On Second Thought

We dedicate an entire show to the Southern drawl. Y’all listen up now… Where did y’all come from, anyway? We can trace the use of the word all the way back to colonial ancestors. Cameron Hunt McNabb, an English professor at Southeastern University, gives us a history and dialect lesson. Plus, The Atlantic staff writer Vann Newkirk II makes the case for why y'all is needed. We talk with a panel of film experts to analyze the impact on Southern cinema, as well as how Southern filmmaking has

U.S. Senate candidate Roy Moore has been accused of sexual misconduct by five women. Many high ranking Republicans have called on him to drop out of the race. But one state poll says Moore enjoys support by many Alabama evangelicals. This could be part of a bigger picture. In 2011, the Public Religion Research Institute found only 30 percent of white evangelicals thought elected officials who commit an immoral act could still fulfill their public duties. In 2016, that number had more than

Chilean-American novelist Isabel Allende has written a lot about the immigrant experience. Allende is a former journalist who fled Chile after the 1973 assassination of her uncle, who was that country’s president. She’s in Atlanta on Thursday, November 16, to promote her latest book, " In the Midst of Winter ." She's speaking at the Atlanta History Center . In 2005, she recorded a deeply personal essay for the public radio series, " This I Believe ." We talked with Isabel Allende about her love

U.S. Senate candidate Roy Moore has been accused of sexual misconduct by five women. Many high ranking Republicans have called on him to drop out of the race, but one state poll says Moore enjoys support by many Alabama evangelicals . This could be part of a bigger picture. In 2011, the Public Religion Research Institute (PRRI) found only 30 percent of white evangelicals thought elected officials who commit an immoral act could still fulfill their public duties . In 2016, that figure more than

Atlanta Public Schools may institute a dress code to ban clothing considered distracting by school officials. At Monday night’s Board of Education meeting , two fifth-grade girls said the language of the code unfairly targets them, and not boys. They both wore leggings, which would be against the proposed rules. Earlier this year, Rome High School adopted a similar dress code. More than 1,700 people signed an online petition to protest it. Chloe Tilton is an organizer of that petition, and she

Modern gynecology was largely born in the antebellum South -- because some of this country’s first gynecologists conducted experiments on enslaved women. This history is explored in a new book, “ Medical Bondage: Race, Gender and The Origins Of American Gynecology. ” Our guest is author Deirdre Cooper Owens, an Assistant Professor at Queens College in New York. Her book came out November 15, on the University of Georgia Press.

Good news: breast cancer death rates dropped by nearly 40 percent in the last three decades. Breast cancer is the second most common cancer diagnosis for U.S. women. Skin cancer’s first. But there is bad news. Black women continue to die at a higher rate than whites, especially in the South. But some states have eliminated the racial disparity in breast cancer deaths. These are recent findings by the Atlanta-based American Cancer Society. Carol DeSantis is Director of Breast and Gynecological

Savannah attracts a whole lot of tourists. And, if you believe pest control experts at Terminix, an over-supply of rats. Terminix recently named Savannah the most rodent-infested city in America, overtaking Atlanta, which has seen its fair share of rodent woes. When Atlanta was still tops for rats, we invited Jason Chapman, vice-president of sales at Peachtree Pest Control to talk about why the city found itself home to so many rodents.

An exhibit at the University of Georgia highlights items from the state’s gold rush. Wright State Environmental History Professor Drew Swanson calls the era an ugly chapter of Georgia’s past, rife with environmental damage in the North Georgia mountains, and a driver of the forced eviction of Cherokee people. Drew Swanson joins us to talk about gold’s lasting legacy

Good news: breast cancer death rates dropped by nearly 40 percent in the last three decades. Breast cancer is the second most common cancer diagnosis for U.S. women. Skin cancer’s first. But there is bad news. Black women continue to die at a higher rate than whites, especially in the South. But some states have eliminated the racial disparity in breast cancer deaths. These are recent findings by the Atlanta-based American Cancer Society. Carol DeSantis is Director of Breast and Gynecological