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Legendary artist and businessman, E-40 drops by ahead of the release of quadruple album, “Turning Over My Money”. We chop it up with the mogul about growing up in the Bay Area, what in the world is happening with the 49ers’ owner, and maintaining longevity in hip hop. Forty also shares his takes on LaRussell, the state of hip hop today, and working with his family in The Click. His quadruple album, “Turning Over My Money”, is out now! Behind The Bars is presented by Sprite. Check out the full Sprite Living Tracklist and break down the stories behind your favorite bars at livingtracklist.genius.com. This is the Sprite Living Tracklist. Obey Your Thirst. Visit your nearest Boost Mobile store or https://www.boostmobile.com/promo/25-foreverSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
This month we read Forty Love by Jane Costello! We talk about why this midlife rom-com hit so close to home, from empty nesting and letting your kids go to rediscovering yourself and realizing it's never too late to start something new. It was light, funny, hopeful, and exactly the kind of summer read we needed. Follow Kirsten: https://linktr.ee/kirstenlove Forty Love by Jane Costello Amazon - https://amzn.to/4dNGz8B Bookshop - https://bookshop.org/a/97615/9798992427684 Sponsor Coveron - One scam can cost you everything — protect yourself now. The first 100 users get 20% off with code wife at https://coveron.com/wife Our next book club is Ms. American Dream by Patricia Williams-Lee Amazon - https://amzn.to/4zIThzs Bookshop - https://bookshop.org/a/97615/9781668044216 Call (818) 949-8536 to leave a voicemail with a question for LeeAnn (and sometimes Bert) that might be answered in a future episode! Fully Loaded at Sea 2026 Tickets bertkreischercruise.com/presale Stream LUCKY on Netflix https://www.netflix.com/title/81713944 PERMISSION TO PARTY WORLD TOUR is on sale now: http://www.bertbertbert.com/tour Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
Forty years ago, an iceberg broke away from the Antarctic ice shelf. But this was no ordinary iceberg. A colossal chunk of ice which covered an area twice the size of London, it was as deep as the Empire State building is high and it weighed a trillion tonnes. For nearly four decades A23a was the world's largest iceberg. Glaciologist Dr. Catherine Walker tells the story of A23a from its origins, its ice being laid down deep in the Antarctic over millennia, through to its final chapter - shrinking, melting and feeding the ocean from which it came. Catherine talks to glaciologists who study the vast cracks which propagate across the Antarctic ice shelf and to scientists who have seen A23a up close and followed its journey and its impact as it released a trillion tonnes of fresh water and nutrients into the marine environment.
Season 40: America's 250th Anniversary. Fifty states. Fifty crimes. Two hundred and fifty years of Americanhistory, told through the true crime cases that other shows leave behind.New Mexico, 1892. A former sheriff walks into the dark with a man he trusts and never comes home. Illinois, 1871.A former Secretary of State steps off his porch for a midnight train and is shot dead in the street. Both menserved their communities. Both were killed for it. Both were largely forgotten — until now. This is historical truecrime, and tonight both cases are about what happens when political power turns lethal.Case A: Francisco Chavez and the Santa Fe RingFrancisco Chavez was born around 1851 in New Mexico Territory, the son of a family that had shaped this regionfor generations before the American flag flew over Santa Fe's plaza. He was Hispanic, a nuevomexicano, and hebecame sheriff of Santa Fe County at a time when the territory's government had been captured by the Santa FeRing — an informal network of Anglo-American lawyers, politicians, and land speculators who exploited Spanishand Mexican land grants to strip Hispanic families of land they had occupied for generations.At the center of the Ring stood Thomas Catron, a Confederate veteran and Missouri lawyer who arrived in NewMexico in 1866. By the 1890s, Catron had acquired interests in thirty-four land grants totaling approximatelythree million acres — making him, by most accounts, the largest private landowner in the United States. He hadserved as district attorney, territorial attorney general, and U.S. attorney. He owned the territory as surely asanyone could.Chavez stood against him. Historian Tobias Duran, writing in the New Mexico Historical Review, called Chavez aformidable foe of the Santa Fe Ring. He was the rare Hispanic Democrat using the blunt authority of the sheriff'soffice to push back against the most powerful men in the territory.On the night of May 29, 1892, Chavez was lured from a Santa Fe bar by a man named Atilano Gold — someonehe trusted. Gold walked him toward the Guadalupe bridge, near the Santuario de Nuestra Señora de Guadalupe,the oldest shrine to Our Lady of Guadalupe in the United States. Armed men waited behind a telegraph pole.Chavez was shot multiple times. His last words, spoken in Spanish, were that brutes had assassinated him.Four men were indicted: Francisco Gonzales y Borrego, his brother Antonio, Laureano Alarid, and PatricioValencia. Their defense attorney was Thomas Catron — the man widely suspected of ordering the murder,now defending the accused killers. The prosecution's key witness, Juan Gallegos, testified that a $700 paymenthad been offered through intermediaries for Chavez's death. Judge Seeds ruled that he did not believe Catronpersonally made the offer, but accepted the conspiracy existed. That distinction shielded Catron from criminalliability.All four defendants were convicted and sentenced to death. Appeals dragged on for nearly five years. On April2, 1897, they were hanged simultaneously at the Santa Fe jail grounds. Forty-five National Guard soldiers werepresent. At 9:09 AM, the trap bolt was drawn. Three necks broke on impact. Patricio Valencia strangled for threeto four minutes before he died.Thomas Catron was never charged. When New Mexico achieved statehood in 1912, the territory he had helpedplunder elected him as one of its first two United States Senators. He died in 1921. A former senator. Nevercharged. Never tried.Case B: Sharon Tyndale and the Seal That Outlasted HimSharon Tyndale was born in Philadelphia on January 19, 1816. He arrived in Belleville, Illinois in 1833 — the sameyear Chicago was incorporated as a town — and spent the next three decades building railroads and building acareer. Abraham Lincoln personally appointed him Postmaster of Belleville in 1861. When Lincoln was assassinatedin 1865, Tyndale was among the committee members who received the president's coffin in Springfield. He wasone of the original fifteen members of the National Lincoln Monument Association, the group that built Lincoln'stomb at Oak Ridge Cemetery.In 1865, Tyndale was elected Illinois Secretary of State. His younger brother Hector had bled for the Union atAntietam, was promoted to brigadier general, and was later breveted major general for gallantry. The family'sloyalty to the Union was bone-deep.In 1867, the Illinois legislature authorized a new state seal. Tyndale proposed reversing the state motto from "StateSovereignty, National Union" to "National Union, State Sovereignty." The Civil War had settled that question withblood. The Senate rejected his proposal. So the legislature gave him the wording and handed him the design.Tyndale kept the words in their mandated order. But he designed the banner in the eagle's beak to twist, placingthe word "Sovereignty" upside down. The seal entered use in 1868. More than a hundred and fifty years later, theword "Sovereignty" still hangs inverted on the Great Seal of the State of Illinois.On April 29, 1871, two years after leaving office, Tyndale walked out of his home on Adams Street in Springfieldjust after one in the morning, heading to the Chicago & Alton railroad station for a 1:50 AM train. On the darkstreet, steps from his own front door, someone clubbed him to the ground and shot him behind the right ear witha single-shot Derringer — the same type of weapon used to kill Abraham Lincoln six years earlier. His $50 walletwas taken. His gold watch was not. His killer was never identified.A five-thousand-dollar reward went unclaimed. Four theories competed — robbery, romantic entanglement,political enemies, railroad business dispute — and the competition destroyed the investigation. The 1929 IllinoisState Journal concluded the welter of possible motives had hindered the case. No arrest was ever made.The seal lives on. Every official document issued by the State of Illinois, every state flag that flies over Springfield,still carries the handiwork of a man who was murdered two years after completing it.Our Sponsors:* Check out Kensington Publishing: https://www.kensingtonbooks.comAdvertising Inquiries: https://redcircle.com/brandsPrivacy & Opt-Out: https://redcircle.com/privacy
Photo: Bernadette Hartley and other volunteers assemble opioid-reversal kits at an August 29, 2025, event in Anchorage, Alaska. (Yereth Rosen / Alaska Beacon) A new health report has mixed news for Alaskans. The findings come from the Healthy Alaskans program, a partnership between the Alaska Department of Health and the Alaska Native Tribal Health Consortium. As Yereth Rosen reports from the Alaska Beacon, key takeaways from the research show that chronic health problems like obesity and high blood pressure persist and childhood vaccinations continue to lag. Over the last decade, infant mortality rates have shown no improvement with markedly higher rates among Alaska Natives. The state's life expectancy remains unchanged, but the report points to some encouraging trends, particularly for younger Alaskans. The statewide assessment found a significant increase in prenatal care. High school graduation rates are up, and the longstanding graduation gap among Alaska Native students has narrowed. The reports says this is important, because education is linked to better health. It also found that Alaska teens are less likely today to be exposed to secondhand tobacco smoke, a trend the report links to tobacco-free zones and other policies. Drug overdose rates appear to be leveling off. The research found that more food grown in Alaska has become easier to find, while better access to trails supports exercise and traditional subsistence practices. There are some troubling developments on the horizon. Climate change has affected fish runs and the availability of wild foods, important to the diet of rural Alaskans. Environmental changes have also increased the risk of new diseases, while wildfire smoke poses health hazards in some parts of the state. The Voices Not Forgotten page on the FBI website shows current cases. The FBI is increasing rewards for information in cases involving missing and murdered Indigenous people and relatives in North Dakota and nationwide, as Judith Ruiz-Branch reports. Brandon Baity is executive director of the Indigenous Association in Fargo, North Dakota and a White Earth descendant, “We’re left very vulnerable due to a lot of systemic and intergenerational reasons. So the bottom line is addressing some of that vulnerability in our community overall would help us go further up the river, so we’re not always pulling people out of the river, literally and figuratively.” Forty percent of North Dakota's missing population is Indigenous. As part of the Voices Not Forgotten initiative, FBI officials have set a minimum $25,000 reward for help with cracking dozens of nationwide cases. Baity believes the level of attention a case receives can come down to whether a victim is viewed as “worthy”. He raises questions about which lives are deemed deserving of public concern and institutional resources. Factors like addiction or housing instability can lead to victim-blaming, Baity adds, even though every missing person has family, friends and loved ones who want them found. “They’re still people and they’re still deserving of care and support in our community and from our organizations and our institutions that are here to keep us safe. And so I just think we really need to focus more on, why are there so many murdered and missing Indigenous people in our country?” FBI data shows nearly 10,000 American Indian and Alaska Native individuals were reported missing nationwide in 2025. Baity says informal networks in the Fargo-Moorhead area mobilize and organize searches for local families who are impacted, but those efforts can be limited by a lack of resources and formal support. He adds that increased rewards and investigative resources are important, but preventing these cases in the first place requires sustained investment in the safety and stability of Indigenous communities. Get National Native News delivered to your inbox daily. Sign up for our daily newsletter today. Download our NV1 Android or iOs App for breaking news alerts. Check out today’s Native America Calling episode Tuesday, September 1, 2026 — Growing understanding of head injuries changes sports at all levels
At 83, Gina Ceccarelli thought the romantic chapter of her life was over. Then she met Dwight Moberg, a 91-year-old widower from California. There was just one complication, Gina speaks Italian and Dwight speaks English, so most of their conversations happen through hand gestures and a translation app.The person who brought them together is Menbere "Menbe" Akiklu. Forty years earlier, Menbe was a young Ethiopian mother living in a shelter in Rome, trying to rebuild her life after escaping an abusive relationship. One of the few people who showed her kindness was Gina, who brought food, knitted clothes for her baby son and helped her find her feet in a foreign country. Over the years the two women lost touch, but decades later, after building a successful life in America, Menbe found herself thinking about the woman who had helped her. Determined to thank her, she went back to Italy to track Gina down.When she finally did, Menbe saw that Gina, now widowed, was living alone and so decided that repaying an old kindness would require something more than a simple thank you. She brought her to the US, setting in motion an unexpected matchmaking mission and a little nudge towards love. Presenter: Asya Fouks Producer: Edgar MaddicottLives Less Ordinary is a podcast from the BBC World Service that brings you the most incredible true stories from around the world. Each episode a guest shares their most dramatic, moving, personal story. Listen for unbelievable twists, mysteries uncovered, and inspiring journeys - spanning the entire human experience. Step into someone else's life and expect the unexpected. Got a story to tell? Send an email to liveslessordinary@bbc.co.uk or message us via WhatsApp: 0044 330 678 2784 You can read our privacy notice here: https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/articles/5YD3hBqmw26B8WMHt6GkQxG/lives-less-ordinary-privacy-notice
What if the life you're nostalgic about is actually the life you're living right now? In this episode of The VIBE with Kelly Cardenas, we talk about nostalgia, sports, family, relationships, Proverbs 31, and the strange way we can spend so much time looking back at the good old days that we completely miss the good day we're standing in.My mama used to tell me, “I am praying for your wife. You need a Proverbs 31 woman in your life.”I didn't fully understand it then.Forty years later, I get it.She wasn't just praying for a result. She was praying that I would be prepared to recognize, appreciate, and honor the answer when it arrived.That got me thinking about everything we call a “throwback”—old sports, old music, old pictures, old memories, old versions of ourselves. Maybe we don't actually miss the past. Maybe we miss who we were.And maybe someday, we're going to look back at THIS exact moment and realize it was one of the best days of our lives.The future is okay, but it's uncertain. The past is finished. The magic is right here.So be good to people. Use your voice for good. Love the people in front of you. Appreciate what you have while you have it.Because someday…you're going to be nostalgic for today.That's your Inchstone.#TheVIBE #KellyCardenas #Proverbs31 #Nostalgia #Leadership #PersonalGrowth #Relationships #SportsNostalgia #GoodOldDays #Inchstones
When tourists found an abandoned bicycle on a remote track in Australia's Great Sandy Desert, it triggered one of the strangest missing person searches in outback history — police, aircraft, and Aboriginal trackers combing the Kimberley for a man who had vanished without telling anyone where he was going. Twelve days in, the search was called off and his family was told he was almost certainly dead, so they hired a private American wilderness rescue team led by a man who insisted on being called Gunslinger. What none of them knew was that he had walked into the desert deliberately, on a spiritual quest, and had no idea anyone was searching for him at all. Forty-three days of starvation, dehydration and roughly 250 miles on foot later, a helicopter found him alive — and set off a fight that reached the Premier of Western Australia, while the man who led the rescue turned out to have invented his entire past. Twenty-five years on, one of the trackers who searched for him asked him for a single word, and what he said instead is still an uncomfortable part of this story.Timestamps: 00:00 Podcast Intro Setup00:30 Mud Water In The Desert02:22 Abandoned Bike Mystery03:18 No One Knew The Plan06:36 Spiritual Quest Revealed07:34 Search Begins With Trackers09:27 Media Frenzy And Survival Math10:28 Search Called Off Parents React11:57 Gunslinger Arrives Private Team15:06 Fresh Tracks And Desert Ordeal18:52 Help Sign And Found Alive21:49 News Crew Rescue Controversy25:10 Hospital Risks Refeeding27:22 Costs Rumors And Apology30:04 Gunslinger Exposed As Fraud33:27 The Tracker Story And Apology35:26 Final Reflections And OutroREFERENCESParke, Erin. Expanse: Nowhere Man. ABC listen, 2025.Parke, Erin. "Finding Robert Bogucki, the man who disappeared on purpose." ABC News, 6 July 2025. Sweeney, Lucy, and Erin Parke. "The strange story of Garrison 'Gunslinger' St Clair, the American sent to find Robert Bogucki." ABC News, 23 August 2025. Lowth, Adrienne. "Channel Nine under fire over Bogucki actions." ABC Radio PM, 24 August 1999.Media Watch. ABC Television, 30 August 1999."American found after outback odyssey." BBC News, 23 August 1999. Associated Press. "Wanderer May Have To Foot Bill." CBS News, 26 August 1999. Morgan, Curtis. "Daring rescuer dogged by a questionable past." Miami Herald, 21 May 2000.Orr, Stephen. The Fierce Country. Wakefield Press, 2018.Adshead, Gary. "Finding Bogucki: The fallout, the stuff-ups and a tinderbox of tension." The Age, 3 September 2023."Calvert Scientific Exploring Expedition (1896)." Encyclopedia of Australian Science and Innovation.Become a supporter of this podcast: https://www.spreaker.com/podcast/the-crux-true-survival-stories--7265181/support.Listen AD FREE: Support our podcast at patreon: http://patreon.com/TheCruxTrueSurvivalPodcastEmail us! thecruxsurvival@gmail.comInstagram https://www.instagram.com/thecruxpodcast/Get schooled by Julie in wilderness medicine! https://www.headwatersfieldmedicine.com/This episode includes AI-generated content.
