Podcasts about Deep South

Topic: Malcolm and Carol finally managed to sit down with the family behind Cooper's Country Meat Packers and Country Pleasin' Brand Sausage. Henry and Julyn Cooper join the show to talk about how the sausage gets made in Florence, the Butcher Shop and Restaurant, the process behind coming up with new flavors, and more.Guest(s): Henry and Julyn CooperHost(s): Malcolm White and Carol PalmerEmail: food@mpbonline.org. If you enjoyed listening to this podcast, please consider contributing to MPB: https://donate.mpbfoundation.org/mspb/podcast Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

For decades in the Deep South, bus passengers had to sit in the back of the bus and give up their seats to white passengers. Despite making up the vast majority of riders, black passengers had no recourse. Any protest or refusal to surrender a seat meant swift arrest, heavy fines, and immediate job loss. By 1955, following years of abuse and a summer of racially motivated murders, the black citizens of Montgomery, Alabama, finally reached their breaking point and took action. Learn more about the Montgomery Bus Boycott on this episode of Everything Everywhere Daily. ⁠Shop the store at ⁠⁠Shop.Everything-Everywhere.com⁠ Sponsors Hexclad Get 10% off your order at ⁠hexclad.com/DAILY⁠ Mint Mobile Save 50% on Unlimited premium wireless plans starting at $15/month at ⁠MintMobile.com/EED⁠ Quince Go to ⁠quince.com/daily⁠ for 365-day returns, plus free shipping on your order! DripDrop Go to ⁠dripdrop.com⁠ and use promo code EVERYTHING for 20% off your first order! Square Get up to $200 off Square hardware when you sign up at ⁠square.com/go/daily⁠ Babbel Go to ⁠babbel.com/daily⁠ for up to 60% off 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/Ds7Rx7jvPJ⁠ 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

1925Unbroken Legacy Of Plantation ExploitationDaniel Rood, Part Two: Rood explores the 19th-century domestic slave trade, Civil War destruction, and the post-emancipation survival of plantation structures. He details how millions of enslaved people were forcibly relocated to the Deep South for short-term agricultural profits. Despite wartime destruction and temporary Reconstruction land reforms, plantation dynamics adapted through sharecropping, international sugar operations, and California agribusiness. The narrative concludes by examining unacknowledged slave burial grounds at the University of Georgia, underscoring history's enduring shadow. (2)

We have a total of 10 Guests. Nine of them come from the hot-rising Edmonton band Second Hand Dream Car. For the first time,  all 9 members showed up to talk. We talked about the history of "horn bands". Everyone from Tower of Power to Tedeschi Trucks Band.   And this Friday they're releasing their second album, Get Ready.   As many of you know,  their first album, Answer the Call, led to three Canadian Blues Music Awards and a JUNO nomination for Blues Album of the Year. Also voted #6 album in the CKUA Top 100 albums of 2024. Second Hand Dream Car launch their new Album Thursday, Friday and Saturday this week at the Varscona Theatre.  Lots of dates ahead, but two stand out October 22, Horseshoe Tavern.   Toronto New Year's Eve Chateau Lacombe Ballroom, Edmonton.   Guest in Hour Two is  Colin James. He is about to release his book Playing the Changes -  a musician's memoir. Colin has released 21 studio albums, 8 Juno Awards, and 31 Maple Blues Awards. Induction in the Canadian Music Industry Hall of Fame and the Order of British Columbia. It all started in Regina. Colin has also worked and become friends with Bonnie Raitt, Pops Staples, Keith Richards, Buddy Guy and more. However, his career took a leap when, as a young player, he was asked to form a band overnight to open for Stevie Ray Vaughn. They became friends and toured together. Lots of road stories here.  All written by Colin. One theme running through the book is his Quaker upbringing and a memorable journey through the Deep South by bus with his Mom.

While riding a crest of Broadway stardom – and in a serious romance with a woman – Libby is pursued by Zachary Smith Reynolds, the reckless, emotional teenage heir to the Camel tobacco fortune. Just months after their marriage, at the close of a drunken party, Reynolds is dead of a gunshot wound to the head. Was Libby responsible? Also: Tallulah Bankhead is brought to Hollywood to compete with bisexual icon Marlene Dietrich, while Libby, no stranger to blackface, wants to star in a film about Josephine Baker.(00:00) Libby's Heiress Girlfriend(13:15) Libby's Tobacco-Heir Boyfriend(19:25) Tallulah Bankhead & the Gary Cooper Threesome(37:16) Libby Tries to Play Josephine Baker in Movie(43:56) A Yankee Jewess on the Plantation(54:36) Who Shot Zachary Smith Reynolds?

Low-fertility alarmism is rampant in many countries. Who is and isn't encouraged to reproduce has always been a question of power in the US. Legal scholar Michele Goodwin traces a disturbing lineage from the forced breeding of enslaved women and the sterilization of primarily poor white women deemed genetically unfit to the very different reproductive choices available to women on the basis of race and class. She reveals how reproductive rights in the Roe era came to focus on abortion rights and failed to address broader reproductive injustices, especially the use of state power to police the wombs of Black and brown women. Highlights include: How Michele's visits to her relatives in the Deep South of the US in the 1970s, and seeing their lack of basic necessities like clean water or indoor plumbing, heightened her desire to address social injustice; How US pronatalism up until the Civil War was characterized by promoting reproduction of the enslaved girls and women for the sake of increasing the value of property; How the practice of 'hypodescent', or the one drop rule, in the US of determining blackness, allowed for the systematic and ongoing rape of Black women, while guaranteeing all their children remain property as slaves; How following the US Civil War, a fear of newly freed African Americans outnumbering the white population led to the implementation of coercive pronatalist policies pushing reproduction among white women; Why, with restrictive Jim Crow laws that maintained the low status of African Americans as the servant class, early 20th century eugenics, as marked by forced sterilization laws in the majority of US states, was primarily directed at poor white people deemed genetically unfit; How both Jim Crow laws and eugenics practices in the US became the primary models for Nazi Germany; How Michele's travels to India revealed the severe limitations on reproductive freedom of young women, with many resorting to becoming child brides, prostitutes, or gestational surrogates for survival; How Black women's pregnancies during the half century of Roe V. Wade abortion legality were marked by policing of low-birth weight babies and an assumption of drug use; whereas the mostly white IVF pregnancies and their offspring's low-birth weights were given broad cultural support;   How the reproductive rights movement in the time of Roe became limited to abortion rights, driven primarily by the needs of white women, while ignoring larger issues plaguing Black women, such as lack of availability of sex education, contraception, and cancer screening. See episode website for show notes, links, and transcript:  https://www.populationbalance.org/podcast/michele-goodwin   OVERSHOOT | Shrink Toward Abundance OVERSHOOT tackles today's interlocked social and ecological crises driven by humanity's excessive population and consumption. The podcast explores needed narrative, behavioral, and system shifts for recreating human life in balance with all life on Earth. With expert guests from wide-ranging disciplines, we examine the forces underlying overshoot: from patriarchal pronatalism that is fueling overpopulation, to growth-biased economic systems that lead to consumerism and social injustice, to the dominant worldview of human supremacy that subjugates animals and nature. Our vision of shrinking toward abundance inspires us to seek pathways of transformation that go beyond technological fixes toward a new humanity that honors our interconnectedness with all beings.  Hosted by Nandita Bajaj and Alan Ware. Brought to you by Population Balance. Subscribe to our newsletter here: https://www.populationbalance.org/subscribe Support our work with a one-time or monthly donation: https://www.populationbalance.org/donate Learn more at https://www.populationbalance.org Copyright 2016-2026 Population Balance

We're auditing the hidden maritime highway of fat, acid, and raw heat connecting the American Gulf Coast straight to the Atlantic territories—where North Alabama pitmasters dunk whole hickory-smoked birds into black-peppered cider-mayo baths, and Puerto Rican street vendors weaponized the exact same industrial emulsion into garlicky Salsa Rosada to anchor every hot fritter in Piñones. Further west, Greek-owned Mississippi diners engineered Comeback Sauce as an addictive, paprika-heavy hospitality trap, while island cooks deep in the Cordillera Central relied on sizzling hot-oil Mojo Criollo to shock raw garlic into roasted pork perfection. To round out the coast, St. Croix turned Danish trade routes, Indian spices, and wild green mangoes into a blistering, sweet-sour Crucian chutney that cuts through whole-fried reef fish like a precision scalpel.---Follow us:Twitter / X: @LTSundryInstagram: @LTS.PodYouTube: Life, Tech, and Sundry (Subscribe and hit the bell!)Available across Spotify, Apple Podcasts, and all major podcast platforms.---☕ SUPPORT THE BRIEFINGS:Researching these regional recipes and tracking culinary infrastructure runs on a dangerous amount of caffeine. If you'd like to support the show directly and keep our mics hot, check out our Buy Me a Coffee:

Topic: September is Hunger Action Month, and Malcolm and Carol welcome Mississippi Food Network's new Chief Executive Officer Karli Coughlin, Chief Operating Officer Cassandra Mobley, and Chief Development Officer Dan Nisbet to Deep South Dining to talk about how Mississippians can help fight hunger across the state. Then, they catch up on recent food-related events and news.Guest(s): Karli Coughlin, Cassandra Mobley, and Dan NisbetHost(s): Malcolm White and Carol PalmerEmail: food@mpbonline.org. If you enjoyed listening to this podcast, please consider contributing to MPB: https://donate.mpbfoundation.org/mspb/podcast Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Monday, September 21, 2026 Our Monday show is going to be extraordinary. In the first hour our host Kerby Anderson welcomes Col. Rob Maness, USAF (Ret). He brings us his book, What You Can Do About It — Taking Real Action Against Corruption, Radicalism, and Moral Decay to Save America, and address the questions can […]

Welcome to The Turf Zone Podcast. This episode previews the Southeast's Premier Turfgrass Event – the Deep South Turf Expo. Every year, the Deep South Turf Expo brings together the best and brightest in the turfgrass industry for three days of education, networking, and discovering the latest products and technologies shaping our profession. This year’s event promises to be one of the best yet. Mark your calendars for October 27–29, 2026, as the Deep South Turf Expo returns to the beautiful Beau Rivage Resort in Biloxi, Mississippi. This year brings an exciting enhancement—all educational sessions, the tradeshow, networking events, and accommodations will be held under one roof at the Beau Rivage, creating an even more convenient and enjoyable experience for attendees. Hosted by the Alabama Turfgrass Association in partnership with several leading turfgrass organizations across the Southeast, the Deep South Turf Expo has become the region’s premier educational event for golf course superintendents, sports field managers, lawn care professionals, landscapers, sod producers, grounds managers, municipal employees, university personnel, and right-of-way professionals. This year’s educational program is packed with timely topics that address today’s biggest challenges and tomorrow’s emerging opportunities. Industry experts and university researchers from Auburn University, Mississippi State University, Louisiana State University, the University of Florida, Penn State University, and beyond will share the latest research and practical management strategies that attendees can immediately apply in the field. Sessions will explore subjects including robotics and automation, precision pesticide application, soil moisture technologies, herbicide and fungicide programs, sports field management, turfgrass breeding, irrigation management, and preparing athletic fields for world-class sporting events. Whether your operation is large or small, there is educational content designed specifically for your needs. Of course, education is only part of what makes the Deep South Turf Expo such a valuable event. The tradeshow provides attendees with an excellent opportunity to visit face-to-face with industry suppliers, compare the newest equipment and technologies, and learn about products that can improve efficiency and performance. Just as important are the conversations that happen in the exhibit hall, during meals, and throughout the conference. The Deep South Turf Expo has always been about connecting with colleagues, sharing ideas, and strengthening professional relationships across the Southeast. Networking begins even before the conference officially gets underway. On Tuesday afternoon, golfers can participate in the annual Scramble Golf Tournament at The Preserve Golf Club before everyone comes together for the always-popular Tailgate Celebration. It’s the perfect opportunity to reconnect with old friends, welcome new faces, and enjoy an evening of Southern hospitality before the educational sessions begin. Alabama Turfgrass Association Annual Business Meeting All Alabama Turfgrass Association members are strongly encouraged to attend the ATA Annual Business Meeting on Wednesday, October 28, at 1:00 p.m. During the meeting, members will conduct important Association business, vote on the proposed Board of Directors slate, and recognize this year’s recipient of the ATA Lifetime Achievement Award. Your participation helps shape the future of our Association, and we encourage every member attending the Expo to make plans to be there. One Location. Endless Opportunities. One of the biggest advantages of this year’s Expo is the convenience of having everything located at the Beau Rivage Resort. Attendees can stay, learn, network, visit exhibitors, and participate in Association activities without ever leaving the property. That means more time connecting with fellow professionals and less time traveling between venues. Whether you’re looking to earn continuing education credits, discover innovative products, hear the latest university research, or simply reconnect with friends and colleagues from across the region, the 2026 Deep South Turf Expo delivers exceptional value. And as an added bonus, Alabama has approved the DSTE program for 20 Alabama Pesticide Re-Certification Points. If you’ve attended before, you already know why this event has become a must-attend gathering for turfgrass professionals. If you’ve never been, this is the perfect year to experience everything the Expo has to offer. Registration is now open, and discounted rooms at the Beau Rivage are available for a limited time. Make plans today to join your fellow Alabama Turfgrass Association members in Biloxi this October. We look forward to seeing you at the Beau Rivage for another outstanding Deep South Turf Expo—where the Southeast’s turfgrass professionals come together to learn, connect, and grow. For additional information and to register online visit www.DeepSouthTurfExpo.org You have been listening to The Turf Zone Podcast. Follow The Turf Zone on X, Facebook and LinkedIn for all things turfgrass, featuring podcasts, magazines, events and more. The post Don't Miss the Southeast's Premier Turfgrass Event—Deep South Turf Expo appeared first on The Turf Zone.

