Episode 42: The Baltimore Riots

June 24, 2015

“If we desire respect for the law, we must first make the law respectable”

— Louis D. Brandeis

“You can’t just lecture the poor that they shouldn’t riot or go to extremes. You have to make the means of legal redress available.”

— Harold H. Greene

“It is dangerous to be right in matters on which the established authorities are wrong.”

— Voltaire

“Where the government fails to protect the Negro he is entitled to do it himself. He is within his rights.”

— Malcolm X

Although the death of Freddie Gray happened over two months ago, on April 19th, 2015, the tragic event and the riots which followed are a result of deeper problems in human and United States history. We don't claim to have the answers to these substantial and systemic issues, but we ardently believe they are worthy of discussion, however uncomfortable or difficult that may be. This week, we welcome resident of Baltimore, Joe Walsh, to engage in this conversation in the pursuit of further understanding. As always, we hope ours are not the only voices in this discourse. Please feel free to share your thoughts with us.

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Episode 41: Understanding Death

June 17, 2015

“No one wants to die. Even people who want to go to heaven don’t want to die to get there. And yet death is the destination we all share. No one has ever escaped it. And that is as it should be, because Death is very likely the single best invention of Life. It is Life’s change agent. It clears out the old to make way for the new.”

— Steve Jobs

“To be idle is a short road to death and to be diligent is a way of life; foolish people are idle, wise people are diligent.”

— Buddha

“Cowards die many times before their deaths; the valiant never taste of death but once.”

— William Shakespeare

A follow-up to last week's episode on life, we examine various approaches to the terminus of death, what it represents and how it affects each of us differently. This certainly is not an easy or comfortable topic for most, so we understand reluctance and respect any decision to avoid this episode. That said, we do encourage listeners to consider the episode as a lens to consider death in different contexts.

As was true of "What It Means to Be Alive," this episode would not have evolved into this final conversation without the honest, eloquent and substantial support of our contributors, whose work will be available to read below. We want offer our sincerest thanks to Rachel Cunningham, Ali Stamatoiu, Emma Munger, Brett Miller, Maureen Hoff, Sarah Miller, Qusay Alsattari, Atticus Koontz, Kay Kelley, Richard Pera and Tim Jurney for their assistance in this episode.

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The Written Pieces of Our Contributors (Made Anonymous):

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Episode 40: What It Means to Be Alive

June 10, 2015

“Life is not a problem to be solved, but a reality to be experienced.”

— Soren Kierkegaard

“Life isn’t about finding yourself. Life is about creating yourself.”

— George Bernard Shaw

“Life is a dream for the wise, a game for the fool, a comedy for the rich, a tragedy for the poor.”

— Sholom Aleichem

A different type of discussion which touches on the broad, inexplicable and wondrous nature of Life as a whole. We do not have any particular direction in this conversation, but instead ideas and musings on human life, the life around us, and how we appreciate (or fail to) the complexity and variability of the system which arranges, organizes and defines our existence. This is not a conclusive conversation but rather an inclusive one, which invites listeners to contemplate their own values and approaches to life.

This episode is one of a pair, the next of which will discuss Death in a similar fashion. We also want to thank those who were kind and articulate enough to contribute to this episode: Emily Bulik-Sullivan, Hayden Fowler, Patrick Mershon, Will Quam, Sara Carminati and Naomi Ali. We appreciate the knowledge and insight you all shared and this episode is decidedly better for your participation. For those of our audience who would like to read what they wrote, their contributions are available below.

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Written Contributions (Made Anonymous):

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Episode 39: Issues with Multitasking

June 3, 2015

“When we think we’re multitasking we’re actually multiswitching. That is what the brain is very good at doing - quickly diverting its attention from one place to the next. We think we’re being productive. We are, indeed, being busy. But in reality we’re simply giving ourselves extra work.”

— Michael Harris

“We are the generation capable of doing many things at once, without enjoying any of them. ”

— Dinesh Kumar Biran

“How often have you heard people brag about what great multi-taskers they are? Perhaps you’ve made the same boast yourself. You might even have heard that members of “Gen Y” are natural multi-taskers, having lived their whole lives constantly switching their attention from texting to IMing to Facebooking to watching TV— all supposedly without missing a beat. We even see training classes designed to teach managers how best to multi-task their Gen Y staff, the implication being that asking someone to focus on a single task through to completion has now become ridiculously old-fashioned for, if not downright heretical to, the new world order.

Don’t believe it.”

— Michael Hannan

This week we wanted to consider something all of us do in this day and age: multitasking. Several studies and experts conclude that it has detrimental effects on both our mental processing abilities and our productive potential. Certainly it does not originate from one source in particular and we address several responses to the issue which permeates various aspects of our lives.

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