After 44 years, IDF soldier Yehuda Yekutiel Katz, HY”D, is finally home.Yehuda was only 22 when he fought in the Battle of Sultan Yacoub during the First Lebanon War on June 11, 1982. An Israeli armored force was caught in a deadly clash with Syrian forces in the Bekaa Valley. Twenty soldiers were killed. Dozens were wounded. Three young soldiers disappeared: Zachary Baumel, Zvi Feldman, and Yehuda Katz.For decades, their families waited. For decades, Israel searched.Zachary Baumel was brought home in 2019 after 37 years. Zvi Feldman was brought home in 2025 after almost 43 years. Now Yehuda Katz has been found, identified, and returned in a special operation led by IDF Military Intelligence and the Mossad.What other nation does this? Governments changed. Wars were fought. The Soviet Union disappeared. The Middle East was transformed. The Jewish people never forgot one missing soldier.Friends who served with Yehuda, and friends who learned with him in yeshiva, still remember saying goodbye when he left to defend the Jewish people. He never came home — until now.Israel has not revealed where his remains were found or how they were recovered. Amid the collapse of old regimes in Syria and the transformation of the northern arena, new intelligence opportunities emerged. We cannot claim to know Hashem's design. We can only say thank You.Thank You to the soldiers, intelligence officers, and Mossad operatives whose names we may never know. Thank You that the Katz family can finally give Yehuda a Jewish burial in the Land of Israel.His funeral procession is set to leave the yeshiva at Kerem B'Yavneh before burial on the Mount of Olives in Jerusalem. Forty-four years after leaving yeshiva to defend Am Yisrael, Yehuda Katz is home.May his memory be a blessing. Am Yisrael Chai.Join Our Whatsapp Channel: https://chat.whatsapp.com/GkavRznXy731nxxRyptCMvFollow us on Twitter: https://x.com/AviAbelowJoin our Telegram Channel: https://t.me/aviabelowpulseFollow us on Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/pulse_of_israel/?hl=enPulse of Israel on Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/IsraelVideoNetworkVisit Our Website - https://pulseofisrael.com/Donate to Pulse of Israel: https://pulseofisrael.com/boost-this-video/
Packernet Podcast - Alright Pack Nation, what's going on? Cal Hutson here, back in the lab, coffee already half-gone, and I just finished watching the Packers and Cardinals put on one of the most ridiculous preseason finales I've seen in a long time. Forty-two to thirty-eight. Green Bay wins. And I'm sitting here trying to figure out if I should be excited, concerned, or just laughing at the chaos. First things first — Kyle McCord. The kid played the entire game. Jordan Love and Tyrod Taylor were in street clothes. McCord goes twenty-two of thirty-five, two hundred twenty-six yards, four touchdowns, zero interceptions. And he saves the best for last. Down eleven with under five minutes left, and he just starts dealing. Two touchdowns to Kisean Johnson in the final three and a half minutes. The second one with twenty seconds on the clock. That's the kind of moment that makes you sit up a little straighter on the couch.
Packernet Podcast - Alright Pack Nation, what's going on? Cal Hutson here, back in the lab, coffee already half-gone, and I just finished watching the Packers and Cardinals put on one of the most ridiculous preseason finales I've seen in a long time. Forty-two to thirty-eight. Green Bay wins. And I'm sitting here trying to figure out if I should be excited, concerned, or just laughing at the chaos. First things first — Kyle McCord. The kid played the entire game. Jordan Love and Tyrod Taylor were in street clothes. McCord goes twenty-two of thirty-five, two hundred twenty-six yards, four touchdowns, zero interceptions. And he saves the best for last. Down eleven with under five minutes left, and he just starts dealing. Two touchdowns to Kisean Johnson in the final three and a half minutes. The second one with twenty seconds on the clock. That's the kind of moment that makes you sit up a little straighter on the couch.
Forty years ago this month, a movie made to sell toys killed Optimus Prime twenty minutes in, traumatized a generation of children, bombed at the box office, and turned out to be Orson Welles' final film role. Hasbro is now touring it as an official Apology Tour. Hims: Access to FDA approved GLP-1 weight loss treatments online, including the first ever GLP-1 pill, with no insurance needed and 24/7 messaging with your care team. Get a personalized plan at https://hims.com/nerdlegion PrizePicks: https://prizepicks.onelink.me/LME0/NERD and use code NERD and get $150 if you win your first $5 lineup! Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.
Description:Jodi Picoult is back, and she brought her thirtieth novel with her.If you have been in a book club at any point in the last thirty years, you know the name. Forty million copies in print. Thirty four languages. And, as of this year, the fourth most banned author in America, which Jen considers a five star review.Jodi and Jen get into all of it: what thirty years of publishing actually teaches you (start with the underwear), why she refuses to coast when she could easily phone it in, what she believes AI will never do to a reader, and the career she never asked for as an advocate against book banning. Then they turn to Hollow Bones, out September 15, a novel that began with an anonymous postcard and a letter from a jail cell and carried Jodi deep into postpartum psychosis, the dismissal of women by medicine, and the long shadow of 9/11. She also brings back a character you have wondered about since My Sister's Keeper.One heads up before you press play: this conversation includes discussion of postpartum psychosis, suicide, the death of a child, and school shootings. Please take good care of yourself. Support resources are linked below.Thought-provoking Quotes:If I'm not challenged by a book, why should you be?AI will never be human. Novels work because an author is reaching deep into the heart and soul of a reader and finding a chord to pluck that resonates. AI can imitate that. It can never really do it.It's fine for a parent to decide what his or her child should be reading. I advocate that. It is not fine for that parent to decide what everyone else's child should be reading.When we remove books from schools, we are not protecting children. We are taking away resources that help them deal with an increasingly complex world. And that is the opposite of protecting kids.Women are failed at every turn of their lives by the medical industry.The more you lie, the easier it gets to lie. And we are living in a time right now when lies are being peddled as truths.Resources Mentioned in This Episode:Hollow Bones by Jodi Picoult (Ballantine, September 15)Pre-order signed copies plus an exclusive overlay from Still North BooksPre-order from Barnes & Noble for the sweepstakes and a letterNineteen Minutes, My Sister's Keeper, and Mad Honey (with Jennifer Finney Boylan) by Jodi PicoultThe Book Thief by Markus Zusak, adapted for the stage by Jodi PicoultPostSecretPEN America on book bansPostpartum Support InternationalNational Maternal Mental Health Hotline: call or text 1-833-TLC-MAMA988 Suicide and Crisis Lifeline: call or text 988Guest's Links:Website - https://jodipicoult.com/Instagram - https://instagram.com/jodipicoultTikTok - https://tiktok.com/@jodipicoultFacebook -
Callaway spent three days saying it was disappointed by an ad. Then its CEO admitted Callaway approved that ad before it was posted.This episode is about the gap between those two statements, and what a company reveals when it comments on its own conduct as though it were in the audience for it.A content warning first: the episode discusses domestic violence as an image used in a golf brand campaign. Nobody in this story is accused of real-world violence. The scene was staged. What two companies chose to make, approve and publish is the story.Then the read nobody in the golf feed has: Good Good is not a golf company. It is a media company that raised forty-five million dollars to become one, and the ad was not a lapse in judgment. It was the formula working the way it was paid to work.0:00 — Why the communication is the story0:31 — Three days of being disappointed1:58 — The parody, described once4:07 — Who approved it?7:42 — Statement one: "disappointed by the content that was posted"8:42 — The PGA Tour calls the response late and defensive11:08 — Good Good is not a golf company12:35 — Where the formula came from18:39 — Statement two: "approved by Callaway prior to posting"23:04 — A premiere moves at a sponsor's request24:17 — Forty-five million dollars26:24 — "A 360-degree media company"27:09 — The formula worked the way it was paid to workThe PR Breakdown with Molly McPherson.
Forty-six and twenty-three. Then forty-eight and eight. Those four numbers come from an experiment where college students had to wear a Barry Manilow t-shirt into a room full of strangers, and I think the second pair might be the most freeing finding in social psychology. Especially if you have something finished sitting on your desk that you haven't published yet.Crossroads Publishing Group is my press. If you're sitting on a manuscript, a proposal, or an idea you can't shake loose, take a look at crossroadspublishing.group. And if you decide it isn't for you, that's a real answer and a good one. The difficulty in life is the choice. This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit chadprevost.substack.com
Evergreen, Colorado offers a rare combination of mountain living, outdoor adventure, and proximity to Denver, so this week on the Back 40, we're heading just up the road with Broker Harry Woodward to check out what makes this Front Range community so special.With a rich history in ranching and mining, and trails for hiking, biking, and skiing, Evergreen offers a mountain lifestyle without a remote commitment. Properties in Evergreen are steeped in history and extremely rare, and conservation efforts help keep the wild and untamed beauty of this mountain community open and unique. If mountain life with city convenience appeals to you, come and check out Evergreen. Topics[0:00] Getting to Know Evergreen, CO[1:47] What Makes Evergreen Unique?[2:51] History of Evergreen, CO[4:19] Personality of Evergreen, CO[5:04] Recreation in Evergreen, CO[5:55] Who Lives in Evergreen?[7:02] Ranching in Evergreen, CO[9:03] Mirr Properties in Evergreen, CO[11:14] Why Evergreen?[12:24] Evergreen's Hidden GemsLinksDowntown EvergreenEvergreen Chamber of CommerceUpper Bear Headwaters RanchEvans Ridge RanchNeed professional help finding, buying or selling a legacy ranch, contact us: Mirr Ranch Group901 Acoma StreetDenver, CO 80204Phone: (303) 623-4545https://www.MirrRanchGroup.com/
The worst drought in the south since 2008. The land is so hard that it's reminding me of the sandstone of Montana. My worries sit within the soil, what's going on with the roots of all living things? How can we as humans learn from this natural behavior?Become a supporter of this podcast: https://www.spreaker.com/podcast/arroe-collins-unplugged-totally-uncut--994165/support.