Topic: Malcolm and Carol take time to pay respects to Abe Whitfield of Abe's Grill in Corinth before welcoming Chef Alon Shaya and culinary historian June Hersh to the show to talk about their new cookbook Memories of a Good Meal: Recipes of Resilience Inspired by Stories of World War II Survival available October 6th, 2026.Guest(s): Alon Shaya and June HershHost(s): Malcolm White and Carol PalmerEmail: food@mpbonline.org. If you enjoyed listening to this podcast, please consider contributing to MPB: https://donate.mpbfoundation.org/mspb/podcast Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

ORIGINAL AIR DATE: 05-11-2026Topic: Malcolm and Carol welcome Brent Tippitt, Chef/Owner of The Enid Depot, to the show to talk about his culinary background, the history of Enid and The Enid Depot, making iconic steaks on a griddle, and more.Guest(s): Brent Tippitt Host(s): Malcolm White and Carol PalmerEmail: food@mpbonline.orgIf you enjoyed listening to this podcast, please consider contributing to MPB: https://donate.mpbfoundation.org/mspb/podcast Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

In this week's episode, I take a look back at the movies and streaming shows I watched in Summer 2026 and rate them. This coupon code will get you 25% off the ebooks in the Ghost Armor series at my Payhip store: FALLARMOR The coupon code is valid through September 21, 2026. So if you need a new ebook this fall, we've got you covered! TRANSCRIPT 00:00:00 Introduction and Writing Updates Hello, everyone. Welcome to Episode 319 of The Pulp Writer Show. My name is Jonathan Moeller. Today is September the 4th, 2026, and today I'm looking back at the movies and streaming shows I watched over Summer 2026. We will also have Coupon of the Week and an update on my current writing, publishing, and audiobook projects. So let's start off with Coupon of the Week. This week's coupon code will get you 25% off the ebooks in the Ghost Armor series at my Payhip store. That coupon code is FALLARMOR. As always, you can get the coupon code and the links to my Payhip store available in the show notes for this episode. This coupon code will be valid through September 21st, 2026, so if you need a new ebook for this fall, we have got you covered. Now an update on my current writing, publishing, and audiobook projects. I'm pleased to report that the rough draft of Blade of Visions is done. It came to 99,000 words. It'd be kind of cool if it came to 100,000, but as I've learned in the 15 years I've been doing this, it's not a good idea to pad things for length. Editing is underway. I'm about 15% through the first pass of edits. I'm working on the cover design, so I'm on good track to have the book out before the end of the month. I also wrote a tie-in short story called Winter Crown and don't forget that [newsletter] subscribers will get a free ebook copy of that short story when Blade of Visions comes out later this month. So this makes a very excellent time to subscribe to my new release newsletter. I am also 12,000 words into Elven-Warlock, which will be the seventh book in the Half-Elven Thief series. Hopefully that will be out in October, if all goes well. In audiobook news, I think Blade of Thieves (as narrated by Brad Wills) and Cloak of Worlds (as narrated by Hollis McCarthy) are now finally available at all the usual audiobook stores, which includes Audible, Apple, Amazon, Kobo, Google Play, Chirp, and all the others. So if you want to listen to those if you are going on a Labor Day road trip, you can check those out. A reminder that Stealth and Spells Online: The Complete LitRPG trilogy (narrated by C.J. McAllister) is also available on Audible, so check that out. That's 32 hours long and that would also cover all your Labor Day travels. So that is where I'm at with my current writing, publishing and audiobook projects. 00:02:22 Main Topic of the Week: Summer 2026 Movie Roundup So let's move on to our main topic this week. Our main topic this week is the Summer 2026 Movie Roundup and I always enjoy doing those. These episodes are a little less serious than some of the other episodes and it's fun to talk about things I enjoyed and that you might enjoy as well. And I did see a lot of new movies this summer. In fact, I went to the actual theater four times for Masters of the Universe, The Odyssey, Spider-Man, and Coyote vs. Acme, which is probably more than I've gone in a single season since before COVID times. So as usual, here are the movies I saw this summer (rated from least favorite to most favorite). The grades are totally subjective and based on nothing but my own thoughts and opinions. First up is The Breadwinner, which came out in 2026. This is basically standup comedian Nate Bargatze's act come to life as a movie. If you've seen Bargatze's standup, his usual routine is to portray himself as the dumb husband and bumbling Girl Dad, which is actually quite clever from a comedic standpoint since you're unlikely to have outraged mobs calling for your head if all you're doing is making fun of yourself. Anyway, Bargatze portrays Nate Wilcox, the best Toyota salesman in Nashville. (Don't worry, this is the first of only many product placement moments.) He lets his wife Kate manage the household and do the bulk of the work with their three daughters. When Kate's invention takes off on Shark Tank, she has to go to South Korea for two weeks to oversee manufacturing, leaving Nate in charge of the kids. Comedic chaos ensues. On the positive side of this movie, I did approve how this movie showed a married couple trying to work through a rough patch and do what's right for their kids and each other in a semi-productive way rather than blowing up their lives over nonsensical trivialities in the style of Eat, Pray, Love. On the downside, there was a lot of product placement, to the point where it at times felt like an extended commercial with bits of plot jammed in between product endorsement. No doubt most of the production budget came from product placement money. Will Forte was funny as an eccentric roofing contractor and Martin Herlihy as a shifty DoorDash employee. Kumail Nanjiani was funny as Nate's rival salesman at the car dealership. So overall, I would say this was blandly amusing and inoffensive with some funny slapstick moments. Overall grade: C- Next up is Supergirl, which came out in 2026. This movie really was sort of a strange combination of John Wick and the human trafficking subplot from 2020's Black Widow. The end result wasn't quite as good as Superman from 2025, alas. I did like this movie's interpretation of Supergirl. Kara Zor-El's departure from Krypton was way more traumatic than Superman's, so she's dealing with her unresolved emotional issues by traveling from planet to planet with red suns and getting hammered since the same yellow sun that gives Kryptonians their superpowers on Earth also keeps them from getting drunk because their bodies process alcohol too efficiently. However, Kara comes to a planet where a girl named Ruthye lives. Ruthye's family has been slaughtered by ruthless brigands yet led by Krem of the Yellow Hills and she's going on a quest for revenge. When Ruthye tries to recruit Kara for the quest, she's not interested, but then Krem steals Kara's spaceship and poisons her dog Krypto. Krem carries the antidote on his person, so now Kara and Ruthye team up to get vengeance on Krem and to heal Krypto. Krem is a nasty piece of work and he and his space gang travel from planet to planet abducting women to be their wives. I think the problem was that Krem was kind of a boring but nasty villain, but he was still boring. He was basically a space thug with too many piercings. Lex Luthor from 2025 Superman, by contrast, was a really interesting villain, this malignant narcissist who knows that his obsession with Superman is over the top, but he's going to act on it anyway. Additionally, I don't think this version of Supergirl is quite capable of being a lead character on her own. She'd make a superb secondary character, but I don't think she could quite carry a movie on her own. And Jason Momoa was pretty good as Lobo. Overall grade: C- Next up is Troy, which came out in 2004. I wanted to see this either before or after I watched The Odyssey this summer and ended up watching it the day before I went to see The Odyssey. I would say this movie was slow and ponderous, but I did enjoy watching it. This is an adaption of The Iliad and has the sort of slow stateliness of epic films from the '60s. It had good performances and good battle scenes. Brian Cox was enjoyable as a scenery chewing Agamemnon and Brad Pitt worked as Achilles. Interestingly, his version of Achilles reminded me of the interpretation of Feyd-Rautha Harkonnen from Dune 2 as sort of a violent psychopath with his own twisted sense of honor. Oddly, despite the fact that this was rather a long movie, the ending seems a bit rushed, like we needed to hurry up and get to the Trojan Horse. It was amusing how Achilles' relationship with Patroclus was changed to "cousin" for the modern audience, but Greek views on sexuality would definitely be unpalatable with both right-wing and left-wing versions of the modern mind, which is a good thing because while the Greeks contributed a great deal to the development of civilization, they were into a lot of unsavory stuff. So overall, I would say this was a fun, epic movie, but I think this walked so the 2026 version of The Odyssey could run. Amusing fact: Christopher Nolan was apparently supposed to direct this, but the deal fell through and he got Batman Begins as a consolation prize instead. Overall grade: B- Next up is The Dink, which came out in 2026. This is an Apple TV comedy movie about pickleball of all things. I feel like this was made because some Apple executive got made fun of by some tennis players for playing pickleball and then decided to take revenge through media. Jake Johnson plays Dustin Boyd, a washed up former child tennis star who now works at his father's tennis club. The club has difficulties because of a growing influx of pickleball players who the hardcore tennis players hate. Dustin's father decides to use the club's bylaws to force a duel match to decide the issue, in the grand tradition of wacky comedy stakes. Dustin really wants to play the duel match, but his wrist is injured in an accident. To get his wrist mobility back, the doctor suggested he play some pickleball and Dustin views this as beneath him, but he really wants to play again, so he signs up for pickleball. This ends up being a wacky sports company/buddy movie as Dustin gradually befriends an eccentric older pickleball player. Ed Harris should really do more comedic roles. He was great as Dustin's stern, yet unscrupulous father. I do admire Apple TV's dedication to making random stuff. Overall grade: B- Next up is Green and Gold, which came out in 2025, and this is a melodrama about a farmer and his granddaughter dealing with the grim economic realities of farming. This is set in 1992/1993 era Wisconsin. Buck refuses to modernize his dairy farm in Door County, Wisconsin. His granddaughter Jenny is a talented musician and also a skilled farmer, and Buck wants her to take over the farm one day, but Jenny's ambitions are looking elsewhere. Events come to a head when Jenny realizes that Buck is deeply in debt to the bank, which is about to foreclose on the farm. However, Buck and the chief banker have a personal animosity, so they settle on a bet. If the Green Bay Packers win a Super Bowl title in 1993, the banker will give Buck one more year to turn things around on the farm. Meanwhile, Jenny begins to wonder if her music ambitions might generate the money to save the farm. Of course, if you are familiar with the history of the Packers, you know that they won a Super Bowl in 1996, not 1993. The movie has carried on the back of the very strong performances of its actors. It also has an ambiguously happy ending, as is true with so many things in farming. I like this movie because I've spent a lot of my life in the American Midwest, [and] I did appreciate how it shows the difficulties of the farming life. Also, this is important: a fall from a ladder is a plot point. Ladder safety is important, people! If you are going up a ladder, for heaven's sake don't climb the ladder in high heels like the character in question does. Wear sensible, well-fitting shoes with good soles. A very long time ago, I used to work with a guy who would climb extension ladders in cowboy boots. It is nothing short of the mercy of God that he didn't fall off and shatter half the bones in his body. Overall grade: B Next up is Grumpy Old Men, which came out in 1993. Apparently this is set in Wabasha, Minnesota, which is amusing because filming actually took place in several areas in the Twin Cities in Eastern Minnesota, but not actually in Wabasha. I found that personally amusing because I'm quite familiar with the area and so I recognize several filming locations. Anyway, the movie is about two retirees, Max and John, who are enemies and have been enemies for years, but Max is lonely and wants to get married again, and John is about to lose his house to the IRS due to tax problems. Things come to a head when an attractive literature professor moves across the street and both Max and John take an interest in her and start competing for her affections. However, it turns out that Max and John are actually best friends whose love language happens to be hatred and practical jokes, kind of like Wile E. Coyote and Road Runner, but more on them below. This was a good character comedy/drama. It was interesting that the professor was an early version of the Manic Pixie Dream Girl trope, albeit several decades before someone came up with the term. This is worth watching both as a character and comedy drama and a time capsule of the 1990s. Sometimes a movie ages a bit badly (Airplane and the Thomas Crown Affair from the Spring Movie Roundup come to mind), but this didn't. The sequel Grumpier Old Men from 1995 is basically the same movie, but with the characters acting about 20% dumber so a sitcom style plot can happen. Still entertaining, but not as good as the first one, so Grumpier Old Men only gets a B-, but Grumpy Old Men gets a B+. Next up is Masters of the Universe, which came out in 2026. It was amusing to read reviews of this movie because people thought way too hard about a movie that is essentially about battling action figures. Anyway, this was pretty good. It was nice to see a movie about a science fiction property that doesn't actually hate the source material. Basically it's a live action version of the cartoons from the '80s, albeit with somewhat more thoughtful moments. I heard someone suggest that it was close in tone to Thor: Ragnarok, and that seems accurate. The plot is that Skeletor conquers Eternia and 10-year-old Prince Adam is sent with the Sword of Power through a magical portal to Earth to keep him and the sword out of Skeletor's reach. However, Adam loses the sword while passing through the gate and 15 years later is working in human resources. He's still seeking for the sword despite his therapist trying to convince him that it was a trauma-induced fantasy. However, his persistence pays off and he does find the sword. Teela, who is one of the resistance leaders against Skeletor's rule, comes to Earth to find him and bring him back, but Skeletor's minions arrive to claim the sword as well. Adam and Teela escape back to Eternia and it's up to Adam to find a way to use the Sword of Power to become the hero that Eternia needs. Dolph Lundgren's cameo was great. Overall, I would say this is a fun movie to watch, especially if you're a Millennial or Gen Xer who saw the cartoons or the live action movie back in the '80s. Jared Leto has something of an increasingly questionable reputation these days, but he did a good job as Skeletor, played him halfway between the solemn gravitas of the 1987 version and the malevolent comedic cornball of the cartoons. Of course, in my opinion, the Frank Langella version from 1987 is the best version of Skeletor since he placed it with all the seriousness of a Shakespearean villain monologue at the Royal Shakespeare Company. In hindsight, it wasn't terribly surprising that this underperformed at the box office. It felt like it was made for guys my age, not for kids. I would've been comfortable bringing an eight-year-old to see The Mandalorian and Grogu or Super Mario Galaxy, but I would've been less certain bringing a kid that age to see Masters of the Universe. Additionally, it seemed very Marvel in tone, and I think the overall mood of the US these days is less "Marvel Cinematic Universe quips and banter" and more sort of the grimness of The Odyssey, which we'll talk about shortly. Overall grade: B+ Next up is Young Washington, which came out in 2026, a biopic of the early life of George Washington, covering how he more or less accidentally started the French and Indian War and how he recovered his reputation at the Battle of Braddock's Field. To be fair, the international situation at the time meant that someone was going to start the French and Indian War. It just happened to be Washington, who was in the wrong place at the wrong time. Overall, I liked this. It was reasonably historically accurate, though some of the emotional and family dialogue at times was a bit clunky. Additionally, Washington was portrayed as having revolutionary leanings much earlier in life than he actually did, since when he was a young man, he had no thoughts of being anything but a British subject and officer. That said, some of the most implausible stuff in the movie actually happened in real life. Like if I were to write in a novel that the future president of the United States personally rallied the army's rear guard to save as many men as possible from an ambush, and in the process had two horses shot out from under him and ended up with bullet holes in his hat and coat (all while fighting continuously), you would probably find that a bit implausible, but it actually happened that way. Washington's daring actions during that battle were one of the reasons he was appointed commander of the Continental Army during the Revolutionary War, that and there weren't many other colonials with as much experience of military command as Washington. In that vein, the battle scenes were the best part of the movie. They captured the brutality and messiness of 18th Century warfare without being especially graphic. Anyway, I'm glad this is getting a sequel. Maybe we'll end up with a Young Washington Cinematic Universe. Overall grade: B+ Next up is Meet the Parents, which came out in 2000, and this is probably one of the apex forms of cringe comedy. Ben Stiller plays Greg Focker, a nurse who's in love with schoolteacher Pam Burns. Greg wants to marry Pam, but overhears a phone call with her sister where she says her fiancé asked permission of her traditional father first. Greg decides that he's going to ask Pam's father's permission first to get off on the right foot, and so accompanies Pam to her sister's wedding and her parents' house to, as the title says, Meet the Parents. However, Pam's father is the former CIA counterintelligence officer Jack, and he and Greg immediately get on each other's nerves. To make things worse, the airline has lost Greg's luggage. From these two starting premises follow a cascading series of hilarious disasters that accumulate in a septic tank fire on the lawn. I'm not sure, but I think I saw this one in the theaters when it came out in 2000, and I thought it was funny then. With 26 years of additional life experience under the belt, I still think it's pretty funny, though you could still tell that this movie was filmed before 9/11 because if Greg had his airport meltdown seen today, the consequences would've been much worse. Overall grade: B+ Next up is O Brother Where Art Thou, which came out in 2000. This is a very, very, very specific adaptation of The Odyssey directed by the Coen brothers. George Clooney plays Everett, a convict who escapes from a chain gang in Mississippi during the Great Depression. He wants to find a treasure and he recruits fellow convicts Delmar and Peter to assist him. Along the way, Everett and his team encountered 1930s era versions of the Sirens, the cyclops, the blind prophet Tiresias, and other characters and foes from the original Odyssey myth. Everett and his friends end up running a scam where they pretend to be a Christian music group, but as it turns out, they're actually pretty good at singing, so this leads to unexpected hilarity and opportunities. This was also a very funny movie. Imagine The Odyssey is a comedy with a lot of singing set in the Deep South during the Depression, and you're there. If you're a fan of bluegrass music, this is worth watching. If you've seen Christopher Nolan's The Odyssey, it's worth watching this just to ponder how the same source material can produce such wildly divergent interpretations. If you don't care about The Odyssey, then this is still a fun movie to watch. Proof: I mentioned to someone that I had seen this and she responded that she both loved the movie and was surprised to learn that he had in fact been inspired by The Odyssey. Overall grade: A- Next up is Hoppers, which came out in 2026. Like most Pixar movies, this was very high concept. Unlike many recent Pixar movies, it wasn't too depressing and didn't disappear up its own tailpipe. In the city of Beaverton, hot tempered girl Mabel bonds with her grandmother in their favorite place, a woodland grove favored by beavers. Years later, Mabel is a biology student under Dr. Fairfax, but is neglecting her studies to face off against her nemesis, the popular yet sketchy Mayor Jerry of Beaverton. Mayor Jerry wants to build an expressway that will wipe out the woodland grove, and he's perfectly within his rights to do it since no animals have been found living there. Since Mabel's grandmother has died, she's unwilling to give up the grove. However, Dr. Fairfax's research might give her a way. Dr. Fairfax has worked out a way to temporarily transfer human consciousness to a robotic beaver capable of speaking to real beavers, much like the plot of Avatar. In a funny scene, Fairfax angrily denies that it's just like Avatar. Mabel gets the idea to use this to convince real beavers to settle in the grove, thereby thwarting Mayor Jerry's plans. This touches off both a wacky yet poignant adventure. The plot was very well structured and it followed the proper rules of story structure, which I've talked about before. Mabel definitely is a protagonist who takes action, but experiences setbacks and problems of her own creation. It was pretty good. I say it was a return to form for Pixar after some of their weaker movies in the 2020s. Overall grade: A Now it's time for my three favorite movies of summer 2026, all of which I actually saw in the theater. First up is Coyote versus Acme, which came out in 2026. This movie had an extra surge of popularity from the fact that Warner Brothers canceled it as a tax write-off, but distributor Ketchup Entertainment revived it. That makes it a plucky underdog since Warner Brothers senior executives are kind of like the apex version of soulless corporate bug men. Like if I wrote characters in my books who acted like Warner Brothers senior executives, people would think I was being didactic and heavy-handed. Anyway, after decades of failures in efforts to capture the Road Runner, Wile E. Coyote decides to sue Acme Corporation for its numerous defective products. Coyote teams up with a lazy strip mall lawyer named Kevin Avery, who specializes in getting small settlements from Acme. However, Avery and Coyote end up filing a massive lawsuit against Acme, which means they'll face the full wrath of Acme Corporation, including its ace lawyer Buddy Crane and its ruthless CEO, Foghorn Leghorn. What follows is a comedic courtroom battle as Coyote and Avery try to defeat Acme Corporation, defeat its sinister plans, and Coyote starts to realize that Road Runner might actually be his best friend. Both quite amusing and touching, and I'm glad this was rescued from the tax write-off vault. Overall grade: A Next up is The Odyssey, which came out in 2026. This wasn't quite as good as Oppenheimer in 2023 in my opinion, but it was still very good and very much worth seeing. It was weird that The Odyssey was briefly a football in the never-ending US culture war scrum because the movie isn't really political and doesn't really have a message beyond "war is destructive and bad", which every sensible person would agree with, and a lesser message of "violating the law of morality has unforeseen cascading bad consequences, including the destruction of civilization", which is also quite true and was one of the themes of Oppenheimer. Nolan himself dismissed the controversies as "irrelevant" and "part of the territory" since no one had actually seen the movie yet, and given that The Odyssey has made a billion and a half dollars as of this recording, I think that may have proved his point. I imagine the scrutiny from Batman fans back in the 2010s was way more intense since in the modern era, many people care more deeply about the accuracy of Batman than The Odyssey. I do think the debate over the historical accuracy in The Odyssey is pointless because the Odyssey is myth, not history. The Iliad and The Odyssey are a lot like Arthurian myth in terms of their actual historicity. Even when Arthurian legend was massively popular with English kings and nobles in the late medieval and early modern period (for example, Henry VIII's older brother was named Arthur in imitation of King Arthur), the version of Arthurian myth they celebrated and wished to emulate had virtually no connection to the reality of Britain in the 500s AD and was instead a sort of fantasy version of their own time in the 14th and 15th centuries. By the time The Odyssey was written down, no doubt a similar process was underway. Both The Iliad and The Odyssey and the Arthurian cycle probably have a kernel of historical truth buried underneath the tales of magic swords, sirens, cyclopses, and vengeful witches with magic islands. There likely was a Romano-British warlord who might have been named Arthur (or possibly Ambrosius Aurelianus) who held off the Saxons for a while before he was overwhelmed and killed. Likewise, Heinrich Schliemann was a highly eccentric and very sketchy crazy rich guy, but he did prove that there really was some version of the city of Troy that was destroyed at the end of the Bronze Age. But everything beyond those basic details came from thousands of years of embellishments and flourishes from later poets and writers. So arguing about the historical accuracy of The Odyssey is a bit like arguing if Star Wars portrays faster than light travel in an accurate way. That kind of argument is just missing the point entirely. It's also interesting to see how modern standards clashed with the ancient mindset. You know how I always say that everywhere in the United States is exactly the same right until it really, really isn't? I think ancient people are just like us until they really, really weren't. Like ancient people would have been superstitious to an extent that even the most credulous crystal and aura influencer on TikTok would find horrifying and frequently violent in a way that the most strident self-defense advocate would find shocking. The Odyssey's version of Odysseus feels guilt and remorse over his actions in a way an actual ancient Greek probably wouldn't have, but so what? This is The Odyssey viewed through the lens of the 21st century, just as those English nobles viewed the myth of King Arthur and his knights through the lens of their time. As I mentioned with Troy above, the ancient Greeks were often quite brutal and would celebrate sacking an enemy city. One side note before we get to the movie, I probably found it funnier than I should have how Nolan favorably cited classicist Emily Wilson's translation of The Odyssey as a source, and Wilson then had an extended and unintentionally comedic multi-article crashout about how much she hated the movie and of course how much she hated the commemorative Trojan Horse popcorn bucket. Apparently Wilson hated the movie so much she's going to do a new translation of The Odyssey, much to her publisher's baffled dismay. No one does offended huffy petulance quite like an academic. Anyway, back to the movie. It follows the familiar story of Odysseus through Christopher Nolan's preference for non-linear storytelling and practical effects. I did think it was interesting how in this interpretation, Odysseus explicitly connected the ruse of the Trojan Horse with the collapse of the Bronze Age and the rise of the Sea Peoples. It's also probably the most supernatural film Nolan has ever done with actual fantasy and supernatural elements as opposed to science fiction like Inception, Tenant, and Interstellar. Odysseus talks to Athena throughout the movie and it's left up to the viewer's interpretation whether or not he's actually talking to Athena or his own guilt-ridden hallucinations. That said, Odysseus encounters a witch with actual magic powers and travels to the underworld to speak with the shades of the dead, so it's entirely possible he's talking to the actual Athena. In this version, as I mentioned, Odysseus is guilt-ridden over the ruse of the Trojan Horse, which is shown as a violation of the sacred hospitality of Zeus's law and as great a crime as the creation of the atomic bomb in Oppenheimer, which of course is similar to Oppenheimer, where Oppenheimer's creation of the atomic bomb is treated similarly. There are also some genuinely scary sequences in the movie. The bit with the underworld is very spooky, the cyclops is actually quite frightening, and the character of Circe reaches the level of scary previously attained by Heath Ledger's version of The Joker in The Dark Knight. If Nolan ever decides he wants to do a horror movie, it will probably be one of the scariest ones ever made. To sum up, The Odyssey has great performances, great spectacle, great cinematography, and great action sequences. As an interesting interpretation of the original myth, definitely worth seeing. I think you can tell it was a great movie because of all the arguments on the Internet about "what does it really mean?" Great art often has that effect. Overall grade: A The final of my three favorite movies of [Summer] 2026 is Spider-Man: Brand New Day, which came out in 2026. There's a rumor, and I don't know if it's true or not, that Tom Holland found the experience of working with Christopher Nolan on The Odyssey so eye-opening that he insisted that if they made another Spider-Man movie, it had to have a reason for existing other than "make a lot of money". If this story is true, it clearly worked. Previously, I though the two best Spider-Man movies were Spider-Man 2 from 2004 and Spider-Man: No Way Home from 2021. I must now amend that opinion to say that there are three best Spider-Man movies and Spider-Man: Brand New Day is one of the three. It is pretty good. I would've trimmed it here and there, but I thoroughly enjoyed it and is an excellent Spider-Man story that totally captures the essence of the character within a good story. It takes place four years after the events of No Way Home erased everyone's memory that Peter Parker was Spider-Man. Peter has now been crime fighting full time, but it is taking a severe toll on his emotions and personal life that he's deliberately ignoring. Meanwhile, Spider-Man has become the beloved crime fighter of New York, trusted by both the NYPD and the Federal Department of Damage Control, which is a reoccurring frenemy for superheroes from other movies. When someone launches an attack on the headquarters of Damage Control, the director recruits Peter to fight their new enemy, a mysterious figure who uses telepathy to possess people from a distance. Peter is the only one who can sense it thanks to his spider sense, and he's also the only one able to resist the telepath's possession abilities. But despite his resistance to possession, fighting a telepath is a dangerous proposition for someone with as many emotional issues as Peter, and things start to spiral out of control when the telepath starts digging into his life. But there's another lesson Peter has to learn. People (and especially superheroes) who take the federal government at its word tend to regret it. For that matter, ignoring his emotional issues is causing Peter's spider powers to start acting in strange ways. But of course, at the end of the day, Spider-Man always follows his conscience, no matter how high the cost to him personally. Definitely an enjoyable movie. All the scenes with Spider-Man and Punisher were great, and the two of them had a great dynamic together. A few other Marvel Cinematic Universe people show up, but this is probably one of the most standalone movies the MCU has done in a while. Of course, the risk of MCU Continuity Lockout is always there (which is one of the reasons I started writing Half-Eleven Thief in 2023). Overall grade: A So I would say it was a pretty good summer for movies. It's also valuable lessons in not taking the Internet too seriously, which too many people do nowadays. There are all these dedicated analyses on X, Threads, and Reddit in June and May explaining why The Odyssey was going to fail for whatever reason, and instead it made $1.5 billion. So I think that's a good lesson in not taking everything you read on the internet a little too seriously. So that's it for this week. Thanks for listening to The Pulp Writer Show. I hope you found the show enjoyable. A reminder that you can listen to all the back episodes at https://thepulpwritershow.com. If you enjoyed the podcast, please leave a review on your podcasting platform of choice. Stay safe and stay healthy, and we'll see you all next week.  

