Today we will delve into the complex and often incongruent ways the United States works and why it doesn't. To what degree do we know how the country is supposed to work as voters and nonvoters in the upcoming US presidential election? What makes us care and not?

William Cooper offers rich insight into the key drivers and less-examined ways of how the political landscape in the US has been shaped. His 2024 book, "How America Works...and Why It Doesn't: A Brief Guide to the US Political System" is an opportunity to make sense of the American political landscape. He will share historical implications of what we experience today, and which Constitutional provisions have guided the country in the best and worst ways. 

William Cooper's work addresses what guides our political system alongside the embedded traditional central to America's story. 

We will discern recent developments, that have led to and created a tumultuous political environment, ahead of the 2024 election, including the shifting role and influence of the Supreme Court. We will speak in-depth about the threat of extreme polarization, what this means for us right now, and what we might expect going forward.

Tune in to gain more insight into the political workings of the American Experiment and what this means for you as we near Election Day 2024.

 

WILLIAM COOPER is an attorney, author, and national columnist. His writings have appeared in hundreds of publications globally including the New York Times, Wall Street Journal, USA Today, Newsweek, CNN, Washington Post, San Francisco Chronicle, New York Daily News, Baltimore Sun, Dallas Morning News, Chicago Sun-Times, Toronto Star, Jerusalem Post, and Huffington Post. He lives in Northern California.

In our premiere episode, we will discuss the experience of being involuntarily childless in a pronatalist world, through personal experiences, and the need for change. Our guest for this episode is Hilary Fennell.   Hilary is an award-winning programme maker and journalist with extensive experience of working in television and radio as a series producer and director.  In her ground-breaking radio documentary, Childless, Hilary Fennell explores the realities and dynamics of being involuntarily childless in a child-centered society.   Her voice as a childless not by choice woman, is interwoven with the stories of six other women. Each of the women speak to their diverse journeys in coming to terms with living a life without children.   Currently, it is estimated that one in five women in Ireland will not have a child, by the time they reach age 45. It is further estimated that only 10% of these women are childless by choice (child free). Childless, focuses on the other 90% of women, who represent an often less represented group.    This group is often silenced by the taboo nature of this topic, which remains today, despite the number of women living without children, not by choice. Further, these statistics do not include other genders. A majority of countries primarily track the parental status of women only.   Societies have become obsessed with motherhood and the idealization of human reproduction, supported by pronatalist rhetoric, which is reinforced through policy, in the workplace and socially.   Hilary navigates the social, physical and emotional impact of childlessness throughout her documentary, with skillful artistry and a full heart, amidst the shadows of grief, a call for social change, and the lightness of learning to live a full and meaningful life.   Please join us to learn more about her incredible radio documentary, and the issues that matter most to those who are living without children, involuntarily.    

Hilary Fennell is an award-winning programme maker and journalist with extensive experience of working in television and radio as a series producer and director. Her work runs the gamut from current affairs to arts and human interest and has been in competition at many festivals worldwide. Hilary has worked in both the Irish State Broadcaster RTÉ and the independent sector.

As a journalist, she been interviewing and writing for various national media for over twenty years. 

She is also a recognised fiction writer, recent prizes include The Sean O'Faolain Short Story Competition. 

Hilary also lectures in Broadcast Production at the National Film School at IADT and does presenting and voiceover work. 

She originally graduated from Trinity College Dublin with an honours law degree (LL.B, Bachelor in Laws) and qualified as a barrister from The Kings Inns Dublin (BL, Barrister-at-Law).

See [email protected]

What does it mean to tell the truth in America? How can truth be discovered through missing narratives and overlooked history? Whose narratives are accounted for and not, who is held accountable, in the face of foundational racial injustice and violence in the US?

Today we will be in conversation with Aran Shetterly, author of Morningside: The 1979 Greensboro Massacre and the Struggle for an American City's Soul (Amistad, October 2024). Morningside delves deeply into the event and its immediate aftermath, delivering an intimate account of an overlooked chapter in American history and showing why the Greensboro Massacre is such an important and relevant case study in proximity to our present.

Tune in live for this in-depth look at the legacy of the Greensboro Massacre, the Civil Rights to Human Rights movements, and what this means now.

Implicit bias toward people who are unmarried and do not have children is pervasive throughout medical education, protocol, and practice.

Models of healthcare based on a presumed family structure are neither inclusive nor safe when patients have different experiences and outcomes based on marital status.

Healthcare access, hospital release requirements, post-procedure care, and treatment are designed for those with specific social and familial structures and relationships.

The dangers posed throughout the medical field can leave patients to navigate on their own, amidst these unrecognized barriers. How does this impact the quality of healthcare an unmarried person receives?

Today's guest is Joan DelFattore, a professor emerita at the University of Delaware. She has researched, written, and spoken widely on singlist bas in medical care. She will share how this bias can significantly affect cancer treatment and the ways medical authors justify the disparate treatment of married and unmarried cancer patients who are otherwise similar.

We will discuss what can be done to reduce these adverse outcomes, and the urgent changes we need now. Tune in live to learn more about what you can do to create change amidst healthcare inequity impacting our demographic.

Policy steeped in systemic discrimination and privilege continues to prioritize legal unions and the nuclear family. Too often, the presence and history of those who live outside these patriarchally contrived units, have been excluded or suppressed.

