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Dan Weissmann is a reporter. He’s the host and creator of An Arm and a Leg, a podcast about why health care costs so freaking much, and what we can maybe do about it. Because Dan likes a challenge, the job he’s chosen with An Arm and a Leg is to take one of the most enraging, terrifying, depressing parts of American life — and create a show that’s entertaining, empowering, and useful. Before starting An Arm and a Leg in 2018, Dan was a staff reporter at WBEZ and Marketplace. His stories have appeared on shows like Reveal, 99 Percent Invisible, and Planet Money. Most Monday nights, Dan can be found practicing with the Blue Ribbon Glee Club, singing the punk rock canon. If that sounds like something you might dig, it abso-fucking-lutely is. And if it sounds like something you might enjoy being part of, definitely hit Dan up after the show. The First Time is a live lit and music series recorded at Martyrs in Chicago's North Center neighborhood. Each reader tells a true first tale, followed by any cover of the storyteller's choosing, performed by our house band, The First Time Three. The First Time is hosted by Jenn Sodini. Production by Andy Vasoyan and Executive Producer Bobby Evers. Podcast produced by Andy Vasoyan. Recorded by Tony Baker.
Is who we are shaped more by nature or nurture? It's a question science has grappled with for years. In this week's episode, both of our storytellers dive into their family histories to explore how the people and experiences that came before them continue to shape who they are today. Part 1: As a teenager, Mark Pagan worries that having an old dad is affecting his social development. Part 2: Curious about his DNA, Christopher Rivas takes his father on a journey to the Dominican Republic to learn about his family history. Mark Pagán is an award-winning producer, writer, and editor for non-fiction podcasts and film. He is the creator and host of the critically acclaimed show Other Men Need Help. His work has been featured on Latino USA, Radiotopia, On the Media, 99 Percent Invisible, Code Switch, among others. His films and performances have been shown at dozens of festivals and shows worldwide including Slamdance Film Festival, Maryland Film Festival, RISK!, The Moth, and Story Collider. Mark's work has been nominated for a Peabody, has made The Atlantic, The New York Times, The New Yorker annual “best of” lists, and has been recognized by Vulture, TIME Magazine, CBC, Los Angeles Review of Books, and The Financial Times. Before working in digital media, Mark was a teacher, social worker, comedian, part-time mascot, and bboy. He currently lives in NYC with his wife and an emo pit bull named Soca. Christopher Rivas is quickly becoming one of the most sought after multi-hyphenates as an actor, author, podcaster, and storyteller. His book Brown Enough, explores what it means to be Brown in a Black/white world. The book is part memoir and part social commentary. He also hosts two podcast series with SiriusXM's Stitcher: Brown Enough, which explores the parallel themes of this book through interview-style episodes; and Rubirosa, a 10-episode documentary-style investigation of Porfirio Rubirosa, a Dominican diplomat, race car driver, soldier and polo player who is believed to be the inspiration for the famous character ‘James Bond'. On screen, Rivas is known for his work on the Fox series, Call Me Kat, opposite Mayim Bialik, Leslie Jordan, Kyla Pratt and Cheyenne Jackson. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
Today we have a guest episode from 99 Percent Invisible.It is about White Castle, the burger chain. Even if you haven't visited, you have tasted its influence because, as we will learn in this episode, White Castle is really the proto-burger chain.Our friends at the excellent podcast 99 Percent Invisible bring us the origin story of White Castle and trace its influence on the business of fast food, and on American eating habits. The story is about one man who had an idea for a world where you could get a slider anywhere in the country and get the same tasty, onion-y quality each time. Think of this as a forebear of the modern global economy of sameness.This episode is hosted by Roman Mars and reported by Mackenzie Martin. It was produced by Jeyca Maldonado-Medina, and edited by Joe Rosenberg. Mix and sound design by Martín Gonzalez. Music by Swan Real with additional music by Jenny Conlee, Nate Query, and John Neufeld. Fact-checking by Graham Hacia. Kathy Tu is 99 Percent Invisible's executive producer. Kurt Kohlstedt is their digital director, and Delaney Hall is their senior editor.Learn more about sponsor message choices: podcastchoices.com/adchoicesNPR Privacy Policy
Transcript: bit.ly/AIAe059Andrew Leland is the author of The Country of the Blind: A Memoir at the End of Sight, named a best book of the year by The New Yorker, The Washington Post, The Atlantic, and others. His writing has appeared in The New York Times Magazine, The New Yorker, McSweeney's Quarterly, and The San Francisco Chronicle, among other outlets. From 2013 to 2019, he hosted and produced The Organist, an arts and culture podcast, for KCRW; he has also produced pieces for Radiolab and 99 Percent Invisible. Leland has been an editor at The Believer since 2003.Connect with Andrew:Andrew LelandThe Country of the Blind by Andrew Leland: 9781984881427 | PenguinRandomHouse.com: BooksThe Optacon Story - Part 1 of 2 (circa 1972) (youtube.com)Connect with the Rocky Mountain ADA Center at RockyMountainADA.org or find us on social media. Don't forget to subscribe, rate and review us on Apple Podcasts, Stitcher, Spotify, or anywhere else you get your podcasts!
In the twentieth century, the jetpack became synonymous with the idea of a ‘futuristic society.' Appearing in cartoons and magazines, it felt like a matter of time before people could ride a jetpack to work. But jetpacks never became a mainstream technology, leaving many to wonder…why? In this episode of 99 Percent Invisible, producer Chris Berube travels to the Udvar-Hazy Center of the Smithsonian's National Air and Space Museum to find out for himself.This episode was produced by Chris Berube. He spoke with Bill Suitor, Don Erwin, and the Smithsonian's Colleen Anderson. David Taylor reported on the rocket belt for The Washington Post in 2022, and Steve Lehto wrote about the belt, and other jetpack technology, in his book The Great American Jetpack.Transcript available here: https://99percentinvisible.org/episode/rocket-man/transcript/
In the second episode in a mini-series on international order, Darren is joined by Dr. Jenny Gordon to discuss the international economic order. Over the past 40 years Australia has arguably been the single greatest beneficiary of the post-war economic order, at least among the group of industrialised countries. But from the GFC to Brexit to paralysis in the WTO to the rise of weaponised interdependence, geoeconomics and industrial policy, the rules and institutions of that old economic order – and the international trade and investment that flourished within it – are all under threat. Dr Jenny Gordon is an Honorary Professor at POLIS: The Centre for Social Policy Research at the Australian National University and a non-resident fellow at the Lowy Institute. Jenny had a long career in government, most recently as Chief Economist at DFAT from 2019 to 2021. Prior to that she spent 10 years at the Productivity Commission as the Principal Advisor Research, worked in the private sector, and began her professional career at the Reserve Bank of Australia. She holds a PhD in economics from Harvard University. The conversation begins with the question: what was the old economic order, when did it begin and what did it do? As an economist, Jenny says the end of the Cold War is not a key turning point for the post-war economic order, one must go back to the 1970s and forward to 2000s find these turning points. She describes why the order worked well and how Australia did so well within it. The discussion moves to the problems and tensions that emerged that have led us to the current moment, and the two debate – and disagree slightly – on the actual state of the current economic order. Finally, they look to the future, and discuss industrial policy, climate change, alternative models of economic growth and, of course, geopolitics, as well as what the rules and institutions of the future might need to do to protect the benefits of economic openness while managing contemporary policy challenges like climate change. Australia in the World is written, hosted, and produced by Darren Lim, with research and editing this episode by Walter Colnaghi and theme music composed by Rory Stenning. Relevant links Jenny Gordon (bio): https://www.lowyinstitute.org/jenny-gordon The Seven Moons of Maali Almeida: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Seven_Moons_of_Maali_Almeida Peter Bellwood, The Five-Million-Year Odyssey: The Human Journey from Ape to Agriculture: https://press.princeton.edu/books/hardcover/9780691197579/the-five-million-year-odyssey 99 Percent Invisible (podcast): https://99percentinvisible.org/ Lupin (Netflix): https://www.netflix.com/au/title/80994082 Huberman Lab Podcast, “Dr. Becky Kennedy: Protocols for Excellent Parenting & Improving Relationships of All Kinds”, 26 February 2024: https://www.hubermanlab.com/episode/dr-becky-kennedy-protocols-for-excellent-parenting-improving-relationships-of-all-kinds
Joeita speaks to Andrew Leland about his book "The Country of the Blind: A Memoir at the End of Sight"Highlights:“What is Blindness?” - Opening Remarks (00:00)Introducing Andrew Leland, Author of “The Country of the Blind: A Memoir at the End of Sight” (01:14)About H.G. Wells' “The Country of the Blind” Short Story (01:57)Memoir Writing Process (04:12)Curiosity in Exploring Vision Loss (06:30)Balancing Intellectualizing Blindness & the Emotional Reality of Blind People (09:30)Deciding Where to Draw the Line (12:16)Blindness & the Male Gaze (15:05)Culture of Blindness (17:38)Surprises, Revelations & Conclusions (20:57)Lingering Questions & Tensions (23:31)Show Close (26:02)Guest Bio: Andrew Leland's writing has appeared in The New York Times Magazine, The New Yorker, McSweeney's Quarterly, and The San Francisco Chronicle, among other outlets. From 2013-2019, he hosted and produced The Organist, an arts and culture podcast, for KCRW; he has also produced pieces for Radiolab and 99 Percent Invisible. He has been an editor at The Believer since 2003. He lives in western Massachusetts with his wife and son.About The Country of the BlindNamed one of the best books of the year by: THE NEW YORKER • THE WASHINGTON POST • THE ATLANTIC • NPR • PUBLISHERS WEEKLY • LITHUBA witty, winning, and revelatory personal narrative of the author's transition from sightedness to blindness and his quest to learn about blindness as a rich culture all its own“After reading Andrew Leland's memoir, The Country of the Blind, you will look at the English language differently . . . Leland rigorously explores the disability's most troubling corners . . . A wonderful cross-disciplinary wander.” —The New York Times Book ReviewWe meet Andrew Leland as he's suspended in the liminal state of the soon-to-be blind: he's midway through his life with retinitis pigmentosa, a condition that ushers those who live with it from sightedness to blindness over years, even decades. He grew up with full vision, but starting in his teenage years, his sight began to degrade from the outside in, such that he now sees the world as if through a narrow tube. Soon—but without knowing exactly when—he will likely have no vision left.Full of apprehension but also dogged curiosity, Leland embarks on a sweeping exploration of the state of being that awaits him: not only the physical experience of blindness but also its language, politics, and customs. He negotiates his changing relationships with his wife and son, and with his own sense of self, as he moves from his mainstream, “typical” life to one with a disability. Part memoir, part historical and cultural investigation, The Country of the Blind represents Leland's determination not to merely survive this transition but to grow from it—to seek out and revel in that which makes blindness enlightening.Thought-provoking and brimming with warmth and humor, The Country of the Blind is a deeply personal and intellectually exhilarating tour of a way of being that most of us have never paused to consider—and from which we have much to learn.Related Links:NPR Article - As a writer slowly loses his sight, he embraces other kinds of perceptionBlindness isn't a tragic binary — it's a rich spectrum (Ted Talk, July 2023)Andrew Leland Website: https://www.andrewleland.org/The Country of the Blind: A Memoir at the End of Sight (Wikipedia) About The PulseOn The Pulse, host Joeita Gupta brings us closer to issues impacting the disability community across Canada.Joeita Gupta has nurtured a life-long dream to work in radio! She's blind, moved to Toronto in 2004 and got her start in radio at CKLN, 88.1 FM in Toronto. A former co-host of AMI-audio's Live from Studio 5, Joeita also works full-time at a nonprofit in Toronto, specializing in housing/tenant rights.Find Joeita on X / Twitter: @JoeitaGupta The Pulse airs weekly on AMI-audio. For more information, visit https://www.ami.ca/ThePulse/ About AMIAMI is a not-for-profit media company that entertains, informs and empowers Canadians who are blind or partially sighted. Operating three broadcast services, AMI-tv and AMI-audio in English and AMI-télé in French, AMI's vision is to establish and support a voice for Canadians with disabilities, representing their interests, concerns and values through inclusion, representation, accessible media, reflection, representation and portrayal. Learn more at AMI.caConnect on Twitter @AccessibleMediaOn Instagram @accessiblemediaincOn Facebook at @AccessibleMediaIncOn TikTok @accessiblemediaincEmail feedback@ami.ca
San Francisco resident Kristin Urquiza has spent the past two years advocating for a national Covid memorial for the million-plus people who died from the disease, including her father. She co-founded Marked By Covid to push for a memorial that will not only speak to our grief, but also encapsulate the conditions and decisions that led to so many deaths. Urquiza shared her journey with the podcast 99 Percent Invisible for a recent episode called, “Don't Forget to Remember.” We'll talk about what it means to memorialize our collective traumas and what a Covid memorial should say. Guests: Chris Colin, Bay Area-based journalist - his recent story, "Don't Forget to Remember," appeared on the podcast, 99 Percent Invisible Kristin Urquiza, co-founder, Marked by Covid - daughter of Mark Urquiza, who died from Covid June 30, 2020
Notes and Links to Andrew Leland's Work For Episode 222, Pete welcomes Andrew Leland, and the two discuss, among other topics, his early balance of technology and art and creativity that continues to govern his writing and careers, early formative reading, the philosophy of “going blind” versus “becoming blind,” the spectrum of blindness, and salient themes in his book like intersectionality, ableism, and differing ideas of how society sees the blind and disabled, and how this affects Andrew and others in similar situations. Andrew Leland is a writer, audio producer, editor, and teacher living in Western Massachusetts. His first book, The Country of the Blind: A Memoir at the End of Sight, about the world of blindness (and figuring out his place in it), was published in July 2023 by Penguin Press. He has produced audio for a range of entities, including an interview with the DeafBlind poet John Lee Clark for the New Yorker Radio Hour; a story about disabled astronauts for Radiolab; and a story about reading technologies for the blind for 99 Percent Invisible. From 2013–2019, he hosted and produced the Organist, an arts-and-culture podcast, for KCRW. He has taught nonfiction writing, radio, and “digital storytelling” (?) at Smith College, UMass-Amherst, and the University of Missouri, he's been an editor at the Believer since 2003, and he's edited books for McSweeney's and Chronicle Books. Buy The Country of the Blind Andrew's Website New York Times Review of The Country of the Blind NPR Article on The Country of the Blind At about 3:15, Andrew details his background with reading and writing, including how he was influenced by his parents in different ways, as well as how he was indirectly influenced by his uncle, the playwright Neil Simon At about 6:25, Andrew talks about a towering gift from his aunt that really energized his reading and writing journeys At about 9:30, Pete and Andrew discuss David Foster Wallace, his lasting literary legacy, and his marred legacy outside of writing At about 11:15, Andrew responds to Pete's questions about how his background in audio engineering, and how it has affected his writing At about 15:15, Pete reflects on the reading experience and Andrew reflects on how the book moved along due to his audio background, and Andrew shouts out Rachel Cunningham at Penguin Random House as being extremely helpful with structuring his book At about 17:10, Andrew discusses seeds for his book At about 21:00, The two lay out some exposition of the book and discuss the book's opening lines and contradictions; Andrew expands upon Will Butler's ideas of “going blind” vs. “becoming blind” At about 25:20, Andrew gives background on the book's title, and how it's based on a HG Wells' book At about 27:30, Andrew talks about long-held ideas or stereotypes of blind people and the consequences of same At about 30:05, Andrew discusses the myriad ways in which blindness has been used as metaphor, and shouts out a book that explores these tropes, There Plant Eyes, by M. Leona Godin At about 32:45, Andrew explains the difficulties he had with a meetup in Missouri that is featured in the book, as well as some immediate and later revelations that came from this At about 37:30, Andrew delves into his travels and conventions attended that adjusted his mindset and provided many beautiful moments and learning moments At about 41:55, Andrew discusses genetic testing for his medical condition, and how he and his wife decided whether or not to have their son tested At about 44:00, The two discuss ideas of intersectionality and in Andrew's research and reporting and what he found regarding racism and the strong work put forth by queer women of color in disabled communities At about 48:10, Andrew and Pete reflect on the history of the Bay Area in the fight for disability justice At about 51:00, The two discuss the medical advancements and artificial sight that are coming to the forefront and the ways in which Andrew writes and thinks about them At about 54:20, Andrew details the importance of Ben McFall, the legendary bookseller, and how his obituary connects to how Andrew feels as he started to use a screen reader At about 58:25, Andrew juxtaposes the Carroll Center for the Blind's philosophy versus that of other organizations that work for and with the blind At about 1:01:10, Pete and Andrew analyze an important set of encounters with a fellow guest at The Colorado Center for the Blind and the implications of their attitudes and philosophies and experiences At about 1:05:30, Andrew talks about exciting new projects You can now subscribe to the podcast on Apple Podcasts, and leave me a five-star review. You can also ask for the podcast by name using Alexa, and find the pod on Stitcher, Spotify, and on Amazon Music. Follow me on IG, where I'm @chillsatwillpodcast, or on Twitter, where I'm @chillsatwillpo1. You can watch this and other episodes on YouTube-watch and subscribe to The Chills at Will Podcast Channel. Please subscribe to both my YouTube Channel and my podcast while you're checking out this episode. I am very excited that starting in February with Episode 220 with Neef Ekpoudom and this episode, I will have one or two podcast episodes per month featured on the website of Chicago Review of Books. The audio will be posted, along with a written interview culled from the audio. A big thanks to Rachel León and Michael Welch at Chicago Review-I'm looking forward to the partnership! Sign up now for The Chills at Will Podcast Patreon: it can be found at patreon.com/chillsatwillpodcastpeterriehl Check out the page that describes the benefits of a Patreon membership, including cool swag and bonus episodes. Thanks in advance for supporting my one-man show, my DIY podcast and my extensive reading, research, editing, and promoting to keep this independent podcast pumping out high-quality content! NEW MERCH! You can browse and buy here: https://www.etsy.com/shop/ChillsatWillPodcast This is a passion project of mine, a DIY operation, and I'd love for your help in promoting what I'm convinced is a unique and spirited look at an often-ignored art form. The intro song for The Chills at Will Podcast is “Wind Down” (Instrumental Version), and the other song played on this episode was “Hoops” (Instrumental)” by Matt Weidauer, and both songs are used through ArchesAudio.com. Please tune in for Episode 224 with Sarah Rose Etter, the author of 2023's Ripe, and The Book of X, which was the winner of the 2019 Shirley Jackson Award. Her short fiction collection, Tongue Party, was selected by Deb Olin Unferth to be published as the winner of the 2011 Caketrain Award. The episode will air on February 13.