Could allowing patients to choose their own appointment times help reduce missed visits and shorten NHS waiting lists? In this episode of Tech Talks Daily, I speak with Alison MacDonald, European Lead and Senior Vice President at Nordic Global. Alison brings an unusual combination of clinical and technology experience as a registered nurse who moved into digital health over 15 years ago. Her career began in community nursing, where she was asked to lead an electronic health record project because colleagues thought she was good with computers. What initially appeared to be a simple exercise in converting paper forms into digital records encouraged her to question whether healthcare could redesign the process rather than copy it onto a screen. We discuss Nordic's work with Cambridge University Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust on patient self-scheduling and automated earlier appointment offers. Before the program, missed outpatient appointments were removing valuable clinical capacity while administrative teams spent time calling patients and rearranging bookings. Cambridge introduced self-scheduling through Epic MyChart, allowing patients to select appointment times through the patient portal. Alison says the DNA rate fell from 5% to 2.2% during the program. According to the supplied results, over 20,000 patients successfully scheduled their own appointments and over 3,000 accepted offers to attend earlier when cancellations created availability. Patients moved appointments forward by an average of 16 days. Forty percent of accepted earlier appointments occurred within seven days of the offer, while 7% took place on the same or following day. Administrative teams also saved an estimated ten minutes for every self-booked appointment. Alison explains why patient control can improve attendance. People can choose times that work around employment, caring responsibilities, travel, and family life instead of receiving a fixed appointment through a letter or telephone call. Patients can also cancel or reschedule without waiting for somebody to answer the phone. The operational lesson goes beyond appointment booking. Healthcare systems may be able to recover existing capacity by examining missed appointments, theater scheduling, waiting list processes, pre-visit questionnaires, and patient communications before concluding that every problem requires additional staff or facilities. We also discuss where AI is producing practical results in healthcare. Alison points to medical imaging, emergency department triage, waiting list management, clinical documentation, and workforce deployment. She warns against discussing AI as one generic solution because each application requires a defined use case, suitable data, workable processes, governance, and staff adoption. Ambient clinical documentation offers one example. An AI scribe can record a consultation, prepare a structured note, and pass it to the clinician for review and correction. Alison cites an NHS evaluation reporting a 23.5% increase in direct patient interaction time and an 8.2% reduction in appointment length. Interoperability remains another major challenge. Healthcare journeys cross hospitals, primary care, community services, and specialist providers that may use different systems or a mixture of electronic and paper records. Even basic differences, such as one organization measuring pain on a five-point scale and another using ten points, can prevent reliable comparison. Alison recommends agreeing on common data standards, defining the minimum patient information required during care transitions, including interoperability requirements in procurement, and avoiding bespoke integrations that make future information sharing harder. Digital access also requires balance. Online services can improve convenience, but healthcare providers must retain appropriate alternatives for patients who lack digital skills, connectivity, confidence, or access. Could your healthcare organization improve patient access and staff capacity by redesigning one familiar process before purchasing another large technology platform? Listen to the episode and share your thoughts with me.
Two stories. Two rocks. Forty years apart — and the same God in both. This week we set Exodus 17 and Numbers 20 side by side, and the contrast will preach to anybody who's ever been tired, thirsty, or stuck. In Exodus 17, Israel is in the wilderness with no water and ready to stone their leader. Moses does the right thing in the right order: there's a problem, he goes straight to God, God gives clear direction ("strike the rock"), and Moses obeys without hesitation. Water gushes out — enough for hundreds of thousands. It's a beautiful picture of faith: do your part, and trust God to do what only God can do. Fast‑forward forty years. Same complaint, same thirst, a new location — and this time God says speak to the rock. But Moses, worn down and frustrated with the people, snaps: "Hear now, you rebels! Must we bring water out of this rock?" — and strikes it twice instead. God, in His grace, still sends the water. But Moses is told he won't enter the Promised Land he can already see, "because you did not believe Me." Out of that comparison come five honest takeaways: what worked then might not work now (be open to God doing a new thing); disobedience is really an expression of disbelief; if He did it before, He can do it again; don't let your frustration with people make your faith falter; and above all — remember who the Rock is. It's not you. It's not me. "Lead me to the rock that is higher than I." Scripture: Exodus 17:1-7; Numbers 20:1-12; Psalm 61:2 ▶ Subscribe and follow Motion Church for weekly messages: motionchurch.com #MotionChurch #RockAndSoul #Sermon #Exodus #Numbers #Faith #Obedience #Jesus
A time bomb is ticking, and it is the kind of bomb you can not disarm. We all hear it. We keep hoping some fiscal bomb squad will show up and shut it down, but deep down, we know they are not coming. The question is not if the bomb goes off. It is when, and what the aftermath looks like. Run from the blast radius? You can not. Forty trillion dollars in US federal debt is more powerful than any weapon we have ever detonated. But this bomb does not level a city overnight. It corrodes and breaks down … Continue reading →
C&R dive into the headline of the day, their own unique hands all over on the Deshaun Watson drama! The "Forty-Crimers" principal owner Jed York was busted for doing WHAT, WHERE? They bring the laughs during a semi-serious story!See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
Can preterm birth be prevented? Historically the answer has been no, and the numbers back that up. In 2006 the U.S. preterm birth rate was about 12 percent. In 2024 it was 10.4 percent. Medicine has gotten dramatically better at keeping premature babies alive, but almost no better at keeping pregnancies from ending early. In this episode, Kristin and Dr. Abdelhak make the case that the answer is yes, preterm birth can be prevented far more often than it is now, and that the field has been looking in the wrong place. Preterm birth is not one condition. It is a grab bag: placental abruption, systemic infection like appendicitis or pyelonephritis, uterine overdistension from twins, triplets, or polyhydramnios, trauma, severe hypertension, stimulant and cocaine use. Every one of those causes announces itself. The woman with triplets is obviously carrying triplets. The woman with an abruption is bleeding and in pain. So what about the woman with none of that, doing everything right, who shows up at 30 weeks contracting and three centimeters dilated? For forty years the answer was "subclinical infection," a diagnosis Dr. Abdelhak takes apart in this episode. If it is subclinical, why is preterm labor the only clinical thing it ever does? Why does an appendicitis start with pain and fever and end in labor, while this mystery infection skips straight to the last step? And after four decades of amniocentesis studies cataloguing cytokines, interleukins, and prostaglandins, where is the treatment? There isn't one, because researchers found exactly what they went looking for. His answer is mechanical, not microbial. The cervix is a timekeeper on the pregnancy. Conventional teaching says contractions open the cervix. He argues it runs the other way: the cervix quietly gives way over weeks, and when it opens far enough, labor starts. That is why he says he is almost never surprised by a preterm labor. He was already watching the cervix shorten. Also covered: why previous preterm birth is the single strongest risk factor (it is the same cervix), why cone biopsy raises risk more than LEEP does, what funneling on ultrasound actually tells you, the difference between classic cervical insufficiency and the milder version that still lets you reach the third trimester, and why a three-hour precipitous labor at 38 weeks may be the same finding wearing a friendlier face. The practical takeaway: serial cervical length measurement for anyone with a red flag, first-time moms included, and cerclage when the cervix starts to open. Screening plus treatment, not a pill for an infection nobody can find. Plus: why the president and Taylor Swift would get their cervix measured every single week, and what that tells you about the standard of care the rest of us are offered. Topics covered, in order Why this topic is worth repeating, and why the framing here is not the conventional one The better question: preventing preterm birth, not preterm labor Fifty years, the March of Dimes, and a rate that has barely moved What we did get better at: neonatal survival and outcomes, not prevention Preterm birth as a grab bag, not a single disease Placental abruption Systemic infection: appendicitis, pyelonephritis, sepsis, severe pneumonia, COVID The subclinical infection theory, and the case against it Why the amniocentesis and cytokine studies found what they set out to find Uterine overdistension: twins, triplets, polyhydramnios Trauma, decidual hemorrhage Severe hypertension, pulsatile flow, and abruption risk before 20 weeks Cocaine, methamphetamine, smoking The patient nobody can explain, and what is actually going on The core claim: dilation causes the contractions, not the other way around Why Dr. Abdelhak is rarely surprised by a preterm labor Mild cervical insufficiency, and "dreamlike" cervical insufficiency at 38 weeks Why previous preterm birth is the number one risk factor LEEP versus cone biopsy, and why cone matters more Normal variation in cervical length, and the big nose analogy Length is not everything: bulk, thickness, and how the cervix feels Funneling on ultrasound as a warning sign The proposal: serial cervical length screening plus cerclage Why the numbers are U.S. numbers, and why international rates are not trustworthy The VIP standard of care, and who actually gets weekly scans Key takeaways Preterm birth is not one condition. Abruption, systemic infection, overdistension, trauma, and severe hypertension each have their own mechanism, and each is usually obvious on arrival. "Subclinical infection" is not a diagnosis, it is a placeholder. Forty years in, it has produced no treatment and no measurable drop in the preterm birth rate. The cervix is the timekeeper. When it is weak, it opens slowly over weeks, and labor follows the opening rather than causing it. Previous preterm birth predicts the next one because it is the same cervix. You cannot order a new one. Cone biopsy raises preterm birth risk more than LEEP, because more cervix is removed. Length is a clue, not a verdict. Plenty of women have naturally short cervixes and carry to term. Funneling, bulk, and change over time matter as much as a single number. The intervention that would move the needle already exists. Serial cervical length measurement in anyone with a risk factor, and cerclage when it starts to open. Screening and treatment, not a mystery pill. Terms mentioned Placental abruption — the placenta separating from the uterine wall before delivery. Pyelonephritis — kidney infection. Polyhydramnios — too much amniotic fluid. Uterine overdistension — the uterus stretched beyond its comfortable capacity, as with twins or triplets. Cervical insufficiency — a cervix that opens without labor. Funneling — the cervix opening from the inside out, visible on ultrasound before any external change. Cerclage — a stitch placed to reinforce the cervix. LEEP and cone biopsy — procedures removing cervical tissue after abnormal Pap or HPV findings. Precipitous labor — a very fast labor, often under three hours. Memorable quotes: "I am telling you what happened was the three centimeters dilated caused the contractions." "If it's subclinical, why doesn't it stay that way?" "The cervix is a mechanical timekeeper on the pregnancy." Got something you want to share or ask? Keep it coming. We love hearing from you. Email us or send a voice memo, and you might just hear it on the next episode. Don't forget to like, comment, and subscribe your questions could be featured in our next episode. For additional resources and information, be sure to visit our website at Maternal Resources: https://www.maternalresources.org/ You can also connect with us on our social channels to stay up-to-date with the latest news, episodes, and community engagement: YouTube: youtube.com/maternalresources Instagram: @maternalresources Facebook: facebook.com/IntegrativeOB TikTok: NatureBack Doc on TikTok Grab Our Book: The NatureBack Method for Birth—your guide to an empowered pregnancy and delivery. Shop now at naturebackbook.myshopify.com
Bhutan is a Himalayan kingdom sandwiched between China and India. Forty percent of its 800,000 citizens work in the agriculture sector. The mountainous country is famous for its breathtaking landscapes and its unique policy of "Gross National Happiness," instituted in 1972 by Jigme Singye Wangchuck, the fourth king of Bhutan. My guests on the Newscast this week say this philosophy is the backbone of the nation's food system, and its plan for full food self-sufficiency by 2029. "Our food system isn't just about producing food. It's about sustaining our landscapes, our communities, and our culture," says renowned chef and restaurateur Bleu Tshering Dorji. She owns two restaurants in the nation's capital, Thimpu. She explains the unique challenges farmers she works with face due to climate change and steep mountain terrain. "We are a mountainous landlocked country, and only a small percentage of our land is, I think, actually suitable for agriculture. We don't have the luxury of just expanding farmland. We have to make better use of the land that we sort of already have," she says. "Labor is becoming extremely scarce as young people sort of move away from agriculture, and farmers still have to deal with issues like wildlife conflict, unpredictable weather, and also getting their produce to the market," Bleu says. Sonam Wangchuk is an executive specialist at the Ministry of Agriculture and Livestock for the government of Bhutan. He also joins the conversation to explain how the government plans to address these challenges through the 13th five-year plan, "Transforming the Agrifood Sector for Economic Growth and Sustainable Development." The plan calls for spending the equivalent of about $180 million through 2029. Much of these funds appear to be directly supporting smallholder farmers, the majority of whom in Bhutan are women. "We have been working to strengthen the capacity of the smallholder farmers, especially through training on climate-smart agriculture, improve production technologies, farm mechanization, post-harvest management, value addition and agribusiness and business development for women and youth," Wangchuk says. "The skills are imparted to improve access to finance, technology and markets and creating an environment of entrepreneurship and to support the farmer groups and cooperatives." Some government measures have received criticism, such as the implementation of a 3,400-kilometer (2,100-mile) fence to deter human-wildlife conflict. A previous study from 2023 on agricultural practices in the nation suggested that, "Bhutan should emphasise women-centred initiatives by enhancing access to assets, raising awareness of climate change mitigation strategies, and developing training programs to promote CSA," or climate-smart agriculture. This appears to be what the plan aims to do. However, not all challenges are easily solved with funding. Previous Mongabay fellow Choki Wangmo highlighted some of these challenges through the story of Pen Zam, a medicinal mushroom gatherer who struggles with a shrinking habitat at extremely high altitudes to attain a fraction of what her family used to gather decades ago, before the current climate impacts of today. Later this month, the inaugural Global Conscious Food Systems Summit will take place in Bhutan. Please take a minute to let us know what you think of our podcast here. Mike DiGirolamo is the host & producer for the Mongabay Newscast based in Sydney. Find him on LinkedIn and Bluesky. Cover Image: A chorten, or Buddhist stupa, at a rice field in Bhutan. Image by thaths via Flickr (CC BY-NC 2.0). —- Time codes (00:00) Bhutan is transforming its food system (06:45) A challenge ahead (12:53) How 'Gross National Happiness' guides the way (19:04) Supporting farmers amidst climate change (29:36) Moving the global conversation forward