694. Shreveport in the 1980s and 1990s. In the heart of the Deep South, silence was deadly — until a small group of ordinary people decided to fight back. Join us for a conversation with David Hylan, the award-winning filmmaker and author who just released the book, Small Town Rage: Fighting Back in the Deep South. His 2016 documentary of the same name first brought national attention to ACT UP Shreveport, one of the smallest yet fiercest AIDS activist chapters in America. Now, with his powerful new book, Hylan expands that story, drawing on decades of interviews, archival research, and personal accounts to reveal the courage, grief, humor, and resilience of the activists who confronted hospitals that turned patients away, churches that preached judgment, and politicians who refused to listen. Far from the media spotlight of New York and San Francisco, these men and women forced northwest Louisiana to face the AIDS crisis head-on—and helped change the national conversation about compassion, healthcare, and equality in the process. This is the story of rage, resistance, and the power of ordinary people who refused to disappear. Now available: Liberty in Louisiana: A Comedy. The oldest play about Louisiana, author James Workman wrote it as a celebration of the Louisiana Purchase. Now it is back in print for the first time in 222 years. Order your copy today! This week in the Louisiana Anthology. The Picayune Creole Cook Book is the definitive cook book for New Orleans Creole cooking. We have the 1910 edition on our website -- all 400 pages, 2006 recipes, 300,000 words, it's a monument to Creole cooking of 110 years ago. We'll start with a Good Cup of Creole Coffee. Is there anything in the whole range of food substances to be compared with it? And is there any city in the world where coffee is so delightfully concocted as in New Orleans? Travelers the world over unite in praise of Creole Coffee, or 'Caf' ' la Cr'ole,' as they are fond of putting it. The Creole cuisinieres succeeded far beyond even the famous chefs of France in discovering the secret of good coffee-making, and they have never yielded the palm of victory. There is no place in the world in which the use of coffee is more general than in the old Creole city of New Orleans, where, from the famous French Market, with its world-renowned coffee stands, to the olden homes on the Bayou St. John, from Lake Pontchartrain to the verge of Southport, the cup of 'Caf' Noir,' or 'Caf' au Lait,' at morning, at noon and at night, has become a necessary and delightful part of the life of the people, and the wonder and the joy of visitors. This week in Louisiana history. September 4, 1766. A huge hurricane struck Galveston and sinking ships as far east as Calcasieu Pass. This week in New Orleans history. September 4, 1888: The first Labor Day parade was held in New Orleans, with thousands of workers marching through the French Quarter for better working conditions. This week in Louisiana. Haynesville Celebration of Butterflies September 14, 2026 Claiborne Parish Fair Complex, 1563 Fairgrounds Dr. Haynesville, LA Website: haynesvillela.org The Haynesville Celebration of Butterflies is a long‑running North Louisiana festival dedicated to monarch butterfly conservation, education, and small‑town community spirit. Now in its 26th year, the festival fills the Claiborne Parish Fair Complex with family activities, vendors, and hands‑on learning experiences. Run for the Butterflies: The Nan McMullen 5K kicks off the morning at 8:00 a.m. Butterfly Parade: A community parade at 10:00 a.m. featuring local groups, decorated floats, and children in butterfly wings. Educational Exhibits: Seminars on monarch conservation, pollinator gardening, and habitat protection. Butterfly Conservatory: A walk‑through enclosure where visitors can see live butterflies up close. Vendors & Activities: Craft booths, food vendors, children's activities, art contests, and plant sales throughout the day. Postcards from Louisiana. The Dwayne Dopsie and the Zydeco Hellraisers at the French Quarter Fest. Listen on Apple Podcasts. Listen on audible. Listen on Spotify. Listen on TuneIn. Listen on iHeartRadio. The Louisiana Anthology Home Page. Like us on Facebook. 

Cole Costello joins host Alex for a spin on the viral trend of ranking different regions of the United States based on one question: if they had to pick one region to live in forever, where would it be? From the Pacific Northwest and desert Southwest to the Great Lakes, Deep South, and New England, they weigh culture, climate, geography, cities, and what makes somewhere actually feel livable. Along the way, Alex and Cole find plenty to agree on—and some very different ideas about what makes a region worth calling home.

