Podcasts about uc santa cruz

Recorded live at a SAND Community Gathering (April 2026) Hard times are here, we hunger for voices that can see beyond the fear, beyond the noise, beyond the technologies consuming our attention. We need poets and visionaries. People who remember freedom. Dr. Jaiya John (Mshkiki Odeh Inini, Medicine Heart Man), medicine poet, freedom worker, is one of those voices. He has spent his life gathering words that heal. In this conversation, we enter the beauty, the grief, and the medicine together. We sit with the devastation tearing our world, the sorrows cracking us open, the ancestors still holding us—and the radical insistence that collective freedom is not something we chase. It is something already alive in and between us, waiting to be birthed. Dr. Jaiya John (Mshkiki Odeh Inini, Medicine Heart Man) was orphan-born on ancient Indigenous Anasazi and Pueblo lands in the high desert of New Mexico. He is an ancestral Baba, freedom worker, medicine poet, and the founder of Soul Water Rising—a global mission to eradicate oppression through re-humanization, book donations, and grants to displaced youth. He is the author of numerous books including Freedom: Medicine Words for your Brave Revolution and Fragrance After Rain, and the creator of the podcast I Will Read for You. A former professor of social psychology at Howard University, he holds a doctorate from UC Santa Cruz and has spoken to over a million people worldwide. His Indigenous soul dreams of frybread, sweetgrass, bamboo in the breeze, and turtle lakes whose poetry is peace. Watch the full video version of this conversation. Topics 00:00 Welcome and Land Acknowledgment 02:31 Guest Bio and Introduction 03:51 Opening Blessing and Heart Question 05:10 Reclaiming Anger as Medicine 08:08 Libation Prayer for the World 15:57 Anger Rage and Lifted Veils 20:19 Rethinking War and Remembering Water 25:18 Gather Your People Reading 33:04 Grief Poetry and Inner Wars 36:13 War Wants Us Small 40:30 Soul Conditions That Grow War 42:14 Oxygen of War 44:12 Harvesting Clear Vision 47:05 Ferocious Grief Revival 49:38 How Grief Behaves 51:59 Poetry Against Silence 55:08 From Muteness to Voice 58:33 Artistry as Resurrection 01:03:42 Womanhood as Creativity 01:07:23 History as Sacred Hoop 01:12:45 Composting Harm into Healing 01:16:33 Intentional Living Practice 01:19:22 All These Rivers Choose Love 01:23:01 Blessings and Farewell Dr. Jaiya John — Guest Website: jaiyajohn.com Soul Water Rising — global mission Podcast: I Will Read for You: The Voice and Writings of Jaiya John Freedom Medicine: Words for Your Brave Revolution — book Wildflowers Praying at Midnight — book We Birth Freedom at Dawn — book All These Rivers and You Chose Love — book Fragrance After Rain — book Dr. Jaiya John's YouTube channel — where his poem for the Martyred Poets of Gaza and Palestine is available Substack: jaiyajohn.substack.com Dr. Jennifer Mullan — Referenced Website: decolonizingtherapy.com — Dr. Mullan's "rage doctor" ministry and upcoming work Decolonizing Therapy: Oppression, Historical Trauma, and Politicizing Your Practice — book Therapy is Not Neutral: Dr. Jennifer Mullan & Iya Affo (SAND Podcast episode) The Gaza Monologues — Referenced The Gaza Monologues — ASHTAR Theatre — the global project of 33 young people from Gaza, which Dr. Jaiya John contributed a poem to Support ASHTAR Theatre / Gaza Monologues writers — GlobalGiving Nikki Giovanni — Referenced Nikki Giovanni — Poetry Foundation — the poet whose performance broke Dr. Jaiya John open as a young man and birthed him as a poet nikki-giovanni.com Ancestors Referenced El-Hajj Malik El-Shabazz (Malcolm X) — quoted: "Out of all our studies, history is most qualified to reward our research" Geronimo — Dr. Jaiya John's ancestral grandfather spirit, whose question "What is in your heart?" opens the gathering John Lewis — referenced for "good trouble" and getting in the way of harm Hopi Nation / Turtle Island The concept of Sipapu (the Hopi place of emergence/womb place) is discussed at length as a framework for understanding history as circular, not linear Connect with more talks and films from the SAND film Series The Eternal Song Support the mission of SAND and the production of this podcast by becoming a SAND Member

In dieser Folge sprechen wir mit Prof. Dr. Katja Hanack, einer Expertin für Immunologie und leidenschaftlichen Unternehmerin. Als Gründerin und CEO der new/era/mabs GmbH pendelt unsere heutige Gästin zwischen Potsdam und dem Tech-Hotspot der San Francisco Bay Area. Vor ihrem Sprung in die Start-up-Welt war sie 10 Jahre lang als Professorin für Immuntechnologie an der Universität Potsdam tätig. Dort entwickelte sie mit ihrem Team Technologien, um Antikörper und Nanobodies schneller und effizienter zu produzieren. Mit einem PhD in Immuntechnologie und einem MBA in Biotechnologie bringt sie wissenschaftliches Know-how und Geschäftssinn zusammen. Davon profitiert auch die nächste Generation: Sie gibt ihre Erfahrung als SPARK Advisor und als Mentorin im Nucleate Netzwerk weiter. Wir werfen einen Blick hinter die Kulissen einer Karriere, die konsequent den Brückenschlag zwischen exzellenter Forschung und direktem medizinischen Nutzen sucht. Der Weg der "sturen" Optimistin Aufgewachsen in einem kleinen Dorf an der Ostsee, führte Katja Hanacks Weg über das Biologiestudium in Rostock und Berlin hin zur angewandten Forschung. Schon früh spürte sie den Drang, nicht nur Grundlagen zu erforschen, sondern Lösungen für reale medizinische Probleme zu finden. Fokus Immunologie: Inspiriert durch die Komplexität der Biologie spezialisierte sie sich auf Antikörpertechnologien. Transfer-Mentalität: Bereits während ihrer Promotion meldete sie privat ihr erstes Patent an. Wissenschaft & Wirtschaft: Neben ihrer Forschungsgruppe absolvierte sie einen berufsbegleitenden MBA, um die Welt des Entrepreneurships besser zu verstehen. Innovation: Vom "Trabbi zum Tesla" der Antikörper Katja Hanack revolutionierte die Art und Weise, wie Antikörper hergestellt werden. Ihr Ziel: Den Prozess schneller, effizienter und ethischer zu gestalten. In-vitro-Verfahren: Sie entwickelte Methoden zur Antikörpergewinnung außerhalb des Tierkörpers, um Tierversuche zu minimieren. Kameliden-Power: Ein besonderer Schwerpunkt liegt auf den Antikörpern von Lamas und Alpakas, die aufgrund ihrer speziellen Struktur große Vorteile für die Therapie bieten. One Health: Die Erkenntnis, dass die Gesundheit von Mensch und Tier untrennbar verbunden ist, bildet das Fundament ihrer aktuellen Arbeit. Effizienzsprung: Durch Automatisierung und neue Display-Systeme konnte die Entwicklungszeit um das Vierfache beschleunigt werden. Preparedness: Katja plädiert daher dafür, diagnostische und therapeutische Tools bereits vor dem nächsten Pandemie-Ausbruch bereit zu haben. Katjas 3 Key Learnings für Science-Startups Niemals aufgeben: Bleibe stur und halte an deiner Vision fest, egal wie negativ das Feedback ist. Netzwerke nutzen: Baue dir ein Umfeld aus Mentoren und Unterstützern auf, die deine duale Rolle verstehen. Authentisch bleiben: Frage dich immer, was du erreichen willst, und bleibe dir selbst treu. Ausblick: Nach zehn Jahren erfolgreicher Arbeit in Potsdam führt Katja Hanacks Weg nun zurück in die USA an die UC Santa Cruz, wo sie ihre Erfahrungen in die nächste Generation von Wissenschaftlern einfließen lässt. Kontakt: Vernetzt euch mit Katja Hanack am besten direkt über LinkedIn.

Host Katherine Bell talks with G. William Domhoff about dreams, sleep, and consciousness through the lens of his book Dreams, Sleep, and Consciousness. Domhoff explains his neurocognitive theory of dreaming, arguing that dreams are not random nonsense, but a form of internally generated thought that reflects personal concerns, imagination, and the sleeping brain's unique activity patterns. The conversation explores several big questions: What are dreams? Why do we dream? How are dreams connected to mind-wandering, sleep stages, and self-awareness? Domhoff also discusses research showing that dream content often reveals recurring waking-life concerns, relationships, and emotional patterns. He shares examples from long-term dream series, including how recurring dream imagery can illuminate deeper concerns even when the imagery itself seems surprising or symbolic. Domhoff argues that dreaming emerges when the brain's systems for external attention and self-reflection are dialed down, while imagination and internally generated imagery remain active. The result is a vivid mental world that is immersive, emotionally meaningful, and often revealing. If you are interested in dream research, sleep science, REM sleep, non-REM dreaming, lucid dreaming, consciousness studies, dream meaning, dream journals, or the neuroscience of imagination, this episode offers a rich introduction to one of the field's most influential researchers and his decades of work. Topics covered in this episode: Bill Domhoff's neurocognitive theory of dreaming Whether dreams are meaningful or simply byproducts of sleep The connection between dreaming and mind-wandering What dream content reveals about personal concerns and relationships How REM sleep, non-REM sleep, and sleep onset relate to dreaming The difference between knowing and self-knowing in consciousness Why dream research matters for understanding the human mind BIO: G. William Domhoff is a pioneering dream researcher who has studied dreaming since 1960. He taught a long running university course on dreams at UC Santa Cruz through 2019 and has spent decades exploring how dreams work, how we remember them, and what they reveal about the human mind. His latest book is called “Dreams, Sleep, and Consciousness: Interweaving the Neurocognitive Theory of Dreaming with New Theories of Sleep and Consciousness.” Contact our guest: DreamResearch.net and Dreambank.net Bill is an invited speaker at the IASD conference which is June 13-17 in Ashland Oregon. Find out more at IASDconferences.org/2026/ This show, episode number 364, was first broadcast on May 23, 2026 at KSQD.org, community radio of Santa Cruz. The interview was recorded on April 10, 2026. SHARE A DREAM FOR THE SHOW or a question or enquire about being a guest on the podcast by emailing Katherine Bell at katherine@ksqd.org. Follow on LI, IG, YT, FB, & LT @ExperientialDreamwork #thedreamjournal. To learn more or to inquire about exploring your own dreams go to ExperientialDreamwork.com. Video podcast available at youtube.com/@experientialdreamwork. Popular playlists: “Dream Journal shorts” and “FULL LENGTH VIDEOS”. Here are links to some other Dream Journal episodes you might be interested in: Inside the Sleeping Mind: Memory, Dream Yoga, & the Neuroscience of Sleep with Ken Paller, PhD Dream Deeper to Sleep Better with Leah Ann Bolen Intro and outro music by Mood Science. Ambient music new every week by Rick Kleffel. Archived music can be found at Pandemiad.com. Many thanks to Rick for also engineering the show and to Erik Nelson for answering the phones. The Dream Journal aims to: Increase awareness of and appreciation for nightly dreams. Inspire dream sharing and other kinds of dream exploration as a way of adding depth and meaningfulness to lives and relationships. Improve society by the increased empathy, emotional balance, and sense of wonder which dream exploration invites. A dream can be meaningful even if you don’t know what it means. The Dream Journal is produced at and airs on KSQD Santa Cruz, 90.7 FM. Catch it streaming LIVE at KSQD.org 10-11am Pacific Time on Saturdays. Call or text with your dreams or questions at 831-900-5773 or email at onair@ksqd.org. Podcasts are available on all major podcast platforms the Monday following the live show. The complete KSQD Dream Journal podcast page can be found at ksqd.org/the-dream-journal/. Thanks for being a Dream Journal listener! Available on all major podcast platforms. Rate it, review it, subscribe, and tell your friends.

