COVID19, Its Possible Lab Origins and the indispensable Horseshoe Crab
Release Date: 09/02/2021
Asylum, Umberto Nicola Nicoletti on
ChatChat - Claudia Cragg
Asylum: Author Umberto Nicola Nicoletti, Introduction by Filippo Grandi Claudia Cragg speaks here with author, Umberto Nicola Nicoletti, about his fine-art book Asylum. We discusses the phenomenon of LGBTIQ+ refugees, asylum seekers, and those subject to discrimination in their home countries based on their gender or sexual orientation. More the 40 percent of the countries in the world today still impose prison sentences or the death penalty just for being LGBTIQ+. Asylum is an international project that arose from a collaboration between five associations around the world and...
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The Museum, Repositories of Controversy and The Stuff of Life
ChatChat - Claudia Cragg
@claudiacragg (DM Twitter) speaks here with Samuel J Redman @samueljredman about his new book, A Short History of Crisis and Resilience. The work, Professor Redman says, celebrates as he sees it the resilience of American - and it must be said many worldwide - cultural institutions in the face of nationl crises and challenges. On one afternoon in January 1865, a roaring fire swept through the Smithsonian Institution. Dazed soldiers and worried citizens could only watch as the flames engulfed the museum’s castle. Rare objects and valuable paintings were destroyed. The flames at the...
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A Boost From The Late Great Maya Angelou
ChatChat - Claudia Cragg
What better way to jump into 2022 than with a boost from a rebroadcast of our Maya Angelou interview? This month the US Mint will start shipping quarters featuring Angelou, the first black woman to ever grace the coin. The program was conceived in 2017 and was officially signed into law in 2020. Potential honorees were nominated by the public last year. A fitting tribute to a remarkable person and a remarkable talent. In May of 2013, the then News Director, Joel Edelstein, generously invited colleague Claudia Cragg Twitter: @claudiacragg to speak by phone with Dr. Maya Angelou for a one...
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For The Holidays, Become a 'Wallet Activist' with Tanja Hester
ChatChat - Claudia Cragg
, @TanjaHester is the author of (November 2021). Clear-eyed and practical, #WalletActivism helps angry, overwhelmed, and disillusioned consumers cut through the marketing lies of companies that have rebranded their problematic practices as “green,” “woke,” and “ethical” to learn how to use their financial power to fight back. Hester doesn’t offer easy solutions or simple answers. Instead, she helps readers (1) understand the complex, nuanced impact their financial decisions have on both people and the planet, (2) define their own personal financial values, and (3) begin...
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First Genocide Verdict against Islamic State For Killings of Yazidis
ChatChat - Claudia Cragg
(REPOST of June 2018 Interview with Dunya Mikhail) This week, a German court on Tuesday jailed a former Islamic State militant for life after convicting him of involvement in genocide and crimes against humanity over mass killings of minority Yazidis by IS in Syria and Iraq. It was the first genocide verdict against a member of the , an offshoot of al Qaeda that seized large swathes of Iraq and Syria in 2014 before being ousted by US-backed counter-offensives, losing its last territorial redoubt in 2019. Claudia Cragg (@KGNUClaudia) speaks here for KGNU (@KGNU) to the...
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The Struggle to Protect Health Care from the Violence of War
ChatChat - Claudia Cragg
Claudia Cragg (@claudiacragg) speaks here with Dr Leonard Rubinstein. @JohnsHopkins @bermaninstitute #CentreForPublicHealthAndHumanRights #CentreForHumanitarianHealth Bringing together extensive research, firsthand experience, and compelling personal stories, Perilous Medicine also offers a path forward, detailing the lessons the international community needs to learn to protect people already suffering in war and those on the front lines of health care in conflict-ridden places around the world. Rubenstein―a human rights lawyer who has investigated atrocities against health...
