Legacy of the Berlin Wall’s Collapse (0:32)

Guest: Peter Fritzsche, PhD, Professor of History, University of Illinois, author of “Hitler’s First Hundred Days”

This week marks 30 years since the fall of the Berlin Wall between communist East Germany and capitalist West Germany. Less than a month later, Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev and US President George HW Bush sat side by side and declared the Cold War was ending. Two years later, the Soviet Union itself would collapse. So let’s take a look at the legacy of November 9, 1989 –the day the wall came down.

 

In Arid Regions, the Fog Harp Gets Water from Thin Air (18:17)

Guest: Brook Kennedy, Industrial Designer and Professor at Virginia Polytechnic Institute’s School of Architecture + Design

More than one billion people around the world live where water is scarce. Another billion face water shortage because their country doesn’t have the proper infrastructure for water gathering. And the United Nations predicts it’s only going to get much worse in the coming years. That means we have to find new sources of H2O. So how about using fog? A couple researchers figured out how to more effectively harvest that eerie mist for drinkable water.

 

Remembering the Overlooked Figures in History Through Obituaries (35:12)

Guest: Amy Padnani is an Editor on the Obituaries Desk at the New York Time and the Creator of Overlooked

They say history is written by the winners. But Amy Padnani believes it’s up to us to decide who should be remembered. After becoming an editor of obituaries at the New York Times, Amy Padnani asked herself “Where are all the dead women?” Very few people get the privilege of an obituary in the Times, but surely not all of the people of note dying are white men. So Padnani hatched a project called “Overlooked.” For the last year and a half, they’ve been publishing obituaries the New York Times missed. Computer programmer Ada Lovelace. Journalist and civil rights activist Ida B. Wells.  Poet Sylvia Plath. “Jane Eyre” author Charlotte Bronte. Plus, lots of names you wouldn’t recognize but should.

 

The Apple Seed (51:07)

Guest: Sam Payne, Host of the Apple Seed on BYUradio

Sam Payne of the Apple Seed shares a story.

 

HR Handling of Sexual Harassment Needs Improvement (1:02:36)

Guest: Laurie Ruettimann, HR Consultant, Host of Let’s Fix Workpodcast, Author of “Let’s Fix Work”

Two years ago, a series of female Hollywood stars went public with their experiences of sexual assault and harassment using #MeToo on social media. It sparked a movement that demanded accountability from powerful men in Hollywood and other industries. Since then, reports of workplace sexual harassment filed with the Equality Employment Opportunity Commission have increased 13 percent. But what’s happening after those reports are made? HR consultant Laurie Ruettimann says too often nothing happens. Or worse, the woman who reports the harassment ends up facing retaliation at work.

 

What America Can Learn from Germany’s Response to the Holocaust (1:14:04)

Guest: Susan Neiman, Director of the Einstein Forum and Author of “Learning from the Germans: Race and the Memory of Evil”

The Civil War ended and slavery was abolished more than 150 years ago. How well do you think we’ve moved on from that as a nation? Not just moved on, but reckoned with –repented of, even –the wrongs done by men and women, who laid the foundation for our freedoms and prosperity? Whether its debate over reparations for slavery or fierce disagreement about whether the Confederate Flag is appropriate to fly in public, I think it’s pretty clear we’ve got some unresolved business there. Philosopher Susan Neiman is a Jew who was born and raised in Georgia and has spent most of her adult life living in Germany. She’s come to believe America could benefit from studying the way Germans have wrestled with the crimes of the Holocaust.