New Series: Grounding the Green Financing Series Summary This series brings together scholars researching the relationship between green finance, and the everyday experiences of violence and solidarity across the world. Green finance, understood as various models of loans and investments that ostensibly support mitigation and adaptation to climate change, is promoted by international bodies such as the United Nations and the World Bank. However, the abstraction of this language and policies involved obscures the connections to everyday practices of extraction and resistance. This series reinfuses the economics of climate change with people's histories and agencies. Therefore, anthropologists and adjacent field scholars have a particularly apt skill set for grounding the climate finance discussion in place-based, community-informed explorations across the globe.   Episode Summary In the first episode of this quarterly series, Fernando Leiva talks about his mapping of the finance-extractivism-climate-change-energy transition nexus focused on Chile, his country of origin. He identifies four areas of research into green financing as a material and cultural project : 1) the depolitization of climate change, veiling its true causes of this crisis; 2) the impacts of carbonization by dispossession and the concentration of wealth; 3) the further subordination of public policy to de-risking investments; and 4) the financialization of nature itself. Leiva presents his bestiario (bestiary) and chronology of financial products as an entry point to analyze the interactions between discourses and power relations in Chile, the birthplace of neoliberalism and other sociopolitical experiments in the last 50 years, and now a leader in the green finance economy. In his view, green finance is also a hegemonic myth project that presents the private sector as the social actor of the future, in an unequal field of cultural creation, against communities betting on collective forms of life. Leiva argues that critical scholarship is needed in these cultural battles of meaning making for the future.    Guest Fernando Leiva is a Professor of Latin American and Latino Studies at the University of Califprnia, Santa Cruz. He received his PhD in Economics from the University of Massachusetts-Amherst (1998). He is the author of Latin American Neostructuralism: The Contradictions of Post-Neoliberal Development (University of Minnesota Press, 2008) and The Left Hand of Capital: Neoliberalism and the Left in Chile (SUNY Press, 2021). For the last decade, his research deploys a Critical Cultural Political Economy Perspective that examines how semiotic and material practices co-constitute reality. He uses this approach to examine newly emerging strategies with which transnational capital aims to expand the frontiers of extractivism and craft the foundations for a new capitalist hegemonic project anchored on “eco-extractivism.” Host Jéssica Malinalli Coyotecatl-Contreras is a University of California President's Postdoctoral Fellow in the Department of Latin American and Latino Studies at UC Santa Cruz. She holds a PhD in Anthropology (UCSB, 2025) and a Master's in Social Anthropology (El Colegio de Michoacán, 2013). Her work builds on the knowledge of women and Indigenous communities, at the intersection of the (built) environment, feminist political ecology, and anti-coloniality in the Americas. Her work has been featured in peer-reviewed articles and online pieces for broader audiences. She is currently working on her first manuscript “Volcanic Sustainability: Progressive Fossil Capitalism, Violent Energy Transition, and Indigenous Futurities in Mexico.”   

For the past four months, many people with friends and family in Iran haven't known if their loved ones are safe. The Iranian government cut off internet access inside the country on January 8 amid widespread protests. There were moments in the weeks that followed when Iranians could access the outside world. But when the U.S. and Israel attacked the country in late February, the blackout resumed.  Now, despite the fragile ceasefire, many Americans of Iranian descent are left in limbo, including students at UC Santa Cruz. Reporter: Elena Neale-Sacks, KAZU The First Amendment Coalition is suing Los Angeles Unified, accusing the second largest school district in the country of concealing teacher misconduct records. Reporter: Holly J. McDede, KQED Immigrant detainees at a detention center in the Mojave Desert are staging a hunger and economic strike. Reporter: Anthony Victoria, KVCR Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

When David George lay sick with smallpox in Savannah during the Revolutionary War, he faced three possible outcomes: death, re-enslavement, or freedom. Greg O'Malley, Professor of History at UC Santa Cruz, follows David George across six decades and three continents, from enslaved Virginia to the Muscogee Creek nation, and from British-occupied Georgia to Nova Scotia to Sierra Leone, in his new book, The Escapes of David George: An Odyssey of Slavery, Freedom, and the American Revolution. It's a story that will change how you think about what the Revolution actually delivered, and for whom. Greg's Website | Book Show Notes: https://www.benfranklinsworld.com/403 EPISODE OUTLINE00:00:00 Introduction 00:01:14 Welcome to Ben Franklin's World 00:02:31 Introducing Greg O'Malley and David George 00:05:43 David George's Odyssey Begins 00:08:12 The Rare Narrative of David George 00:11:07 Authenticating David George's Voice 00:13:39 David George's Multiple Escapes from Slavery 00:20:30 David George's Conversion to Christianity 00:24:53 Why Baptist? The Appeal of Evangelical Faith 00:29:52 David George's Family and Name 00:37:12 Life in Nova Scotia as a Refugee Preacher 00:42:03 Journey to Sierra Leone 00:54:44 Piecing Together David George's Later Years 00:59:49 Discovering the Silver Bluff Baptist Church 01:06:24 Time Warp: What If David George Stayed? 01:10:29 Reflections and TakeawaysRECOMMENDED NEXT EPISODES

The Ohlone Sisters at Garland Ranch, local and state representatives react to battery energy storage news, and members of UC Santa Cruz's Iranian Student Union make sense of what's happening to their relatives in this week's episode.

Rebecca Benjamin, a UC Santa Cruz graduate researcher, is launching Benjmark Surf Co. to bridge surfboard craftsmanship with computational fluid dynamics. Using custom boards, tuft testing, and underwater imaging, she's translating flow into insight and sharing the findings with the broader

California lawmakers are considering new rules for electric bikes as safety concerns grow on roads and trails. But experts say much of the data behind those concerns is misleading. Reporter: Gerardo Zavala, CapRadio New research from UC Santa Cruz shows climate change is a bigger threat to California's native trees than previously thought. Reporter: Erin Malsbury, KAZU To the north of the Imperial Valley, another battleground is emerging in the debate over AI data centers. Residents are pushing back against a large data center campus in the city of Coachella. Reporter: Kori Suzuki, KPBS Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

We've heard a lot about the problem of microplastics pollution. Just how bad is it?  What are its causes?  What are microplastics doing to us and the world?  Is anything being done to stem the accelerating production and consumption of plastics that end up in our water, our air, in animals, and in human bodies? Liste to a conversation about microplastics with host Ronnie Lipschutz, Dr. Myra Finkelstein, Adjunct Professor in the Microbiology and Environmental Toxicology Department at UC Santa Cruz and Dr. Steven Mentor a Santa Cruz climate activist and long-time environmentalist. Finklestein has been examining the health effects of plastic ingestion on seabirds to better understand the consequences for marine wildlife and human health. Mentor will discuss campaigns in California to regulate microplastics and what can be done to turn the tide of plastic packaging and consumption.You can learn more about the topic from Food and Water Watch, the Netflix film "The Plastic Detox" and the Interstate Technology & Regulatory Council.

Born and raised in Princeton, New Jersery, Wilkes relocated to the West Coast with his family, where he would go on to earn a BA at UC Santa Cruz, before eventually deciding to study screenwriting at the American Film Institute (AFI). Having worked as a screnwriter on such cult classics as 1994's "Airheads" (Adam Sandler, Brendan Fraser, Steve Buscemi, Chris Farley, and Michael Richards) and "The Stoned Age" (Michael Kopelow, Bradford Tatum, and Clifton Collins Jr.), which was released this past Monday as an exclusive cult collectible Blu-Ray in celebration of 420, Wilkes officially made his semi-autobiographical coming of age tale "Glory Daze", starring a pre-Kevin Smith Ben Affleck, Sam Rockwell, and French Stewart, and has since paved way as a legend in an intense industry that is changing quicker than you, and I could ever fathom. While combining the existential elements of youth, relationships, career, and the brave balance of life, Wilkes may be your new favorite obsession when it comes to cult comedies, and subliminal stoner stories. On this episode of The Self Portrait Gospel Podcast, we sit down with the veteran screenwriter/director to discuss the old glory daze of long-lasting youth in the 1990s, films legends such as Spielberg, Fincher, and Soderbergh, the never-ending narrative of nostalgia, the impact of AI, and much more.

Monterey County supervisors move forward with an oversized vehicle ban along two streets in Pájaro—kind of. And, a plant sale at UC Santa Cruz this weekend.

Rosie Glen-Lambert is a bicoastal theatre director originally from Los Angeles and currently based in Brooklyn. She is the Artistic Director and Founder of The Attic Collective, an award-winning Los Angeles based theatre company. Rosie is also a proud Kilroy who fights for and believes in the importance of gender parity in the American theatre. Rosie was recently the associate director of Babbitt, written by Joe DiPietro, directed by Christopher Ashley, and starring Matthew Broderick (La Jolla Playhouse, Shakespeare Theatre Company). Recent directing work includes Swallows (La Mama), The Robots: A New Chamber Opera (Project [BLANK]), नेहा & Neel (Wagner New Play Festival), and a benefit performance of Love Letters (La Jolla Playhouse, Featuring Matthew Broderick and Ellie Kemper). Rosie was a 2025 Director for Moxie Arts NYC's Incubator Lab. Rosie received her MFA in directing from UC San Diego. Hailey McAfee is an actor, writer, director, and associate artist of The Attic Collective. Recent acting credits include Three Exorcisms and Iphigenia in Splott (LA Theatre Bites Best Solo Show Winner, Best Actress Nominee, Hollywood Fringe Best of The Broadwater Winner, Best Solo Show and Top of Fringe Nominee). Directing credits include The Hostage Situation (Inkwell LAB) Here Comes the Night (SheLA Festival), Six Men Dressed Like Joseph Stalin (Inkwell LAB) and Hedda Gabler (Hollywood Fringe Best of The Broadwater Winner, Best Drama Nominee, LA Magazine Top Pick of Fringe). She has a degree in Theater Arts from UC Santa Cruz. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

In this episode of High Theory, Zac Zimmer talks to Kim about Decolonizing the Novum. The novum is a concept developed by Darko Suvin that names the new element of a science fiction or speculative fiction narrative. SF narratives from the Americas that rewrite archival material about colonization and first contact have begun an imaginative project of decolonizing that novum. In Zac's words, the "novum" has been part of our definition of science fiction since Darko Suvin first offered up the concept of part of his critical assessment of SF. This idea of "novelty" is linked to conquest and colonialism through the figure of the New World, i.e. the post-1492 Americas. Thus untangling the relationship between colonialism, novelty, and science fiction must pass through the historical record of the conquest. One way to do this is to focus on SF that deeply engages the archival record of the XVIth century in the Americas: texts and artworks that use speculation to depart from the knowledge that things didn't quite occur the way the dominant paradigms would lead us to believe, and to imagine other futures linked to past moments of historical contingency. In the episode, Zac references an incredible list of writers and theorists, including Edmundo O'Gorman and Walter Benjamin, Saidiya Hartman's “Venus in Two Acts,” You Dreamed of Empires by Álvaro Enrigue, Destrucción de todas las cosas by Hugo Hiriart, and “Decolonization is not a metaphor” by Eve Tuck and K. Wayne Yang. The transcript lives here as a WordDoc and here as a PDF. Zac's book, First Contact: Speculative Visions of the Conquest of the Americas (Northwestern University Press 2025), is a comparative study of Latin American science fiction and narratives of the sixteenth century conquest of the Americas. It moves through a corpus of Mexican novels, Andean visual arts practices, and other cultural artifacts that have dramatized counterfactual narratives. Reimagining the early colonial period's historiography from a south-to-north directionality while inventing parallel realities, these texts, which are concerned with limit cases, alterities, and alternative temporalities, refuse any reliance on the imperial ontologies of European expansion. Zac examines these works to explore the slippage that exists between science fiction as the exemplary genre of the modern, colonial reality and literary speculation as an aesthetic tool that can be used to imagine other possible worlds. You can read a review in the Los Angeles Review of Books. Zac Zimmer works as an Associate Professor of Literature at UC Santa Cruz. His research explores questions of literature, aesthetics, politics, and technology in the Americas.In addition to his current research on the cultural infrastructure of technosystems, he co-facilitates the Ethics & Astrobiology reading group, part of UCSC's Astrobiology Initiative. In the Literature department, he teaches classes on Latin American literature, science fiction, ethics & technology, and the poetics of California infrastructure. The image for this episode is the view from the Hubble Space Telescope, showing the birth of a sun-like star, retrieved from Flicker for High Theory by Lili Epstein. Image credit: NASA, ESA, G. Duchene (Universite de Grenoble I); Image Processing: Gladys Kober (NASA/Catholic University of America) Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/new-books-network