Forty years after Jim Henson's Labyrinth first transported audiences into a strange, glitter-covered world of goblins, puppets, impossible staircases and one very memorable Goblin King, The Commentary Booth is heading back into the maze.This week, Jamie Apps and Corrina Mabey celebrate the 40th anniversary of the 1986 fantasy classic starring David Bowie and Jennifer Connelly, and, unsurprisingly, they do not exactly agree on whether Labyrinth has aged into a timeless masterpiece or a bizarre relic of 1980s filmmaking. Join duo as they debate whether this 1986 cult classic is a timeless masterpiece of puppetry and imagination, or a strange, dark fever dream that left an entire generation of children mildly traumatised.Highlights Breakdown: - David Bowie as Jareth: The Goblin King, the casting alternatives and one of the most unforgettable fantasy performances of the 1980s. - Jim Henson's puppetry magic: A closer look at the extraordinary practical work behind Hoggle, Ludo, the Fireys and the film's many creatures. - Dream or reality? Jamie and Corrina debate what Sarah's journey actually represents and whether the entire adventure exists inside her imagination. - The film's creepiest moments: From the helping hands to the Fireys, Labyrinth proves that "kids' movie" meant something very different in the 1980s. - Two very different verdicts: But, naturally, they're both convinced they're right. - Could Labyrinth return? The pair discuss the long-rumoured sequel, the possibility of a darker reboot and what could happen if the Goblin King returned.Tune in to hear Jamie and Corrina settle the debate, share their own childhood memories (and traumas) of the film, and discuss the potential for a dark, Robert Eggers-directed reboot.This week's episode is brought to you byAustralian Wrestling CardsCheck out more great content from Pario Magazine on our website.-------------------------------------------------------------SUPPORT PARIO MAGAZINE & THE COMMENTARY BOOTH- PATREON- BUY MERCH- AMAZON PRIME VIDEO- TUBEBUDDY- Subscribe to AEW Plus using my code (q0yydoz) to earn $10 in FITE credit- Shop Online With Honey- Shop Online With SatechiMY EQUIPMENT- Elgato Facecam- Rode PodMic- Elgato Wave Mic Arm LP- Streamlabs Talk StudioFOLLOW JAMIE ON SOCIAL MEDIA- Twitter- Facebook- Instagram- TikTokFOLLOW PARIO MAGAZINE ON SOCIAL MEDIA- Twitter- Facebook- Instagram
Weeks before D-Day, readers of the Daily Telegraph began encountering some unusual answers in the newspaper's crossword puzzle - Utah, Omaha, Overlord, Mulberry and Neptune. British intelligence noticed too. The man constructing the puzzles was investigated, the invasion went ahead, and the whole thing was dismissed as an extraordinary coincidence. Forty years later, one of his former students finally explained where the words had really come from. We tell the story here, then talk with owner of Promotions and Unicorns Too, Rob Einhorn! Did you know The Internet Says It's True is now a book? Get it here: https://amzn.to/4miqLNy Review this podcast at https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/the-internet-says-it-s-true/id1530853589 Bonus episodes and content available at http://Patreon.com/MichaelKent For special discounts and links to our sponsors, visit http://theinternetsaysitstrue.com/deals
Welcome to Money 911, where we believe true wealth isn't just about how much money you make—it's about creating a life of freedom, purpose, and peace of mind. I'm your host, Kris Miller. After helping thousands of families over the past 36 years protect what they've worked so hard to build, I've learned something surprising... Financial freedom rarely comes from chasing the next hot investment. It comes from creating intentional systems that generate income whether you're working... taking care of your family... traveling... or simply enjoying life. Today's guest has lived that journey. Chris Larsen bought his first rental property at just 21 years old while building a demanding corporate career. Instead of relying solely on a paycheck, he quietly built streams of passive income until one day they completely replaced his salary—allowing him to choose work because he wanted to, not because he had to. Today he's the Founder of Next-Level Income and author of the interactive book How to Be Financially Free by Forty, where he teaches entrepreneurs and professionals how to build financial independence through intentional investing and disciplined financial habits. Chris, welcome to Money 911 Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
Forty years ago, a tropical storm that began off the coast of the US travelled across the Atlantic to Ireland, picking up moisture along the way. It became Hurricane Charley, and arrived at the end of an already wet summer. It destroyed homes, cost five people their lives and in Bray, left fish on the road…Noeleen McManus, retired Journalist and Bray resident, joins Seán to discuss.
The Learning Leader Show with Ryan Hawk www.LearningLeader.com The Price of Becoming is a USA Today, LA Times, and Publishers Weekly Best-Seller! www.LearningLeader.com/Becoming This is brought to you by Insight Global. If you need to hire one person, hire a team of people, or transform your business through Talent or Technical Services, Insight Global's team of 30,000 people around the world has the hustle and grit to deliver. Blake Mycoskie founded TOMS Shoes in 2006 after a trip to Argentina, where he saw children without shoes and built a company around giving away a pair for every pair sold. TOMS went on to donate more than 100 million pairs of shoes and became one of the most copied business models in the world. What most people don't know is what happened after he sold it, and I'm grateful that he was open to talking about that on this episode of The Learning Leader Show. Key Learnings Make your gratitude specific. Not "I'm grateful for my family." Name the exact thing. Blake's example from that morning: the photos the camp posted of his daughter laughing in the lake, and knowing his stoic kid does not smile like that unless she is genuinely happy. He kept the practice going for five years when he couldn't feel any of it. Blake could not name five things he was grateful for, and he had all the same things in his life he has now. He did it anyway. He credits it as one of the things that kept him going. Surfing is a great thinking practice. Surfing is mostly just sitting on the board. Three hours in the water, ten waves, maybe five minutes standing. The rest is paddling and sitting. That's why it works as a thinking practice. Capture the idea in the moment or lose it. Blake programmed the side button on his Apple Watch to open a voice memo. Every idea he has sitting on the board, he records. They're all waiting when he gets out. He hit every marker and still felt worthless. "I did everything, and I still, deep down in my soul, had this feeling like I'm not worthy, I'm not enough, and I never will be." The external validation was the drug. Selling TOMS cut off the supply. The thing that had been holding up his sense of self was suddenly gone. If you get there and it's empty, don't panic. Panicking is what Blake did, and having money meant he could make expensive mistakes fast. Build the dream house. Get divorced. One thing after another. The emptiness may be the point. Blake's read on it: if achievement delivered what society promises, you'd never go inward. Feeling hollow at the summit is what forces the inner work. He re-patterned the sentence he'd been telling himself since childhood. The old one was "you're not enough." He replaced it with "I am enough. I've always been enough." Twenty minutes every morning and every evening. Forty straight days. It worked, and he no longer needs to do it daily. Sometimes you just need a physical cue to catch the loop. That's the whole idea behind the bracelet he wears. Not magic. A reminder on your wrist that interrupts the thought. Give the second one away. Blake found the bracelet's real power was handing one to a friend. Now you're both wearing it, you're both in on it, and there's an unspoken agreement that neither of you has to have a bad day alone. Men are worse at building that than women are. Tell your kids they're enough, and keep telling them. They're going to get the opposite message from everywhere else, which is exactly why it has to come from you repeatedly. Blake says the relaxation you'll see in them is immediate. Be brutally honest about how hard the job is. Try to talk them out of it. Blake is the last interview in the process now. If he can lay out every negative and they still desperately want it, the commitment is real. "How many people did you convince not to take the role before you got the right person?" Most leaders slip into sales mode, talk the candidate into it, and end up talking themselves into the candidate. What he screens for during the interview process: Integrity first. If it isn't there, it surfaces fast now. Attitude second. The person who never says "that's not my job." Whether they're building a resume or joining a movement. Find the people who cover what you're bad at. Blake is a storyteller, a vision-sharer, and high energy. He is not a supply chain guy, not a finance guy, and he has trouble saying no. So he hired around it. That's what let him actually be the chief shoe giver instead of pretending to be a CEO. Don't wait for permission. Most people stand in line at the front door. Blake looks for side doors. In Argentina he had no investors and no plan, just an idea and the words One For One. Ryan's version for his kids: everyone can apply online. Drive to the restaurant and go talk to the manager instead. Having no experience was the advantage. He'd never made a shoe, so he didn't know which rules he was breaking. Same with outdoor advertising. Same with driver's ed. He learned it from Richard Branson: ask forgiveness, not permission. Nashville wouldn't allow advertising, so he sold art instead. Blake spent two years with the city council and got there by removing the ad from the ad. No price, no call to action. Just album covers on the sides of buildings, called country music art. Once one artist had one, they all wanted one. He sold the company to Clear Channel. You don't attract what you want. You attract what you are. Want honest friends, be honest. Want peace at home, bring peace. Want trust, practice it when nobody's watching. Blake applies it to customers too: sloppy companies attract sloppy customers, and that's usually the real reason the business fails. Charlie Munger got asked how to get a great wife. He said: deserve one. Be known for doing what you said you'd do. Early on Blake didn't have the skills, so he built the reputation on execution instead. Move fast, keep it simple, do it with integrity. Momentum is a form of trust. The other half of that is not overpromising. Blake's own failure mode is getting excited, feeling falsely confident, promising something big, and missing. When it happens, own it fast and be honest, and the relationship usually survives. Be careful using a general-purpose chatbot as a therapist. Blake's warning, and the reason the founders of Sonia built a purpose-built tool instead: the big consumer models are designed to make you feel good about yourself. If you need to hear something hard, that's the last thing you want. He went from skeptic to advisor in six months. Blake met the Sonia founders at a mental health conference, tried the app to be polite, and by the third session was getting insights he hadn't gotten elsewhere. He now spends five to ten hours a week helping them. His reason for loving the work: "Now I get to be the coach instead of the athlete." Stop chasing balance. Design for harmony. Blake picked this up from an executive at Cannes who said she'd given up on balance. He goes hard in phases. Full dad mode with the office waiting on emails. Then all in on a launch and missing things at home. The measure isn't evenly split day to day. It's whether, over a year, everyone in his life feels like they got what they needed to thrive. Including him. Reflection Questions What did you actually feel grateful for today? Not the category. The specific moment. What is the sentence you've been repeating to yourself since childhood, and is it true? In your last hire, how hard did you try to talk them out of it? Or did you spend the interview selling them, and then sell yourself? More Learning #598: Sam Parr - Bold. Fast. Fun. Living by a Mantra & Building a Media Company #547: Dr. Michael Gervais - Stop Worrying About What Other People Think of You #676: Jesse Cole - Built for The Fans (The Owner of the Savannah Bananas) Episode Chapters 00:00 Meet Blake Mycoskie 01:38 Surfing is Great for Deep Thinking 03:41 Make Your Gratitude Specific 05:39 Blake Sold TOMS and Fell Apart 11:20 Advice for Those to "Make It" and Feel Nothing 13:23 "I Am Enough" and the Bracelet on His Wrist 17:35 The No Magic Pill 19:41 The Risk of Chatbot Therapy 22:42 A Surgeon Dad, a Bestselling Mom, and the Pressure Nobody Said Out Loud 25:13 Telling Your Kids They're Enough 31:31 How He Got Country Music Art on the Side of Buildings 35:15 Learning to Be Proud of TOMS Again 38:49 Hiring Around Your Weaknesses 41:25 Try to Talk Them Out of the Job 45:07 You Don't Attract What You Want. You Attract What You Are. 46:54 Don't Wait for Permission 48:34 Be Known for Doing What You Said You'd Do 50:02 The Champagne Question: Harmony, Not Balance 52:28 EOPC
Forty years ago, Paul Simon released one of the most unlikely blockbuster albums of the 1980s. Graceland arrived on Aug. 25, 1986, blending Simon's unmistakable songwriting with South African rhythms, zydeco, gospel harmonies and a completely new way of building songs. The result was an album that sounded unlike almost anything else on the radio — and somehow became one of the defining records of the decade. In this episode of Stuck in the '80s, we go track by track through Graceland, from “The Boy in the Bubble” and “Diamonds on the Soles of Her Shoes” to “You Can Call Me Al” and the title track. We also look at the album's controversial origins during apartheid, the musicians who helped shape its sound, its Grammy-winning success and why it still feels so timeless 40 years later. Plus, we ask the bigger question: Where does Paul Simon rank among the greatest songwriters of our lifetime? And don't forget: Stuck in the '80s is sailing again with The '80s Cruise. Join us at sea with some of the biggest stars of the decade, live music, trivia and plenty of '80s insanity. Use promo code STUCK when booking to receive $250 in onboard cabin credit. Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.
