9 November 2015 – Today on Hopping Mad, Arliss was unavailable to record the intro, but was still able to cover her usual financial beat, explaining the power of a fiat currency. Will covered Comcast’s Data Caps, and our guest was Professor Francis Boyle, Human Rights Lawyer and International Law Expert. He explained that the Hawaiian situation is unique, as the laws which apply to Native Americans apparently do not apply to Native Hawaiians. Unfortunately, his time was limited, so there is no Extra Mad section this week. But the good news is that we’re now on both Stitcher and iTunes! For those of you who prefer the direct RSS feed it is https://www.buzzsprout.com/50892.rss.
Thanks for listening, Everyone. I promise I’ll write a bio portion for my part of the site soon.
2 November 2015 – This week we interviewed an expert on Common Core and, seriously people, she was incandescent. Even if you don’t have kids in school, you REALLY want to listen to this interview. Debra is a teacher-consultant of the National Writing Project and the California History Project, a school district Director of Libraries and Literacy leader, with a PhD in Language, Literacy and Culture from UCBerkeley. She has 25 years classroom teaching experience and provides professional development for teachers. So, clearly, she’s a rock star. What is especially revelatory about this interview is that Debra talks about Common Core from so many different perspectives. She has been on the front lines of Common Core since years before it made it into classrooms and she has the kind of insight that can only come from depth of experience.
Will is talking about bird and bat guano this week. What!?! You think I’m making that up? He is covering the Spratly “Islands” and the claim made to them by China. The diplomatic scuffling between China, Vietnam, the Philippines, Taiwan, Malaysia and Brunei Darussalam over this archipelago is transitioning from talking to shoving. China is, of course, the elephant in the room but the US is reinforcing the status of the international waters with a recent Freedom of Navigation transit through the area by the USS Lassen. Personally, I’m proud to know that the US feels compelled to defend the freedom of birds to deficate freely in freedom with extra free freedom.
I continued talking about the mechanism of fiscal spending versus the mechanism of monetary spending. During these many years of Congressional disfunction the Fed has been holding the economy together with monetary policy alone, which, I explain, is like pushing on a string. The economy will not truly recover until we have a functional Congress which is operating its fiscal spending responsibility with an eye toward economic growth. (And people in Hell want ice water too.) I also sprinkle in a little talk about social security just for seasoning.
Technically this week most things went well. Debra had an issue with her mic which worked out nicely for her dog who wanted to get in the act during the “Extra Mad!” portion of the interview. I finally gave up on having our RSS feed hosted by Feedburner. They really are just AWFUL. Our feed is still there until I get the time to rip it down but our new location is at Buzzsprout. I LOVE them. Their site is easy to use and, unlike Feedburner, actually makes sense. Also, they have real humans in technical support and helpful help pages. So, Stitcher and iTunes are getting switched over. You should be able to find us easily on both in the next day or so. As the week progresses and I get a bit of time I will switch all the players on our site to the Buzzsprout players because they are nicer as well. A tip of the carrot to Bluegal, from my favorite podcast, The Professional Left, for her Buzzsprout recommendation. Carrots! – Arliss
19 October 2015 – We started out simply this week with a big tip of the carrot to Whole Foods in thanks for their decision to no longer sell bunny in their freezer section. Rabbit Americans everywhere join me in collective relief. Will and I are both reading unusually good books this week. I’m reading the magical, Two Years, Eight Months and Twenty-Eight Nights Nights by Salman Rushdie. I’ll be the first to admit that I never managed to struggle to the end of The Satanic Verses but Rushdie’s new book is in the style of 1001 Nights and is truly a book that has transported me. Will is reading The Discovery of Middle Earth, by Graham Robb. Robb traces the history of the Celts using the results of recent archeology and research. He brings a potentially new slant to the history of a tribe with much greater reach than most realize.
After the break Will told us about some of the more recent revelations by Edward Snowden and the realization by British MPs that they too are the subject of surveillance despite the repeated statements by the government to the contrary. You will be pleased to know that a court ruled that the statements by the government were “political” and not really intended to be factual so everything is all okay. Or not.
I’ve been thinking about the lack of a Speaker and the so-called debt ceiling crisis upon which Republicans continue to insist despite the fact that it is a useless anachronism dating back to the gold standard. Is this the time for platinum coin seigniorage, aka “the trillion dollar coin?” Probably not but PCS sure would solve a lot of problems. I explain what it is and a bit about why it works. Later this week I will post, under our “Other Podcasts” tab an MMT podcast I did for The After Show during which I also covered PCS. There is a bit more detail in that podcast and I will include my notes as well in case you would like more information.
Our interview this week was with citizen journalist and blogger, Margaret Pless. While Margaret has been involved in covering Gamergate, we didn’t bother to dive down into the weeds of who said what, when or to whom. Personally, with rare, rare exceptions (The Room, for instance) I don’t play games and I’m not really interested in them. What DOES interest me are some of the more meta issues of which Gamergate is only one example. We talked to Margret about women in science and tech, about games in the larger context of society and in our extended “Extra Mad” segment Margaret got in to more detail about how to protect yourself on-line. Margaret is a terrific young talent and we think you will be as engaged by her as we were. – Carrots! Arliss
21 September 2015 – We survived the launch! It would have been better had it not taken us about eight hours to record the show only to later discover that we still had a strange audio problem in a couple of places but all-in-all we are still in one piece and we are downright hoppy with the result. It’s hard to be anything but thrilled with the end product because we had such a wonderful time talking with SUNY professor and Daily Kos feature writer, Denise Oliver-Velez. I think it’s obvious that Dee is basically a progressive rock star. She answered questions about hope, Puerto Rico, the Latino get-out-the-vote effort and education. I especially loved the conversation about the fact that the Moral Mondays platform and the Black Lives Matter platforms are putting forward issues that are not “new” contrary to the commentary by mainstream media. Dee, with her wealth of perspective on progressive movements closed out by commenting on the difference between getting out the word in the 1970s versus the social media of today but she was sure to say, “The revolution will be slogged, not blogged.” We make change by talking with one another directly.
Will and I began the show talking a little bit about how we got started in the space that ultimately lead to “Hopping Mad.” We then went on to talk about the need for a new New Deal via job guarantee programs.