Topic: Malcolm and Joe welcome Jackie Wilson, owner and operator of Bama Bay Oyster Farm on Mon Louis Island, Alabama, to talk about oyster farming, and the importance of research, resilience, and restoration of the oyster population in Mobile Bay.Guest(s): Jackie WilsonHost(s): Malcolm White and Joe ShermanEmail: food@mpbonline.org. If you enjoyed listening to this podcast, please consider contributing to MPB: https://donate.mpbfoundation.org/mspb/podcast Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

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durée : 01:29:24 - Les Nuits de France Culture - par : Albane Penaranda - Aux États-Unis, entre la Louisiane et la Virginie , est née une culture musicale singulière, dérivée des traditions orales, des chants, des danses venues d'Europe et d'Afrique. En 1979, "La matinée des autres", nous emmène en promenade dans le Deep South, avec de nombreux et rares extraits musicaux. - équipe : Mathias Le Gargasson, Antoine Dhulster, Rafik Zénine, Vincent Abouchar, Emily Vallat, Hassane M'Béchour, INA - invités : William Ferris Auteur, réalisateur, professeur d'Université, photographe... Vous aimez ce podcast ? Pour écouter tous les épisodes sans limite, rendez-vous sur Radio France

Topic: Malcolm and Carol welcome the Queen of Biscuits, Chef Regina Charboneau, to the show to talk about her culinary career, cooking classes, her new "chefography", Six Courses: An Entertaining Life, and the reopening of King's Tavern in Natchez on September 1st.Guest(s): Regina CharboneauHost(s): Malcolm White and Carol PalmerEmail: food@mpbonline.org. If you enjoyed listening to this podcast, please consider contributing to MPB: https://donate.mpbfoundation.org/mspb/podcast Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Enjoy this full chapter about working on Monkey Island, from Jeff's newest book. Monkey Farm: A Summer Among the Macaques  Audiobook: Libby Libro.fm Spotify Amazon  Audible  Apple Books  Google Play  Kobo  Barnes and Noble eBook (DRM-free): Bookshop.org  Kobo  Kindle Barnes and Noble  Canadian friends: I set the retail price at par - $10CAD and $10USD. Anything more is bullshit. Keep looking if a site (like Amazon) is charging exchange rate.  It's the least I can do to make up for our bad behavior down here.  International (list created with gemini):  Rakuten Kobo (Global / Ireland) E-Book (EPUB 3) Ireland / European Union €8.99 Retail / Pre-order Rakuten Kobo Ireland Listing   Rakuten Kobo (Belgium / French) Digital Audiobook Belgium / France Direct Purchase Rakuten Kobo Belgium Audio Listing   Rakuten Kobo (Netherlands) E-Book Netherlands Direct Purchase Rakuten Kobo Netherlands Listing   Rakuten Kobo (Denmark) E-Book Denmark Direct Purchase Rakuten Kobo Denmark Listing   Rakuten Kobo (Turkey) E-Book Turkey Direct Purchase Rakuten Kobo Turkey Listing   Rakuten Kobo (Belgium / Dutch) E-Book Belgium Direct Purchase Rakuten Kobo Belgium Dutch Listing   Booktopia E-Book Australia Direct Purchase (AUD) Booktopia Product Listing   Storytel (Indonesia Storefront) Digital Audiobook Global / Southeast Asia Monthly Subscription Streaming Storytel Indonesia Listing   Storytel (France Storefront) Digital Audiobook France / Europe Monthly Subscription Streaming Storytel France Listing   Storytel (Iceland Storefront) Digital Audiobook Iceland Monthly Subscription Streaming Storytel Iceland Listing   Bol.com Digital Audiobook Netherlands / Belgium Kobo Plus Subscription / Purchase Bol.com Product Listing   Rakuten Books Japan Digital E-Book Japan Direct Purchase (JPY) Rakuten Japan Product Listing   Nextory E-Book & Audiobook Switzerland / Europe Monthly Subscription Streaming Nextory Product Listing The full chapter follows, enjoy and let me know what you think... Chapter 11 - Monkey Island My summer among the macaques ended with a hangover, fresh stitches and a new tattoo. The story of how that happened began before dawn at a boat dock on Saint Helena Sound.  The skills I'd acquired at the Yemassee clinic, specifically treating lacerations and fight wounds, had qualified me to work on Morgan Island when needed. The Monkey Farm maintained a colony of rhesus macaques on the island under a contract with the government. The macaques had been relocated to South Carolina from a government breeding facility in Puerto Rico fifteen years prior, after monkeys carrying the Herpes-B virus escaped into the community.  After my boss recommended me to the Morgan Island team, the occupational health lab tested me for tuberculosis and hepatitis. The monkeys on the island were disease-free, and the humans who worked there were screened to make sure they didn't infect the animals. The lab also re-tested me for Herpes-B virus, carried by many of the macaques I worked with. Herpes-B was harmless to the monkeys, but could kill me. The re-test confirmed I hadn't been infected by an accidental needle stick the month before. After I stuck myself with that used needle, I rushed back to the clinic and scrubbed the wound with iodine and a stiff brush for ten minutes, then flushed the wound with water for another twenty minutes. Either the monkey hadn't carried B virus or the infection-control procedure worked. Good news! With blood tests out of the way, I was given the dates I would work on Morgan Island and instructions to take the morning boat from Eddings Point. My boss dictated directions. "Take the Carteret Street bridge from Beaufort on the mainland to Lady's Island. Continue on the Sea Island Parkway. Pass Datha, Distant, Warsaw and Polawana Islands. Keep going on to Saint Helena Island. Turn left on Eddings Point Road, go a couple miles across the causeway to Eddings Point Landing. Boat leaves at 6:30 am sharp. Be early because they'll leave you at the dock if you're one minute late." A winding pre-dawn drive across the archipelago of Saint Helena Sound got me to the dock just after 6:00 am. A car and two pickup trucks were already parked in an oyster shell lot between the narrow causeway and the salt marsh. The trucks lit the marsh with their headlights. The beams followed a walkway of planks laid between pilings out to open water where I could just make out a boat tied to a floating dock. Three people I'd never met were ferrying boxes of supplies and bags of Purina Monkey Chow from the trucks to the boat. I got out of my own truck with a duffel bag holding my coveralls and boots. Unsure what do do next, I went and stood next to the walkway, thinking maybe I could help. The three men ignored me as they sleepily went about their stevedoring.  The veterinarian I was to assist that day climbed out of a nearby station wagon and trudged slowly over, a bag similar to mine slung over her shoulder. We exchanged sleepy good mornings. She wore a dark knit watch cap. It was September, and the air was thankfully cool after a shatteringly hot Lowcountry August. That heat pushed me down with a heavy weight from dawn to dusk. It was hardest in coveralls, boots and a mask, but even on my days off I stayed indoors in the air conditioning. That August was the first time in my life I didn't want to go outside, even to swim since the body temperature water did nothing to cool me down. Thankfully, September broke the spell. That morning the breeze off the salt marsh was brisk and fresh. We stayed out of the way while the crew finished loading the boat. The one in charge, a big man I hadn't met, turned off the headlights in one, then the other truck. Big Man motioned to us to follow as he crossed the walkway to join the two people already on the boat. His heavy steps made the planks bounce gently between the pilings. I stepped down a short ramp from the fixed walkway to the floating dock. I followed the veterinarian who had already climbed aboard the boat.  Free from the glare of headlights, my eyes started to adjust to the pre-dawn light. The simple workboat was sturdily built of white fiberglass. It had a windshield on top of a tiny cabin in the bow. The steering wheel and throttle were mounted next to a ship's compass bolted to the top of the cabin. The letters and numbers of the compass glowed from a soft yellow light inside the compass housing. I could see that we were pointed roughly north. The inboard motor repeated a quiet rumble under an engine box piled with supplies. Big Man quickly untied the lines, bow and stern, and climbed into the boat to take the wheel.  He pushed the throttle forward and spun the wheel to the left. The boat rose smoothly on plane as we motored into Jenkins Creek. My eyes now fully adjusted, I could see the glow of sunrise build in the sky to our right, and there was enough ambient light to see our surroundings. We looked up at the top of tall marsh grass speeding by on either side of the Creek. Five months earlier in May, the grass was a green fringe barely above the tidal marshes at the confluence of the Ashepoo, Combahee, and Edisto rivers. The three rivers gave their water and their names to the ACE Basin, a pristine 350,000 acre nursery estuary in Saint Helena Sound.  Smack dab in the middle of the ACE Basin sat Morgan Island, the only completely undeveloped island in the estuary. Undeveloped, but not uninhabited.  The others on the boat didn't say much as we wound through the creeks and rivers on our way to Morgan Island. Between the early hour and the routine of what was regular duty for everyone else, I was left to watch and wonder. We shot out of Jenkins Creek into the wider Morgan River then turned east. Our bow was pointed toward the sunrise over the Atlantic Ocean beyond. The top edge of the sun broke above the watery horizon. A dorsal fin broke the surface of the water in front and to the right of the boat. A shark! No, sharks don't surf. It was a porpoise. The sleek marine mammal caught a ride on the wave of water pushed aside by our bow until we turned to head north up Parrot Creek next to Morgan Island.  Morgan Island is technically six square miles, but only one square mile is high and dry. The rest is marsh. We motored in a long clockwise loop around the island's northern perimeter. At a buoy with a flashing green light, we turned south into the mouth of an unnamed tidal creek that led to the interior. After ten minutes winding through the creek, Big Man pulled back on the throttle. The boat slowed and we putted slowly toward the forested upland of Morgan Island. I pushed to the front of the cockpit to spot the throngs of free-range macaques that must've been gathered on shore to greet us. But weren't. Instead, a sleepy woman took our lines and tied our boat to a simple wooden pier that jutted out of bushes and trees that lined the shore beyond. A second boat was tied up on the other side of the dock, nearly identical to ours but older and more weathered. It was covered in morning dew and had been there all night. The veterinarian motioned me to climb out so the crew could unload. The tide crested during the trip out, so it was a short step up from the boat to the dock. We carried our duffel bags down the dock, walking alongside the woman who'd come to meet us. She wore the dark blue coveralls of an animal care technician. She seemed to wake up and nodded a greeting to me.  "Welcome to Monkey Island son! I'm Dianne, you're in for a big day today!" I still didn't know what I was in for, only that my clinical skills had improved to the point where I could 'go out to Morgan for census.' The low morning sun lit the dock, but it was still dark under the trees on shore. I stepped off the pier onto the island proper. The ground was sand mixed with bits of dry organic matter fallen from a dense canopy above. When we stepped into the shadows of the trees we also stepped onto a dense mat of dead leaves, palmetto fronds, and pine needles. The branches of the pine and live oak trees above interlocked with each other to provide support against strong ocean winds. This mesh of branches was a distinguishing characteristic of the island's maritime forest. A perfect habitat for the rhesus macaques I had yet to see.  We walked up a trail to a decrepit cabin with a low, sagging metal roof. A tall radio antenna shot straight up from the peak of the roof. It's thin outline was visible against the large white plastic tank of an improvised water tower behind the cabin. The cabin itself was painted a drab light brown that blended with the forest. More so because the paint peeled up in places as if to mimic leaves. A screened porch spanned the front of the building. Through its dusty screen I could see an old plaid couch and a worn yellow vinyl recliner. The veterinarian stepped on to the porch through a crooked screen door. I followed her past the junky furniture through a weathered wood doorframe into the cabin. Its old door was propped open by a rusty metal bucket full of sand bristling with cigarette butts. Most of the cabin was one big room. A slightly less decrepit couch and recliner stood against the back wall next to a kitchen area that held a round wooden table and a few matching chairs.  A makeshift office area was to the right of the door. A dented gray metal desk under a cracked sliding glass window held a serious looking two-way shortwave radio set. A thick wire snaked out of the window to the antenna on the roof. The transmitter was surrounded by stacks of paperwork and binders. Above it was a map of the island marked with circles and squares. To the left, open doors led to two small bedrooms on either side of a bathroom. An ancient toilet, the kind with a long chain dangling from a tank on the wall was visible through the bathroom door. The place looked and felt like a remote ranger station on a wildlife preserve, which it sort of was.  A weathered man who could've been forty or sixty sat at the kitchen table with a mug of coffee. He looked up from a piece of paper on the clipboard in front of him as the veterinarian walked over.  "Mornin' doc. I see you brought the new kid. Hey kid, I'm Jack. Well, I went out this morning and another ten monkeys jumped in the corral last night. That makes 182. Looked like about a third don't have tattoos, but I couldn't get an exact count." Jack's voice held the soft lilt acquired by someone who'd lived here for a while, but wasn't from the Deep South. The veterinarian acknowledged his update and told me to go into the bathroom and change into boots and coveralls. I came out to find Jack gone from the cabin and the vet in her coveralls waiting for me by the door. We walked out to where two of the crew from the boat stood with Diane and Jack between a couple of ancient vehicles I hadn't noticed earlier. The sun shone through the trees on an ancient flat-fender jeep. I loved it at first sight. Either Army surplus or an early civilian model. It was protected from the salt air by multiple coats of whatever leftover paint had been on hand at the time. Where the last coat of beige flaked off, I could see light orange and hints of robins egg blue beneath that. Its windshield frame was long gone. A hole gaped where one headlight had fallen out. There was no roll bar or rear seat. Stuffing poked through the cracked vinyl upholstery of a driver's seat behind a wide metal steering wheel. The passenger had to make do with an old couch cushion set on the floor of the vehicle. A surplus Army trailer painted the same leftover kaleidoscope was hitched to the jeep. It's pickup truck-sized bed held boxes of veterinary supplies.  The other vehicle was an old pickup truck so dented and rusted I couldn't tell you more about it. I admired it anyway. As I stood wondering at the make of the truck, a movement back by the jeep caught my eye. I had to stare for a moment before I could spot the young adult rhesus macaque. He crept across the forest floor, halfway to the jeep trailer from the nearest tree trunk. Big Man was in a nearby storage shed even more decrepit than the cabin, where he stowed the last of the supplies from the boat. Everyone else had their backs to the monkey. The macaque crept steadily closer to the trailer, eyes wide, mouth open. I didn't know any better so I just watched. When he got to the trailer, he stood on his hind legs and peered over the side. A hand darted out and snatched a packet of sterile gauze just as Big Man came out of the shed, saw him and yelled. "Yo! Monkey! Git!"  The macaque streaked away from the trailer in a three-legged dash, the white paper packet of gauze held to his chest with one hand. I continued to stare dumbly as the other four turned around and watched the thief disappear up into the tree canopy. Big Man chuckled as he walked toward our group.  "That one's still at it, huh? Guess he didn't jump into the corral last night."  I finally found my words and asked if that was something to look out for the rest of the day.  Big Man replied. "Not really. Every so often one of 'em gets more curious than scared and hangs around the cabin. They love to get their hands on anything new and different, so the census trailer is better 'n bananas. No big deal so long as they don't steal anything sharp. You put the syringes and scissors on the bottom, right Jack?" Jack nodded, a smile on his face. Big Man stopped next to Jack who handed him a clipboard. Big Man started the morning briefing. He introduced me as Jeff, there to help the veterinarian. No other introductions as everyone knew everyone except me and it was clear I was the vet's problem.   "Ok, me and Karl are on island the next three nights. Jack and Dianne are good to stay overtime this morning, but'll take the day boat back this afternoon as soon as we're finished with census. Dianne, how's everything doing?" "Batteries are at eighty percent this morning, generator ran fine last evening. Propane is good, water tank's three quarters full, next water delivery in a week. The water transfer pump is still on the fritz, but I know what part it needs and'll pick that up before I'm out here next. Did a radio check this morning with Yemassee. Y'all brought plenty of food so you're good for three days." He nodded his thanks, then looked down at the clipboard.  "Ok, Monkeys are in Corral C on the southwest side of the island. As of Jack's final check this morning, a total of 182 animals jumped in over two days." He flipped the top sheet over and went through a checklist on the second page. "Ok, cages, sawhorses and plywood are already staged out at the corral. Lights, scales and measuring tapes are in the pickup. So are census records, tattoo equipment and portable generators. Trailer's loaded with vet supplies, gauntlets, and gloves." He looked at his watch, then at us.  "It's 7:45, we need to set up by 8:30 so we can census all 180 macaques before noon. 1:00 at the latest if there are hiccups. It's cool now, but the temp is gonna get into the eighties later this afternoon. We don't wanna add heat to the stress they're already under. No breaks, lunch after, ok? Everyone good?" Heads nodded, mine included even though I didn't know what would come next.  "Ok, boat crew with me in the truck, last night's island crew in the jeep. We'll go on ahead and set up." Big Man looked at me and the veterinarian. "Y'all walk and meet us there. Take the loop trail and you can't miss it. We'll have your station set up by the time you get there. " I was bummed to not get a ride in the old Army jeep. As I watched it pull away down the rough trail, it bounced over a deep rut. The jeep's rear corner hopped violently because the leaf spring was broken and the body sat hard on the rear axle. Maybe a walk in the woods was better.  The veterinarian used the walk to fill me in. Our black rubber boots were nearly silent on sand mixed with pine needles as we walked next to a rutted vehicle trail that looped around the perimeter of the island. The veterinarian started with background. "Pretty crazy place, huh? The government put a breeding colony of 1,400 rhesus macaques on this island in the 80's. It's more than self-sustaining because now there're about 3,000 of them. I say 'about' because they live free-range in dozens of social groups. There's no way to do a complete count when they roam freely over hundreds of acres. There are four corrals around the island, A, B, C and D. We do census in March, June, September and December. The island staff bait one of the corrals with fruit and biscuits for two days. Monkeys living in the area jump down into the corral for fruit and can't climb back out. Take today's census. 182 macaques jumped into Corral C. We treat that group as a sample from all the monkeys living on the island. Then we use statistics to estimate the total population." She looked up from the ground ahead to see if I followed. I nodded in understanding. "Ok, great. During the census today, the staff will inspect, weigh and measure each monkey that jumped into the corral. Every monkey with a chest tattoo has its own census chart in a binder where its weight and such are recorded each time it's captured. If a monkey doesn't have a tattoo, it means it's never been seen in the census. The animal gets a tattoo and a new census chart with its first weight, length, sex, age and health exam. When it's caught again in a future census, its information is recorded on the same chart. Get why it's called a census?" I got it. The official census in the United States worked sort of the same way. Every ten years, census takers go door to door in a neighborhood and record a bunch of information. Not every door, but enough to create a reliable sample. Experts then do the math to estimate the population of the neighborhood, the state and the whole country. I said as much to the veterinarian.  "Yes! Exactly! Now, I'm not involved because this is primatology stuff, but as I understand it, data we gather today is sent to Yemassee to be entered into the computer database. From that the population on the island gets estimated pretty accurately. Growth and especially replacement rate too, because animals are shipped out to supply federal research labs." I followed what she was saying, but had questions. I asked if the monkeys ever escaped from the island, and most important to me, why I was there.  "Escapes happen but they're rare. Macaques swim, but don't like to cross open water. They're often on the beach or in the marsh hunting for crabs. If they see something floating out in the water their curiosity means they might swim out to it. They've been spotted riding tangled up mats of marsh grass. One was spotted floating on a tree trunk that fell from the island in a storm."  