Episode Twelve

Episode Twelve consists of highlights from the first six months of The Whimsy Farm Podcast. 

Episode One: Seth Donnelly joins me to talk about Taxpayers Against Genocide and their work to hold our elected officials accountable for their support of genocidal acts such as funding arms for the conflict in Palestine. Seth Donnelly is the author of The Lie of Global Prosperity: How Neoliberals Distort Data to Mask Poverty and Exploitation. He teaches high school in northern California. Then I talk with story teller and end-of-life doula Dr. Kim Bateman about how grief manifests in today's political climate. We also discuss ways to bridge the chasm many of us feel when communicating with people who don't share our political beliefs--or our news sources. Kim Bateman is the author of the Indie award winning book Crossing the Owl's Bridge: A Guide for Grieving People Who Still Love. She is the Executive Dean of Sierra College's Tahoe-Truckee campus, where she teaches a popular course on death and dying. 

Episode Two: Sociologist and author Betsy Leondar-Wright joins me from her home near Boston late last winter about her new book, Is it Racist? Is it Sexist? Why Red and Blue White People Disagree, and How to Decide in the Gray Areas.

Episode Three: Community organizer and radio personality Mike Thornton joins me to talk politics. From liberals to leftists to the Long Memory, we discuss how the Dems have lost touch and how to create lasting change. We also celebrate the 90th anniversary of the birth of Utah Phillips, who is the inspiration behind The Whimsy Farm Podcast.

Episode Four: We begin celebrating Pride Month. I speak with Kathryn Bond Stockton. Kathryn is a distinguished Professor of English at the University of Utah. She is the author of Gender(s), Making Out, an (anti Memoir) and The Queer Child, or Growing Sideways in the Twentieth Century. We’ll talk with Kathryn about why she says gender is queer, by which she means strange. Why is gender strange even when it’s played straight, and how do race and money factor into the equation? How can we better understand the nuances of gender?

Episode Five: We continue our celebration of Pride with a hyperlocal focus on the town of Milan in Southeast Michigan. I have four guests: Ash Eichner-Pendell from the organization ARC, an educational nonprofit that seeks to advocate, represent, and connect the community around LGBTQ+ issues. We’ll speak with Milan mayoral candidate Laura Russeau, who organizes Milan’s annual Pride Parade. We’ll learn about Ozone House in Ypsilanti, Michigan when we visit with Brie Nikora, its Pridezone Coordinator. And finally we’ll debut a new periodic segment of the podcast, Poetry Sustains with Maryam Barrie. 

Episode Six: I talk about gun violence and gun safety legislation hwith two women, Gwendolyn LaCroix of Michigan and Amanda Wilcox of Colorado. Gwen and Amanda are mothers who suffered the most horrible loss. Each of them lost a child to gun violence. What’s incredible is that through this loss they became change agents, working as activists to help save the lives of other children. They share their stories with me, as well as what they are doing today to reduce gun violence.

Episode Seven: I talk about the life and death importance of thinking with philosopher Elizabeth Minnich. She recently released the expanded edition of her 2017 book The Evil of Banality. Minnich received her doctorate at The New School, where she was Hannah Arendt’s teaching assistant. For twenty-five years she was a professor at the Union Institute. She also wrote Transforming Knowledge, and with community organizer Si Kahn wrote