Podcasts about in defense

Welcome back to The Way Home Podcast! We took a few weeks off of uploading as Dan has been touring with the release of his new book, In Defense of Christian Patriotism. If you haven't already, you can click the link below to purchase a copy. Buy Dan's Book We are so excited to have […] The post The Way Home Podcast: Chap Bettis on Managing Your Household Well appeared first on Daniel Darling.

What if the key to more joy, creativity, and confidence in midlife isn't mastery — it's dabbling?   Author and speaker Karen Walrond (Radiant Rebellion, The Lightmaker's Manifesto) joins Yvonne Marchese to talk about her newest book, In Defense of Dabbling: The Brilliance of Being a Total Amateur.   Together, they explore how curiosity, play, and self-compassion can help us reconnect with wonder — and why embracing our inner beginner might be the most radical act of joy we can choose.   Tune in for a refreshing conversation about letting go of perfectionism, rediscovering creativity, and learning to love the process again.  

How are the federal courts faring during these tumultuous times? I thought it would be worthwhile to discuss this important subject with a former federal judge: someone who understands the judicial role well but could speak more freely than a sitting judge, liberated from the strictures of the bench.Meet Judge Nancy Gertner (Ret.), who served as a U.S. District Judge for the District of Massachusetts from 1994 until 2011. I knew that Judge Gertner would be a lively and insightful interviewee—based not only on her extensive commentary on recent events, reflected in media interviews and op-eds, but on my personal experience. During law school, I took a year-long course on federal sentencing with her, and she was one of my favorite professors.When I was her student, we disagreed on a lot: I was severely conservative back then, and Judge Gertner was, well, not. But I always appreciated and enjoyed hearing her views—so it was a pleasure hearing them once again, some 25 years later, in what turned out to be an excellent conversation.Show Notes:* Nancy Gertner, author website* Nancy Gertner bio, Harvard Law School* In Defense of Women: Memoirs of an Unrepentant Advocate, AmazonPrefer reading to listening? For paid subscribers, a transcript of the entire episode appears below.Sponsored by:NexFirm helps Biglaw attorneys become founding partners. To learn more about how NexFirm can help you launch your firm, call 212-292-1000 or email careerdevelopment@nexfirm.com.Three quick notes about this transcript. First, it has been cleaned up from the audio in ways that don't alter substance—e.g., by deleting verbal filler or adding a word here or there to clarify meaning. Second, my interviewee has not reviewed this transcript, and any errors are mine. Third, because of length constraints, this newsletter may be truncated in email; to view the entire post, simply click on “View entire message” in your email app.David Lat: Welcome to the Original Jurisdiction podcast. I'm your host, David Lat, author of a Substack newsletter about law and the legal profession also named Original Jurisdiction, which you can read and subscribe to at davidlat.substack.com. You're listening to the eighty-fifth episode of this podcast, recorded on Monday, November 3.Thanks to this podcast's sponsor, NexFirm. NexFirm helps Biglaw attorneys become founding partners. To learn more about how NexFirm can help you launch your firm, call 212-292-1000 or email careerdevelopment@nexfirm.com. Want to know who the guest will be for the next Original Jurisdiction podcast? Follow NexFirm on LinkedIn for a preview.Many of my guests have been friends of mine for a long time—and that's the case for today's. I've known Judge Nancy Gertner for more than 25 years, dating back to when I took a full-year course on federal sentencing from her and the late Professor Dan Freed at Yale Law School. She was a great teacher, and although we didn't always agree—she was a professor who let students have their own opinions—I always admired her intellect and appreciated her insights.Judge Gertner is herself a graduate of Yale Law School—where she met, among other future luminaries, Bill and Hillary Clinton. After a fascinating career in private practice as a litigator and trial lawyer handling an incredibly diverse array of cases, Judge Gertner was appointed to serve as a U.S. District Judge for the District of Massachusetts in 1994, by President Clinton. She retired from the bench in 2011, but she is definitely not retired: she writes opinion pieces for outlets such as The New York Times and The Boston Globe, litigates and consults on cases, and trains judges and litigators. She's also working on a book called Incomplete Sentences, telling the stories of the people she sentenced over 17 years on the bench. Her autobiography, In Defense of Women: Memoirs of an Unrepentant Advocate, was published in 2011. Without further ado, here's my conversation with Judge Nancy Gertner.Judge, thank you so much for joining me.Nancy Gertner: Thank you for inviting me. This is wonderful.DL: So it's funny: I've been wanting to have you on this podcast in a sense before it existed, because you and I worked on a podcast pilot. It ended up not getting picked up, but perhaps they have some regrets over that, because legal issues have just blown up since then.NG: I remember that. I think it was just a question of scheduling, and it was before Trump, so we were talking about much more sophisticated, superficial things, as opposed to the rule of law and the demise of the Constitution.DL: And we will get to those topics. But to start off my podcast in the traditional way, let's go back to the beginning. I believe we are both native New Yorkers?NG: Yes, that's right. I was born on the Lower East Side of Manhattan, in an apartment that I think now is a tenement museum, and then we moved to Flushing, Queens, where I lived into my early 20s.DL: So it's interesting—I actually spent some time as a child in that area. What was your upbringing like? What did your parents do?NG: My father owned a linoleum store, or as we used to call it, “tile,” and my mother was a homemaker. My mother worked at home. We were lower class on the Lower East Side and maybe made it to lower-middle. My parents were very conservative, in the sense they didn't know exactly what to do with a girl who was a bit of a radical. Neither I nor my sister was precisely what they anticipated. So I got to Barnard for college only because my sister had a conniption fit when he wouldn't pay for college for her—she's my older sister—he was not about to pay for college. If we were boys, we would've had college paid for.In a sense, they skipped a generation. They were actually much more traditional than their peers were. My father was Orthodox when he grew up; my mother was somewhat Orthodox Jewish. My father couldn't speak English until the second grade. So they came from a very insular environment, and in one sense, he escaped that environment when he wanted to play ball on Saturdays. So that was actually the motivation for moving to Queens: to get away from the Lower East Side, where everyone would know that he wasn't in temple on Saturday. We used to have interesting discussions, where I'd say to him that my rebellion was a version of his: he didn't want to go to temple on Saturdays, and I was marching against the war. He didn't see the equivalence, but somehow I did.There's actually a funny story to tell about sort of exactly the distance between how I was raised and my life. After I graduated from Yale Law School, with all sorts of honors and stuff, and was on my way to clerk for a judge, my mother and I had this huge fight in the kitchen of our apartment. What was the fight about? Sadie wanted me to take the Triborough Bridge toll taker's test, “just in case.” “You never know,” she said. I couldn't persuade her that it really wasn't necessary. She passed away before I became a judge, and I told this story at my swearing-in, and I said that she just didn't understand. I said, “Now I have to talk to my mother for a minute; forgive me for a moment.” And I looked up at the rafters and I said, “Ma, at last: a government job!” So that is sort of the measure of where I started. My mother didn't finish high school, my father had maybe a semester of college—but that wasn't what girls did.DL: So were you then a first-generation professional or a first-generation college graduate?NG: Both—my sister and I were both, first-generation college graduates and first-generation professionals. When people talk about Jewish backgrounds, they're very different from one another, and since my grandparents came from Eastern European shtetls, it's not clear to me that they—except for one grandfather—were even literate. So it was a very different background.DL: You mentioned that you did go to Yale Law School, and of course we connected there years later, when I was your student. But what led you to go to law school in the first place? Clearly your parents were not encouraging your professional ambitions.NG: One is, I love to speak. My husband kids me now and says that I've never met a microphone I didn't like. I had thought for a moment of acting—musical comedy, in fact. But it was 1967, and the anti-war movement, a nascent women's movement, and the civil rights movement were all rising around me, and I wanted to be in the world. And the other thing was that I didn't want to do anything that women do. Actually, musical comedy was something that would've been okay and normal for women, but I didn't want to do anything that women typically do. So that was the choice of law. It was more like the choice of law professor than law, but that changed over time.DL: So did you go straight from Barnard to Yale Law School?NG: Well, I went from Barnard to Yale graduate school in political science because as I said, I've always had an academic and a practical side, and so I thought briefly that I wanted to get a Ph.D. I still do, actually—I'm going to work on that after these books are finished.DL: Did you then think that you wanted to be a law professor when you started at YLS? I guess by that point you already had a master's degree under your belt?NG: I thought I wanted to be a law professor, that's right. I did not think I wanted to practice law. Yale at that time, like most law schools, had no practical clinical courses. I don't think I ever set foot in a courtroom or a courthouse, except to demonstrate on the outside of it. And the only thing that started me in practice was that I thought I should do at least two or three years of practice before I went back into the academy, before I went back into the library. Twenty-four years later, I obviously made a different decision.DL: So you were at YLS during a very interesting time, and some of the law school's most famous alumni passed through its halls around that period. So tell us about some of the people you either met or overlapped with at YLS during your time there.NG: Hillary Clinton was one of my best friends. I knew Bill, but I didn't like him.DL: Hmmm….NG: She was one of my best friends. There were 20 women in my class, which was the class of ‘71. The year before, there had only been eight. I think we got up to 21—a rumor had it that it was up to 21 because men whose numbers were drafted couldn't go to school, and so suddenly they had to fill their class with this lesser entity known as women. It was still a very small number out of, I think, what was the size of the opening class… 165? Very small. So we knew each other very, very well. And Hillary and I were the only ones, I think, who had no boyfriends at the time, though that changed.DL: I think you may have either just missed or briefly overlapped with either Justice Thomas or Justice Alito?NG: They're younger than I am, so I think they came after.DL: And that would be also true of Justice Sotomayor then as well?NG: Absolutely. She became a friend because when I was on the bench, I actually sat with the Second Circuit, and we had great times together. But she was younger than I was, so I didn't know her in law school, and by the time she was in law school, there were more women. In the middle of, I guess, my first year at Yale Law School, was the first year that Yale College went coed. So it was, in my view, an enormously exciting time, because we felt like we were inventing law. We were inventing something entirely new. We had the first “women in the law” course, one of the first such courses in the country, and I think we were borderline obnoxious. It's a little bit like the debates today, which is that no one could speak right—you were correcting everyone with respect to the way they were describing women—but it was enormously creative and exciting.DL: So I'm gathering you enjoyed law school, then?NG: I loved law school. Still, when I was in law school, I still had my feet in graduate school, so I believe that I took law and sociology for three years, mostly. In other words, I was going through law school as if I were still in graduate school, and it was so bad that when I decided to go into practice—and this is an absolutely true story—I thought that dying intestate was a disease. We were taking the bar exam, and I did not know what they were talking about.DL: So tell us, then, what did lead you to shift gears? You mentioned you clerked, and you mentioned you wanted to practice for a few years—but you did practice for more than a few years.NG: Right. I talk to students about this all the time, about sort of the fortuities that you need to grab onto that you absolutely did not plan. So I wind up at a small civil-rights firm, Harvey Silverglate and Norman Zalkind's firm. I wind up in a small civil-rights firm because I couldn't get a job anywhere else in Boston. I was looking in Boston or San Francisco, and what other women my age were encountering, I encountered, which is literally people who told me that I would never succeed as a lawyer, certainly not as a litigator. So you have to understand, this is 1971. I should say, as a footnote, that I have a file of everyone who said that to me. People know that I have that file; it's called “Sexist Tidbits.” And so I used to decide whether I should recuse myself when someone in that file appeared before me, but I decided it was just too far.So it was a small civil-rights firm, and they were doing draft cases, they were doing civil-rights cases of all different kinds, and they were doing criminal cases. After a year, the partnership between Norman Zalkind and Harvey Silverglate broke up, and Harvey made me his partner, now an equal partner after a year of practice.Shortly after that, I got a case that changed my career in so many ways, which is I wound up representing Susan Saxe. Susan Saxe was one of five individuals who participated in robberies to get money for the anti-war movement. She was probably five years younger than I was. In the case of the robbery that she participated in, a police officer was killed. She was charged with felony murder. She went underground for five years; the other woman went underground for 20 years.Susan wanted me to represent her, not because she had any sense that I was any good—it's really quite wonderful—she wanted me to represent her because she figured her case was hopeless. And her case was hopeless because the three men involved in the robbery either fled or were immediately convicted, so her case seemed to be hopeless. And she was an extraordinarily principled woman: she said that in her last moment on the stage—she figured that she'd be convicted and get life—she wanted to be represented by a woman. And I was it. There was another woman in town who was a public defender, but I was literally the only private lawyer. I wrote about the case in my book, In Defense of Women, and to Harvey Silvergate's credit, even though the case was virtually no money, he said, “If you want to do it, do it.”Because I didn't know what I was doing—and I literally didn't know what I was doing—I researched every inch of everything in the case. So we had jury research and careful jury selection, hiring people to do jury selection. I challenged the felony-murder rule (this was now 1970). If there was any evidentiary issue, I would not only do the legal research, but talk to social psychologists about what made sense to do. To make a long story short, it took about two years to litigate the case, and it's all that I did.And the government's case was winding down, and it seemed to be not as strong as we thought it was—because, ironically, nobody noticed the woman in the bank. Nobody was noticing women in general; nobody was noticing women in the bank. So their case was much weaker than we thought, except there were two things, two letters that Susan had written: one to her father, and one to her rabbi. The one to her father said, “By the time you get this letter, you'll know what your little girl is doing.” The one to her rabbi said basically the same thing. In effect, these were confessions. Both had been turned over to the FBI.So the case is winding down, not very strong. These letters have not yet been introduced. Meanwhile, The Boston Globe is reporting that all these anti-war activists were coming into town, and Gertner, who no one ever heard of, was going to try the Vietnam War. The defense will be, “She robbed a bank to fight the Vietnam War.” She robbed a bank in order to get money to oppose the Vietnam War, and the Vietnam War was illegitimate, etc. We were going to try the Vietnam War.There was no way in hell I was going to do that. But nobody had ever heard of me, so they believed anything. The government decided to rest before the letters came in, anticipating that our defense would be a collection of individuals who were going to challenge the Vietnam War. The day that the government rested without putting in those two letters, I rested my case, and the case went immediately to the jury. I'm told that I was so nervous when I said “the defense rests” that I sounded like Minnie Mouse.The upshot of that, however, was that the jury was 9-3 for acquittal on the first day, 10-2 for acquittal on the second day, and then 11-1 for acquittal—and there it stopped. It was a hung jury. But it essentially made my career. I had first the experience of pouring my heart into a case and saving someone's life, which was like nothing I'd ever felt before, which was better than the library. It also put my name out there. I was no longer, “Who is she?” I suddenly could take any kind of case I wanted to take. And so I was addicted to trials from then until the time I became a judge.DL: Fill us in on what happened later to your client, just her ultimate arc.NG: She wound up getting eight years in prison instead of life. She had already gotten eight years because of a prior robbery in Philadelphia, so there was no way that we were going to affect that. She had pleaded guilty to that. She went on to live a very principled life. She's actually quite religious. She works in the very sort of left Jewish groups. We are in touch—I'm in touch with almost everyone that I've ever known—because it had been a life-changing experience for me. We were four years apart. Her background, though she was more middle-class, was very similar to my own. Her mother used to call me at night about what Susan should wear. So our lives were very much intertwined. And so she was out of jail after eight years, and she has a family and is doing fine.DL: That's really a remarkable result, because people have to understand what defense lawyers are up against. It's often very challenging, and a victory is often a situation where your client doesn't serve life, for example, or doesn't, God forbid, get the death penalty. So it's really interesting that the Saxe case—as you talk about in your wonderful memoir—really did launch your career to the next level. And you wound up handling a number of other cases that you could say were adjacent or thematically related to Saxe's case. Maybe you can talk a little bit about some of those.NG: The women's movement was roaring at this time, and so a woman lawyer who was active and spoke out and talked about women's issues invariably got women's cases. So on the criminal side, I did one of the first, I think it was the first, battered woman syndrome case, as a defense to murder. On the civil side, I had a very robust employment-discrimination practice, dealing with sexual harassment, dealing with racial discrimination. I essentially did whatever I wanted to do. That's what my students don't always understand: I don't remember ever looking for a lucrative case. I would take what was interesting and fun to me, and money followed. I can't describe it any other way.These cases—you wound up getting paid, but I did what I thought was meaningful. But it wasn't just women's rights issues, and it wasn't just criminal defense. We represented white-collar criminal defendants. We represented Boston Mayor Kevin White's second-in-command, Ted Anzalone, also successfully. I did stockholder derivative suits, because someone referred them to me. To some degree the Saxe case, and maybe it was also the time—I did not understand the law to require specialization in the way that it does now. So I could do a felony-murder case on Monday and sue Mayor Lynch on Friday and sue Gulf Oil on Monday, and it wouldn't even occur to me that there was an issue. It was not the same kind of specialization, and I certainly wasn't about to specialize.DL: You anticipated my next comment, which is that when someone reads your memoir, they read about a career that's very hard to replicate in this day and age. For whatever reason, today people specialize. They specialize at earlier points in their careers. Clients want somebody who holds himself out as a specialist in white-collar crime, or a specialist in dealing with defendants who invoke battered woman syndrome, or what have you. And so I think your career… you kind of had a luxury, in a way.NG: I also think that the costs of entry were lower. It was Harvey Silverglate and me, and maybe four or five other lawyers. I was single until I was 39, so I had no family pressures to speak of. And I think that, yes, the profession was different. Now employment discrimination cases involve prodigious amounts of e-discovery. So even a little case has e-discovery, and that's partly because there's a generation—you're a part of it—that lived online. And so suddenly, what otherwise would have been discussions over the back fence are now text messages.So I do think it's different—although maybe this is a comment that only someone who is as old as I am can make—I wish that people would forget the money for a while. When I was on the bench, you'd get a pro se case that was incredibly interesting, challenging prison conditions or challenging some employment issue that had never been challenged before. It was pro se, and I would get on the phone and try to find someone to represent this person. And I can't tell you how difficult it was. These were not necessarily big cases. The big firms might want to get some publicity from it. But there was not a sense of individuals who were going to do it just, “Boy, I've never done a case like this—let me try—and boy, this is important to do.” Now, that may be different today in the Trump administration, because there's a huge number of lawyers that are doing immigration cases. But the day-to-day discrimination cases, even abortion cases, it was not the same kind of support.DL: I feel in some ways you were ahead of your time, because your career as a litigator played out in boutiques, and I feel that today, many lawyers who handle high-profile cases like yours work at large firms. Why did you not go to a large firm, either from YLS or if there were issues, for example, of discrimination, you must have had opportunities to lateral into such a firm later, if you had wanted to?NG: Well, certainly at the beginning nobody wanted me. It didn't matter how well I had done. Me and Ruth Ginsburg were on the streets looking for jobs. So that was one thing. I wound up, for the last four years of my practice before I became a judge, working in a firm called Dwyer Collora & Gertner. It was more of a boutique, white-collar firm. But I wasn't interested in the big firms because I didn't want anyone to tell me what to do. I didn't want anyone to say, “Don't write this op-ed because you'll piss off my clients.” I faced the same kind of issue when I left the bench. I could have an office, and sort of float into client conferences from time to time, but I did not want to be in a setting in which anyone told me what to do. It was true then; it certainly is true now.DL: So you did end up in another setting where, for the most part, you weren't told what to do: namely, you became a federal judge. And I suppose the First Circuit could from time to time tell you what to do, but….NG: But they were always wrong.DL: Yes, I do remember that when you were my professor, you would offer your thoughts on appellate rulings. But how did you—given the kind of career you had, especially—become a federal judge? Because let me be honest, I think that somebody with your type of engagement in hot-button issues today would have a challenging time. Republican senators would grandstand about you coming up with excuses for women murderers, or what have you. Did you have a rough confirmation process?NG: I did. So I'm up for the bench in 1993. This is under Bill Clinton, and I'm told—I never confirmed this—that when Senator Kennedy…. When I met Senator Kennedy, I thought I didn't have a prayer of becoming a judge. I put my name in because I knew the Clintons, and everybody I knew was getting a job in the government. I had not thought about being a judge. I had not prepared. I had not structured my career to be a judge. But everyone I knew was going into the government, and I thought if there ever was a time, this would be it. So I apply. Someday, someone should emboss my application, because the application was quite hysterical. I put in every article that I had written calling for access to reproductive technologies to gay people. It was something to behold.Kennedy was at the tail end of his career, and he was determined to put someone like me on the bench. I'm not sure that anyone else would have done that. I'm told (and this isn't confirmed) that when he talked to Bill and Hillary about me, they of course knew me—Hillary and I had been close friends—but they knew me to be that radical friend of theirs from Yale Law School. There had been 24 years in between, but still. And I'm told that what was said was, “She's terrific. But if there's a problem, she's yours.” But Kennedy was really determined.The week before my hearing before the Senate, I had gotten letters from everyone who had ever opposed me. Every prosecutor. I can't remember anyone who had said no. Bill Weld wrote a letter. Bob Mueller, who had opposed me in cases, wrote a letter. But as I think oftentimes happens with women, there was an article in The Boston Herald the day before my hearing, in which the writer compared me to Lorena Bobbitt. Your listeners may not know this, but he said, “Gertner will do to justice, with her gavel, what Lorena did to her husband, with a kitchen knife.” Do we have to explain that any more?DL: They can Google it or ask ChatGPT. I'm old enough to know about Lorena Bobbitt.NG: Right. So it's just at the tail edge of the presentation, that was always what the caricature would be. But Kennedy was masterful. There were numbers of us who were all up at the same time. Everyone else got through except me. I'm told that that article really was the basis for Senator Jesse Helms's opposition to me. And then Senator Kennedy called us one day and said, “Tomorrow you're going to read something, but don't worry, I'll take care of it.” And the Boston Globe headline says, “Kennedy Votes For Helms's School-Prayer Amendment.” And he called us and said, “We'll take care of it in committee.” And then we get a call from him—my husband took the call—Kennedy, affecting Helms's accent, said, ‘Senator, you've got your judge.' We didn't even understand what the hell he said, between his Boston accent and imitating Helms; we had no idea what he said. But that then was confirmed.DL: Are you the managing partner of a boutique or midsize firm? If so, you know that your most important job is attracting and retaining top talent. It's not easy, especially if your benefits don't match up well with those of Biglaw firms or if your HR process feels “small time.” NexFirm has created an onboarding and benefits experience that rivals an Am Law 100 firm, so you can compete for the best talent at a price your firm can afford. Want to learn more? Contact NexFirm at 212-292-1002 or email betterbenefits@nexfirm.com.So turning to your time as a judge, how would you describe that period, in a nutshell? The job did come with certain restrictions. Did you enjoy it, notwithstanding the restrictions?NG: I candidly was not sure that I would last beyond five years, for a couple of reasons. One was, I got on the bench in 1994, when the sentencing guidelines were mandatory, when what we taught you in my sentencing class was not happening, which is that judges would depart from the guidelines and the Sentencing Commission, when enough of us would depart, would begin to change the guidelines, and there'd be a feedback loop. There was no feedback loop. If you departed, you were reversed. And actually the genesis of the book I'm writing now came from this period. As far as I was concerned, I was being unfair. As I later said, my sentences were unfair, unjust, and disproportionate—and there was nothing I could do about it. So I was not sure that I was going to last beyond five years.In addition, there were some high-profile criminal trials going on with lawyers that I knew that I probably would've been a part of if I had been practicing. And I hungered to do that, to go back and be a litigator. The course at Yale Law School that you were a part of saved me. And it saved me because, certainly with respect to the sentencing, it turned what seemed like a formula into an intellectual discussion in which there was wiggle room and the ability to come up with other approaches. In other words, we were taught that this was a formula, and you don't depart from the formula, and that's it. The class came up with creative issues and creative understandings, which made an enormous difference to my judging.So I started to write; I started to write opinions. Even if the opinion says there's nothing I can do about it, I would write opinions in which I say, “I can't depart because of this woman's status as a single mother because the guidelines said only extraordinary family circumstances can justify a departure, and this wasn't extraordinary. That makes no sense.” And I began to write this in my opinions, I began to write this in scholarly writings, and that made all the difference in the world. And sometimes I was reversed, and sometimes I was not. But it enabled me to figure out how to push back against a system which I found to be palpably unfair. So I figured out how to be me in this job—and that was enormously helpful.DL: And I know how much and how deeply you cared about sentencing because of the class in which I actually wound up writing one of my two capstone papers at Yale.NG: To your listeners, I still have that paper.DL: You must be quite a pack rat!NG: I can change the grade at any time….DL: Well, I hope you've enjoyed your time today, Judge, and will keep the grade that way!But let me ask you: now that the guidelines are advisory, do you view that as a step forward from your time on the bench? Perhaps you would still be a judge if they were advisory? I don't know.NG: No, they became advisory in 2005, and I didn't leave until 2011. Yes, that was enormously helpful: you could choose what you thought was a fair sentence, so it's very advisory now. But I don't think I would've stayed longer, because of two reasons.By the time I hit 65, I wanted another act. I wanted another round. I thought I had done all that I could do as a judge, and I wanted to try something different. And Martha Minow of Harvard Law School made me an offer I couldn't refuse, which was to teach at Harvard. So that was one. It also, candidly, was that there was no longevity in my family, and so when I turned 65, I wasn't sure what was going to happen. So I did want to try something new. But I'm still here.DL: Yep—definitely, and very active. I always chuckle when I see “Ret.,” the abbreviation for “retired,” in your email signature, because you do not seem very retired to me. Tell us what you are up to today.NG: Well, first I have this book that I've been writing for several years, called Incomplete Sentences. And so what this book started to be about was the men and women that I sentenced, and how unfair it was, and what I thought we should have done. Then one day I got a message from a man by the name of Darryl Green, and it says, “Is this Nancy Gertner? If it is, I think about you all the time. I hope you're well. I'm well. I'm an iron worker. I have a family. I've written books. You probably don't remember me.” This was a Facebook message. I knew exactly who he was. He was a man who had faced the death penalty in my court, and I acquitted him. And he was then tried in state court, and acquitted again. So I knew exactly who he was, and I decided to write back.So I wrote back and said, “I know who you are. Do you want to meet?” That started a series of meetings that I've had with the men I've sentenced over the course of the 17-year career that I had as a judge. Why has it taken me this long to write? First, because these have been incredibly moving and difficult discussions. Second, because I wanted the book to be honest about what I knew about them and what a difference maybe this information would make. It is extremely difficult, David, to be honest about judging, particularly in these days when judges are parodied. So if I talk about how I wanted to exercise some leniency in a case, I understand that this can be parodied—and I don't want it to be, but I want to be honest.So for example, in one case, there would be cooperators in the case who'd get up and testify that the individual who was charged with only X amount of drugs was actually involved with much more than that. And you knew that if you believed the witness, the sentence would be doubled, even though you thought that didn't make any sense. This was really just mostly how long the cops were on the corner watching the drug deals. It didn't make the guy who was dealing drugs on a bicycle any more culpable than the guy who was doing massive quantities into the country.So I would struggle with, “Do I really believe this man, the witness who's upping the quantity?” And the kinds of exercises I would go through to make sure that I wasn't making a decision because I didn't like the implications of the decision and it was what I was really feeling. So it's not been easy to write, and it's taken me a very long time. The other side of the coin is they're also incredibly honest with me, and sometimes I don't want to know what they're saying. Not like a sociologist who could say, “Oh, that's an interesting fact, I'll put it in.” It's like, “Oh no, I don't want to know that.”DL: Wow. The book sounds amazing; I can't wait to read it. When is it estimated to come out?NG: Well, I'm finishing it probably at the end of this year. I've rewritten it about five times. And my hope would be sometime next year. So yeah, it was organic. It's what I wanted to write from the minute I left the bench. And it covers the guideline period when it was lunacy to follow the guidelines, to a period when it was much more flexible, but the guidelines still disfavored considering things like addiction and trauma and adverse childhood experiences, which really defined many of the people I was sentencing. So it's a cri de cœur, as they say, which has not been easy to write.DL: Speaking of cri de cœurs, and speaking of difficult things, it's difficult to write about judging, but I think we also have alluded already to how difficult it is to engage in judging in 2025. What general thoughts would you have about being a federal judge in 2025? I know you are no longer a federal judge. But if you were still on the bench or when you talk to your former colleagues, what is it like on the ground right now?NG: It's nothing like when I was a judge. In fact, the first thing that happened when I left the bench is I wrote an article in which I said—this is in 2011—that the only pressure I had felt in my 17 years on the bench was to duck, avoid, and evade, waiver, statute of limitations. Well, all of a sudden, you now have judges who at least since January are dealing with emergencies that they can't turn their eyes away from, judges issuing rulings at 1 a.m., judges writing 60-page decisions on an emergency basis, because what the president is doing is literally unprecedented. The courts are being asked to look at issues that have never been addressed before, because no one has ever tried to do the things that he's doing. And they have almost overwhelmingly met the moment. It doesn't matter whether you're ruling for the government or against the government; they are taking these challenges enormously seriously. They're putting in the time.I had two clerks, maybe some judges have three, but it's a prodigious amount of work. Whereas everyone complained about the Trump prosecutions proceeding so slowly, judges have been working expeditiously on these challenges, and under circumstances that I never faced, which is threats the likes of which I have never seen. One judge literally played for me the kinds of voice messages that he got after a decision that he issued. So they're doing it under circumstances that we never had to face. And it's not just the disgruntled public talking; it's also our fellow Yale Law alum, JD Vance, talking about rogue judges. That's a level of delegitimization that I just don't think anyone ever had to deal with before. So they're being challenged in ways that no other judges have, and they are being threatened in a way that no judges have.On the other hand, I wish I were on the bench.DL: Interesting, because I was going to ask you that. If you were to give lower-court judges a grade, to put you back in professor mode, on their performance since January 2025, what grade would you give the lower courts?NG: Oh, I would give them an A. I would give them an A. It doesn't matter which way they have come out: decision after decision has been thoughtful and careful. They put in the time. Again, this is not a commentary on what direction they have gone in, but it's a commentary on meeting the moment. And so now these are judges who are getting emergency orders, emergency cases, in the midst of an already busy docket. It has really been extraordinary. The district courts have; the courts of appeals have. I've left out another court….DL: We'll get to that in a minute. But I'm curious: you were on the District of Massachusetts, which has been a real center of activity because many groups file there. As we're recording this, there is the SNAP benefits, federal food assistance litigation playing out there [before Judge Indira Talwani, with another case before Chief Judge John McConnell of Rhode Island]. So it's really just ground zero for a lot of these challenges. But you alluded to the Supreme Court, and I was going to ask you—even before you did—what grade would you give them?NG: Failed. The debate about the shadow docket, which you write about and I write about, in which Justice Kavanaugh thinks, “we're doing fine making interim orders, and therefore it's okay that there's even a precedential value to our interim orders, and thank you very much district court judges for what you're doing, but we'll be the ones to resolve these issues”—I mean, they're resolving these issues in the most perfunctory manner possible.In the tariff case, for example, which is going to be argued on Wednesday, the Court has expedited briefing and expedited oral argument. They could do that with the emergency docket, but they are preferring to hide behind this very perfunctory decision making. I'm not sure why—maybe to keep their options open? Justice Barrett talks about how if it's going to be a hasty decision, you want to make sure that it's not written in stone. But of course then the cases dealing with independent commissions, in which you are allowing the government, allowing the president, to fire people on independent commissions—these cases are effectively overruling Humphrey's Executor, in the most ridiculous setting. So the Court is not meeting the moment. It was stunning that the Court decided in the birthright-citizenship case to be concerned about nationwide injunctions, when in fact nationwide injunctions had been challenged throughout the Biden administration, and they just decided not to address the issue then.Now, I have a lot to say about Justice Kavanaugh's dressing-down of Judge [William] Young [of the District of Massachusetts]….DL: Or Justice Gorsuch, joined by Justice Kavanaugh.NG: That's right, it was Justice Gorsuch. It was stunningly inappropriate, stunningly inappropriate, undermines the district courts that frankly are doing much better than the Supreme Court in meeting the moment. The whole concept of defying the Supreme Court—defying a Supreme Court order, a three-paragraph, shadow-docket order—is preposterous. So whereas the district courts and the courts of appeals are meeting the moment, I do not think the Supreme Court is. And that's not even going into the merits of the immunity decision, which I think has let loose a lawless presidency that is even more lawless than it might otherwise be. So yes, that failed.DL: I do want to highlight for my readers that in addition to your books and your speaking, you do write quite frequently on these issues in the popular press. I've seen your work in The New York Times and The Boston Globe. I know you're working on a longer essay about the rule of law in the age of Trump, so people should look out for that. Of all the things that you worry about right now when it comes to the rule of law, what worries you the most?NG: I worry that the president will ignore and disobey a Supreme Court order. I think a lot about the judges that are dealing with orders that the government is not obeying, and people are impatient that they're not immediately moving to contempt. And one gets the sense with the lower courts that they are inching up to the moment of contempt, but do not want to get there because it would be a stunning moment when you hold the government in contempt. I think the Supreme Court is doing the same thing. I initially believed that the Supreme Court was withholding an anti-Trump decision, frankly, for fear that he would not obey it, and they were waiting till it mattered. I now am no longer certain of that, because there have been rulings that made no sense as far as I'm concerned. But my point was that they, like the lower courts, were holding back rather than saying, “Government, you must do X,” for fear that the government would say, “Go pound sand.” And that's what I fear, because when that happens, it will be even more of a constitutional crisis than we're in now. It'll be a constitutional confrontation, the likes of which we haven't seen. So that's what I worry about.DL: Picking up on what you just said, here's something that I posed to one of my prior guests, Pam Karlan. Let's say you're right that the Supreme Court doesn't want to draw this line in the sand because of a fear that Trump, being Trump, will cross it. Why is that not prudential? Why is that not the right thing? And why is it not right for the Supreme Court to husband its political capital for the real moment?Say Trump—I know he said lately he's not going to—but say Trump attempts to run for a third term, and some case goes up to the Supreme Court on that basis, and the Court needs to be able to speak in a strong, unified, powerful voice. Or maybe it'll be a birthright-citizenship case, if he says, when they get to the merits of that, “Well, that's really nice that you think that there's such a thing as birthright citizenship, but I don't, and now stop me.” Why is it not wise for the Supreme Court to protect itself, until this moment when it needs to come forward and protect all of us?NG: First, the question is whether that is in fact what they are doing, and as I said, there were two schools of thought on this. One school of thought was that is what they were doing, and particularly doing it in an emergency, fuzzy, not really precedential way, until suddenly you're at the edge of the cliff, and you have to either say taking away birthright citizenship was unconstitutional, or tariffs, you can't do the tariffs the way you want to do the tariffs. I mean, they're husbanding—I like the way you put it, husbanding—their political capital, until that moment. I'm not sure that that's true. I think we'll know that if in fact the decisions that are coming down the pike, they actually decide against Trump—notably the tariff ones, notably birthright citizenship. I'm just not sure that that's true.And besides, David, there are some of these cases they did not have to take. The shadow docket was about where plaintiffs were saying it is an emergency to lay people off or fire people. Irreparable harm is on the plaintiff's side, whereas the government otherwise would just continue to do that which it has been doing. There's no harm to it continuing that. USAID—you don't have a right to dismantle the USAID. The harm is on the side of the dismantling, not having you do that which you have already done and could do through Congress, if you wanted to. They didn't have to take those cases. So your comment about husbanding political capital is a good comment, but those cases could have remained as they were in the district courts with whatever the courts of appeals did, and they could do what previous courts have done, which is wait for the issues to percolate longer.The big one for me, too, is the voting rights case. If they decide the voting rights case in January or February or March, if they rush it through, I will say then it's clear they're in the tank for Trump, because the only reason to get that decision out the door is for the 2026 election. So I want to believe that they are husbanding their political capital, but I'm not sure that if that's true, that we would've seen this pattern. But the proof will be with the voting rights case, with birthright citizenship, with the tariffs.DL: Well, it will be very interesting to see what happens in those cases. But let us now turn to my speed round. These are four questions that are the same for all my guests, and my first question is, what do you like the least about the law? And this can either be the practice of law or law as an abstract system of governance.NG: The practice of law. I do some litigation; I'm in two cases. When I was a judge, I used to laugh at people who said incivility was the most significant problem in the law. I thought there were lots of other more significant problems. I've come now to see how incredibly nasty the practice of law is. So yes—and that is no fun.DL: My second question is, what would you be if you were not a lawyer/judge/retired judge?NG: Musical comedy star, clearly! No question about it.DL: There are some judges—Judge Fred Block in the Eastern District of New York, Judge Jed Rakoff in the Southern District of New York—who do these little musical stylings for their court shows. I don't know if you've ever tried that?NG: We used to do Shakespeare, Shakespeare readings, and I loved that. I am a ham—so absolutely musical comedy or theater.DL: My third question is, how much sleep do you get each night?NG: Six to seven hours now, just because I'm old. Before that, four. Most of my life as a litigator, I never thought I needed sleep. You get into my age, you need sleep. And also you look like hell the next morning, so it's either getting sleep or a facelift.DL: And my last question is, any final words of wisdom, such as career advice or life advice, for my listeners?NG: You have to do what you love. You have to do what you love. The law takes time and is so all-encompassing that you have to do what you love. And I have done what I love from beginning to now, and I wouldn't have it any other way.DL: Well, I have loved catching up with you, Judge, and having you share your thoughts and your story with my listeners. Thank you so much for joining me.NG: You're very welcome, David. Take care.DL: Thanks so much to Judge Gertner for joining me. I look forward to reading her next book, Incomplete Sentences, when it comes out next year.Thanks to NexFirm for sponsoring the Original Jurisdiction podcast. NexFirm has helped many attorneys to leave Biglaw and launch firms of their own. To explore this opportunity, please contact NexFirm at 212-292-1000 or email careerdevelopment@nexfirm.com to learn more.Thanks to Tommy Harron, my sound engineer here at Original Jurisdiction, and thanks to you, my listeners and readers. To connect with me, please email me at davidlat@substack.com, or find me on Twitter, Facebook, and LinkedIn, at davidlat, and on Instagram and Threads at davidbenjaminlat.If you enjoyed today's episode, please rate, review, and subscribe. Please subscribe to the Original Jurisdiction newsletter if you don't already, over at davidlat.substack.com. This podcast is free, but it's made possible by paid subscriptions to the newsletter.The next episode should appear on or about Wednesday, November 26. Until then, may your thinking be original and your jurisdiction free of defects. This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit davidlat.substack.com/subscribe