In this episode of High Theory, Zac Zimmer talks to Kim about Decolonizing the Novum. The novum is a concept developed by Darko Suvin that names the new element of a science fiction or speculative fiction narrative. SF narratives from the Americas that rewrite archival material about colonization and first contact have begun an imaginative project of decolonizing that novum. In Zac's words, the "novum" has been part of our definition of science fiction since Darko Suvin first offered up the concept of part of his critical assessment of SF. This idea of "novelty" is linked to conquest and colonialism through the figure of the New World, i.e. the post-1492 Americas. Thus untangling the relationship between colonialism, novelty, and science fiction must pass through the historical record of the conquest. One way to do this is to focus on SF that deeply engages the archival record of the XVIth century in the Americas: texts and artworks that use speculation to depart from the knowledge that things didn't quite occur the way the dominant paradigms would lead us to believe, and to imagine other futures linked to past moments of historical contingency. In the episode, Zac references an incredible list of writers and theorists, including Edmundo O'Gorman and Walter Benjamin, Saidiya Hartman's “Venus in Two Acts,” You Dreamed of Empires by Álvaro Enrigue, Destrucción de todas las cosas by Hugo Hiriart, and “Decolonization is not a metaphor” by Eve Tuck and K. Wayne Yang. The transcript lives here as a WordDoc and here as a PDF. Zac's book, First Contact: Speculative Visions of the Conquest of the Americas (Northwestern University Press 2025), is a comparative study of Latin American science fiction and narratives of the sixteenth century conquest of the Americas. It moves through a corpus of Mexican novels, Andean visual arts practices, and other cultural artifacts that have dramatized counterfactual narratives. Reimagining the early colonial period's historiography from a south-to-north directionality while inventing parallel realities, these texts, which are concerned with limit cases, alterities, and alternative temporalities, refuse any reliance on the imperial ontologies of European expansion. Zac examines these works to explore the slippage that exists between science fiction as the exemplary genre of the modern, colonial reality and literary speculation as an aesthetic tool that can be used to imagine other possible worlds. You can read a review in the Los Angeles Review of Books. Zac Zimmer works as an Associate Professor of Literature at UC Santa Cruz. His research explores questions of literature, aesthetics, politics, and technology in the Americas.In addition to his current research on the cultural infrastructure of technosystems, he co-facilitates the Ethics & Astrobiology reading group, part of UCSC's Astrobiology Initiative. In the Literature department, he teaches classes on Latin American literature, science fiction, ethics & technology, and the poetics of California infrastructure. The image for this episode is the view from the Hubble Space Telescope, showing the birth of a sun-like star, retrieved from Flicker for High Theory by Lili Epstein. Image credit: NASA, ESA, G. Duchene (Universite de Grenoble I); Image Processing: Gladys Kober (NASA/Catholic University of America) Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/latin-american-studies

In this episode of High Theory, Zac Zimmer talks to Kim about Decolonizing the Novum. The novum is a concept developed by Darko Suvin that names the new element of a science fiction or speculative fiction narrative. SF narratives from the Americas that rewrite archival material about colonization and first contact have begun an imaginative project of decolonizing that novum. In Zac's words, the "novum" has been part of our definition of science fiction since Darko Suvin first offered up the concept of part of his critical assessment of SF. This idea of "novelty" is linked to conquest and colonialism through the figure of the New World, i.e. the post-1492 Americas. Thus untangling the relationship between colonialism, novelty, and science fiction must pass through the historical record of the conquest. One way to do this is to focus on SF that deeply engages the archival record of the XVIth century in the Americas: texts and artworks that use speculation to depart from the knowledge that things didn't quite occur the way the dominant paradigms would lead us to believe, and to imagine other futures linked to past moments of historical contingency. In the episode, Zac references an incredible list of writers and theorists, including Edmundo O'Gorman and Walter Benjamin, Saidiya Hartman's “Venus in Two Acts,” You Dreamed of Empires by Álvaro Enrigue, Destrucción de todas las cosas by Hugo Hiriart, and “Decolonization is not a metaphor” by Eve Tuck and K. Wayne Yang. The transcript lives here as a WordDoc and here as a PDF. Zac's book, First Contact: Speculative Visions of the Conquest of the Americas (Northwestern University Press 2025), is a comparative study of Latin American science fiction and narratives of the sixteenth century conquest of the Americas. It moves through a corpus of Mexican novels, Andean visual arts practices, and other cultural artifacts that have dramatized counterfactual narratives. Reimagining the early colonial period's historiography from a south-to-north directionality while inventing parallel realities, these texts, which are concerned with limit cases, alterities, and alternative temporalities, refuse any reliance on the imperial ontologies of European expansion. Zac examines these works to explore the slippage that exists between science fiction as the exemplary genre of the modern, colonial reality and literary speculation as an aesthetic tool that can be used to imagine other possible worlds. You can read a review in the Los Angeles Review of Books. Zac Zimmer works as an Associate Professor of Literature at UC Santa Cruz. His research explores questions of literature, aesthetics, politics, and technology in the Americas.In addition to his current research on the cultural infrastructure of technosystems, he co-facilitates the Ethics & Astrobiology reading group, part of UCSC's Astrobiology Initiative. In the Literature department, he teaches classes on Latin American literature, science fiction, ethics & technology, and the poetics of California infrastructure. The image for this episode is the view from the Hubble Space Telescope, showing the birth of a sun-like star, retrieved from Flicker for High Theory by Lili Epstein. Image credit: NASA, ESA, G. Duchene (Universite de Grenoble I); Image Processing: Gladys Kober (NASA/Catholic University of America) Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/native-american-studies

In this episode of High Theory, Zac Zimmer talks to Kim about Decolonizing the Novum. The novum is a concept developed by Darko Suvin that names the new element of a science fiction or speculative fiction narrative. SF narratives from the Americas that rewrite archival material about colonization and first contact have begun an imaginative project of decolonizing that novum. In Zac's words, the "novum" has been part of our definition of science fiction since Darko Suvin first offered up the concept of part of his critical assessment of SF. This idea of "novelty" is linked to conquest and colonialism through the figure of the New World, i.e. the post-1492 Americas. Thus untangling the relationship between colonialism, novelty, and science fiction must pass through the historical record of the conquest. One way to do this is to focus on SF that deeply engages the archival record of the XVIth century in the Americas: texts and artworks that use speculation to depart from the knowledge that things didn't quite occur the way the dominant paradigms would lead us to believe, and to imagine other futures linked to past moments of historical contingency. In the episode, Zac references an incredible list of writers and theorists, including Edmundo O'Gorman and Walter Benjamin, Saidiya Hartman's “Venus in Two Acts,” You Dreamed of Empires by Álvaro Enrigue, Destrucción de todas las cosas by Hugo Hiriart, and “Decolonization is not a metaphor” by Eve Tuck and K. Wayne Yang. The transcript lives here as a WordDoc and here as a PDF. Zac's book, First Contact: Speculative Visions of the Conquest of the Americas (Northwestern University Press 2025), is a comparative study of Latin American science fiction and narratives of the sixteenth century conquest of the Americas. It moves through a corpus of Mexican novels, Andean visual arts practices, and other cultural artifacts that have dramatized counterfactual narratives. Reimagining the early colonial period's historiography from a south-to-north directionality while inventing parallel realities, these texts, which are concerned with limit cases, alterities, and alternative temporalities, refuse any reliance on the imperial ontologies of European expansion. Zac examines these works to explore the slippage that exists between science fiction as the exemplary genre of the modern, colonial reality and literary speculation as an aesthetic tool that can be used to imagine other possible worlds. You can read a review in the Los Angeles Review of Books. Zac Zimmer works as an Associate Professor of Literature at UC Santa Cruz. His research explores questions of literature, aesthetics, politics, and technology in the Americas.In addition to his current research on the cultural infrastructure of technosystems, he co-facilitates the Ethics & Astrobiology reading group, part of UCSC's Astrobiology Initiative. In the Literature department, he teaches classes on Latin American literature, science fiction, ethics & technology, and the poetics of California infrastructure. The image for this episode is the view from the Hubble Space Telescope, showing the birth of a sun-like star, retrieved from Flicker for High Theory by Lili Epstein. Image credit: NASA, ESA, G. Duchene (Universite de Grenoble I); Image Processing: Gladys Kober (NASA/Catholic University of America) Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/literary-studies

In this episode of High Theory, Zac Zimmer talks to Kim about Decolonizing the Novum. The novum is a concept developed by Darko Suvin that names the new element of a science fiction or speculative fiction narrative. SF narratives from the Americas that rewrite archival material about colonization and first contact have begun an imaginative project of decolonizing that novum. In Zac's words, the "novum" has been part of our definition of science fiction since Darko Suvin first offered up the concept of part of his critical assessment of SF. This idea of "novelty" is linked to conquest and colonialism through the figure of the New World, i.e. the post-1492 Americas. Thus untangling the relationship between colonialism, novelty, and science fiction must pass through the historical record of the conquest. One way to do this is to focus on SF that deeply engages the archival record of the XVIth century in the Americas: texts and artworks that use speculation to depart from the knowledge that things didn't quite occur the way the dominant paradigms would lead us to believe, and to imagine other futures linked to past moments of historical contingency. In the episode, Zac references an incredible list of writers and theorists, including Edmundo O'Gorman and Walter Benjamin, Saidiya Hartman's “Venus in Two Acts,” You Dreamed of Empires by Álvaro Enrigue, Destrucción de todas las cosas by Hugo Hiriart, and “Decolonization is not a metaphor” by Eve Tuck and K. Wayne Yang. The transcript lives here as a WordDoc and here as a PDF. Zac's book, First Contact: Speculative Visions of the Conquest of the Americas (Northwestern University Press 2025), is a comparative study of Latin American science fiction and narratives of the sixteenth century conquest of the Americas. It moves through a corpus of Mexican novels, Andean visual arts practices, and other cultural artifacts that have dramatized counterfactual narratives. Reimagining the early colonial period's historiography from a south-to-north directionality while inventing parallel realities, these texts, which are concerned with limit cases, alterities, and alternative temporalities, refuse any reliance on the imperial ontologies of European expansion. Zac examines these works to explore the slippage that exists between science fiction as the exemplary genre of the modern, colonial reality and literary speculation as an aesthetic tool that can be used to imagine other possible worlds. You can read a review in the Los Angeles Review of Books. Zac Zimmer works as an Associate Professor of Literature at UC Santa Cruz. His research explores questions of literature, aesthetics, politics, and technology in the Americas.In addition to his current research on the cultural infrastructure of technosystems, he co-facilitates the Ethics & Astrobiology reading group, part of UCSC's Astrobiology Initiative. In the Literature department, he teaches classes on Latin American literature, science fiction, ethics & technology, and the poetics of California infrastructure. The image for this episode is the view from the Hubble Space Telescope, showing the birth of a sun-like star, retrieved from Flicker for High Theory by Lili Epstein. Image credit: NASA, ESA, G. Duchene (Universite de Grenoble I); Image Processing: Gladys Kober (NASA/Catholic University of America) Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/critical-theory

In this episode of High Theory, Zac Zimmer talks to Kim about Decolonizing the Novum. The novum is a concept developed by Darko Suvin that names the new element of a science fiction or speculative fiction narrative. SF narratives from the Americas that rewrite archival material about colonization and first contact have begun an imaginative project of decolonizing that novum. In Zac's words, the "novum" has been part of our definition of science fiction since Darko Suvin first offered up the concept of part of his critical assessment of SF. This idea of "novelty" is linked to conquest and colonialism through the figure of the New World, i.e. the post-1492 Americas. Thus untangling the relationship between colonialism, novelty, and science fiction must pass through the historical record of the conquest. One way to do this is to focus on SF that deeply engages the archival record of the XVIth century in the Americas: texts and artworks that use speculation to depart from the knowledge that things didn't quite occur the way the dominant paradigms would lead us to believe, and to imagine other futures linked to past moments of historical contingency. In the episode, Zac references an incredible list of writers and theorists, including Edmundo O'Gorman and Walter Benjamin, Saidiya Hartman's “Venus in Two Acts,” You Dreamed of Empires by Álvaro Enrigue, Destrucción de todas las cosas by Hugo Hiriart, and “Decolonization is not a metaphor” by Eve Tuck and K. Wayne Yang. The transcript lives here as a WordDoc and here as a PDF. Zac's book, First Contact: Speculative Visions of the Conquest of the Americas (Northwestern University Press 2025), is a comparative study of Latin American science fiction and narratives of the sixteenth century conquest of the Americas. It moves through a corpus of Mexican novels, Andean visual arts practices, and other cultural artifacts that have dramatized counterfactual narratives. Reimagining the early colonial period's historiography from a south-to-north directionality while inventing parallel realities, these texts, which are concerned with limit cases, alterities, and alternative temporalities, refuse any reliance on the imperial ontologies of European expansion. Zac examines these works to explore the slippage that exists between science fiction as the exemplary genre of the modern, colonial reality and literary speculation as an aesthetic tool that can be used to imagine other possible worlds. You can read a review in the Los Angeles Review of Books. Zac Zimmer works as an Associate Professor of Literature at UC Santa Cruz. His research explores questions of literature, aesthetics, politics, and technology in the Americas.In addition to his current research on the cultural infrastructure of technosystems, he co-facilitates the Ethics & Astrobiology reading group, part of UCSC's Astrobiology Initiative. In the Literature department, he teaches classes on Latin American literature, science fiction, ethics & technology, and the poetics of California infrastructure. The image for this episode is the view from the Hubble Space Telescope, showing the birth of a sun-like star, retrieved from Flicker for High Theory by Lili Epstein. Image credit: NASA, ESA, G. Duchene (Universite de Grenoble I); Image Processing: Gladys Kober (NASA/Catholic University of America) Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/art