The image of an adventurous monkey riding a floating log made me smile. That was one theory for how the remote Galapagos Islands were populated by tortoises and iguanas.  We walked past a big corral situated on the inland side of the vehicle trail. A big letter "D" was stenciled in black spray paint on the galvanized metal wall. A huge set of double doors stood open on one end. The corral was empty except for a few broken branches and a feeder stand. We were closer to our destination at Corral C. The veterinarian walked a bit faster while she explained my duties for the census.  "When the monkeys jump into the baited corral, they come from different family groups. The  monkeys today could be from five, six different troops. That means they're gonna fight. You're here to treat fight wounds. I'll check the animals for disease, teeth issues, joint problems, skin conditions and reproductive health. The rest of the crew will tattoo, weigh, measure and update census charts in the binders. If there aren't many fight wounds, you're gonna work the tattoo table. How's that sound?" That sounded intense but doable. Except for the tattoo part. I told her I knew nothing about tattoos. She smiled and reassured me that if I could stitch up three layers of tissue I could use a tattoo gun.  Now I understood why the head vet complimented my suture technique by telling me I was ready to go out to the island. I was going to be a field medic that morning. But one macaque at a time was one thing. 180 was quite another, especially with the time pressure I could sense building in the operation. The dull gray metal of another corral appeared through the trees ahead. So did a flurry of human activity. I inhaled sharply and felt my eyes grow wide in a surge of nervous anticipation.  **** Corral C stood on the southwest side of the island in an area dense with pine trees instead of the mix of oaks elsewhere. The trees were mature, two or more feet thick at the base. Their ramrod-straight trunks were spaced wide apart like columns in a giant warehouse. The trunks supported an interlocked roof of pine needles above. The ground was covered in a thick, uniform mat of fallen pine needles. The forest was shadowy and mysterious. A complete lack of underbrush indicated we would stay in the shade even when the sun was high overhead.   The low light combined with the sound-deadening effect of the pine forest made the scene next to the corral surreal. The island crew moved through the quiet, dim woods with a quick economy of motion, feet silent on the carpet of pine needles. They had just finished setting up the census equipment and were returning boxes and crates to the truck and trailer parked off to one side.  A single long table stretched between the tree trunks. The table was made of four foot by eight foot sheets of plywood laid across a row of tall sawhorses. The table stood above my waist, chest high on the shorter members of the crew. The veterinarian led me toward one end of the table.  Mobile exam lights were clamped to the end closest to us, off for now. 25 yards away at the opposite end of the table, a row of three ring binders stood upright like books on a shelf. Hanging scales were suspended from a metal bar mounted above the table next to a collection of measuring tapes and a stack of metal clipboards. Electric hair clippers and a half dozen ink-stained electric tattoo guns were plugged into a long industrial power strip in the middle of the table. A thick yellow extension cord ran from the power strip to portable generators off among the trees. The veterinarian stepped up to the section of table under the lights. It was covered in a sheet of translucent plastic. A crate held dozens of clipboards, each with a blank form. A wire mesh basket held two dozen 100 milliliter bottles of ketamine. Boxes of 50 milliliter syringes stood next to the basket. 50 milliliters was bigger than I was used to for injectables. The veterinarian checked over her section of the table and directed me to do the same the next section over.  "Ok Jeff, I'll do triage here under the lights, you'll be right next door treating fight wounds. If there's something you can't handle, or that needs both of us, I'll step over. I want you to make sure your table has all the supplies we use in the operating room back in Yemassee. You think anything's missing, you tell me."  My section held a neat arrangement of clinical supplies, already laid out by the island crew. Boxes of sterile surgical gloves in white paper wrappers. Squeeze bottles of iodine, alcohol and sterile water. A pile of blue and white absorbent pads. A deep stainless steel tray held scalpels, surgical scissors, clamps and forceps submerged in alcohol. Boxes of different kinds of individually-wrapped sutures, needle threaded and ready to go in each handy packet. Bottles of injectable antibiotics and one milliliter syringes. A dozen tubes of topical antibiotic ointment. Electric hair clippers plugged into the power strip the next section over. The island team didn't miss a thing as far as I could tell. In fact, I noticed there were many multiples of each item, more than could possibly be required. The redundancy held for the rest of the equipment. Six tattoo guns, two lights, two scales, two generators. We were a fifteen minute drive away from the base camp. An hour by boat and car from Yemassee. Census of 180 monkeys had to happen in four hours or less. Once we started, we couldn't afford to have something break. I shared my realization with the veterinarian who walked me through what was going to happen.  "Yeah, you got it. Once this train leaves the station it doesn't stop for any reason. Monkeys'll get run into the cages. You chemically restrain 'em two cages at a time. Once they're unconscious, the crew'll bring em over to me for triage and a health exam. You'll stitch up any fight wounds I find. We pass them to tattoo, then they get weighed, measured, and charted. I'll tell you when to anesthetize the next two cages. We don't stop until we're through all 182." I looked at the long table again. It made more sense. The table was an assembly line for the census process. Clinical evaluation under the lights at one end, then on to stitches, tattoos, weight, height, and record keeping at the other end.  "You focus first on anesthetizing monkeys when I tell you, second on treating any fight wounds. Fresh sterile gloves for every monkey, do your best to maintain a sterile field but we're out here in the woods so… be practical. There'll be a ton of activity around you, so don't get distracted. Ok, looks like it's go time."  I followed her gaze to where Jack stood next to Corral C. I'd barely noticed the corral while I took in the census assembly line. Next to Jack, one end of a long line of metal cages was bolted to the corral wall. The cages were attached end to end in a single row that extended about fifty yards from the hatch in the corral into the trees. Each rectangular cage was about two feet tall, eighteen inches wide, and three feet long. A pair of vertically-sliding metal doors at the junction between the cages stood open. With the doors between the cages lifted up into the open position, the row of cages formed a fifty yard long continuous tunnel, one end secured to the hatch into the corral, the other end closed off.  With a nod from Jack, Dianne pulled the starter cord on a generator. It roared to life with one pull and she walked back toward the census table. As the electricity began to flow, both exam lights came on. An electric hair trimmer buzzed and vibrated on the tattoo table, its switch stuck in the on position. I quickly stepped over and turned it off. The veterinarian and I readied ourselves by putting on blue rubber exam gloves. She told me to set up the ketamine.  "Fill a syringe so you're ready. Check the concentration on the bottle, should be 10 milligrams of ketamine in every milliliter. I know you know this, but we always cross check right? Dose at 10 milligrams of ketamine per kilogram of body weight. That means one milliliter of ketamine in the syringe for every kilogram the monkey weighs. No time to change needles between animals, administer multiple doses from the same syringe. Every macaque on the island has an identical serotype, they all carry the same viruses. Watch your technique, you don't want a needle stick all the way out here."  As I drew 40 milliliters of ketamine into each of two big syringes, Big Man walked to the closed-off end of the cage tunnel. He walked back toward the corral, double-checking the cage-to-cage connections. When he got to Jack, he looked at his watch, then over at the rest of us where we stood by our stations. He yelled over the noise of the generator. "Ok! Everybody ready?" I nodded and assumed the rest of the team did too because Big Man nodded at Jack. Jack reached down and grabbed a loop of rope on the hatch in the corral wall. He jerked it and the hatch slid straight up. Now there was an opening from the corral into the tunnel of cages. For a moment nothing happened. Then a single monkey shot through the hatch and ran down the cage tunnel at full speed.  Three heartbeats later, the remaining 181 monkeys streamed through the hatch in a continuous head-to-tail line. The hole in the side of the corral was their way out, they had no idea it led to confinement instead of the forest. The metal cages rattled from the force of this freight train of monkeys running as fast as they could down the tunnel. When the macaque leading the train reached the end of the line, he came to a stop next to the solitary monkey that ran out first. The rest piled up behind them, shoving them together into an awkward embrace. The momentum of the monkey train pressed the 182 macaques into a solid column of red fur, limbs, and angry faces. The rattle of metal on metal stopped as suddenly as it started. Jack pushed the hatch closed to cut off the possibility of retreat back into the corral. He and Big Man gently pushed the sliding doors closed at each junction between cages, sometimes giving quiet encouragement to the monkeys to "get out of the way." When they got to the end, the 182 monkeys were divided three or four at a time in each of the 50 cages. I looked over at the veterinarian at her station. She'd taken off her watch cap and tied her hair up. Her face was all business in the harsh white of the exam lights. She nodded back at me.  "Two cages. One milliliter per kilogram intramuscular. Go."  My hyper focus kicked in. I started to estimate weight and calculate doses as I walked over to the two cages at the end of the row. I was sure a small young female was three kilograms. That meant three milliliters. I uncapped the needle, pointed the syringe up and flicked it with an index finger. A bubble rose to the top. I pushed the plunger until the air bled out and a droplet of ketamine sparkled at the tip of the needle.  The female rhesus was squeezed into a cage with three others. She helpfully squirmed away to hide her vulnerable face and belly from me, so it was straightforward to inject three milliliters into the muscle of her thigh. Next was a medium sized male, nine kilograms. After injecting nine milliliters, the plunger was at 27. A smaller male looked to weigh seven kilograms so his dose of seven left 20. The fourth macaque in the cage was another young female. Four kilograms, four milliliters. I finished the first cage with 16 milliliters of ketamine left in my syringe. The three kilogram female, the first monkey I'd anesthetized, was already getting drowsy so I kept going through the second cage. Slow is smooth and smooth is fast.  Somewhere behind me somebody yelled out the time.  "8:40! We have until 9:00!" It was Big Man over at the census table next to the scales. He called out the time I finished anesthetizing the first macaques. This let everyone know how much time we had to get them through the census process. Anthony, one of the crew from the boat appeared next to me. "Go on, head back and get ready. I'll watch 'em and bring them over when they're unconscious." Back at my fight wound station, I ran my eyes over the supplies one last time, plucked a packet of sterile surgical gloves out of the box and spread a blue and white pad on the table in front of me. Back at the cages Anthony unfastened two latches on the top edge of the cage and folded the whole side down. A random unconscious arm and a leg or two flopped out when the cage opened up. He gently picked up the little three kilogram female and carried her over to the veterinarian, then hustled back to shuttle the remaining macaques from cage to table. The vet did a thorough check for wounds and broken bones. Finding none, she proceeded with the health exam, jotting down quick notes about teeth, eyes and skin on a clipboard taken from the crate next to her. She raised her voice a bit to be heard over the generator. "Young adult female, no fight trauma, no tattoo." Someone, maybe Jack, took the clipboard and whisked the monkey away to the tattoo table. I heard a shaver start to buzz. The veterinarian was through the next monkey in a flash. This one already had a tattoo so was taken to the scales. The third monkey had been in a fight. "Young adult male, fresh laceration on right rear upper thigh, no health issues, no tattoo." She beckoned for me to come take the animal. I carried him to my table and gently laid him down on the pad. The wound on his rear thigh meant he'd been running away from a more aggressive male when he got it. It'd been about five minutes since I knocked him out, so I needed to move quickly. The laceration was new, through the top layer of skin, about an inch and a half long. A small amount of blood had just begun to clot at one end. I used my electric clippers to shave the hair away from the cut. I squirted iodine on the wound and the skin around it, then wiped it away with gauze. Next, I opened up the appropriate suture packet and set it next to the monkey.  Time to get mostly sterile. I put fresh surgical gloves on over my blue rubber exam gloves. I chose a pair of forceps from the metal tray full of alcohol and set about stitching up the wound. I don't remember the details of suturing, only that at the time I was proud of my ability to close a wound leaving only neat knots under the skin. The absorbable suture material would hold until the wound healed, then dissolve into the surrounding tissue. The macaque couldn't tear his stitches out. This was a big deal, since Monkey Island was no place for the cone of shame you see on a dog or cat. The wound wasn't deep or old enough to warrant injectable antibiotics, so I finished with a smear of topical ointment. The vet saw me strip off the surgical gloves.  "Good job Jeff. One down, but we gotta keep moving, I have another one here for you."  Someone from the tattoo table appeared and took  the young male to get his first ink. I put down a fresh absorbent pad and picked up my next patient from the veterinarian's table.  This one was in worse shape but would be ok. The wound was a deep tear with three flaps of skin instead of a simple laceration. It was on his left shoulder, which meant he faced his foe when it happened. The wound was older too, probably from a full two days ago when the corral was first baited. I had to shave away clumps of hair matted together by thick clots of blood before I could tell if there were signs of infection. Some of the tissue was dead, necrotic, so I used scissors to trim it away. The tear was wide at the surface, but had made a small hole in the deepest third layer of skin. I could see muscle and tendons through the opening. I used different kinds of sutures to close each of the three layers, starting with the deepest subcutaneous and working my way back up.  By the time I finished stitching up the monkey with the bad tear in his shoulder, two more were in line behind it. The veterinarian joined me at my station and we took care of those two together. Half of the initial eight monkeys had fight wounds. If that kept up it was going to be a long day. As it turned out, less than a quarter had some sort of wound, none of them worse than the tear I'd just treated and most required only a few stitches. Thankfully no broken bones. Still, that was forty macaques, so the rest of the morning was a blur of ketamine injections and wound closures.  A couple of times the action slowed enough for me to step over to the tattoo table. I wasn't qualified to give a young monkey its first chest tattoo, but they let me freshen up the faded letters and numbers on older animals. I shaved away the soft hair and disinfected the monkey's skin with alcohol. The tattoo guns seemed ancient, but they all worked. A small electromagnet vibrated a needle up and down in a guide. I dipped the tip of the gun in black ink then gently ran the buzzing needle over the skin and wiped away the small amount of blood that rose to the surface. It was harder than it looked. The unconscious monkeys seemed to always be in an awkward position. Their elastic skin moved around easily. I don't know how many tattoos I made better, but I didn't make any worse. A few years later I got my own first tattoo. The artist used exactly the same equipment and procedure we used on Monkey Island. The five person island crew took turns doing all the jobs. They busily weighed each monkey, measured bodies, arms and legs. They noted evidence of recent pregnancy. The sexual maturity of young monkeys was observed and logged. Whoever was doing the measurements calmly called out a constant stream of information to record keepers who listened and wrote it down on the correct chart. Every macaque went through the census process in less than twenty minutes. That meant they still had some time to sleep off their chemical restraint before rejoining the family group they left when they jumped into the corral for a banana days before.  When a macaque had been through the entire process, it was still unconscious from the ketamine. Or at least in the immobile and dissociated state ketamine causes. The animal was carried out into the forest and laid gently on its side in a warm spot of sunshine. Still close enough to keep an eye on, but far enough away from the census table so they wouldn't freak out when they woke up. Since the animals were in a vulnerable state, each monkey was placed a safe distance away from other macaques also recovering from anesthesia. At the peak, there must've been forty monkeys spread across the soft pine needles of the forest floor. I did my best not to anthropomorphize the macaques in my time with them. I followed the policy against seeing them as primate relatives. My colleagues had a harder time keeping their emotional distance. Animal care and more so behavioral care technicians interacted with the macaques when they were more endearing. Hungry. Curious. Nurturing. Annoyed. Caring. Playful. I was a veterinary technician. We interacted with the macaques when they were defensive or aggressive. When their behavior was closer to what you think of as 'wild animal.' It was easier for me to see them that way.  But the one time I felt kinship with my fellow primate? When I watched them wake up from anesthesia in the forest. It was quite the scene. A young male monkey, let's call him Chad, slept peacefully on his right side on a bed of soft pine needles in a spot of warm sunlight. Chad was big for his age and his muscular arms and legs had been arranged gently to one side. His head rested at a comfortable angle, though his mouth was open and his tongue drooped out. He was perfectly still for many minutes, as if he would sleep forever. Then movement. A leg extended slowly, almost a stretch. An arm pulled in and curled against his chest. After a moment, Chad lifted his head an inch off the ground, eyes closed, tongue still out, then laid it back down. Head back up, this time mouth closed and eyes half open as he became aware of his situation. Chad lifted his head higher and opened his eyes all the way. He pulled his arm under him to push himself up. His head and torso wobbled unsteadily, propped on that arm. A groggy expression of surprise came over Chad's face as if he had no idea where he was or how he got there. His eyes rolled from side to side.  After a long moment propped on one arm, Chad shifted his weight onto his butt. Monkeys usually sit on their haunches with their legs gathered underneath, so he looked silly with his legs splayed out to the sides. He planted his other arm and clumsily pulled one leg at a time underneath his butt, still supporting himself with his arms planted on the ground. Chad stayed in this 'dude where am I' position for a while as the fog wore off. His expression drifted between drugged, confused and a grimace of distaste from his dry mouth.  When he picked his hands up off the ground and could balance upright, Chad started to come around cognitively. He could take in his surroundings, though still he still wobbled unsteadily at times. His face took on a very clear 'where the hell am I and how did I get here?' expression. The ketamine wore off faster now. Chad looked down at his chest where it stung from the tattoo gun. His face grew concerned as he lifted a hand to touch his fresh ink.  Chad looked up with a pained almost regretful expression as he processed the fact he had a new tattoo. His hand went from his chest up to his left shoulder. He turned his head to peer down at fresh stitches in a two inch laceration. Chad seemed less puzzled about the fight wound than the tattoo. At this point the acute effects had faded. Chad wasn't wobbling any more, at least while he remained seated. He looked around again, this time he noticed the half dozen other unconscious monkeys nearby. His eyes grew wide. That was not good. At all. Time to get out of there. Chad lurched up on all fours. The sudden transition to vertical caused him to sway left, then right.  He evened out, and after one last look back at his unconscious cousins, Chad walked off into the forest with a hangover, fresh stitches, and a new tattoo.  ***** Find out what happened next in the full book Monkey Farm: A Summer Among the Macaques!        