Berly, LA, and In Defense of Fandom's Sadie Witkowski kick off their massive 10-episode collaboration celebrating the 20th anniversary of Supernatural by diving into the show's iconic musical legacy. And yes, they interviewed over 20 people for this series because apparently they're all insane.The episode opens with a power move: Sadie asking Jared and Jensen about Supernatural's music at a convention panel (using Berly's name callout because Berly is a good friend who understands true J2 fandom priorities). From there, the hosts explore why music became so fundamental to the show's DNA—including Eric Kripke almost quitting over the network wanting to ditch classic rock for "current, exciting, young music."They discuss fan-favorite needle drops, with Death's entrance to "O Death" taking the crown as most mentioned, followed by the "Renegade" escape in "Night Shifter" and "Rooster" in "Folsom Prison Blues." There's also a moment of silence for all the needle drops lost to streaming music licensing (RIP "Don't Fear the Reaper" in the Faith episode).The hosts break down the convention music experience—Saturday Night Specials, Louden Swain as the house band, Jason Manns, and the revelation that there's literally music everywhere at these things. LA admits she had no idea conventions even had concerts before attending her first one.Important PSA: This series features interviews with composers Chris Lennertz and Jay Gruska, musicians inspired by the show, and approximately everyone talented in the Supernatural universe (who was willing to meet with us). Subscribe to both podcasts to hear all the interviews, because yes, you have to follow both feeds. It's free though, so they're really not that evil about it.The series drops November 11th and runs through the end of the year, featuring professional interviews conducted at reasonable morning hours (tragically not tipsy).Find and follow In Defense of Fandom at https://www.geekscape.net/in-defense-of-fandom.Special thanks to Steve Hein, producer of the hit podcast, Supernatural Then and Now, for permission to include part of their conversation with Eric Kripke. Find their full discussion at https://podcasts.apple.com/gb/podcast/spotlight-on-eric-kripke/id1605385289?i=1000646839769.Send us your review!Support the showTHANK YOU FOR LISTENING!Please rate and review Denim-Wrapped Nightmares wherever you get your podcasts! Find social channels and more on our Linktree.

