Happy When Curious

Happy New Year! Is life one damned thing after another...or not? Join me as I try to think it through. 

I absolutely love this question as it brings in so many elements of humanity. In this episode I try to explore what I see as a few interesting nooks and crannies of the huge mountain that is the conversation around meat eating. I hope you enjoy!  

As always, if you have comments or guest suggestions, email me at 

[email protected]

Please enjoy this wide ranging conversation I got to have with Brittany Newell and music and all it's many wonders!

(And my apologies for the low sound quality at times from my microphone, technology is a real bear!)

Brittany Newell was the Director of Orchestras at Edmonds-Woodway High School from 2018-2022, previous to that she spent six years at Ballard High School in Seattle, where she enjoyed working with students and families as the orchestra program grew from one class to a program including over eighty string students in two curricular orchestras and an extra-curricular Fiddle Ensemble. 
 
In 2016, Ms. Newell was named Ballard High School’s Outstanding Educator. Ms. Newell earned a Bachelor of Music Education and a Bachelor in Mathematics from the University of Washington and she completed a Masters in Music Performance at Western Washington University in 2018. She has enjoyed performing with various local ensembles including the NW Symphony Orchestra, Seattle Collaborative Orchestra, Cascade Symphony and within the Seattle old-time music community. 

Is parochialism a virtue or a vice? It's not easy to know. 

Bojan Belic is a Teaching Professor in the subjects of Bosnian-Croatian-Montenegrin-Serbian language, Russian language, and Slavic linguistics at the University of Washington as well as the Departmental Languages Coordinator (first-year Russian, Bosnian-Croatian-Montenegrin Serbian) University of Washington and a published scholar in linguistics. 

Join me as we discuss how the war in the former Jugoslavia influenced the language (languages?) there,  how care with words acts as care for the world, and so much more about linguistics. 

What's more important? Winning or getting to play again tomorrow?

Rev. Dr. Mae Elise Cannon is an ordained pastor in the Evangelical Covenant Church (ECC). Her ministry and professional background includes serving as the Senior Director of Advocacy and Outreach for World Vision-US, the executive pastor of Hillside Covenant Church (Walnut Creek, California), Director of Development and Transformation for Extension Ministries at Willow Creek Community Church (Barrington, Illinois), and as a consultant to the Middle East for child advocacy issues for Compassion International.

Join us as we discuss the complexities of Jonestown, the tragic end it came to, and what came before. 

Fielding M. McGehee III is the principal researcher for the Jonestown Institute, where he manages tape transcripts, Freedom of Information Act requests, primary source documents, and general inquiries on questions concerning Peoples Temple. He may be reached at [email protected].

You can find the Jonestown Institute at https://jonestown.sdsu.edu/

For those that haven't heard of Jonestown here is a brief intro from the Jonestown Institute: “Jonestown” is a word with several meanings. First, it refers to an agricultural project established by the Peoples Temple, a religious group based in California which immigrated to Guyana in the mid-1970s to establish an agricultural utopia. Second, it refers to the events of 18 November 1978 in which a U.S. Congressman was assassinated, along with four other individuals, at a jungle airstrip in South America. These tragic killings were followed by the mass murders and suicides of 900 men, women, and children by ingesting potassium cyanide mixed into a vat of fruit punch and tranquilizers. Finally, the word “Jonestown” has been used to describe any New Religious Movement which may or may not have the potential for violence, as in “Heaven’s Gate was another Jonestown.”

Some questions about immensity I have been ruminating on. And apologies for the less than optimal sound quality this was recorded outside on the grass at 4:50 in the morning to put me in the right head space :)

Daniel is a historian whose research focuses on urban history, public health, racism, and capitalism in the twentieth-century United States. His dissertation, “Health is Wealth: The Rise of a Medical Metropolis and the Remaking of Racial Inequality in Twentieth-Century Baltimore,” traces the development of a postwar health care economy through housing, environment, and labor politics, focusing on the transformation of neighborhoods and livelihoods among its working-class residents. Daniel is currently a postdoctoral fellow with the Program in Racism, Immigration, and Citizenship at Johns Hopkins University.