Month: December 2023

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Barack Obama BLM Body Cameras Bodycam Episode Police Brutality Policing Reform WSUM

TMI 12/29/2023 – An In-depth Look at the Decade of Police Bodycams, the Promise of Transparency and the Failure of Accountability

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!

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Bill McKibben BLM Civil RIghts Climate COP28 DFL Episode Greta Thunberg James Webb Space Telescope JWST Labor Nellie Stone Johnson union Uranus WSUM

TMI 12/22/2023 – Why You Need to Know About Nellie Stone Johnson, Thunberg and Others Call COP28 a “Cop Out”, the James Webb Space Telescope Targets Uranus and more

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!

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Climate Donald Trump Electric Vehicles Eli Pariser Episode Facebook Filter Bubble Google Joe Biden PNAS Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences Project 2025 Social Media Sociology WSUM

TMI 12/15/2023 – Is the Filter Bubble the Wrong Mechanism to Explain Social Media Toxicity?, How Trump’s Project 2025 is a Next Level Disaster for the Climate and more

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!

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Episode Global Politics Henry Kissinger Homelessness Housing Crisis Immune System Jacobin Jeff Bezos Jessica Wildfire Jonah Walters OK Doomer WSUM

TMI 12/08/2023 – “The Good Die Young – The Verdict on Henry Kissinger” with Jonah Walters, Jeff Bezos’ Jekyll-and-Hyde on Homelessness, Jessica Wildfire’s Guide to the Immune System and more

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!

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Global Politics Henry Kissinger Jacobin Jonah Walters YouTube

ON YOUTUBE: TMI 12/08/2023 – “The Good Die Young – The Verdict on Henry Kissinger” with Jonah Walters

NEW YOUTUBE INTERVIEW:

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/

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COP28 Drug Prices Episode Formularies PBM Pharmacy Benefits Manager UAE United Arab Emirates United Nations WSUM

TMI 12/01/2023 – UN Climate Conference COP28’s Hosting Nations Use It to Leverage More Fossil Fuel, The Key Role Pharmacy Benefit Managers (PBMs) Play in Skyrocketing Drug Prices and more

The COP28 Climate Conference, the United Nations 28th annual meeting to try to coordinate efforts to mitigate the Climate Crisis found itself being used by the nation hosting it to secure MORE fossil fuel production. We go over how there seems virtually NO difference between big oil corporations and nations that rely on oil income when it comes to just how low they will go.

Then, we peel back the veneer on PBMs (Pharmacy Benefit Manager organizations) and how, unlike their original intention when they were created in the 1960s, they play a key role in reducing their members’ access to life saving medications and are a key part of why the prices for those pills keep climbing. All this and more on TMI for Friday, December 01, 2023 – listen in for YOUR Cure for the Common Media!