On this Summer Friday, we've put together some of our favorite recent interviews, including:
- Nadine Strossen, professor of law at New York Law School, former president of the American Civil Liberties Union, member of the ACLU’s National Advisory Council, and author of HATE: Why We Should Resist It With Free Speech, Not Censorship (Oxford University Press, 2020), and Elie Mystal, justice correspondent for The Nation and consultant for Radiolab, discuss how The American Civil Liberties Union is grappling with prioritizing cases, and whether First Amendment battles are more important than other, more progressive battles.
- Bianca Tylek, Worth Rises’s executive director, and Paul Wright, founder and executive director of the Human Rights Defense Center, and editor of Prison Legal News (PLN), explain how private companies that contract with jails and prisons can make money by offering financial services to incarcerated people who don’t have other choices.
- Recently, Food and Wine magazine ranked the ten best pizza states in America and New Jersey, Connecticut and New York took the first three spots (in that order). Listeners weigh in on what makes for a superior slice and where to find them.
- Homelessness in Los Angeles was already a crisis when the pandemic hit. Jaime Lowe, contributor to The New York Times Magazine and author of Breathing Fire: Female Inmate Firefighters on the Frontlines of California's Wildfires (MCD, 2021), talks about how unhoused residents have become a political flashpoint in L.A., and how the city and state are attempting to confront the crisis.
- Jon Burlingame, music journalist who writes regularly for Variety, music-and-tv theme expert and host of "For Scores" podcast, discusses how Isaac Hayes's 1971 album "Shaft" was shaped by its time and has influenced music, and culture, for generations to come.
These interviews were edited slightly for time, the original versions are available here:
The ACLU's 'Identity Crisis' (Jun 10, 2021)
When Prison Is Also Your Bank (Mar 29, 2021)
Best Pizza (May 18, 2021)
How Los Angeles is Grappling With its Homelessness Crisis (Jul 20, 2021)
Iconic at 50: Isaac Hayes's 'Shaft' (Jul 29, 2021)