December 26, 2020
The Keepers: Archiving the Now with Host Frances McDormand
A new hour-long special from The Kitchen Sisters and PRX with host, Academy Award-winner Frances McDormand. Stories of can-do people. Must-do people. Get-it-done people. People who are grappling with the now, with where we are and where we’ve got to get to. As the world we all knew unravels and communities begin to re-shape themselves, The Kitchen Sisters have been gleaning, looking for those who have something to offer during these uncharted times. People who rebuild, restore, reinvent. Nobody showed them the path, they cut it themselves. Striking stories of grit, hope and possibility.
December 19, 2020
Holiday Season Stories
of Warmth and Light
- from Living On Earth
For the darkest time of the year, Living on Earth brings you a special holiday show full of warmth and light. Gather 'round to hear how the Wampanoag persuaded Grandfather Sun to return, and an English Wassail story accompanied by sweet harp music.
December 12, 2020
Intelligence Squared U.S.
Should We Stop Worrying About National Debts?
Governments around the world have spent unprecedented sums — trillions of dollars — to combat the economic impacts of coronavirus. In the United States alone, the national deficit surpassed $3 trillion this year. That’s three times larger than in 2019 and some $2 trillion more than the White House projected back in February. But just what does rising government debt mean for our future? A new crop of economists – adherents to Modern Monetary Theory – have a bold proposition: Don't worry about it. In a modern economy, they argue, deficits are no bogeyman. And they're certainly no excuse to halt state spending on things like education and healthcare. Take Japan, for instance, where the national deficit is a soaring $12 trillion and counting. But others are more wary. They warn that unless political leaders balance the books, soaring federal debt will undermine the nation's economic future and compromise national security and its sovereignty. So, we ask, are rising national deficits cause for concern?
December 5, 2020
With Good Reason: The Lost Tribe of Magruder
We often think of cemeteries as separate worlds unto themselves. But those buried at Confederate graveyards were surely connected to those at the African burial grounds, and the cemetery reveals the intimacy of their connections. Ryan Smith says he and his students have been transformed by tending to cemeteries over the past 20 years.
Also in the show, after Pearl Harbor, the United States Navy needed land for bases and training. Travis Harris says that the Magruder community was just one of many mostly black communities displaced for military bases. Brian Palmer grew up hearing about Magruder, his father’s boyhood neighborhood that was bulldozed to make way for a US Naval base. An old picture led him and his wife Erin Palmer back to Magruder and across the state tracking where his ancestor was enslaved. After moving to Richmond, the couple got involved in restoring a cemetery where Brian has more ancestors.