Architecture and Choreography: Collaborations in Dance, Space and Time (Routledge, 2024) examines the field of archi-choreographic experiments: unique interdisciplinary encounters and performed events generated through collaborations between architects and choreographers. Forty case studies spanning four decades give evidence of the range of motivations for embarking on these creative endeavors and diverse conceptual underpinnings, generative methods, objects of inquiry, and outcomes. Architecture and Choreography builds histories and theories through which to examine these works, the contexts within, and processes through which the works emerged, and the critical questions they raise about ways to work together, sites and citations, ethics and equity, control and agency. Three themes frame pairs of chapters. The first addresses disciplinarity through works that critically reflect upon their discipline's tools, techniques, and conventions juxtaposed against projects that cite or use other art forms and cultural phenomena as source material. The second interrogates space and the role of spatial dispositifs, institutions, and sites, and their hidden and not-so-hidden conditions, as conceptual drivers and structures to subvert, trouble, unsettle, remember. The third asks who and what dances, finding a spectrum from mobilized architectural bodies to more than human cybarcorps. Modes of collaboration and the temporalities and life cycles of projects inform bookending chapters. Architecture and Choreography offers vital lessons not only for architects and choreographers but also for students and practitioners across design and performance fields. 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
Architecture and Choreography: Collaborations in Dance, Space and Time (Routledge, 2024) examines the field of archi-choreographic experiments: unique interdisciplinary encounters and performed events generated through collaborations between architects and choreographers. Forty case studies spanning four decades give evidence of the range of motivations for embarking on these creative endeavors and diverse conceptual underpinnings, generative methods, objects of inquiry, and outcomes. Architecture and Choreography builds histories and theories through which to examine these works, the contexts within, and processes through which the works emerged, and the critical questions they raise about ways to work together, sites and citations, ethics and equity, control and agency. Three themes frame pairs of chapters. The first addresses disciplinarity through works that critically reflect upon their discipline's tools, techniques, and conventions juxtaposed against projects that cite or use other art forms and cultural phenomena as source material. The second interrogates space and the role of spatial dispositifs, institutions, and sites, and their hidden and not-so-hidden conditions, as conceptual drivers and structures to subvert, trouble, unsettle, remember. The third asks who and what dances, finding a spectrum from mobilized architectural bodies to more than human cybarcorps. Modes of collaboration and the temporalities and life cycles of projects inform bookending chapters. Architecture and Choreography offers vital lessons not only for architects and choreographers but also for students and practitioners across design and performance fields. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/critical-theory
Architecture and Choreography: Collaborations in Dance, Space and Time (Routledge, 2024) examines the field of archi-choreographic experiments: unique interdisciplinary encounters and performed events generated through collaborations between architects and choreographers. Forty case studies spanning four decades give evidence of the range of motivations for embarking on these creative endeavors and diverse conceptual underpinnings, generative methods, objects of inquiry, and outcomes. Architecture and Choreography builds histories and theories through which to examine these works, the contexts within, and processes through which the works emerged, and the critical questions they raise about ways to work together, sites and citations, ethics and equity, control and agency. Three themes frame pairs of chapters. The first addresses disciplinarity through works that critically reflect upon their discipline's tools, techniques, and conventions juxtaposed against projects that cite or use other art forms and cultural phenomena as source material. The second interrogates space and the role of spatial dispositifs, institutions, and sites, and their hidden and not-so-hidden conditions, as conceptual drivers and structures to subvert, trouble, unsettle, remember. The third asks who and what dances, finding a spectrum from mobilized architectural bodies to more than human cybarcorps. Modes of collaboration and the temporalities and life cycles of projects inform bookending chapters. Architecture and Choreography offers vital lessons not only for architects and choreographers but also for students and practitioners across design and performance fields. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/performing-arts
Architecture and Choreography: Collaborations in Dance, Space and Time (Routledge, 2024) examines the field of archi-choreographic experiments: unique interdisciplinary encounters and performed events generated through collaborations between architects and choreographers. Forty case studies spanning four decades give evidence of the range of motivations for embarking on these creative endeavors and diverse conceptual underpinnings, generative methods, objects of inquiry, and outcomes. Architecture and Choreography builds histories and theories through which to examine these works, the contexts within, and processes through which the works emerged, and the critical questions they raise about ways to work together, sites and citations, ethics and equity, control and agency. Three themes frame pairs of chapters. The first addresses disciplinarity through works that critically reflect upon their discipline's tools, techniques, and conventions juxtaposed against projects that cite or use other art forms and cultural phenomena as source material. The second interrogates space and the role of spatial dispositifs, institutions, and sites, and their hidden and not-so-hidden conditions, as conceptual drivers and structures to subvert, trouble, unsettle, remember. The third asks who and what dances, finding a spectrum from mobilized architectural bodies to more than human cybarcorps. Modes of collaboration and the temporalities and life cycles of projects inform bookending chapters. Architecture and Choreography offers vital lessons not only for architects and choreographers but also for students and practitioners across design and performance fields. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/architecture
Forty days lost in the Amazon rainforest.
Forty years ago this month, Paul Simon released Graceland, an album that became one of the defining records of his career, and one of the most celebrated and debated albums of its era. The record would go on to sell millions of copies and win the Grammy for Album of the Year. It would also generate enormous controversy over Simon's decision to record in apartheid South Africa during a cultural boycott. Music historian Ashley Kahn tells the whole complicated story in his new book, Days of Miracle and Wonder: Paul Simon and the Trials and Triumphs of Graceland. Here Ashley talks about his career, the making of Graceland, Paul Simon's unusual creative process, and the complicated cultural and political questions that have followed the album for forty years. www.third-story.com https://www.wbgo.org/podcast/art-of-the-story/2026-08-19/ashley-kahn-on-the-miracles-and-wonder-of-paul-simons-graceland https://leosidran.substack.com/
Forty years after Crisis on Infinite Earths reshaped DC Comics, its impact can still be felt across superhero storytelling today. On this episode, author and filmmaker Kevin Miller joins the Bandits to discuss his new TwoMorrows book, The Crisis Companion: From Flash of Two Worlds to Infinite Earths and Beyond, an exhaustive exploration of the landmark series and the decades of DC history that led to it. Kevin talks about tracing the evolution of the Multiverse from Flash of Two Worlds and the classic Justice League/Justice Society crossovers through Crisis, conducting new interviews with creators including Marv Wolfman, Paul Levitz, Jerry Ordway, Roy Thomas, Dan Jurgens, and others, and examining the event issue by issue. Along the way, he explores why Crisis became such a defining moment, how it changed the way comics approach continuity, reboots, and event storytelling, and why we're still talking about its consequences four decades later. The Crisis Companion is published by TwoMorrows and is arrives in comic shops this week! Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.
Trumps Border Wall Victory, Forty-Trillion-Dollar Debt, Fake Polling is a Serious Problem, Darth Vader weighs in on Flock Cameras, Favorite Vampire Movie and The Conservative Circus Clown of the Week
Dental amalgam is approximately 50% mercury by weight, and it releases a vapor that can be inhaled and absorbed, with children's developing neurological systems potentially more sensitive to its effects Since 2020, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) has advised dentists to avoid mercury fillings in children under 6 and other higher-risk patients, but the recommendation carries no obligation and no penalty for ignoring it Access to mercury-free care remains unequal, with low-income children, children of color, indigenous communities, Medicaid patients, service members, and institutionalized people often having fewer choices about the materials used Forty-six countries have banned amalgam by law, the European Union (EU) barred it for children under 15 in 2018, and the Minamata Convention set December 31, 2034 as the global end date Consumers for Dental Choice is leading the effort to end amalgam use in children, and I will match every donation dollar for dollar through August 22, 2026, up to $150,000
Forty years of guiding Kansas mallard hunts taught Roy Carter that shotguns don't kill ducks--diesel does. The Carter's Big Island outfitter talks location, habitat, flooded timber, moist-soil management, sanctuary and hunting pressure with his familiar, both-barrel blunt and politically incorrect candor. But the conversation turns deeply personal as Roy reflects on life beyond ducks. And no--we didn't delete any of it. Not a single word. You've been warned. Visit the Legendary Brands That Make MOJO's Duck Season Somewhere Podcast Possible: MOJO Outdoors Alberta Professional Outfitters Society Benelli Shotguns Bow and Arrow Outdoors Create the X Habitat Management App Ducks Unlimited Flash Back Decoys GetDucks.com Migra Ammunitions onX Maps Use code GetDucks25 to save 25% Sitka Gear SoundGear Use code GetDucks20 to save 25% Tom Beckbe USHuntList.com Like what you heard? Let us know! • Tap Subscribe so you never miss an episode. • Drop a rating—it's like a high-five in the duck blind. • Leave a quick comment: What hit home? What made you laugh? What hunt did it remind you of? • Share this episode with a buddy who lives for duck season. Have or know a story to share? Interested in partnerships? Contact: Ramsey Russell ramsey@getducks.com
The summer of 2026 burned the largest wildfire in Spain's recorded history and the largest France has seen since the Second World War. June's heat killed more than 10,000 people across Europe. A heat dome held North Africa and the Sahel above 45°C for days. In Assam, the Brahmaputra put 700,000 people out of their homes.But it was in the United States, in its hottest month in 132 years of records, that climate reporting found its biggest audience of the summer, in the least likely slot imaginable.Footballers at the FIFA Men's World Cup had to stop mid-half to drink, cool down and put on ice vests. Two US broadcasters held the rights to those three minutes. One sold them to advertisers. The other used them to explain why the players were stopping at all. This week Christiana Figueres speaks with Vanessa Hauc, Emmy award-winning anchor at Noticias Telemundo and creator of its climate unit, Planeta Tierra. Vanessa got Telemundo to hand her time during the hydration breaks. Forty seconds, Saudi Aramco's branding in shot, to tell viewers why the players needed to stop. While competitors sold advertising slots generating an estimated $1bn globally, millions tuned in to Vanessa explaining how human-driven climate change, caused by burning fossil fuels, was responsible for the crisis.Tom Rivett-Carnac and Paul Dickinson join Christiana to pick apart why simply reporting a hotter world is still treated as a provocation, and the three of them take stock of a summer of record heat, Spain's tumbling power prices and the case for telling the economic story better.What does it take to reach people who will never open a scientific paper but will not miss a match? And why is telling it like it is still the risky option?Plus, a first look at the next three episodes. Tom has been somewhere that holds the best and the worst of this transition at once. Stay tuned for the end of the episode.Learn More⚽ Read Climate Change Big Player at FIFA World Cup 2026, the World Weather Attribution study Vanessa's team built the reporting on
Tim Folster started at Sargent in 1979, fresh out of college and assigned to a road crew in Kenduskeag. He retired 40 years later, having worked as a foreman, general superintendent, and head of operations through many major chapters the company has lived through.In this episode, Tim covers a lot of ground. He talks about the early days of H.E. Sargent, what it was like to work under Jim Sargent during the growth years, and what the company felt like before and after the sale to foreign ownership in 1988. He's candid about what that era did to the company and what it meant when Herb R. Sargent bought H.E. Sargent in 2005.You'll also hear Tim on the expansion into the Mid-Atlantic, the wind farm years, the early days of the ESOP, and what he thinks carries a company through the bad stretches as much as the good ones.Forty years puts you in the room for a lot.If you liked this week's episode and are interested in becoming an Employee-Owner at Sargent, please visit our careers page on the Sargent website.https://sargent.us/apply/If you have an episode suggestion, please send your idea to:sbennage@sargent.us
Forty years ago, millions of Americans turned on their TVs to watch The Mysteries of Al Capone's Vault. In this live broadcast, construction workers blasted their way into a subterranean chamber beneath Chicago's Lexington Hotel, believed to have been a secret vault that belonged to the crime boss. My guest, William Elliott Hazelgrove, author of the new book, Capone's Vault, tells the story of how this broadcast got made and what investigators discovered underneath the Lexington once the cameras were rolling. If you'd like to support the show, please consider becoming a patron at www.patreon.com/artofcrimepodcast. For show notes and full transcripts, visit www.artofcrimepodcast.com.