Send us a textRichard Ghazal, the executive director of In Defense of Christians, joined Liz Collin on her podcast.Ghazal said the United States has largely failed to acknowledge “anti-Christian sentiment” that has “a direct causation with the decay in society that we witness.”He spoke about the atrocities of Christian persecution abroad and the significant concerns at home in America.Support the show

KJ and Meredith step into this fandom and convention-centric episode of Supernatural with the help of fandom podcaster Sadie Witkowski (In Defense of Fandom). This episode takes place at a convention and there are some suggestions we'd like to see at the existing Supernatural convention circuits! There's also some talk about the portrayal of fans in this episode and a deep desire for a Ghostfacers reference and everyone picks who they would cosplay as at this style of Supernatural convention.CW Episode Description: Super fan Becky (guest star Emily Perkins) uses Chuck's (guest star Rob Benedict) phone to trick Sam and Dean into attending a Supernatural fan convention, complete with fans dressed up as Sam and Dean. One of the activities is a live action role playing game, but things quickly turn sour after a real ghost appears on the scene.Episode recorded on September 18, 2025Linktree including sign up sheet to be on the podcast and our Discord server: https://linktr.ee/SupernaturalOpinionsPodcast Find our cohost Meredith on tiktok, instagram and Tumblr: shaedsofdeianeiraGuest social medias:Sadie and the In Defense of Fandom podcast: https://www.sadiewit.com/

Join Simtheory & experience MCPs in action: https://simtheory.ai----00:00 - Chris Has a Merch Sponsor02:42 - In Defense of Sam Altman20:29 - Are We In An AI Bubble? & What is Working in The Enterprise?43:58 - Anthropic's Code Execution with MCP: Problems with MCP Context52:44 - Kimi-K2 Thinking Model Release1:00:45 - "In the Middle of a Bubble" Song----Thanks for your support and listening, we appreciate you!Join our Discord: https://discord.gg/TVYH3HD6qs

Check out Chesterton's collection of essays "In Defense of Sanity" here: https://amzn.to/4nJmOCbCheck out the article "On Gargoyles" here: https://www.online-literature.com/chesterton/alarms-and-discursions/1/⭐️ Exclusive Book Club! Join/Support on Patreon

Check out Bloom Supplements & my other favs on my Amazon Storefront! https://www.amazon.com/shop/stellarae/list/3R2SHEBU2UUHF?ref_=cm_sw_r_cp_ud_aipsflist_0QCA8YXDTCC63QFEAQWY If you knew you could use your feminine energy to get everything you want by 2026… would you do it?In today's episode, I'm breaking down what feminine energy actually means, beyond the patriarchal “soft girl” aesthetic and the tradwife trend. We're getting real about power, intuition, self-trust, and how to harness your feminine energy to completely reinvent yourself before the new year.I also share some personal stories (including one of the most delusional men I've ever met), how to detach from male validation, and how to alchemize your energy into confidence, creativity, and success. This isn't about being passive, it's about being magnetic fr.

Show your nails some love with https://iloveislashop.com Use code FALL10 to get 10% off your first order.Become a Paid Subscriber and get Uninterrupted Episodes: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/manifestelle/subscribeFull show notes, sources, and transcript + exclusive content

Is there anything you do just for the sake of it? Even if you're not good at something, is it worth it to dabble?Karen Walrond, author of ‘In Defense of Dabbling', joins Seán to discuss.

Is there anything you do just for the sake of it? Even if you're not good at something, is it worth it to dabble?Karen Walrond, author of ‘In Defense of Dabbling', joins Seán to discuss.

It's all about Pete Alonso on today's NLT as we talk to Elizabeth Cosin about her Substack column "In Defense of Pete Alonso". Plus, we open an all-Pete NLT Mailbag! Join us! #Mets #LGM

The Humane Hoax: Animal Industries Labels and Lies (Encore of 626) Are you familiar with the Humane Hoax and the animal industries labels and lies? Listen to this excerpt from the Intro chapter from the book The Humane Hoax: Essays Exposing the Myth of Happy Meat, Humane Dairy, and Ethical Eggs. Writen by Hope Bohaned at HumaneHoax.org #vegan #plantbased #plantbasedbriefing #humanehoax #freerange #cagefree #humanelyraised #humanecertified =================== Original post can be found in the book: https://a.co/d/icflYoy  Or more details at: https://www.humanehoax.org/books  Hope for the Animals Podcast Episode - I'm a guest discussing some chapters of this book: https://hopefortheanimalspodcast.org/episode-80-the-humane-hoax-book-club-session-2/  =================== Hope Bohanec has been active in animal protection and environmental activism for over 30 years. She is the editor of the recently released book, The Humane Hoax: Essays Exposing the Myth of Happy Meat, Humane Dairy, and Ethical Eggs, published by Lantern Publishing and Media, and the author of the first book ever written on the subject of the Humane Hoax, The Ultimate Betrayal: Is There Happy Meat?. Hope is the Executive Director of Compassionate Living and the host of the Hope for the Animals Podcast. She co-founded the Humane Hoax Project, the Ahimsa Living Project and has organized hundreds of online and in-person events including the Humane Hoax Online Conference, the Humane Hoax Chicken Webinar, and the Sonoma County VegFest. Over the last three decades, Hope has worked for the national non-profits United Poultry Concerns and In Defense of Animals and contributed chapters to several anthologies. =================== FOLLOW THE SHOW ON: YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@plantbasedbriefing     Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/2GONW0q2EDJMzqhuwuxdCF?si=2a20c247461d4ad7 Apple Podcasts: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/plant-based-briefing/id1562925866 Your podcast app of choice: https://pod.link/1562925866 Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/PlantBasedBriefing   LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/plant-based-briefing/   Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/plantbasedbriefing/     

This week on the pod, we were so excited to talk to Karen Walrond. She's the author of books like The Lightmaker's Manifesto, Radiant Rebellion, and In Defense of Dabbling. Her words about the importance of kindness, self-compassion, activism, and even anger were exactly what we needed to hear coming out of this past weekend of joyful protests. Our mission here is to help women make a difference in their communities without losing their shit, and the subtitle of The Lightmaker's Manifesto is actually “How To Work For Change Without Losing Your Joy,” so clearly we had to get her on the show as soon as we could! In the interview, she emphasized the natural rhythm and cadence to activism. Anger can be a useful spark, but kindness and love are what keep the fire going. Rest and recreation (re-creation) aren't optional — they're necessary to keep getting up every day and fighting for our values. When our neighbors need to take a breath, we can speak up in their place. And when we need a moment to rest, we can trust that they'll step in for us. “Activism” might sound overwhelming, but much like the No Kings rallies, it isn't actually scary. It can be a beautiful intersection of self-care and community.As Karen says, “Joy comes from intention, self-compassion is a non-negotiable, and kindness is a power move.” We couldn't agree more.For a transcript of this episode, please email comms@redwine.blue. You can learn more about us at www.redwine.blue or follow us on social media! Instagram: @RedWineBlueUSA Facebook: @RedWineBlueUSA YouTube: @RedWineBlueUSA

Aaron Carnes is an expert on ska, but is self-aware enough that his book (and podcast) are called In Defense of Ska. Like Christian rock, when folks admit to liking ska they often brace for being mocked. Aaron knows something about both worlds since he was only allowed to listen to CCM growing up. This conversation is wide-ranging, covering the roots of ska (Madness didn't invent it), the waves of reinvention it has survived and how it was put to use by Christians to good effect (Five Iron Frenzy, The Israelites, Runforyerlife) and questionable effect (The OC Supertones, B.O.B.). Plus a little story about Sonseed.----Do you have a Christian rock story to tell? Want to respond to this episode? Leave us a message at (629) 777-6336.If Rock That Doesn't Roll is important to you, support us on Patreon. https://www.patreon.com/rtdr (join via the website, not the iOS app for a 30% discount)Or make a one-time donation: https://coff.ee/rtdrIf you can't afford a donation, please tell five friends about the show.You can connect with us on Instagram or by emailing RTDRpod@gmail.comSign up for our Substack to keep up with show developments.Buy RTDR merch here.

