Alyssa Milano: Sorry Not Sorry

We have a mass incarceration problem in America, with entire industries created to lock people up, keep them locked up, and make it difficult or impossible for many of the people they catch in their cycle to break free. Our guest this week learned this firsthand. Keri Blakinger is a Texas-based journalist and the author of the new book Corrections in Ink, a memoir tracing her path from figure skating to heroin addiction to prison and, finally, to life as an investigative reporter covering mass incarceration for The Marshall Project.

The Supreme Court has gone rogue. It's radically reduced the right to privacy, the right to bodily autonomy, the right to hold rogue police accountable, the ability of the government to protect the environment, and significantly weakened the wall between church and state--all very much against the wishes of the American people. 

Rep. Hank Johnson of Georgia has a plan to make the court more representative of the people.  He joined us to discuss.

The extremist extreme court just stripped away the right to bodily autonomy and reproductive freedom from millions of Americans when it overturned Roe v. Wade. One in four women in the U.S. will have an abortion by the age of 45. But since the beginning of 2019, more than 250 bills restricting access to abortion care have been introduced in forty one states. Throughout this episode, you will hear from women who share why they decided to have an abortion - women who sent in their own stories, women who have shared publicly in the media or in front of Congress, and Alyssa tells her own abortion story, joined by Amanda Palmer, Gloria Allred and others.

It’s been nearly thirty years since the Congress passed meaningful gun violence prevention legislation despite overwhelming support for these measures from the American people. In those decades, more than a million people in America have died from gunshot wounds, and more than two million have been injured. After the latest high profile mass shootings in Buffalo New York and Uvalde, Texas, Senator Chris Murphy of Connecticut, a leading figure in efforts to reduce gun violence, led a bipartisan group of senators to a framework agreement on gun safety measures. He joins us today to discuss.

This week, we’re welcoming Bill McKibben back to the show. Bill is the author of more than a dozen books, including the best sellers Falter, Deep Economy, and The End of Nature, which was the first book to warn the general public about the climate crisis. His new book “The Flag, the Cross, and the Station Wagon: A Graying American Looks Back at His Suburban Boyhood and Wonders What the Hell Happened” is now available.  Guest hosted by Ben Jackson.

“If we survive the interlocking plagues of climate change, right-wing authoritarianism, and savage inequality, future generations will utter the name of the New England moral visionary and activist McKibben with the reverence we speak of Emerson, Thoreau, and Garrison. This sparkling little diamond of a book illuminates the all-American boyhood and education of a radical Christian environmentalist in love with a broken world that, frankly speaking, may or may not exist at all a century from now. May McKibben's golden pen continue to flow swiftly and conquer―with both love and reason―the dangerous enemies of human civilization.“

There aren’t a lot of people who have a life which resembles Alyssa Milano's. As an actor from childhood who is still working on the cusp of fifty, our guest Wil Wheaton is one of the few. He joins us today to discuss his reappearance in Star Trek, his time on The Big Bang Theory, his time as a young actor and as a less-young actor, and his bestselling new book Still Just a Geek, which is now available.

Over the past several years, corporations and entire industries have quickly made statements and some policy changes in response to social and racial justice movements. Those statement and initiatives, however, often exist as feel-good marketing initiatives or sincere efforts with unintended consequences. In her new book “Some of My Best Friends: Essays on Lip Service,” Tajja Isen explores these efforts and the realities they mask and reveal.

“[A] stellar debut collection...Some of My Best Friends shows a bracing willingness to tackle sensitive issues that others often sweep under a rug.”

"Isen scrutinizes society’s attempts to bandage over such issues as race and gender inequality in her powerful debut. Isen’s voice is both wry and sensitive as she fearlessly lays out the limits of talk in solving inequality; fans of sharp cultural criticism, take note."

“Beautifully written, wildly funny, and whip smart, the essays in Some of My Best Friends are among the best I've ever read. Tajja Isen is unafraid to ask deep questions and embrace their messy answers. She's one hell of a writer.”

“Isen understands that our shared future demands we expose and call out wasted time, hollow gestures, and empty words. Some of My Best Friends is an inspiring, determined work of personal narrative and cultural criticism.”

“The essays in this book dazzle stylistically, thrill intellectually and flip the finger to the many ways North America pretends to talk about racial experiences. Isen is a provocateur of the first order. Her wit and wisdom capture the current moment and soar above it.”

“Sure-footed and illuminating, Some of My Best Friends brilliantly lays bare the lies that accompany some of the most insidious aspects of racism— lip service, pandering, and plausible deniability—and offers a bracing inoculation.”

“Every essay in this collection reminded me of what makes Tajja Isen a must-read writer: her thoughtfulness, her incisive humor, and her deadeye aim. Some of My Best Friends is a genuine pleasure to read and the best kind of intellectual conversation.”

“Some of My Best Friends is the rare essay collection that feels both modern and timeless. Hilarious and fresh, it's the type of analysis that feels vital and made me go, "Finally!" What a joy to read.”

"Often hilarious, always thought provoking."

We’re already into the midterm election season. California will host its primary elections on June 7th, and my guest this week is hoping to advance into the general. Kermit Jones is running for Congress in California’s 3rd Congressional District. He’s a doctor, a former White House Fellow, a former Navy Flight Surgeon, and a public policy expert.

Mothering is work. It’s creative, it’s exhausting, it can be financially crushing, and it is immeasurably rewarding. But always, it is work. Our guest this week is Angela Garbes, bestselling author of Like a Mother. Her new book, Essential Labor: Mothering as Social Change is now available.

The Covid-19 pandemic shed fresh light on a long-overlooked truth: mothering is among the only essential work humans do. In response to the increasing weight placed on mothers and caregivers—and the lack of a social safety net to support them—writer Angela Garbes found herself pondering a vital question: How, under our current circumstances that leave us lonely, exhausted, and financially strained, might we demand more from American family life?

In Essential Labor, Garbes explores assumptions about care, work, and deservedness, offering a deeply personal and rigorously reported look at what mothering is, and can be. A first-generation Filipino-American, Garbes shares the perspective of her family's complicated relationship to care work, placing mothering in a global context—the invisible economic engine that has been historically demanded of women of color.

Garbes contends that while the labor of raising children is devalued in America, the act of mothering offers the radical potential to create a more equitable society. In Essential Labor, Garbes reframes the physically and mentally draining work of meeting a child's bodily and emotional needs as opportunities to find meaning, to nurture a deeper sense of self, pleasure, and belonging. This is highly skilled labor, work that impacts society at its most foundational level.

Part galvanizing manifesto, part poignant narrative, Essential Labor is a beautifully rendered reflection on care that reminds us of the irrefutable power and beauty of mothering.

It’s almost impossible to quantify the problems with the way we approach healthcare in this country. For something which should be a human right, high-quality healthcare is often provided in unlimited amounts to the rich at the expense of the poor—especially people of color. In his new book “The Emergency: A Year of Healing and Heartbreak in a Chicago ER,” our guest Dr. Thomas Fisher examines the injustices of our system through the eyes of a physician trying to do his best for his patients in a system that seems designed to prevent him from doing so.

“This book reminds us how permanently interesting our bodies are, especially when they go wrong. Fisher’s account of his days is gripping. . . . His frustration, his outraged intelligence, is palpable on every page. . . . the best account I’ve read about working in a busy hospital during Covid.” —The New York Times

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