In June, over a hundred friends and members of Channel 253 gathered for Channel 253 Fest, an evening of live podcasting from the Press Room in downtown Tacoma. It was a great event and this week’s episode is the audio from that evening.

Each All Star Guest appeared on the show for the first time in 2017 and joined us to talk about lessons learned and how they’ve become smarter over the last five years. 

We’re calling this “Episode 200”, (it’s really episode 197).

Matt and Melissa closed the evening

Cast of Characters

• Jenna Hanchard, Independent Journalist – Insta
• Will James, KNKX – Insta
• Melissa Santos, Axios – Twitter
• Matt Driscoll, The News Tribune  – Twitter

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This summer we are hosting a series highlighting small businesses and their struggles and triumphs in Tacoma. In part two, we have a conversation with Umi Wagoner from eTc, the Tacoma-based rareware retailer and design shop in downtown. eTc is in their ninth year of operation, now located at 116 South 9th Street. 

eTc is what Tacoma wears. 

Going Further

• Umi on Insta
• eTc

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This summer we are hosting a series highlighting small businesses and their struggles and triumphs in Tacoma. Opening the series, we have a conversation with Russ Heaton the proprietor of Doyle’s Pub, named one of the best bars in America by Esquire. Doyle’s has been open in the heart of the Stadium District for seventeen years.

Doyle’s is a Liverpool and Sounders bar and as you will hear Russ wears his heart on his sleeve.

Admin

This Thursday, we’re hosting Channel 253 Fest. A few tickets still remain to join us for a live episode of Grit & Grain, shenanigans from the hosts of IWL, and for Episode 200 of Nerd Farmer. You won’t want to miss this!

Going Further

• Doyle’s on Insta
• Doyle’s website

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A social media post by the mayor of Centralia and recent reporting by our guest, Isabel Vander Stoep, revealed the existence of an Asatru Folk Assembly (AFA) group in Centralia. So, this week we invited Vander Stoep to talk about her reporting on the group and their activities in the area. The AFA are a hate group that wraps their white-supremacist ideology up in Nordic traditions and folklore. 

Here’s the overview from the Southern Poverty Law Center:

They defend neo-confederacy and traffic in the Great Replacement conspiracy theory:

Being a Confederate is no longer about where you live or even on which side your ancestors fought. You can be from Ohio or Pennsylvania or New York because what is now happening in New Orleans and elsewhere in the South, is your battle, too… The people who want more immigration for the precise reason that it will ensure a non-white majority in America. … These people are not just after Southerners, they’re after you too.

They also traffic in the adjacent white-genocie conspiracy theory:

While AFA leadership has often couched the group’s bigoted views in “cultural preservation” rhetoric, the “Declaration of Purpose” on the group’s website belies those curated claims in stating: “If the Ethnic European Folk cease to exist Asatru would likewise no longer exist. Let us be clear: by Ethnic European Folk we mean white people.” Such beliefs in white genocide undergird the AFA’s adherence to ethnocentrism and rigid gender roles, two through lines connecting AFA’s ideology to that of the broader far right. 

For women they preach gender traditionalism against a “guereilla feminist” agenda:

It can be hard to know where we, as women, fit in today’s modern society; what exactly our role is; our purpose. Guerrilla feminism has torn the fabric of collective female self-awareness, and we are all led from birth on a journey away from ourselves, destined for confusion and depression via mass media marketing. We are brainwashed from birth to believe that our value as women is dependent on a combination of base sex appeal and a willingness to imitate our male counterparts in both personality and lifestyle.

 

Going Further

• Isabel – Twitter
• Takes & Typos on the coverage of the AFA
• SPLC on AFA
• Two Centralia Councilors Critical of Mayor for Speaking Out Against Shop With ‘Whites-Only’ Religious Ties
• 2 men kicked out of National Guard over alleged white supremacist ties
• Virginia Police Sergeant Suspended After Antifa Group Identifies White Nationalist Ties

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The Nerd Farmer Podcast is available on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Stitcher, and Google Podcasts and is brought to you by Libro FM 

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Housing is a frequent topic of conversation on this show. We’ve talked to realtors about the market for first-time homebuyers; we’ve discussed Matthew Desmond’s Evicted; we’ve talked about combatting displacement; we’ve discussed efforts to combat homelessness with Tacoma Housing Now; and talked about the national housing market with a NY-based real estate consultant.

This week we’re talking about the call for a tenant bill of rights with organizers from Tacoma for All. Tacoma for All is a citizen initiative led by tenants in Tacoma and their allies. The initiative calls for protections for renters, protection from predatory institutional landlords, fair practices around excess fees, mandated situational relocation assistance, and longer notification periods for rent hikes and forced moves.

Zev and David are organizers from Tacoma 4 All and joined us this week to talk about the initiative and their efforts to garner community support for it.

Going Further

• Tacoma 4 All 
• Text of the initiative 

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The Nerd Farmer Podcast is available on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Stitcher, and Google Podcasts and is brought to you by Libro FM 

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After a nearly four month trial, last week leaders of the Proud Boys were convicted in federal court of seditious conspiracy. The Proud Boys are a right-wing paramilitary group that relishes street fights and violence against their political opponents.. They were instrumental in some of the most coordinated attacks on January 6. 

