or the pound is going to collapse, we are going to end up on a gold or bitcoin standard and so on - you have an end goal. The bull market will continue until we reach that eventuality.However, I doubt very much we go back to a gold standard. Yes, gold's role as reserve asset increases, ditto bitcoin, but I don't see a return to the gold standards of the 19th or 20th century. Much more likely is a Hayekian world of competing currencies.The 20th century gold standards were bogus anyway - which is why they failed. There was no gold in circulation. Americans weren't allowed to own it. When Britain returned to a gold standard in 1925, the British government ensured there was little gold actually circulating. It minted zero gold coins, while the Bank of England hoarded what it already had. ( It's all in the book, if you're interested).The Secret History of Gold is available to at Amazon, Waterstones and all good bookshops. I hear the audiobook, read by me, is excellent. Amazon is currently offering 20% off.There was plenty of gold in circulation under the gold standards of the 19th century, but we are not going back to them because we barely use physical cash any more. We are not going to pay for physical things with gold or silver coins in the way we once did.It might be that China gives the yuan some gold backing, and makes its (digital) notes interchangeable with gold, but I find that unlikely. It might also be that gold backing is used to make US Treasuries more attractive, as economist Judy Shelton, former advisor to Donald Trump, has proposed.Again, though possible, I would give it a low probability.The gold bull markets of the 1970s and 2000s did not end with gold standards. I doubt this one will. A gold standard is a political ideal. Real life is a lot more mucky.Unlike gold, gold bull markets do not last forever, any more than tech or any other kind of bull markets do.And this bull market is getting hot. That's for sure. Gold is at $3,700/oz. While the mainstream press are not really covering it, there has been a definite change in tone online. Silver is starting to lead. Gold miners are starting to deliver.Towards the end of previous gold bull markets, I usually get invited on to the BBC to talk about gold. Massive name drop, I was actually fraternising with BBC Director General, Tim Davie, this week - enough to get a selfie at least - but I am currently so far from being invited on to the BBC, whether for my satirical songs or for my market commentary - even with a new book on gold just out - that I believe we are a way from that.(In another age, I would have been a fixture on BBC radio. I have got the voice. I have got the intellect. But obviously, wrong age, wrong sex, wrong colour and all of that. Wrong views too).Anyway, back to more important matters.Things got hot and spicy with gold in the spring, as we warned, not unlike now. But we didn't feel it was the top. We just needed to go sideways for a few months, which we have.With physical gold, especially if you live in a Third World country like the UK, there is a strong argument never to sell. Even during gold's bear market (2011-2020), gold was a brilliant hedge against woeful sterling.If you buying gold or silver to protect yourself in these “interesting times” - and I urge you to - as always I recommend The Pure Gold Company. Pricing is competitive, quality of service is high. They deliver to the UK, the US, Canada and Europe or you can store your gold with them. More here.You could just hold your gold and then pass it on to your heirs. Bitcoin's the same. But then again you might want the money for something else.In the 1970s gold went from $35/oz (an artificially low price due to US suppression) all the way to $850/oz.But that $850 mark was just as much an illusory price. Though it has been logged in people's minds for decades ever since, the reality is it reached that price during one spike on one afternoon. The Cold War was looking grim: the Soviet Union had just invaded Afghanistan a month before. The Iranian hostage crisis was making everyone panic (the hostages were released the day before the spike). It was the day after US President Ronald Reagan had been inaugurated. Nobody yet knew what a success he was going to be. There was an ongoing and severe crisis in the US bond markets, which had sent interest rates above 10%.In other words, there was a lot going on. And yet gold only hit $850 for an afternoon. Hardly anyone sold the top of that spike.The launch to $850 gold began in December 1979 with that Soviet invasion. Gold broke above $450. The day after the spike, gold collapsed like a stone. By March it was below $500.Gold then did something you commonly see at the end of bull markets. The Nasdaq did something similar in 2000. Silver did it in 2011. It rallied. That rally persuaded people the bull market was still on. It was a suckers' rally.But the retest did not even make it back to the old high. It was a lower high, in other words.Then the relentless declines kicked in. By 1982 - 18 months later - gold was at $300/oz. It then spent the next 20 years - 20 years! - trading between $300 and $400, before eventually hitting a low in 1999 at $250/oz, when Gordon Brown sold. Idiot.My point is that in 1980 it looked to some like a return to gold standards was coming. The US had only abandoned gold 9 years earlier - and, in President Nixon's words, temporarily. Gold was still normal in people's minds. But the gold standard never came and gold was a rotten investment for 20 years.2011, by the way, was not of 1980 standards but the price still shot from $1,500 to $1,920 in a couple of months with the Greek debt crisis. There followed another gruesome bear market which saw gold go all the way back to $1,050.There is so much anti-dollar sentiment out there now, it might be that everything turns on its head - as things are wont to do - and we get a dollar rally.I recognise that things are looking frothy. Anytime silver starts doing well, that is usually a warning sign.A lot of American commentators like to use the baseball analogy. I would suggest maybe we are in inning six of nine. Something like that, possibly.So when to sell?