Topic: It's National Sandwich Month, so Malcolm and Carol welcome Chef Gregory Glass from Sermon Sandwich Bar in Fondren and Dough Dough Bird in Northpark Food Court, to talk about his culinary background, storytelling through food, the art of sandwich-making, and more.Guest(s): Gregory GlassHost(s): Malcolm White and Carol PalmerEmail: food@mpbonline.org. If you enjoyed listening to this podcast, please consider contributing to MPB: https://donate.mpbfoundation.org/mspb/podcast Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Topic: Malcolm and Carol welcome Joe Sherman and Mississippi-native living in Italy, Elaine Trigiani, back to the show to talk about olive oil, balsamic vinegar, Italian cheeses and breads, and how you can join Elaine on one of her many trips across regions of Italy.Guest(s): Elaine Trigiani and Joe ShermanHost(s): Malcolm White, Carol Palmer, and Java ChatmanEmail: food@mpbonline.org. If you enjoyed listening to this podcast, please consider contributing to MPB: https://donate.mpbfoundation.org/mspb/podcast Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Kris and David are back to discuss the week that was August 4-10, 1987. Topics of discussion include:Gordon Solie's 26½ year tenure as the lead announcer for Championship Wrestling from Florida comes to an end after a pay dispute with Jim Crockett.Ric Flair and Ronnie Garvin have one of the most epic exchanges possible on TV in front of a molten hot Spartanburg crowd.Terry Taylor's highly entertaining for the wrong reasons “press conference" from UWF TV.The greatness of Brian Pillman as a rookie.Owen Hart does his first pinfall job in 1987 on TV to Gama Singh, losing the British Commonwealth Mid-Heavyweight Title.Mr. Olympia walks out of Continental and gets buried by Ronnie West on the house mic in Knoxville to a reaction that surprised the office.Mr. Olympia joins NASA, a new promotion in Alabama running in opposition to Continental.The Black Prince and The Commission in all of their glory in Memphis.The Jerry Lawler Show spotlights Fray Tormenta.Jammin' with Mitch and Donna and an angle featuring Tommy Rich stripping Sensational Sherri serve as the highlights of AWA TV during our week.Paul Boesch officially announces his retirement from promoting Houston Wrestling.Ken Patera injures himself at the absolute worst possible time.The team of Magnificent Muraco and Bob Orton Jr. falls apart.Mr. T returns to the WWF as a special enforcer.All that and much more on a brand new Between the Sheets!Timestamps:0:00:00 Jim Crockett Promotions/CWF/UWF1:15:25 Int'l: AJPW, NJPW, All-Star, Dale Martin, Atlantic Grand Prix, Stampede, & Tomko1:47:00 Classic Commercial Break1:52:03 Halftime3:00:57 Other USA: NWF, Deep South, Continental, NASA, CWA/Memphis, WCCW, AWA, Central States, Paul Boesch, & Portland4:36:08 WWFTo support the show and get access to exclusive rewards like special members-only monthly themed shows, go to our Patreon page at Patreon.com/BetweenTheSheets and become an ongoing Patron. Becoming a Between the Sheets Patron will also get you exclusive access to not only the monthly themed episode of Between the Sheets, but also access to our new mailbag segment, a Patron-only chat room on Slack, and anything else we do outside of the main shows!If you're looking for the best deal on a VPN service—short for Virtual Private Network, it helps you get around regional restrictions as well as browse the internet more securely—then Private Internet Access is what you've been looking for. Not only will using our link help support Between The Sheets, but you'll get a special discount, with prices as low as $1.98/month if you go with a 40 month subscription. With numerous great features and even a TV-specific Android app to make streaming easier, there is no better choice if you're looking to subscribe to My AEW and other region-locked services.For the best in both current and classic indie wrestling streaming, make sure to check out IndependentWrestling.tv and use coupon code BTSPOD for a free 5 day trial! (You can also go directly to TinyURL.com/IWTVsheets to sign up that way.) If you convert to a paid subscriber, we get a kickback for referring you, allowing you to support both the show and the indie scene.To subscribe, you can find us on iTunes, Google Play, and just about every other podcast app's directory, or you can also paste Feeds.FeedBurner.com/BTSheets into your favorite podcast app using whatever “add feed manually” option it has.Advertising Inquiries: https://redcircle.com/brands

Kris and David are back to discuss the week that was August 4-10, 1987. Topics of discussion include:Gordon Solie's 26½ year tenure as the lead announcer for Championship Wrestling from Florida comes to an end after a pay dispute with Jim Crockett.Ric Flair and Ronnie Garvin have one of the most epic exchanges possible on TV in front of a molten hot Spartanburg crowd.Terry Taylor's highly entertaining for the wrong reasons “press conference" from UWF TV.The greatness of Brian Pillman as a rookie.Owen Hart does his first pinfall job in 1987 on TV to Gama Singh, losing the British Commonwealth Mid-Heavyweight Title.Mr. Olympia walks out of Continental and gets buried by Ronnie West on the house mic in Knoxville to a reaction that surprised the office.Mr. Olympia joins NASA, a new promotion in Alabama running in opposition to Continental.The Black Prince and The Commission in all of their glory in Memphis.The Jerry Lawler Show spotlights Fray Tormenta.Jammin' with Mitch and Donna and an angle featuring Tommy Rich stripping Sensational Sherri serve as the highlights of AWA TV during our week.Paul Boesch officially announces his retirement from promoting Houston Wrestling.Ken Patera injures himself at the absolute worst possible time.The team of Magnificent Muraco and Bob Orton Jr. falls apart.Mr. T returns to the WWF as a special enforcer.All that and much more on a brand new Between the Sheets!Timestamps:0:00:00 Jim Crockett Promotions/CWF/UWF1:15:25 Int'l: AJPW, NJPW, All-Star, Dale Martin, Atlantic Grand Prix, Stampede, & Tomko1:47:00 Classic Commercial Break1:52:03 Halftime3:00:57 Other USA: NWF, Deep South, Continental, NASA, CWA/Memphis, WCCW, AWA, Central States, Paul Boesch, & Portland4:36:08 WWFTo support the show and get access to exclusive rewards like special members-only monthly themed shows, go to our Patreon page at Patreon.com/BetweenTheSheets and become an ongoing Patron. Becoming a Between the Sheets Patron will also get you exclusive access to not only the monthly themed episode of Between the Sheets, but also access to our new mailbag segment, a Patron-only chat room on Slack, and anything else we do outside of the main shows!If you're looking for the best deal on a VPN service—short for Virtual Private Network, it helps you get around regional restrictions as well as browse the internet more securely—then Private Internet Access is what you've been looking for. Not only will using our link help support Between The Sheets, but you'll get a special discount, with prices as low as $1.98/month if you go with a 40 month subscription. With numerous great features and even a TV-specific Android app to make streaming easier, there is no better choice if you're looking to subscribe to My AEW and other region-locked services.For the best in both current and classic indie wrestling streaming, make sure to check out IndependentWrestling.tv and use coupon code BTSPOD for a free 5 day trial! (You can also go directly to TinyURL.com/IWTVsheets to sign up that way.) If you convert to a paid subscriber, we get a kickback for referring you, allowing you to support both the show and the indie scene.To subscribe, you can find us on iTunes, Google Play, and just about every other podcast app's directory, or you can also paste Feeds.FeedBurner.com/BTSheets into your favorite podcast app using whatever “add feed manually” option it has.Advertising Inquiries: https://redcircle.com/brands

