Thecuriousmanspodcast

Matt Crawford speaks with author Lezlee Liljenberg about her book, If You Only Knew: Navigating DNA Surprises and the NPE(Not-Parent Expected) World. What would you do if you discovered your father is not your biological father? Or your mother is not the woman that gave birth to you? This is what happened to author Lezlee Liljenberg. In learning her truth, she realized there were thousands of people just like her that were dealing with this new reality.

Lezlee opens herself up to us and shares what her journey was like in searching for her biological father and how she has dealt with this discovery. There are many NPEs out there and more are discovered everyday. This book challenges what we think of as family and will be sure to help many in navigating these difficult ties and emotions.

Matt Crawford speaks with journalist and author Rachel Zimmerman about her book, Us, After. July 1, 2014, Seth Teller, a loving father and husband died by suicide. Rachel and her daughters were thrown into a world they never could have imagined and had to find their way out of the darkness to the light. Us, After, details this family's journey through grief, understanding and finding joy again while still remembering and honoring the memory of their Seth.

Matt Crawford speaks with national radio host and author Thom Hartman about his book, The Hidden History of the American Dream: The Demise of the Middle Class and how to Rescue Our Democracy. How has the United State gone from a stronghold of Democracy and the middle class to where we are now? It is harder than ever to make a living, afford a home, find affordable healthcare or even to start a business. Hartman lays out the policies that have gotten us here and how we can roll those back to pull back the American Dream.

Matt Crawford speaks with educator and author Matthew Ferrence about his book, I Hate It Here, Please Vote for Me: Essays on Rural Decay. When a progressive college professor runs for the Pennsylvania House of Representatives in a deeply conservative rural district, he loses. That’s no surprise. But the story of how Ferrence loses and, more importantly, how American political narratives refuse to recognize the existence and value of nonconservative rural Americans offers insight into the political morass of our nation. Ferrence and I discuss how we feel voters are being spoken at instead of to and how the machine of politics makes some outcomes predetermined against the will of the people who vote for those exact outcomes. A great read at any time in our history but especially now.

Matt Crawford speaks with author Nolan Higdon and his and Dr. Allison Butler's book, Surveillance Education: Navigating the Conspicuous Absence of Privacy in Schools. 

In our era of surveillance capitalism, digital media technologies are ever more intertwined into the educational process. Schools are presented with digital technologies as tools of convenience for gathering and grading student work, as tools of support to foster a more equitable learning environment, and as tools of safety for predicting or preventing violence or monitoring mental, emotional, and physical health. Despite a dearth of evidence to confirm their effectiveness, digital data collection and tracking is often presented as a way to improve educational outcomes and safety. This book challenges these fallacious assumptions and argues that the use of digital media technologies has caused great harm to students by subjecting them to oppressive levels of surveillance, impinging upon their right to privacy, and harvesting their personal data on behalf of Big-Tech. In doing so, the authors draw upon interviews from K–12 and higher education students, teachers, and staff, civil rights and technology lawyers, and educational technological programmers. The authors also provide practical guidance for teachers, administrators, students, and their families seeking to identify and combat surveillance in education.

This urgent, eye-opening book will be of interest to students and educators with interests in critical media literacy and pedagogy and the sociology of technology and education.

Matt Crawford speaks with former Orange County Deputy D.A Matt Murphy about his book, The Book of Murder: A Prosecutor's Journey Through Love and Death. Murphy goes through some of the cases that have stuck most with him through his 26 years of service. Murphy details his work and breaks down how a case is formulated all the while making sure to highlight the victims and their families with the care and respect, they deserve. A truly engrossing and hard to put down read.

Matt Crawford speaks with professor and author Charles Moxley about his book, Nuclear Weapons and International Law. Is the use of nuclear weapons legal? If you look at the law Moxley lays out the answer is simply no. Then why do so many countries have them and who decides when they could be used. A though provoking book that details just how high the stakes are. If there were to be a full out nuclear war upwards of 5 billion could be obliterated from the planet and those left would find an inhospitable world. At the very least there should be a larger conversation regarding this, please join.

Matt Crawford speaks with author Abbott Kahler about her book, Eden Undone: A True Story of Sex, Murder, and Utopia at the Dawn of World War II. At the height of the Great Depression, Los Angeles oil mogul George Allan Hancock and his crew of Smithsonian scientists came upon a gruesome scene: two bodies, mummified by the searing heat, on the shore of a remote Galápagos island. For the past four years Hancock and other American elites had traveled the South Seas to collect specimens for scientific research. On one trip to the Galápagos, Hancock was surprised to discover an equally exotic group of humans: European exiles who had fled political and economic unrest, hoping to create a utopian paradise. One was so devoted to a life of isolation that he’d had his teeth extracted and replaced with a set of steel dentures.     As Hancock and his fellow American explorers would witness, paradise had turned into chaos. The three sets of exiles—a Berlin doctor and his lover, a traumatized World War I veteran and his young family, and an Austrian baroness with two adoring paramours—were riven by conflict. Petty slights led to angry confrontations. The baroness, wielding a riding crop and pearl-handled revolver, staged physical fights between her two lovers and unabashedly seduced American tourists. The conclusion was deadly: with two exiles missing and two others dead, the survivors hurled accusations of murder.     Using never-before-published archives, Abbott Kahler weaves a chilling, stranger-than-fiction tale worthy of Agatha Christie. Set against the backdrop of the Great Depression and the march to World War II, with a mystery as alluring and curious as the Galápagos itself, Eden Undone explores the universal and timeless desire to seek utopia—and lays bare the human fallibility that, inevitably, renders such a quest doomed.

Matt Crawford speaks with author Dennis Feece about his book, Of Towers and Shadows: A T.B Stone Mystery. T.B Stone is back and as always intrigue, great food, wine and coffee abound. T.B and Luce are building on their relationship when Aunt Connie asks for some help. It seems a stalker has been following some women on campus and T.B and Luce offer their help. Unfortunately, the case isn't as simple as it would appear, and all are dragged into a deeply complex and technological fraught rabbit hole. As always Feece draws us in with complex and well-developed characters that will make you come for the adventure but stay for the conversations!

Joe and his wife have taken a different approach to parenting. Instead of providing "Safe Spaces" for their children they have decided to instead test their children with responsibility and adventure. Nothing proves that point more than with their son Sam Adventure Evermore and the string of mountain peaks he has been the youngest to summit, most notable El Capitan in Yosemite Valley. Joe and I discuss how we can all push our children so they can graduate from our homes as adults in ways not as extreme but just as effectively as the Evermores have done.