Without a doubt the closest the planet has come to nuclear war occurred between October 16th-28th 1962. The Cold War was at its peak. Brought there by the failed Bay of Pigs Invasion about 18 months earlier by "Cuban Exiles", with pretty obvious support from the United States. With nuclear missiles stationed in Turkey and Italy the U.S. had a huge advantage over the Soviet Union if it ever came to the first strike in an atomic conflict. Cuba and the Soviet Union decided nuclear strike parody was fair and thus began the process of moving nuclear capable missiles into Cuba and within 100 miles of Florida. Constant surveillance of Cuba by the United States discovered nuclear launch sites being constructed putting John F. Kennedy into a situation with razor thin margins for error. For 13 days the world stood on the brink, with JFK and Nikita Khrushchev playing a game of chess with nuclear annihilation as the stakes. So many things should have gone wrong, so what ended up going right? Join us this week as we get Historically High on The Cuban Missile Crisis. Support the show

M.J. Robotham cut her teeth writing WWII historical fiction, but her newest release, Mrs. Spy, drops readers into the exciting, vibrant world of London, 1962. The Beatles, Mary Quant, and psychedelic patterns are all the rage, but the Cold War is still brewing, which means MI5 is working hard to keep the world safe. Maggie Flynn's a Watcher, also a widow and a mum. We discuss the inspiration for putting women dead center in spy fiction, how she got the details so accurate, why the 60's, and what makes Maggie's sidekick Frank a particularly endearing character. Learn more about Guest M.J. Robotham: Learn more about Host Melissa Westemeier

Who really ended the Cold War, Ronald Reagan or a ten-year-old girl? Eighties correspondent Maris Kreizman joins us for a heartfelt conversation about America's Youngest Ambassador, Samantha Smith, a child who wrote a letter to Soviet General Secretary Yuri Andropov in hopes of cooling nuclear tensions. Then, Andropov wrote back. Maris and Sarah discuss the burden we place on the youth to “change the world” while simultaneously scolding them for their naivety. Digressions include the millennial urge to cut up plastic soda can rings, Christina Applegate's SNL infomercial, and an important lesson from the Golden Girls.More Maris Kreizman:Buy the book, I Want to Burn This Place DownSubscribe to the newsletter, The Maris ReviewMaris on BlueskyMore You're Wrong About:Bonus Episodes on PatreonBuy cute merchYWA on InstagramSarah's other show, You Are GoodSupport the show