Lern prepares for a family getaway to Table Rock Lake that quickly turns into a debate over golf carts, caves, spas, and whether anyone actually wants to leave the house. The gang dives into the strange pressure of family vacations, why everyone wakes up before sunrise, and whether it's okay to disappear for a solo adventure just to save your sanity.Meanwhile, Rafe makes an emotional confession about falling back in love with cheese after attempting a dairy-free experiment, leading to one of the funniest conversations about comfort food you'll hear all week. The crew also argues over the greatest fast-food burgers in America, gives Dairy Queen's food menu the respect it deserves, and somehow ends up discussing Sonic-related trauma that's apparently lasted decades.Moon continues his streak of bringing the internet's strangest lists, including the world's best food cities, the worst drivers in America, the most romantic cities, and a collection of Victorian slang words that quickly derail into pure nonsense. Somehow "Cupid's kettle drums" becomes a legitimate on-air discussion.There's plenty of classic Rizz Show chemistry throughout as the crew bounces from travel stories to family drama, awkward Airbnb experiences, summer spending habits, childhood freedom, and everything in between. It's exactly the kind of organized chaos listeners expect from a daily comedy show that never stays on one topic for very long.Guns N' Roses recording new music, Green Day launching a 24/7 YouTube channel, Perez Hilton's heartbreaking situation, a Nicolas Cage John to play King Scott in a new movie, Robert Pattinson becoming Chris Hansen, and perhaps the strangest movie trailer any of us have ever seen... Wicker.Meanwhile, Slash says Guns N' Roses are finally writing new music again, and for longtime fans that's almost as unbelievable as hearing Axl and Slash are actually getting along. The gang dives into what that reunion means, why Chinese Democracy still feels like it took several presidential administrations to arrive, and whether this album might finally become reality.Music nerds also get excited over Green Day launching a nonstop streaming channel full of concerts, music videos, and rare footage, sparking an entire conversation about why every legendary band should basically become their own MTV.On the celebrity side of the world, things take a much more serious turn as the crew discusses Perez Hilton's recent hospitalization and how public perception changes when someone who built a career covering celebrity meltdowns experiences one of his own. It's thoughtful, honest, and still unmistakably The Rizzuto Show.Movie fans get plenty to chew on with Super Troopers 3, Grown Ups 3, Madden starring Nicolas Cage, Jurassic production drama, and one of the creepiest trailers of the year featuring Robert Pattinson transforming into Chris Hansen. Somehow that's still only the second weirdest trailer discussed.Then, because no Friday is complete without an argument nobody asked for, the crew debates the greatest Disney animated films ever made. Beauty and the Beast? Lion King? Toy Story? Aladdin getting snubbed? Feel free to yell at your speakers along with everyone else.Moon breaks down some of the biggest beer myths you've probably believed your entire life. Does beer really cause a beer belly? Are dark beers actually stronger? Is draft beer secretly responsible for your hangover? The gang debates science versus "trust me, bro" logic before somehow ending up discussing functional beers loaded with vitamins, probiotics, adaptogens, and enough wellness buzzwords to confuse your local brewery.Rafe returns with another legendary In Memoriam segment featuring everything the show managed to completely derail throughout the week. We revisit the listener email that somehow sparked the now-infamous horny pilgrim ghost conversation, proving once again that The Rizzuto Show audience has a very specific line between "too weird" and "perfectly acceptable."The crew also pays tribute to thousands of dollars worth of stolen Little Debbie snack cakes, because apparently organized crime has moved on from cash and drugs to Cosmic Brownies and Oatmeal Creme Pies.You'll also hear discussions about bizarre new baby names like Chaos, Rooster and Gatorade, King Scott embracing both silk bonnets and fixing appliances, Jimmy Buffett versus Warren Buffett confusion, Taco Bell settlement drama, dangerous Q-tip habits that may or may not unlock another dimension, and Moon's passionate defense of Guinness Zero.As always, Rafe wraps things up with his hilarious rapid-fire memorials before ending on heartfelt tributes to several notable figures who passed away this week, balancing absurd comedy with genuine respect in a way only this crew can.Follow The Rizzuto Show → https://linktr.ee/rizzshow for more from your favorite daily comedy show.Connect with The Rizzuto Show Comedy Podcast online → https://1057thepoint.com/RizzShow.Hear The Rizz Show daily on the radio at 105.7 The Point | Hubbard Radio in St. Louis, MO.How much are Americans spending every weekend on summer activities?Habit Burger's Double Char crowned America's best burgerWorst Drivers in America (2026 Data)NYC ranked most romantic US city despite shaky reputation for singles - whiles a surprising Deep South city cracks the top 5Green Day launch 24/7 YouTube stream 'GDTV' featuring unseen archival footage, full gigs, backstage action, studio sessions and moreHow to Ignite an Internet Frenzy? Give Alexander Skarsgard a Wicker PenisI-44 closed near Valley Park due to watermain breakSt. Charles County sees mass death of invasive carpSee Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

This week's WeatherBrains episode is all about the Georgia Severe Storms Research Center.  Joining us tonight as Guest WeatherBrain is the Director of the Georgia Severe Storms Research Center.  Growing up in Minnesota, he always had exposure to severe weather and took a keen interest early in his life.  He earned his Bachelor of Science in meteorology from Iowa State University.  Their research focuses on X-band radar that operates jointly between Georgia Tech and the University of Georgia.  They have done extensive research, with a major focus on lightning.  Michael Peterson, welcome to WeatherBrains! Tonight's Guest Panelist is a research scientist at the Georgia Severe Storms Research Center.  She received a Bachelor's Degree from Penn State University, and earned her Master's Degree in meteorology from the University of Oklahoma.  Jessica Losego, thanks for joining us tonight! Our email officer Jen is continuing to handle the incoming messages from our listeners. Reach us here: email@weatherbrains.com. Jessica's early background in the field of weather (17:00) REU (Research Experience for Undergraduates) (2:00) IHOP (International H2O Project) (21:00) When was the Georgia Severe Storms Research Center founded and what do they do?  (24:30) Dual Pol variables in X-Band (26:30) North Georgia Lightning Mapping Array (39:30) 2008 Downtown Atlanta, GA tornado during SEC tournament (57:30) GA Tech's research on tornadogenesis (01:01:00) What is cold air damming (CAD)? (01:03:30) New world record lightning flash discovered by SSRC (01:06:30) What is the definition of a mega flash?  (01:11:45) Difficulties forecasting random airmass convection in the Deep South (01:19:30) The Astronomy Outlook with Tony Rice (01:25:00) This Week in Tornado History With Jen (01:27:30) E-Mail Segment (01:29:30) Sneak peak at future WeatherBrains episodes! (01:38:30) and more! Web Sites from Episode 1072:   North Georgia Lightning Mapping Array Georgia Severe Storms Research Center Alabama Weather Network Picks of the Week: Jessica Losego - Weather with a Twist - Aaron Price on Substack Jessica Losego - "Atlanta Tornado of 1975" Volume 104 Issue 8 (1976) by E. F. Greneker Michael Peterson - Call for Papers - 2027 AMS Annual Meeting James Aydelott - OU Launches Oklahoma 3D Mesonet Jen Narramore - The Governor's Tornado - March 24, 1975 Rick Smith - Where Have the EF5s Gone? A Closer Look at the "Drought" of the Most Violent Tornadoes in the United States Troy Kimmel - GOES Image Viewer Kim Klockow-McClain - The Tiny Rain Icon On Your Weather App is Crushing Small Businesses John Gordon - Tornadoes in Wisconsin since 1950 Bill Murray - Out James Spann - NOAA's use of cloud infrastructure grows to include weather prediction models The WeatherBrains crew includes your host, James Spann, plus other notable geeks like Troy Kimmel, Bill Murray, Rick Smith, James Aydelott, Jen Narramore, John Gordon, and Dr. Kim Klockow-McClain. They bring together a wealth of weather knowledge and experience for another fascinating podcast about weather.

Topic: With the premiere of the MPB Original documentary King of the Chitlin' Circuit: Bobby Rush coming to MPB Television on August 10th, Malcolm and Carol welcome Chef Enrika Williams and Glenda Barner (Sugar's Place Downtown) to Deep South Dining to talk about the new documentary, chitterlings and how to prepare them, the history behind this polarizing dish, and more.Guest(s): Enrika Williams and Glenda Barner Host(s): Malcolm White and Carol PalmerEmail: food@mpbonline.orgIf you enjoyed listening to this podcast, please consider contributing to MPB: https://donate.mpbfoundation.org/mspb/podcast Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Author R.W. Fields joins I Am Refocused Radio to discuss his debut novel, The Mullet Man, a moving coming-of-age story inspired by events he experienced in the Deep South during the summer of 1955. The story follows Richie, a young white boy whose love of fishing leads him across the social boundaries of his community and into an unlikely friendship with Ulysses, an elderly Black fisherman known as the Mullet Man. As their bond grows, Richie begins confronting the realities of racism, poverty, fear and the unwritten rules that were designed to keep people apart. Fields reflects on the childhood experiences that remained with him for nearly 70 years, why he began writing his first book in his eighties, and how honest relationships can challenge prejudice more powerfully than arguments alone. The conversation also explores critical thinking, the courage to question inherited beliefs, and why the lessons of 1955 still matter today. The Mullet Man is ultimately a story about friendship, trust and what can happen when two people choose to cross the creek dividing them.Get the book: https://a.co/d/0awpM32oBecome a supporter of this podcast: https://www.spreaker.com/podcast/i-am-refocused-radio--2671113/support.Subscribe now at YouTube.com/@RefocusedNetworkThank you for your time. 

Join Justin as he chats with prolific character actor Leon Rippy about his roots in the Deep South, his experiences working with a traveling circus, tales from the set of Maximum Overdrive, adapting to the dialogue in Deadwood, filming The Patriot in his hometown, and more!CONNECT WITH MONSTERS, MADNESS AND MAGIC: • Subscribe on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/monstersmadnessandmagic• Follow us on Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/monstersmadnessandmagic/• Join the community on Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/MonstersMadnessandMagic/• Visit our official website: https://monstersmadnessandmagic.comPlease review and subscribe to Monsters, Madness and Magic on Apple Podcasts and Spotify to help the Sanctuary grow!

Topic: Malcolm and Carol welcome Chef Joe Cravens back to the show to talk about Walker's Drive-In, the historic Fondren District, and taking over The Block at Fondren.Guest(s): Joe Cravens Host(s): Malcolm White and Carol PalmerEmail: food@mpbonline.orgIf you enjoyed listening to this podcast, please consider contributing to MPB: https://donate.mpbfoundation.org/mspb/podcast Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

In the past week, podcast listeners to this show have come from across the US, Canada, Austria, the UK, and Spain. If you’re one of our far-flung podcast listeners, "Hello!" If you live in New Orleans, you might hear us on WWNO. In which case you will have probably heard, as part of the local news, reporters from The Gulf States Newsroom. The Gulf States Newsroom is an NPR-driven news-gathering collaboration of WWNO, WRKF in Baton Rouge, and NPR stations in Alabama and Mississippi. It was launched in 2020, by NPR and the Corporation For Public Broadcasting. In 2025, the Corporation For Public Broadcasting was de-funded by Congress and no longer exists. Those same budget cuts ate into the financial viability of all public broadcasting outlets – including the member stations of the Gulf States Newsroom - forcing them to scramble to come up with strategies to stay funded. You can’t accuse the Deep South of being ahead of the game in much, but in the case of The Gulf States Newsroom, back in 2022 they’d hired Marci Schramm as their Director of Development, an HR term that roughly translates to, “The person we all depend on to go out and find money to fund this thing.” Marci’s background included 9 years as Executive Director of New Orleans’ French Quarter Festival – the years that saw its most explosive growth – and that’s when we first met her here on Out to Lunch, in 2016. Today, Marci ensures the Gulf States Newsroom continues to run at full capacity as it earns numerous prestigious Edward R Murrow Awards for journalism. When you watch the news on TV, you’re quite often looking at film of people in life and death situations in other countries, and sometimes in other cities in the US. If you live in New Orleans, you’ve probably had the unnerving experience of relying on this kind of news footage to assess the risk to your own life at the hands of a hurricane or flood. It’s essential here to have a TV news station you can trust. It’s too late for a news outlet to earn that kind of trust the day before a storm blows into town and for that reason, despite our reputation as “The City That Care Forgot,” we take local news reporting seriously in New Orleans. WWL TV is one of the oldest television stations in the South. Tod Smith began working there as a production assistant in 1980 while he was a student at Loyola University – which at that time owned WWL. Tod graduated from college, worked for a while for Shell Oil, went back to TV and was Sales Manager at WWL in the 1990’s, then went into management at stations in Arizona and Virginia before coming back home to take over as General Manager of WWL TV in 2012. He’s still the station’s General Manager today. People will tell you they’re a cat person or a dog person. They’re mountain people or beach people. And then there are NPR listeners and – believe it or not - people who have never-even-one-time listened to public radio.You can’t hate those folks – they don’t know what they’re missing. But we NPR listeners absolutely know what we’d be missing if public radio went away. So, we’re all exceptionally grateful to Marci Schramm for everything she does every day to keep public radio news on the air. And with a legacy that includes Nash Roberts, Garland Robinette, Eric Paulsen, Sally Ann Roberts, Angela Hill, Hap Glaudi, and Morgus the Magnificent, WWL-TV is a part of the history of modern New Orleans. As General Manager of the station, Tod Smith is a part of that history now too. Out to Lunch was recorded live over lunch at Columns in Uptown New Orleans. You can find photos from this show by Jill Lafleur at itsneworleans.com.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

The otherwise unknown Sons of Faith's recording “Winding Chain” is a superb example of Deep South soulful gospel, a mournful, heartfelt two-minute gem.

Today on America in the MorningHegseth Faces The Senate Secretary of War Pete Hegseth faced sharp questioning from both sides of the aisle during a Senate Appropriations Committee hearing as Democrats pressed him on the Trump administration's handling of the war with Iran, the rising cost of the conflict and the Pentagon's request for billions more in emergency funding.  Correspondent Joan Jones has details.   Trump Meets With Lebanon's President President Trump met in the White House with the president of Lebanon, a meeting that included discussions of Lebanon taking back areas from Hezbollah, Israel leaving Lebanese territory, and the resumption of US flights to Beirut which ended in the 1980's.  Lisa Dwyer reports.   Medicaid Money Pulled From California & Minnesota The Trump administration is pausing $1 billion dollars in ​Medicaid payments to California and Minnesota over what it calls "suspected fraud and noncompliance."  Correspondent Clayton Neville reports.   NJ Election Glitch Governor Mikie Sherrill said that a glitch in the state's motor vehicle commission computer allowed roughly 66 hundred non-citizens to register to vote in New Jersey from 2023 to 2024.  Roughly 400 of them actually cast votes.   Biggs Wins AZ GOP Primary In Arizona, President Trump-backed candidate Andy Biggs won the GOP primary for governor by a landslide, and will face incumbent Democrat Katie Hobbs for governor.    Americans Stabbed In Greece A shocking scene at one of the world's biggest tourist attractions.  Correspondent Charles de Ledesma reports a man has stabbed and wounded two American tourists near the ancient Acropolis in Athens, Greece.   Hegseth Takes Heat Defense Secretary Pete Hegesth faced sharp questions about the Trump administration's handling of the war with Iran, with no signs from either side of stopping attacks, and concerns that the Iranian-backed Houthis are planning to keep ships at bay in the Red Sea while Iran targets the Strait of Hormuz.  Ed Donahue reports a Senate Appropriations Committee hearing included angst from Democrats, blame from Hegseth for the Biden administration, and a loud protest.   Bertha On The Move It was a wicked weather Tuesday across the nation with severe storms and some tornado activity from New York City to Washington, DC that canceled or delayed thousands of flights, and in the Deep South, tropical storm watches and warnings are in place along the Louisiana coast, and further east, as Tropical Storm Bertha continues moving toward the northern Gulf Coast.  Correspondent Clayton Neville reports.   The Chicago Slap It's the slap that everyone's talking about.  A young man who did not stand for the national anthem at a Chicago Cubs game was smacked in the back of the head by a Viet Nam War veteran.  Sue Aller reports on what happened, and also what took place between the two men following the head slap.   House Clears Budget Bill The House passed a stopgap bill to fund the government into December in an effort to avoid another government shutdown weeks before the midterms, but the effort faces an uphill climb in the Senate.    Biden Loses Appeal Request denied.  Correspondent Haya Panjwani reports on former President Joe Biden's appeal in a highly publicized DOJ investigation.   ESPN Layoffs The sports world is talking about the mass layoffs at ESPN, where it's not just behind-the-scenes personnel that are receiving pink slips.  Lisa Dwyer reports some of their big-name broadcasters are also being shown the door, including one who was on the air when he found out he was being let go. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Topic: Malcolm and Carol welcome Chef David Crews and Marisol Doyle back to the show to catch up on their newest events and accomplishments and share stories about their recent visit together in the Delta.Guest(s): David Crews and Marisol Doyle Host(s): Malcolm White and Carol PalmerEmail: food@mpbonline.orgIf you enjoyed listening to this podcast, please consider contributing to MPB: https://donate.mpbfoundation.org/mspb/podcast Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

In this week's episode, host Ryan Coonerty speaks with Mississippi State Senator Rod Hickman to discuss Hickman's career, what led him to run for office, how he navigates a majority Republican legislature to pass bipartisan solutions, and his advice to any candidate on door-knocking effectively. Senator Hickman also shares his experience in public office and the joy it has brought him, as well as the challenge of finding balance among his many responsibilities. The conversation delves into the current political climate in his state and what we need to know about Mississippi to understand the policies, opportunities, and challenges of the Deep South. Tune in to learn more from this engaging conversation. IN THIS EPISODE: • [01:24] Introducing Rod Hickman to the show and an overview of his career.  • [05:00] How he builds bipartisan support to implement reforms across his state. • [07:42] What drew Rod into legislature and politics from such a young age. • [09:00] His campaign journey and advice for anyone wanting to run for office. • [15:24] What being in office has been like for Rod and why his purpose is to serve. • [17:58] How he balances his role as senator with his personal and work responsibilities. • [19:39] The state of Mississippi politics and how Rod is trying to make an impact. • [24:25] A breakdown of how the Voting Rights Act has affected the state of Mississippi.  • [26:37] What we need to know about Mississippi's politics, strengths, and challenges.