In Defense of the RidiculousI have changed what I write about.Not because I ran out of sermons, meditations, and folktales, but because the world sounds too much like a pulpiteer—long, loud, and entirely devoid of mirth. I turned to absurdity the way a drowning man turns to air: instinctively, and with no guarantee of survival.The stories I tell now, about bureaucratic saints, apologetic corpses, and squirrels gripped by metaphysical doubt, are not escapism. They are my form of rebellion against the great and humorless seriousness that has settled like ash over everything. When truth is wrapped in outrage and irony is sold by subscription, I find it infinitely more honest to laugh at the machinery of it all. Laughter, after all, is the last confession left to the sane.Writing absurdly regulates me. It is how I wrestle anxiety back into its proper shape: comic, tragic, and faintly ridiculous. Each story is a kind of exorcism performed with a raised eyebrow. In a world addicted to doom and discourse, I prefer to light a small, deranged candle and watch reality dance round it.I am not writing to make sense of the world. I am writing to remind myself, and anyone still listening, that sense was never the point. Meaning lives in the margins: in a saint's paperwork gone wrong, a machine that apologizes to trees, or a resurrected tax assessor asking for a coffee break.The world is absurd. So, I intend to meet it on its own terms, double espresso in one hand, keyboard in the other, laughing just loudly enough to stay human. —D.

Have a comment? Send us a text! (We read all of them but can't reply). Email us: Will@faithfulpoliticspodcast.comIn this episode of Faithful Politics, hosts Will Wright and Pastor Josh Burtram sit down with Daniel Darling, director of the Land Center for Cultural Engagement at Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary and author of more than 20 books, including In Defense of Christian Patriotism. Darling joins the hosts to discuss the difference between Christian nationalism and Christian patriotism, arguing that love of country can be a form of discipleship—so long as it's rightly ordered under a higher allegiance to Christ.The conversation explores the nuanced relationship between faith, politics, and national identity, unpacking how patriotism can both inspire civic virtue and, when disordered, slip into idolatry. Darling challenges the modern assumption that religious expression in public life is inherently dangerous, showing instead how a grounded Christian worldview can strengthen democracy.Guest BioDaniel Darling is the Director of the Land Center for Cultural Engagement at Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary and a professor at Texas Baptist College. A bestselling author and respected voice on faith and public life, he has written more than 20 books, including In Defense of Christian Patriotism, The Characters of Christmas, and The Dignity Revolution. His work has been featured in outlets such as USA Today, Christianity Today, and The Gospel Coalition.Darling is known for his ability to engage cultural and political issues with biblical depth, humility, and conviction—calling Christians to participate in public life without losing sight of the kingdom of God.Learn more at danieldarling.com and follow him on X (Twitter) @dandarling.In Defense of Christian Patriotism (Bookshop): https://bookshop.org/a/112456/9780063413948 Support the show

Episode Summary: Welcome to the Advancing Women Podcast! In this Halloween-themed episode, we reclaim the witch archetype as a symbol of female power, independence, and solidarity. Building on last year's Season of the Witch, we explore how the witch reflects the experiences of ambitious women across history and today…from the backlash faced by independent women to the double standards confronting women leaders. Through media, history, and lived experience, we uncover how witches (and women!) have been feared, misunderstood, and sometimes punished for asserting autonomy. But there's a bright side: the witch is being reclaimed in fiction, in culture, and in women's networks, offering a model for persistence, solidarity, and strategic power. Join us as we dive into: The historical and modern symbolism of the witch How autonomy, economic independence, and ambition have provoked backlash across centuries The parallels between historical witch hunts and modern workplace double standards The power of covens—real and metaphorical—and what I call persisterhood Strategies for building networks of support, mentorship, and collective resilience This episode is a call to embrace your coven, celebrate your independence, and wear your power proudly. Because we are the persisterhood, and our solidarity, creativity, and courage are our most potent magic. “We are the granddaughters of the witches you weren't able to burn. Let's wear that badge proudly.” #covenofpersisterhood #seasonofthewitch #persisterhood #genderbias #leadershipbias #leadership #advancingwomenpodcast #genderequity Resources & References: Mona Chollet, In Defense of Witches Joan Williams, research on the tightrope bias and workplace double standards Media examples: Wicked, Practical Magic, Marvel's Agatha Harkness Historical context: Matilda Joslyn Gage on persecution of witches (Woman, Church and State, 1893) Connect & Engage: Subscribe, rate, and share the podcast! Leave a review or a like on Instagram if this episode resonated with your inner witch! Follow, and Join the Conversation on Instagram https://www.instagram.com/advancingwomenpodcast/ & Facebook https://www.facebook.com/advancingwomenpodcast/ More on Dr. DeSimone here! https://www.linkedin.com/in/kimberly-desimone-phd-mba-ba00b88/

This week, Israel and Hamas begin the first phase of a peace deal. Twenty Israeli hostages come home in exchange for Palestinian prisoners. Gaza opens for a flood of international aid. President Trump travels to Saudi Arabia to continue negotiations. Haviv Rettig Gur, Yossi Klein Halevi, and Robert Nicholson join us to discuss this significant world event.   GO DEEPER WITH THE BULLETIN:  -Join the conversation at our Substack.  -Find us on YouTube.  -Rate and review the show in your podcast app of choice.    ABOUT THE GUESTS:   Haviv Rettig Gur is a veteran Israeli journalist who serves as senior analyst for The Times of Israel. He has covered Israel's politics, foreign policy, education system and relationship with the Jewish diaspora since 2005.  Yossi Klein Halevi is a senior fellow at the Shalom Hartman Institute in Jerusalem. He codirects the Institute's Muslim Leadership Initiative, which teaches emerging young Muslim American leaders about Judaism, Jewish identity, and Israel. He writes for leading op-ed pages in the US, including The New York Times and The Wall Street Journal, and is a former contributing editor to The New Republic.  Robert Nicholson is Editor-at-Large of Providence, co-founder and board member of Save Armenia, founder of The Philos Project, and co-founder of Passages Israel. Robert also serves on the advisory board of In Defense of Christians and The Hague Initiative for International Cooperation. His written work has appeared in the Wall Street Journal, Telegraph, New York Post, Jerusalem Post, The Times of Israel, Newsweek, First Things, The Hill, and others. ABOUT THE BULLETIN:  The Bulletin is a twice-weekly politics and current events show from Christianity Today moderated by Clarissa Moll, with senior commentary from Russell Moore (Christianity Today's editor-at-large and columnist) and Mike Cosper (director, CT Media). Each week, the show explores current events and breaking news and shares a Christian perspective on issues that are shaping our world. We also offer special one-on-one conversations with writers, artists, and thought leaders whose impact on the world brings important significance to a Christian worldview, like Bono, Sharon McMahon, Harrison Scott Key, Frank Bruni, and more.    The Bulletin listeners get 25% off CT. Go to https://orderct.com/THEBULLETIN to learn more.    “The Bulletin” is a production of Christianity Today  Producer: Clarissa Moll  Associate Producer: Alexa Burke  Editing and Mix: Kevin Morris Graphic Design: Rick Szuecs Music: Dan Phelps  Executive Producers: Erik Petrik and Mike Cosper   Senior Producer: Matt Stevens Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

This week we're traveling back to 1987 Oakland with Freaky Tales! Join us as we learn about punk v. skinhead battles, Sleepy Floyd, Operation Ivy, and more! Sources: Southern Poverty Law Center, Timeline of the Racist Skinhead Movement: https://www.splcenter.org/resources/reports/timeline-racist-skinhead-movement/ Christopher Phelps, "Skinheads: The New Nazism," Marxists.org: https://www.marxists.org/history/etol/newspape/atc/10048.html Steve Knopper, "Nazi Punks Fuck Off: How Black Flag, Bad Brains, and More Took Back Their Scene from White Supremacists," https://www.gq.com/story/punks-and-nazis-oral-history Gabe Meline, "The Realy Life Freaky Tales Behind Freaky Tales," available at https://www.kqed.org/arts/13973907/freaky-tales-true-stories-pedro-pascal-too-short-924-gilman-oakland Singh SP. Sakshi and Dhyana: the origin of mindfulness-based therapies. BJPsych Bull. 2023 Apr;47(2):94-97. doi: 10.1192/bjb.2022.39. PMID: 35796539; PMCID: PMC10063990. Ngram: https://books.google.com/ngrams/graph?content=mindfulness&year_start=1800&year_end=2022&corpus=en&smoothing=3 Jessie Sun, "Mindfulness in Context: A Historical Discourse Analysis," available at https://jessiesun.me/publication/sun-2014/sun-2014.pdf Aaron Carnes, In Defense of Ska, https://www.rollingstone.com/music/music-features/operation-ivy-energy-in-defense-of-ska-book-aaron-carnes-1162048/  https://cmagazine.org/2018/03/22/924-gilman/ https://www.concertarchives.org/concerts/rancid-rice-the-rudiments-bumblescrump-the-aborted?photo=392323  https://www.924gilman.org/about   https://eastbayexpress.com/twenty-five-years-of-924-gilman-1/  https://eastbaypunk.com/about/ https://www.kqed.org/arts/11333286/green-day-dookie-924-gilman Liam O'Donoghue, https://www.sfgate.com/sf-culture/article/berkeley-nazi-brawl-bay-area-movie-freaky-tales-20250563.php  RT: https://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/freaky_tales  Christy Lemire, https://www.rogerebert.com/reviews/freaky-tales-pedro-pascal-movie-review-2025 The Hollywood Reporter, https://youtu.be/DhgFbs2QPbo?si=sLuHMtMzF3xh_Ket  CBS Mornings, https://youtu.be/BRYTyYOLQEk?si=9k8aWh0GNErBWvJg  https://www.kqed.org/arts/13973907/freaky-tales-true-stories-pedro-pascal-too-short-924-gilman-oakland https://www.espn.com/nba/player/stats/_/id/3703/sleepy-floyd  https://www.espn.com/nba/player/stats/_/id/3703/type/nba/seasontype/3 

Send Wilk a text with your feedback!"In Defense of Christian Patriotism " – DTH Episode 284 with Daniel DarlingWhat does it mean to love both God and country without falling into the trap of Christian nationalism? In this episode, Wilk is joined by author Daniel Darling to talk about his new book In Defense of Christian Patriotism. Together they explore:The vital difference between Christian patriotism and Christian nationalismWhy forced religion is dangerous to both church and stateHow America's founders valued religious freedom and pluralismThe misconceptions fueled by media and culture about Christianity in the public squareWhy true patriotism is rooted in love, not cynicism

Karen Walrond is the author of The Lightmaker’ Manifesto and Radiant Rebellion. She and her work have been featured on Brené Brown’s Unlocking Us podcast, Huffington Post, CNN.com, and the Oprah Winfrey Show. Her blog Chookooloonks is a lifestyle, inspiration, and photography destination. Karen’s new book is In Defense of Dabbling: The Brilliance of Being a Total Amateur. In this episode, Karen and I talk about hobbies, the value of doing things you aren’t very good at, and the seven attributes of intentional amateurism. This episode is sponsored by The Habit Focus Retreat—a four-day writing getaway in Nashville, October 26-30. TheHabit.co/Retreats.Support the show: https://therabbitroom.givingfuel.com/memberSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

We only podcast when we're happy and we're podcasting right now! Kylan Savage and Valentine Hellman (hosts of the In Defense of Kesha podcast) guest for a special extra long ep where we experience the new Kesha album Period, which happens to be Kesha's first indie record on her own label. It's also our first crossover with In Defense of Kesha, and Nate and Kelly's first full Kesha album listen. Join us for 2025's Period, and Don't, don't, don't, don't even try to gi-give us shit. Oh and enjoy a special MouthGarf Report and another installment of I See What You Did There! Listen to Period: https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLxA687tYuMWiog8uIcTrsAw19EdHUGS2VListen to In Defense of Kesha: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/in-defense-of-kesha/id1760009078Please give us a 5 star rating on Apple Podcasts! Want to ask us a question? Talk to us! Email debutbuddies@gmail.comListen to the archives of Kelly and Chelsea's awesome horror movie podcast, Never Show the Monster.Get some sci-fi from Spaceboy Books.Get down with Michael J. O'Connor and the Cold Family and check out his new compilation The Best of the Bad Years 2005 - 2025Next time: First Credit Card (For real this time! We promise!)