What's REALLY Going On Behind the Scenes of the CIA, the Media, and the U.S. Government? On Mayim Bialik's Breakdown, former CIA agents and intelligence officers Andrew & Jihi Bustamante (creators of the EverydaySpy podcast, authors of Shadow Cell: An Insider Account of America's New Spy War & popular guests on Diary of a CEO & The Joe Rogan Experience) pull back the curtain in this explosive, no-holds-barred conversation. From the moment you marry a spy (can you ever truly trust your partner?) to the shocking 4 categories of lies the CIA teaches—Mayim & Jonathan dive deep into the secretive world of espionage, national security, and the collapse of trust in modern institutions. Andrew and Jihi break down the shrinking middle class caused by American politics post-Trump, what it means for our future, whether the U.S. is moving closer to dictatorship (and if so, can we stop it?), and why the wealthy elite are leaving the U.S. (and which countries they're fleeing to). These whistleblowers expose what the CIA doesn't want you to know: - The 4 categories of lies every CIA officer is trained to tell - The agency's current use of psychics and Cold War-era remote viewing programs - The loneliness and psychological toll of living a covert life - How the news & media is manipulated—and why even “trusted” outlets are failing us - Post-Trump politics: is the U.S. sliding toward dictatorship or already in it? - Why wealthy elites are fleeing America (and where they're going) - The global fallout if a U.S. president is jailed, and what it means for our standing - The CIA's take on Israel, rising global conflicts, and the risk of world war - How AI is dehumanizing warfare and reshaping the battlefield - Why Epstein's case continues to expose cracks in our institutions Andrew and Jihi also reveal how influence, persuasion, and dialogue can still be used productively—even in a fractured society. From Venezuela's collapse as a warning sign to the everyday challenge of separating real news from propaganda, this is more than an interview—it's a wake-up call. Get the truth behind headlines, corruption, and the secret machinery of the U.S. government & change the way you see everything! Start your new morning ritual & get up to 43% off your @MUDWTR with code BREAK at mudwtr.com/BREAK! #mudwtrpod Find your Spy Superpower: https://yt.everydayspy.com/4mjywCV Andrew & Jihi Bustamante's book, Shadow Cell: https://geni.us/ShadowCellBook Andrew Bustamante's YouTube Channel: https://youtube.com/@Andrew-Bustamante Explore Spy School: https://everydayspy.com/ Andrew Bustamante's Podcast: https://youtube.com/@EverydaySpyPodcast Follow us on Substack for Exclusive Bonus Content: ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠https://bialikbreakdown.substack.com/⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠BialikBreakdown.com⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠YouTube.com/mayimbialik⁠⁠ Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

For most of the latter half of the 20th century, the world was frozen in a standoff. The Cold War era was defined by the ideological fissure between capitalism, led by the United States, and communism, espoused by the Soviet Union. But in a new book, Vladislav Zubok challenges much of the accepted wisdom that has shaped popular perspectives about this standoff since 1991. Speaking to Danny Bird, Zubok discusses why Americans were far more ideological than their Soviet contemporaries; why decolonisation and the Global South became the ‘nuclear fuel' that sustained the Cold War; and how the conflict's conclusion in the 1990s continues to reverberate in global affairs to this day. (Ad) Vladislav Zubok is the author of The World of the Cold War: 1945-1991 (Pelican). Buy it now from Amazon: https://www.amazon.co.uk/Cold-War-New-History/dp/0241696143/?tag=bbchistory045-21&ascsubtag=historyextra-social-histboty The HistoryExtra podcast is produced by the team behind BBC History Magazine. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

The Real Ambassadors is a poignant tale of cultural exchange, anti-racism, and jazz history. And it's a love story — between life-long husband and wife partners, Iola & Dave Brubeck and their vision for a better world. Appalled by the racist treatment of Black jazz musicians in the United States in the 1950s and 60s, the Brubecks wrote a musical based on the Jazz Ambassadors Program established by President Eisenhower and the US State Department during the Cold War. In an effort to win hearts and minds, jazz musicians were sent out around the world to represent the freedom and creativity of America through their art form. Louis Armstrong, Dizzy Gillespie and most of the other Jazz Ambassadors were Black. The irony is that they were treated like royalty around the world, but could not stay in hotels or play in integrated bands in their own country.Performed live only once, at the Monterey Jazz Festival in 1962, the Real Ambassadors featured Louis Armstrong, Carmen McCrae, Dave Brubeck and Lambert Hendricks and Bavan. The musical was a chance for Louis Armstrong to speak out about his deep feelings about racism and segregation in this country — feelings he rarely expressed publicly.The story features original music, rare archival recorded letters sent back and forth between the Brubecks and Louis Armstrong about the project, rehearsal recordings and interviews with Dave and Iola Brubeck. Other voices include: the Brubecks' sons, Chris and Dan Brubeck, Keith Hatschek, author of the  book, "The Real Ambassadors,” Ricky Riccardi, Director of Research Collections for the Louis Armstrong House Museum, and singer/actress Yolande Bavan, the last surviving performer involved in the project.Thanks to: Keith Hatschek, Chris Brubeck, Dan Brubeck, Ricky Riccardi, Yolande Bavan,  Lisa Cohen, and Wynton Marsalis.Special thanks to: The Louis Armstrong Educational Foundation and the Louis Armstrong House Museum; Michael Bellacosa and the Brubeck Collection, Wilton Library, Wilton, Connecticut; The Complete Louis Armstrong Columbia & RCA Victor Studio Sessions 1946-66 Mosaic Records 270; The Milken Family Foundation Archive Oral History Project; and The Library of Congress.Produced by The Kitchen Sisters (Nikki Silva and Davia Nelson) and Brandi Howell in collaboration with Jackson Spenner. Mixed by Jim McKee.