Forty years ago, four martial-arts-trained rodents crashed the comics scene and helped kick off one of the strangest crazes of the 1980s. On this episode, creator Don Chin joins the Bandits to celebrate the 40th anniversary of Adolescent Radioactive Black Belt Hamsters, the 1986 series that began as a parody of Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles and quickly took on a life of its own. Don looks back at creating Bruce, Chuck, Clint, and Jackie during the height of the black-and-white comics boom, the unexpected success of the series, and working with artists including Parsonavich and a young Sam Kieth. The conversation also explores the anything-goes world of independent comics in the '80s, the Hamsters' enduring cult following, and what it's like to see this gloriously offbeat creation being celebrated four decades later with new 40th-anniversary collections from Dynamite. You can follow Don on Instagram @donchin63. Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.
Forty minutes. No news, no tangents. Just pure love for Ascendance of a Bookworm.If you haven't watched it: a girl who loves books dies and wakes up in a world where books are only for nobles. So she decides to make her own.If you have watched it: you already know why this conversation took 40 minutes.We go season by season—the beginnings, the expansions, the gut-punch finale of Season 3, and the Studio WIT takeover for Season 4 (and the controversy that came with it).Gary Was Right Again!#AscendanceOfABookworm #Bookworm #Myne #Isekai #AnimePodcast #AnimeAlchemists #animepodcast #booklovers #bookmaking #animediscovery
If you could go back and spend four years at any fictional high school from the '80s, where would you enroll? Would you hang out with Spicoli at Ridgemont High? Serve Saturday detention with the Breakfast Club at Shermer High? Shoot hoops for Hickory? Learn the African Anteater Ritual at Crandall High? Or maybe you'd choose a school where there's absolutely no chance of being murdered by your classmates or attacked in your dreams. This week on Stuck in the '80s, Steve and Brad are going back to school as we pick the fictional high schools of the 1980s we'd most like to attend — and the ones we'd avoid at all costs. There are plenty of tempting choices. There's Weemawee High from Square Pegs, where being popular might be difficult but there's always the possibility you'll score an invitation to Buffy's bar mitzvah and see Devo perform. There's Ridgemont High from Fast Times at Ridgemont High, which was also the overwhelming favorite among our listeners. Sure, you might have to survive Mr. Hand's history class, but apparently you can have pizza delivered to class, visit a morgue on a field trip and spend the rest of your free time hanging around the mall. Then there's Hickory High from Hoosiers, where school spirit is off the charts and the enrollment is small enough that we might actually have a chance of making the basketball team. We also consider Rydell High from Grease 2, Crandall High from Can't Buy Me Love, Edwina Pearl High from Just One of the Guys and, of course, Shermer High, the center of the John Hughes universe. Shermer seems pretty appealing. Affluent Chicago suburb. Good education. Great house parties. Interesting classmates. Just don't get Saturday detention. Of course, not every fictional '80s high school belongs on the recruiting brochure. We'd probably skip Ampipe High from All the Right Moves unless we're particularly excited about a future at the local steel mill. We're definitely staying away from Beaumont High from Footloose, where dancing is illegal and nearly every adult seems determined to make teenagers miserable. Then there's Westerburg High from Heathers, where the murder rate alone should probably affect its U.S. News ranking. And we're absolutely not enrolling at Springwood High from A Nightmare on Elm Street. Any school where falling asleep during algebra can result in your gruesome death is an immediate dealbreaker. Bunker Hill Military Academy from Taps isn't looking much better. It's about to close, the townies hate you and there's a reasonable chance Timothy Hutton is going to get everyone killed. Otherwise, lovely campus. We also share your picks, including votes for the schools from Square Pegs, Better Off Dead, Summer School, Three O'Clock High and the John Hughes movies. But Ridgemont? Ridgemont wins by a landslide. The High School Class We Wish We'd Had We also have a special interview this week with Todd Shriver and Shawn Curtis, two Indiana high school teachers who have somehow managed to create what might be our dream job. They teach a class about the 1980s. Todd and Shawn tell us how the class came about, what parts of the decade they cover and what today's high school students think about the music, movies, history and pop culture their parents grew up with. Even better, they've managed to bring the decade to life through an impressive collection of interviews with '80s celebrities. Which leaves Steve with only one question: Where does he submit his résumé? Why We Never Really Forget High School There's a reason high school remains such a powerful setting for the movies and TV shows we grew up with. Those four years are when many of us first started dreaming about who we might someday become. It's where we found our people. Where many of us fell in love for the first time — and discovered heartbreak for the first time, too. It's where we were challenged academically, personally and sometimes morally. We made good decisions. We made terrible decisions. And somehow all of those experiences became little pieces of the adults we eventually turned into. And then there's the soundtrack. The songs and movies we discovered during high school never really leave us. Forty years later, one song can come on and suddenly you're not sitting in traffic anymore. You're 17 again. You're driving somebody's terrible first car. You're thinking about someone you had a crush on. You're remembering some completely ordinary Friday night that you had no idea you'd still be thinking about decades later. For four years, we were becoming ourselves. We just didn't know it yet. And if you were lucky enough to go to high school in the '80s, at least you had one hell of a soundtrack while you figured it out. Join Us on The '80s Cruise! Want to take your love of the '80s out of the classroom and onto the high seas? Join Stuck in the '80s on The '80s Cruise, where we'll once again be sailing with an incredible lineup of '80s artists and thousands of fellow fans of the decade. We'll be there hosting trivia, recording podcasts and enjoying a week when it's perfectly acceptable to dress like it's still 1985. When you book, use promo code STUCK and you'll receive $250 in onboard cabin credit. Class dismissed. See you at sea. Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.
Forty years ago, Paul Simon released "Graceland," an album that became a massive hit, reshaped his career, introduced millions of listeners to South African music, and sparked a fierce debate over whether he had crossed a political and cultural line to make it. Ashley Kahn was there for part of that story, working on the Graceland tour and later serving as tour manager for Ladysmith Black Mambazo. His new book, "Days of Miracle and Wonder: Paul Simon and the Trials and Triumphs of Graceland," is about the making, controversy, and legacy of one of the most remarkable albums of the last half-century. Ashley Kahn, music historian & professor at NYU's Clive Davis Institute of Recorded Music, joins Ian Hoch to chat about it.
Bill rambles about the Napa Valley, super heroes, and a forty pound gift.Quo: Try QUO for free PLUS get 20% off your first 6 months when you go to http://www.Quo.com/BURRPolicy Genius: Head to http://www.PolicyGenius.com to compare life insurance quotes from top companies and see how much you could save.SimpliSafe: Celebrate their anniversary with us and save 60% on your new SimpliSafe system at http://www.SimpliSafe.com/BURR See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.
Last time we spoke about the beginning of the Pacific War. In late 1941, the Second Battle of Changsha ended with Chinese forces claiming victory despite suffering nearly 100,000 casualties against roughly 1,670 Japanese losses. Chiang Kai-shek's government launched an aggressive propaganda campaign, flooding international press with fabricated triumph narratives to sustain national morale. Behind closed doors, Chiang was furious at his generals' tactical failures, executing commanders and dismantling units. Meanwhile, geopolitical forces threatened China's survival. Japan's 1939 defeat at Nomonhan crushed hopes for a Soviet alliance against Tokyo. Germany's pact with the Soviet Union left China isolated, while Western powers remained reluctant to commit meaningful support. Britain offered little; the US provided only modest loans. By 1941, facing potential collapse, Chiang desperately searched for allies while Wang Jingwei's Japanese-backed rival government beckoned as an alternative. China's exhausted people endured horror—including a 1941 bombing massacre in Chongqing that killed over 400 trapped civilians. Then Japan unleashed a surprise attack on Pearl Harbor. #215 An Implosion in the East Welcome to the Fall and Rise of China Podcast, I am your dutiful host Craig Watson. But, before we start I want to also remind you this podcast is only made possible through the efforts of Kings and Generals over at Youtube. Perhaps you want to learn more about the history of Asia? Kings and Generals have an assortment of episodes on history of asia and much more so go give them a look over on Youtube. So please subscribe to Kings and Generals over at Youtube and to continue helping us produce this content please check out www.patreon.com/kingsandgenerals. If you are still hungry for some more history related content, over on my channel, the Pacific War Channel where I cover the history of China and Japan from the 19th century until the end of the Pacific War. In the early morning of December 7, 1941, the US Pacific Fleet was anchored at Pearl Harbor in Hawaii. Two waves of Japanese bomber aircraft, launched from six aircraft carriers, attacked the vessels and their sleeping crews, destroying the battleship Arizona outright and damaging seventeen others, as well as most of the military aircraft parked nearby. Some 2,400 Americans died, and another 1,100 were wounded. Within a day Japanese invasion forces had attacked Siam, Malaya, and the Philippines. Chiang Kai-shek heard the news at one o'clock in the morning and immediately dictated a letter of support to President Roosevelt, pledging commitment to a new "common battle." The news reached Zhou Fohai in Shanghai as well. On December 8 across the international date line from Hawaii he had heard the sounds of firing as the Japanese took over the rest of the city, and then received reports that Japan had declared war on the Western powers. "I heard they'd bombed Honolulu, Manila, Singapore, and Hong Kong. From now on, the Pacific becomes a killing ground." When Japanese carrier planes descended on Pearl Harbor on December 7, 1941, they were executing far more than a tactical strike. They were unleashing the culmination of a strategic vision that had shaped Japanese military planning since the 1920s: the Nanshin-ron, or "Southern Advance" doctrine. The Nanshin-ron represented a critical strategic choice that emerged from internal Japanese debates during the 1920s and 1930s. Japan faced an inescapable vulnerability: it was an island nation with virtually no natural resources of its own. The nation's population had doubled since the Meiji Restoration, growing to over 70 million by 1941. An industrial economy of tremendous sophistication, capable of producing world-class warships, aircraft, and military equipment, depended entirely on imported raw materials. Oil, rubber, tin, iron ore, bauxite, copper, and manganese all had to be acquired through foreign trade or conquest. This resource dependency was not a luxury problem; it was an existential one. A nation that could not feed itself or fuel its economy was a nation vulnerable to strangulation by enemies who controlled the resources it needed. Japanese strategic thinkers divided into two camps on how to resolve this vulnerability. The Hokushin-ron advocates, primarily within the Army, pushed for expansion northward into Siberia and Mongolia, seeking to conquer Soviet territory and resources. The Soviet Union possessed vast tracts of land, mineral wealth, timber, and agricultural output. From a purely materialist perspective, the Northern Advance made geographic sense—it was contiguous with Manchuria, which Japan had already secured in 1931. Yet by the late 1930s, the Hokushin-ron strategy had suffered a catastrophic blow. In 1938 and 1939, Japanese and Soviet forces clashed at Khalkhin Gol in Mongolia in what the Japanese called the Nomonhan Incident. The battles revealed a terrifying truth: the Soviet Red Army, under General Georgy Zhukov, was far more formidable than Japanese military planners had anticipated. Soviet armor, air power, and coordinated tactics annihilated Japanese forces. Japan suffered over 60,000 casualties while inflicting perhaps 10,000 on the Soviets. The defeat was concealed from the Japanese public, but it was unmistakable to military planners. A direct clash with Soviet power could end catastrophically. The Northern Advance, it became clear, would almost certainly provoke war with a nation capable of destroying the Japanese Army. This strategic defeat tilted the balance decisively toward the Nanshin-ron. If Japan could not safely expand northward, it must expand southward, toward Southeast Asia, the Dutch East Indies, Indochina, and the western Pacific. The appeal of the Nanshin-ron was immediately apparent to the Navy, which had always been more oriented toward maritime commerce and expansion across the ocean. The territories to the south were not militarily formidable. The colonial powers, Britain, the Netherlands, France, were either already defeated in 1940 or distracted by their own desperate struggles leaving Britain fighting alone against Germany. The United States, though potentially a formidable adversary, was not yet at war, and there was a chance, however slender, that a decisive blow against American naval power might convince America to negotiate rather than fight. But beyond strategic opportunity, the Nanshin-ron offered something that the Hokushin-ron did not: it offered resources of staggering abundance. The Dutch East Indies possessed oil reserves that could dwarf Japan's consumption for years. Malaya produced the world's rubber. Thailand offered agricultural bounty and geographic position. Burma's timber and agricultural products could feed Japan's growing empire. The Philippines possessed harbors, airfields, and economic output. These were not marginal additions to Japan's economy—they were transformative. Together, they would convert Japan from a resource-hungry island nation into the master of an imperial domain encompassing hundreds of millions of people and containing most of the strategic materials necessary for sustained industrial warfare. In the last episode I explained the western sanctions and embargoes that drained Japan's military of the resources they required to continue the China War. By 1941, Japan faced a civilization crisis. Japan imported roughly 90 percent of its petroleum, and the bulk of that came from the Dutch East Indies and the United States. Suddenly, the American supply was cut off entirely. Reserves would last perhaps 18 months if Japan's military and industrial consumption continued at existing rates. After that, the military machine would sputter and die. The industrial economy would collapse. Even civilian life would become impossible to sustain. Japan was facing not merely economic inconvenience but literal strangulation by the Western powers. Yet it would be a mistake to reduce Japanese motivation to just materialism. Japanese military leaders wrapped their conquests in an ideological framework, one that many of them genuinely believed, or wanted to believe, served a higher historical purpose. The concept of the Daitoa Kyoeiken, the "Greater East Asia Co-Prosperity Sphere," posited a new regional order in which Japan would play the leading role in liberating Asian peoples from Western colonial domination and creating an