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Celine-Marie Pascale Discusses 'Living On The Edge'
ChatChat - Claudia Cragg
Claudia Cragg (Twitter: @claudiacragg) talks to Celine-Marie Pascale @cmpascale about her new book, '' published by . For the majority of Americans, hard times have long been a way of life. Some work multiple low-wage jobs, others face the squeeze of stagnant wages and rising costs of living. Sociologist Celine-Marie Pascale talked with people across Appalachia, at the Standing Rock and Wind River reservations, and in the bustling city of Oakland, California. Their voices offer a wide range of experiences that complicate dominant national narratives about economic struggles. Yet Living...
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Solving The Essential Racism and Sexism In The Occupy Movement
ChatChat - Claudia Cragg
Claudia Cragg (@claudiacragg - Twitter) talks with Heather Hurwitz about her book, '." Despite cries of “We are the 99%,” signaling solidarity, certain groups were unwelcome or unable to participate. Moreover, problems with racism, sexism, and discrimination due to sexuality and class persisted within the movement. The protestors that comprised the #OccupyWallStreet movement came from diverse backgrounds. But how were these activists—who sought radical social change through many ideologies—able to break down oppressions and obstacles within the movement? And in what ways did the...
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Human and Material Detritus at Mumbai's Deonar Waste Mountains
ChatChat - Claudia Cragg
"'I came to see the mountains as an outpouring of our modern lives,' Roy writes, 'of the endless chase for our desires to fill us.' Readers of Behind the Beautiful Forevers will be drawn to this harrowing portrait." — Publishers Weekly Claudia Cragg (@claudiacragg) speaks here with journalist Saumya Roy about her new non-fiction work, . All of Mumbai’s possessions and memories come to die at the Deonar garbage mountains. Towering at the outskirts of the city, the mountains are covered in a faint smog from trash fires. Over time, as wealth brought Bollywood knock offs,...
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Isn't The Case For Us All To Work With Our Hands Not Stronger Than Ever Now?
ChatChat - Claudia Cragg
In this (reposted) interview, talks to Claudia Cragg @KGNU about 'Why Office Work is Bad for Us and Fixing Things Feels Good. This iconic also explores why some jobs offer fulfilment while others leave us frustrated. It answers the question as to why we so often think of our working selves as separate from our 'true' selves? Over the course of the twentieth century, Dr. Crawford argues that we have separated mental work from manual labour, replacing the workshop with either the office cubicle or the factory line. In this inspiring and persuasive book, he explores the dangers of this false...
info_outlineClaudia Cragg (Twitter: @claudiacragg) speaks here with William Sargent about his book, Crab Wars, now out in a newly revised edtion.
Surviving almost unmolested for 300 million years, the horseshoe crab is now the object of an intense legal and ethical struggle involving marine biologists, environmentalists, US government officials, biotechnologists, and international corporations.
The source of this friction is the discovery 25 years ago that the blood of these ancient creatures serves as the basis for the most reliable test for the deadly and ubiquitous gram-negative bacteria.
These bacteria are responsible for life-threatening diseases like meningitis, typhoid, E. coli, Legionnaire’s Disease and toxic shock syndrome.
Because every drug certified by the FDA must be tested using the horseshoe crab derivative known as Limulus lysate, a multimillion dollar industry has emerged involving the license to “bleed” horseshoe crabs and the rights to their breeding grounds.
Since his youthful fascination with these ancient creatures, William Sargent has spent much of his life observing, studying, and collecting horseshoe crabs.
'Crab Wars' is a thoroughly accessible insider’s guide to the discovery of the lysate test, the exploitation of the crabs at the hands of multinational pharmaceutical conglomerates, local fishing interests, and the legal and governmental wrangling over the creatures’ ultimate fate.
In the end, the story of the horseshoe crab is a sobering reflection on the unintended consequences of scientific progress and the danger of self-regulated industries controlling a limited natural resource.
In his 'Terror by Error: The COVID Chronicles' Sargent delves into the murky, often intertwined worlds of medical research and biological warfare to determine if Covid-19 was caused by accidents similar to those that have occurred from 1617 to the present.