On this episode of When Science Speaks, host by Mark Bayer dives into the world of storytelling with guest Chris Hare, exploring the impact and importance of a high-impact storytelling approach Chris has developed and used with his clients called "Atomic Storytelling." Episode Highlights: The Quest for Effective Storytelling: Mark and Chris kick off the episode discussing the widespread discussion on storytelling and the lack of informed advice. Chris introduces the concept of Atomic Storytelling and its transformative power. Chris's Journey with Microsoft: Chris shares a pivotal moment in his career, working on a project for Microsoft and discovering the effectiveness of content derived from successful developers. The Pitfalls of Manufacturing Stories: The duo explores the common challenge of manufacturing stories and emphasizes the need for genuine, impactful narratives in business contexts. Atomic Storytelling in Action: Chris provides a practical example involving a defibrillator company, illustrating how Atomic Storytelling can create a powerful emotional connection. Balancing Emotion and Rationality: Mark and Chris discuss the importance of blending emotional and rational elements in storytelling, especially in B2B contexts. Overcoming Storytelling Challenges: Chris addresses the common belief that not everyone is a natural storyteller, emphasizing the learnable nature of storytelling skills. The Scientist's Strength in Vision: Chris highlights the strength scientists possess in envisioning the future and emphasizes the importance of sequencing and storytelling to bring others along on the journey. Brian Janous's Journey at Microsoft: An intriguing anecdote about Brian Janous's mission to make then-Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer understand and appreciate the energy vision at Microsoft, showcasing the persistence required in long-term storytelling. Unveiling the Narrative at Amazon: Chris discusses Amazon's narrative of being data-driven and its potential limitations. The story unfolds as he reveals a crucial insight about the third-party seller side and the initial focus on resellers. The pivotal shift occurs when a VP starts meeting with sellers, leading to the discovery that brand owners drive a significant portion of Amazon's business. The Human Connection in Storytelling: Emphasizing the importance of understanding data while maintaining a broader perspective. Chris highlights the role of continuous human connection and the value of not relying solely on data-driven insights. Embracing Imperfections in Stories: Acknowledging the messiness of stories and the common misconception that a story must be perfect. Sharing a personal coaching session experience that emphasized the power of authenticity and imperfection in storytelling. Co-Creation and Feedback: Advocating for involving stakeholders in the storytelling process. Encouraging feedback and collaboration to enhance the narrative and ensure internal alignment within organizations. Exploring whether a good story can overcome poor delivery and vice versa. Chris shares a personal experience of overcoming a challenging delivery by grounding the presentation in powerful storytelling. The Moth Experience: Recommending listening to storytelling platforms like The Moth and 99 Percent Invisible to understand diverse storytelling styles. Resources mentioned in the episode: Guest Chris Hare's LinkedIn profile Chris's podcast, The Storied Future
For this episode we listened to the 99 Percent Invisible podcast episode 412, Where Do We Go From Here? To listen to the episode, and for a lot more background information visit here: https://99percentinvisible.org/episode/where-do-we-go-from-here/In the podcast, host Roman Mars and reporter Sandy Allen explore transgender and non-binary experiences of public toilets, as well as looking at the history of public toilets and more modern approaches to inclusive, universal design. These are edited highlights of our reflections inspired by their report
As I have always told our guests, our time together is a conversation, not an interview. This was never truer than with our guest this time, Andrew Leland. Andrew grew up with what most people would call a pretty normal childhood. However, as he discovered he was encountering night blindness that gradually grew worse. Back in the 1980s and early 90s, he was not getting much support for determining what was happening with his eyes. He did his own research and decided that he was experiencing retinitis pigmentosa, a degenerative eye disease that first affects peripheral vision and eventually leads to total blindness. I won't spend time discussing Andrew's journey toward how finally doctors verified his personal diagnosis. Andrew was and is an incredible researcher and thinker. He comes by it naturally. In addition, he is quite a writer and has had material published by The New York Times Magazine, The New Yorker, McSweeney's Quarterly, and The San Francisco Chronicle, among other outlets. He comes by his talents honestly through family members who have been screenwriters and playwrights. Example? His grandfather was Marvin Neal Simon, better known to all of us as Neal Simon. This year Andrew's first book was published. It is entitled, The Country of the Blind: A Memoir at the End of Sight. I urge you to get and read it. Our conversation goes into detail about blindness in so many different ways. I am sure you will find that your own views of blindness will probably change as you hear our discussion. Andrew has already agreed to come on again so we can continue our discussions. I hope you enjoy our time together. About the Guest: Andrew Leland's first book is The Country of the Blind: A Memoir at the End of Sight. His_ writing has appeared in _The New York Times Magazine, The New Yorker, McSweeney's Quarterly, and The San Francisco Chronicle, among other outlets. From 2013-2019, he hosted and produced The Organist, an arts and culture podcast, for KCRW; he has also produced pieces for Radiolab and 99 Percent Invisible. He has been an editor at The Believer since 2003. He lives in western Massachusetts with his wife and son. Ways to connect with Andrew: Website: https://www.andrewleland.org/ About the Host: Michael Hingson is a New York Times best-selling author, international lecturer, and Chief Vision Officer for accessiBe. Michael, blind since birth, survived the 9/11 attacks with the help of his guide dog Roselle. This story is the subject of his best-selling book, Thunder Dog. Michael gives over 100 presentations around the world each year speaking to influential groups such as Exxon Mobile, AT&T, Federal Express, Scripps College, Rutgers University, Children's Hospital, and the American Red Cross just to name a few. He is Ambassador for the National Braille Literacy Campaign for the National Federation of the Blind and also serves as Ambassador for the American Humane Association's 2012 Hero Dog Awards. https://michaelhingson.com https://www.facebook.com/michael.hingson.author.speaker/ https://twitter.com/mhingson https://www.youtube.com/user/mhingson https://www.linkedin.com/in/michaelhingson/ accessiBe Links https://accessibe.com/ https://www.youtube.com/c/accessiBe https://www.linkedin.com/company/accessibe/mycompany/ https://www.facebook.com/accessibe/ Thanks for listening! Thanks so much for listening to our podcast! If you enjoyed this episode and think that others could benefit from listening, please share it using the social media buttons on this page. Do you have some feedback or questions about this episode? Leave a comment in the section below! Subscribe to the podcast If you would like to get automatic updates of new podcast episodes, you can subscribe to the podcast on Apple Podcasts or Stitcher. You can also subscribe in your favorite podcast app. Leave us an Apple Podcasts review Ratings and reviews from our listeners are extremely valuable to us and greatly appreciated. They help our podcast rank higher on Apple Podcasts, which exposes our show to more awesome listeners like you. If you have a minute, please leave an honest review on Apple Podcasts. Transcription Notes Michael Hingson ** 00:00 Access Cast and accessiBe Initiative presents Unstoppable Mindset. The podcast where inclusion, diversity and the unexpected meet. Hi, I'm Michael Hingson, Chief Vision Officer for accessiBe and the author of the number one New York Times bestselling book, Thunder dog, the story of a blind man, his guide dog and the triumph of trust. Thanks for joining me on my podcast as we explore our own blinding fears of inclusion unacceptance and our resistance to change. We will discover the idea that no matter the situation, or the people we encounter, our own fears, and prejudices often are our strongest barriers to moving forward. The unstoppable mindset podcast is sponsored by accessiBe, that's a c c e s s i capital B e. Visit www.accessibe.com to learn how you can make your website accessible for persons with disabilities. And to help make the internet fully inclusive by the year 2025. Glad you dropped by we're happy to meet you and to have you here with us. Michael Hingson ** 01:21 Welcome to another episode of unstoppable mindset where inclusion diversity in the unexpected meet. And we're gonna get to have a little bit of all of that today. I get to interview someone who I've talked to a couple of times and met a couple of months ago for the first time, I think the first time at a meeting, Andrew Leland is the author of the country of the blind. And he will tell us about that. And we will have lots of fun things to talk about. I am sure he's been a podcaster. He's an author. Needless to say, he's written things. And I don't know what else we'll see what other kinds of secrets we can uncover. Fair warning, right. So Andrew, welcome to unstoppable mindset. Andrew Leland ** 02:01 Thank you. Thank you so much for having me. I'm happy to be here. Michael Hingson ** 02:04 Well, I really appreciate you coming. Why don't you start by telling us a little about kind of the early Andrew growing up in some of that kind of stuff? Oh, sure. A lot of times go in a galaxy far, far away. Yeah. Right. Andrew Leland ** 02:18 planet called the Los Angeles. I was born in LA. Yeah. And my parents moved to New York pretty quickly. And they split when I was two. So for most of my childhood, I was kind of bouncing in between, I live with my mom. But then I would go visit my dad on holidays. And my mom moved around a lot. So we were in New York, just outside the city. And then we moved to Toronto for two years, and then back to New York, and then to Santa Fe, New Mexico, and then to California, Southern California. So I lived a lot of places. And that was all before college. And yeah, what can I tell you about young Andrew, I, you know, I always was interested in writing and reading. And I come from a family of writers. My mom is a screenwriter, my grandfather was a playwright. My aunt is a novelist. And so and my dad, you know, remember when I was a kid, he had a column for videography magazine, and has always been super interested in digital technology, you know, from the earliest days of desktop publishing. And he worked for, like early days of USA Network, you know, so like this kind of shared interest that I inherited from my parents of, you know, creativity and media, I guess was one way you could put it, you know, storytelling and sort of like playing around with electronic media. And, you know, I grew up I was born in 1980. So by the time I was an adolescent, the internet was just starting to reach its tendrils into our lives. And I remember my dad bought me a modem. And when I was like, I don't know 14 or something. And I was definitely one of the first kids in my class to have a modem and you know, messing around on message boards and stuff. So that was very influential for me. You know, when it was around that time that I started to notice that I had night blindness, and I kind of diagnosed myself with retinitis pigmentosa on that early web, you know, before the days of WebMD or anything like that, but it just there didn't seem to be a lot of causes for adolescent night blindness. And so I kind of figured it out and then sort of just compartmentalized it like kick that information to the side somewhere dusty corner of my brain and just went about my life and then it wasn't until later my teenage years I'd already done a year in college I think in Ohio where I said you know what, this is getting a little more intrusive and then I've that my mom finally booked me an appointment at a at a real deal, you know, medical retinal Research Center and at UCLA. And then, you know, an actual retinal specialist said, Yep, you've got retina is pigmentosa. You'll you Will, you know, maintain decent vision into middle age and then it'll fall off a cliff. Once again, I just carried that information around for, you know, the next 20 years or so. And I'm 4040 How old am I? Mike? 22 years old? Right? Well, I actually I'm a December baby. So we gotta go, Okay, you got a couple of months to go a 42 year old medicine me. You know, and at this point in my life, you know, I had the, you know, I read about all this in the book, but I have a feeling that, like that part of his diagnosis way back when is coming true, you know, and I feel like, okay, it's all finally happening, and like, it's happening more quickly, but then my current doctor is kind of careful to reassure me that that's not actually happening. And that RP, you know, their understanding of it has evolved since then. And there's like, you know, different genetic profiles, and that, in fact, maybe I might have some residual useful vision for many years to come. But one of the things that I really wrestled with, both in the book and just in my life is the question of, you know, how much to claim to that site and how useful that site really is. And, and, and trying to figure out what, what it means to be blind, if I'm blind, you know, certainly legally blind, you know, I've half got about five or six degrees of, of central vision. You know, and so, so, so my so So, I've left your question behind at this point. But I wrote, I wrote this book, in some ways to answer that question of, like, where I, where I fit into this world of blindness? And am I an outsider, or am I an insider? like at what point do I get to be part of the club and all those really tricky questions that were really bothering me as a person, I got to kind of explore in the form of a book. Michael Hingson ** 06:52 The interesting thing about what you said in the book, however, concerning Are you an outsider or an insider, Am I blind? Or am I not? is, of course a question that everyone wrestles with. And I personally like the Jernigan definition, have you ever read his article, a definition of blindness? Andrew Leland ** 07:11 Oh, maybe tell me what he says. So what he says Michael Hingson ** 07:15 is that you should consider yourself blind from a functional standpoint, when your eyesight decreases to the point where you have to use alternatives to vision to be able to perform tasks. Now, having said that, that doesn't mean that you shouldn't use the residual vision that you have. But what you should do is learn blindness techniques, and learn to psychologically accept that from a blindness standpoint, or from a from a functional standpoint, you are blind, but you do also have eyesight, then there's no reason not to use that. But you still can consider yourself a blind person, because you are using alternatives to eyesight in order to function and do things. Andrew Leland ** 08:00 Yeah, no, I have heard that from the NFB I didn't realize its source was Jernigan. But I really aspire to live my life that way. You know, I think it's, there are some days when it's easier than others. But, you know, I'm here, learning, you know, practicing Braille, using my white cane every day, you know, like learning jaws and trying to try to keep my screen reader on my phone as much as possible. And it's funny how it becomes almost like a moral mind game that I play with myself where I'm like, okay, like, Wow, it's so much easier to use my phone with a screen reader. Like, why don't I just leave it on all the time, but then inevitably, I get to like a inaccessible website, or like, I'm trying to write and write a text message. And I'm like, Oh, am I really going to like use the rotor to like, go back up, you know, to these words, and so then I turn it back off, and then I leave it off. And I'm just like, constantly messing with my own head and this way, and I've heard from, from folks with ARPI, who are more blind than I am, who have less vision. And there is the sense that like, one relief of even though it's, you know, incontrovertibly, incontrovertibly inconvenient to have less vision, right? Like there's there's certain affordances that vision gives you that shouldn't make life easier. But But one thing that I've heard from these folks is that, you know, that kind of constant obsessing and agonizing over like, how much vision do I have? How much vision am I going to have tomorrow? How am I going to do this, with this much vision versus that much vision? Like when that goes away? It is a bit of a relief I've heard. Michael Hingson ** 09:28 Yeah, I mean, if it ultimately comes down to you can obsess over it, you can stress about it. What can I do if I lose this extra vision or not? Is is a question but the other side of it is why assume that just because you lose vision, you can't do X or Y. And that's the thing that I think so many people tend to not really deal with. I believe that we have totally an inconsistent and wrong definition of disability. Anyway, I believe that everyone on the planet has a disability. And for most people, the disability is like dependents. And my case from then my way from making that is look at what Thomas Edison did in 1878. He invented the electric light bulb, which allowed people to have light on demand. So they could function in the dark, because they couldn't really function in the dark until they had light on demand, or unless they had a burning stick or something that gave us light. But the reality is, they still had a disability. And no matter how much today we offer light on demand, and light on demand is a fine thing. No, no problem with it. But recognize that still, without that light on demand, if a if a power failure happens or something and the lights go out, sighted people are at least in a world of hurt until they get another source for light on demand. Mm hmm. I was I was invited to actually Kelly and Ryan's Oscar after party to be in the audience this year. So we went to the Hollywood Roosevelt Hotel, which is fun. I used to go there for NFB of California conventions, a great hotel, man. So we got there about three o'clock on Thursday, on Saturday afternoon, and it was my niece and nephew and I and we were all there. And we just dropped our luggage off. And we're going downstairs when suddenly I heard screaming, and I asked my niece, what's going on. And she said, there's been a power failure in and around the hotel. And I'd love to try to spread the rumor that it was all Jimmy Kimmel trying to get attention. But no one's bought that. But but the but the point is that suddenly people didn't know what to do. And I said, doesn't seem like a problem to me. And you know, it's all a matter of perspective. But we really have to get to this idea that it doesn't matter whether you can see or not. And you pointed out very well, in your book that blindness is not nearly so much the issue psychologically, as is our attitude about blindness? Absolutely. Andrew Leland ** 11:58 Yeah, I remember I interviewed Mark Riccobono, the current president of the National Federation of the Blind, and he made a very similar point, when we were talking about the nature of accommodations, which is something that I still I'm thinking a lot about is I think it's a very tricky idea. And a very important idea, which I think your your your idea of light dependency gets at, you know, in America, Bono's point was, you know, look, we have the the BR headquarters here in Baltimore, and we pay a pretty hefty electricity bill, to keep the lights on every month, and that, you know, the blind folks who work there, it's not for them, right? It's for all the sighted people who come and visit or work at the at the center. And in some ways, that's a reasonable accommodation, that the NFB is making for the sighted people that they want to be inclusive of right. And so that just even that idea of like, what is a reasonable accommodation? I think you're right, that we think of it as like the poor, unfortunate disabled people who need to be brought back to some kind of norm that's at the center. And there's the kind of reframing that you're doing when you talk about light dependency or that Riccobono is doing when he talks about, you know, his electricity bill, you know, it kind of gives the lie to puts the lie to that, that idea that, that the norm takes precedence. And the reality is that, you know, that we all need accommodations, like you say, and so what's reasonable, is really based on what, what humans deserve, which is which is to be included, and to be, you know, to have access equal access, that Michael Hingson ** 13:38 ought to be the norm. Jacobus timbre wrote a speech called the pros and cons of preferential treatment that was then paired down to a shorter article called a preference for equality. And I haven't, I've been trying to find it, it's at the NFB center, but it isn't as readily available as I would like to see it. And he talks about what equality is, and he said, equality isn't that you do things exactly the same way it is that you have access and with whatever way you need to the same information. So you can't just say, Okay, well, here's a printed textbook, blind persons that's equal under the law, it's not. And he talks about the fact that we all really should be seeking equality and looking for what will give people an equal opportunity in the world. And that's really the issue that we so often just don't face, like we should. The fact of the matter is, it's a part of the cost of business, in general to provide electricity and lights. It's a part of the cost of business to provide for companies a coffee machine, although it's usually a touchscreen machine, but it's there. It's a cost of doing business to provide desks and computers with monitors and so on. But no one views provide Seeing a screen reader as part of the cost of business and nobody views providing a refreshable Braille display or other tools that might give me an equal opportunity to be a part of society, we don't view those as part of the cost of doing business, which we should, because that's what inclusion is really all about. You know, we don't, we don't deal with the fact or sometimes we do that some people are a whole lot shorter than others. And so we provide ladders or step stools, or whatever. But we don't provide cost of doing business concepts to a lot of the tools that say, I might need or you might need. Yeah, Andrew Leland ** 15:37 yeah, it's one thing that I've been thinking about lately is, is really even just the challenge of understanding what those accommodations are. Because, you know, I think I think, practically speaking in the world, you know, you'll, you'll call up a blind person and say, What do you need, you know, like, we're trying to make this art exhibit or this, you know, business or this, you know, HR software accessible, what do you need, you know, and that one blind person might be like, well, I use NVDA, you know, or that one blind person might be low vision, right. And they might be like, I use a screen magnifier. And it's so difficult to understand, like, what the accommodations are, that would be, that would be adequate to cover, like a reasonable sample. And so just like, it's just so much more complicated than it originally seems, you know, when you have a really well meaning person saying, like, we really value diversity, equity and inclusion and accessibility. And but then like, the distance between that well meeting gesture, and then actually pulling off something that's fully accessible to a wide swath of the whatever the users are, is just, it's just unfair, quickly, huge. So that's something that I'm thinking about a lot lately is like how to how do you approach that problem? Michael Hingson ** 16:46 Well, and I think, though, the at least as far as I can tell, I think about it a lot, as well, as I think any of us should. The fact is that one solution doesn't fit everyone, I'm sure that there are people, although I'm sure it's a minority, but there are people who don't like fluorescent lights as well as incandescent lights, and neither of them like other kinds of lighting as compared to whatever. And then you have people epilepsy, epilepsy who can't deal as well, with blinking lights are blinking elements on a webpage, there's there isn't ever going to be least as near as I can tell, one size that truly fits all, until we all become perfect in our bodies. And that's got a ways to go. So the reality is, I don't think there is one solution that fits everyone. And I think that you, you pointed it out, the best thing to do is to keep an open mind and say, Yeah, I want to hire a person who's qualified. And if that person is blind, I'll do it. And I will ask them what they need. You know, an example I could give you is, was it three years ago, I guess, four years ago, now actually, I was called by someone up in Canada, who is a lawyer who went to work for a college. And we were talking about IRA, artificial intelligent, remote assistance, a IRA, you know about IRA, you wrote about it. And she said, you know, a lot of the discovery and a lot of the documentation that I need to use is not accessible through even OCR to be overly accurate, because there will be deep degradations and print and so and so I can't rely on that. And certainly, Adobe's OCR isn't necessarily going to deal with all the things that I need. So I'd like to use IRA is that a reasonable accommodation? And I said, sure it is, if that's what you need in order to be able to have access to the information, then it should be provided. Now the laws are a little different up there. But nevertheless, she went to the college and made the case and they gave her iris so she could read on demand all day, any document that she needed, and she was able to do her job. And not everyone necessarily needs to do that. And hear in probably some