Why Amanda Knox Forgave the Man Who Sent Her to Prison

Less than a week out from election day, and more than 20 million people have already cast their votes – a record number of early voters for a midterm election. But it isn’t so surprising when you consider the stakes: inflation at a 40-year high, economists saying we’re heading towards a recession, and the largest crime surge across America in decades. Just to name a few small issues voters may be thinking about. Midterms are typically hard for the party in power, but President Biden’s approval numbers are among the worst for a first-term president. Given this, many are predicting a red wave. And yet, Republicans have problems of their own: candidates who spent their primaries trying to out-MAGA each other and continue to pedal election denial conspiracies, others who seem entirely unfit to serve, and, of course, since Roe v Wade was overturned this summer, many young voters, especially women, are particularly motivated this election cycle to vote against the GOP. So what’s going to happen on Tuesday? Will Democrats keep control of the Senate? The House? What races should we be watching? Could Oregon go red for the first time in decades? Today, as voters head to the ballot box, a roundtable with Mary Katharine Ham, Josh Kraushaar, and Batya Ungar-Sargon. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

3 Nov 20221h 39min

Over the past two years, the United States has experienced the largest crime surge in decades. Aggravated assaults went up. Shoplifting went up. Domestic violence went up. Homicides went up. In 2020, the U.S. murder rate rose 30%, the largest single year increase in recorded U.S. history. And yet, the most dominant voices in the last few years, are the ones that believe our attempts to mitigate crime have been too punitive, and that the solutions lie in less people in prison and less police on the streets.  Today, guest host Kmele Foster moderates a debate with Lara Bazelon and Rafael Mangual about the state of criminal justice in America. Bazelon has spent her career advocating for criminal defendants, directs The Criminal and Juvenile Justice Clinic and The Racial Justice Clinic at the University of San Francisco School of Law, and was a federal public defender in LA. Mangual, author of Criminal Injustice, is a fellow at the Manhattan Institute, where he's the head of research for the Policing and Public Safety Initiative. While Foster, Bazelon and Mangual all agree that the criminal justice system is, in many ways, broken, today they debate the particular defects, the scale of the issues, the root causes, and ultimately what we ought to do about it.  Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

26 Okt 20221h 18min

Let’s talk about the state of men in America: For every 100 bachelor degrees awarded to women, 74 are awarded to men; among men with only a high-school education, one in three is out of the labor force; mortality from drug overdoses, suicides, and alcohol-related illnesses are almost three times higher among men than women. The list goes on. The reality is that boys and men are falling behind. And we need to do something about it. So for today, Richard Reeves of the Brookings Institution, on his new book, Of Boys and Men: Why the Modern Male Is Struggling, Why It Matters, and What to Do About It. Guest host Mary Katharine Ham and Reeves talk about the three biggest areas where men are floundering (education, work, and home) and why truly caring about gender equality means fighting not just for women, but for men too.  Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

19 Okt 20221h 22min

In a world where the personal has become political, and politics has swallowed everything, the stakes of changing your mind can feel really high. To change your mind is to risk betrayal – of your people, your culture, your tribe. But there may be nothing more important to a functioning democracy than to be able to influence each other, and be influenced ourselves, on the basis of conversation. So for today’s episode: the neuroscience of belief change. It’s an interview that aired last year on The Making Sense podcast, hosted by Sam Harris. Sam Harris is a lot of things: a best-selling author, a neuroscientist and a meditation teacher. In this conversation, Sam talks with cognitive neuroscientist Jonas Kaplan about how we can be more amenable to persuasion, why we mistake emotion as evidence, wishful thinking, and how we can become more critical of ourselves as we form new opinions.  As Sam has said many times before, we only have two choices to resolve conflict as human beings: violence or conversation. To change your mind, or to be open to changing your mind, is to choose the latter. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

