Nerd Farmer Podcast

You can draw a fairly straight line from mass incarceration, to the war on drugs, to police militarization and misconduct, to the protests we are seeing across the US today. This episode traces that line.

On Episode 96 we discussed How to Fix a Drug Scandal, directed by Erin Lee Carr. It is a Netflix Docu-series about a drug lab scandal that rocked the State of Massachusetts in 2013. In the series we learn about two drug techs, Sonja Farak and Annie Dookhan, who falsified drug test results in thousands of cases, sending tens of thousands of people to prison with tainted evidence.

Luke, a defense attorney, is a center-piece of the latter episodes of the series and is representing several people in the series in ongoing civil litigation against the State of Massachusetts. I really enjoyed rapping with him.

Don’t worry, you do not need to have watched the show in order to understand the episode.

The Socials

• Luke Ryan

Coming Up

• Next Nerd Farm Reads: Know My Name by Chanel Miller
• A conversation with Sharlett Mena, Democratic candidate – 29th LD

The Nerd Farmer Podcast is available on iTunes, Spotify, Stitcher, and Google Play and is brought to you by Alaska Airlines and TAPCO Credit Union

Please consider supporting the podcast by joining Channel 253 as a member

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While we are all rightfully paying attention to the protests against police violence, the coronavirus continues to spread throughout the State of Washington and the nation. The fastest growing outbreak in Washington is in Yakima County, largely among agricultural workers. Yakima, like Tacoma, is a Democratic leaning city in a red county, and there has been conflict between local governments over the response. Meanwhile, agriculture workers have organized strikes to demand PPE and other protections. All the while the number of infections climbs countywide day by day. What is happening in Yakima is a microcosm of what’s happening across the nation, so we assembled a roundtable to discuss it all.

Note, we opened this episode with a host commentary on the protest and police riots in the United States.

Cast of Characters:

• Soneya Lund – Yakima City Council, hates Twitter
• Sara Shields – Member of the Yakama Nation
• Greg Halling – Yakima Herald (subscribe to the newspaper FFS!)

The Socials

• Soneya – on Insta (stick around for the blooper on this one)
• Sara – @srskank
• Greg – @ghalling

Coming Up

• Next Nerd Farm Reads: Know My Name by Chanel Miller
• How to Fix a Drug Scandal, Part II with Luke Ryan

The Nerd Farmer Podcast is available on iTunes, Spotify, Stitcher, and Google Play and is brought to you by Alaska Airlines and TAPCO Credit Union

Please consider supporting the podcast by joining Channel 253 as a member

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How to Fix a Drug Scandal, directed by Erin Lee Carr, is a Netflix Docu-series about a drug lab scandal that rocked the State of Massachusetts in 2013. In the series we learn about two drug techs, Sonja Farak and Annie Dookhan, who falsified drug tests in tens of thousands of cases.

The series was the most compelling thing we’ve watched during quarantine, so we pulled together a roundtable with some all-time Nerd Farmer guests. Don’t worry, you do not need to have watched the show in order to understand the episode.

In two weeks we will be back with another episode about the show, featuring Luke Ryan, an attorney featured in the series. He is that dude.

The Socials

• Silong
• Katy
• Producer Doug

Coming Up

• Next Nerd Farm Reads: Know My Name by Chanel Miller
• A conversation about Covid-19 in Yakima County

The Nerd Farmer Podcast is available on iTunes, Spotify, Stitcher, and Google Play and is brought to you by Alaska Airlines and TAPCO Credit Union 

Please consider supporting the podcast by joining Channel 253 as a member

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Cast of Characters

• James Miller: Director of Admission, Seattle University
• Kim Thomas: Equity facilitator, freelance college admissions consultant (First of Her Name)
• Carinna Lee Tarvin: AP World History Teacher, Lincoln High School

The Covid-19 outbreak has impacted us all. In the US, at least 89,932 people (as of 5/18) have lost their lives. Millions of people are out of work. Teachers across the nation are working with cobbled together online systems with varied (at best) results.

But one population who we don’t hear much about are high school seniors. For many members of the Class of 2020, school closed right in the midst of their planning for next year. Imagine facing this dilemma: you worked hard for 13 years, got into your dream school, and now you don’t even know if the school is going to be open in the fall. Now, imagine navigating that as a low-income student with limited access to your school counselors, mentors, and advisers.

In addition, millions of other students are currently being dealt a brutal hand by the College Board, the multi-million dollar not-for-private that administers AP Exams, the SAT, and the PSAT, who has decided to administer this year’s high-stakes AP exams online.

