We look back as recently as 1964 in Black History and see drinking fountains marked “colored” and “whites”, and tsk at such blatant symbols of racial oppression. But the times haven’t changed as much as one might hope. People of color are frequently among the homeless that many cities attempt to banish by using zoning laws capriciously against churches who are trying to house and feed them. Worse, we see that laws against “nuisance” tenants in order to create “crime-free” communities are often adopted when people of color move into those places, forcing landlords to screen out or evict people of color, exacerbating the issue. Today’s present becomes the Black History of tomorrow. We look at all of this and more TMI for Friday, February 09, 2024 – listen in for YOUR Cure for the Common Media!
On this episode, we welcome back Peter B. Collins, legendary talk radio host and media analyst, who goes over the state of the media that we are contending with in reporting on such topics as real voter suppression (NOT the MAGA “Stop the Steal” nonsense, which YouTube refuses to recognize is different), the war started by Putin in Ukraine, the continued genocide in Palestine that began well before October of 2023, and much, much more. Peter’s own podcast archives have a true wealth of well-researched and sourced information at https://www.peterbcollins.com/ and we invite you to inform and enrich yourself by partaking of the bounty!
All this and more on TMI for Friday, February 02, 2024 – listen in for YOUR Cure for the Common Media!
The Illinois Petroleum Resource Board (IPRB) has been a gas tax-funded education and outreach program for 25 years, with a particular aim of providing science curriculum and professional development workshops for Illinois teachers. Nevermind that the information given is solely focused on making Big Oil look absolutely indispensable to the future of civilization, or even that Oklahoma, Kansas and Arkansas have similar petroleum-focused “educational” programs – that under-the-radar status is just what the IPRB likes. We expose them.
Then, we look at the culturally-pervasive myth of the “female shopaholic” and explore how the data and cultural context doesn’t back up this sexist trope at all. Finally, we show how the management concept of Kanter’s Law shows some hope for the ongoing COVID epidemic. All this and more on TMI for Friday, January 26, 2024 – listen in for YOUR Cure for the Common Media!
(This is a rebroadcast of the 1/12/2024 episode)
Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez went to Washington hot to make change in a place devoted to preserving the capitalist status quo, often at the expense of everyone not rich enough to buy congressional influence. We look at how the combination of her rebuke from the powers that be and the fickleness of the more particular forces she wanted to represent pushed her away from continuing to fight for the ideals of the Green New Deal, even as it took flight internationally.
Then, Gibson, Dunn & Crutcher is famous for fighting for First Amendment protected political speech… so long as you’re wealthy enough to pay for it. That means that Big Oil has been quite successful in twisting that firm’s speciality into a weapon against environmental protest. All this and more on TMI for Friday, January 19, 2024 – listen in for YOUR Cure for the Common Media!
Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez went to Washington hot to make change in a place devoted to preserving the capitalist status quo, often at the expense of everyone not rich enough to buy congressional influence. We look at how the combination of her rebuke from the powers that be and the fickleness of the more particular forces she wanted to represent pushed her away from continuing to fight for the ideals of the Green New Deal, even as it took flight internationally.
Then, Gibson, Dunn & Crutcher is famous for fighting for First Amendment protected political speech… so long as you’re wealthy enough to pay for it. That means that Big Oil has been quite successful in twisting that firm’s speciality into a weapon against environmental protest. All this and more on TMI for Friday, January 12, 2024 – listen in for YOUR Cure for the Common Media!
Some bubbles crash and leave nothing but ruin in their wake, while others, like the dot-com bubble that burst in 2000, leave behind many valuable things that can be used to propel other, new things forward. So, the question is, which type of bubble is AI, which is, by all definitions, a bubble just waiting to crash. We investigate.
Next, we look at the tragedy unfolding for dozens of vulnerable families in Madison as we speak, who are losing their housing due to the mismanagement of a corporate entity. Then we contrast that against a downtown Madison church, whose congregation has decided to use their mostly empty house of worship as housing for those who have nowhere to live, ignoring the temptation to cash in on the valuable real estate it sits on.