Politics and democracy reporter for The Guardian US, George Chidi explains how he crossed paths with the late U.S. Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-SC) in Fulton County, Georgia, what his death means for the midterm elections in the Deep South, and shares his analysis on other political topics.Become a supporter of this podcast: https://www.spreaker.com/podcast/tavis-smiley--6286410/support.

Our "Star Search" is still shining bright as we dive into Graham's star selection, Harry Dean Stanton. Unfortunately for him, Joe is at the reins and is taking them into the Deep South with Monte Hellman's Cockfighter AKA Born to Kill. Will their journey into the violent sporting world of cockfighting tear the show apart? Tune in to find out!

Both the U.S. and Iran now say they control the Strait of Hormuz. And a new round of strikes is pushing the ceasefire closer to the brink. Plus, one of the GOP's most influential Senate seats is suddenly up for grabs. The race to replace Lindsey Graham is already taking shape in South Carolina. And some of America's coldest cities are about to feel more like the Deep South. Why forecasters say parts of the country could experience dangerously rare heat this week. These stories and more highlight your Unbiased Updates for Monday, July 13, 2026.

A July 4 boat trip, an 18-year-old black teen's death and a family's search for answers in the Deep South. AP correspondent Julie Walker reports.

This week on Summers Off, we head to the Deep South to chat about Reese Witherspoon's hair, the Home Depot, and what Gen Z would say about Reese's choice of beau in our episode on Sweet Home Alabama! This is a good one if you love Ty slipping into a Southern dialect that floats all over regionally and into different time periods. Rach debates if she could pull off Reese's iconic style and hairdo. Finally, see what gets Ty so riled up that he delivers an impassioned speech in defense of the South and its people. Emotions are high and tensions are thick; this one is can't miss.

Dan Rood's In the Shadow of the Great House (W.W. Norton & Co., 2026) is one of the first contemporary books to focus on the primary engine of slavery, race, and capitalism in this country: the plantation. The plantation was invented on the small Atlantic island of São Tomé in the 1500s, and the island also became the site, soon enough, of the first slave revolt. The brutal technology was then perfected in Barbados, where planters worked tens of thousands of African captives to their deaths in sugar factories. But it was in the United States, Rood shows, that the plantation found its most powerful manifestations. In Virginia, Carolina, and then the Deep South, successive plantation revolutions transformed slavery into a much more rigid and oppressive institution. Incomparably wealthy planters now insisted on a rightless, eternally available, “increasing” source of labor, and in the process reinvented human bondage and stamped it onto a single race. But the plantation did not die after the Civil War. It metastasized. From the advent of sharecropping in the late nineteenth century to the rise of cotton in mid-twentieth century California to today's chicken processing plants, the plantation has cast a long shadow over American life. Rood further documents the “dark retreats” carved out of plantation life by the enslaved. It was the enslaved who offered the most clear-eyed understanding of what the plantation behemoths told us, and still tell us, about our country. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/african-american-studies

Dan Rood's In the Shadow of the Great House (W.W. Norton & Co., 2026) is one of the first contemporary books to focus on the primary engine of slavery, race, and capitalism in this country: the plantation. The plantation was invented on the small Atlantic island of São Tomé in the 1500s, and the island also became the site, soon enough, of the first slave revolt. The brutal technology was then perfected in Barbados, where planters worked tens of thousands of African captives to their deaths in sugar factories. But it was in the United States, Rood shows, that the plantation found its most powerful manifestations. In Virginia, Carolina, and then the Deep South, successive plantation revolutions transformed slavery into a much more rigid and oppressive institution. Incomparably wealthy planters now insisted on a rightless, eternally available, “increasing” source of labor, and in the process reinvented human bondage and stamped it onto a single race. But the plantation did not die after the Civil War. It metastasized. From the advent of sharecropping in the late nineteenth century to the rise of cotton in mid-twentieth century California to today's chicken processing plants, the plantation has cast a long shadow over American life. Rood further documents the “dark retreats” carved out of plantation life by the enslaved. It was the enslaved who offered the most clear-eyed understanding of what the plantation behemoths told us, and still tell us, about our country. 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

Dan Rood's In the Shadow of the Great House (W.W. Norton & Co., 2026) is one of the first contemporary books to focus on the primary engine of slavery, race, and capitalism in this country: the plantation. The plantation was invented on the small Atlantic island of São Tomé in the 1500s, and the island also became the site, soon enough, of the first slave revolt. The brutal technology was then perfected in Barbados, where planters worked tens of thousands of African captives to their deaths in sugar factories. But it was in the United States, Rood shows, that the plantation found its most powerful manifestations. In Virginia, Carolina, and then the Deep South, successive plantation revolutions transformed slavery into a much more rigid and oppressive institution. Incomparably wealthy planters now insisted on a rightless, eternally available, “increasing” source of labor, and in the process reinvented human bondage and stamped it onto a single race. But the plantation did not die after the Civil War. It metastasized. From the advent of sharecropping in the late nineteenth century to the rise of cotton in mid-twentieth century California to today's chicken processing plants, the plantation has cast a long shadow over American life. Rood further documents the “dark retreats” carved out of plantation life by the enslaved. It was the enslaved who offered the most clear-eyed understanding of what the plantation behemoths told us, and still tell us, about our country. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/history

We open this special episode of The Dawn Stensland Show with guest host Kathy Barnett diving deep into childhood nostalgia, patriotic classics, and the contrast between the "free-range" upbringing of Gen X and the hyper-vigilant, helicopter parenting required in today's modern culture. We break down the psychological shifts taking place across the nation, drawing from neuroscience insights to analyze how the left's constant political grievances have fostered a broader cultural derangement. The discussion focuses heavily on the upcoming 250th anniversary of America and why a growing segment of the population seems to actively reject the foundational principles of their own country. We share powerful personal stories from the host's background, including growing up as a poor Black child in the deep South of Alabama and serving abroad in the military in South Korea. These experiences offer a stark contrast to the modern complaints of woke suburban liberals, reminding listeners of the global realities of true misogyny and systemic oppression. We celebrate the unique greatness of America, noting how the country has continually evolved and progressive values have moved it past the darkest aspects of its history, while warning against the encroaching control of socialist ideologies that threaten self-governance. The crew connects directly with the audience as listeners line up to share their own deep-seated patriotism and generational perspectives. We talk with an Italian immigrant whose family survived real fascism and Nazism, a South Philadelphia veteran maintaining a local memorial, and a former fourth-grade teacher who spent 35 years instilling civic pride and geographic knowledge in her students. Through these moving conversations, we emphasize the timeless truth of Ronald Reagan's warning that freedom must be actively protected and taught to the next generation, rather than assumed to be passed down through the bloodstream.

Episode Title: Coffee Chat, Unpacking Boxes, and Our Ultimate Book Recommendations! Hey, friends! Welcome back to another episode of the Life Coach BFF Show. Today, Heather and Dr. Carol Lynn are coming to you completely off the cuff! Grab a cup of coffee and join us as we talk about everything from moving adjustments (and helping pets settle into a new home) to the hilarious realities of midlife algorithms on social media. Plus, we are diving deep into our current favorite reads. We share what we are loving, what we are listening to while unpacking, and the books that make us want to get out and be kinder to the world. Books Mentioned in This Episode: Theo of Golden by Allen Levi The Calamity Club by Kathryn Stockett The Help by Kathryn Stockett The Dutch House by Ann Patchett Bel Canto by Ann Patchett The American Plague by Molly Crosby The Wedding Veil by Kristy Woodson Harvey Remarkably Bright Creatures by Shelby Van Pelt A Quick Reminder: Our live journal club meetings for our journal, Our Midlife Moxie, are taking a summer break, but we will officially resume in September! Grab your copy on Amazon today so you're ready to dive in with us. Connect With Us: If you loved this episode, please hit the follow button and leave us a quick review! It truly helps other women find our community. Connect with Your Life Coach BFFs: Join the Midlife Moxie Newsletter: Don't miss out on fun items, exclusive updates, and the best life ever! The link is right in the show notes. Sign Up and Get the latest MOXIE news!   Follow on Social Media: All our community connection is on our Our Midlife Moxie Facebook Page! (Yes, the podcast is Life Coach BFF Show, but our social is under Our Midlife Moxie – we hope to see you there!). @ourmidlifemoxie   The Journal: Grab your My Midlife Moxie Journal on Amazon and register it on page two. Digital Version My Midlife Moxie Journal   Connect with us: Sign Up and Get the latest MOXIE news!   Join The Facebook Group: @ourmidlifemoxie Connect with Host Heather Pettey: Email: hpetteyoffice@gmail.com Private Coaching with Heather:https://www.ourmidlifemoxie.com/heatherpetteycoaching Speaker Request Here Instagram @HeatherPettey_ Facebook: @HeatherPettey1 Linkedin: @HeatherPettey Book: "Keep It Simple, Sarah" (Amazon bestseller) Connect with Host Dr. Carol Lynn: Linkedin Website: https://www.drcarollynn.com Facebook Group: @ourmidlifemoxie Website: www.ourmidlifemoxie.com Don't forget to subscribe to the Life Coach BFF Show for more inspiring content and practical life advice! Podcast Disclaimer: This podcast is for informational and educational purposes only. Heather Pettey is a certified coach. Dr. Carol Lynn is a licensed physician, and our guests share their own expertise. Nothing you hear here should be taken as medical advice. Always talk with your own doctor about your personal health or medical needs.

Kathy Barnette sits in for Dawn Stensland on The Dawn Stensland Show to dissect the breaking foreign policy crisis surrounding America's Memorandum of Understanding with Iran. We tackle the reality that the agreement is falling apart, asking what exactly the United States gained from the deal. Iranian-born analyst Ida Tehran joins the program to share her lived experience, arguing that while conservative MAGA voters are rightfully exhausted by endless nation-building, the current regime remains an active threat to American security. She urges voters to look past the global propaganda and keep trust in the strategy to manage the ultimate collapse from within. The conversation intensifies as Batya Ungar Sargon, host of Batya at News Nation, joins us for an authentic look at the deep flaws within the agreement. We note that the current situation looks like total capitulation, explaining how Iran successfully shifted the conflict from a military fight they couldn't win to an economic war designed to inflict high gas prices on American workers. We analyze the fascinating strategy at play within the administration, as leaders balance the promise of a roaring domestic economy with the absolute imperative to prevent a nuclear Iran. We wrap up the hour by pivoting to the critical fights taking place right here at home. The crew reacts to the choice facing regular citizens, noting that radical politicians in major cities like New York and Los Angeles pose a more immediate threat to the future of our children than adversaries overseas. Finally, we share some massive local news as the F3 Forum prepares to return this October, posing a foundational question for our community: can our local schools replicate the literacy turnaround achieved in the Deep South and deliver a true miracle for our students?

Send us Fan MailYour garden can look amazing while your life quietly runs on empty, and that's exactly why we wanted to hit pause and talk about “fruit that lasts.” I'm Noah Sanders, and this is a catch-up from our family, our farm, and the work God keeps pressing on my heart: stop chasing what looks impressive and rebuild life from the roots up. If you care about Christian homesteading, faith-based farming, and land stewardship that actually holds together over time, this one is a needed reset.In this episode I share highlights from the Homestead Conference in Texas, including what I taught on thermal composting and why gardening in the Deep South feels like relearning everything. Pests, heat, red-clay soil, and year-round growth change the game for Alabama and the southeastern United States, and that's part of why I'm working on a new book with my friend David the Good, focused on dependable Deep South survival gardening. I also give an update on the Well-Watered Garden Project, a simple 20 foot by 20 foot training garden built on Foundations for Farming principles, designed to help Christians grow food while practicing humility, unselfishness, and faithfulness.Then we go deeper. John 15 doesn't leave room for fake fruit: Jesus is the vine, we're the branches, and real growth comes from abiding in Christ. We talk about pruning, limits, and why the smallest daily moments often reveal the truest state of our discipleship. If you feel stretched thin, this will help you rethink what obedience looks like right now.Subscribe for more, share this with a friend who's carrying too much, and leave a review so more homesteaders can find the show. What's one commitment you need to prune this season?If you like this show, we have a new way you can support the cost of hosting and production through our new monthly support page. The Redeeming the Dirt Podcast (The Redeeming the Dirt Podcast Support) Thanks for being a part of the team!Support the show

Summer heat brings a familiar sight to many beekeepers: honey bees clustered outside the hive entrance, hanging from the landing board, and covering the front of the colony. In this episode of Honey Bee Obscura, Jim Tew reflects on what beekeepers often call "bearding" and shares memories from decades of working bees in the heat of the Deep South. Jim explains why colonies gather outside during hot weather and why this behavior is often a normal part of colony temperature regulation rather than a sign of trouble. From long days in Alabama bee yards to late-night pollination moves, he recalls the challenges of managing large colonies when temperatures remain high long after sunset. Along the way, Jim shares stories about moving bees for pollination, dealing with protective clothing before modern ventilated suits existed, encountering rattlesnakes and black widow spiders in remote bee yards, and learning valuable lessons from commercial beekeepers about transporting colonies safely. The discussion also turns to the many other creatures attracted to an apiary. Deer, raccoons, skunks, bears, spiders, and countless other animals often become part of the larger ecosystem surrounding honey bee colonies. Part practical beekeeping discussion and part personal reflection, this episode offers a thoughtful look at how honey bees cope with summer heat and how a lifetime of beekeeping experiences can be triggered by something as simple as a cluster of bees gathered outside the hive on a warm evening. ______________________ Thanks to Betterbee for sponsoring today's episode. Betterbee's mission is to support every beekeeper with excellent customer service, continued education and quality equipment. From their colorful and informative catalog to their support of beekeeper educational activities, including this podcast series, Betterbee truly is Beekeepers Serving Beekeepers. See for yourself at www.betterbee.com We'd like to thank Vita Bee Health for supporting the podcast. Vita provides proven tools for controlling Varroa—from Apistan and Apiguard to the new VarroxSan extended-release oxalic acid strips—helping beekeepers keep stronger, healthier colonies. ______________________ Honey Bee Obscura is brought to you by Growing Planet Media, LLC, the home of Beekeeping Today Podcast. Music: Heart & Soul by Gyom, All We Know by Midway Music; Christmas Avenue by Immersive Music; original guitar music by Jeffrey Ott Cartoons by: John Martin (Beezwax Comics) Copyright © 2026 by Growing Planet Media, LLC

We've got Senate runoffs in the Deep South next week, and that means we already know what's in the bag… right? Wrong! Jessica Taylor, Cook Political Report's Senate and Governors Editor, returns to update us on a couple of surprisingly close Republican primaries. Tune in to hear about an Alabama outsider's formidable challenge to the […]