State Fairs Are a Nightmare for Animals State fairs have intimate ties to the meat and dairy industries, and the animals at fairs endure cruelty, stress and fear in the name of human entertainment. Listen to today's episode written by Lia Wilbourn at In Defense of Animals posted at All Creatures #vegan #Plantbased #plantbasedbriefing #vegan #statefair #animalabuse #minnesotastatefair #miracleofbirthcenter #humanewashing   ======================== Original post: https://all-creatures.org/mdi2/mdi2-state-fairs-nightmare.html  ======================== What to Eat When You Don't Eat Animals (FREE GUIDE): https://www.all-creatures.org/what-to-eat.html   All-Creatures is a non-profit dedicated to cruelty-free living through a vegan lifestyle according to Judeo-Christian ethics. Their website is filled with vegan resources relating to animal issues, including bible studies, how to stop cruelty in churches, blogs, quotes and poetry, and lots of great resources for animal rights activism as well. ======================= FOLLOW THE SHOW ON: YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@plantbasedbriefing     Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/2GONW0q2EDJMzqhuwuxdCF?si=2a20c247461d4ad7 Apple Podcasts: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/plant-based-briefing/id1562925866 Your podcast app of choice: https://pod.link/1562925866 Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/PlantBasedBriefing   LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/plant-based-briefing/   Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/plantbasedbriefing/   

Hope is right at home this episode talking about one of her favorite subjects, humanewashing. Lia Wilbourn joins Hope for a conversation about their mutual frustration with the humane hoax and the deceptive marketing and cover-up tactics employed by the animal farming industry. They explore the detrimental impact of continuing to use the term “factory farming” and argue that the animal advocacy movement should phase it out. Lia and Hope also discuss the cage-free egg industry transition, challenging the notion that this industry shift is a positive development for animals. They also address the criticism of using the word “vegan” and how some people are saying that we shouldn't use the word as it has too many negative connotations. There are lots of strong opinions on advocacy in this one, we unpack it all for you! Lia Wilbourn has been active in a wide range of animal rights activism, including street outreach, demonstrations, writing, social media, speeches and art as activism. She is currently the Farmed Animals Campaign Coordinator at In Defense of Animals, advocating via articles, petitions, videos, etc. and co-hosting a monthly online Vegan Mentor Support Group. She also works with Allied Scholars for Animal Protection, is a volunteer on the Humane Hoax Project team, and is certified in Plant-Based Nutrition through Cornell University.  Resources:Lia's Contact/Instagram: @liaforanimalsThe Humane Hoax ProjectArticle: Fixating on Factory Farms...Article: Stop (Saying) Factory FarmingThe Ahimsa Living Circle monthly online gathering: info and registrationSupport this podcast:Hope for the Animals PodcastCompassionate Living

Is Christian patriotism a good thing—or a problem? The word 'patriot' can stir up a lot of strong opinions. Can you be both a faithful Christian and a patriot? Author and pastor Daniel Darling joins Chris Brooks to make the case for Christian patriotism—and to explore what it really means to bring Jesus into politics. Don't miss this important conversation on Equipped. Featured resources:In Defense of Christian Patriotism by Daniel Darling September thank you gift:Cultivating Deeper Connections in a Lonely World by Becky Harling Equipped with Chris Brooks is made possible through your support. To donate now, click here.  

“Your job isn't what makes you interesting, your hobby is.”- Karen WalrondCheck out my conversation with the delightful Karen Walrond, author of the brand new book In Defense of Dabbling: The Brilliance of Being a Total Amateur. For her book, Karen tried out seven new hobbies — everything from pottery to surfing to piano playing — to show readers how to do the same. She even provides a list of over 200 hobbies others might want to try — all in the interest of tuning out, tapping into ourselves, and finding joy. Connect with Karen: Buy the Book | Substack | InstagramFor women ready to stop living on autopilot and playing it small, Fired Up will show you how to shatter your self imposed limitations and unleash your potential so you can finally start living the life you've always wanted. Click to order. This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit shannonwatts.substack.com/subscribe

This week, Liberty and Patricia discuss Scarlet Morning, In Defense of Dabbling, Flip, and more great books! Subscribe to All the Books! using RSS, Apple Podcasts, or Spotify and never miss a book. Sign up for the weekly New Books! newsletter for even more new book news. Ready for a cozy, bookish autumn? Let Tailored Book Recommendations help you find your next favorite read with handpicked suggestions from professional book nerds. Get started today from just $18! Books Discussed On the Show: Scarlet Morning by ND Stevenson  In Defense of Dabbling: The Brilliance of Being a Total Amateur by Karen Walrond The Tragedy of True Crime: Four Guilty Men and the Stories That Define Us by John J. Lennon Flip by Ngozi Ukazu We Love You, Bunny by Mona Awad Pigeonholed: Creative Freedom as an Act of Resistance by Gary Younge The Second Death of Locke by V. L. Bovalino Ladies in Hating by Alexandra Vasti For a complete list of books discussed in this episode, visit our website. This content contains affiliate links. When you buy through these links, we may earn an affiliate commission. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Discover why being proudly mediocre at something you love might be the key to unlocking joy, meaning, and even spiritual practice in your life.In this perspective-shifting conversation, leadership consultant Karen Walrond shares insights from her new book, In Defense of Dabbling: The Brilliance of Being a Total Amateur, revealing how letting go of the pressure to excel can transform simple activities into powerful portals for self-discovery, connection, and personal growth. Learn the seven surprising attributes that make intentional amateurism a radical act of self-care in our achievement-obsessed world.You can find Karen at: Website | Instagram | Episode TranscriptIf you LOVED this episode, you'll also love the conversations we had with James Victore about making your art and owning your point of view. Check out our offerings & partners: Join My New Writing Project: Awake at the WheelVisit Our Sponsor Page For Great Resources & Discount CodesCheck out our offerings & partners: Beam Dream Powder: Visit https://shopbeam.com/GOODLIFE and use code GOODLIFE to get our exclusive discount of up to 40% off. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Cultural analyst Daniel Darling, author of "In Defense of Christian Patriotism," offers a balance to what it means to be a faithful member of God's Kingdom while also loving the country God has placed you well.  Vibrant Faith's Rick Lawrence, author of "The Suicide Solution: Finding Your Way Out of Darkness," talks about how help those dealing with dark self-narratives and suicidal ideation.  How do we help them debug their minds and re-program their thoughts with God's truth about them.   Faith Radio podcasts are made possible by your support. Give now: Click here

Part 2 of our time in the woods with naturalist Sandy Geffner. This time, Sandy leads Steve and Bill on a “hike”—though with Sandy, the word takes on a different meaning. You might not cover much distance, but you'll travel miles in understanding: exploring ecology and hearing stories of the forest and the wildlife within it. Enjoy!This episode was recorded on July 21, 2025 at JP Nicely Memorial Park in West Falls, NY.Episode Notes and LinksSandy's favorite books: A Sand County Almanac by Aldo Leopold and Finding the Mother Tree by Suzanne Simard. But we feel that we have to call ourselves out here because we've been critical of Simard's work before and maybe we should've brought this up with Sandy during the episode (but we obviously didn't have the stones). For a deep dive into some of the criticisms of Simard's word, check out the In Defense of Plants podcast's series of episodes that starts here. Or this article by three professors who've spent their careers studying forest fungi. Sponsors and Ways to Support UsThank you to Always Wandering Art (Website and Etsy Shop) for providing the artwork for many of our episodes.Support us on Patreon.Photo CreditThe Natural Side of UB by Robby Johnson

On this episode, Aaron Carnes (Author of "In Defense of Ska")  interviews Greg Soden about the writing and lessons derived from "Unscripted Moments: Conversations with Propagandhi (2020-2025)."  If you want more of Aaron's excellent work, including hundreds of ad-free episodes of In Defense of Ska, please visit the links below: https://aaroncarnes.substack.com/archive https://www.patreon.com/c/indefenseofska/home  

Aaron Carnes joins the podcast to talk about his mission to reframe the conversation around ska music and his writing career. As a veteran journalist and former ska-punk drummer, Aaron brings firsthand knowledge and critical insight to his book, "In Defense of Ska." We discuss the genre's rich history, its cultural significance, and what it tells us about how we frame music history and some of the politics around it. We also talk about Aaron's new book centered around death and dealing with the inevitability of it. Whether you're a ska fan or a skeptic, this episode will make you rethink what you know.

Karen Walrond is an award-winning author, speaker, and leadership coach. And she's on a mission to create a kindness revolution. She's the author of The Lightmaker's Manifesto and Radiant Rebellion, and she's out now with a new book, In Defense of Dabbling, in which she urges all of us to stress less and play more. In this episode, Karen and Annmarie talk about cultivating curiosity, self-compassion, and even failure in order to do the things we love– even if we're not any good at them. Episode Sponsors: Blue Willow Bookshop – A locally-owned, independently-minded West     Houston bookstore. Blue Willow is run by a team of opinionated, well-read women. Our staff meetings are full of laughter, our back room is full of snacks, and we absolutely love putting the right book into a reader's hands. We've got recommendations. We've got pizzazz. And we look forward to welcoming you to our happy place. Stop in or shop online at bluewillow bookshop.com. Lit Youngstown – A literary community proud to support beginning and experienced writers who seek to hone their craft, foster understanding, and share and publish their creative work. Read, write, and tell your story at lityoungstown.org. Books by Karen Walrond: In Defense of Dabbling: The Brilliance of Being a Total Amateur Radiant Rebellion: Reclaim Aging, Practice Joy, and Raise a Little Hell The Lightmaker's Manifesto: How to Work for Change Without Losing Your Joy The Beauty of Different: Observations of a Confident Misfit And here's our previous conversation with Karen about Radiant Rebellion. Follow Karen Walrond: Instagram: @heychookooloonks Facebook: @chookooloonks Substack: Karen Walrond www.chookooloonks.com **Writing Workshops:  If you liked this conversation and are interested in writing together, please consider the opportunities below.  Or if you're looking for an online class to jumpstart your memoir, you can find that here.  Or for women interested in an online Saturday morning writing circle, you can sign up here or message Annmarie to learn more. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Chris Barton is the author of the poetry chapbook A Finely Calibrated Apocalypse, published by Bottlecap Press in 2024. His writing has appeared in Epiphany, Peach Magazine, The Plenitudes, Hotel, and elsewhere. From 2016 to 2019, he co-hosted the Electric Pheasant Poetry in Knoxville, TN. Peter Gizzi grew up in Pittsfield, Massachusetts. His many books of poetry include Artificial Heart, Threshold Songs, In Defense of Nothing: Selected Poems, 1987–2011 and Archeophonics, which was a finalist for the National Book Award. His book Fierce Elegy, published in 2023, won the T. S. Eliot Prize. He teaches at the University of Massachusetts Amherst. “In Defense of Nothing” from In Defense of Nothing: Selected Poems, 1987–2011 © 2015 by Peter Gizzi. Published by Wesleyan University Press. Used by permission.Links:Read "our free trial lives," "last supper," and "the bafflement" by Chris BartonRead "In Defense of Nothing" by Peter GizziChris BartonA Finely Calibrated Apocalypse by Chris Barton (Bottlecap Press)"2 Poems by Chris Barton" in Peach Magazine"Ouroboros as a Treat" in The Plentitudes"Three Poems" in Potluck MagazinePeter GizziBio and poems at The Poetry FoundationBio and poems at Poets.org"Peter Gizzi Talks About His Work" (YouTube Video--T.S. Eliot Prize)Mentioned in this episode:KnoxCountyLibrary.orgThank you for listening and sharing this podcast. Explore life-changing resources and events, sign up for newsletters, follow us on social media, and more through our website, www.knoxcountylibrary.org.Rate & review on Podchaser