quarters, maybe there are other accommodations that people could use instead of using IRA. But still, Ira opened up a VISTA for her and gave her access to being able to do a job and I think that we really need to recognize that one solution doesn't fit everything. And the best way to address it is to ask somebody, what do you need in order to do your job, and we will provide it or work it out. And here in the US, of course, given although they try to renege on it so much, but given the definition of what rehabilitation is supposed to do, they're supposed to be able to and help make people employable. They should be providing a lot of these tools and sometimes getting counselors to do that. Just like pulling teeth, I'm sure you know about that. Yeah, Andrew Leland ** 20:02 I do. I do. I mean, it's interesting because I think in the face of that complexity of saying, like, Okay, we like interviewed a dozen blind people, and we like have this we know, our website is it's compatible with all the screen readers. And, you know, this event, like, you know, let's say you're doing an event, and the website is compatible with every screen reader, and it's got dynamic types. So the low vision users are happy, you know, and then the event starts and you're like, oh, wait, we forgot about the existence of deafblind people, and there's no cart, or captioners. Here. And, you know, and then the question for me another another thing I've been thinking about lately is like, how do you respond to that, you know, like, what is the? What is the response? And even just like on a kind of, like, a social level, like, is it scathing indictment, like you, you terrible people, you know, you have you have like, you don't care about deaf blind people. And so I hereby cancel you, and I'm going to, like, tweet about how terrible you are? Or is there like a more benign approach, but then you don't get what you need. And like, sort of, and I think, I think a lot of this is a function of my having grown up without a disability, really, you know, I mean, like, growing up, my I went through my, my full education, without ever having to ask for an accommodation, you know, maybe I had to sit a little closer to the board a little bit. But you know, nothing, nothing like what I'm dealing with now. And I think as a result, I am just now starting to wrap my head around, like, how when self advocates and what styles are most effective. And I think that's another really important piece of this conversation, because it's easy, I think, to walk into, you know, cafe x, or, you know, I just did it the other day, yesterday, last night, I saw this really cool looking new magazine about radio, which was an interest of mine, like great for radio producers. And it was print only, you know, and I wrote like, Hey, how can I get an accessible copy of this cool look in new magazine? And they're like, Oh, actually, we're, we're putting our resources all it were kind of a shoestring operation, all our resources are going into the print edition right now. You know, and then, so then I had a question before me, right? Like, do I say, like, Hey, everybody, like, we must not rest until you agitate for these people to make their accessible thing, or I just sort of wrote a friendly note. And I was like, there's a lot of like, blind radio makers out there who might find your stuff interesting. And I like, affectionately urge you to make this accessible. And then, you know, their hearts seems to be in the right place. And they seem to be working on making it happen. So I don't know what's your what's your thinking about that? Like how to respond to those situations. Michael Hingson ** 22:34 So my belief is whether we like it or not, every one of us needs to be a teacher. And the fact is to deal with with what you just said, let's take the radio magazine, which magazine is it by the way? Oh, I Andrew Leland ** 22:51 didn't want to call them out by name. Oh, I'm Michael Hingson ** 22:52 sorry. I was asking for my own curiosity, being very interested in radio myself. So we Andrew Leland ** 22:57 give them some good and bad press simultaneously. It's called good tape. Okay, it's brand new. And at the moment, it's as of this recording, it's print only. And, Michael Hingson ** 23:06 and tape is on the way up a good tape. No, that's okay. Anyway, but no, the reason I asked it was mainly out of curiosity. But look, you you kind of answered the question, their heart is in the right place. And it is probably true that they never thought of it. I don't know. But probably, yeah, they didn't think of it. I've seen other magazines like diversity magazine several years ago, I talked with them about the fact that their online version is totally inaccessible. And they have a print version. But none of its accessible. And I haven't seen it change yet, even though we've talked about it. And so they can talk about diversity all they want, and they talk a lot about disabilities, but they don't deal with it. I think that it comes down to what's the organization willing to do I've, I've dealt with a number of organizations that never thought about making a digital presence, accessible or having some sort of alternative way of people getting to the magazine, and I don't expect everybody to produce the magazine and Braille. And nowadays, you don't need to produce a braille version, but you need to produce an accessible version. And if people are willing to work toward that, I don't think that we should grind them into the ground at all if their hearts in the right place. And I can appreciate how this magazine started with print, which is natural. Yeah, but one of the things that you can do when others can do is to help them see maybe how easy it is to create a version that other people can can use for example, I don't know how they produce their magazine, but I will bet you virtual Anything that it starts with some sort of an electronic copy. If it does that, then they could certainly make that electronic copy a version that would be usable and accessible to the end. And then they could still provide it through a subscription process, there's no reason to give it away if they're not giving it away to other people, but they could still make it available. And I also think something else, which is, as you point out in the book, and the country of the blind, so often, things that are done for us, will help other people as well. So great tape is wonderful. But how is a person with dyslexia going to be able to read it? Yeah, so it isn't just blind people who could benefit from having a more accessible version of it. And probably, it would be worth exploring, even discussing with him about finding places to get funding to help make that happen. But if somebody's got their heart in the right place, then I think by all means, we shouldn't bless them. We should be teachers, and we should help them because they won't know how to do that stuff. Andrew Leland ** 26:10 Ya know, I love that answer to be a teacher. And I think there was I think there was a teacher Lee vibe in my, in my response to them, you know, like, this is a thing that is actually important and useful. And you ought to really seriously consider doing it. You know, I mean, I think if you think about the how people act in the classroom, you know, it's those kinds of teachers who, you know, who, who correct you, but they correct you in a way that makes you want to follow their correction, instead of just ruining your day and making you feel like you're a terrible person. But it's interesting, because if you, you know, I mean, part of a lot of this is the function of the internet. You know, I see a lot of disabled people out there calling out people for doing things and accessibly. And, you know, I feel I'm really split about this, because I really empathize with the frustration that that one feels like, there's an amazing film called, I didn't see you there by a filmmaker named Reed Davenport, who's a wheelchair user. And the film is really just, like, he kind of he mounts a camera to his wheelchair, and a lot of it is like, he almost like turns his wheelchair into a dolly. And there's these these, like, wonderful, like tracking shots of Oakland, where he lived at the time. And there's this there's this incredible scene where it's really just his daily life, like, you know, and it's very similar to the experience of a blind person, like, he'll just be on a street corner hanging out, you know, in somebody's, like, the light screen, you know, like, what do you what are you trying to do, man, and he's like, I'm just here waiting for my car, my ride, you know, like, leave me alone. You don't need to intervene. But there's this incredible scene where there are some workers in his building are like, in the sort of just sort of unclear like they're working. And there's an extension cord, completely blocking the path, the visible entrance to his apartment, and he can't get into his house. And he's just this, like, the, the depth of his anger is so visceral in that moment. You know, and he yells at them, and they're like, oh, sorry, you know, they kind of don't care, you know, but they like, they're like, just give us a second. And he's like, I don't have a second, like, I need to get into my house. Now. You know, he just has no patience for them. And it's understandable, right? Like, imagine you're trying to get home. And as a matter of course, regularly every week, there's something that's preventing you. And then and then and then you see him when he finally gets back into his apartment. He's just like, screaming and rage. And it's, you know, so that rage I think, is entirely earned. You know, like, I don't I don't think that one one should have to mute one's rage and how and be a kindly teacher in that moment. Right. But, so So yeah, so So I kind of see it both ways. Like, there are moments for the rage. And then I guess there are moments for the mortar teacher like because obviously, like the stakes of me, getting access to good tape magazine are very different than the stakes for read like getting into his apartment. Right? Michael Hingson ** 28:53 Well, yes and no, it's still access. But the other part about it is the next time, that group of people in whatever they're doing to repair or whatever, if they do the same thing, then they clearly haven't learned. Whereas if they go, Oh, we got to make sure we don't block an entrance. Yeah, then they've learned a lesson and so I can understand the rage. I felt it many times myself, and we all have and, and it's understandable. But ultimately, hopefully, we can come down. And depending on how much time there is to do it, go pick out and say, Look, do you see what the problem is here? Yeah. And please, anytime don't block an entrance or raise it way up or do something because a person in a wheelchair can't get in. And that's a problem. I so my wife always was in a wheelchair, and we were married for two years she passed last November. Just the bye He didn't keep up with the spirit is what I tell people is really true. But I remember we were places like Disneyland. And people would just jump over her foot rests, how rude, you know, and other things like that. But we, we faced a lot of it. And we faced it from the double whammy of one person being in a wheelchair and one person being blind. One day, we went to a restaurant. And we walked in, and we were standing at the counter and the hostess behind the counter was just staring at us. And finally, Karen said to me, well, the hostess is here, I don't think she knows who to talk to, you know, because I'm not making necessarily eye contact, and Karen is down below, in in a wheelchair. And so fine. I said, maybe if she would just ask us if we would like to sit down, it would be okay. And you know, it was friendly, and it broke the ice and then it went, went from there. But unfortunately, we, we, we bring up children and we bring up people not recognizing the whole concept of inclusion. And we we really don't teach people how to have the conversation. And I think that that's the real big issue. We don't get drawn into the conversation, which is why diversity is a problem because it doesn't include disabilities. Andrew Leland ** 31:16 Mm hmm. Yeah. I mean, that seems to be changing. You know, I mean, you have you know, you have a lot more experience in this realm than I do. But But But haven't you felt like a real cultural shift over the last, you know, 2030 years about disability being more front of mind in that conversation? Michael Hingson ** 31:36 I think it's, it's shifted some. The unemployment rate among employable blind people, though, for example, hasn't changed a lot. A lot of things regarding blindness hasn't really, or haven't really changed a lot. And we still have to fight for things like the National Federation of the Blind finally took the American Bar Association, all the way to the Supreme Court, because they wouldn't allow people to use their technology to take the LSAT. Yeah, lawyers of all people and you know, so things like that. There's, there's so many ways that it continues to happen. And I realized we're a low incidence disability. But still, I think, I think the best way to really equate it. You mentioned in Goldstein in the book, Dan, who I saw, I think, is a great lawyer spoke to the NFB in 2008. And one of the things he talked about was Henry, mayor's book all on fire. And it's about William Lloyd Garrison, the abolitionist and he was looking for allies. And he heard about these, these two, I think, two ladies, the Grimm case, sisters who were women's suffragettes, and they and he said, Look, we should get them involved. And people said, no, they're dealing with women's things. We're dealing with abolition, it's two different things. And Garrison said, No, it's all the same thing. And we've got to get people to recognize that it really is all the same thing. The you mentioned, well, you mentioned Fred Schroeder and the American Association of Persons with Disabilities at various points in the book. And in 1997. Fred, when he was RSA Commissioner, went to speak to the AAPD talking about the fact that we should be mandating Braille be taught in schools to all blind and low vision kids. And the way he tells me the story, they said, Well, that's a blindness issue. That's not our issue, because most of those people weren't blind. And that's unfortunate, because the reality is, it's all the same thing. Andrew Leland ** 33:41 Yeah, no, that's something, uh, Dan Goldstein was a really important person for me to meet very early on in the process of writing the book, because I mean, just because he's, he's brilliant. And yeah, such a long history of, of arguing in a very, you know, legalistic, which is to say, very precise, and, you know, method, methodical way. A lot of these questions about what constitutes a reasonable accommodation, you know, as in like, his, his, the lawsuits that he's brought on behalf of the NFB have really broken ground have been incredibly important. So he's, he was a wonderful resource for me. You know, one of the things that he and I talked about, I remember at the beginning, and then, you know, I had lunch with him earlier this week, you know, we still are talking about it. And it's exactly that that question of, you know, the thing that the thing that really dogged me as I pursued, writing this book, and one of the kinds of questions that hung over it was this question of identity. And, you know, like, the sense that like the NFB argues that blindness is not what defines you. And yet, there it is, in their name, the National Federation of the Blind by and like, Where does where does this identity fit? And, you know, and I think that when you talk about other identities like Like the African American civil rights movement, or, you know, you mentioned the suffragette movement, you know, the feminist movement. You know, and it's interesting to compare these other identity based civil rights movements, and the organized by movement and the disability rights movement. And think about the parallels, but then there's also I think, disconnects as well. And so that was one of the things that I was it was really, really challenging for me to, to write about, but I think it's a really important question. And one that's, that's really evolving right now. You know, one of the things that I discovered was that, you know, in addition to the sort of blind or disability rights movement, that's very much modeled on the civil rights model of like, you know, my the first time I went to the NFB convention in 2018, you know, the banquet speech that Mark Riccobono gave was all about the speech of women and the women in the Federation, you know, which, which someone told me afterwards like, this is all new territory for the NFB, like, you know, they don't, there, there hasn't traditionally been this sort of emphasis on, including other identities, you know, and I found that was, I found that interesting, but then also, I was so struck by a line in that speech, where Riccobono said, you know, the fact that they were women is not as important as the fact that they were blind people fighting for, you know, whatever was like the liberation of blindness. And, you know, so it's, there's still always this emphasis on blindness as, like, the most important organizing characteristic of somebody is a part of that movement. And it makes total sense, right, it's the National Federation of the Blind, and they're fighting that 70% unemployment rate. And, you know, I think by their lights, you don't get there by you know, taking your eyes off the prize in some ways. And, and so I was really struck by some of these other groups that I encountered, particularly in 2020, when a lot of the sort of identity right questions came to the fore with the murder of George Floyd, right. You know, and then I was attending, you know, because it was 2020 it was that the convention was online, and I you know, I read it, this is all in the book, I, I went to the LGBT queue meet up, and which, which is also like a shockingly recent development at the NFB, you know, there's this notorious story where President Maher, you know, ostentatiously tears up a card, at a at an NFB convention where there are LGBT. NFB is trying to organize and have an LGBTQ meet up and he sort of ostentatiously tears it up as soon as he reads what's on the card. You know, a lot of still raw pain among NF beers who I talked to about that incident, anyway, like that this this LGBTQ meetup, you know, there's, there's a speaker who's not part of the NFB named justice, shorter, who works in DC, she's, she's blind, you know, and she's part of what is called the, you know, the Disability Justice Movement, which is very much about decentering whiteness, from the disability rights struggle and centering, black, queer, you know, people of color, who are also disabled, and and in some ways, I've found the NFB struggling to, to connect with with that model. You know, I talked to a Neil Lewis, who's the highest ranking black member of the NFV, you know, and he wrote this really fascinating Braille monitor article in the wake of, of George Floyd's death, where he's sort of really explicitly trying to reconcile, like Black Lives Matter movement with live the life you want, you know, with with NFB slogans, and it's, it's a tough thing to do, he has a tough job and trying to do that, because because of the thing, you know, that that I'm saying about Riccobono, right, it's like he is blind is the most important characteristic, or where do these other qualities fit? So it's a very contemporary argument. And it's one that I think the the organized blind movement is still very actively wrestling with. Michael Hingson ** 39:02 I think it's a real tough thing. I think that blindness shouldn't be what defines me, but it's part of what defines me, and it shouldn't be that way. It is one of the characteristics that I happen to have, which is why I prefer that we start recognizing that disability doesn't mean lack of ability. Disability is a characteristic that manifests itself in different ways to people and in our case, blindness as part of that. For Women. Women is being a woman as part of it for men being a man as part of it for being short or tall, or black or whatever. Those are all part of what defines us. I do think that the National Federation of the Blind was an organization that evolved because, as I said earlier, we're not being included in the conversation and I think that for the Federation and blindness is the most important thing and ought to be the most important thing. And I think that we need to be very careful as an organization about that. Because if we get too bogged down in every other kind of characteristic that defines people, and move away too much from dealing with blindness, we will weaken what the message and the goals of the National Federation of the Blind are. But we do need to recognize that blindness isn't the only game in town, like eyesight isn't the only game in town. But for us, blindness is the main game in town, because it's what we deal with as an organization. Well, Andrew Leland ** 40:40 how do you reconcile that with the idea that you were talking about before with with, you know, with the argument that like, you know, with the historical example of, you know, it's the same fight the suffragettes and like it because it doesn't that kind of, isn't that kind of contradicting that idea that like, having the intersection of identities, you know, and these movements all being linked by some kind of grand or systemic oppression, you know, so it is it is relevant? Well, Michael Hingson ** 41:06 it is, yeah, and I'm not saying it any way that it's not relevant. What I am saying, though, is the case of the Grimm case, sisters, he wanted their support and support of other supportive other people, Garrison did in terms of dealing with abolition, which was appropriate, their main focus was women's suffrage, but it doesn't mean that they can't be involved in and recognize that we all are facing discrimination, and that we can start shaping more of our messages to be more inclusive. And that's the thing that that I don't think is happening nearly as much as it ought to. The fact is that, it doesn't mean that blind people shouldn't be concerned about or dealing with LGBTQ or color, or gender or whatever. Yeah. But our main common binding characteristic is that we're all blind men. So for us, as an organization, that should be what we mostly focus on. It also doesn't mean that we shouldn't be aware of and advocate for and fight for other things as well. But as an organization, collectively, the goal really needs to be dealing with blindness, because if you dilute it too much, then you're not dealing with blindness. And the problem with blindness as being a low incidence disability, that's all too easy to make happen. Right? Andrew Leland ** 42:35 Yeah. Yeah, it's interesting. Yeah, it's interesting, just thinking about that question of dilution versus strengthening, you know, because I think I think if you ask somebody in the Disability Justice Movement, the dilution happens precisely, with an overemphasis on a single disability, right, and then you lose these like broader coalition's that you can build to, you know, I think I think it comes down to maybe like the way that you are our analysts analyzing the structures of oppression, right, like, right, what is it that's creating that 70% unemployment? Is it something specifically about blindness? Or is it like a broader ableist structure that is connected to a broader racist structure? You know, that's connected to a broader misogynist structure? You know, and I think if you start thinking in those structural terms, then like, coalition building makes a lot more sense, because it's like, I mean, you know, I don't know what kind of political affiliation or what but political orientation to take with us, you know, but certainly the Disability Justice Movement is pretty radically to the left, right. And I think traditionally, the NFB, for instance, has had a lot more socially conservative members and leaders. And so it's, you know, that reconciliation feels almost impossibly vast to to think of like an organization like the NFB taking the kind of like, abolitionist stance that a lot of these disability justice groups take to say, like, actually, capitalism is the problem, right. So yeah, so I mean, the thought experiment only goes so far, like, what like a Disability Justice oriented NFP would look like. But you know, that I think there are young members, you know, and I do think it's a generational thing too. Like, I think there are NF beers in their 20s and 30s, who are really wrestling with those questions right now. And I'm really interested to see what they come up with. Michael Hingson ** 44:29 I think that the biggest value that the NFB brings overall, and I've actually heard this from some ACB people as well, is that the ENFP has a consistent philosophy about what blindness is and what blindness is. And and that is probably the most important thing that the NFP needs to ensure that it that it doesn't lose. But I think that the whole and the NFP used to be totally As coalition building that goes back to Jernigan and Mauer, although Mauer started to change some of that, and I think it will evolve. But you know, the NFB. And blind people in general have another issue that you sort of brought up in the book, you talk about people who are deaf and hard of hearing, that they form into communities and that they, they have a culture. And we don't see nearly as much of that in the blindness world. And so as a result, we still have blind people or sighted people referring to us and and not ever being called out as blind or visually impaired. But you don't find in the deaf community that people are talking about deaf or hearing impaired, you're liable to be shot. It's deaf or hard of hearing. And yeah, the reality is, it ought to be blind or low vision, because visually impaired is ridiculous on several levels visually, we're not different and impaired. What that's that's a horrible thing to say. But as a as an as a group. I was going to use community, but I but I guess the community isn't, as well formed to deal with it yet. We're not there. And so all too often, we talk about or hear about visually impaired or visual impairment. And that continues to promote the problem that we're trying to eliminate. Mm Andrew Leland ** 46:22 hmm. Yeah. Yeah, that question of blank community is fascinating. And