We're back from Spring Break and we hope you had some time to rest! Financial Literacy Month is here and our ‘Money Masterclass' series of well-sought after financial educators and professionals are going to make you want to share them with all of your friends! This series opens with Patricia Kelly, University of California, Santa Cruz Lecturer, Speaker, and Financial Literacy Advocate, who is also the mastermind behind the popular course, COWL52 Personal Finance and Investing that is now available throughout the University of California system. From initially 30 students to now over 1,000 students enrolled, this former Wall Street Analyst shares the five pillars of finance and offers great tips from her course on how to start implementing them in your financial plan today. Don't miss the free financial templates and resources she offers as well. ⁠ Ms. Kelly completed her MBA at Harvard Business School in Boston, Massachusetts, and received her Bachelor of Arts in Economics at University of California, Santa Cruz. In 2019, prior to the pandemic, she received a grant from the Office of the President of the University of California to produce an online version for UC Systemwide. The course now reaches 1,000 students per term throughout the UC System. Ms. Kelly's professional career was spent in the financial industry, beginning as an investment banking analyst on Wall Street in the 1980s, to a partnership at a Palo Alto-based investment management firm responsible for managing $2.5 billion for institutional clients, including the Vanguard Equity Income Fund. She was a past President of the Harvard Business School Association of Northern California and is on the Harvard Business School Alumni Board. She also serves on the investment committee of the Community Foundation of Santa Cruz County. To learn more about Ms. Kelly and her work, visit her website at PatKelly.Sites.UCSC.edu or connect with her on LinkedIn.

Rev. Liên & Rev. Dana tries -- & about what it might be our future, too! Zen Fools! :)The Co-Host reflect on 2 Seasons forwarding Asian American (AA) & Asian Diasporic (AD) Buddhist teachers & practitioners; along with other AAs who have shaped our collective understanding of race and racialization in the U.S.We thank Rev. Dana Takagi for her dedication to these aims for the last 2 seasons! These archives would not be the same without her or her guests' voices!We'll be dropping a compilation of Season 4 for the "practice" on April 21.UPDATE on 4/6: We did not get funding to renew this project. As always, feel free to contact us (about funding or otherwise) at Info.Access2Zen@gmail.comYour hostsREV. DANA TAKAGI (she/her) is a retired professor of Sociology and zen priest, practicing zen since 1998. She spent 33 years teaching sociology and Asian American history at UC Santa Cruz, and she is a past president of the Association for Asian American Studies. REV. LIÊN SHUTT (she/they) is a recognized leader in the movement that breaks through the wall of American white-centered convert Buddhism to welcome people of all backgrounds into a contemporary, engaged Buddhism. As an ordained Zen priest, licensed social worker, and longtime educator/teacher of Buddhism, Shutt represents new leadership at the nexus of spirituality and social justice, offering a special warm welcome to Asian Americans, all BIPOC, LGBTQIA2S+, immigrants, and those seeking a home in the midst of North American society's reckoning around racism, sexism, homophobia, and xenophobia. Shutt is a founder & Guiding Teacher of Access to Zen. You can learn more about her work and book, Home is Here: Practicing Antiracism with the Engaged Eightfold Pathat AccessToZen.org EVENTS

“If the regime doesn't lose, it wins.” — Soli ÖzelIt was just past midnight in Istanbul when I reached Soli Özel. The Pentagon had just announced it was deploying 3,000 soldiers — the 82nd Airborne — to the Gulf. Özel — professor of international relations at Kadir Has University, columnist, and one of the most trusted analysts of Middle Eastern politics — is blunt. This might, he warns, be America's Suez moment.In 1956, Britain and France — two spent imperial powers that refused to accept they were spent — were humiliated in Egypt. Trump is a noisier, more corpulent Anthony Eden. The difference between then and now is that the US and Soviet Union were ready to replace the European colonial powers. Today, no great power can take America's place in the region. But its prestige is diminished, its ammunition depleted, and when it called on NATO allies to help open the Strait of Hormuz, nobody volunteered. Russia and China, Özel suggests, are winning on every front without sending any of their crack regiments to the front. It may also be midnight for a declining United States in the Middle East. Five Takeaways•       The Negotiations Were Going America's Way: According to the Omani foreign minister, Iran had accepted conditions firmer than the original JCPOA. The war was a choice, not a necessity. The question is who convinced the president: the Venezuela precedent, which suggested quick regime decapitation, or the Israelis, who wanted not just a deal but the regime's destruction. Nobody told him that Venezuela and Iran have nothing in common.•       If the Iranian Regime Doesn't Lose, It Wins: Iran has escalation control. Its defensive resilience has exceeded every analyst's expectations. It struck the Ras Laffan gas refinery in Qatar — three to five years to repair. It hit radars, data centres, refineries. Nobody thought they could do this. If the regime survives, it emerges emboldened, more autocratic, and the entire Gulf security equation changes permanently.•       This May Be America's Suez Moment: In 1956, Britain and France — two spent imperial powers — were humiliated in Egypt. The difference: the US and Soviet Union were ready to take their place. Today, no great power can replace America in the region. But its prestige is diminished, its ammunition depleted, and when it called on NATO allies to help open the Strait of Hormuz, nobody volunteered.•       The Moral Debate America Isn't Having: The decapitation strategy — assassinating an entire generation of foreign leaders — crossed a red line that should never have been crossed. The American debate is about preparedness, Israeli influence, and whether Trump can find an exit. The moral question is taking the back seat. The rest of the world has noticed.•       Russia Wins. China Waits. Nothing Will Be the Same: Oil prices from the sixties to over a hundred. Russia has more room in Ukraine. China is happy the US can't pivot to Asia and is depleting ammunition reserves meant for a Taiwan scenario. Relations between the Gulf countries, Israel, and the United States will be reconsidered, redefined, and never the same. About the GuestSoli Özel is a professor of international relations at Kadir Has University in Istanbul, a fellow at the Robert Bosch Academy, and a columnist for Habertürk. A member of the European Council on Foreign Relations, he has taught at Johns Hopkins SAIS, UC Santa Cruz, and Yale, and was a Fisher Family Fellow at the Belfer Center at the Harvard Kennedy School. He writes regularly for Project Syndicate.References:•       Episode 2843: The Philadelphia Story — Richard Vague on how America's first bank was created to fund war. The connection between banking, debt, and war hasn't changed.•       Episode 2842: Symbolic Capitalism vs. Symbolic Democracy — this week's TWTW on whether capitalism permits democracy. The Iran war is the test.About Keen On AmericaNobody asks more awkward questions than the Anglo-American writer and filmmaker Andrew Keen. In Keen On America, Andrew brings his pointed Transatlantic wit to making sense of the United States — hosting daily interviews about the history and future of this now venerable Republic. With nearly 2,800 episodes since the show launched on TechCrunch in 2010, Keen On America is the most prolific intellectual interview show in the history of podcasting.WebsiteSubstackYouTubeApple PodcastsSpotify Chapters:

California’s new $20 minimum wage for fast food workers was meant to lift paychecks—but it’s also reshaping the industry. In this episode, we dig into a study by UC Santa Cruz that looks that the impacts. Democrats seem surprised by the results: higher menu prices, reduced hours, job cuts, and a rapid push toward automation. From self‑order kiosks to leaner staffing models, fast food is changing fast. John Gerardi in for John Broeske. Please Like, Comment and Follow 'Broeske & Musson' on all platforms: --- The ‘Broeske & Musson Podcast’ is available on the KMJNOW app, Apple Podcasts, Spotify or wherever else you listen to podcasts. --- ‘Broeske & Musson' Weekdays 9-11 AM Pacific on News/Talk 580 AM & 105.9 FM KMJ | Facebook | Podcast| X | - Everything KMJ KMJNOW App | Podcasts | Facebook | X | InstagramSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Dan and Ross. Winemaker Ross Cobb is our guest again today on California Wine Country with Dan Berger and Daedalus Howell. He is the founder of Cobb Wines. Ross was on the show once before, on this episode in January of 2025. Daedalus Howell remembers meeting Ross Cobb maybe 30 years ago, when they were both at the beginning of their careers. They begin by tasting a Chardonnay from 2023, which Dan describes as a nice cool vintage. The vineyard is in the eastern Sonoma County in the Sebastopol area. It was planted in the late 1990s. He got some Pinot Noir from the new owner, and he also got some Chardonnay. He considers this to be one of the best Chardonnay vineyards around. The vines are mature, it gets 10% new oak, full malolactic fermentation, 22 months in barrel, and it's not overly done. Dan Berger gives credit to all of those techniques, which gives it a combination or richness and tartness. The texture is rich and the aftertaste is delicate. It is only 12.5% ABV so it won't knock you over. CWC is brought to you by Deodora Estate Vineyards. Visit Deodora to discover 72 acres in the Petaluma Gap that are producing exceptional Chardonnay, Pinot Noir and Riesling. Sip the difference!  Ross describes how his parents planted the vineyard in 1988-1989. He attended UC Santa Cruz where he designed his own program focussed on the living soil. Then he met all of his neighbors who had vineyards, names like Dehlinger and Rocchioli. Then he worked for Ferrari-Carano, Williams-Selyem and then for Flowers. Next they taste a Riesling. Ross and Dan Berger both get their Riesling grapes from Cole Ranch. Both of them make it dry and Dan credits Ross for a great product aimed at Riesling purists – like Dan. After the break they taste the Pinot Noirs. Ross Cobb says the 2023 Pinot Noir from Emmaline Ann Vineyard was his transformational vintage. He recalls the 2006 crop when he picked at 21.9 Brix. At first he was afraid that he had made a bad decision. But it turned out well, because of the secondary chestnut and spicy aromas that emerged. Dan Berger says 2006 was the greatest age-worthy vintage Sonoma County history. “This is astounding!” says Dan. He likes it because it was a cool year. Dan says Ross did well to pick early because the problem with a lot of wine is over-ripeness. Dan observes that this year’s crop is dealing with 90-degree daytime highs in March. He also thinks that we will also have some cooler weather in the next month. Dan says the best weather report in the world comes rerom Abacela Winery. Greg Jones who has a PhD in climate science, publishes excellent meteorological reports on the western US. His reports are free online.  Look for the Current Weather and Climate Report on this page. The last tasting is the 2021 Doc’s Ranch Vineyard. It is another representation of Sonoma Coast style. They have 22 acres of vines at high altitude. It is risky, and can yield as little as half a ton per acre. Ross calls it a good place for ripening in September and October. This vintage was picked in late October.

