Didactic Synapse

It’s been a really long time since I’ve done a podcast, and I appreciate all the kind words of encouragement (and demands) that I’ve gotten. Here, finally, is the new show! (Yay.)

DS#98: A Huge Explosion of News

Top Links + Action

• Forbes: Wall Street Costs The Economy 2% Of GDP Each Year
• Wall Street’s threat to the American middle class
• What I Want People To Understand About Why Teachers Are Frustrated
• Take Action: Free Raif!

Current Events

• Baltimore riots: the fire this time and the fire last time and the time between
• Rachel Dolezal
  • It Isn’t Crazy to Compare Rachel Dolezal With Caitlyn Jenner, But They’re Very Different
  • Dolezal on MSNBC
  • An American Kidnapping (This is the story that should be getting the media’s attention!)
• Scott Walker!
  • Enter Scott Walker, Stage Right
  • GOP Contender Walker Draws Wall Street Cash
  • Scott Walker tells CPAC that facing protesters prepares him for Islamic State, later clarifies
• Fracking!
  • High levels of benzene found in fracking waste water
  • Documents Reveal EPA’s National Fracking Study Halted by Industry Pressure
  • EPA Study of Fracking Finds ‘No Widespread, Systemic’ Pollution (Be sure to read the article above for important info about what’s not in the EPA study.)
  • Oil & gas execs ‘pressured’ Oklahoma geologists not to reveal fracking-quakes link
  • Upstate New York towns consider secession after state bans fracking
  • Florida Lawmakers Pass Bill That Arrests Local Efforts To Ban Fracking
  • Small amounts of fracking chemicals found in Pennsylvania drinking water
• Ebola: Early calls for help ‘ignored’ says MSF

Economics

• Walmart to give 500,000 employees pay raises, improve scheduling and training programs
• Classic Wall Street Villain to Haters: “Bite Me”
• Reflections on Stress and Long Hours on Wall Street
• A father’s heartbreaking essay about the untimely death of his 22-year-old Goldman Sachs analyst son
• Banks Prep Defense for Anti-Wall Street Campaigns
• Barack Obama advances rule hitting Wall Street, financial advisers
• We Thought Our Pay Would Be Higher, Wall Streeters Say in Poll
• HFT satire from The Onion: Wall Street Firm Develops New High-Speed Algorithm Capable Of Performing Over 10,000 Ethical Violations Per Second
• SkyMall Files for Bankruptcy

Education

• NPR: Where Have All The Teachers Gone?
• NPR: How Do You Motivate Kids To Stop Skipping School?
• BW: News Corp.’s $1 Billion Plan to Overhaul Education Is Riddled With Failures
• An Open Letter to Governor Walker

Killer Robots, Etc

• These military-funded robots learn by watching YouTube
• Japanese bank introduces robot workers to deal with customers in branches

Hip-Hop

Lupe Fiasco: “Mural”

Matt Taibbi’s new book The Divide is superb. Everyone needs to read it right away. He oscillates from heartbreaking descriptions of people arrested for “blocking pedestrian traffic” (these arrests are purely done to meet police quotas) and enraging explanations of white-collar criminal activity that’s never investigated, let alone punished.

What emerges is a devastating critique of dysfunctional American injustice, especially for those on the top and bottom of our economic system. Toward the end he explains beautifully:

This goes far beyond the oft-quoted liberal cliché about how we now have “two Americas”, one for the rich and one for the poor, with different sets of laws and different levels of punishment (or more to the point, nonpunishment) for each. The rich have always gotten breaks and the poor have always had to swim upstream. The new truth is infinitely darker and more twisted.

The new truth is a sci-fi movie, a dystopia. And in this sci-fi world the issues aren’t justice and injustice, but biology and mortality. We have a giant, meat-grinding bureaucracy that literally alters the physical makeup of its citizens, systematically grinding down the losers in a smaller, meeker, lower race of animal while aggrandizing the winners, making them bigger than life, impervious, super-people.

Again, the poor have always faced the sharp end of the stick. And the rich have always fought ferociously to protect their privilege, not just in America but everywhere.

What’s different now is that these quaint old inequities have become internalized in that “second government” — a vast system of increasingly unmangeable bureaucracies, spanning both the public and private sectors. These inscrutable, irrational structures, crisscrossing back and forth between the worlds of debt and banking and law enforcement, are growing up organically around the pounding twin impulses that drive modern America: burning hatred of all losers and the poor, and breathless, abject worship of the rich, even the talentless and undeserving rich.

I know sometimes it seems like this blog is just a list of recent SynCast episodes, but .. well, I can’t think of a way to finish that sentence. I should write more here, but I guess I feel like I need something special when it’s time to write. Also I’m mad busy! Deal with it.