yeah. And I do think that I mean, you know, from my reading the book, I certainly have found blank community. But, you know, if I really think about it, if I'm really being honest, I think it's more that I've met, it's, you know, my work on the book has given me access to really cool blind people that I have gotten to become friends with, you know, that feels different than, like, welcome to this club, where we meet, you know, on Tuesdays and have our cool like, blind, you know, paragliding meetups, you know, not that not that people aren't doing that, like, then they're a really, you know, I would like to get more if I lived in a more urban center, I'm sure it would be involved in like, you know, the blind running club or whatever, willing to hang out with blind people more regularly, but it doesn't feel like a big community in that way. And it's interesting to think about why. You know, I think one big reason is that it's not, it's not familial, in the same way, you know, Andrew Solomon wrote a really interesting book called far from the tree that gets at this where, you know, like, the when, when, when a child has a different identity than a parent, like, you know, deaf children of hearing adults, you know, there doesn't, there isn't a culture that builds up around that, you know, and it's really like these big deaf families that you have with inherited forms of deafness, or, you know, and then schools for the deaf, that, you know, and with deaf culture in particular, you know, really what we're talking about is language, you know, in sign language, right, creates a whole rich culture around it. Whereas, with hearing blind people, you know, they're more isolated, they're not necessarily automatically you have to, you have to really work to find the other blind people, you know, with, with travel being difficult, it's a lot easier to just like, Get get to the public library to meet up in the first place, and so on. So, yeah, it feels a lot more fractured. And so I think you do see groups more like the NFB or the ACB, who are organizing around political action, rather than, you know, like a culture of folks hanging out going to a movie with open audio description, although, I will say that the weeks that I spent at the Colorado Center for the Blind, you know, which is, you know, you can think of it as like a, you know, it's a training center, but in some ways, it's like an intentional blind community do right where you're like, that's like a blind commune or something. I mean, that is just a beautiful experience, that it's not for everyone in terms of their their training method. But if it is for you, like, wow, like for just such a powerful experience to be in a community, because that is a real community. And it nothing will radically change your sense of what it means to be blind and what it means to be in a black community than then living for a while at a place like that. It was a really transformative experience for me. Michael Hingson ** 49:11 Do you think that especially as the younger generations are evolving and coming up, that we may see more of a development of a community in the blindness in the blindness world? Or do you think that the other forces are just going to keep that from happening? Well, Andrew Leland ** 49:30 you know, one of the things that I discovered in writing the book was that, you know, and this is sort of contradicting what I just said, because there there is a blind community. And, you know, I read in the book like, at first I thought that blind techies were another subculture of blindness, like blind birders are blind skateboarders, right. But then the more I looked into it, the more I realized that like being a techie is actually like a kind of a basic feature of being a blind person in the world. You know, and I don't hear if it's 2023 or 1823, you know, because if you think about the problem of blindness, which is access to information, by and large, you know, you basically have to become a self styled information technologist, right? To, to get what you need, whether it's the newspaper, or textbooks or signs, road signs, or whatever else. So. So I do and I do think that like, you know, when my dad was living in the Bay Area in the 90s, you know, when I would go visit him, you know, he was a techie, a sighted techie. And, you know, he would always be part of like, the Berkeley Macintosh user group, just be like, these nerds emailing each other, or, you know, I don't even know if email was around, it was like, late 80s. You know, but people who have like the Mac 512, KS, and they would, they would connect with each other about like, Well, how did you deal with this problem? And like, what kind of serial port blah, blah, blah? And that's a community, right? I mean, those people hang out, they get rise together. And if there's anything like a blind community, it's the blind techie community, you know, and I like to tell the story about Jonathan mosun. I'm sure you've encountered him in your trailer. I know Jonathan. Yeah. You know, so I, when I discovered his podcast, which is now called Living blind, fully blind, fully, yeah. Yeah. I, I was like, oh, okay, here are the conversations I've been looking for, because he will very regularly cover the kind of like social identity questions that I'm interested in, like, you know, is Braille like, is the only way for a blind person to have true literacy through Braille? Or is using a screen reader literacy, you know? Or like, is there such a thing as blind pride? And if so, what is it? I was like? These are the kinds of questions I was asking. And so I was so delighted to find it. But then in order to, in order to get to those conversations, you have to sit through like 20 minutes of like, one password on Windows 11 stopped working when I upgraded from Windows 10 to Windows 11. And so like, what, you know, if you what Jaws command, can I use in and I was like, why is this? Why is there like 20 minutes of Jaws chat in between these, like, really interesting philosophical conversations. And eventually, I realized, like, oh, because that's like, what this community needs and what it's interested in. And so in some ways, like the real blind community is like the user group, which I think is actually a beautiful thing. Yeah. Michael Hingson ** 52:14 Well, it is definitely a part of it. And we do have to be information technologists, in a lot of ways. Have you met? And do you know, Curtis Chang, Andrew Leland ** 52:23 I've met him very briefly at an NFB convention. So Curtis, Michael Hingson ** 52:28 and I have known each other Gosh, since the 1970s. And we both are very deeply involved in a lot of things with technology. He worked in various aspects of assistive technology worked at the NFB center for a while and things like that, but he always talks about how blind people and and I've heard this and other presentations around the NFB, where blind people as Curtis would put it, have to muddle through and figure out websites. And, and the fact is, we do it, because there are so many that are inaccessible. I joined accessibe two years ago, two and a half years ago. And there are a lot of people that don't like the artificial, intelligent process that accessibe uses. It works however, and people don't really look far enough that we're not, I think, being as visionary as we ought to be. We're not doing what we did with Ray Kurzweil. And look, when the Kurzweil project started with the NFB Jernigan had to be dragged kicking and screaming into it, but Ray was so emphatic. And Jim Gasol at the Washington office, finally convinced kindred again to let him go see, raised machine, but the rules were that it didn't matter what Ray would put on the machine to read it and had to read what Gasol brought up. Well, he brought it did and the relationship began, and it's been going ever since and, and I worked, running the project and the sense on a day to day basis, I traveled I lived out of hotels and suitcases for 18 months as we put machines all over and then I went to work for Ray. And then I ended up having to go into sales selling not the reading machine, but the data entry machine, but I guess I kept to consistently see the vision that Ray was bringing, and I think he helped drag, in some ways the NFB as an organization, more into technology than it was willing to do before. Interesting. Andrew Leland ** 54:27 Yeah, I heard a similar comment. The one thing I got wrong in the first edition of the book that I'm correcting for subsequent reprints, but I really bungled the description of the Opticon. And my friend, Robert Engel Britton, who's a linguist at Rice University, who collects opera cones. I think he has got probably like a dozen of them in his house. You know, he helped me you know, because I didn't have a chance to use one. Right he helped me get a better version of it. But he also sent me a quote, I think it was from Jernigan was similar thing where like, I think they were trying to get the public I'm included with, you know, voc rehab, so that that students could not voc rehab or whatever like so that students could get blind students could use them. And it was the same thing of like, you know, this newfangled gizmo is not going to help, you know, Braille is what kids need. So I do that, that's all to say that that makes sense to me that resistance to technology, you know, and it's like, it's a, it's a, it's a sort of conservative stance of like, we understand that what blind people need are is Braille and access to, you know, equal access. And don't don't try to give us any anything else. And you know, and I think, to be fair, like, even though the Opticon sounded like an incredibly useful tool, as is, of course, the Kurzweil Reading Machine and everything that followed from it. There. There is, you know, talking, I talked to Josh Meili, for the book, who's who now works at Amazon, you know, he had this great story about his mentor, Bill, Gary, who, who would, who would basically get a phone call, like once a week from a well, very well meaning like retired sighted engineer, who would say like, oh, you know, what the blind need? It's like the laser cane, right? Or the Yeah, it's like, basically like a sippy cup for blind people like so that they don't spill juice all over themselves. And, you know, and Gary would very patiently be like, Oh, actually, they don't think that that would be helpful to do probably, yeah. Talk to a blind person first, maybe before you spend any more time trying to invent something that blind people don't need. So I think that resistance to like newfangled technology, there's a good reason for it. Well, Michael Hingson ** 56:26 there is but the willingness to take the Opticon. Look, I think the fastest I ever heard of anybody reading with an optical was like 70 or 80 words a minute, and there are only a few people who did that. Yeah. You know, Candy Lynnville, the daughter of the engineer who invented it, could and Sue Mel Rose, who was someone I knew, was able to and a few people were but what the Opticon did do even if it was slow, yeah, it was it still gave you access to information that you otherwise didn't get access to. And, and I had an optic on for a while. And the point was, you could learn to read and learn printed letters and learn to read them. It wasn't fast. But you could still do it. Yeah. And so it, it did help. But it wasn't going to be the panacea. I think that tele sensory systems wanted it to be you know, and then you talked about Harvey Lauer who also develop and was involved in developing the stereo toner, which was the audience since the audio version of the optic comm where everything was represented audio wise, and, and I spent a lot of time with Harvey Harvey at Heinz a long time ago. But the the fact is, I think the question is valid is listening, and so on literacy is literacy, like Braille. And I think there is a difference there is, are you illiterate, if you can't read Braille, you point out the issues about grammar, the issues about spelling and so on. And I think that there is a valid reason for people learning Braille at the Colorado Center, they would tell you, for senior blind people, you may not learn much Braille, but you can learn enough to be able to take notes and things like that, or, or put labels on your, your soup cans, and so on. So it's again, going to be different for different people. But we are in a society where Braille has been so de emphasized. And that's the fault of the educational system for not urging and insisting that more people be able to use Braille. And that's something that we do have to deal with. So I think there is a literacy problem when people don't learn braille. But I also think that, again, there are a lot of things that Braille would be good for, but using audio makes it go faster. It doesn't mean you shouldn't learn braille, though, right? Yeah, Andrew Leland ** 58:51 no, it's another I think it's interesting. And it's a related idea, this, this sense that technology, you know, this like, just sort of wave your hands and say the word technology as a sort of panacea, where I think, you know, it's, it's a tragic story where, where people will say, Oh, well, you know, little Johnny has, you know, some vision. So like, he could just use technology, like he doesn't need Braille. And it's fascinating to me, because I never really felt it. And maybe it's because I encountered Braille at a point in my development as a blind person that I really was hungry for it. But, you know, people talk about Braille the way they talked about the white cane, like the white cane, I felt so much shame about using in public, and it's such, it's just so stigmatized, whereas Braille, I just always thought it was kind of cool. But you know, you hear it so much from parents where they it's just like their heartbreak seeing their child reading with their fingers, which is, you know, and so as a result, they're like, why don't I just buy like a gigantic magnifier, that maybe in five years, you're not gonna be able to use anyway, but like, at least you're reading the same type of book that Michael Hingson ** 59:56 half hour or 45 minutes until you start getting headaches. Exactly. And that, you know, I worked on a proposal once. I was an evaluator for it. We were in a school in Chicago, and one of the teachers talked about Sally who could see and Johnny, who was totally blind, literally, it was Sally and Johnny. And she said, Sally gets to read print, Johnny has to read Braille. Sally couldn't read print very fast. her eyesight wasn't good. Yeah, she got to read print. And Johnny had to read Braille. Yeah, it's the kind of thing that we we see all the time. And it's so unfortunate. So yeah, I, I do understand a lot of the technology resistance. But again, people like Ray helped us vision a little differently. But unfortunately, getting that conversation to other people, outside of the NFB community, like teachers and so on, is so hard because so many people are looking at it from a science point of view and not recognizing it as it should be. The the NFB did a video that did it. Several, they have had a whole series of things regarding Braille. But they interviewed a number of people who had some residual vision, who were never allowed to learn to read Braille. And invariably, these people say how horrible it was that they didn't get to learn to read Braille, they learned it later. And they're, they're reading slower than they really should. But they see the value of it. And it's important that we hopefully work to change some of those conversations. Yeah, Andrew Leland ** 1:01:33 I mean, it gets back to our earlier in our conversation a
The Valley Line Southeast LRT will begin passenger service on Nov. 4, and there's going to be a party. Plus, we discuss the more than two dozen subsequent motions made following approval of the new zoning bylaw.Here are the relevant links for this episode:Valley Line Southeast LRT News Release: Valley Line Southeast LRT opening November 4 Edmonton's Valley Line Southeast LRT set to open Nov. 4 Zoning Bylaw Renewal News Release: Edmonton has a new rulebook for development for the first time in 60 years Edmonton's proposed zoning bylaw passes at city council 27 subsequent motions (PDF) Climate concernNews Release: Climate change top-of-mind for Edmontonians Office conversions Urban planning committee for Oct. 31 Downtown Calgary Development Incentive Program pausing application intake Office Space — 99 Percent Invisible, Episode 551 Hydrogen busesNews Release: The Edmonton Metropolitan Region drives forward on hydrogen innovation Edmonton effect1st snowfall of season means delays, collisions on Edmonton-area roadsPride tapeNHL backtracks on Pride Tape ban, will allow players to represent social causesSpeaking Municipally is produced by Taproot Edmonton, a source of curiosity-driven original stories, curated newsletters on various topics, and locally focused podcasts, all in the service of informing Edmontonians about what is going on in their community. Sign up to get The Pulse, our weekday news briefing. It's free! ★ Support this podcast ★
I interview the directors behind the new documentary, Satan Wants You - which tells the story how the Satanic Panic of the 1980s was ignited by the book, Michelle Remembers. Find out how the book was used by law enforcement to convict innocent people - and was later determined to be a complete hoax. The episode I produced for 99 Percent Invisible, mentioned in our show, can be found at: 99percentinvisible.org/episode/devil-in-the-details Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices
Andrew Leland is author of the new memoir, The Country of the Blind: a Memoir at the End of Sight and he is an editor at The Believer. His work has appeared in The New Yorker, The New York Times Magazine, and 99 Percent Invisible, and he was host and producer of the podcast, The Organist. Gabe and Andrew have a fun and open-hearted conversation about Andrew's experiences in blind communities across America, his recent Radiolab piece where he joined a crew of disabled people in a training program for astronauts, the meaning of the word “disability,” how to be an ally to blind people, writing journalism for The New Yorker, and what it's like to be the grandson of the playwright Neil Simon. Follow Andrew Leland on Twitter and Instagram and visit his website Buy Andrew's new memoir The Country of the Blind: A Memoir at the End of Sight Find Gabe on Twitter and Instagram Rate/Review Kurt Vonnegut Radio Subscribe to Kurt Vonnegut Radio's Substack Jude Brewer was Executive Producer and Editor for this episode Other episodes for you to enjoy: Kurt Vonnegut George Saunders Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
Was talking with our little team on Slack the other day and realized that there have been thousands of people who started listening to this show after October of 2020, so they might not know about one of our favorite conversations. Since I'm moderating a conference today, I'll share with you Roman Mars. In the podcast world he needs no introduction, but if you don't know Rroman is the creative force behind one of the most popular podcasts in the world - 99 Percent Invisible and many other projects. He co-wrote a book, the 99 Percent Invisible City - A field guide to the hidden world of everyday design. Of course, there are contributions from Detroit and Michigan to that hidden world. We get into that and more. If you're interested in the book - I need to get a new copy, I lost it in the studio fire: https://99percentinvisible.org/book/ Buy us a coffee: https://www.buymeacoffee.com/dailydetroit Support us as a Patreon member: https://www.patreon.com/DailyDetroit Feedback: https://forms.gle/MnwUf8uJEtpyG9m2A or dailydetroit -at- gmail -dot- com
Our guest this week is Alexandra Lange, famed architecture and design critic, and author of the brand new best-seller Meet Me by the Fountain: An Inside History of the Mall. In a wide-ranging interview we get Alexandra's perspectives on the history and cultural significant of shopping malls. We dig into the fascinating story of Victor Gruen and how his design ideas shaped the evolution of regional malls for decades. Then we explore how malls began to lose their relevance, particularly as department stores increasingly found themselves stuck in the boring middle. Lastly wonder what's next for malls and what it might take for them to have a remarkable future.But first we give our hot-takes on the latest retail news, including shaky earnings reports from several wobbly unicorns: Warby Parker, Allbirds and The Real Real, contrasting their performance with Yeti's wholesale first growth strategy. We also discuss Signet's fire sale priced acquisition of one of the OG's of DTC, Blue Nile, before wrapping up with Bed, Bath & Beyond's decision to bail on one of its new private brands ("Wild Sage") after its rookie season.GroceryShop discount offer:Valid for Retailers and Brands only, use code RBR1950 to access our special rate / ticket price is $US1950. Offer code expires 9/22/22.Past podcast episodes of note:Understanding Warby Parker and Customer-Based Valuation with Dan McCarthyThe Great Wholesale v. DTC Debate with Simeon Siegel About AlexandraAlexandra Lange is a design critic. Her essays, reviews and profiles have appeared in numerous design publications including Architect, Harvard Design Magazine, and Metropolis, as well as in The Atlantic, New York Magazine, The New Yorker, and the New York Times. She is a columnist for Bloomberg CityLab, and has been a featured writer at Design Observer, an opinion columnist at Dezeen, and the architecture critic for Curbed.Her latest book, Meet Me by the Fountain: An Inside History of the Mall, was published by Bloomsbury USA in June 2022.Her previous book, The Design of Childhood: How the Material World Shapes Independent Kids was published by Bloomsbury USA in 2018. Research for the book was supported by a grant from the Graham Foundation for Advanced Studies in the Fine Arts. Design of Childhood was named one of Planetizen's Top 10 Urban Planning Books of 2018 and has been an assigned text in art and architecture studios at ASU, Columbia, Harvard, MIT, UPenn, VCU and Yale.Alexandra is also the author of Writing About Architecture: Mastering the Language of Buildings and Cities (Princeton Architectural Press, 2012), a primer on how to read and write architecture criticism, as well as the e-book The Dot-Com City: Silicon Valley Urbanism (Strelka, 2012), which considers the message of the physical spaces of Facebook, Google, and Apple.In 2021, Alexandra became editorial advisor to the podcast New Angle: Voice, produced by the Beverly Willis Architecture Foundation. The podcast showcases the work of pioneering women of American architecture, and the first five-episode season featured Julia Morgan, Natalie de Blois, Helen Fong, Norma Sklarek and Florence Knoll. Several episodes were broadcast on 99 Percent Invisible.Alexandra co-wrote and co-produced “Masters of Modern Design: The Art of the Japanese American Experience,” a 2019 KCET Artbound documentary on Japanese American designers in the postwar era, which was based on one of her Curbed columns. “Masters of Modern Design” won a 2020 LA Area Emmy Award.Radio and podcast appearances include NPR Weekend Edition and Marketplace, as well as Studio 360, 99 Percent Invisible, Decoder Ring, The Brian Lehrer Show on WNYC and Think on KERA. Alexandra has lectured widely at universities, museums and design conferences on topics ranging from the history of women architecture critics to the opulent modernism of Alexander Girard to the best use of social media by architects. She has also taught design criticism at New York University and the School of Visual Arts.Alexandra was a 2014 Loeb Fellow at the Harvard Graduate School of Design. She won a 2018 New York Press Club Award for Feature Reporting – Internet for her Curbed story, “No Loitering, No Skateboarding, No Baggy Pants,” on teens and public space. In 2019, she was awarded a Steven Heller Prize for Cultural Commentary by AIGA. In 2020, Alexandra was the recipient of the Stephen A. Kliment Oculus Award from AIA New York, given to architectural journalists. She was also awarded the 2020 BRIO Prize by the eponymous Swedish toy company, which honors researchers and non-profits focused on creating a better world through play.Alexandra has long been interested in the creation of modern domestic life, a theme running through Design Research: The Store that Brought Modern Living to American Homes (Chronicle, 2010), which she co-authored with Jane Thompson, as well as her contributions to Serious Play: Design in Midcentury America (Yale, 2018), Alexander Girard: A Designer's Universe (Vitra, 2016), Formica Forever (Metropolis, 2013), and Eero Saarinen: Shaping the Future (Yale, 2006). Her latest contributions on the topic include a chapter on design for children in Scandinavian Design and the United States, 1890 – 1980 (Prestel, 2020) and the foreword to Designing Motherhood (MIT Press, 2021). Her 2005 dissertation, “Tower Typewriter and Trademark: Architects, Designers and the Corporate Utopia, 1956-1964,” discussed the design programs and design networks at postwar American corporations. About UsSteve Dennis is an advisor, keynote speaker and author on strategic growth and business innovation. You can learn more about Steve on his website. The expanded and revised edition of his bestselling book Remarkable Retail: How To Win & Keep Customers in the Age of Disruption is now available at Amazon or just about anywhere else books are sold. Steve regularly shares his insights in his role as a Forbes senior contributor and on Twitter and LinkedIn. You can also check out his speaker "sizzle" reel here.Michael LeBlanc is the Founder & President of M.E. LeBlanc & Company Inc and a Senior Advisor to Retail Council of Canada as part of his advisory and consulting practice. He brings 25+ years of brand/retail/marketing & eCommerce leadership experience, and has been on the front lines of retail industry change for his entire career. Michael is the producer and host of a network of leading podcasts including Canada's top retail industry podcast, The Voice of Retail, plus Global E-Commerce Tech Talks , The Food Professor with Dr. Sylvain Charlebois and now in its second season, Conversations with CommerceNext! You can learn more about Michael here or on LinkedIn. Be sure and check out Michael's latest venture for fun and influencer riches - Last Request Barbecue, his YouTube BBQ cooking channel!
