This episode is a very special conversation with my Uncle Harry (on my father's side) and Aunt Cris. We discuss their lives, our family, and why it's so important to learn about history and honor each other.
I'll be back soon with some thoughts on wedge issues and AI companions. Thanks for listening and enjoy!
23 Jul 2025
DS #126: Hold the Line
As Maria Ressa says, we must hold the line. We should not surrender in advance to authoritarianism in Brazil, South Korea, The Philippines, or the USA.
Today — exactly one year after my last episode — I turned on the mic and spoke from the heart about Trump, Musk, DOGE, Grover Norquist, the Department of Education, Israeli war crimes in Gaza, AI, and more. Plus a tiny glimpse of one of the best female MCs in the world today.
Enjoy!
Want to do something about the horrors of the world? Why not write a letter for Amnesty International?
___________
Current Events
Trump and the angry white guys who voted for him [Pew Research: Voting patterns in the 2024 election]
Donald Trump and Steve Bannon need angry young men. They’re using Gamergate culture to get them
Economics
Drowning public schools in the bathtub to promote GOP ideology
Education
ACLU: Trump's Department of Education Attack Explained
In Engaged Buddhism, Peace Begins with You
Killer Robots
MIT: Explained: Generative AI’s environmental impact
Hip-Hop
Sa-Roc feat. Black Thought: “The Black Renaissance”
Quote of the Show
Salah Ta’mari is (or was; I can’t find info on him now; this is from a 1992 book) a writer and former member of the Palestine resistance movement. He wrote in his Journey into Hades: Diary of a Palestinian in an Israeli Prison:
[At the end, after hallucinating a conversation with his mother] "One million giants stood up in me and began fighting their way to the surface again, with determination, fury, and force. No way to make me give up. I was stronger, I would fight back, I would rise to the challenge."
End US arms sales to Israel!
23 Jul 2024
DS #125: Lucy Polo
On this very special episode of the SynCast, I speak with my friend and teaching colleague Dr. Lucy Polo. Her work in sociology has taken her to Colombia, Bolivia, and many other places. For 15 years she worked in the south Mexican state of Chiapas, where the Zapatista movement transformed the way people around the world think about indigenous communities, neoliberal economics, and democracy itself.
Enjoy this discussion about her life and work, the people she met in Chiapas, and how the EZLN raised the consciousness of everybody who came into contact with its unique forms of activism.
Wikipedia: Zapatista Army of National Liberation (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zapatista_Army_of_National_Liberation)
End Song: Matador (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pjPA7CXutDw&ab_channel=LFCVEVO) by Los Fabulosos Cadillacs
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