The Other Kind of Test That’s Crucial to Controlling the COVID-19 Pandemic (0:30)

Guest: Fatima Amanat,  PhD Candidate, Biomedical Sciences, Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai

For months we’ve been hearing about the need for more COVID-19 testing, so we can know who is infected right now. But there’s another kind of test that’s also critical to control the pandemic. It looks at whether someone had the virus and has recovered. The World Health Organization is warning that many of these “antibody tests” people are ordering online don’t work and shouldn’t be trusted.

 

Inside the Struggle for Japanese American Reparations (15:27)

Guest: John Tateishi, Author of “Redress: The Inside Story of the Successful Campaign for Japanese American Reparations”

How does a government make up for something terrible it does to its own people? Usually it doesn’t. But, sometimes there’ll be a formal apology. Occasionally, the victims will be compensated. The Civil Liberties Act of 1988 was a rare instance of both. It’s the law that acknowledged the US government was wrong to imprison more than 100,000 people of Japanese ancestry – most of them American citizens – in detention camps during World War II. The Civil Liberties Act of 1988 also issued $20,000 checks to 82,000 Japanese Americans who’d been in the camps.

 

Stoicism and Patience in the Face of Adversity (38:42)

Guest: Anthony Long, Professor of the Graduate School and Chancellor's Professor Emeritus of Classics and Irving G. Stone Professor Emeritus of Literature; Affiliated Professor of Philosophy and Rhetoric, UC-Berkeley

How are you keeping your spirits up right now? Are you just doing your best to hang on until we can all leave our homes and get back to normal life? Or are you one of those people who can accept things as they are and find the good in every situation? Yeah, that’s not my forte. But perhaps there’s lesson for us all right now in the ancient Greek philosophy of stoicism and one of its famous followers, US Navy fighter pilot James Stockdale. Stockdale got shot down and spent seven and a half years as a prisoner of war in Vietnam – four of those years in complete isolation. He claimed that stoicism saved his life.

 

Acclaimed Book About Race in America “Remixed” for Young People (50:31)

Guest: Jason Reynolds, National Ambassador for Young People’s Literature; Ibram X. Kendi, PhD, Professor of History and International Relations and the Founding Director of the Antiracist Research and Policy Center at American University, Co-Authors “Stamped: Racism Antiracism and You: A Remix of the National Book Award-Winning Stamped From the Beginning”  

Everyone is capable of racist thinking. That’s one of the central arguments in “Stamped from the Beginning,” which won the National Book Award in 2016. It’s a history of racist ideas in America and, if you’ve heard the word “antiracist,” it’s probably because of Ibram X. Kendi, who wrote Stamped from the Beginning and founded the Antiracist Research and Policy Center at American University. Now Professor Kendi has collaborated with award-winning author Jason Reynolds on an adaptation of the book for teens and young adult readers.

 

Ramen Has Become the Currency of Prison (1:25:26)

Guest: Michael Gibson-Light, Professor of Sociology and Criminology at the University of Denver.

Ramen is a staple for college students. It’s easy to make, cheap, and can taste pretty decent if made right. Turns out, college isn’t the only place where Ramen is found in abundance. It’s also a staple in the prison community as well.