We're joined by pupeteer Terri Hardin, who helps us identify some new songs for Kermit to cover. This Week's Picks "My Beloved Monster" by Eels "Grace Kelly" by Mika "Hey Ya!" by OutKast "Who Let The Dogs Out?" by Baha Men Terri's Links Terri Hardin — Wikipedia Terri Hardin's Website Support Terri on Patreon Related Links 99 Percent Invisible #389: Whomst Among Us Let The Dogs Out? Unofficial Kermit Cover of "Needle in the Hay" by Elliot Smith The Playlist No Repeat Playlist on Spotify No Repeat Playlist on Apple Music B-Sides Unofficial B-Sides Playlist Support the Show Buy No Repeat Merch No Repeat on Patreon Submit a Challenge No Repeat on Twitter Email us: norepeatpod[at]gmail[dot]com Follow Us Follow Tyler on Twitter Follow Shaun on Instagram Follow Taylor on Twitter
"In Northern Ireland terms, denomination dictates identity." In this episode, Paul speaks with Paul McLaughlin, Director of Development at Northern Ireland Mixed Marriage Association, about the long history of mixed marriages in Northern Ireland. In Northern Ireland one in five marriages are mixed, but inter-church relationships are still regarded with suspicion and considered a betrayal against one's religious identity. In their chat, Paul and Paul reflect on the role that young people and education has in a country with deep religious divides and how the growing number of mixed marriages show hope for the future. Learn more about NIMMA: http://www.nimma.org.uk/ info@nimma.org.uk Paul McLaughlin's book, "Mixed Emotion: Real Stories of Mixed Marriage": https://sharedfuture.news/mixed-emotions-introduction/ Recommended Viewing and Listening: Derry Girls (Series on Netflix) Belfast (movie) 99 Percent Invisible, Peace Lines (podcast) https://99percentinvisible.org/episode/peace-lines/ full quote from above: Paul McLaughlin [On describing mixed marriages]: "It should really be described as an inter-church marriage. But sadly in Northern Ireland terms, denomination dictates identity, with most Protestants regarding themselves as British and most Roman Catholics regarding themselves as Irish." This episode was edited by Helen Packer.
All podcasts, regardless of their format, are a creative endeavor. But some podcasts are just more complex. Enter, Bellwether, the latest offering from award winning podcast and radio producer, Sam Greenspan. Sam is the founding producer of 99 Percent Invisible and has a number of impressive credits to their name. The City from USA Today, the TED Radio Hour at NPR and Radiotopia’s Spacebridge to name a few. They’ve also lectured and taught radio and podcasting around the world. In November of 2021, Sam was hired as a Senior Producer at Vice Audio. So when Bellwether was released, the podcasting world took notice. Bellwether was a five year effort from one of the most brilliant minds in podcasting. This five episode narrative weaves together both real world reporting (stories Sam personally covered) and a fictitious Sci-Fi story arc. Described by Sam as a “new podcast of speculative journalism” Bellwether examines what the world is through the lens of what it might become. LEARN MORE ABOUT CASTOS 3 Clips is a Castos Original Series. Castos provides tools for public and private podcasts and believes podcasters should own their turf to provide the best possible audience experience. Visit castos.com Inside the Episode All five episodes of Bellwether can be found online at bellwether.show Learn more about all the work Sam has done and continues to do at samgreenspan.org This episode was produced by Stuart Barefoot @smallleaguestu Music is by Tyler Litwin About the Host Evo Terra has the dubious honor of releasing the 40th podcast… ever. Other notable podcasting elements from his past include authoring Podcasting For Dummies and Expert Podcasting Practices for Dummies, launching and running one of the first large podcast networks, building a successful strategic podcast consultancy, and is a celebrated keynote speaker on stages around the world. He's also done a bunch of really, really weird stuff that Google still shows.
Roman Mars, host of the podcast "99 Percent Invisible," describes some of his favorite examples of clever design from his home turf in Oakland and Berkeley. Then two tour guides from London team up with Rick to recommend an ideal sightseeing week in the British capital. And poet and essayist Lisa Wells shares the insights — and optimism — she gained from interviewing a geographically and ideologically wide range of people battling climate change by improving their own communities. For more information on Travel with Rick Steves - including episode descriptions, program archives and related details - visit www.ricksteves.com.
Guest Dan Weissmann is the host of the podcast An Arm and a Leg, where he takes one of the most enraging, terrifying, depressing aspects of American life—the cost of health care— and produce a show that's entertaining, empowering and useful. Topics discussed on today's show: How to negotiate your medical costs, securing health care when you leave a job, and the importance of shopping around for health care. More about Dan: Before creating An Arm and a Leg in 2018, partly as a response to his own family's quest for affordable health care, Dan worked in public radio. He's been a staff reporter for Marketplace and Chicago's WBEZ, and has done stories for outlets like 99 Percent Invisible, Planet Money, Reveal, Code Switch, Morning Edition and All Things Considered. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices
Smart Sewers (Recorded on 3 June 2021) In a recent episode of 99 Percent Invisible, there was a discussion of Smart Sewers. (Taking our old, ancient, non-networked and non-electrical sewer systems, and adding modern upgrades to them, so we can use technology to diagnose and interact with sewers in ways that were never possible before.) Since … Continue reading Smart Sewers
In episode 31 we, which is Carsten and ode, talk to Uli Blennemann from Spielworxx and board game designer Matt Wolfe about their new game Squaring Circleville which will hit Kickstarter in May 2021. We also talk about game development and poop cubes.--- FOR i-tunes USERS: Please refer to this link to our website for the shownotes that contain the photos of the game that do not seem to be accepted by Apple https://meeplecast.de/episode-31-squaring-circleville-with-uli-blennemann-matt-wolfe ---To guide our listeners through what we are talking about in Squaring Circleville, we are gonna show you some photos of the prototype below. Please note that the artwork is nearly finalized, the wooden components are - surprise: not final and subject to change! Above you see the main area of Squaring Circleville with unfinished sectors and completed ones. Players, on their turn, can move their supervisor across Circleville and have two actions and, by executing them, place cubes of their colour in the main area. There are red or blue cube spots which represent deconstructing or constructing roads and buildings to be razed - which works by replacing them with a player cube. There are several alternative actions to choose from as well. As soon as a sector's last cube space is occupied by a player's cube, a majority scoring is done and the sector is complete. A sector tile is then put onto it representing the completed version of the sector. Now, buildings or beautifications can be built or done on this. By winning a sector majority scoring, erecting a building or beautifying a completed sector, players advance on one of the four quadrant tracks. The player who advanced the farthest on each track when Circleville is completely reshaped, will be awarded the maximum number of victory points for it. Above you see the player board showing five columns, the left being the one offering alternative actions while the four on coloured background represent the four main actions: deconstruct road, construct road, raze structure, build structure. At the end of their turns, players take a disc from the action selection rondel and place it on their player board - improving the action of the disc's colour! The right edge of the player board offers three slots for equipment tiles (permanent bonus effects) or achievement tiles. Above you see the action selection rondel. On your turn, you move your assistant 1-2 spaces in clockwise order. The colour of the spot it lands on and the colour of the tile next to it define the actions you will take. Yellow landed on blue with a green tile next to it. Blue is road construction and green is erecting a building on a free construction site on a completed section. Upon finishing your turn you take the green tile and place it in the green column on your player board - improving the building action. Everytime you complete a sector you will take the next year bonus tile (small ones) and the achievement tile next to it. While the year bonus tile is yours to use, the latter is placed on one of the long rectangular spaces in the left part of the photo. The alternative action "take achievement tile" allows you to choose from one of the tiles already placed there. Katherine is one of four solo bots Matt Wolfe designed. They all work differently and are easy to handle. You can even let them participate when playing with friends to make, say, a 3-pl-game with two human players.Links:Spielworxx Website: https://www.spielworxx.de/Squaring Circleville on BGG https://boardgamegeek.com/boardgame/292900/squaring-circleville99 Percent Invisible podcast https://99percentinvisible.org/Tharos on BGG https://boardgamegeek.com/boardgame/292901/tharos
Jess and Mikey discuss Season 3 Part 15 of Twin Peaks Cooper Dooper is on Twitter! Hosts: Jessica Bluemke Greiff Michael Greiff Notes: Mia Michaels' dance tribute to her father 99 Percent Invisible episode about Megaplexes
This episode is just a link to two other articles on other peoples' podcasts: Rain is sizzling bacon, cars are lions roaring: the art of sound in movies by Jordan Kinsner in the Guardian (audio version here / text version here) Written by Jordan Kisner and read by Christopher Ragland; Produced by Simon Barnard. Sounds natural by 99 Percent Invisible. (listen here) Producer Emmett FitzGerald spoke with film producer Chris Palmer; Foley artist Richard Hinton and sound recordist Chris Watson. ======== If you want to listen to more, look at these interesting 99 Percent Invisible audio episodes The Sound of the Artificial World Cartoon Sound Effects The Sizzle Symphony of Sirens And these practical guides: Using music with the Kitchen Sisters Sound design with Haley Shaw The Parallel Worlds Resources page has many more links to sound design articles! --- Send in a voice message: https://anchor.fm/olliepalmer/message
Roman Mars has been producing one of the most popular podcasts ever—his show, 99 Percent Invisible—for over a decade. Last year, they marked the occasion by releasing a design book called The 99 Percent Invisible City: A Field Guide to The Hidden World of Design. I was presented with the opportunity to interview him about it.Here's the original article that was published at Under the Radar magazine's website. And a link directly to 99 Percent Invisible where you can purchase the book. UnEdited is our off season mini-series featuring raw tape with Tastemakers, Podcasters and Cultural Critics.Under the Radar podcast is currently on hiatus. We are currently working on Season 2 which will launch in March/April 2021. To get in touch, please join our Facebook group. Ask to be a member and you will be welcomed in. See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.
Blue Belle disputes footage from protests. 100 Percent Invisible investigates the history of the super-suit. On the Speech Bubble, Kelly Close interviews the Guinness World Record holder for being kidnapped. Full Episode Credits Available Here SPR is listener supported. Please consider joining our Patreon to get ad-free episodes and early access to next week's stories* https://www.patreon.com/sprpod This episode of SPR is distributed to Earth 955x by John Dorsey and Maximilian Clark from JPWR Paradise City. *Early access is provided by Franklin, within the confines allowed by international law. -------------------------------------------- Music: Beauty Flow by Kevin MacLeod Link: https://incompetech.filmmusic.io/ License: http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ An Eve of Galas by Radio Night epidemicsound.com City Fashion by Nathan Welsh epidemicsound.com
The SPR News Panel discusses the Heroic Legion Registry. On 100 Percent Invisible they investigate an invisible car. On These American Supers: A CEO asks if he's the villain. Babylon sighted since his escape. Full Episode Credits Available Here SPR is listener supported. Please consider joining our Patreon to get ad-free episodes and early access to next week's stories* https://www.patreon.com/sprpod -------------------------------------------- This episode features a number of licensed songs from Epidemic Sounds as well as the following tracks: Farting Around by Kevin MacLeod Link: https://incompetech.filmmusic.io/song/5152-farting-around License: http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ Ghost Processional by Kevin MacLeod Link: https://incompetech.filmmusic.io/song/3804-ghost-processional Marty Gots A Plan by Kevin MacLeod Link: https://incompetech.filmmusic.io/song/4992-marty-gots-a-plan Beauty Flow by Kevin MacLeod Link: https://filmmusic.io/song/5025-beauty-flow *Future episode access is provided by FRANKLIN
Working from home has caused a massive shift in our lives. We’ve had to develop new routines. We’ve carved out new work and school spaces in our homes, which were designed to serve as respites from these two activities. Employees are feeling isolated because they no longer have casual interactions in the office. Working from home for the entire week, every week results in the days running together. We love our families, but all this togetherness is adding pressure. With these changes come a great deal of stress and potentially, increased social isolation. With us today to tell us more about the impact from changes in our work routines and home environments is Arielle Trzcinski, a Senior Analyst at Forrester Research. Today, Arielle will share her perspective as to why we must address these employee stressors and provide us with us steps we can take as leaders and colleagues to identify and help when issues arise. Show Notes: Book: Caste by Isabel Wilkerson Podcasts: Marketplace with Kai Ryssdal; David Brancaccio; Molly Wood; Lizzie O'Leary; MakeMeSmart with Kai Ryssdal & Molly Wood; 99 Percent Invisible. Other educational tools: NPR, Stat, Becker’s Healthcare, Fierce Healthcare, STATNews.com
A break in at a Heroic Legion Data Site raises questions. On the Speech Bubble: Should we trust birds? On 100 Percent Invisible they investigate the problems with prophecy. Full Episode Credits: Here www.superhumanpublicradio.com
Buildings, sidewalks, statues, plaques...they all tell stories that are nearly hidden from view. You can take a walk out of your front door if you live in nearly any city, and there are stories all around you. The great news? They're all free. And, like a puzzle, the stories of a 99% invisible city can keep you occupied for hour after fascinating hour. Today we chat with Roman Mars from the 99% Invisible podcast about a few of these stories. We'll talk about park in Australia, a baseball player in Japan, and sidewalks...everywhere. Over $1 billion in bitcoin has been seized by the U.S. government. We'll share how and why, and also dive a little into bitcoin in general. Has it become a more stable landscape for investors? Plus, in the search for lower taxes and a better bottom line, Rock Legend Gene Simmons has decided to wave his California estate (and California taxes) goodbye. High taxes vs. good friends and memories of the neighborhood. Which would you choose? Plus, we'll throw out the Haven Life line to August, who wants to rollover his Roth 401k to a Roth IRA when he retires. He's already seeded the IRA with $500. Is there any reason to invest in one account over the other? August asks, does the answer change if he's plans to retire early?
An entertaining guide to the unnoticed yet essential elements of our cities, featuring new and exclusive material from the creators of the wildly popular 99% Invisible podcast. Have you ever wondered what those bright, squiggly graffiti marks on the sidewalk mean? Or stopped to ponder who gets to name the streets we walk along? Or what the story is behind those dancing inflatable figures in car dealerships? 99% Invisible is a big-ideas podcast about small-seeming things, revealing stories baked into the buildings we inhabit, the streets we drive, and the sidewalks we traverse. The show celebrates design and architecture in all of its functional glory and accidental absurdity, with intriguing tales of both designers and the people impacted by their designs. Now, in The 99% Invisible City: A Field Guide to Hidden World of Everyday Design, host Roman Mars and coauthor Kurt Kohlstedt zoom in on the various elements that make our cities work, exploring the origins and other fascinating stories behind everything from power grids and fire escapes to drinking fountains and street signs. With deeply researched entries and beautiful line drawings throughout, The 99% Invisible City will captivate devoted fans of the show and anyone curious about design, urban environments, and the unsung marvels of the world around them.
Emma tells Emlyn all about the designer of the Nutshell Studies of Unexplained Death, Captain Frances Glessner Lee, who was incredibly influential in the development of early forensic science in the United States. Learn more about us and other women in science at our website www.stemfatalepodcast.com SourcesMain Story - Frances Glessner LeeMelinek, Judy, and Goldfarb, Bruce. 18 Tiny Deaths: The Untold Story of Frances Glessner Lee and the Invention of Modern Forensics. United States, Sourcebooks, 2020.The Nutshell Studies. (99 Percent Invisible).The People — Glessner HouseMurder Is Her Hobby: Frances Glessner Lee and The Nutshell Studies of Unexplained Death. (Smithsonian American Art Museum).Biographies: Frances Glessner Lee (1878–1962). (NIH).Bush, Erin N. The Nutshell Studies of Unexplained Death. Death by Diorama.Kahn, Eve. “Murder Downsized.” The New York Times. 2004. https://www.nytimes.com/2004/10/07/garden/murder-downsized.html?_r=0The Nutshell Studies of Unexplained Death. (CorrineBotz.com).Miller, Laura J. Frances Glessner Lee. Harvard Magazine. 2005.Women who Work - Dr. Andrea GhezNobel Prize Press Release - https://www.nobelprize.org/prizes/physics/2020/press-release/ “How Andrea Ghez Won the Nobel for an Experiment Nobody Thought Would Work” by Hilton Lewis, Scientific American. https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/how-andrea-ghez-won-the-nobel-for-an-experiment-nobody-thought-would-work/ Music “Mary Anning” by Artichoke“Work” by Rihanna Cover ImageMiller, Laura J. Frances Glessner Lee. Harvard Magazine. 2005.
Podcasting hero Roman Mars joins this week's edition of the SF Weekly Podcast to discuss his new book, "The 99 Percent Invisible City: A Field Guide to the Hidden World of Everyday Design." Plus, we do our thang discussing the news of the day — and boy what a week did we have. Between the Supreme Court confirmation hearings, the Hug Heard Round the World, kidnapped lemurs, and near collisions of giant space junk we don't even really know where to begin. But in the time of coronavirus, this podcast is just about the only time Kevin and Nick get to riff with each other — so, we'll try. Join us!
The cool shade of a tree is a welcome relief on a hot day. But in cities across the United States, tree cover is not equally distributed between neighborhoods. All cities experience the urban heat island effect, where cities are warmer than the surrounding rural areas due to the way urban surfaces, like parking lots and buildings, absorb heat. However, within cities themselves, some neighborhoods are hotter, and this discrepancy is often directly linked to urban tree cover. A recent study further linked today’s hottest neighborhoods to the historic and inequitable practice of redlining. In this River Talk, the Cumberland River Compact’s Root Nashville Campaign Manager Meg Morgan joins Dr. Jeremy Hoffman, Chief Scientist with the Science Museum of Virginia, to learn about his groundbreaking work on the connections between historic redlining, urban heat, and urban trees, and the implications for how we make equitable, inclusive, and just decisions for our community moving forward. Dr. Jeremy Hoffman is the Chief Scientist at the Science Museum of Virginia and an Affiliate Faculty in the L. Douglas Wilder School of Government and Public Affairs and the Center for Environmental Studies at Virginia Commonwealth University. Jeremy specializes in Earth science communication, data-driven and community-based participatory science, and science center exhibit content development. His work has been written about in the New York Times, National Public Radio (NPR), Richmond Magazine, the Richmond Times Dispatch, UPWORTHY, and many others. Support the Cumberland River Compact's River Talks program: https://cumberlandrivercompact.org/get-involved/donate/ Send us your thoughts on this episode! Email us at rivertalks@cumberlandrivercompact.org or leave us a voicemail at 615-933-8837 Learn more about the resources mentioned in this episode: Redlining Map of Nashville Article: “How Decades of Racist Housing Policy Left Neighborhoods Sweltering” NASA and Groundwork Map Climate Vulnerability Video: Urban Heat Islands Community Science and Urban Heat Project Park in a Truck City of Philadelphia Root Nashville Neighborhood Planting Captain program 99 Percent Invisible, Podcast Not Built for Us, Podcast Heat Wave: A Social Autopsy of Disaster in Chicago Cooked: Survival by Zip Code, Documentary --- Send in a voice message: https://anchor.fm/thecompact/message
In 2015, a Ted Talk by podcast host Roman Mars went viral. I n the talk, Mars, whose podcast ‘99 Percent Invisible’ looks for good and bad design elements all around us, tackled an issue he’s particularly passionate about: city flags.