Further, current policy does not reflect the world as it is today. Unmarried individuals and people without children have not only been present throughout history, we are a growing demographic, globally. However, we remain without the same legal protections and benefits in multiple domains, where marriage and reproduction are upheld as privileged statuses.

Our guest today is the author of Moving Past Marriage: Why We Should Ditch Marital Privilege, End Relationship-Status Discrimination, and Embrace Nonmarital History. Dr. Jaclyn Geller is a writer and associate professor of English, at Central Connecticut State University and specializes in Restoration and eighteenth century-studies.

In today's conversation, we will explore nonmarital history and the impact of nonmarital and pronatalist discrimination, today. You will not want to miss this conversation with Dr. Geller as she shares her profound insight, expertise, and solutionist approach to nonmarital disenfranchisement!

The United States incarcerates more people than any other industrial democracy in the world. Why is this the state of America, and what are the social, economic, and political costs? Today's guest is Kevin B. Smith, author of The Jailer's Reckoning: How Mass Incarceration is Damaging America. He will share in-depth perspectives from his research, ranging from the differential treatment of inmates to the extreme impact on individuals, communities, and states. In this landmark book, Kevin B. Smith explains that the United States became the world’s biggest jailer because politicians wanted to do something about a very real problem with violent crime. That effort was accelerated by a variety of partisan and socio-demographic trends that started to significantly reshape the political environment in the 1980s and 1990s. How did serving time behind bars become a normalized social experience, affecting a majority of Americans directly or indirectly? Join us for this candid, revelatory discussion on the realities of incarceration in America.

What does it mean to tell the truth in America? How can truth be discovered through missing narratives and overlooked history? Whose narratives are accounted for and not, who is held accountable, in the face of foundational racial injustice and violence in the US? Today we will be in conversation with Aran Shetterly, author of Morningside: The 1979 Greensboro Massacre and the Struggle for an American City's Soul (Amistad, October 2024). Morningside delves deeply into the event and its immediate aftermath, delivering an intimate account of an overlooked chapter in American history and showing why the Greensboro Massacre is such an important and relevant case study in proximity to our present. Tune in live for this in-depth look at the legacy of the Greensboro Massacre, the Civil Rights to Human Rights movements, and what this means now.

On this US Election Day, November 5, 2024, New Legacy Radio has chosen to honor the voices of women without children. We also celebrate the North American release of Others Like Me: The Lives of Women without Children, written by author Nicole Louie. The book is available today in Canada and the United States and is published by House of Anansi.

Others Like Me was published by Dialogue Books in hardback, eBook, and audio in all English-speaking countries except North America, on June 13, 2024. Others Like Me is the story of fourteen women around the world. The women are from different backgrounds and experiences and do not have children. It's also Nicole's story of why she had to find them, and what they taught her.

Part memoir, part exploration of childlessness through candid conversations, this book showcases the many ways in which people find fulfillment outside of parenthood. And because the social expectation to procreate weighs the most on women, Nicole focuses solely on them, their experiences, and how they flourish outside of motherhood. In doing so, she upends the stereotypes that diminish women who are not mothers and offers reassurance and companionship on a path less known.

This book is a must-read that will resonate with those who have had similar experiences and raise the awareness of anyone wanting to understand the real-world impact of pronatalist bias. This deeply personal exploration of childless and childfree women is also a celebration of women’s lives. The Irish Times selected Others Like Me as one of the nonfiction books to look out for in 2024 and the Stylist Magazine named it one of the best books about women without children.

Today we celebrate the continuum of women's experiences of living without children and the beautiful tapestry woven by Nicole Louie, in Others Like Me.

*Author Image: Photographer's Credit: © 2023 Amanda Braide

Abortion on the ballot is not an unfamiliar phrase in the United States. This issue has been a polarizing one for US voters, and the threat of revoking women's reproductive rights. At the heart of this issue is the extraction and weaponization of a single issue. Women do not have full autonomy we do not have bodily autonomy.

The hyper-focus on controlling the reproductive aspect of women's lives and bodies most poignantly reveals how women are valued and not. Fragmenting reproductive medical needs from healthcare, not only endangers those who want or need to have access to abortion, the impact is far-reaching. We have seen this time and again since the Dobbs decision, from medical patients being denied necessary procedures and medication, to girls who have been forced to give birth.

Today we will discuss why the election matters, and why your vote must be counted. We will be in conversation with Karen Mulhauser, a powerful advocate for abortion rights and community organizer, and her colleague Lindy Shapiro, who is committed to engaging youth. They are working to ensure women's freedoms now and for future generations.

Today we will delve into the complex and often incongruent ways the United States works and why it doesn't. To what degree do we know how the country is supposed to work as voters and nonvoters in the upcoming US presidential election? What makes us care and not? William Cooper offers rich insight into the key drivers and less-examined ways of how the political landscape in the US has been shaped. His 2024 book, How America Works...and Why It Doesn't: A Brief Guide to the US Political System is an opportunity to make sense of the American political landscape. He will share historical implications of what we experience today, and which Constitutional provisions have guided the country in the best and worst ways. William Cooper's work addresses what guides our political system alongside the embedded traditional central to America's story. We will discern recent developments, that have led to and created a tumultuous political environment, ahead of the 2024 election, including the shifting role and influence of the Supreme Court. We will speak in-depth about the threat of extreme polarization, what this means for us right now, and what we might expect going forward. Tune in to gain more insight into the political workings of the American Experiment and what this means for you as we near Election Day 2024.