Anyway, in this episode I reflect on Ferguson, the US midterm elections, the TPP trade agreement, and (of course) fracking. Enjoy!

DS#95: Castrating Pigs on a Urine Comet

Top Links + Action

• Afghan Villagers Say NATO Airstrike Killed 7 Civilians
• Lt. Gen. Dan Bolger on DemocracyNow
• The Police Are Still Out of Control. I should know. by Frank Serpico
• Take Action: Human Rights in Ferguson!

Current Events

• In Texas, Traffic Deaths Climb Amid Fracking Boom
• Pentagon Confirms Islamic State Got U.S. Arms Drop
• The Truth About The Wars
  • FBESP (2008): There is No War in Iraq
• Officer’s Errant Shot Kills Unarmed Brooklyn Man
• Hillary Clinton’s Wall Street problem
• Zephyr Teachout on Bill Moyers

Economics

• Prosecutors suspect repeat offenses on Wall Street
• Lori Wallach: Obama & McConnell Pledge Cooperation; Will Fast-Tracking Secretive TPP Trade Deal Top Their Agenda?
• FTC: AT&T slowed speeds of unlimited data smartphone users

Killer Robots, Etc

• Comet smells like rotten eggs and horse urine

Hip-Hop: Dem Atlas

For decades I’ve been a fan of the industrial music group Consoldiated. Their energetic music and political lyrics lit a fire in me at an early age, and I’ve benefited tremendously from their work.

Today I had the honor to spend an hour talking with Adam Sherburne, former front man of Consolidated and coordinator of a group in Portland called Free Music. We discussed music, capitalism, white supremacy, and a dozen other topics. Check it out.

DS Interview: Adam Sherburne

(I forgot to drop the level of my mic before recording, so the audio is a bit crummy. Apologies all around.)

I should have a full SynCast up before too long. Thanks for listening!

It’s been months, but this show is worth the wait. Over two hours of didactic goodness! We’re covering everything from Iraq to Edward Snowden to people pretending to be US Department of Energy spokesmen. Plus — as always — we give you the latest on fracking and high-frequency trading, with a visit from everyone’s favorite cigar-sucking businessman.

Enjoy!

DS#93: The Formula

Top Links

• Amazing Grace: Woman in Iran halts the execution of her son’s murderer
• Video: Glenn Greenwald and Paul Rieckhoff on Real Time with Bill Maher
• Video: Posing as US Officials, Yes Men Announce Renewable Energy Revolution at Homeland Security Congress

Take Action

• Stop the mass executions in Egypt

Current Events

• Video: Neil DeGrasse Tyson on race, gender, science, and society
• The Yes Men
  • DN: Extended interview with the Yes Men
  • Yes Men fake DoE speech
  • Trailer: The Yes Men Fix the World
• Net Neutrality
  • PC World: What it is and why it matters
  • DN: Internet for the 1%
  • The People’s Platform: Taking Back Power and Culture in the Digital Age (Preface)
• Fracking
  • Feds: West blast was preventable
  • Texas family’s nuisance complaint seen as win against fracking
  • Scientists say tests prove fracking to blame for flaming wells
  • Nat Geo: Scientists warn of quake risk from fracking operations
  • The Guardian: Write-down of two-thirds of US shale oil explodes fracking myth
• Dave Zirin on LA Clippers owner Donald Sterling
• Amazing Grace: Mother of Oklahoma murder victim asks for clemency

Economics

• Millionaire survey: Higher taxes, please
• For the Love of Money
• Strike at Chinese factory supplying Adidas and Nike
• Michael Lewis: “Wall Street has gone insane”
• BW: Companies choose profits over productivity
• Video: Joseph Stiglitz on Tavis Smiley
• Video: William Easterman on Tavis Smiley
• Video: Matt Taibi on DN
• UK “aid” is financing a corporate scramble for Africa
• McDonald’s CEO says We provide “real careers”

Education

• NPR: What is quality pre-K education?
• DN: Jim Crow in the classroom
• ProPublica: Segregation Now
• InBloom shuts down amid concerns over privacy

Killer Robots, Etc

• Google’s Robot-Buying Binge
• The Bureau of Investigative Journalism: Covert Drone War
• Glenn Greenwald describes Edward Snowden’s background and why he leaked the NSA documents
• BW: The Flu tricked Google. Can Wikipedia do better?
• AdWeek: Waiting in line: You’re stupid
• Trailer: Drone: The Movie
• Pepper the robot knows when you’re sad, will give you a hug

Hip-Hop

I’m postponing the discussion of hip-hop for a special episode coming soon. Stay tuned!