Asian-centered political and economic system. This ideology drew on genuine anti-colonial sentiment. For a century, Western powers had dominated Asia, treating Asian peoples and nations as subordinate, colonized territories existing to serve Western economic interests. Japan, which had modernized and Westernized enough to avoid colonization, saw itself as the natural leader of an Asian renaissance—a civilizing force that would restore Asian dignity and independence even as it established Japanese hegemony. Of course, this was propagandistic. Japanese conquest represented a substitution of one imperial master for another, and often a harsher and more brutal one at that. But for understanding Japanese decision-making, the ideology mattered profoundly. It provided Japanese leaders with a moral narrative for conquest. It allowed them to understand themselves as liberators rather than mere conquerors. It provided a rationale for extracting resources from occupied territories and for mobilizing subject populations to support the Japanese war effort. And it resonated with anti-Western sentiment throughout Asia, making Japanese occupation seem, in some quarters, preferable to continued Western colonial rule. The slogan Hakko ichiu—"eight corners under one roof", captured this ideological vision: a unified Asia and eventually world under Japanese guidance. Whether Japanese leaders truly believed this vision or cynically deployed it as propaganda, it shaped how they understood their actions and justified them to their subjects. Now I know this is a podcast dedicated to the century of humiliation, ie: China's experience. But I thought it was necessary just to have one episode explain what Dan Carlin titled "a supernova in the east" and I have titled an implosion in the east. I won't go into depth into the campaigns as some of them have a lot of Chinese involvement and we will be covering them in depth, but rather I will explain the rationale for Japan's numerous invasions following the surprise attack on Pearl Harbor. Japan's assault on Malaya began within hours of the Pearl Harbor attack, indeed, Japanese troops were already landing on the Kota Bharu beachhead on the Malaysian peninsula before dawn on December 8, 1941 local time. Malaya was one of the world's largest rubber producers, and Singapore, at the tip of the peninsula, was the linchpin of British naval power in the Far East.The Japanese interest in Malaya was straightforward but crucial: rubber. The Japanese military consumed vast quantities of rubber for tires, gaskets, hoses, and countless other applications. American and Dutch rubber supplies were now cut off by embargo. Malaya's rubber plantations represented perhaps the world's richest reservoir of this strategic material. Beyond rubber, Malaya and the surrounding region were major tin producers—essential for alloys and manufacturing. For Japan to conduct prolonged warfare, Malaya was not a luxury target; it was a necessity. Singapore represented something different: a symbol of Western power in Asia and a strategic chokepoint. As the major British naval base in the region, Singapore served as the anchor of British imperial authority across the South China Sea. By seizing Singapore, Japan would not only capture crucial resources and port facilities but would also deliver a psychological blow to the entire edifice of Western dominance in Asia. The fortress city that the British considered nearly impregnable fell within seventy days, a stunning demonstration of Japanese military capability and the vulnerability of overextended Western empires. If Malaya was critical for rubber, the Dutch East Indies was essential for oil. The region, comprising present-day Indonesia, was the world's third-largest oil producer and had reserves that could sustain Japanese military operations for years. This was the jewel of the resource-conquest strategy. Japanese planners had long eyed the East Indies, but direct conquest had seemed risky while Britain and America remained neutral or opposed. With both now at war, the window of opportunity had opened. Japan needed the oil so desperately that when the Dutch East Indies Petroleum Company initially agreed to some Japanese oil purchases before the war, Tokyo was already planning its takeover. The conquest of the Dutch East Indies would provide not just oil but also tin, nickel, bauxite, and other materials essential to an industrial war machine. The islands would also provide air and naval bases from which Japan could defend its new empire and potentially threaten Australia. The Japanese invasion of the Dutch East Indies, which began in late December 1941 and accelerated through January and February 1942, was methodical and comprehensive. Various island groups were targeted systematically: Java, Borneo, Celebes, and the Moluccas. Dutch military forces, though brave, were overwhelmed. By March 1942, Japan had secured the entire archipelago,a stunning logistical and military achievement that delivered vast resources into Japanese hands. Thailand presented a fundamentally different case from Japan's other targets. Rather than conquest, Japan pursued alliance with military strongman Plaek Phibunsongkhram, who had seized power in a 1938 coup as a nationalist ideologue determined to reassert Thai sovereignty and recover territory lost to French colonialism in the nineteenth century. Thailand was the last independent state in mainland Southeast Asia, hemmed in by British-controlled Burma and Malaya to the west, and French Indochina to the east. For a century, Thailand had survived by playing European imperial powers against each other. But by the late 1930s, this strategy was becoming obsolete. Europe was distracted by Hitler's Germany. Colonial powers were weakening. Japanese power was visibly ascending. Phibunsongkhram recognized both danger and opportunity. He could resist Japan and invite invasion, or he could ally with Japan and profit from rising Asian power. Japanese diplomats approached Thailand with sophistication: they offered military alliance and support for Thai territorial expansion at French expense. This addressed Thailand's deepest national wound, the humiliation of nineteenth-century territorial losses to France. The Franco-Thai War of 1940-1941 became transformative. With Japan providing military support, advisors, tanks, aircraft, Thai forces defeated the French for the first time in history. By May 1941, Thailand had recovered 54,000 square kilometers of Cambodian territory and portions of Laos. For Phibunsongkhram, this was extraordinary: he had achieved what Thai leaders could not in a century, reclaiming territory from a Western imperial power. Domestically, his position was dramatically strengthened. The parallel to China's century of humiliation—the foundation of your podcast is striking: Thailand too was reversing colonial diminishment through association with rising Asian power. The Thai-Japanese relationship was unique. Unlike the Philippines, Malaya, or the Dutch East Indies, Thailand would retain nominal independence. Phibunsongkhram remained in power. Japanese occupation was light. Thai forces maintained their own command structure. Most importantly, Thailand's territorial gains from the Franco-Thai War were recognized and secured. Japan valued Thai cooperation more than conquest. Burma, controlled by the British, was the next target in Japan's southwestward advance. Japanese planners had multiple motivations for invading Burma. First, it was strategically positioned on India's eastern frontier, and Japan harbored ambitions of eventually striking toward India and linking up with Germany in the Middle East or at least destabilizing the British position in South Asia. Second, Burma was a significant producer of timber and agricultural products. Third, and perhaps most importantly, the invasion of Burma was meant to cut the Burma Road, the crucial supply line that allowed American aid to reach Nationalist China. The invasion of Burma began in late 1941 and accelerated through early 1942. The invasion of the Philippines, which began on December 10, 1941, just days after Pearl Harbor, served multiple strategic purposes. Like the assault on Pearl Harbor itself, it was meant to neutralize American military power in the region, in this case, the American garrison under General Douglas MacArthur and the American colonial administration. But the Philippines were also valuable in their own right. The islands sat directly in the path of what Japan envisioned as its defensive perimeter. By controlling the Philippines, Japan would make it extraordinarily difficult for American forces to project power westward into Southeast Asia. The territory would provide naval and air bases critical to defending Japan's new empire. Additionally, the Philippines possessed some agricultural and industrial resources valuable to the war effort, and their conquest delivered a psychological victory, defeating American forces and ending American colonial rule in Asia, which appealed to anti-Western sentiment that Japan tried to cultivate. Beyond Southeast Asia and the Philippines, Japan rapidly invaded Guam and Wake island to extend Japan's defensive perimeter further into the Pacific and eliminate American air and naval bases that could threaten Japanese operations. Guam, seized on December 10, 1941, fell within two days, the American garrison was small and the island's strategic value lay primarily in denying the United States a forward staging ground for any counteroffensive. Wake Island, attacked the same day and finally captured on December 23 after a brief but heroic American defense, served similar purposes: cutting off American reconnaissance and interdicting potential supply lines to the Philippines. Now I believe that's enough of the implosion in the east, let's get back to the situation in China. After Chiang Kai-shek sent his letter of support to President Franklin D. Roosevelt, pledging Chinese commitment to what he termed a new "common battle." he did something most revealing about his mood towards the global war. He played "Ave Maria" on his gramophone, celebrating with an almost spiritual gratitude the implications of what had just transpired in the American Pacific. This moment crystallized the profound difference Pearl Harbor would mean to different members of the emerging Allied coalition. For the United States, the attack was pure shock, a violation of the sanctity of American soil and the complacency of American isolationism. For Britain, it was like the pricking of a large, painful blister—painful but perhaps not entirely unexpected given Japan's regional ambitions. But for China, the relief that surged through the government and the consciousness of the Chinese people surpassed even Britain's response. For four long years, China had fought Japan almost alone, watching as Western nations remained neutral or limited their commitment to rhetorical support and modest material assistance. Now, suddenly, the trajectory of the entire conflict had shifted with breathtaking speed. Chiang's emotional state at this moment could scarcely be contained, and those close to him understood that beneath his carefully maintained Confucian composure burned an intoxicating sensation of vindication. These Western powers who had been so impatient with Chinese strategy, who had mocked the retreats of the Nationalist Army and spoken scornfully of Japanese capabilities, were now themselves in headlong retreat from those very islanders. In Hong Kong, Singapore, and Manila, British and American forces would be fighting desperately for their lives against the Japanese military that China had been contending with for years. Chiang could not have failed to perceive the irony: the Japanese had conquered vast stretches of China through relentless campaigns, yet Westerners had dismissed Chinese resistance as inadequate. Now the Japanese were proving that they posed a formidable challenge to Western military power as well. There was a bitter satisfaction in this vindication, even as Chiang understood that the strategic implications of American entry far outweighed any emotional satisfaction. What was pragmatic and strategically clear to Chiang, however, was far more important than any emotional satisfaction. The United States was now at war, and it was on China's side. This represented the transformation for which Chiang had labored for years, bringing the full weight of American industrial capacity and military might to bear against the Japanese enemy. The diplomatic foundations for this alliance had already been laid in the months preceding Pearl Harbor. Beginning in the spring of 1941, the United States had begun to commit significant resources to supporting China. In April 1941, following the conclusion of the Soviet-Japanese neutrality agreement, which had devastated Chinese morale by suggesting that Japan might attack the Soviet Union rather than move southward, the Roosevelt administration had determined to provide $45 million worth of militarily useful commodities to China as an immediate gesture of support. Then, on May 6, 1941, President Roosevelt had made a more formal commitment by announcing that the munitions provisions of the Lend-Lease Act applied to China, declaring a phrase that captured the strategic logic of American assistance: "defending China is the key to defending America." This declaration represented a significant shift in American policy, elevating China from a regional concern to a central element of American grand strategy in Asia. Subsequently, in July 1941, Roosevelt had sent Owen Lattimore to China to serve as political adviser to the Chinese government, a position that signaled deepening American engagement with Chinese affairs. In August, the administration appointed John Magruder as military attaché and head of the American Military Mission to China (AMMISCA), with the primary responsibility of overseeing the delivery of Lend-Lease material to the Chinese armed forces. On the diplomatic front, Chiang moved with remarkable alacrity. He had already severed relations with Germany on July 2, 1941, the very day after Hitler had formally recognized the Wang Jingwei puppet government in an attempt to appease Japan and encourage it to finally implement the Southern Advance. Now, on December 8, 1941, just one day after the Pearl Harbor attack, Chiang took the decisive step of formally declaring war against the Axis powers, Germany, Italy, and Japan. This declaration transformed China's position from a beleaguered nation fighting a war of survival into a formal member of the Allied coalition. Chiang had seized the opportunity that Pearl Harbor presented to ally China with a genuinely strong power against Japan, a gambit that fundamentally altered the diplomatic weight and international legitimacy of both the Chinese government and the Chinese cause. From a strategic perspective, the Japanese had committed what Chiang and others immediately recognized as a catastrophic blunder. On the operational level, Pearl Harbor was indeed a devastating tactical success, the American Pacific Fleet was crippled, and Japanese forces now enjoyed temporary naval superiority throughout much of the Pacific and Southeast Asia. Yet strategically, Pearl Harbor represented a failure of epic proportions, a miscalculation rooted in a fundamental misunderstanding of the intangibles of warfare: what motivated the Chinese people and what motivated the Americans. The Chinese had understood, through four years of brutal conflict, that warfare was about more than territorial conquest and resource acquisition. It was about will, about endurance, about the capacity to absorb punishment and continue fighting. The Japanese had learned this lesson imperfectly in China, where despite overwhelming military advantages they had been unable to force a decisive conclusion or compel Chinese surrender. The Americans would teach the Japanese this lesson even more emphatically. The attack on American sailors in Hawaii instantly galvanized the American population to prosecute an unlimited war, with Tokyo itself as the ultimate destination of American counterattack. While Americans would remember the "date that will live in infamy" primarily because of the assault on Pearl Harbor itself, the strategic consequence was that Japanese actions in Hawaii had introduced numerous new adversaries into the Pacific conflict: not only the United States, but also Britain, Australia, New Zealand, and