In this conversation, Liv sits down with Dakota Camacho to explore the importance of returning to our cultural roots and why reclaiming ancestral wisdom matters more than ever. Through the lens of CHamoru culture, they reflect on the wisdom of our elders, the values that shape our identity, and how our generation can reconnect to culture and carry these traditions forward.EPISODE TAKEAWAYSEmbracing our heritage helps us understand ourselves and our community more deeplyTraditional practices and language carry the wisdom of our ancestors and keep culture aliveCultural knowledge guiding activism strengthens community and supports collective healingArt, poetry, and music give us ways to share our stories and find healingA culturally connected future grows through community care and sustainable livingReconnecting with our roots can be a powerful journey that honors ancestral wisdomCONNECT WITH DAKOTADakota Camacho is a Matao/CHamoru artist born and raised in Coast Salish Territory who creates indigenizing processes through altar-making, movement, film, music, and prayer. Yo'ña (their) work has been presented across five continents and throughout Oceania. Exploring the intersections of integrity, ancestral and Indigenous lifeways, true love, and accountability, guiya (they) activate a Matao worldview to make offerings toward inafa'maolek—balance and harmony with all of life. Through embodied practice, Camacho generates encounters with self, community, spirit, and the natural world, cultivating spaces where multiple ways of knowing, being, and doing speak to one another in service of collective liberation.Camacho is a Nia Tero Pacific Northwest Artist Fellow and a Western Arts Alliance Native Launchpad Artist, and has received awards and support from the New England Foundation for the Arts' National Dance Project, the National Performance Network Creation Fund, NDN Collective's Radical Imagination Grant, and Creative Capital. They co-founded I Moving Lab, an inter-national, inter-cultural, inter-tribal, and inter-disciplinary arts collective that creates self-funded initiatives connecting rural and urban communities, universities, museums, and performing arts institutions. Camacho holds an M.A. in Performance Studies from NYU's Tisch School of the Arts and a B.A. in Gender & Women's Studies from the University of Wisconsin–Madison as a First Wave Urban Arts and Hip Hop Scholar, and has taught at UC Santa Cruz and the University of Guåhan, including their self-designed course, “Performing Indigenous Worldviews.Website: https://www.gimatanguma.com/Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/infinitedakota/?hl=enCONNECT WITH INA WELLNESS COLLECTIVEWebsite: https://www.inawellnesscollective.com/Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/inawellnesscollectiveWATCH FULL EPISODES ON YOUTUBEhttps://www.youtube.com/@inawellnessWAYS TO WORK TOGETHERWell Within Membershiphttps://www.inawellnesscollective.com/wellwithinRise & Align Group Programhttps://www.inawellnesscollective.com/riseandalignSPECIAL THANKSThis episode was recorded in the beautiful Penthouse Suite at Dusit Beach Resort Guam. Dusit Beach is part of the interconnected Dusit destination resort in Tumon Bay, alongside Dusit Thani Guam Resort and Dusit Place, offering guests a seamless, all-in-one beachfront experience with world-class dining, shopping, and relaxation.Follow them at @dusitbeachresortguamView all Offerings at https://www.dusit.com/dusitbeach-resortguam/

Kate Schatz joins the show to discuss Where the Girls Were, a novel inspired by the hidden history of maternity homes and the young women sent away during the 1960s. This week, Kate Schatz joins the Book Gang podcast to discuss her adult fiction debut, Where the Girls Were, a novel that explores a little-discussed chapter of American history: the maternity homes that housed more than a million young women during the 1950s and 1960s. Drawing inspiration from her own family's haunting history and years of research, Schatz brings readers into the world of a teenage prodigy sent away to give birth in secret just weeks before graduating high school. In our conversation, we discuss how the story first took shape, the transition from writing nonfiction about activism and history to crafting a deeply researched novel, and the realities of maternity homes in the mid-twentieth century. Schatz also shares some of the surprising details uncovered during her research. In this fascinating conversation, we explore:

Episode 371 where we talk all things AI shortage, the future of game exclusivity, New York v Valve, Raspberry Pis, and in our Sound Test feature, reveal the mystery sound from episode 331 while we share a new challenge! The UC Santa Cruz research NiceGuy mentioned.  The AI Efficiency research Mack mentioned. Join the conversation […]

Reverend Joseph Cheah sits down with Dana to discuss his research and writings which push back against dominant understandings of Asian religions that were propagated by Western frameworks. He brings his combination of familial and cultural Buddhist roots with his Catholic faith and livelihood to also offer the idea that anti-hate activism by Asian organizers is a deep kind of spiritual social practice in action. GUESTREVEREND JOSEPH CHEAH OSM, Ph.D. is Professor of Religious Studies and Theology, and Chair of the Department of Philosophy, Theology and Religious Studies. Fr. Joe has made robust contributions in the fields of Asian American religions and theology, Buddhist Studies, World Christianity, race and religion. He is the author of Race and Religion in American Buddhism (OUP, 2011) which is the first monograph to take race seriously as a category of analysis in American Buddhist scholarship (Brooke Schedneck) and “stands to transform the discourse on American Buddhism and Asian American religions in significant and much needed ways” (Sharon Suh). His recent book Anti-Asian Racism (Orbis, 2023) has been reviewed as “an exceptional book … on the genealogy and variants of anti-Asian racism in the U.S.” (Thomas Hampton) and “a must-read for all Americans” (Peter Phan). He is a co-editor on the Palgrave Macmillan series, “Asian Christianity in Diaspora” with Grace Ji-Sun Kim, with whom he co-authored a book on Theological Reflections on “Gangnam Style.” In recognition of his record of exceptional scholarship, the University in 2018 awarded him with the Sister Mary Ellen Murphy Faculty Scholarship Award.He has been an invited speaker on anti-Asian racism, Catholic Social Teaching, and other topics to audiences at diverse educational levels across the country. He was part of Asian American Christian Collaborative delegates invited to a White House meeting to address central issues faced by Asian American communities.HOSTREVEREND DANA TAKAGI (she/her) is a retired professor of Sociology and zen priest, practicing zen since 1998. She spent 33 years teaching sociology and Asian American history at UC Santa Cruz, and she is a past president of the Association for Asian American Studies. 

David and Dan David Ramey, founder of Ramey Wine Cellars, joins Dan Berger and Daedalus Howell on California Wine Country. He has been on CWC before, but it was a while ago, on this episode in 2018 and again here in 2019. The weather today is unseasonably warm, but it doesn't affect Dan's work. People tell him it seems he has the greatest job in the world. They think he just has to drink wine and write about it. But Dan actually drinks very little, when tasting and evaluating wine. The better the wine, the less of it you need to drink to appreciate high quality. “It’s not about volume, it’s about character,” says Dan. “Wine is food. It's fermented grape juice and it goes with food. You might get a little relaxed but you you don't drink wine to get drunk,” declares David. Dan reminds everyone, “Life’s too short to drink bad wine.” Dan Berger declares that Chardonnay today is better than it has ever been, and he thinks David Ramey can explain why. David thinks that the Chardonnay producers went down the wrong path, when rich, hedonistic wines, fruit bombs, were popular. Robert Parker was an influential wine critic and he liked that style. David Ramey’s Chardonnays represent a reversal of that trend and an appeal to wine lovers who know that Chardonnay can do much more than those big buttery fruit bombs that don’t age well. CWC is brought to you by Deodora Estate Vineyards. Visit Deodora to discover 72 acres in the Petaluma Gap that are producing exceptional Chardonnay, Pinot Noir and Riesling. Sip the difference!  MS in Enology David Ramey describes his pathway into the profession of winemaking. He grew up in Sunnyvale, a schoolmate of Apple co-founder Steve Wozniak. He attended UC Santa Cruz from 1969-1973, when the campus was brand new. He worked as a waiter where he also had the chance to taste wine. He thought he would go and teach English in Colombia, but he never made it there. He was driving from Mexicali to Hermosillo and one day he describes a coup de foudre, French for a lightning strike, when he realized he should make wine. It’s something that people like, it’s not bad for the environment, it’s an aesthetic statement, lot to like about it. So he applied to UC Davis in enology. He had to take all his college level math and science courses at San Jose State before he could start the major. He graduated with a Master of Science in Enology. Several of his fellow students became famous winemakers. They are tasting one of David’s Chardonnays, which is not chilled. “Chardonnay is the red wine of whites.” Both whites he brought are 2015s and the reds are both 2013s. Both combine richness, strong acidity and good structure. Claret David went to France after he graduated. “I’m a classicist,” he says. He wanted to go where people have been making wine for a very long time, to learn how to do it. He ended up working in Bordeaux. Then he worked a harvest in Australia. They processed 37,000 tons of grapes that time. Next they taste the Claret. That name is protected now but David says they can still use it, they are grandfathered in. It is a generic British English term for a Bordeaux wine. The French claimed it, despite the fact that there is no place named Claret. It’s just a generic word, but it was ceded to the EU in trade negotiations. Ramey also treademarked two varietal blend names for themselves. Their Left Bank Blend is a Cabernet based blend. Template is another name, modeled on the Right Bank, so it is Merlot based. This is all with Sonoma County grapes. Dan adds that the name Ramey on the label indicates a higher level of quality, by itself.

This month on Opening Dharma Access, we continue to shift from our regular schedule to focus on the ongoing ICE occupation and state-supported destruction impacting the globe. Rev. Dana Takagi reflects on her personal experience of returning to some foundational practice tools during a time of grieving, and the necessity as practitioners to double down in times of intense hatred and anger. She also talks about chanting and acknowledging one's own ancient twisted karma, always being a work in progress, and how we should resist furthering hatred and violence in ourselves for even those who perpetuate hatred and violence. REVEREND DANA TAKAGI (she/her) is a retired professor of Sociology and zen priest, practicing zen since 1998. She spent 33 years teaching sociology and Asian American history at UC Santa Cruz, and she is a past president of the Association for Asian American Studies. 

Ellen takes things slow with the iconic banana slug. We discuss mobile slip 'n' slides, recreationally poisoning yourself, liquid crystals, oobleck, robosnail, slime trains, moisture farming, apophallation, college mascots, and so much more.Works Cited:"Banana Slugs: Secret of the Slime" for Mallory Pickett, KQED, February 2015"Mechanical Devices for Snail-like Locomotion" - Brian Chan et al., Journal of Intelligent Material Systems and Structures, February 2007"Tough adhesives for diverse wet surfaces" - J. Li et al., Science, July 2017"Emerging biotechnology promises to transform the materials we use to work and live" - L.G. Blanchard, University of Washington Magazine, September 1993"She studies slug sex by the seashore: UCSC researcher works to unlock secrets of banana slug sex" - Elise Overgaard, Lookout Santa Cruz, June 2023"Our Mascot: Sammy the Banana Slug", UC Santa Cruz (uscs.edu)Links:For more information about us & our podcast, head over to our website!Follow Just the Zoo of Us on BlueSky, Facebook, Instagram & Discord!Follow Ellen on Instagram or BlueSky!

Ellen takes things slow with the iconic banana slug. We discuss mobile slip 'n' slides, recreationally poisoning yourself, liquid crystals, oobleck, robosnail, slime trains, moisture farming, apophallation, college mascots, and so much more.Works Cited:"Banana Slugs: Secret of the Slime" for Mallory Pickett, KQED, February 2015"Mechanical Devices for Snail-like Locomotion" - Brian Chan et al., Journal of Intelligent Material Systems and Structures, February 2007"Tough adhesives for diverse wet surfaces" - J. Li et al., Science, July 2017"Emerging biotechnology promises to transform the materials we use to work and live" - L.G. Blanchard, University of Washington Magazine, September 1993"She studies slug sex by the seashore: UCSC researcher works to unlock secrets of banana slug sex" - Elise Overgaard, Lookout Santa Cruz, June 2023"Our Mascot: Sammy the Banana Slug", UC Santa Cruz (uscs.edu)Links:For more information about us & our podcast, head over to our website!Follow Just the Zoo of Us on BlueSky, Facebook, Instagram & Discord!Follow Ellen on Instagram or BlueSky!

This month on Opening Dharma Access, we continue to shift from our regular schedule to focus on the ongoing ICE agency violence. Rev. Dana Takagi speaks about the many ways to respond to fascism from a Dharma perspective, whether that be peaceful protest or staying educated on which systems can be used as shields for the vulnerable. Dana recommends some reading, watching and podcasts, to understand in detail how the current presidential administration is consistently acting as a fascist regime by disregarding legal and communal structures to create an atmosphere of terror. Stay tuned for a second episode from Dana on the third Tuesday of this month. Here are links to references mentioned by Dana in the episode:1.  Letters from an American, Heather Cox Richardson https://heathercoxrichardson.substack.com/2. Rachel Maddow, Burn Order: https://www.ms.now/rachel-maddow-presents-burn-order3. Densho ( a digital storehouse of Asian American history).  This is an interview with attorney Dale Minami who was one of several attorneys who participated in the Coram Nobis Case which set aside the convictions of Fred Korematsu, Gordon Hirabayashi, and Min Yasui (all of whom challenged different aspects of the constitutionality of the order to evacuate Japanese Americans in 1942). https://www.instagram.com/reel/DTk9cCAiECg/4. Strict Scrutiny:   https://crooked.com/podcast-series/strict-scrutiny/REVEREND DANA TAKAGI (she/her) is a retired professor of Sociology and zen priest, practicing zen since 1998. She spent 33 years teaching sociology and Asian American history at UC Santa Cruz, and she is a past president of the Association for Asian American Studies. 