Questions We Tackle:

• University tuition is expensive, is it worth paying full price for your dream school if you’re likely to be online? Are you better or going to a community college?
• Is it possible to have an equitable online standardized test during a pandemic (spoiler: hell no, it’s not).

It’s a rough time to be a high school senior and this episode is for them and the people that love them.

The Socials

• James Miller
• Kim Thomas 
• Carinna Lee Tarvin

Coming Up

• Next Nerd Farm Reads: Know My Name by Chanel Miller
• Watch: How to Fix a Drug Scandal

Going Further

• Open Letter to the College Board in the Washington Post (Nate is a signatory)
• Kaleigh Brendle, the visually impaired student who challenged the College Board on equity grounds

The Nerd Farmer Podcast is available on iTunes, Spotify, Stitcher, and Google Play and is brought to you by Alaska Airlines and TAPCO Credit Union

Please consider supporting the podcast by joining Channel 253 as a member

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In September, on NF Episode #73 we discussed the book “How Democracies Die” by Daniel Ziblatt and Steven Levitsky as part of our Nerd Farm Reads Book Club (#nerdfarmreads). This week in light of events in the news from Wisconsin and elsewhere, we decided to revisit the text and examine the further degradation of US democracy since we discussed the book.

Cast of Characters

• Andrew Hammond: Tacoma News Tribune
• Ingrid Walker: Professor University of Washington Tacoma (the Bad Academic)
• Halley Knigge: Mistress of Books, Runner, and Rad Human

The Rundown

4:00: The ways our guests are watching democracy die

8:00: Why voting (and non-voting) and politics in a pandemic (and always) are so frustrating

25:00: Pre-Trump moments that led us to where we are today

35:00: The role of political violence in the decline of US democracy

45:00: Can informed-consumerism really replace democracy (spoiler: no)? Are we really voting with our dollars? What are actual impactful political acts?

50:00: The media obsession with “neutrality” will be the death of us all

57:00: Closing thoughts

The Wind Down

Guests have homework!! “How to Fix A Drug Scandal”

The Socials

Andrew Hammond: @ahammTNT

Ingrid Walker: @badacademic

Halley Knigge: @halleyrebecca

Coming Up

Next Nerd Farm Reads: Know My Name by Chanel Miller

Going Further

Stolen Justice by Lawrence Goldstone

The Red and the Blue by Steve Kornacki

“How to Fix A Drug Scandal”

The Nerd Farmer Podcast is available on iTunes, Spotify, Stitcher, and Google Play and is brought to you by Alaska Airlines and TAPCO Credit Union

Please consider supporting the podcast by joining Channel 253 as a member

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This week Channel 253 is launching a new show called Gimme the Mic. They’re six-pack podcasts from folks in Tacoma sharing their unique stories and points of view on matters that impact all of us. Our first host is Stella Keating, a student in Tacoma Schools and a student activist. We’ll be back on Monday with our regularly scheduled episode chopping up “How Democracies Die” for the second time, looking at the further degradation in US democracy.

—————-

In this episode, Stella kicks off the series talking with Collin, Arizona, and Kellz about consent, youth led initiatives, the marginalization of queer youth, impact vs. intent, and the ways PEEL is empowering youth.

Guests: Collin Veenstra, Founder & Program Director, PEEL leaders Arizona and Kellz.

Intergenerational Community Organizing: Youth-Led, Adult Staff and & Volunteer Supported

As a volunteer-run organization with an anti-oppression framework, PEEL works differently than a lot of traditional youth programs.

Our staff team are 100% volunteer and include adult community members who serve the Tacoma area as teachers, youth advocates, school resource support, teen librarians and more in their day jobs, and support PEEL youth programming in their lives beyond.

Our adult staff team work collectively with PEEL youth leaders in planning meetings, organizing events, and leading trainings on trauma-informed topics both within the group and at area youth programs. We host a monthly PEEL Planning Session, which includes both youth leaders and volunteer staff to ensure programming is as youth-centered as possible.

Links

• www.tacomapeel.com
• https://www.facebook.com/TacomaPEEL/
• Tacoma Peel on Instagram
• Channel 253 membership

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Tom Rademacher is loudmouth and I love him for it.

An author and activist, Rademacher is an outspoken, anti-racist educator, who was named the State Teacher of the Year a few years back. This bio should sound familiar. Tom is a writer and the author of “It Won’t Be Easy” one of the more vulnerable memoirs I’ve ever read. He is the 2014-2015 Minnesota Teacher of the Year and currently teaches middle school outside of Minneapolis.