the Netherlands. These additions transformed what had been, from the Japanese perspective, a regional conflict with manageable parameters into a global war that Japan could not possibly win through any conceivable means. What made this particularly disastrous for Japan was the context in which the new theater had been opened. Japan was already deeply mired in a quagmire in China—a "malignant quagmire," as one observer would later characterize it, that had consumed vast resources, inflicted enormous casualties, and failed to produce decisive victory. In military strategy, it is sometimes wise to open a new theater in order to attack an enemy from an additional and unexpected direction, thereby dispersing their forces and creating new challenges for them to manage. But opening a new theater that introduces an entirely new, powerful adversary, and doing so when one is already overextended in an existing theater is a prescription for strategic catastrophe. This was precisely what Japan had done at Pearl Harbor. Chiang Kai-shek understood the magnitude of Japan's miscalculation with crystalline clarity. He understood that whatever the military complexities that lay ahead, whatever the challenges of coordinating with Western allies, and whatever the limitations of Western military assistance to China might be, the fundamental equation had changed. The United States would ultimately defeat Japan. The Chinese did not need to defeat Japan by themselves; they merely needed to survive long enough for American industrial and military capacity to grind the Japanese military into defeat. In the immediate aftermath of Pearl Harbor, Chinese and American officials moved swiftly to formalize the alliance and establish the mechanisms of wartime cooperation. Roosevelt asked Chiang Kai-shek to serve as commander in chief of the Allied forces in the China theater, a designation that recognized China's central role in the Pacific War and elevated Chiang's international standing to something he had long sought: a position as an equal partner in the Allied coalition, a seat at the "top table of global decision-making" alongside Roosevelt, Churchill, and Stalin. To support this expanded role and to ensure effective coordination of the military effort, Roosevelt dispatched Lieutenant General Joseph W. Stilwell to China. Stilwell was not chosen randomly; he brought fifteen years of experience in China, a deep familiarity with the country, its military, and its complexities that few American officers possessed. Stilwell was appointed to serve simultaneously as the U.S. government's military representative in China, as chief of staff of the China Theater, and as commander in chief of the American forces in the China-Burma-India (CBI) theater. This appointment established the framework for joint Chinese-American military cooperation and represented an American commitment to the Asian theater that, while never receiving the resources devoted to the European theater, nonetheless signified recognition of China's strategic importance. Trust me, going forward we will be having a lot of time dedicated to the hilarious bromance / bro hatred of Vinegar Joe and Peanut. Yet the formation of an alliance and the establishment of command structures was easier than the practical implementation of military cooperation. The fundamental challenge that would plague Chinese-American relations throughout the war emerged almost immediately: the problem of delivering military assistance to China. Before Pearl Harbor, the United States and China had reached agreement on three major points regarding military assistance. First, the United States would provide training and technical support to assist China in establishing a modern air force. Second, the United States would provide training and equipment for a ground army consisting of thirty divisions. Third, the United States would assist China in constructing railways and highways from Yunnan to Burma, along with the provision of rolling stock and vehicles to support these new transportation routes. These were ambitious plans, reflecting the extent of Chinese need and American willingness to support the Chinese war effort. However, the outbreak of the Pacific War threw American plans into disarray. The fundamental strategic doctrine guiding American policy was the "Europe first" strategy, which meant that the European theater and the defeat of Nazi Germany received priority over the Pacific theater. Additionally, China's geography made it extraordinarily difficult to supply. China could only be reached through supply lines of extraordinary length and complexity, either through the port of Rangoon in Burma and then overland via the treacherous Yunnan-Burma Road, or through the port of Hong Kong, which immediately fell into Japanese hands after Pearl Harbor. The first Sino-American loan agreement had specified that the United States would deliver commodities worth $45 million to China in 1941. However, shipping shortages meant that only $26 million worth of commodities actually left the United States. These commodities were shipped to the transit port of Rangoon, where a massive traffic jam developed as supplies accumulated faster than they could be distributed onward to China. Along the Yunnan-Burma Road, that "much-contested life line" as it came to be known, conditions were chaotic. The road had always been a source of trouble: it was long, extraordinarily difficult to keep in repair, fantastically dangerous to travel, and too narrow to permit much volume of traffic at any one time. Due to mismanagement and pilfering, the commodities that were shipped out of Burma suffered heavy losses in transit, and only one-third of them eventually arrived in Chongqing. Yet the United States had already established one valuable asset in China that could be deployed relatively quickly: an air force nucleus. Just before Pearl Harbor, a group of American aviators had been formally organized in Chongqing who worked on volunteer status for China under the command of Colonel Claire Chennault, an American aviation officer who served as instructor at the Chinese Air Force Cadet School. Some of these men had been flying in China since the Kuomintang first began purchasing American aircraft, having come to demonstrate the aircraft and remaining to pilot and teach. Others had hurried to China after being released from their volunteer service in Spain, where they had gained combat experience during the Spanish Civil War. It was a familiar joke that pilots from both sides of the Spanish conflict were likely to meet and work side by side in China, but political convictions proved immaterial to these professional aviators, they got on well enough with each other, mercenaries of the twentieth century united by their expertise and their willingness to fight. When American traffic on the Burma Road swelled in volume and became chaotic, with cargo lost to pilfering and trucks breaking down from mishandling, the air freight service into Chongqing became increasingly vital to maintaining Chinese military capabilities. The backbone of this organization was American, and it had been in operation for months before the Japanese attack. Halfway down the Burma Road, over the border in Burma, was a plane factory backed by American and Chinese capital, providing some degree of repair and maintenance capacity for the aircraft operating out of China. Recognizing the strategic value of these experienced aviators and the need to formalize and expand their operations, American and Chinese officials moved quickly to incorporate this volunteer group, formally known as the American Volunteer Group or "Flying Tigers," into the U.S. Army Air Force. This transformation of volunteer aviators into official American military personnel represented a commitment to providing air support to Chinese operations, recognizing that air power could compensate to some degree for Chinese numerical disadvantages in ground combat. In Chongqing, it was clear that among the United Nations fighting Japan, America was the only one taking China seriously, the only one prepared to invest significant resources in Chinese military capabilities and the Chinese war effort. Yet Pearl Harbor brought consequences that extended far beyond the strategic and diplomatic spheres. For Western civilians living in China,missionaries, teachers, doctors, businessmen, and journalists, the attack represented a catastrophic change in their status and their fate. Until December 8, 1941, Westerners residing in China had maintained a curious protected status as foreign neutrals, even in areas nominally controlled by the Japanese. This status had provided them with a measure of distance from, and protection against, the grinding reality of the war that had devastated Chinese populations. For a century, Americans had been part of an imperial presence in China, sometimes benevolent, sometimes violent, but always ultimately under Western control. That world came to an abrupt end on December 8, 1941. All across eastern China, Americans and Britons were rounded up and interned. The International Settlement of Shanghai—that remarkable oasis of neutrality that had persisted in the midst of a war-torn city—was now reunified under Japanese control. Thousands of foreigners with Allied nationality were sent to holding camps scattered throughout occupied China. Some, like the eleven-year-old British boy Jim Ballard, would remain imprisoned for the remainder of the war, enduring hunger, cold, and disease in camps like Longhua, which housed approximately 2,000 detainees. Forty years later, as the novelist J. G. Ballard, he would memorialized this experience in his semi-autobiographical novel Empire of the Sun. For missionaries like Velva Brown, the evacuation process was degrading and final. The missionary staff were permitted to pack no more than three suitcases with their belongings. As they prepared to leave, Japanese and Taiwanese "sightseeing" parties arrived to decide which houses they might want to occupy. The journey home aboard crowded Japanese ships offered no concessions to status or dignity; ambassadors, consuls, merchants, and missionaries alike were given "bed-sized strips of Chinese matting which we spread side by side on the iron floor of the hold," as Brown recorded. The humiliation was compounded by the finality of it all. For many, their decades-long presence in China was ending not in orderly retreat but in hasty evacuation, leaving behind "servants, many of whom had been with us for fifteen or twenty years." Despite these immediate human tragedies, the strategic transformation that Pearl Harbor wrought for China was undeniable. Chiang Kai-shek now embarked on an entirely new sort of life, heavily involved with the leaders and generals of the Western powers. He held diplomatic discussions with the leaders of the United Nations and military planning sessions with Western generals. In these unfamiliar circumstances, he did his best to live up to the Confucian ideal of the gentleman, seldom permitting the mask to slip—though the pressure of these new responsibilities and the intoxicating combination of vindication and anxiety would occasionally prove too much even for his considerable self-control. Within weeks of Pearl Harbor, Chiang demonstrated the value he could bring to the new alliance. He visited India and spoke with the leaders of the Indian independence struggle as an ally and friend, as a fellow non-European speaking to others seeking to escape from colonialism and imperial domination. He joined the Allies in their first joint campaign, not in China but in the jungles of neighboring Burma, committing Chinese forces to operations outside China's borders in support of the broader Allied military strategy. Yet the price that Chiang would pay for China's belated entry into the global alliance against the Axis powers would prove to be a heavy one. Chiang desperately needed his new American and British partners, but accepting this alliance would unleash forces within Chinese society that would threaten the very basis of his political control. The complexities of this bargain would become most visible in the four-year struggle between Chiang and General Joseph Warren Stilwell, the American officer who would become simultaneously his chief of staff and the administrator of American military assistance to China. This relationship, shaped by mutual suspicion, different strategic visions, and incompatible political agendas, would define Chinese-American military cooperation during the Pacific War and would have profound implications extending far beyond the battlefields of Asia. I would like to take this time to remind you all that this podcast is only made possible through the efforts of Kings and Generals over at Youtube. Please go subscribe to Kings and Generals over at Youtube and to continue helping us produce this content please check out www.patreon.com/kingsandgenerals. If you are still hungry after that, give my personal channel a look over at The Pacific War Channel at Youtube, it would mean a lot to me. Pearl Harbor's shock reverberated through Asia. Japan's assault on Hawaii, combined with invasions of Burma, the Philippines, Guam, and Wake Island, inadvertently transformed regional conflict into global war. Chiang Kai-shek, vindicated after four years of isolation fighting Japan, embraced American alliance with profound relief. The U.S. committed military aid, appointed General Stilwell as chief of staff, and recognized China as a co-belligerent. For Chiang, this partnership brought diplomatic status but also internal tensions that would define the Pacific War's final chapter.
Independent pharmacies need partners they can trust—and patients need a prescription-drug system that puts access ahead of profits. In this episode of This Week in Pharmacy, Todd Eury welcomes Rick Seipp, PharmD, President of Value Drug Company, to discuss the importance of choosing a dependable wholesale distribution partner. Following Smith Drug Company's announced operational transition, Value Drug Company is prepared to help affected independent pharmacy owners evaluate their purchasing, distribution and operational needs while developing an orderly transition that protects continuity of service. For more than 90 years, pharmacist-led Value Drug Company has supported community pharmacies through transparent pricing, dependable distribution, collective purchasing power and programs designed to improve efficiency, growth and profitability. Rick explains how the company will provide transition assistance and regional gatherings where pharmacy owners can speak directly with Value Drug Company leadership. The episode also features a follow-up conversation with patient advocate Bil Schmidtknecht about the continuing fight for Cole's Act. Named in memory of Bil's son, Cole, the proposed reforms seek to protect patients from unexpected formulary and coverage changes that can suddenly make essential medications unaffordable. “Patients can't afford more delays, and lives should never be collateral damage in a profit-driven system,” Bil says. The discussion examines PBM accountability, medication affordability and why families must receive meaningful notice before coverage changes place lifesaving treatments beyond their reach. TWIRx News: Week Ending August 14, 2026 Employers Are Moving Away from the “Big Three” PBMs A new employer survey points to growing disruption in the PBM marketplace. Forty-six percent of surveyed employers reported using a PBM outside CVS Caremark, Express Scripts and Optum Rx—up from 37% the previous year. Employers are increasingly seeking transparent pricing, access to claims data and greater control over prescription-drug spending. Read the Axios report FDA Delays Major iPLEDGE Changes Until November The FDA has postponed implementation of updated iPLEDGE REMS requirements from August 8 to November 15, 2026, to allow additional system testing. The forthcoming changes are intended to reduce burdens on patients, pharmacists and prescribers while maintaining safeguards surrounding isotretinoin. Read the FDA iPLEDGE update Episode Resources Value Drug Company transition-support announcement Value Drug Company transition assistance: 1-866-226-1772 Patient Protector Modern Medical Mafia: PBM Reform Pharmacy Podcast Network About the Guests Rick Seipp, PharmD President, Value Drug Company Bil Schmidtknecht Patient advocate and father of Cole Schmidtknecht