Finally, we tell you how octopus DNA is providing evidence that the Antarctic ice sheets are ready to collapse. All this and more on TMI for Friday, January 05, 2024 – listen in for YOUR Cure for the Common Media!
Ten years ago, Black Lives Matter was founded in response to the acquittal of George Zimmerman in shooting Trayvon Martin to death the year before, as well as the long history of the police and justice system failing to treat black lives with the same respect as others. The pressure caused by this rapidly growing movement forced police across the country to consider a new way to show that they took being held accountable seriously: the bodycam. In 2014, President Obama requested $263 Million in Federal funds be spent on equipping police with body camera technology. Finally, officers would know that they couldn’t abuse their power without being called on it.
The next decade, we now know, told a different tale. When being implemented, one key factor was left entirely up to the police themselves: control of bodycam footage. Given the ability to see what their fellow officers were doing on the streets every day, the police by and large decided no one else needed to see that. At best, the public could see highly-edited, police friendly versions of what happened, and that was often long after any reasonable accountability could result from it. It is not a wild claim to say that had bodycam footage been publicly accessible, George Floyd might still be alive today. We devote this episode of TMI to this truly crucial topic: why we reach for silver bullet solutions when reforming those wielding the silver guns is the best way of enacting effective change. All this and more on TMI for Friday, December 29, 2023 – listen in for YOUR Cure for the Common Media!
If you live in Minnesota, you stand a decent chance of having heard of Nellie Stone Johnson, but otherwise this pioneering black woman, born in 1905, is likely a complete mystery to you. We’ll correct that injustice as much as we are able, as Ms. Johnson was one of the most important figures in labor and civil rights – mostly as she saw no reason the two causes should ever be taken on separately.
Then, with the 28th UN Conference of the Parties (COP28) finished, we’ll check in to see how climate activists from Greta Thunberg to Bill McKibben feel how it went:. Spoiler warning: they were NOT impressed. Finally, we get to the bottom of how the James Webb Space Telescope has been used to dive into Uranus, spreading open our understanding of this place that gets so misunderstood. All this and more on TMI for Friday, December 22, 2023 – listen in for YOUR Cure for the Common Media!
We’ve reported here on TMI on Eli Pariser’s “Filter Bubble” concept since its debut in 2010 at his Ted talk: the idea that Google was selectively feeding results back to the user that the user agreed with, making it so that one person’s search results were often vastly different than another’s. Mr Pariser pointed out that by putting us all in these Filter Bubbles, we couldn’t agree on what was even factual. A new article published in the PNAS (Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences) journal, however, says that is all wrong when applied to social media giants like Facebook, where they aim to increase your focus and time spent there by enhancing the chance of you getting made angry by what you see. We examine these competing concepts.
Then, we go over how the media is gleefully playing up any and all minutiae of Trump’s intentions for his second term except for one key part: how the Project 2025 plan that he’s assimilated is catastrophic for any chance we have to keep the environment from completely collapsing.
Finally, we present an update to a story we went over a few weeks back, putting a spotlight on how the EV infrastructure promised by Biden’s funding in 2021 is FINALLY starting to come to fruition. All this and more on TMI for Friday, December 15, 2023 – listen in for YOUR Cure for the Common Media!
We welcome Jonah Walters of Jacobin Magazine to discuss the new book he co-edited, “The Good Die Young – The Verdict on Henry Kissinger”, and go over the broad influence Kissinger wove around the world in his over 100 years of life. You won’t want to miss this, or the new book, which is available via https://jacobin.com/.
Then we expose how Jeff Bezos’ donations to organizations fighting homelessness across the USA sets up a horrific contrast to his 400% larger investment in a company that will make the housing crisis here WORSE. Finally, we check in on Jessica Wildfire’s OK Doomer, to find that she’s compiled a truly useful list of what we need to keep our immune systems strong in the face of rampant disease. All this and more on TMI for Friday, December 08, 2023 – listen in for YOUR Cure for the Common Media!