If you remember making mixtapes off the radio and your parents' only rule was to be home when the streetlights came on, this episode is for you. Jenn and I are zeroing in on our specific slice of Gen X, a micro-generation we're calling the 'Goonies Generation'. We're the kids born in the late 70s who had one foot in an analog childhood of latchkey independence and another in a fully digital adulthood, making us the ultimate translators between the old and new school. We'll take a fun trip down memory lane talking about MTV, arcade games at Pizza Hut, and the terror of Cold War drills, exploring how these moments shaped us into scrappy, independent, and connection-craving adults. That unique upbringing directly translates to how we operate today, especially as leaders. We'll discuss why our generation values autonomy, despises micromanagement, and leads with empowerment. But we also get real about the pressures we face now—being the overlooked 'sandwich generation' caring for both kids and aging parents, all while navigating our peak earning years. This episode is a call to action for our often-unseen generation to step up, recognize our role as the 'glue' holding things together, and connect with others who get it, because Goonies never say die. Stacie More episodes at StacieBaird.com.

Join me as I sit down with Pulitzer Prize-winning biographer William Taubman to explore his latest work, McNamara at War: A New History. Authors Philip and William Taubman take readers behind the scenes of Robert S. McNamara's career, from his role in shaping U.S. defense policy to the internal conflicts that defined his legacy. In this episode, we discuss how McNamara navigated war, power, and moral complexity while telling the story through a new lens. Whether you're a student of leadership, biography, or Cold War history, this conversation opens a compelling window into a consequential life.Support the show

This timely collection of essays examines Sino-American relations during the Second World War, the Chinese Civil War and the opening of the Cold War. Drawing on new sources uncovered in China, Taiwan, the UK and the US, the authors demonstrate how 'grassroots' engagements - not just elite diplomacy - established the trans-Pacific networks that both shaped the postwar order in Asia, and continue to influence Sino-US relations today. In these crucial years, servicemen, scientists, students, businesspeople, activists, bureaucrats and many others travelled between the US and China. In every chapter, this innovative volume's approach uncovers their stories using both Chinese and English language sources. By examining interactions among various Chinese and American actors in the dynamic wartime environment, Uneasy Allies: Sino-American Relations at the Grassroots, 1937–1949 (Cambridge UP, 2024) reveals a new perspective on the foundations of American power, the brittle nature of the Sino-American relationship, and the early formation of the institutions that shaped the Cold War Pacific. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/new-books-network

When do limits on majorities enhance democratic rule, and when do they undermine it? Join Nic Cheeseman as he talks to Steven Levitsky and Daniel Ziblatt, well-known as authors of the best-selling book How Democracies Die, about their new framework for understanding when the best way to protect democracy is to constrain the wishes of the majority, and when we need to empower them. Lumping all majoritarian measures into the same category, they argue, can lead us to preserve and prescribe outdated and undemocratic institutions that distort political competition and may undermine democratic legitimacy. So does saving democracy actually depend on the recognition that while special protections for powerful minorities may have helped to secure the historical passage to democracy, today the healthiest democracies empower majorities? This episode is based on Steven Levitsky and Daniel Ziblatt's article “When Should the Majority Rule?” that was published in the January 2025 issue of the Journal of Democracy, and is part of an ongoing partnership between the Journal of Democracy and the People, Power, Politics podcast. A transcript is available for download here. Steven Levitsky is Professor of Government at Harvard University and the co-author of How Democracies Die (2018), which won the Lionel Gelber Prize and the Arthur Ross Book Award. A leading scholar of authoritarianism and democratic backsliding, his earlier works include Competitive Authoritarianism: Hybrid Regimes After the Cold War (2010). Levitsky directs Harvard's David Rockefeller Center for Latin American Studies and served as Vice Provost for International Affairs. He has received a Guggenheim Fellowship and the Karl Deutsch Award for his contributions to comparative politics. His research spans Latin American politics, party systems, and informal institutions, influencing both academic debate and public discourse on democracy's challenges. Daniel Ziblatt is Eaton Professor of the Science of Government at Harvard University and co-author of How Democracies Die (2018), which won the Lionel Gelber Prize and the Arthur Ross Book Award. His book Conservative Advantage (2017) received the Luebbert Prize for the Best Book on Comparative Politics. Ziblatt's research explores democratic durability and party systems, especially in Europe. He serves as Co-Director of Harvard's Center for European Studies and holds a Guggenheim Fellowship. His work has significantly influenced understandings of conservative parties' roles in sustaining democracy and the threats posed by their erosion. Nic Cheeseman is the Professor of Democracy and International Development at the University of Birmingham and Founding Director of CEDAR. The People, Power, Politics podcast brings you the latest insights into the factors that are shaping and re-shaping our political world. It is brought to you by the Centre for Elections, Democracy, Accountability and Representation (CEDAR) based at the University of Birmingham, United Kingdom. Join us to better understand the factors that promote and undermine democratic government around the world and follow us on Twitter at @CEDAR_Bham! Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/new-books-network

