Protest and Upheaval Spreads Across Latin America (0:30)

Guest: Kirk Hawkins, PhD, Professor of Political Science, BYU

The long-time president of Bolivia has stepped down and fled the country. Weeks of sometimes violent protests in Chile have spurred the President to promise a new Constitution will be written.  Peru’s president dissolved the country’s Congress a month ago, so Congress turned around and suspended him, sparking a Constitutional crisis over who is in charge of Peru’s government. For several weeks in October, violent protests swept the streets of Ecuador. And Venezuela’s political and humanitarian crisis grows deeper every month.

 

Pre-Crastination is the Opposite of Procrastination (16:55)

Guest: David A. Rosenbaum, PhD, Distinguished Professor of Psychology at University of California Riverside

The early bird gets the worm, but the second mouse gets the cheese. Is procrastination sometimes a good thing? While there seem to be obvious benefits to getting things done in a timely manner, new research is revealing that there are definite drawbacks to pre-crastinating akin to the drawbacks of procrastinating. They conclude that this habit does not just reflect simple haste or the pursuit of instant gratification; it also reduces demand on mental resources--meaning that we are just trying to make our lives a little bit easier. In doing so, however, you actually increase your own anxiety levels and feed into a vicious cycle of intense compulsions to act fast.

 

Mormons in the US-Mexico Borderlands (32:58)

Guest: Lisa Elliott, Associate Professor of Mass Communication, El Paso Community College, NEH Grant Recipient

The FBI has joined the investigation into the murder of three women and six children in Northern Mexico last week by suspected cartel gunmen. The victims were dual US-Mexico citizens from a community that identifies as “Mormon” but is not affiliated with the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. Last week on Top of Mind, we spoke with an expert on the independent –or fundamentalist –Mormon communities in Mexico –some who practice polygamy, some who don’t. There’s also a community of Mormons who are actively affiliated with the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints and have been rooted for generations on both sides of the US-Mexico border. They are a fascinating example of the way many people living at border see it as a fluid boundary, not at all clear-cut.

 

Why Society is Still Uncomfortable with Women’s Anger and How to Bring About Change (51:08)

Guest: Soraya Chemaly, Director of the Women’s Media Center Speech Project and Author of “Rage Becomes Her”

“I am angry and I own it,” wrote Democratic Presidential Candidate Elizabeth Warren in an email to supporters over the weekend. She was responding to attacks from her white male political rivals on the campaign trail –Joe Biden and Pete Buttigieg, in particular –who criticized Warren’s “angry” “my way or the highway” approach. Our society does not consider anger an attractive emotion. But there’s a double standard, as media critic and author Soraya Chemaly points out passionately in her recent TED Talk and book called “Rage Becomes Her.” White men can get away with showing anger a lot easier than women or people of color in America.

 

Life after the Asteroid: Fossils Show How Mammals Thrived after the Extinction of the Dinosaurs (1:11:55)

Guest: Tyler Lyson, Curator of Vertebrate Paleontology, Denver Museum of Nature & Science

66 million years ago, an asteroid struck the Yucatan Peninsula and caused a catastrophic mass extinction. It wiped out the dinosaurs, but not much was known about what happened to the survivors of the impact until recently. A team of paleontologists have discovered a treasure trove of fossil remains allowing them to piece together a vivid picture of life’s recovery after the dinosaurs.

 

When Play is Serious Business (1:30:12)

Guest: Rachel Wadham, Host, Worlds Awaiting on BYUradio, Education and Juvenile Collections Librarian, BYU

Rachel is the education and juvenile collections librarian at BYU and host of Worlds Awaiting here on BYUradio talking about serious play.