During our break between Season 4 and Season 5. We’re bringing you bonus episodes from other Asian podcasters. This week, we’re bringing you an episode from an Asian Australian podcast called Shoes Off. Shoes Off explores Asian Australian culture and is beautifully written and produced by Jay Ooi. In this episode, Jay explores the roots of Anti-Asian sentiment spurred by the rise of COVID -19 in Australia. ——————————————- For more episodes of Shoes Off visit them at www.shoesoff.net and listen on Spotify, iTunes, or wherever you get your podcasts. Shoes Off is a podcast about Asian Australian culture. Each episode is written, produced and edited, and we'll bring you stories and thoughts from interesting Aussie Asians, academics and everyday folk around a particular topic or issue, and we'll question, explore and celebrate what it means to be an Asian Australian. It’s 99 Percent Invisible meets Freakonomics Radio, but about Asian Australian stories and topics. Follow Jay Ooi on Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/shoesoffau/ LinkedIn Shoes Off https://www.linkedin.com/company/54302235 ——————————————- Follow Rock the Boat on Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram @rocktheboatnyc. You can reach us at hello@gorocktheboat.com. If you’re a fan of the podcast, please subscribe, share, and leave us a 5-star rating on iTunes! We really appreciate your help in spreading the word. --- Send in a voice message: https://anchor.fm/rocktheboat/message
Last week we talked about trends in the first half of the 20th century and today we’re covering 1950-present. You’ll recognize the sound of a lot of these! We’re also talking about how to decorate for your time without going overboard on trends. Resources mentioned: The 1961 bathroom reno Suzannah worked on Machines for Living In: How Technology Shaped a Century of Interior Design from 99 Percent Invisible Home trends for the decade you were born What the average American house looked like Trends by the Decade Designing through the decades You can find us on our blogs or connect with each of us on Instagram: @suzannahstanley @biggerthanthethreeofus @yourhomestorypodcast And you can join our Facebook group here to connect with other listeners and ask questions!
This week we’re talking about home design trends over the years, which ones have stuck and which have totally faded, and how long trends last (part 1, first half of the 20th century). Which ones are you influenced by?? Some of the inspirations we chatted about: Machines for Living In: How Technology Shaped a Century of Interior Design from 99 Percent Invisible 1912 book 120 Interiors in Colours Designed by Modern Artists Ashley @thegoldhive has a craftsman home Home trends for the decade you were born. What the average American house looked like. Trends by the Decade Designing through the decades Linoleum patterns You can find us on our blogs or connect with each of us on Instagram: @suzannahstanley @biggerthanthethreeofus @yourhomestorypodcast And you can join our Facebook group here to connect with other listeners and ask questions!
In this episode, we investigate the original pre-fab houses, try to convert 1930 currency into 2020 currency, and discuss the feasibility of 2 people + 1 cat in a tiny house. How much do you love Ikea furniture? And how many Allen wrenches would it take to build a house? In this one, Ivie gets the final word (literally). Check out more about kit houses in this fantastic 99 Percent Invisible episode, The House that Came in the Mail. --- This episode is sponsored by · Anchor: The easiest way to make a podcast. https://anchor.fm/app
In The Past Lane - The Podcast About History and Why It Matters
This week at In The Past Lane, the American History podcast, we take a look at a significant but often overlooked event during the Civil War, the Draft Riots of July 1863. Protests against drafting men into the Union Army broke out in many places, but the worst occurred in New York City. For four days rampaging crowds tore the city apart, destroying property and leading to the deaths of more than 100 people, including 11 African Americans who were lynched. To this day, the Draft Riots remain the largest civil uprising in US history. Feature Story: The Civil War Draft Riots On July 13, 1863 - 157 years ago this week - the streets of New York exploded in a violent episode known as the Draft Riots. It lasted four days and claimed the lives of more than one hundred people and destroyed millions of dollars in property – all while the Union struggled to defeat the Confederacy on the battlefield. The event terrified northerners, many of whom were convinced that it was the result of a Confederate plot, and it prompted the Lincoln administration to rush thousands of troops from the battlefield at Gettysburg to NYC. To this day, the Draft Riots remain the greatest civil uprising in American history. At the outset of the Civil War in 1861, no one in the North or South could have imagined that there would ever be a shortage of volunteers that would necessitate a military draft. Union and Confederate Army recruiting stations were overwhelmed by men eager to join the fight. Few men on either side expected the war to last more than a few weeks. But subsequent events made clear just how unrealistic these hopes were. Beset by a series of incompetent generals and a host of other problems, the Union's Army of the Potomac in the east performed poorly in the field. By mid-1862 it was clear that the war would be long and very, very bloody. Later that year, Lincoln issued the Emancipation Proclamation which effectively announced the abolition of slavery. Lincoln had deemed emancipation necessary to win the war, but it also produced intense opposition among certain groups of northerners. War weariness, not to mention anti-war sentiment rose in the North and soon Union Army recruiting stations were empty. If Lincoln was to make good on his promise to preserve the Union at all costs, a second drastic measure was needed. In March of 1863 Congress passed the Conscription Act (the first in U.S. history) which declared all male citizens (and immigrants who had applied for citizenship) aged 20-45 eligible to be drafted into the Union Army. If drafted, a man had several options short of serving in the Union Army. He could pay a “commutation fee” of $300 to the government; or he could hire a substitute to serve in his place; or he could disappear – something that more than twenty percent of draftees did. The draft, like emancipation, proved intensely controversial. Some protesters denounced the draft as an affront to democratic liberty. Others focused on what they termed its "aristocratic" provisions that allowed the wealthy to buy their way out of service (the $300 commutation fee exceeded the annual income of many poor laborers). More and more, they argued, it was becoming “a rich man’s war and a poor man’s fight.” The draft also incited anger among those northerners, principally Democrats, who initially had been willing to support a war to preserve the Union, but who now balked at fighting a war for emancipation. Many politicians in the years before the war had used the issue of emancipation and the specter of cheap African American labor flooding northern cities to rally urban workers -- especially the Irish -- to the Democratic Party. The message to the Irish was clear: if you think it's tough to earn a living now, just wait until you have to compete with hundreds of thousands of black workers willing to work for less money. It was an opportunistic message of fear that ignored the fact that for the past thirty years it had been Irish immigrants who had taken jobs from free blacks living in northern cities. Nonetheless, it stoked racist animosity among the Irish and other poor white workers. When the draft began in July 1863, opposition to it turned violent. Violence broke out in Boston, Troy, New York, Wooster, Ohio, Portsmouth, New Hampshire and other cities. The worst incidents of anti-draft violence, of course, occurred in New York City. The first day of the draft, Saturday July 11, resulted in 1,236 names drawn. Despite grumblings and rumors of protest, it ended without incident. The plan was to resume the draft on Monday morning. Discontent among working-class New Yorkers was palpable Saturday night and on Sunday (when no draft was held) as people pored over the lists and found names of men they knew. Conspicuously absent were the names of any wealthy or prominent New Yorker. The mood in the city’s working-class tenement districts grew ugly by Sunday night. Signs that there would be trouble when the draft resumed emerged early Monday morning when crowds of workers – among them a large percentage of Irish immigrants and Irish Americans - formed and began moving north towards the draft office at East 46th Street and Third Ave. And the weather was hot and humid -- prime conditions, sociologists assert, for a riot. By the time the draft office opened, an angry crowd of five thousand had gathered in the surrounding streets. Moments after the first names were drawn, the crowd stormed the office, destroyed the lottery wheel used to draw names, and set the building on fire. The riot was on. The violence at the draft office at East 46th Street quickly spread throughout the city. To stymie efforts to restore order, crowds built barricades, tore up streetcar tracks, and cut telegraph lines. As in most riots, the crowds that coursed through the streets did not engage in purely random acts of violence. Instead, they focused on very carefully chosen targets that symbolized their grievances. Anything associated with the Union Army came under attack, including recruiting stations and draft offices. Rioters also attacked anything associated with the Republican party – which they viewed as the party of war, emancipation, and the draft. Both the New York Times and Tribune, staunchly pro-Republican and pro-war papers (not to mention pro-emancipation), were attacked several times. In addition, rioters attacked the wealthy – people they derided as “three hundred dollar men” -- who were able to buy their way out of the draft. Mansions on Fifth Avenue were sacked and burned, as was the Brooks Brothers store. Rioters also took out their anger on local symbols of authority, most especially members of the New York Police Department. And rioters also assaulted and killed African-Americans. One of the first institutions attacked was the Colored Orphans Asylum, located near the present-day New York Public Library on 42nd Street. Rioters burned it to the ground, but amazingly none of the children or staff inside was killed. Other African Americans, however, were not so fortunate. At least eleven blacks were lynched by rioters. Many of these lynchings included particularly savage acts, including burning and dismemberment. One of the reasons the rioting escalated and spread so quickly was that New York City had only a minor military presence made up primarily of injured soldiers recovering from their wounds. When they turned out to quell the violence, they were quickly scattered by the much larger mob. Squads of police were likewise attacked and driven away. With the mob in control of the streets of the Union's largest city, officials sent frantic telegrams to Washington, DC pleading for troops. Late Monday night the heavens opened up and the city was deluged with a most welcomed downpour. The rain extinguished most of the fires and prevented a much larger conflagration from developing. It also drove the rioters indoors for the night. City officials hoped the relatively peaceful night meant the riot was over. But Tuesday morning brought more steamy weather and renewed rioting. Again, African Americans, Republicans, soldiers, policemen and the wealthy came under attack. But increasingly the original focus of the rioting -- protest against a class-biased draft and a war for emancipation – had expanded to include widespread looting and score settling by the city's poor and marginalized underclass who seized on the riot as an opportunity to vent their rage at a system they viewed as oppressive and unjust -- not unlike the rioting we’ve witnessed in 2020. On Wednesday, day 3 of the riots, the tide began to turn as the first of several thousand troops arrived fresh from the smoldering fields of Gettysburg. All day Wednesday and Thursday, they stormed the rioters' strongholds using howitzers loaded with grape shot to mow down the crowd. In some neighborhoods they engaged in fierce hand-to-hand combat as they moved building to building. By now the police had also regrouped and began to retake streets and make arrests. By Thursday night the violence ceased and it appeared the riot might be over. When the sun rose on Friday morning, July 17, New York City awoke wondering if the Draft Riots would resume. But all was quiet, except for a steady procession of people to the midtown residence of Archbishop John Hughes, the leader of the city’s Irish Catholics. In handbills distributed all across the city the day before, he announced that he would address the crowd from the balcony outside his residence. Hughes delivered a message that expressed sympathy with the rioter’s grievances, but urged them to cease the violence. The reputation of the Irish in America, he said, was at stake. When he concluded, the crowd broke up and went home without incident. The Draft Riots were over. In the aftermath of the riot, city officials tallied up the damage and death toll. One hundred buildings lay in ashes, part of more than five million dollars in property destroyed. Of the hundreds arrested for their role in the riot, only sixty-seven were convicted at trial. None were the primary instigators and rabble-rousers and they received sentences that averaged five years in jail. As for the number killed, some early estimates ranged from several hundred to several thousand. These exaggerated figures were clearly the result of the shock and horror produced by the riot. As well as anti-Irish sentiment. But the most accurate assessment of the riot’s death toll, one based on a close reading of the press and death certificates, put the total at 119. Among those killed were at least eleven African Americans. The racial pogrom aspect of the riot led more than half the city's black residents to flee. It would be years before the city’s black population returned to its pre-war level. Not surprisingly, the city’s Irish population came in for harsh condemnation in the wake of the riot. A seething voice of indignation emanated from pulpit, meeting hall, and editorial page denounced the Irish for engaging in a treasonous riot against the government as it struggled to win a civil war. These critics ignored the fact that many of the rioters were German immigrants and German Americans, not to mention men of American birth. They also ignored the fact that many Irish soldiers, policemen, and priests helped stop the rioting. But there still was a war to win, so city and state officials came up with a plan that eliminated the draft as a source of social unrest. They appropriated two million dollars to pay the commutation fee of any man who was drafted who did not want to serve. When the draft resumed on August 19, there was no violence. Because there was a war that had to be won, New Yorkers and Americans in general did their best to forget about the Draft Riots. This became even easier once the war ended in Union victory. No one wanted to be reminded that the path to victory had been marred by disunity, protest, and violence. But the Draft Riots never quite disappeared from public consciousness, especially among America’s wealthy citizens, who viewed it as a nightmarish spectacle of social unrest that haunted their minds for several generations. For Irish Americans, their widely publicized role in the riots remained a black mark on their collective reputation for decades to come. For African Americans, the Draft Riots endured as a harrowing reminder of the depths of racial animosity in American life. It was not the first incident of massive anti-black violence and it would not be the last. Sources: Iver Bernstein, The New York City Draft Riots: Their Significance for American Society and Politics in the Age of the Civil War (Oxford, 1990). Barnet Schecter, The Devil’s Own Work: The Civil War Draft Riots and the Fight to Reconstruct America (Walker, 2005). For more information about the In The Past Lane podcast, head to our website, www.InThePastLane.com Music for This Episode Jay Graham, ITPL Intro (JayGMusic.com) The Joy Drops, “Track 23,” Not Drunk (Free Music Archive) Sergey Cheremisinov, “Gray Drops” (Free Music Archive) Ondrosik, “Tribute to Louis Braille” (Free Music Archive) Alex Mason, “Cast Away” (Free Music Archive) Squire Tuck, “Nuthin’ Without You” (Free Music Archive) Ketsa, “Multiverse” (Free Music Archive) The Rosen Sisters, “Gravel Walk” (Free Music Archive) Soularflair, “Emotive Beautiful Irish Feel Gala” (Free Music Archive) Dana Boule, “Collective Calm” (Free Music Archive) Ondrosik, “Breakthrough” (Free Music Archive) Cuicuitte, “sultan cintr” (Free Music Archive) Jon Luc Hefferman, “Winter Trek” (Free Music Archive) The Bell, “I Am History” (Free Music Archive) Production Credits Executive Producer: Lulu Spencer Graphic Designer: Maggie Cellucci Website by: ERI Design Legal services: Tippecanoe and Tyler Too Social Media management: The Pony Express Risk Assessment: Little Big Horn Associates Growth strategies: 54 40 or Fight © In The Past Lane, 2020 Recommended History Podcasts Ben Franklin’s World with Liz Covart @LizCovart The Age of Jackson Podcast @AgeofJacksonPod Backstory podcast – the history behind today’s headlines @BackstoryRadio Past Present podcast with Nicole Hemmer, Neil J. Young, and Natalia Petrzela @PastPresentPod 99 Percent Invisible with Roman Mars @99piorg Slow Burn podcast about Watergate with @leoncrawl The Memory Palace – with Nate DiMeo, story teller extraordinaire @thememorypalace The Conspirators – creepy true crime stories from the American past @Conspiratorcast The History Chicks podcast @Thehistorychix My History Can Beat Up Your Politics @myhist Professor Buzzkill podcast – Prof B takes on myths about the past @buzzkillprof Footnoting History podcast @HistoryFootnote The History Author Show podcast @HistoryDean More Perfect podcast - the history of key US Supreme Court cases @Radiolab Revisionist History with Malcolm Gladwell @Gladwell Radio Diaries with Joe Richman @RadioDiaries DIG history podcast @dig_history The Story Behind – the hidden histories of everyday things @StoryBehindPod Studio 360 with Kurt Andersen – specifically its American Icons series @Studio360show Uncivil podcast – fascinating takes on the legacy of the Civil War in contemporary US @uncivilshow Stuff You Missed in History Class @MissedinHistory The Whiskey Rebellion – two historians discuss topics from today’s news @WhiskeyRebelPod American History Tellers @ahtellers The Way of Improvement Leads Home with historian John Fea @JohnFea1 The Bowery Boys podcast – all things NYC history @BoweryBoys Ridiculous History @RidiculousHSW The Rogue Historian podcast with historian @MKeithHarris The Road To Now podcast @Road_To_Now Retropod with @mikerosenwald © In The Past Lane 2020
In The Past Lane - The Podcast About History and Why It Matters
This week at In The Past Lane, the American History podcast, we take a look at the first great police scandal in US history. It occurred in the mid-1890s in New York City when an investigation into the NYPD exposed widespread corruption and brutality throughout the force, from its highest-ranking officers to the lowly beat cop. To walk us through this scandal, I speak with historian Daniel Czitrom about his book, New York Exposed: The Gilded Age Police Scandal That Launched the Progressive Era (Oxford U Press, 2016). It’s a story that makes clear that policing in the US has always been controversial. Further reading about the history of scandals in American History Daniel Czitrom, New York Exposed: The Gilded Age Police Scandal That Launched the Progressive Era (Oxford U Press, 2016) Andy Hughes, A History of Political Scandals: Sex, Sleaze and Spin (2014) George C. Kohn, The New Encyclopedia of American Scandal(2001) Laton McCartney, The Teapot Dome Scandal: How Big Oil Bought the Harding White House and Tried to Steal the Country (Random House, 2009) Mitchell Zuckoff, Ponzi’s Scheme: The True Story of a Financial Legend (Random House, 2006) Music for This Episode: Jay Graham, ITPL Intro (courtesy, JayGMusic.com) Kevin McCleod, “Impact Moderato” (Free Music Archive) Lee Rosevere, “Going Home” (Free Music Archive) Andy Cohen, “Trophy Endorphins” (Free Music Archive) The Bell, “I Am History” (Free Music Archive) The Bell, “On The Street” (Free Music Archive) Jon Luc Hefferman, “Winter Trek” (Free Music Archive) The Womb, “I Hope That It Hurts” (Free Music Archive) Production Credits Executive Producer: Lulu Spencer Graphic Designer: Maggie Cellucci Website by: ERI Design Legal services: Tippecanoe and Tyler Too Social Media management: The Pony Express Risk Assessment: Little Big Horn Associates Growth strategies: 54 40 or Fight © In The Past Lane, 2020 Recommended History Podcasts Ben Franklin’s World with Liz Covart @LizCovart The Age of Jackson Podcast @AgeofJacksonPod Backstory podcast – the history behind today’s headlines @BackstoryRadio Past Present podcast with Nicole Hemmer, Neil J. Young, and Natalia Petrzela @PastPresentPod 99 Percent Invisible with Roman Mars @99piorg Slow Burn podcast about Watergate with @leoncrawl The Memory Palace – with Nate DiMeo, story teller extraordinaire @thememorypalace The Conspirators – creepy true crime stories from the American past @Conspiratorcast The History Chicks podcast @Thehistorychix My History Can Beat Up Your Politics @myhist Professor Buzzkill podcast – Prof B takes on myths about the past @buzzkillprof Footnoting History podcast @HistoryFootnote The History Author Show podcast @HistoryDean More Perfect podcast - the history of key US Supreme Court cases @Radiolab Revisionist History with Malcolm Gladwell @Gladwell Radio Diaries with Joe Richman @RadioDiaries DIG history podcast @dig_history The Story Behind – the hidden histories of everyday things @StoryBehindPod Studio 360 with Kurt Andersen – specifically its American Icons series @Studio360show Uncivil podcast – fascinating takes on the legacy of the Civil War in contemporary US @uncivilshow Stuff You Missed in History Class @MissedinHistory The Whiskey Rebellion – two historians discuss topics from today’s news @WhiskeyRebelPod American History Tellers @ahtellers The Way of Improvement Leads Home with historian John Fea @JohnFea1 The Bowery Boys podcast – all things NYC history @BoweryBoys Ridiculous History @RidiculousHSW The Rogue Historian podcast with historian @MKeithHarris The Road To Now podcast @Road_To_Now Retropod with @mikerosenwald © In The Past Lane 2020