13 Okt 20221h 6min

Last month, a 22 year old Kurdish Iranian woman, Mahsa Amini, was arrested in Tehran by the Islamic Republic's so-called morality police for not wearing her hijab correctly. Three days later, on September 16th, she died in their custody. Her death ignited a movement, as Iranians took to the streets across the country to demand change, women cutting off their hair in public and lighting their hijabs on fire. The protesters, many of whom are teenagers, have been chanting: “women, life, and freedom” and “death to the dictator.”  Perhaps no one has been a louder and more forceful voice for change in Iran than Masih Alinejad, a journalist and activist who has spent her entire adult life fighting for human rights in Iran and exposing the regime’s brutality. For this, she has paid a heavy price. The regime has accused her of being a spy for western governments. They’ve targeted her family – they arrested her brother, interrogated her mother, and forced her sister to denounce her on state television. And most recently, they tried to kill her on American soil. She has been living in a safe house ever since. None of this has deterred her. As she wrote last month, “I am not fearful of dying, because I know what I am living for.” Today, guest host Mary Katharine Ham talks to Masih about all of this – the young woman’s death that sparked the protests, what the U.S. should do to support the protests, whether or not this could really be the beginning of the end of the Islamic Republic, and why the Iranian regime wants Masih dead. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

7 Okt 202259min

Today’s episode is borrowed from the feed of the great podcast The Fifth Column. Usually hosted by Kmele Foster, Michael Moynihan, and Matt Welch, this episode, which aired in July of 2022, features Kmele and two guests who have become elder statesmen around the persistent issue of race in America: John McWhorter and Glenn Loury.  Over the past few years McWhorter, Loury and Foster each have written, discussed and lectured exhaustively on anti-racism, the role race plays in America, and the changing meaning of the word “racism” itself. In this episode, they talk about the inadequacies of regarding people solely by their racial category, the dignity of the individual and what a future might look like if we were to abolish race all together. While all three men bring a contrarian streak to this discussion, you’ll find that they have disagreements when it comes to questions of race abolition and the so-called “Racial Reckoning” of 2020.  Loury is an economist and professor of social science at Brown University. You can listen to his interview with Bari here. McWhorter is the author of numerous books, including Talking Black and Woke Racism. He's also professor of Linguistics, Philosophy and Music at Columbia University, and a columnist at The New York Times. Since 2015 Kmele Foster has been a prominent voice in a number of discussions about race in America, including his reporting challenging the mainstream media’s verdict on Amy Cooper, better known as the Central Park Karen. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

28 Sep 202253min

Last year, The New York Times dropped a bombshell headline: “‘Horrible History’: Mass Grave of Indigenous Children Reported in Canada.” As other outlets picked up the shocking story, marches, protests and riots erupted across Canada. One former Canadian minister called it Canada’s George Floyd moment. But according to my guest today, the bombshell story about a mass grave… wasn’t true. Today, a conversation with journalist Terry Glavin about “the year of the graves,” and what the mainstream media got so, very wrong. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

22 Sep 202255min

Fifteen years ago, there was a lot of talk about the obesity epidemic. In 2008, Michelle Obama started a government program called “Let’s Move!” that sought to reduce childhood obesity. You might remember the First Lady teaming up with everyone from Beyonce to Big Bird to promote exercise and better eating habits. Unfortunately, the program was largely a failure. And the obesity statistics continued to rise. 74% of Americans today are either obese or overweight. And yet, we’re no longer talking about it. The national conversation around health and weight has turned away from things like good nutrition, weight loss and the importance of physical fitness, and instead adopted phrases like “fat acceptance” and “healthy at any size.” In some circles, there’s even blanket denial that there is anything unhealthy at all about being obese.  Shaming people for being overweight is unequivocally wrong. But in our attempt to not offend, we’ve lost sight of the very real fact that there’s a problem. Americans are heavier than ever, sicker than ever, dying earlier than ever, and... it's all preventable. So today, a conversation with Dr. Casey Means, a Stanford trained physician who left the traditional medical system behind to solve the one problem that she says is going to ruin us all: bad food. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

15 Sep 20221h 33min