I have to say that I can pick ém. My love of Bordeaux and the volume of Bordeaux I have tasted has lead me to Chateau Haut Bailly. Under the tootlidge of Veronique Sanders-Van Beek, the winery continues to make great strides not only in quality, but developing the experience of wine. You see, wine it not just a beverage, it has a soul, a connection, an expression of its place and of it's time. I have been fortunate enough to consider Veronique a friend and I look for opportunities to tell the story of the Chateau. Here I speak with Cyprien Chamanhet, Marketing Director of the Chateau. I have to tell you, having Cyprien Champanhet from Chateau Haut-Bailly in the studio was a real treat and just the sort of conversation that reminds me why I love hosting Wine Talks. We sat down in Southern California on a January day, and from the get-go, Cyprien brought an honest and unpretentious energy to the discussion—he cuts straight to the point. "Do you like the wine?" he asked, and it was refreshing to hear someone in the trade boil things down to pleasure and emotion, not just technical complexity. Even with fine wines, the fundamental goal is enjoyment. That's a sentiment I think too often gets lost in the shuffle in our industry, which can sometimes take itself a bit too seriously. We quickly dove into the DNA of Chateau Haut-Bailly. Cyprien is both Sales Director and Marketing Communications Director, but more than wearing official hats, he embodies what makes the estate special—the constant drive to improve, to question, and to never stand still. It's not that they have some rigid, well-documented strategy; it's woven into their identity. Every decision they make at the château pivots on the question: will this improve the wine, the hospitality, or the relationships with their partners? That's where the magic really happens, not just in boardrooms, but passing in the vineyards, talking among the team, and always with the Wilmers family, their deeply involved owners. Speaking of the Wilmers, Cyprien talked about Chris Wilmers, their chairman, and professor of ecology at UC Santa Cruz. Now, there's a boardroom influence that definitely filters down into the vines—and you see it in their approach to sustainability. It's much more than lip service. The château doesn't use weed killers or insect killers, maintains century-old vines, and considers not just organic or biodynamic approaches, but a kind of "third way" that balances environmental impact, carbon footprint, and even workers' and neighbors' health. I love seeing how that academic, ecological mindset brings practical, tangible benefits to the vineyard. It's a beautiful fusion of tradition and progress. We did some deep thinking around terroir—that mysterious, oft-referenced concept that supposedly starts and ends in soil. But as I prodded Cyprien, he agreed terroir extends into philosophy, history, and—yes—the boardroom. The energy and ethos of a place, its leadership, and the team all seep into the bottle. That's why I've never bought the idea of "bad vintages" at places like Haut-Bailly. As long as what's in the bottle is an honest expression of what nature and experience handed you that year, it brings emotion and memory—like a great piece of music with recurring themes and intriguing variations. One of my favorite moments came when Cyprien talked about how the industry tries to please the consumer—with supermarket formula wines versus character-driven bottles. He wasn't going to pander; at Haut-Bailly, the style is distinctive, loyal to its roots, and never sacrificed for fast trends. The real reward is in education and curiosity—getting people excited about differences in vintage, terroir, and story. And as we swapped stories about wine tourism, he lit up describing the new tasting room and the personal touch they offer visitors. Every guest becomes an ambassador, every experience becomes a memory, and suddenly, the conversation around the table at home is about what happened at the château, not just what's in the glass. I have to say, trading observations and anecdotes with Cyprien made me optimistic. We're in an industry built on pleasure, memory, and shared stories. And if you ask me, keeping it honest and humble—like Haut-Bailly does—will always be the real cutting edge.   YouTube: https://youtu.be/DuX-gXglUy8 #WineTalks #ChateauHaultBailly #Podcast #WineIndustry #Bordeaux #WineTourism #Sustainability #Terroir #Winemaking #WineExperience #WineEducation #FineWines #ConsumerDriven #WineEmotion #WinePleasure #WineMarketing #Sommelier #WineVintages #VineyardLife #WineConversation  

Superpowers for Good should not be considered investment advice. Seek counsel before making investment decisions. When you purchase an item, launch a campaign or create an investment account after clicking a link here, we may earn a fee. Engage to support our work.Watch the show on television by downloading the e360tv channel app to your Roku, LG or AmazonFireTV. You can also see it on YouTube.Devin: What is your superpower?Richard: The superpower is to see the truth that we're all made in the image of God…underneath all of the apparent polarization.The world feels increasingly divided, yet Richard Flyer believes we can create a more united, symbiotic culture by shifting our perspective. During today's episode, Richard explained his compelling vision for a community built on intentional mutual benefit—a concept that resonates deeply with me.Richard's new book, Birthing the Symbiotic Age, is the culmination of over two decades of work, blending personal experience, community organizing, and a belief in the interconnectedness of humanity and nature. He challenges the idea that we are separate, saying, “We're actually all connected…within our families, neighborhoods, local communities, nations, and worldwide.”This intentional mutual benefit, as Richard describes it, is a culture where every action, thought, and decision considers its impact on others. It's about making connection a core value, from small personal interactions to global systems. Richard explained, “Symbiotic culture…is a culture in which intentional mutual benefit between human beings and with nature becomes the norm at all scales.”He draws from practical experience, sharing stories of community transformation. Richard recounted his involvement in initiatives like the Nevada Micro-Enterprise Initiative, which provided low-income entrepreneurs with seed funding, mentorship, and technical assistance. These efforts exemplify his belief that mutual benefit can underpin economic and social systems, creating a “virtuous economy.”This vision aligns beautifully with the principles of impact crowdfunding, where investors and entrepreneurs unite to create positive change. Richard's work shows how embedding intentional mutual benefit into our economy has the power to transform not only individual lives but entire communities.Richard's book, Birthing the Symbiotic Age, offers a roadmap for rebuilding our culture with love and connection at its heart. As he said, “When we engage the world, we are coming from that deeper connected perspective.”For those interested in this vision, Richard's book is available at richardflyer.com. By embracing his ideas, we can take steps toward realizing this symbiotic age together.tl;dr:Richard Flyer shares a 20-year journey to create a symbiotic culture of intentional mutual benefit.He explains how his book, Birthing the Symbiotic Age, challenges the myth of separation in society.Richard highlights community-building efforts, including crime reduction and micro-financing initiatives.He describes his superpower: recognizing the intrinsic divinity or goodness in every individual.Richard provides actionable advice for fostering connection and building a culture of mutual benefit.How to Develop Recognizing the Divinity in Others As a SuperpowerRichard's superpower is the ability to see the divinity—or intrinsic goodness—in everyone. He explained, “The superpower is to see the truth that we're all made in the image of God…underneath all of the apparent polarization.” This perspective allows him to bridge divides and unite communities, focusing on the shared humanity that connects us all. Richard emphasized that this principle applies universally, regardless of one's spiritual or secular beliefs, making it a powerful tool for fostering connection and collaboration.Richard shared a transformative story of overcoming his personal biases to unite his community. In Reno, Nevada, he recognized his antipathy toward religious organizations was limiting his ability to include them in community-building efforts. To address this, he spent a year visiting various religious and spiritual groups, from Christian churches to Buddhist sanghas. This experience helped him see individuals beyond their labels, fostering greater understanding and collaboration. This shift enabled him to unite diverse groups to address shared challenges.Tips for Developing the Superpower:Attend events hosted by organizations or people you may disagree with to foster understanding.Practice small, intentional acts of kindness, such as holding the door open for others.Consciously remind yourself of the shared humanity in everyone, even those with opposing views.Reflect on personal biases and take steps to overcome them for greater connection.By following Richard's example and advice, you can make recognizing the divinity in others a skill. With practice and effort, you could make it a superpower that enables you to do more good in the world.Remember, however, that research into success suggests that building on your own superpowers is more important than creating new ones or overcoming weaknesses. You do you!Get Your Copy!Guest ProfileRichard Flyer (he/him):Symbiotic Culture - more a framework at this point, not an organizationAbout Symbiotic Culture: Symbiotic Culture is a civic and cultural framework focused on rebuilding trust, belonging, and cooperation at the local level in a time of social fragmentation. It integrates insights from community development, economics, spirituality and faith traditions, and living systems to help people move beyond polarization toward shared purpose and practical collaboration. Rather than advancing ideology or top-down solutions, Symbiotic Culture emphasizes connecting the good already present in local communities—linking people, initiatives, and institutions so they can work together more effectively through shared values and virtues such as trust, mutual responsibility, and care. The work holds that lasting social renewal is both practical and spiritual, beginning not with systems alone but with people learning how to live, work, and solve problems together in meaningful ways.Website: richardflyer.comBiographical Information: Richard Flyer is an author, community-builder, and faith-rooted cultural strategist whose life's work bridges science, spirituality, and civic renewal. Trained as a biologist, he studied pilot whale and dolphin communication at UC Santa Cruz and San Diego State before earning an M.S. in Biology. His grounding in living systems science later became the foundation for Symbiotic Culture—a framework that integrates spiritual insight with practical tools for regenerative community life.Richard's career spans health, education, and grassroots leadership. He pioneered hyperbaric oxygen therapy programs in Nevada hospitals, taught in community colleges and detention facilities, and led nonprofits including the San Diego Food Bank, Neighbors United, and the Nevada Microenterprise Initiative. Internationally, he served with Sri Lanka's Sarvodaya Shramadana movement, supporting a national network of over 5,000 communities. His work draws inspiration from Jesus and the early church, Gandhi's village republics, and Václav Benda's idea of the Parallel Polis.For Richard, following Jesus is not about dogma, but about daily practice—learning to embody love, reconciliation, hospitality, and neighborliness in a divided world. He sees in Jesus not only the center of his faith, but a bridge across traditions, calling people into deeper connection and shared responsibility.Today, through Symbiotic Culture, Richard mentors leaders across faith, civic, and cultural spheres. In Birthing the Symbiotic Age, he offers a vision for a Global Commonwealth of 50,000 empowered communities—a parallel society rooted in love, justice, and mutual flourishing. He lives on O‘ahu, Hawaii with his wife Marta, drawing renewal from the islands, time with family, and the simple joy of Connecting the Good wherever he goes.LinkedIn Profile: linkedin.com/in/richard-flyer-6820727Personal Twitter Handle: @Richard_Flyer Personal Facebook Profile: facebook.com/richard.flyerInstagram Handle: @richard.flyerSupport Our SponsorsOur generous sponsors make our work possible, serving impact investors, social entrepreneurs, community builders and diverse founders. Today's advertisers include Crowdfunding Made Simple, and Make Money with Impact Crowdfunding. Learn more about advertising with us here.Max-Impact Members(We're grateful for every one of these community champions who make this work possible.)Brian Christie, Brainsy | Cameron Neil, Lend For Good | Carol Fineagan, Independent Consultant | Hiten Sonpal, RISE Robotics | John Berlet, CORE Tax Deeds, LLC. | Justin Starbird, The Aebli Group | Lory Moore, Lory Moore Law | Mark Grimes, Networked Enterprise Development | Matthew Mead, Hempitecture | Michael Pratt, Qnetic | Mike Green, Envirosult | Dr. Nicole Paulk, Siren Biotechnology | Paul Lovejoy, Stakeholder Enterprise | Pearl Wright, Global Changemaker | Scott Thorpe, Philanthropist | Sharon Samjitsingh, Health Care Originals | Add Your Name HereUpcoming SuperCrowd Event CalendarIf a location is not noted, the events below are virtual.SuperCrowd Impact Member Networking Session: Impact (and, of course, Max-Impact) Members of the SuperCrowd are invited to a private networking session on January 27th at 1:30 PM ET/10:30 AM PT. Mark your calendar. We'll send private emails to Impact Members with registration details.Community Event CalendarSuccessful Funding with Karl Dakin, Tuesdays at 10:00 AM ET - Click on Events.Join UGLY TALK: Women Tech Founders in San Francisco on January 29, 2026, an energizing in-person gathering of 100 women founders focused on funding strategies and discovering SuperCrowd as a powerful alternative for raising capital.If you would like to submit an event for us to share with the 10,000+ changemakers, investors and entrepreneurs who are members of the SuperCrowd, click here.Manage the volume of emails you receive from us by clicking here.We use AI to help us write compelling recaps of each episode. Get full access to Superpowers for Good at www.superpowers4good.com/subscribe

Today's guest, Guy Kawasaki, flips the usual “success story” on its head with a string of jaw-dropping missed opportunities that became the foundation for a life measured by impact, not just outcomes. In this conversation, Guy takes us from being a kid on the “wrong side of the tracks” in Honolulu to Stanford, Apple, and Canva—sharing how cars, connections, and a few spectacular “what was I thinking?” decisions shaped his relationship with money and ambition. Guy is a Silicon Valley original. As one of Apple's first evangelists, he helped introduce the Macintosh to the world. Today, he's a bestselling author, venture capitalist, podcast host, and a trusted voice on entrepreneurship, innovation, and making a positive difference through your work. Guy is the chief evangelist of Canva, host of the Remarkable People podcast and author of eighteen books including Think Remarkable. He is an adjunct professor of UC Santa Cruz and trustee of the University of Hawaii Foundation. He was the chief evangelist of Apple, trustee of the Wikimedia Foundation and brand ambassador of Mercedes-Benz. Kawasaki has a BA from Stanford University, an MBA from UCLA and an honorary doctorate from Babson College. When Success Isn't a Straight Line Guy Kawasaki's journey reminds us that success isn't defined only by wins, titles, or perfect timing. Missed opportunities, unexpected turns, and “what was I thinking?” moments often shape our values, ambitions, and relationship with money just as much as the highlights do. If you're reflecting on your own path—whether navigating career pivots, weighing new opportunities, or redefining what impact and success mean to you—an Aspiriant advisor can help you explore your financial decisions with perspective, purpose, and intention. Follow Money Tales on Spotify, Apple Podcasts, or YouTube Music for more candid conversations about money, mindset, and the stories behind major life choices.