The events of September 11, 2001 changed the world. Julian reflects on several interpretations of what they meant, proposing that each is a kind of Rorschach-test result based on our own religious and political beliefs, backgrounds, and social conditioning.  The conspiracy theorist simply can't believe something like that could happen to America, going in search of complicated alternative explanations that exist outside of the “official narrative,” even of reality itself. Where the Christian conservative might see a call to Holy War signaling that the End Times is near, Neocon warhawks surrounding Bush observe an opportunity to enact plans for maintaining economic and political power and security. Meanwhile, many on the left see the attack as justifiable “blowback” against American imperialism, Cold War atrocities, and Western colonialism. Religion is merely an inflaming of a fundamentalist minority based on political injustices. What about the Soviet Union? The history of political Islam and massive Muslim caliphates that ruled for nearly 1,300 years? The intractable sectarian conflicts and the multiple internal ideologies vying for control over the Middle East? There may be no easy answers, but perhaps engaging with these different perspectives can allow us to name some of the many factors that got us to 9/11 and the seemingly unsolvable dilemmas of our world today. Show Notes Popular Mechanics on 911 conspiracies Noam Chomsky on 911 conspiracies Pilger on Project for A New American Century NYT 2023 Piece on the Reasons for Iraq War Saddam's Ruthless Purge CNN on Kabul attitudes after US Invasion Polling of Iraqis Mahmood Mamdani Good Muslim, Bad Muslim Interview Human Rights Watch on Soviet Invasion of Afghanistan Taimur Rahman's Red Star History of Political Islam Lectures Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

In this gripping episode of Gangland Wire, retired intelligence detective Gary Jenkins sits down with author Jonathan Dyer to explore one of the most complex and dangerous figures in Mafia history—Greg Scarpa, the Colombo family enforcer known as The Grim Reaper. Dyer, whose career spans military intelligence, law, and education, brings deep insight into Scarpa's remarkable—and chilling—dual role as both a ruthless mob killer and a prized FBI top echelon informant. Together, Gary and Jonathan unpack the moral ambiguities, betrayals, and calculated violence that defined Scarpa's career in the turbulent world of organized crime. Listeners will hear: How Scarpa balanced loyalty to the mob with his covert cooperation with the FBI.   The structured, almost corporate way his crew operated—and how he enforced discipline with fear and bloodshed. The darker corners of his personal life, including family ties, marriages, and the impact of his choices on his children. The violent episodes, such as the murder of Mary Bari, underscore his brutality and the Mafia's code of protection. From Cold War–era law enforcement collusion to the inner workings of New York's underworld, this episode reveals how Scarpa manipulated both sides of the law to maintain power. Jonathan Dyer's latest book, Greg Scarpa: Legendary Evil, offers the foundation for a conversation that will leave you questioning where law enforcement ends and organized crime begins. Subscribe to Gangland Wire wherever you get your podcasts, and join us each week as we uncover the stories buried beneath the headlines—and the bodies. Listen now on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, YouTube, or your favorite podcast app. Hit me up on Venmo for a cup of coffee or a shot and a beer @ganglandwire Click here to "buy me a cup of coffee" To go to the store or make a donation or rent Ballot Theft: Burglary, Murder, Coverup, click here To rent Brothers against Brothers, the documentary, click here.  To rent Gangland Wire, the documentary, click here Transcript [0:00] Well, hey, welcome all you wiretappers. Good to be back here in the studio of [0:03] Gangland Wire. This is Gary Jenkins, an entire Kansas City, Missouri police detective. Worked at the Organized Crime Unit or the Intelligence Unit for many years. And now I've got a podcast and we're all about the organized crime. As you guys know, all you regular guys and for new people, it's all about organized crime, particularly the Italian mafia in the United States. Now, I have an author here today, Jonathan Dyer. And Jonathan, I really am excited about having you on here because you have a different take about a much cussed and discussed subject or person, Gregory the Grim Reaper Scarpa. So welcome, Jonathan. Thanks, Gary. Thanks for having me. So tell the guys a little bit about yourself, a little bit about your background. Where'd you come from other than Marshall? We found out we have similar backgrounds, Marshall, Missouri, rural Missouri, farm life and Kansas City. So tell the guys a little bit about yourself. Well, in 1981, Gary, I joined the Army and spent about a year and a half in Monterey Defense Language Institute learning Russian. [1:10] After that, I went to Goodfellow Air Force Base for some cryptologic training. And then after that, I went to the National Security Agency in Fort Meade for some more training and then shipped overseas to Berlin for three years trying to keep tabs on the Soviet Army during the Cold War. After the Army, I entered law school at UC Davis in California. And after law school, I practiced law for about 10 years as a civil litigator. And then in 1999, I switched careers and became a teacher and taught government and U.S. History and criminal law and retired during the pandemic. And now I live in central Texas. Interesting. [1:52] This is off the subject a little bit, but I've always been curious about that language school.