In The Past Lane - The Podcast About History and Why It Matters
This week at In The Past Lane, the American History podcast, we take a look at a legendary labor uprising by a mysterious group known as the Molly Maguires. They were Irish and Irish American coal miners in Pennsylvania in the 1870s who used vigilante violence to fight back against the powerful and exploitative mine owners. But in the end, the mine owners used their dominance over the political and legal establishment to see to it that 20 men, most of whom were likely innocent, were executed by hanging. Feature Story: The Molly Maguires Hanged On Thursday June 21, 1877 – 143 years ago this week - ten men went to the gallows in Pennsylvania. They were known as Molly Maguires – members of an ultra-secret society that used violence and intimidation in their bitter struggles with powerful mine owners. Arrested for their alleged role in several murders, they were convicted and sentenced to death on the basis of very thin evidence and questionable testimony. “Black Thursday” would long be remembered by residents of the Pennsylvania coal fields as an extraordinary example of anti-labor and anti-Irish prejudice. The story of the Molly Maguires was one very much rooted in two specific places: rural Ireland and the anthracite region of PA. The latter was the main supplier of the nation’s coal, making it a vital component in American’s unfolding industrial revolution. By the 1870s, more than 50,000 miners – more than half of them Irish or Irish American – toiled in the region’s mines. It was hard, brutal work. They worked long hours for low pay in extremely dangerous conditions. Every year cave-ins, floods, and poison gas claimed the lives of hundreds of miners. In one fire alone in 1869, 110 miners were killed. It was in the struggle of these workers to improve their pay, hours, and conditions that the Molly Maguire saga began. Irish immigrants and Irish Americans played key roles in virtually every aspect of the conflict, from the lowliest miner to the most powerful capitalist. Foremost was Franklin B. Gowen, the wealthy Irish American president of the Philadelphia and Reading Railroad. Tough and ambitious, he ruthlessly drove his competitors out of business in an effort to dominate the state’s two principle industries, coal and railroads. The only thing he hated more than rival businessmen was organized labor, especially the main miners union, the Workingmen’s Benevolent Association (WBA). Led by an Irish-born man named John Siney, the WBA had won several strikes in the late 1860s and early 1870s that resulted in wage gains and union recognition. Even though he shared an Irish heritage with most of his miners, Franklin Gowan had little sympathy for them. In industrializing America, class interests trumped everything, including ethnicity and culture, and Gowan treated his workers like they were the enemy. Gowan waited for the right moment to attack, and that came in 1873 when the nation plunged into a severe economic depression that lasted until 1877. The hard times hurt his bottom line, but Gowen saw a silver lining: hard times also provided an opportunity to kill the miners’ union. In January 1875, Gowan announced a steep cut in wages, a move quickly followed by the region’s others coal operators. The wage cuts triggered a massive miners’ strike throughout the region that paralyzed coal production. But Gowen and other operators had prepared for the strike by stockpiling huge coal reserves that allowed them to continue to sell coal and wait out the desperate and half-starved striking miners. The “Long Strike,” as it came to be known, was doomed. It ended after five months in June with a total defeat for the workers and the destruction of the Workingmen’s Benevolent Association (WBA). And here’s where rural Ireland figured into the story. Embittered by their loss, a group of Irish miners turned to an old custom – extra-legal justice, or vigilantism. Irish tenant farmers had for centuries used tactics of intimidation, vandalism, and murder to protest landlord abuses, primarily rent hikes or evictions. These types of tactics of resistance by powerless peasants have been called by anthropologist James Scott, “the weapons of the weak.” According to tradition, the original “Molly Maguire” had been a woman who thwarted her landlord’s attempts to evict her during the Famine. Many of the Irish miners in the Pennsylvania coal fields came from counties in Ireland where periodic agrarian vigilantism was a firmly rooted tradition. Molly Maguire activity first arose in the anthracite region in the labor disputes of the early 1860s. But it subsided with the WBA’s success in gaining better wages and conditions for the miners. Now in the wake of the defeat in the Long Strike, the Mollies returned with a vengeance. Between June and September 1875, six people were murdered – all carefully targeted as agents of the mine owners and enemies of the miners. Having destroyed the WBA, Franklin Gowen saw in the return of the Mollies an opportunity to permanently wipe out any miner opposition to his plans to consolidate power and wealth. And so, he unleashed a sweeping campaign against the secret society in which he branded all labor activists “Molly Maguires.” He also accused an Irish fraternal organization known as the Ancient Order of Hibernians of operating as a front for the organization. Eventually over fifty men, women, and children were arrested and indicted for their alleged roles in the Molly Maguire violence and murders. Incredibly, the state of Pennsylvania played almost no role in this process. None other than Franklin Gowan served as the county district attorney and oversaw the investigation and prosecutions. A private company – the Pinkertons – conducted the investigation. A private police force employed by the mining companies carried out the arrests. And Gowan and coal company attorneys conducted the trials. As one historian commented, “The state only provided the courtroom and the hangman.” The first trials began in January 1876. They involved ten men accused of murder and were held in the towns of Mauch Chunk and Pottsville, PA. A vast army of national media descended on the small towns where they wrote dispatches that were uniformly pro-prosecution. In an era of rising hysteria over labor radicalism, and the growing popularity of socialism and anarchism – much of it fueled by sensational stories in the mainstream press - the Molly Maguire story proved irresistible. And the coverage was universally negative. The NYT, for example, wrote about “the snake of Molly Maguire-ism,” while the Philadelphia Inquirer condemned the men as “enemies of social order.” The key witness for the prosecution was yet another Irishman, James McParlan. He was an agent of the infamous Pinkerton Detective Agency, an organization that would be more accurately described as a private army for hire that specialized in labor espionage and strikebreaking. Franklin Gowan had hired the Pinkertons in the early 1870s as part of his masterplan of destroying the WBA. James McParlan had gone under cover to infiltrate the Mollies and gather evidence. And gather he did – or at least he claimed he did during the trials. On the stand he painted a vivid picture of Molly Maguire secrecy, conspiracy, and murder. With this testimony, combined with the fact that Irish Catholics and miners had been excluded from the juries, guilty verdicts were a foregone conclusion. All ten defendants were convicted and sentenced to hang. And in order to send the most powerful message to the region’s mining communities, authorities staged the executions on the same day -- June 21, 1877 – in two locations. Alexander Campbell, Michael Doyle, Edward Kelly, and John Donahue were hanged in Mauch Chuck, while James Boyle, Hugh McGehan, James Carroll, James Roarity, Thomas Duffy, and Thomas Munley met a similar fate in Pottsville. Although the hangings took place behind prison walls, they were nonetheless stages as major spectacles that drew huge crowds and generated international news coverage, nearly all of it condemning the Mollies as murderous monsters who got what they deserved. Still, the Molly Maguire episode was far from over. Ten more miners would be tried, convicted, and executed over the next fifteen months, bringing the total to twenty. While evidence suggests that some of them men were guilty of murder, the great majority of those executed were likely victims of hysteria and a profoundly unjust legal process. In the end, Franklin Gowen and his fellow mine operators succeeded in stamping out the Molly Maguires, but not the violent clashes between labor and capital they represented. For more than a generation following the executions, miners in Pennsylvania and many other states would continue to fight -- both legally and extra-legally -- against oppressive conditions in the mines. And the mine owners, as they did with the Mollies, did their best to dismiss the agitation as foreign radicalism brought to America by misguided immigrants who did not understand the inherent goodness and justice of industrial capitalism. The miners, of course, knew better. They understood that unregulated capitalism, backed by the full weight of the law, the government, and the media, was neither just, nor democratic. It was exploitation, pure and simple. Sources: Anthony Bimba. The Molly Maguires (International Publishers, 1932). Wayne G. Broehl, Jr., The Molly Maguires (Harvard University Press, 1964). Kevin Kenny, Making Sense of the Molly Maguires (Oxford University Press, 1998). IrishCentral.com, “Molly Maguires Executed, June 20, 2020 https://www.irishcentral.com/roots/history/molly-maguires-executed#.XvEIkuOULEA.twitter For more information about the In The Past Lane podcast, head to our website, www.InThePastLane.com Music for This Episode Jay Graham, ITPL Intro (JayGMusic.com) The Joy Drops, “Track 23,” Not Drunk (Free Music Archive) Sergey Cheremisinov, “Gray Drops” (Free Music Archive) Ondrosik, “Tribute to Louis Braille” (Free Music Archive) Alex Mason, “Cast Away” (Free Music Archive) Squire Tuck, “Nuthin’ Without You” (Free Music Archive) Ketsa, “Multiverse” (Free Music Archive) The Rosen Sisters, “Gravel Walk” (Free Music Archive) Soularflair, “Emotive Beautiful Irish Feel Gala” (Free Music Archive) Dana Boule, “Collective Calm” (Free Music Archive) Ondrosik, “Breakthrough” (Free Music Archive) Cuicuitte, “sultan cintr” (Free Music Archive) Blue Dot Sessions, "Pat Dog" (Free Music Archive) Jon Luc Hefferman, “Winter Trek” (Free Music Archive) The Bell, “I Am History” (Free Music Archive) Production Credits Executive Producer: Lulu Spencer Graphic Designer: Maggie Cellucci Website by: ERI Design Legal services: Tippecanoe and Tyler Too Social Media management: The Pony Express Risk Assessment: Little Big Horn Associates Growth strategies: 54 40 or Fight © In The Past Lane, 2020 Recommended History Podcasts Ben Franklin’s World with Liz Covart @LizCovart The Age of Jackson Podcast @AgeofJacksonPod Backstory podcast – the history behind today’s headlines @BackstoryRadio Past Present podcast with Nicole Hemmer, Neil J. Young, and Natalia Petrzela @PastPresentPod 99 Percent Invisible with Roman Mars @99piorg Slow Burn podcast about Watergate with @leoncrawl The Memory Palace – with Nate DiMeo, story teller extraordinaire @thememorypalace The Conspirators – creepy true crime stories from the American past @Conspiratorcast The History Chicks podcast @Thehistorychix My History Can Beat Up Your Politics @myhist Professor Buzzkill podcast – Prof B takes on myths about the past @buzzkillprof Footnoting History podcast @HistoryFootnote The History Author Show podcast @HistoryDean More Perfect podcast - the history of key US Supreme Court cases @Radiolab Revisionist History with Malcolm Gladwell @Gladwell Radio Diaries with Joe Richman @RadioDiaries DIG history podcast @dig_history The Story Behind – the hidden histories of everyday things @StoryBehindPod Studio 360 with Kurt Andersen – specifically its American Icons series @Studio360show Uncivil podcast – fascinating takes on the legacy of the Civil War in contemporary US @uncivilshow Stuff You Missed in History Class @MissedinHistory The Whiskey Rebellion – two historians discuss topics from today’s news @WhiskeyRebelPod American History Tellers @ahtellers The Way of Improvement Leads Home with historian John Fea @JohnFea1 The Bowery Boys podcast – all things NYC history @BoweryBoys Ridiculous History @RidiculousHSW The Rogue Historian podcast with historian @MKeithHarris The Road To Now podcast @Road_To_Now Retropod with @mikerosenwald © In The Past Lane 2020
In The Past Lane - The Podcast About History and Why It Matters
This week at In The Past Lane, the American History podcast, we take a look at one of the most deadly incidents of anti-black violence in US history: The 1921 Tulsa Race Massacre. White mobs rampaged through Tulsa, Oklahoma’s African American neighborhood and burned it to the ground, killing between 100 and 300 black residents in the process. The incident was quickly covered up and driven from public memory. But in the 1990s activists and scholars began to unearth the shocking truth. Feature Story: The Tulsa Race Massacre of 1921 On May 31, 1921 – 99 years ago this week – mobs of heavily armed white residents of Tulsa, Oklahoma rampaged through the city’s African-American district named Greenwood. They stole property, set fire to buildings, and indiscriminately killed black men, women, and children. When it was over, this pogram known as the Tulsa Race Massacre left between 100 and 300 people dead and 35 blocks in smoldering ruins. It was one of the single most deadly incidents of racist violence in American history. And yet, it was quickly driven from public memory. The years between the end of World War I in 1918 and the Tulsa Race Massacre in 1921 were marked by many incidents of extreme anti-black violence. This surge in violence was due to many factors. The end of World War I brought a massive strike wave as millions of workers walked off the job. Fear of socialism, communism, and anarchism surged as the nation plunged into one of its periodic Red Scares. Also contributing to the social tension was the fact that millions of African-Americans had in the previous decade moved to northern cities, part of what historians referred to as the Great Migration. Chicago’s black population, for example, jumped from 44,000 in 1910 to 110,000 in 1920. And on top of this, the Ku Klux Klan had re-emerged in 1915 as a vibrant national organization that by the mid-1920s would have 5 million members. Each of these trends contributed to surging anti-black racism that led to many incidents of violence against African-American individuals and neighborhoods. In 1919 alone, there were 25 major anti-black riots in the US. One of the worst took place in Chicago in July 1919 that left 38 dead. There were also 76 African Americans lynched in the South in 1919, including ten black soldiers who had returned from active duty in World War I. Up until May of 1921 Tulsa, Oklahoma had been relatively peaceful. But it was an oil-rich city of 72,000 that was strictly segregated. In fact, when Oklahoma was admitted to the union in 1907, the very first laws passed by the state legislature imposed segregation and disenfranchisement upon its black population. Despite these laws and a climate of racial hostility, Tulsa’s African-American population was one of the most prosperous In the United States. In fact, the Greenwood section of Tulsa where most African-Americans lived, was nicknamed the Negro Wall Street. It was filled with thriving black-owned businesses ranging from barbershops and retails stores to law firms and doctor’s offices. Many white citizens of Tulsa resented this black economic success. And it was this resentment that escalated the situation on May 31, 1921. Like so many incidents of anti-black racial violence in US history, this one began with an incident involving a black male and a white female. On May 30, a 17-year-old girl named Sarah Page, who operated an elevator in downtown Tulsa, accused 19-year-old Dick Rowland of assaulting her. Rowland was taken into custody and brought to the local courthouse. The next day, partly inspired by an inflammatory article about the incident in the local newspaper, a large crowd of angry white men gathered outside the courthouse. It was a scene that was a typical prelude to a lynching. Not surprisingly, rumors that Rowland was about to be lynched raced through the black community, prompting a large group of armed black men to arrive at the courthouse. A standoff ensued, and then shots rang out. Which side fired first remains an unanswered question. Both sides exchanged gunfire before dispersing. The clash left 12 killed, 10 white and two black. Immediately word of the incident spread throughout the city. Within an hour, large crowds of heavily armed white men gathered. It was clear what they were planning to do. And yet, the city’s police force did nothing to stop them. In fact, research would later show that police officials handed out weapons to members of the mob and that many also joined in as it descended upon the black community in Greenwood. As the attack began, many African-Americans managed to flee the district. But many were trapped and murdered by the mob. Some were shot and others stabbed, and still others were consumed by the flames set by arsonists. Members of the mob also looted homes and businesses before setting them on fire. The violence lasted all night and into the morning hours of June 1. It ended only when a large contingent of the Oklahoma National Guard arrived to impose martial law. Some 35 blocks of Greenwood were completely destroyed. Damages were estimated at $2.25 million, the equivalent of $32 million in 2020. Adding insult to injury, local officials and national guardsmen rounded up nearly every African American in the city and placed them in hastily constructed detention camps. All were treated as perpetrators, rather than innocent victims. Some were held for weeks before being released. And then there was the death toll. The official death toll was 36 African Americans killed. But African-American leaders at the time claimed the number was significantly higher, well over 100 and perhaps as high as 300. They also claimed that white officials, in an effort to cover up the enormity of the massacre, had hastily buried hundreds of black victims in a mass grave. And the cover up worked. The staggering death toll, along with the city’s complicity in allowing the massacre to take place, were soon purged from public memory. At least white public memory. African-Americans certainly didn’t forget the trauma and loss, but in this era of Jim Crow, they were powerless, unable to obtain any justice or public recognition of the incident. And it stayed that way for 75 years. The city of Tulsa never put up a historic plaque or memorial. Its school children never learned about the incident in their history classes. And the nation remained ignorant of this monstrous event. But the silence about the Tulsa Race Massacre began to break in the 1990s as African-Americans gained more political power and begin to push for a full inquiry into the incident. In 1996, The 75th anniversary of the massacre, the state legislature created the Oklahoma Commission to Study the Tulsa Race Riot of 1921. Note the title of the commission: it referred to the incident as the Tulsa Race Riot. This misnaming was significant and intentional. Nearly every massacre of African-Americans by white mobs in American history has been labeled a “race riot,” a name that suggests an equal culpability between violent whites and violent blacks attacking each other. But in every case, these so-called race riots Involved black communities being attacked by white mobs. Not surprisingly, as a more accurate and complete picture emerged of what occurred in Tulsa and other sites of anti-black violence, these incidents have been renamed to reflect what they really were: massacres. The commission worked for five years, taking testimony and funding research into the massacre. In 2001, it released its official report. Among its many findings, the commission declared that Tulsa’s political leaders had conspired with the leaders of the mob to allow the massacre to unfold without any resistance by law enforcement. It also recommended that reparations be paid to any survivors and their descendants. City and state officials balked at the call for reparations, but the state did establish scholarships for descendants of victims and survivors of the massacre. It also provided funding for historical markers and a memorial park that was completed in 2010. More recently, just a few months ago, the story of the Tulsa Race Massacre was made on official part of the state of Oklahoma’s public school curriculum. And the search for the truth about what actually happened and how many people were murdered that day continues. Just a few months ago, researchers announced that they had found several sites in Tulsa that appear to contain mass graves. Plans are in the works to excavate the sites to determine if they contain victims of the 1921 massacre. If they do, it will likely clarify the true death toll. Finally, the Tulsa Race Massacre drew renewed interest this year when it was featured as the starting point for HBO’s hit TV series, “Watchmen.” So what else of note happened this week in US history? May 25, 1787 - The Constitutional Convention officially opened in Philadelphia with 55 delegates in attendance, including George Washington, Benjamin Franklin, and James Madison. Over the next four months, they drafted a new Constitution for the United States to replace the initial Articles of Confederation which had been deemed weak and ineffective. May 25, 1977 - the blockbuster film “Star Wars” opened in theaters. May 26, 1924 - President Calvin Coolidge signed the National Origins Act that sharply restricted immigration for the next 40 years. It not only shrank the volume of immigration from as many as 1 million immigrants per year to about 200,000, the law also intentionally discriminated against undesirable immigrant groups like Jews and Italians. It was replaced by a more equitable immigration law in 1965. May 30, 1922 - The Lincoln Memorial was dedicated in Washington DC. And what notable people were born this week in American history? May 26, 1895 - photographer Dorothea Lange. Her most famous photograph is Migrant Mother, which captured the desperate face of a struggling mother and her children during the Great Depression. May 26, 1926 - jazz trumpeter Miles Davis May 27, 1794 - railroad magnate Cornelius Vanderbilt. May 27, 1819 - poet and author Julia Ward Howe