Original air date: June 10, 2025.⁠ Claire Hoffman⁠ is the author of ⁠Sister, Sinner: The Miraculous Life and Mysterious Disappearance of Aimee Semple McPherson⁠, available from Farrar, Straus, & Giroux. Hoffman is also the author of the memoir Greetings from Utopia Park and is a journalist reporting for national magazines on culture, religion, celebrity, business, and more. She was formerly a staff reporter for the Los Angeles Times and Rolling Stone. She is a graduate of UC Santa Cruz, and has an MA in religion from the University of Chicago and an MA in journalism from Columbia University. She serves on the boards of the Columbia School of Journalism, ProPublica, and the Brooklyn Public Library. *** ⁠⁠⁠⁠Otherppl with Brad Listi⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ is a weekly podcast featuring in-depth interviews with today's leading writers. Available where podcasts are available: ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Apple Podcasts⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠, ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Spotify⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠, ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠YouTube⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠, etc. Subscribe to ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Brad Listi's email newsletter⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠. ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Support the show on Patreon⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Merch⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Instagram⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠  ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Bluesky⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ Email the show: letters [at] otherppl [dot] com The podcast is an ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠affiliate partner of Bookshop⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠, working to support local, independent bookstores. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

“Merry Christmas, Emily” David Lowery does so many things, his CV needs a sequel. He's a professor, a mathematician, a writer, a musician, a producer and an entrepreneur. He's also the singer of two of my all-time favorite bands: Cracker and Camper Van Beethoven. Let's start with the former. Lowery formed Camper Van Beethoven when he was a student at UC Santa Cruz in the early '80s. I was so obsessed with Camper Van when I was in high school I cut class to buy their new album--but I had the wrong day, so I cut class the next day to get it. Totally worth it, by the way. Camper Van Beethoven put out a handful of genius albums likeOur Beloved Revolutionary Sweetheart and Telephone Free Landslide Victory before temporarily disbanding in 1990. Lowery didn't miss a beat and formed Cracker with guitarist Johnny Hickman and they put out a handful of genius albums like Kerosene Hat and The Golden Age, logged a #1 Modern Rock track with "Teen Angst (What The World Needs Now)" and scored three platinum albums. This is only a partial history, by the way; but I would recommend reading up on both bands because they have fascinating histories.Lowery has produced everyone from Counting Crows to Sparklehorse, founded Sound of Music studios, was a seed investor in Reverb.com (), knocked out his PhD and was named a Global IP Champion by the U.S. Chamber of Commerce. A ferocious advocate for artist's rights, among other things, Lowery launched a pair of class actions alleging major streaming services had failed to properly license and account to independent songwriters. Lowery currently teaches the economics and finance of the music business at the University of Georgia.An authentic career-spanning collection that boasts re-recordings, demos, b-sides and live takes that have never been heard, ‘Alternative History: A Cracker Retrospective' is out now. It's a deep and privileged dive into the rich and vast Cracker cataloge and to say it's a treat falls short of the mark. It's a musical treasure chest. Cracker are touring now and will be on the road at the beginning of 2025 and Camper Van will be playing dates as well. www.crackersoul.com Www.bombshellradio.com www.stereoembersmagazine.com www.alexgreenbooks.com IG: @Emberspodcast editor@stereoembersmagazine.com

The USC Triple-Double Podcast -- the Peristyle Podcast's basketball-focused podcast -- returns with co-hosts Shotgun Spratling and Connor Morrissette (aka Mr. Triple Double) breaking down the Trojan men beating UTSA and UC Santa Cruz and the Women of Troy taking down Cal Poly and Cal.  The USC Triple-Double continues with a look at where the women's and men's teams stack up nationally in multiple statistical categories before moving to a preview of both teams' next two conference games.  The USC women and men each take on ranked opponents in their next matchups with the women traveling to play No. 20 Nebraska and No. 4 UCLA and the men battling No. 2 Michigan and No. 9 Michigan State on the road.  To learn more about listener data and our privacy practices visit: https://www.audacyinc.com/privacy-policy Learn more about your ad choices. Visit https://podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Send us a textWe trace Justin Cummings' path from early leadership training to steering Santa Cruz through a pandemic, fires, and a fragile housing landscape. Practical stories show how to connect experts, cut red tape, protect renters, and stay grounded without losing joy.• early leadership roots in camp programs and team captaincy• becoming mayor during crisis and defining the role• building information bridges across sectors• doubling local COVID testing capacity through escalation and certification• handling criticism with clarity and boundaries• self care, time management and public visibility• housing instability as the central community risk• tenant protections and a funded attorney resource• transparency versus strategy in public communication• culture setting through joy, humor and choosing issues not sides• advice for emerging leaders on listening and sharing the stage BioI moved to Santa Cruz from Chicago in 2007 to pursue a PhD in ecology and evolutionary biology with a designated emphasis in environmental science from UC-Santa Cruz, which I received in 2013.  My work has largely focused on invasive species eradication in places such as Panama and the Galapagos, sustainable fisheries science, tropical forest restoration, assessing the impacts of climate change on the environment, and diversity, equity, and inclusion in environmental conservation. After a brief post-doc in Miami, I returned to Santa Cruz in 2015 to co-found and direct the UC-Santa Cruz Doris Duke Conservation Scholars Program, whose mission is to prepare college students from diverse backgrounds to become the next generation of conservation leaders.   In Santa Cruz, I witnessed and experienced the impacts of the exorbitant housing market. I got involved in a rent control measure campaign and was one of the highest signature gatherers to place the measure on the 2018 ballot. This, along with a commitment to community engagement, prompted me to run for city council. In 2018, I was the highest vote recipient and became one of two African American men voted onto the Santa Cruz City Council for the first time in history. In 2020 I became the first African American man to serve as Mayor of the City of Santa Cruz. In 2022, I was elected to the Santa Cruz County Board of Supervisors as the Third District Supervisor.  During my time on the council, I focused on sustainable community growth, increasing affordable housing, reducing carbon emissions, public safety reform, amplifying the voices of marginalized community members, connecting people to resources during the pandemic, and most importantly bringing our community together to make Santa Cruz better for everyone. Support the show

Rev. Dana Takagi reflects on the significance of Abbot Yuko Yamada being the first woman teacher at the founding temple of Soto Zen, Eiheiji. Dana also highlights Yamada's teaching of the Denkōroku, a text written by the ancestor Keizan who emphasized making Buddhism accessible to the masses and not just monastic residential practitioners. Dana emphasizes Abbot Yamada's ongoing contributions to moving Buddhism forward into a more inclusive and accessible future, both in Japan and globally. This is a supplementary episode to the full interview with Abbot Yamada. Listen first if you haven't already!GUESTYUKO WAKAYAMA YAMADA is the abbot of Shogakuji in Tokyo. She currently teaches at the International department of Eiheiji. She is the first nun to teach at Eiheiji, the head monastery of Soto Zen founded by Dogen Zenji. She trained at Aichi Senmon Niso-do, a training temple for female Soto Zen priests, where she also currently teaches. She was ordained in 1999 by the highly respected Rev. Shundo Aoyama-roshi. She was sent to Mt. Equity Zendo in United States for 2.5 years and has also practiced in Germany, Switzerland, France, Spain and Italy. After returning from Europe and finishing 2 more years at the Niso-do she studied at the graduate school of Komazawa University specializing in Chinese Zen History. Prior to becoming a Zen Buddhist nun, Yuko Yamada was a catholic nun in a convent for 3 years.HOSTREVEREND DANA TAKAGI (she/her) is a retired professor of Sociology and zen priest, practicing zen since 1998. She spent 33 years teaching sociology and Asian American history at UC Santa Cruz, and she is a past president of the Association for Asian American Studies. 

This week… "There are some new cycles starting, and they're just around the corner, and where we are right now is in a big completion moment. There are a lot of things that are ending; our emphasis, our energetic focus is on finishing, and finishing things can feel all kinds of ways but, often, there is some challenge to close out a cycle. And if there's not challenge, then there's often grief."This week-ahead reading for Dec 8-14, 2025 is an excerpt from this week's⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ ⁠Somatic Space class⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ with Renee Sills. For the full-length forecast and embodied practice for this week,⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ ⁠purchase the recording here⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠. In the Portland, OR area? Go & see ⁠A LARGER REALITY: URSULA K. LE GUIN⁠. In this week's episode, Renee reads from the exhibition compilation of the same name, a speech Le Guin gave at UC Santa Cruz in 2014 entitled “Deep in Admiration”.⁠⁠Throughout Sagittarius Season, EA is hosting a reading raffle fundraiser⁠⁠ - Renee and 8 of her students who have completed her practitioner training are all offering readings to support one of our cohort/community members whose life has been severely impacted by Hurricane Melissa. If you're interested in winning a reading, or just want to help us support our friend, ⁠⁠click here.⁠⁠

This week… "The big picture framework helps us to organize ourselves inside of the details, but the details - the Mercury and Gemini of it all - direct our possibility. This is about our attention and our awareness; how we grow, or the meaning that we're making and what we do with our experiences, really needs us to pay attention to the details."This week-ahead reading for Dec 1-7, 2025 is an excerpt from this week's⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ ⁠Somatic Space class⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ with Renee Sills. For the full-length forecast and embodied practice for this week,⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ ⁠purchase the recording here⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠. In the Portland, OR area? Go & see A LARGER REALITY: URSULA K. LE GUIN. In this week's episode, Renee reads from the exhibition compilation of the same name, a speech Le Guin gave at UC Santa Cruz in 2014 entitled “Deep in Admiration”.⁠Throughout Sagittarius Season, EA is hosting a reading raffle fundraiser⁠ - Renee and 8 of her students who have completed her practitioner training are all offering readings to support one of our cohort/community members whose life has been severely impacted by Hurricane Melissa. If you're interested in winning a reading, or just want to help us support our friend, ⁠click here.⁠

This month marks 25 years of Bullseye, a public radio show and podcast founded, hosted, and produced by Jesse Thorn. The show began as an offbeat college radio show at UC Santa Cruz, as a way for Thorn and his friends to hone their comedian sensibilities over the airwaves during their daily 7:30am slot. Today, it's a show where artists open up about how and why they pursue their art. And it goes out on NPR. Earlier this month, host Brooke Gladstone called Jesse up to ask him how his show survived every new iteration of podcasting, and how it all began. On the Media is supported by listeners like you. Support OTM by donating today (https://pledge.wnyc.org/support/otm). Follow our show on Instagram, Twitter and Facebook @onthemedia, and share your thoughts with us by emailing onthemedia@wnyc.org.