Chris Barton is the author of the poetry chapbook A Finely Calibrated Apocalypse, published by Bottlecap Press in 2024. His writing has appeared in Epiphany, Peach Magazine, The Plenitudes, Hotel, and elsewhere. From 2016 to 2019, he co-hosted the Electric Pheasant Poetry in Knoxville, TN. Peter Gizzi grew up in Pittsfield, Massachusetts. His many books of poetry include Artificial Heart, Threshold Songs, In Defense of Nothing: Selected Poems, 1987–2011 and Archeophonics, which was a finalist for the National Book Award. His book Fierce Elegy, published in 2023, won the T. S. Eliot Prize. He teaches at the University of Massachusetts Amherst. “In Defense of Nothing” from In Defense of Nothing: Selected Poems, 1987–2011 © 2015 by Peter Gizzi. Published by Wesleyan University Press. Used by permission.Links:Read "our free trial lives," "last supper," and "the bafflement" by Chris BartonRead "In Defense of Nothing" by Peter GizziChris BartonA Finely Calibrated Apocalypse by Chris Barton (Bottlecap Press)"2 Poems by Chris Barton" in Peach Magazine"Ouroboros as a Treat" in The Plentitudes"Three Poems" in Potluck MagazinePeter GizziBio and poems at The Poetry FoundationBio and poems at Poets.org"Peter Gizzi Talks About His Work" (YouTube Video--T.S. Eliot Prize)Mentioned in this episode:KnoxCountyLibrary.orgThank you for listening and sharing this podcast. Explore life-changing resources and events, sign up for newsletters, follow us on social media, and more through our website, www.knoxcountylibrary.org.Rate & review on Podchaser

In this episode we discuss the contradiction within games between gender play and fantasies to control and order; video games as reproductive technology; the playfulness of the far right which could be characterised as play without pleasure; how rulebreaking and gamebreaking play out in liberal democracy and fascism; and the possibilities of play and protest in antifascist practices and riotous revolution.Vicky Osterweil is a writer, worker and agitator based in Philadelphia. She is a founding member of the anarchist writing collective CAW, which can be found at cawshinythings.com She is the author of In Defense of Looting and the forthcoming book The Extended Universe: How Disney Destroyed the Movies and Took Over the World.Against the Fascist Game is the second season of The Exploits of Play, a podcast about games and capitalism. Join Max Haiven and Faye Harvey as they interview game designers, critical theorists and grassroots activists struggling with games to understand, confront and abolish the rising threat of fascism in our times. We ask questions including: how is the far-right using games as platforms for ideology, recruiting and violence, both close to home and around the world? How have vicious reactionary politics emerged from a form of capitalism where most people feel trapped in an unwinnable game? What do fascism and antifascism mean today? And what role, if any do play and games have in confronting the fascist threat and creating a new world? The Exploits of Play is a production of Weird Economies, a platform for exploring the intricacies and excesses of our economic imaginaries, in cooperation with RiVAL: The ReImagining Value Action Lab. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

The crew assembles to talk favorites in second edition so far.  Rambling but fun free-form discussion of the game as it stands and what we like about it. In Defense of Playing for Fun Goonhammer Board Tutorial Path to Glory Interview the Winning Italian Team from WTC Come chat on our discord Support us on Patreon History repeats itself    

Hello everyone, I just want to say thank you to all of those who have listened to the podcast and supported me from the start. This will likely be the last episode of this show - BUT! It is not the end! You will hopefully see me elsewhere in other projects, interviewing on other shows, and maybe soon a program I can once again be proud of. Here are my final reflections on In Defense of Liberation, my life, the ongoing genocide, the need to fight and support the struggle for liberation all over the globe, and the regret that comes with inaction and fear. Be well folks, hope to speak soon!If you want to reach out for whatever reason you can find me by emailing indefenseofliberation@gmail.comFree Palestine! Free all political prisoners!All Power to the People!Onwards and upwards!

In the pages of your Bible, you may find something mildly surprising. You find holidays, quite prominently, and in both Testaments. Not only that, but they are found observed by the Church in the New Testament. These festivals are called the appointed times of Jehovah and around them flow the entire history of the people of God—from the Israelites, to the Jews, to the Christians of every race and nation. And not only the history of God's people, but their future as well.I first began celebrating the festivals of the Bible nearly 50 years ago, but I can't say that I really understood them in the beginning. What I did was to follow the old rule: When all else fails, do as you're told. So, since God said to do it, and all I had to do was take off work and go to church, I thought, Let's do that. That was a simple first step. And because it was the custom to teach and study the meaning of the days in their seasons, year by year I learned the rich history of God's dealings with his people, especially at those pivotal points in their history, like the original Passover.To those of us who have been keeping the holy days for years—in some cases, for all of our lives—the practice seems so natural, so right. We all know what blessings we get from it, we all know how encouraging it is to us, we know what it means to us to spend that eight days together and how uplifted we can be when we go home from the Feast of Tabernacles. The scriptures supporting the practice seem so obvious. Why doesn't everyone see it? Why, we wonder, doesn't everyone observe the holy days?The most obvious reason, frankly, is that most Christians know little or nothing about the holy days. They just have never heard of them. One person will say Feast of Tabernacles, and another will say, What? They just frankly have no idea. For many of them, the Old Testament is about as uncharted as the Atlantic was for Christopher Columbus. They really don't know where anything is if they wanted to look for it.For those that are maybe a little more familiar with the Bible, the holy days have been dismissed as being Jewish and irrelevant to Christians. That's part of the Old Testament religion, and we have a New Testament religion; and they just make that simple demarcation and never really inquire any further along the line.A few people, on the other hand, have studied the subject and arrived at a conscious decision not to observe the holy days. Why? What is the rational, philosophic, theological, or scriptural basis for people to make that decision?I found to my surprise that studying the reasons that people advance as to why they do not keep the holy days has turned out to be a very useful study. A number of very interesting things have arisen from it—things that I guess I had taken for granted, had not really looked at as carefully as I might have done; and in the process of asking myself the question that I've asked you—Why is it everybody doesn't keep the holy days?—and beginning to look carefully at the reasons advanced by those who don't, I have found some things that have turned out to be rather interesting to me.Note: The article Ron mentions in the conclusion of this message later became an appendix in his book on the holy days, The Thread, titled In Defense of the Holydays. That appendix can be read here.

In the pages of your Bible, you may find something mildly surprising. You find holidays, quite prominently, and in both Testaments. Not only that, but they are found observed by the Church in the New Testament. These festivals are called the appointed times of Jehovah and around them flow the entire history of the people of God—from the Israelites, to the Jews, to the Christians of every race and nation. And not only the history of God's people, but their future as well.I first began celebrating the festivals of the Bible nearly 50 years ago, but I can't say that I really understood them in the beginning. What I did was to follow the old rule: When all else fails, do as you're told. So, since God said to do it, and all I had to do was take off work and go to church, I thought, Let's do that. That was a simple first step. And because it was the custom to teach and study the meaning of the days in their seasons, year by year I learned the rich history of God's dealings with his people, especially at those pivotal points in their history, like the original Passover.To those of us who have been keeping the holy days for years—in some cases, for all of our lives—the practice seems so natural, so right. We all know what blessings we get from it, we all know how encouraging it is to us, we know what it means to us to spend that eight days together and how uplifted we can be when we go home from the Feast of Tabernacles. The scriptures supporting the practice seem so obvious. Why doesn't everyone see it? Why, we wonder, doesn't everyone observe the holy days?The most obvious reason, frankly, is that most Christians know little or nothing about the holy days. They just have never heard of them. One person will say Feast of Tabernacles, and another will say, What? They just frankly have no idea. For many of them, the Old Testament is about as uncharted as the Atlantic was for Christopher Columbus. They really don't know where anything is if they wanted to look for it.For those that are maybe a little more familiar with the Bible, the holy days have been dismissed as being Jewish and irrelevant to Christians. That's part of the Old Testament religion, and we have a New Testament religion; and they just make that simple demarcation and never really inquire any further along the line.A few people, on the other hand, have studied the subject and arrived at a conscious decision not to observe the holy days. Why? What is the rational, philosophic, theological, or scriptural basis for people to make that decision?I found to my surprise that studying the reasons that people advance as to why they do not keep the holy days has turned out to be a very useful study. A number of very interesting things have arisen from it—things that I guess I had taken for granted, had not really looked at as carefully as I might have done; and in the process of asking myself the question that I've asked you—Why is it everybody doesn't keep the holy days?—and beginning to look carefully at the reasons advanced by those who don't, I have found some things that have turned out to be rather interesting to me.Note: The article Ron mentions in the conclusion of this message later became an appendix in his book on the holy days, The Thread, titled In Defense of the Holydays. That appendix can be read here.

For many believers, patriotism has either been idolized or abandoned. But is there a better way forward—one that honors God and seeks the good of our nation? On this week's episode of The Narrative, Communications Executive Director Mike Andrews and Church Ambassador Network Executive Director Chris Lightfoot are joined by author and pastor Daniel Darling to discuss his new book, In Defense of Christian Patriotism. At a time when faith and politics often collide, Daniel makes the case for patriotism that is rooted in gratitude, humility, and love for neighbor. One that honors God above all while still cherishing the blessings of living in America. Before Daniel joins the show, CCV President Aaron Baer joins Mike to run through this week's latest news: The Ohio Christian Education Network opened its fifth school, with two more opening next week after Labor Day. Dr. James Dobson, founder of Focus on the Family, passed away last week, Thursday, August 21. Breaking news from Minnesota: two children are dead and seventeen are injured after a gunman opens fire at Annunciation Catholic School in Minneapolis. MORE ABOUT DANIEL DARLING Daniel Darling is an author, pastor, and thought leader. He currently serves as the Director of The Land Center for Cultural Engagement at Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary and Assistant Professor of Faith and Culture at Texas Baptist College. Daniel is an author, co-author, or editor of 20 books, including The Original Jesus, The Dignity Revolution, The Characters of Christmas, The Characters of Easter, A Way With Words, Agents of Grace: How to Bridge Divides and Love as Jesus Loves, and the forthcoming: In Defense of Christian Patriotism. Dan holds a bachelor's degree in pastoral ministry from Dayspring Bible College, has studied at Trinity Evangelical Divinity School, and holds a Master's degree from Southern Baptist Theological Seminary. Dan has served churches in Illinois and Tennessee. He and his wife, Angela, have four children and are members of Travis Avenue Baptist Church in Fort Worth, Texas. TALK TO US We want to hear from you! As a valued listener, your feedback is critical for us to keep The Narrative insightful, relevant, and helpful. If you have a particular guest, topic, or question you'd like us to cover, let us know! We’ll answer your questions on an “Ask Us Anything” episode later, so send in your questions now.