who is best known for writing "The Battle Hymn of the Republic" during the Civil War. May 27, 1907 - writer and marine biologist Rachel Carson who helped launch the modern environmental movement with her book, Silent Spring. May 29, 1917 - 35th POTUS John F. Kennedy May 31, 1819 - poet Walt Whitman The Last Word Let’s give it to Walt Whitman, who was born 201 years ago this week. In his preface to his masterful collection of poems, Leaves of Grass, Whitman urged his readers to free themselves of ideas, conventions, and traditions that suppressed their true selves. “re-examine all you have been told at school or church or in any book, dismiss whatever insults your own soul, and your very flesh shall be a great poem and have the richest fluency not only in its words but in the silent lines of its lips and face and between the lashes of your eyes and in every motion and joint of your body.” For more information about the In The Past Lane podcast, head to our website, www.InThePastLane.com Music for This Episode Jay Graham, ITPL Intro (JayGMusic.com) The Joy Drops, “Track 23,” Not Drunk (Free Music Archive) Sergey Cheremisinov, “Gray Drops” (Free Music Archive) Pictures of the Flow, “Horses” (Free Music Archive) Ondrosik, “Tribute to Louis Braille” (Free Music Archive) Alex Mason, “Cast Away” (Free Music Archive) Squire Tuck, “Nuthin’ Without You” (Free Music Archive) Ketsa, “Multiverse” (Free Music Archive) Ketsa, “Memories Renewed” (Free Music Archive) Dana Boule, “Collective Calm” (Free Music Archive) Borrtex, “Motion” (Free Music Archive) Ondrosik, “Breakthrough” (Free Music Archive) Cuicuitte, “sultan cintr” (Free Music Archive) Blue Dot Sessions, "Pat Dog" (Free Music Archive) Jon Luc Hefferman, “Winter Trek” (Free Music Archive) The Bell, “I Am History” (Free Music Archive) Production Credits Executive Producer: Lulu Spencer Graphic Designer: Maggie Cellucci Website by: ERI Design Legal services: Tippecanoe and Tyler Too Social Media management: The Pony Express Risk Assessment: Little Big Horn Associates Growth strategies: 54 40 or Fight Recommended History Podcasts Ben Franklin’s World with Liz Covart @LizCovart The Age of Jackson Podcast @AgeofJacksonPod Backstory podcast – the history behind today’s headlines @BackstoryRadio Past Present podcast with Nicole Hemmer, Neil J. Young, and Natalia Petrzela @PastPresentPod 99 Percent Invisible with Roman Mars @99piorg Slow Burn podcast about Watergate with @leoncrawl The Memory Palace – with Nate DiMeo, story teller extraordinaire @thememorypalace The Conspirators – creepy true crime stories from the American past @Conspiratorcast The History Chicks podcast @Thehistorychix My History Can Beat Up Your Politics @myhist Professor Buzzkill podcast – Prof B takes on myths about the past @buzzkillprof Footnoting History podcast @HistoryFootnote The History Author Show podcast @HistoryDean More Perfect podcast - the history of key US Supreme Court cases @Radiolab Revisionist History with Malcolm Gladwell @Gladwell Radio Diaries with Joe Richman @RadioDiaries DIG history podcast @dig_history The Story Behind – the hidden histories of everyday things @StoryBehindPod Studio 360 with Kurt Andersen – specifically its American Icons series @Studio360show Uncivil podcast – fascinating takes on the legacy of the Civil War in contemporary US @uncivilshow Stuff You Missed in History Class @MissedinHistory The Whiskey Rebellion – two historians discuss topics from today’s news @WhiskeyRebelPod American History Tellers @ahtellers The Way of Improvement Leads Home with historian John Fea @JohnFea1 The Bowery Boys podcast – all things NYC history @BoweryBoys Ridiculous History @RidiculousHSW The Rogue Historian podcast with historian @MKeithHarris The Road To Now podcast @Road_To_Now Retropod with @mikerosenwald © In The Past Lane 2020
In The Past Lane - The Podcast About History and Why It Matters
This week at In The Past Lane, the American History podcast, we take a look at the famous Pullman Strike of 1894. It began as a protest over wage cuts in the midst of a severe economic depression and quickly grew to virtually paralyze the nation’s railroad system. Eventually, President Grover Cleveland sent in the military and smashed the strike. The workers lost the strike, but they did gain a new spokesperson – the socialist Eugene Debs – who would play an influential role in American society in the decades to come. Feature Story: The Pullman Strike of 1894 On May 11, 1894, employees of the Pullman Palace Car Company, located just outside Chicago, went on strike. They walkout was in response to severe wage cuts that came as the nation descended into the worst economic depression in its history. But what started out as a local strike soon blossomed into a nationwide work stoppage that paralyzed the railroad system and caused a national crisis. The Pullman Strike, one of the most famous in US history, marked a sharp turn in the fortunes and reputation of the Pullman Company’s owner. For well over a decade George Pullman had enjoyed a reputation as a benevolent industrialist. He established the Pullman Palace Car Company in 1867 to manufacture luxury railroad cars. Pullman was an idealist who believed that workers and employers could work together in harmony for mutual benefit. Acting on this idea, he established the town of Pullman in 1880. It was a company town, built and owned by the Pullman corporation for its employees, who rented homes and patronized stores owned by the company. They also had to abide by many intrusive regulations imposed by the company on their personal activities. George Pullman earned widespread praise in the media for being a model capitalist who earned a vast fortune, but also provided decent wages and living conditions for his workers. So long as the Pullman Co. remained profitable, its employees considered themselves relatively fortunate. But then a devastating economic depression struck in 1893. Known as the Panic of 1893, it wiped out thousands of businesses and sent the unemployment rate to over 20 percent. The railroad industry was hit especially hard. So Pullman laid off hundreds of workers and announced to the rest a wage cut of 30 percent. On top of this devastating news, workers learned that Pullman had refused to reduce their rents, which were deducted automatically from their paychecks. Some workers soon began receiving paychecks for less than one dollar per week to cover the cost of food, heat, and clothing. And so it was that on May 11, 1894, the fed up and furious workers at Pullman voted to strike. George Pullman responded – as did most employers in that era – by refusing to negotiate with the workers. After six weeks, a man named Eugene Debs, the leader of the American Railway Union (ARU) announced that all of the union’s 125,000 members across the country, as an act of solidarity with the striking Pullman workers, would impose a boycott on the Pullman Company. They would refuse to handle any Pullman cars. Given the ubiquity of the Pullman cars, the ARU’s boycott soon slowed the nation’s railroad system to a crawl. The heads of more than two dozen railroads united to support Pullman and break the ARU by hiring thousands of strikebreakers and pressuring the governor of Illinois, John Altgeld, to send in the state militia. When the governor refused out of sympathy for the strikers and a desire to avoid violence, the railroad magnates turned to Washington, D.C. for help, asking President Grover Cleveland to send in federal troops. Grover Cleveland was not the first president to face the choice of whether to send federal troops to quell a labor dispute. President Andrew Jackson dispatched troops in 1834 to end a strike by disgruntled workers working on the Chesapeake and Ohio Canal. More recently President Rutherford B. Hayes had sent troops to crush the great railroad strike of 1877. Despite these precedents, however, Cleveland worried about the ideological and political ramifications of military intervention. For one, the use of the army against American citizens seemed to run counter to key republican principles—had not the Founding Fathers established the United States to escape an oppressive British government? Had they not also adopted a Bill of Rights that sharply limited the use of federal power? Cleveland also had to consider the possibility that the public would condemn such use of federal power—especially if violence ensued as it did in 1877. The President spent several agonizing days in late June and early July of, 1894, consulting with advisors and mulling over his options. Despite harboring some misgivings about using federal troops to resolve a domestic dispute, President Grover Cleveland was a pro-business conservative, and his administration reflected his outlook. He authorized his Attorney General, Richard Olney, a man with extensive ties to the railroad industry, to obtain on July 2, 1894, a court injunction declaring the ARU boycott of Pullman cars a “conspiracy in restraint of trade” that unlawfully interfered with the movement of the U.S. mail. This last part about the mail was key – because delivery of the mail was a federal responsibility, the Cleveland administration claimed it had an obligation to the public to stop the boycott. When Debs and the ARU members defied the injunction, Cleveland ordered the U.S. Army to intervene on behalf of the railroads to end the boycott and get the trains moving again. The arrival of federal troops touched off extensive violence. Workers clashed with soldiers and destroyed railroad property and the soldiers responded with rifle fire that left at least 37 workers dead and scores wounded. Federal officials arrested Debs and several other ARU leaders and the boycott collapsed in mid-July. The Pullman strike lasted only a few more weeks before ending in early August in complete defeat for the workers. Public opinion had by then turned against Pullman for his obstinate refusal to negotiate with his workers. As was the case two years earlier in the Homestead Strike involving Andrew Carnegie and his steel workers, the Pullman strike exposed the notion of a benevolent capitalist as a myth. Both Pullman and Carnegie were arguably better employers than many of their capitalist counterparts, but their benevolence ran a distant second behind their primary concern: profit. When profits were threatened by unions or economic downturns, the benevolence was replaced by ruthlessness. In the aftermath, President Cleveland tried to restore his reputation with American workers by making Labor Day, a holiday established in the early 1880s, a federal holiday. He also established a federal commission to investigate the cause of the strike. Its report criticized Pullman for his handling of the strike and it argued that labor unions and government regulation were necessary as a way to curb the unrestrained power of corporations. But one year later, a very conservative and pro-business Supreme Court, ruled that the use of court injunctions to end strikes was constitutional. It would be another 40 years before legislation passed during the New Deal established legal protections for workers and labor unions. There was one positive outcome of the strike for American workers. It launched the storied career of Eugene Debs who became an iconic labor leader and advocate of socialism for the next 30 years. Debs would run for president five times as the nominee of the Socialist Party of America. And he left a lasting influence on American society. What else of note happened this week in US history? May 11, 1934 - A massive dust storm begins to sweep across the Great Plains. Drought and high-level winds carried off from the so-called “Dust Bowl” some 350 million tons of topsoil, causing tens of thousands of poor farmers known as Okies to migrate to the west coast. May 13, 1846 - After a questionable border incident between US and Mexican military forces, the US declares war on Mexico. The subsequent US victory allowed it to seize the northern half of Mexico, land that became the future states of CA, AZ, NM, and parts of NV, UT, TX and CO. May 15, 1970 – 50 years ago this week – city and state police open fire on a crowd of African American students at Jackson State in Mississippi, killing 2 and injuring 12. This incident received a fraction of the attention given killing of 4 white students at Kent State 11 days prior. May 17, 1954 - The SCOTUS issued its Brown v Board decision that declared segregation in public schools to be unconstitutional. Want to know more? Check out ITPL Episode 40 featuring my interview with historian Erin Krutko about her book, Remembering Little Rock. And what notable people were born this week in American history? Two legends of the silver screen were born this week. May 12, 1907 Katharine Hepburn and May 16, 1905 Henry Fonda May 13, 1914 heavyweight boxing champion Joe Louis May 17, 1903 baseball legend and Hall of Famer, James Thomas “Cool Papa” Bell. Bell retired from Negro League baseball in 1946, the year before Jackie Robinson broke the so-called color line. Nonetheless, Cool Papa Bell was inducted into the MLB Hall of Fame in 1974 The Last Word Let’s give it to an anonymous Pullman employee who said the following about the problem of living in a town completely controlled by one company: “We are born in a Pullman house, fed from the Pullman shops, taught in the Pullman school, catechized in the Pullman Church, and when we die we shall go to the Pullman Hell. For more information about the In The Past Lane podcast, head to our website, www.InThePastLane.com Music for This Episode Jay Graham, ITPL Intro (JayGMusic.com) The Joy Drops, “Track 23,” Not Drunk (Free Music Archive) Sergey Cheremisinov, “Gray Drops” (Free Music Archive) Pictures of the Flow, “Horses” (Free Music Archive) Ondrosik, “Tribute to Louis Braille” (Free Music Archive) Alex Mason, “Cast Away” (Free Music Archive) Squire Tuck, “Nuthin’ Without You” (Free Music Archive) Ketsa, “Multiverse” (Free Music Archive) Ketsa, “Memories Renewed” (Free Music Archive) Dana Boule, “Collective Calm” (Free Music Archive) Borrtex, “Motion” (Free Music Archive) Ondrosik, “Breakthrough” (Free Music Archive) Cuicuitte, “sultan cintr” (Free Music Archive) Blue Dot Sessions, "Pat Dog" (Free Music Archive) Jon Luc Hefferman, “Winter Trek” (Free Music Archive) The Bell, “I Am History” (Free Music Archive) Production Credits Executive Producer: Lulu Spencer Graphic Designer: Maggie Cellucci Website by: ERI Design Legal services: Tippecanoe and Tyler Too Social Media management: The Pony Express Risk Assessment: Little Big Horn Associates Growth strategies: 54 40 or Fight © In The Past Lane, 2020 Recommended History Podcasts Ben Franklin’s World with Liz Covart @LizCovart The Age of Jackson Podcast @AgeofJacksonPod Backstory podcast – the history behind today’s headlines @BackstoryRadio Past Present podcast with Nicole Hemmer, Neil J. Young, and Natalia Petrzela @PastPresentPod 99 Percent Invisible with Roman Mars @99piorg Slow Burn podcast about Watergate with @leoncrawl The Memory Palace – with Nate DiMeo, story teller extraordinaire @thememorypalace The Conspirators – creepy true crime stories from the American past @Conspiratorcast The History Chicks podcast @Thehistorychix My History Can Beat Up Your Politics @myhist Professor Buzzkill podcast – Prof B takes on myths about the past @buzzkillprof Footnoting History podcast @HistoryFootnote The History Author Show podcast @HistoryDean More Perfect podcast - the history of key US Supreme Court cases @Radiolab Revisionist History with Malcolm Gladwell @Gladwell Radio Diaries with Joe Richman @RadioDiaries DIG history podcast @dig_history The Story Behind – the hidden histories of everyday things @StoryBehindPod Studio 360 with Kurt Andersen – specifically its American Icons series @Studio360show Uncivil podcast – fascinating takes on the legacy of the Civil War in contemporary US @uncivilshow Stuff You Missed in History Class @MissedinHistory The Whiskey Rebellion – two historians discuss topics from today’s news @WhiskeyRebelPod American History Tellers @ahtellers The Way of Improvement Leads Home with historian John Fea @JohnFea1 The Bowery Boys podcast – all things NYC history @BoweryBoys Ridiculous History @RidiculousHSW The Rogue Historian podcast with historian @MKeithHarris The Road To Now podcast @Road_To_Now Retropod with @mikerosenwald © In The Past Lane 2020
How can we fight a War on Cars when cars might be turning into the last bastion of affordable housing in many cities and suburbs? In this episode, we talk about how the crises in transportation, housing and climate are converging in California parking lots — some of which are becoming de facto communities. Stepping in to help us understand what's going on in the Golden State is Alissa Walker, who writes for Curbed LA and cohosts LA Podcast. Support The War on Cars on Patreon and receive stickers, T-shirts, exclusive access to special audio content and more. Buy an official War on Cars T-shirt at Cotton Bureau. Rate and review The War On Cars on iTunes. Show Notes: Alissa Walker drills down on SB50 and other (so-far failed) legislation to address California's twin crises of transportation and housing. Follow her on Twitter for all the latest on LA's streets. Mark Horvath talks to people who have become homeless on his YouTube channel, Invisible People (his interview with Conrad, a veteran living in an LA parking lot, is here). You can find out more about him and support his work on his Patreon page. Safe Parking LA advocates for the interests of people who have become homeless and are living in their cars. The Public Policy Institute of California has a snapshot of the state's growing homelessness problem. In this NPR story, you'll hear from a California woman who is leasing a car through Uber so she can have a place to live. 99 Percent Invisible did an episode about the dream (or nightmare) of vertical trailer park living in Ready Player One. Henry Grabar writes about the “I've got mine” worldview of America's gerontocracy for Slate.
Fill out our survey! Quick Episode Summary: Intro :07 Audio Rockin' Libsyn Podcast: Deep Listening 2:00 How you can be featured by Libsyn! 6:22 PROMO 1: Video Fuzzy 7:51 Elsie and Rob Conversation 8:21 Apple sent an email to podcasters on May 29 and goodness, and the world went wacky Clarifying all things secure RSS feeds Optimizing the iTunes Author field section PROMO 2: The Prodigal Son 22:46 Email about BossJock and a great back up for recording on an iOS device Your Chrome browser is good at pretending it's an Android phone says James Cridland What if you don't see what everyone else sees in Apple Podcasts stats? There is a wordpress plugin called “Libsyn Podcast Quick embed” THAT IS NOT OUR PLUGIN - don't use it GDPR is a letter word and Libsyn info all about it Spotify cut a deal with Amy Schumer More on stupid money coming into podcasting plus all the things we have to say about it, again Reports on Google Assistant not playing the latest episode and what Google had to say about it How do you measure a company podcast's ROI? And ROI is not what you think Castro 3 is out and Elsie is giddy! Rob shares his worst email question in the last two weeks PROMO 3: 1:06:36 Stats, stats, stats! The median and mean numbers based on episodes released in the end of April with downloads measured until the end of May! Featured Podcast Promos + Audio Video Fuzzy The Prodigal Son The Music Educator Deep Listening Thank you to Nick from MicMe for our awesome intro! Podcasting Articles and Links mentioned by Rob and Elsie Our SpeakPipe Feedback page! Leave us feedback :) BossJock IK Multimedia iRig lav mic How to see if Google has indexed your podcast, without an Android phone Libsyn and GDPR Amy Schumer Spotify Podcast Deal Don't put podcasts behind a paywall, says 99 Percent Invisible host Roman Mars The future of podcasting will be Adelaide-made Why TV Podcasts are the ‘Director's Commentary of the Internet Age' Castro 3 Review on Macstories New Podcasting Hall of Fame Inductees Keith and Chemda on Podcast411 link to MP3 Fr. Roderick on Podcast411 link to MP3 Elsie on Fearless Self Love: For the Love of All Voices Where is Libsyn Going? (In Real Life) Podcast Movement 2018 HELP US SPREAD THE WORD! We'd love it if you could please share #TheFeed with your twitter followers. Click here to post a tweet! If you dug this episode head on over to Apple Podcasts and kindly leave us a rating, a review and subscribe! Ways to subscribe to The Feed: The Official Libsyn Podcast Click here to subscribe via Apple Podcasts Click here to subscribe via RSS You can also subscribe via Stitcher FEEDBACK + PROMOTION You can ask your questions, make comments and create a segment about podcasting for podcasters! Let your voice be heard. Download the FREE The Feed App for iOS and Android (you can send feedback straight from within the app) Call 412 573 1934 Email thefeed@libsyn.com Use our SpeakPipe Page!
Új blokkot kezdünk meg a héten, amelynek apropója az egyik kedvenc rendezőnk, Danny Boyle közelgő filmje, a T2 – Trainspotting. Ennek alkalmából úgy döntöttünk, hogy ezúttal nem olyan témát ölelünk fel, amely teljesen vakfoltot képez számunkra, hanem kifejezetten olyan rendezőkkel foglalkozunk, akiket ismerünk és szeretünk, de az első filmjük valahogy mégis rendre kimaradt nekünk. Így jutottunk el a Shallow Grave, vagy magyarul a Sekély sírhant című 1994-es mikroköltségvetésű darabhoz. Mielőtt belevágnánk a filmbe, végignézzük a rendező életművét: hogyan jutott el huszonkét éves pályafutása alatt Boyle Nagy-Britannia filmgyártásának forradalmasításától a legkultikusabb filmjének folytatásáig? És első mozifilmjeként hogyan hozott össze egy tőrölmetszett noir történetből teljesen őrült tempójú, vibráló fekete komédiát? Mit árul el John Hodges forgatókönyvíróról, hogy az összes főszereplője borzalmas, szerethetetlen szemétláda? Kerry Fox, Ewan McGregor és Christopher Eccleston hármasából melyiküknek áll legjobban a gazemberszerep? Kitárgyaljuk, mely későbbi Boyle-filmekkel mutat közeli rokonságot a Shallow Grave, majd megvádolunk egy neves rendezőt azzal, hogy elvette Ewan McGregort sármjának élét. És még az IKEA is szóba kerül. Kitekintőnket a Shallow Grave eszméletlenül menő, színpompás lakása inspirálta, és olyan belső helyszíneket, lakóhelyeket válogattunk, ahol magunk is szívesen eltöltenénk egy kis időt. Mit hagytunk ki a felsorolásunkból? Nektek mi a kedvenc filmes apartmanotok, lakóhelyetek? Várjuk a véleményeteket a kommentekben! Linkek A kitekintőben említett Bradbury Buildingről szóló adás a 99 Percent Invisible podcastban A Vakfolt podcast facebook oldala Vakfolt címke a Letterboxdon András a Twitteren: @gaines_ Péter a Twitteren: @freevo Emailen is elértek bennünket: feedback@vakfoltpodcast.hu A főcímzenénket az Artúr zenekar szerezte, akiket megtaláltok a Facebookon és a Twitteren is.