In this week's episode, both storytellers must navigate heartbreaking dilemmas as they try to figure out how to convey crushing news.Part 1: While doing fieldwork in the Congo, Stella Mayerhoff must track down a local researcher to deliver devastating news. Part 2: During his second year of residency, Sam Blackman is tasked with caring for a dying child whose mother's unwavering faith clashes with his scientific approach. Stella Mayerhoff is a primatologist turned science communicator. As a scientist, Stella traveled the world—from Puerto Rico to the Democratic Republic of Congo—studying various primate species. She now draws inspiration from her time in the field, writing to share the sense of adventure and real-world impact that science offers. Stella has written for Georgia State's College of Arts & Sciences, Georgia State University Research Magazine, and Science ATL, and is currently pursuing a master's degree in Science Communication at UC Santa Cruz. When she's not chasing a story, Stella enjoys spending her time with her cat, TBD, who owes his perfectly odd name to a moment of writer's block. Sam Blackman is a physician-scientist and pediatric oncologist. He's was founder and former head of research and development at Day One Biopharmaceuticals, a company focused on drug development for childhood cancers. He's currently an entrepreneur-in-residence at Google Ventures. Sam is an avid storyteller, baker of bread, and recently climbed Mt. Kilimanjaro. Sam lives on Orcas Island with his wife, having successfully launched their first and only child off to college.See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Dr. Cara Judea Alhadeff discusses her work and the profound ideas in her book Zazu Dreams: Between the Scarab and the Dung Beetle, A Cautionary Fable for the Anthropocene Era. She explores themes of dream consciousness, cultural and ecological extinction, radical symbiosis, and the concept of apocalyptic parenting as a strategy for social justice and ecological ethics, an antidote to petroleum parenting. The discussion digs into the interdisciplinary ties found in her stories, her collaborative projects, and the communal effort in creating sustainable futures. Dr. Alhadeff also shares her real-life experiences of living for almost a decade in a reclaimed school bus, 'The Love Bus', exemplifying the principles of radical mothering, reuse, collective creativity, and joy amidst systemic challenges. Dr. Cara Judea Alhadeff is a professor and author of dozens of books and articles on art, philosophy, sexuality, climate justice, life-passion activism, and "petroleum parenting," including the critically-acclaimed Zazu Dreams: Between the Scarab and the Dung Beetle, A Cautionary Fable for the Anthropocene Era, and Viscous Expectations: Justice, Vulnerability, The Ob-scene. Alhadeff's forthcoming book, Unlearning What We Think We Know (Vernon Press), will be performed during the World Affairs Conference. Her photographs/ performance videos are in private and public collection,s including San Francisco MoMA, MoMA Salzburg, Austria, the Kinsey Institute for Research in Sex, Gender, and Reproduction, and include collaborations with international choreographers, composers, poets, sculptors, architects, and scientists. She has been interviewed by The New York Times, San Francisco Chronicle, Pacifica Radio, NPR, and the New Art Examiner. Alongside Archbishop Desmond Tutu and Vandana Shiva, Alhadeff received the Random Kindness Community Resilience Leadership Award, 2020. In 2022, Alhadeff was nominated for a MacArthur Fellowship. Her theoretical and visual work is the subject of documentaries for international public television/ radio. A former professor of Critical Pedagogy & Performance at UC Santa Cruz and Founder of Radical Art in Action, Alhadeff teaches, performs, and parents a creative-zero-waste life. She and her family live and perform in their eco-art installation, a repurposed school bus. www.carajudeaalhadeff.com Topics 00:00 Introduction to Dr. Cara Judea Alhadeff 01:35 Exploring 'Zazu Dreams' 04:01 Dreams and Cultural Extinction 06:08 Fractal Democracy and Radical Art 08:39 Sensory Consciousness and Neuroaesthetics 14:50 Interconnected Oppressions and Emancipation 28:05 Ancestral Lineage and Multiculturalism 34:00 Exploring Automatic Behaviors and Consciousness 34:50 Interbeing and Consumer Decisions 36:35 The Impact of Privilege and Capitalist Norms 38:06 Radical Symbiosis and Cultural Conditioning 39:21 Eco-Spirituality and Political Awareness 41:18 Apocalyptic Parenting and Deep Noticing 48:01 The Love Bus: A Journey of Reuse and Respect 54:40 Adapting to Change and Collective Creativity 57:55 Conclusion: Embracing Art and Language Resources: Dr. Cara Judea Alhadeff's Website ZAZU DREAMS: Between the Scarab and the Dung Beetle, A Cautionary Fable for the Anthropocene Era by Dr. Cara Judea Alhadeff Zazu Dreams book-to-film animation adaptation Fractal Flourishing: Jeremy Lent (Sounds of SAND Podcast) Arab Jewish Mysticism: Hadar Cohen (Sounds of SAND Podcast) Quantum Listening: IONE (Sounds of SAND Podcast) Deep Listening: Pauline Oliveros 5Rhythms Dance Rural Studio: Samuel Mockbee and an architecture of decency Thrutopian Dreams: Manda Scott (Sounds of SAND Podcast) An Ecotopian Lexicon edited by Schneider-Mayerson and Bellamy Challenging Petroleum Parenting Decolonizing Motherhood Empire of Normality: Neurodiversity and Capitalism by Robert Chapman Viscous Expectations: Justice, Vulnerability, The Ob-scene by cara judea Alhadeff The Love Bus: Beauty & Waste In the Face of Climate Crisis Facing Apocalyspe by Catherine Keller Benjamin Lay: The first Revolutionary Quaker Abolitionist Cara Judea Alhadeff, PhD, Promiscuous Crossings (Substack) Email Cara Support the mission of SAND and the production of this podcast by becoming a SAND Member

In this episode of The Redacted Report, we reopen the case of Edmund Kemper, the so-called “Co-Ed Killer,” to expose the details that were buried in thousands of pages of police files, psychiatric evaluations, and trial transcripts.This isn't the version told in documentaries or dramatizations. This is the story of how a system failed, how warning signs were missed, and how one of California's most intelligent predators learned to play both sides of the law .Ed Kemper wasn't just hiding in plain sight — he was sitting at the bar with the very officers searching for him. Inside The Jury Room in Santa Cruz, he befriended Detective Johnson, Officer Martinez, and Sergeant Williams, absorbing investigative methods, forensic procedures, and common police mistakes over casual drinks. What they didn't realize was that their “gentle giant” drinking buddy was gathering operational intelligence. Kemper collected handcuffs, police radios, and scanner frequencies, giving him real-time access to law enforcement movements — knowledge that helped him stay one step ahead for nearly a year while bodies continued to surface. Behind the charm and calm demeanor was a man who had already fooled the system once. At just 21, Kemper had been released from Atascadero State Hospital, declared no threat to society despite having murdered his grandparents as a teenager. Working in the hospital's psychology lab, he studied mental health diagnostics, learned how to manipulate tests, and even handled real psychological profiles — including those of violent offenders. He used that knowledge to beat the system, understand his captors, and later, to outthink investigators.We trace the moments where fate nearly intervened — the traffic stops, the roadblocks, the missed connections between agencies that could have saved lives.Officers questioned him, waved him through, even trusted him, all because he seemed “too polite” to be dangerous. Through firsthand reports and redacted files, we expose how institutional blind spots and bureaucratic silos allowed a killer to thrive in plain view. From the quiet house on Ord Drive, where he dismembered victims while his mother was at work, to his Alameda apartment, where neighbors lived just feet away from unimaginable horror, we explore the forensic trail left behind — the vehicle evidence, the recovered photographs, and the chilling confession tapes where Ed bragged, analyzed, and justified every act in painstaking detail.His hours-long conversations with FBI profilers Robert Ressler and John Douglas later became the foundation of modern criminal profiling, shaping how future generations would define the term “organized serial killer.”But beneath all the psychology and procedure lies the story of his mother, Clarnell Kemper — the woman he blamed, feared, and eventually murdered. Working as an administrator at UC Santa Cruz, she may have unknowingly processed paperwork for students her son would later kill.The tragedy of their relationship — and the evidence found in her home — reveal the disturbing cycle of resentment and rage that fueled his crimes.This episode goes beyond the headlines to confront the decisions that allowed a double murderer to be paroled into his mother's home, the psychiatric assessments that missed every danger sign, the sealed records that kept police in the dark, and the agencies that failed to communicate. It's not a story about glorifying monsters — it's about learning from the systems that created them. Because monsters don't always look like monsters.They smile, they shake your hand, and they convince the world they're harmless — until it's too late.We close by honoring the ten victims whose lives mattered far more than the man who took them: Maude and Edmund Kemper Sr., Mary Ann Pesce, Anita Luchessa, Aiko Koo, Cindy Schall, Rosalind Thorpe, Alice Liu, Clarnell Strandberg, and Sally Hallett. Their stories remind us that behind every case file and redacted page are real lives, real loss, and the lessons society cannot afford to ignore.

Recreational ketamine use is on the rise. But why are some people using it to dissociate in the club? Ketamine – a dissociative anesthetic – is illegal without a prescription and can potentially be harmful. Yet, it has had a massive rise in recreational use over the past decade. One study found that use increased by 81.8% from 2015 to 2019 and rose another 40% from 2021 to 2022. What is driving the illicit drug's sudden popularity? And is it's dissociative properties indicative of our times? Brittany chats with P.E. Moskowitz, a journalist and author of Breaking Awake: A Reporter's Search for a New Life, and a New World, Through Drugs, which explores our national mental health and drug use crises, and Benjamin Breen, associate professor of history at UC Santa Cruz, who specializes in the histories of science, medicine and drugs and is the author of the book, Tripping on Utopia. Together they investigate why ketamine is showing up in more people's social lives.Warning: this episode contains discussion of illegal drugs and drugs use and may not be suitable for all listeners. For more information on the science of ketamine, check out NPR's Short Wave podcast.Follow Brittany Luse on Instagram: @bmluse For handpicked podcast recommendations every week, subscribe to NPR's Pod Club newsletter at npr.org/podclub. Learn more about sponsor message choices: podcastchoices.com/adchoicesNPR Privacy Policy

Kaj Larsen: From Navy SEAL to Groundbreaking Journalist This week on the Team Never Quit Podcast, Marcus and Melanie welcome an extraordinary guest whose life reads like an action thriller—Kaj Larsen. Born in Santa Cruz, California, Kaj earned his Political Science degree from UC Santa Cruz and went on to Harvard's Kennedy School of Government for a master's in Public Policy, where he was a Shorenstein Center fellow and a joint fellow at Tufts Jebsen Center for Counter-Terrorism Studies. Kaj's journey is anything but ordinary. Before breaking stories on global conflict zones, he served five years on active duty as a U.S. Navy SEAL Lieutenant leading special operations overseas. He continues to serve in the SEAL reserves with U.S. Special Operations Command. As an award-winning filmmaker and journalist, Kaj has reported from some of the most dangerous places on earth—Nigeria, Afghanistan, Pakistan, Somalia, Yemen, and beyond—producing groundbreaking documentaries on terrorism, national security, and humanitarian crises. He's been a senior correspondent at NowThis News, hosted the Emmy Award-winning VICE on HBO, and developed the Vanguard Journalism series for Current TV. Kaj made headlines for being the first journalist to bring waterboarding to public attention—by undergoing it himself on camera—and for breaking media silence in Mogadishu as the first Western TV journalist there in over a decade. Outside the newsroom, Kaj is a two-time national open-water swimming champion, an Escape from Alcatraz duathlon competitor, and a dedicated practitioner of Brazilian jiu-jitsu and Muay Thai boxing. His commitment to service extends beyond reporting: he co-founded The Mission Continues and serves on the boards of Team Rubicon Global and other veteran service organizations, deploying for humanitarian missions around the world. Join us as Kaj shares stories from his remarkable career—what it takes to tell the truth from the frontlines, the lessons learned from military service and global reporting, and why resilience and service are at the heart of his mission. Tune in for a gripping, behind-the-scenes look at a life dedicated to serving, reporting, and making an impact on a global scale. In this episode you will hear: • [COVID} Here's a crisis that is about health, and you're shutting down wellness. (7:10) • Murph was my roommate when I first got to BUD/S. He's the first person I met. (32:04) • The thing that got me through was the old “I guess you just have to do it.” (37:12) • Your inner monologue and how you talk to yourself is the only thing that gets you through. (38:34) • Everybody wants to be a frog man on a sunny day. (38:52) • You gotta be careful who you surround yourself with, because cowardice is contagious. (42:37) • I could cover any story I wanted, anywhere in the world. Anything I thought was important. (60:52) • I was always working on helping veterans (62:56) • Purpose maters. (64:09) • The real truth is the greatest and most consistent ways for Americans to build wealth over the last 50 years has been investing in the stock market. (66:22) • A lot of people don't understand the concept of compound interest. (77:40) • We're the greatest economy the world has ever seen. (82:26) Support Kaj:  www.kajlarsen.com - Tactical Wealth podcast - IG: Kajlarsen Support TNQ   - IG: team_neverquit , marcusluttrell , melanieluttrell , huntero13   -  https://www.patreon.com/teamneverquit Sponsors:   - Navyfederal.org        - meetfabiric.com/TNQ   - masterclass.com/TNQ   - Prizepicks (TNQ)   - Dripdrop.com/TNQ   -  cargurus.com/TNQ    - armslist.com/TNQ    -  PXGapparel.com/TNQ   - bruntworkwear.com/TNQ    - Selectquote.com/TNQ    - Groundnews.com/TNQ    - shipsticks.com/TNQ    - strawberry.me/TNQ    - stopboxusa.com {TNQ}    - ghostbed.com/TNQ [TNQ]   -  kalshi.com/TNQ   -  joinbilt.com/TNQ    - Tonal.com [TNQ]   - greenlight.com/TNQ   - PDSDebt.com/TNQ   - drinkAG1.com/TNQ   - Shadyrays.com [TNQ]   - qualialife.com/TNQ [TNQ]   - Hims.com/TNQ   - Shopify.com/TNQ   - Aura.com/TNQ   - TAKELEAN.com [TNQ]   - usejoymode.com [TNQ]