Devoted Know Your Enemy listeners will recall that, in November 2021, we released a fairly dense, theory-driven episode on Frank Meyer, the Communist from New Jersey whose exploits on behalf of the Party in the UK got him kicked out of the country and back to the United States, where he eventually turned right and became a key figure in the post-war U.S. conservative movement, both as an editor at National Review and an architect of institutions like the American Conservative Union, Young Americans for Freedom, and the Conservative Party of New York. Of course, we had more to say about Meyer, and we're devoting another episode to him, this time focused on the details of his incredible life, thanks to the publication of an extraordinary new biography of Meyer, Daniel J. Flynn's The Man Who Invented Conservatism: The Unlikely Life of Frank S. Meyer. Flynn discovered a trove of never-before-seen papers of Meyer's that range from personal documents (tax returns, Christmas cards from Joan Didion, his dance card from college) to his correspondence with nearly every conservative writer and intellectual of note in the 1950s and 60s. Armed with these files, Flynn offers a vivid portrait of a brilliant, eccentric political life and mind.Listen again: "Frank Meyer: Father of Fusionism" (November 10, 2021)Sources:Daniel J. Flynn, The Man Who Invented Conservatism: The Unlikely Life of Frank S. Meyer (2025)Frank S. Meyer, In Defense of Freedom: A Conservative Credo (Regnery, 1962)F.A. Hayek, "Why I am Not a Conservative," from The Constitution of Liberty: The Definitive Edition (2011)George H. Nash, The Conservative Intellectual Movement in America Since 1945 (Basic Books, 1976)Garry Wills, Confessions of a Conservative (Doubleday, 1979)"Against the Dead Consensus," First Things, March 21, 2019...and don't forget to subscribe on Patreon for access to all of our bonus episodes!

This week on Breaking Battlegrounds, we kick things off with U.S. Senator Eric Schmitt to discuss his new book, The Last Line of Defense: How to Beat the Left in Court. Senator Schmitt also shares his perspective on President Trump bringing peace around the world and highlights his success in securing a historic FBI investment to combat violent crime in St. Louis. Next, Mariam Wahba of the Foundation for Defense of Democracies unpacks Egypt's war against the world's oldest Christian monastery, the country's record-setting gas deal with Israel, and the rising threat of antisemitic attacks to U.S. national security. Then, Matthew Putnam of the National Taxpayers Union joins to discuss his article, Don't Undermine 40 Years of Success with Tax Hikes. We wrap up with financial expert Gary Gygi, who breaks down today's markets and what comes next. It's an episode you won't want to miss. www.breakingbattlegrounds.vote Twitter: www.twitter.com/Breaking_Battle Facebook: www.facebook.com/breakingbattlegrounds Instagram: www.instagram.com/breakingbattlegrounds LinkedIn: www.linkedin.com/company/breakingbattlegrounds Truth Social: https://truthsocial.com/@breakingbattlegrounds Show sponsors: Santa Has A Podcast - This episode of Breaking Battlegrounds is brought to you by Santa Has a Podcast — a show for the whole family filled with kindness challenges, North Pole stories, elf updates, and a sprinkle of Christmas magic all year long. Listen now at SantaHasAPodcast.com. Invest Yrefy - investyrefy.com Old Glory Depot Support American jobs while standing up for your values. OldGloryDepot.com brings you conservative pride on premium, made-in-USA gear. Don't settle—wear your patriotism proudly. Learn more at: OldGloryDepot.com Dot VoteWith a .VOTE website, you ensure your political campaign stands out among the competition while simplifying how you reach voters. Learn more at: dotvote.vote 4Freedom MobileExperience true freedom with 4Freedom Mobile, the exclusive provider offering nationwide coverage on all three major US networks (Verizon, AT&T, and T-Mobile) with just one SIM card. Our service not only connects you but also shields you from data collection by network operators, social media platforms, government agencies, and more. Use code ‘Battleground' to get your first month for $9 and save $10 a month every month after. Learn more at: 4FreedomMobile.com About our guest: U.S. Senator Eric Schmitt is a sixth-generation Missourian who grew up in a working-class family in Bridgeton, Missouri. Inspired by his father's work ethic and his son Stephen's health challenges, Schmitt entered public service to fight for families like his own. He has served as State Senator, State Treasurer, Attorney General, and now as U.S. Senator for Missouri. As Attorney General, he launched initiatives to combat violent crime, address the opioid crisis, and bring justice to victims of sexual assault. In the Senate, Schmitt serves on the Judiciary, Armed Services, and Commerce Committees, where he continues to focus on protecting free speech, securing the border, and strengthening American energy independence. - Mariam Wahba is a research analyst at FDD focused on Egypt and minorities in the Middle East. Previously, she served with FDD's communications team where she booked experts and helped stand up FDD's Arabic X and Instagram accounts. Before coming to FDD, Mariam was the associate director of advocacy with the Philos Project, a Hertog political science fellow, a Tikvah Fund journalism fellow, and a policy associate at In Defense of Christians. She graduated from Fordham University with a BA in Middle East studies, Arabic, and Jewish studies. Born and raised in Egypt, she is a Coptic Christian and an advocate for the persecuted church. Mariam is also the co-founder of American-ish, a digital platform aimed at highlighting ethno-religious minorities of the Middle East and promoting American values. - Matthew Putnam is an Associate of External Affairs with National Taxpayers Union and National Taxpayers Union Foundation. In this role, he works with donors and on strategic partnerships. Originally from Florida, Matthew attended Florida State University and graduated with bachelor's degrees in international affairs and history. Prior to working at NTU, Matthew worked with a small tech-startup based in Washington, DC. Outside of NTU, Matthew also works at the DC institution Red Derby. He enjoys cooking and both watching and playing soccer in DC and Virginia. - Mr. Gary Gygi was hired by the Investment firm Dean Witter (became Morgan Stanley) after college and worked for the firm for about 15 years. During this time he achieved the position of First Vice President, Investment and branch manager of the Midvale, Utah office. Mr. Gygi won numerous sales awards and held the position of Branch Managed Money Coordinator and Branch Insurance Coordinator. Mr. Gygi left Morgan Stanley in 2003 to join the Investment management firm of Smoot Miller Cheney (later became SMC Capital) as a Senior Vice President. Mr. Gygi holds a dual registration so while affiliating with Smoot Miller Cheney; he also was a registered rep with Independent broker/dealer WBB Securities, LLC. In 2008, Mr. Gygi left SMC Capital to found Gygi Capital Management as President and CEO. Gygi Capital serves the Institutional and individual marketplace with investment management solutions. Gygi Capital is a State regulated Registered Investment Advisory firm located in Cedar Hills, Utah. Gygi affiliates with Union Capital Co. which is an independent broker/dealer firm.

A previously-Patreon-exclusive episode from "In Defense of Ska." Originally released July 2022.  Featuring Aaron Carnes, Adam Davis, David Anthony, Cheska Colombo, and Greg Soden

There is little question that a militant, aggressive kind of Christianity is now on the march to domination.  If those of us, including the Pagan & Witch movements, wish to survive & overcome these times then we need to start asking what a world after Christian hegemony will look like.  Join your host for what this means for religion & society, how we might get there, and more!In Defense of Puritanism by Atun-Shei FilmsThe Diggers from the Revolutions PodcastI am teaching Intro to Nordic Paganism and Intro to Inclusive Practice remotely this September!  You can register by going to the Fire & Ice Teaching Collective classes listing at this link: http://www.onblackwings.com/classesWant to support this podcast and my other work?  Sign up for my Patreon here: https://www.patreon.com/c/wayw... or contribute to my KoFi here: https://ko-fi.com/ryansmithwfi

Sometimes coming to Christian faith means that life gets harder and we don't like that. We will all find ourselves in moments or seasons of discouragement, but we can wrestle through it with reverence. The main way to fight discouragement is by having a knowledge of God's Word that helps you lean into Christ, and in this week's episode, the Perrys walk through a number of passages in this episode to help us do just that. Scripture references:Psalm 88John 6:60-68Genesis 21:6Luke 1:34Galatians 6:6-9Psalm 136:1-5Hebrews 3:13Hebrews 12:1-31 Peter 4:12-17John 15:18-252 Corinthians 4:16-17James 5:13Other links:Jackie at Passion 2025 – “In Defense of Hope”“I Don't Want to Be a Christian Anymore…” from Santee Zenobia TikTok and Instagram  This Episode is Sponsored By:https://www.covenanteyes.com/perrys/ — Get Victory by Covenant Eyes FREE for 30 days with promo code PERRYS Subscribe to the Perrys' newsletter.To support the work of the Perrys, donate via PayPal.www.withtheperrys.comboldapparel.shopwww.jackiehillperry.comwww.preston-perry.com

Fansplaining returned to San Diego Comic-Con this year (our tenth anniversary!) with a fantastic panel of fandom folks who work in pro entertainment careers. There's an audio recording here on our feed, and over at the website:   https://www.fansplaining.com/articles/sdcc-2025-the-fandom-advantage   You can watch video version as well as read a full transcript. Because the intro to the audio is only on this feed, that's transcribed below.   Transcript of intro:    Hi everyone! Elizabeth here. I am fresh off San Diego Comic-Con 2025...or not...fresh, but I'm off. [laughing] I got home in the wee hours of yesterday morning. Had a wonderful time, but am happy to be home and sleeping in my own bed.    So as you almost undoubtedly know, because we mentioned it a million times over the course of the podcast, Flourish and I first met at San Diego, we were on a panel together in 2015. So this is the ten-year anniversary.    And so I was really honored to be able to host a panel again on Fansplaining's behalf, though it was obviously bittersweet because Flourish wasn't there...though I will say I sent over some pictures, and I think Flourish, I'm just dragging them back towards coming, just for Comic-Con in the future. [laughing]    So this was the fourth panel that Fansplaining has hosted since we started doing our own panels in 2019. It was called "The Fandom Advantage: How Fan Creativity Fuels Pro Entertainment Careers."    So this was an incredibly talented collection of panelists. I'm always so thrilled by the people we can get together for these panels. They've worked on huge properties like Interview with the Vampire, for example, The Witcher, Supernatural, just a long list of fan-favorites—Star Wars. And then indie stuff like FIYAH Literary Magazine and queer indie publishing.    And they came onto talk about their fannish past and presents, and how that connects to the work that they do professionally.   So this audio, I really appreciate, recorded by Sadie Witkowski, who is the host of another fandom podcast, In Defense of Fandom. Definitely go check that out, if you just google it, or go to fansplaining.com, you can get a link from the show page. Sadie was kind enough to, while sitting in the front row of the audience, record on her phone and on her recorder, but this was an echoey auditorium, this was what we could manage without having access to professional equipment, so the audio quality is a bit mixed.   So I would highly recommend going over to fansplaining.com and checking out the full transcript, because I think that will make it a lot easier to follow along, whether you're listening to the audio version here or watching the YouTube video, which is on YouTube itself, of course, and on our site, fansplaining.com.   So hopefully you enjoy this conversation, and thanks again to all the panelists. It was really great to talk to you this weekend.

We sit down with Dr. Alexander Hutchison to dive into a topic that many are afraid to talk about. The first time he was on was for his book In Defense of Doping, and now his new book is out An Unfair Advantage: In Sport the Body Matters, it dives into the world of sports in this day in age with societal norms changing a bit and transwomens place in sports play. He delves into the science behind the differences between men and women in sports and how they impact competition.    For Physical Assistance Think Fitness Life Coaching is backed by 25 years of Experience guiding people to fitness freedom. Learn more Mention “Kickstart discount” for 10% off your first month.   For Therapy Services we partnered with BetterHelp: A telehealth therapy service connecting people with licensed mental health therapists. Learn more By using the referral link you receive 10% off your first month.