Reasonable countries like Canada and New Zealand have designated them as a terrorist organization. But they maintain a place on the fringe of the US right, yucking it up with elected officials and getting name-checked by the former President during a debate in 2020.

Our guest is Brandi Buchman. She’s a contributor at Emptywheel, a former senior staff writer Daily Kos and the former Chief White House & Congressional Correspondent for Courthouse News. She’s dope enough that the goons at Breitbart have written several pieces attacking her. She joined us to talk about the recently completed trial and what comes next in the string of trials of the organizers of the violence on January 6.

Cast of Characters & Going Further

• Brandi – Mastodon 
• Archive @ Emptywheel
• Buchman on the trial – Lawfare 

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The Nerd Farmer Podcast is available on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Stitcher, and Google Podcasts and is brought to you by Libro FM 

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In one twenty-four period in March, over 42 billion dollars was withdrawn from Silicon Valley Bank in California. This led to the second largest bank collapse in US history and SVB went into FDIC receivership. In short order, Signature Bank also collapsed and several others were left looking wobbly. In response, many Americans began moving their money away from regional banks toward larger national, so-called too big to fail, banks. This trend represents an acceleration of bank consolidation, making the rich guys richer. 

I wanted to get to the bottom of what’s happening in the banking sector and did so thanks to our guest, Austin Patjens. Patjens is the VP SBA Business Development Officer Sr at Heritage Bank (he joined us for this episode in a personal capacity). We talked about the health of regional banks and why he believes your deposits are safe at banks like his and other regional banks.

Cast of Characters & Going Further

• Austin – LinkedIn
• Heritage Bank – website

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The Nerd Farmer Podcast is available on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Stitcher, and Google Podcasts and is brought to you by Libro FM 

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This week, I sat down with Israel Calera. Iz is an artist and designer from Rio Grande Valley on the US/Texas border, the setting of much of Blood Meridian.

An original illustration of Cormac McCarthy by Iz

He currently resides here in Abu Dhabi and he (and his extremely loud cat Winky) joined us to talk about Blood Meridian, the 1984 western novel from Cormac McCarthy.

This episode is an outgrowth of a series of conversations in Takes & Typos that culminated here.

Cast of Characters & Going Further

• Israel – Instagram
• Blood Meridian – 1985 NYT Review 
• Cormac McCarthy and SA Cosby Are Masters of their Craft – Takes & Typos

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The Nerd Farmer Podcast is available on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Stitcher, and Google Podcasts and is brought to you by Libro FM 

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Long time listeners will know that the topic of regressive taxation in Washington  has been a repeated talking point on the show. In 2019, we hosted an Adult Civics Hour called the Case for Progressive Taxation and the topic has come up on several other episodes. This week as tax season reaches its zenith, we wanted to get to the bottom of why the tax structure in Washington is so regressive and what we can do about it.

Our guest is Melissa Hellmann, an award-winning reporter who covers racial, gender and economic inequality. Prior to joining the Center for Public Integrity in August 2021, she covered marginalized communities for The Seattle Times. She previously worked at Seattle Weekly, and the Associated Press. 

This conversation centers on Melissa’s prior reporting in Crosscut and the recent efforts in other states to make their systems more less regressive.

Cast of Characters & Going Further

•  Melissa – Twitter
• Center for Public Integrity – Website
• If you’re Black, saying ‘I do’ can increase your taxes – Discussed in Exit Question

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The Nerd Farmer Podcast is available on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Stitcher, and Google Podcasts and is brought to you by Libro FM 

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The show’s roots are local but it wanders wherever my interests happen to lead. 

Since moving to Abu Dhabi, I have had the opportunity to visit several countries I never would have considered visiting prior. For example, this fall I went to the Republic of Georgia and this past February I continued exploring the Caucasus with a trip to Baku, Azerbaijan. I documented this trip in my weekly newsletter.

I enjoyed my trip to Azerbaijan. One of the topics that came up several times while talking to Azeris was the ongoing conflict between Azerbaijan and Armenia over control of Nagorno-Karabakh. This is a disputed territory claimed by both states that has been the subject of two wars. At one point, while visiting the Presidential Museum, it became clear to me that I was being propagandized about the conflict. So I did a deep dive that night at the hotel but the more I learned about the dispute, the more questions I had. 

When I returned home, I put up the Bat Signal and listener Dr. Joanne Lisosky, from our friends at Pacific Lutheran University, connected me with an expert. Her name is Sevinj Osmanqizi. Sevinj is a journalist and author and best known for being on the other side of interviewers with political figures. She is one of the most critical journalistic voices about events in Azerbaijan and was labeled a “traitor” by the regime for opposing the 2020 Karabakh War. I invited her on to get the lowdown on this complicated conflict. 

Sevinj is knowledgeable and passionate about her homeland and events there. I really enjoyed learning from her and hope you do too.

Cast of Characters & Going Further

• Sevinj – YouTube – Instagram
• Takes & Typos – on Azerbaijan

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The Nerd Farmer Podcast is available on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Stitcher, and Google Podcasts and is brought to you by Libro FM 

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