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”

Hear ye! Hear ye! Here are the Official Rules and Reminders for Discussing Incidents where Police Kill Unarmed People:

1. We are all operating with incomplete information. This is difficult and frustrating, because we’re eager to reach conclusions, but for the most part we have insufficient information for such conclusions.
2. What a person does at certain moments is not the sum total of who they are. Whether discussing suspects or police officers, we should resist the temptation to demonize, angelify, and oversimplify.
3. As delineated in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, every person is “entitled without any discrimination to equal protection of the law”. Every person is also “presumed innocent until proved guilty”.
4. We all have a responsibility to speak honestly and listen carefully, to respond with more questions than accusations. The last thing we want is for dialogue to freeze under the weight of suspicion and fear.
5. Everyone has the right to be wrong, provided the person is willing to listen in order to be corrected (and owns the error). Those who are correct shall refrain from imposing guilt trips or ridicule against those who err, once the mistake is clarified.
6. Individual incidents must be judged on the specifics of their own events, but social patterns shall not be ignored. In his memoir “Jarhead”, Anthony Swafford writes: “Every war is different. Every war is the same.” This is true also about incidents where police officers kill unarmed people. (Elements of social identity like gender, race, class, and sexuality rarely surface in the 21st century through overt, explicit hostility. This makes them especially difficult to discuss.)
7. Despite the differences in our political perspectives, ideological orientations, personal circumstances, ethnic backgrounds, religious affiliations, and levels of formal education, we are all people whose lives are precious and who deserve respect.
8. As Radio Raheem says in “Do The Right Thing”: “Hate [is] KO’d by Love.”

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!

Comedy News vet John Oliver does a superb job breaking down the insanity in Ferguson.

USA Today: Witness to Michael Brown shooting comes forward

Dorian Johnson said he was standing inches from Brown when the shooting occurred around 1:40 p.m. Saturday. […] “The officer is approaching us and as he pulled up on the side of us, he didn’t say freeze, halt or anything like we were committing a crime. He said, ‘Get the F on the sidewalk.'”

After Johnson said the officer thrust open the door of his patrol car, hitting the pair, Johnson said the officer grabbed Brown around the neck and tried to pull him through the window. He said Brown never tried to reach for the officer’s weapon.

According to Johnson, the officer pursued Brown and fired another shot. which struck Brown in the back. He said Brown turned and faced the officer with his hands raised.

“My friend started to tell the officer that he was unarmed and that he could stop shooting (him),” Johnson said. “Before he could get his second sentence out, the officer fired several more shots into his head and chest area. He fell dramatically into the fatal position. I did not hear once he yell freeze, stop or halt. it was just horrible to watch.”