“I sometimes feel like I’d be way more popular and have three times the Twitter followers, if I didn’t talk about race.”

We discussed what it’s like to be a teacher and an activist while the world (feels like it) is burning, to what extent do we think we’re making a difference as advocates in the profession, and Tom’s (loud) public anti-racist work.

The Wind Down

The Case of the Missing Hit, Reply-all Podcast

The Socials

@MrTomRad

The Nerd Farmer Podcast is available on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Stitcher, and Google Play and is brought to you by Alaska Airlines

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Man, we really picked a helluva year to move twelve timezones away…

I am amazed watching the various efforts to confront Covid-19 in the US. In particular, I am blown away watching people I care about on social media forced to jerry-rig masks, after being told for months by the CDC that they weren’t necessary or helpful. The toilet paper shortages, the lack of PPE for medical professionals, the inability of the President to articulate a coherent strategy about any it… 

It’s also really jarring to look homeward in contrast to what we’re seeing from leaders elsewhere, who are having more success combatting the virus (shouts to NZ, South Korea, and Singapore). The dire situation in the US could and should have been prevented. This irregular episode is a pandemic-centric conversation with IWL host (and my wife) Hope Bowling.

By the way, don’t worry about us. We are safe here in Abu Dhabi but we definitely are anxious about friends and family back home. So we decided to record some personal observations, takes, and reflections from here. 

Stay safe and stay home, if you can. 

The Socials

@Espionfire

IWL Podcast

Extra Credit 

@Crsailor’s Thread (get well, Craig)

@ConnMc Thread

Coverage of the Rona from UAE

The Dr. Drew heel turn mentioned on the episode

The Nerd Farmer Podcast is available on iTunes, Spotify, Stitcher, and Google Play and is brought to you by Alaska Airlines

Please consider supporting the podcast by joining Channel 253 as a member

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The Census, redistricting, reapportionment, gerrymandering — it is all up to you.

This week’s guest is Managing Director at the Washington Census Alliance, Kamau Chege. We discussed the 2020 Census and why everyone who listens to this show should make sure that everyone they know fills it out.

Undercounts among marginalized communities lead to reduced federal funding and reduced representation at the federal, state, county, and municipal levels. When socially and economically marginalized populations decline to complete the Census, they gift political power to the people responsible for their marginalization.

You can’t have a democracy without representation, you can’t have representation without the census — that’s it.

That’s the show.

The Socials

Kamau on Twitter

Extra Credit 

Kamau profiled in the NYT

Complete the Census online

Redistricting and Reapportionment

The Nerd Farmer Podcast is available on iTunes, Spotify, Stitcher, and Google Play and is brought to you by Alaska Airlines

Please consider supporting the podcast by joining Channel 253 as a member

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Fact, everyday black women in the US are simultaneously under assault from the forces of institutional racism and institutional sexism. 

They are the most educated demographic group: when measuring degrees earned, black women are the most educated demographic group in the US.

They are underpaid: black women in the US earn 61 cents on the dollar for the same job in comparison to men, with the gap not projected to close for literally 100 years. 

They are often taken for granted in the workplace: all over social media black women are reporting feeling burned-out or taken for granted in unhealthy workplaces. 

I recently came across a post on Medium by author, school counselor, and my friend, Christina McDade, on the tropes and narratives surrounding black women in our culture. The post begins “It’s 5 am, Wednesday morning, and I am exhausted.” Man, I want to use that to teach students about writing “a hook.”

Here’s a passage from the essay that really stuck with me:

It’s the narrative of the constant realization of the many roles that black women find themselves in, and the constant shifting that we have to do to simply be ourselves and who we are every single day. No black woman is immune to this struggle. For every Oprah and Michelle who can manage to be everyone’s best friend, you have the Gabrielle Union’s and Jenifer Lewis’ of the world who are a little too much and aggressive. Your star and proximity determine how varied the narrative majority spaces allow you to be.

Exhausting, right?

Obviously, I know what it’s like to deal with US racism. But I can’t imagine what it’s like to have to face sexism as well. It feels exhausting to even ponder and you can hear it in Christina’s interview. I hope you enjoy listening to her as much as I did.

 The Socials

Christina on Medium

@mscdmcdade – Twitter

The Wind Down

This is Love Podcast

Your College-Bound Kid

Bonus Listening

Burnout Hits Different When You’re Black — At the Intersection Podcast

The Nerd Farmer Podcast is available on iTunes, Spotify, Stitcher, and Google Play and is brought to you by Alaska Airlines

Please consider supporting the podcast by joining Channel 253 as a member

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