Today Justin speaks with Reality Winner. Reality enlisted in the US Air Force after high school and served as a cryptolinguist assigned to the National Security Agency where she translated audio recordings in Pashtu and Dari from Afghanistan. Following her first enlistment, she was hired as a private contractor working at a different NSA facility in Augusta, Georgia. In June, 2017, she was arrested after leaking a classified report to The Intercept media outlet. Her story became a media sensation, and since then, she has been the subject of a 2021 documentary, as well as two film adaptations released in 2023 and 2024. She's here today to discuss her life, her arrest, and her incarceration, which she wrote about in her new memoir titled, I Am Not Your Enemy.Connect with Reality:IG: @reazlepuff Check out the book, I Am Not Your Enemy, here.https://a.co/d/7WPCba5Connect with Spycraft 101:Get Justin's latest book, Murder, Intrigue, and Conspiracy: Stories from the Cold War and Beyond, here.spycraft101.comIG: @spycraft101Shop: shop.spycraft101.comPatreon: Spycraft 101Subtack: spycraft101.substack.comFind Justin's first book, Spyshots: Volume One, here.Check out Justin's second book, Covert Arms, here.Download the free eBook, The Clandestine Operative's Sidearm of Choice, here.Grayman Briefing ClassifiedUse code GBCSpycraft to save 20% on your subscription.Disclaimer: This post contains affiliate links. If you make a purchase, I may receive a commission at no extra cost to you.Support the show

Welcome to Season 5, Episode 37! Today we continue with the second part of The History of The Secret War in Laos. We highly recommend going back to listen to Part 1. That's where you'll hear about the Cold War motivations behind U.S. involvement in Laos, the rise of General Vang Pao and the Hmong Secret Army, and the massive bombing campaign that made Laos the most heavily bombed country per capita in history. In this episode, we'll talk about the aftermath once the war ended… from re-education camps for the Lao and Hmong soldiers who fought on the side of the Americans, to the massive amount of UXO clean-up, to the refugee crisis. We also share some of the challenges with the current administrations policy of revoking temporary refugee status for many in the community. To learn more about some of the organizations helping with clean-up and education, checkout Legacies of War, Mines Advisory Group, or the Southeast Asia Resource Action Center. You can learn about all three and support them through donations. For our recurring segment, we talk about Netflix's most popular show ever… Kpop Demon Hunters. Kpop now goes beyond Korea, and with several prominent Korean American voice actors, this show definitely resonated with people who find relevance with the “third culture” experience. Whether you watch it for the story, action, music, or Kpop scenes, it's a show that is resonating with a lot of people! If you like what we do, please share, follow, and like us in your podcast directory of choice or on Instagram @AAHistory101. For previous episodes and resources, please visit our site at https://asianamericanhistory101.libsyn.com or our links at http://castpie.com/AAHistory101. If you have any questions, comments or suggestions, email us at info@aahistory101.com. Segments 00:25 Intro and Catching Up 06:36 The History of The Secret War in Laos Part 2 15:14 What Are We Watching? Kpop Demon Hunters!!!