Access Utah

From the University of Utah:

It’s been six months since Hurricane Maria devastated Puerto Rico. The hurricane is regarded as one of the worst natural disasters in Puerto Rican history. Some Puerto Ricans expressed the worry at the time that the news cycle would turn and the island’s needs will be forgotten. We’ll try to counteract that tendency today. We’re going to focus on Puerto Rico and try to point you to good ways you can help. We’ll also seek context and look at some history.

Renowned American political activist, scholar and author Ibram X. Kendi visited USU last fall for a keynote presentation on “How to be an Anti-Racist.” The presentation was sponsored by the USU Access and Diversity Center. Kendi, an award-winning historian and New York Times best-selling author, is professor of history and international relations and the founding director of the Antiracist Research and Policy Center at American University. His second book, “Stamped from the Beginning: The Definitive History of Racist Ideas in America,” won the 2016 National Book Award for Nonfiction. At 34-years-old, Kendi was the youngest ever winner of the NBA for Nonfiction. Ibram Kendi argues that racism in America has grown from deliberate policies rather than from emotional responses like fear or hatred. Kendi joins Tom Williams for Tuesday’s Access Utah.

Today we preview Utah State University's Guitar, Bass, and Drum Festival which happens in the Russell/Wanlass Performance Hall on the USU campus today and tomorrow.

Salt Lake City resident Gabriel Tallent’s debut novel “My Absolute Darling” has been getting rave reviews. Here’s a synopsis:

Utah Associated Municipal Power Systems (UAMPS) is a consortium of public power agencies (Logan is a member). UAMPs reportedly is considering building a small modular nuclear reactor at the Idaho National Laboratory near Idaho Falls. It would likely be one of the first small modular reactors (SMR) in the country. Proponents say that SMRs are small, scalable, flexible and dramatically safer and less expensive than the traditional gigantic reactors. They also say that SMRs could replace coal-fired electrical generation and would complement wind and solar because they can ramp up and down quickly, providing c

David Yokum is Director of The Lab @ DC. Under his leadership, The Lab conducts applied research projects to generate evidence that informs the District’s decisions. Yokum was previously a founding member of the White House’s Social & Behavioral Sciences Team and Director of its scientific delivery unit housed at the U.S. General Services Administration. President Obama further institutionalized the work in Executive Order 13707, “Using Behavioral Science Insights to Better Serve the American People.”

On her Twitter account, which by the way is @LindaHyphen, Linda Shaver-Gleason describes herself as a “musicologist, mother, cancer patient. Recently adopted by a cat.” She writes a blog, Not Another Music History Cliché, in which she debunks music history myths and offers commentary on many aspects of classical music culture, from snobbery to composer hero-worship to the question: Is music a universal language?

On the day President Trump is set to deliver his first State of the Union Address, we’ll talk politics with Deseret News columnists LaVarr Webb and Frank Pignanelli.

What do the following have in common? Ghost beads, biotic communities, gin, tree masticators, Puebloan diapers, charcoal, folklore, historic explorers, spiral grain, tree life cycles, spirituality, packrat middens, climate changes, wildfire, ranching, wilderness, and land management policies. The answer is the juniper tree.

110 independent films from 29 countries will be presented at the 2018 Sundance Film Festival, which is hosting screenings in Park City, Salt Lake City and at Sundance Mountain Resort, through Sunday.

Ben Jones, is a single, 38-year-old truck driver on the verge of losing his small trucking company. Ben's route takes him back and forth across one of the most desolate and beautiful regions of the Utah desert where he meets a mysterious cellist and the embittered owner of a small diner. That’s the plot, in brief, of James Anderson’s debut novel, “The Never-Open Desert Diner.”

For nearly 2 decades, professional photographer Jim Herrington has been working on a portrait series of influential rock and mountain climbers. The resulting book, “The Climbers” documents these rugged individualists who, from roughly the 1930s to 1970s, used primitive gear along with their wits, talent, and fortitude to tackle unscaled peaks around the world. Today, these men and women are renowned for their accomplishments and, in many cases, are the last of the remaining practitioners from the so‐called “Golden Age” of 20th century climbing.

Join us on Monday at 9:00 a.m. for our annual live broadcast from the Utah State Capitol in Salt Lake City on the opening day of the Utah Legislature. Tom Williams will be talking with Governor Gary Herbert and majority and minority leaders from the Utah Senate and House of Representatives. We’ll take questions via email for the governor and legislative leaders. We want to know what’s on your mind as the 2018 Utah Legislature gets down to business. You can email us during the show or right now toupraccess@gmail.com and we’ll get your question or comment on during the program.

A majority (55 percent) of Americans support the death penalty, according to the latest Gallup poll on the subject, but support continues to decline. In 1994, 80 percent supported the death penalty.

We live more and more of our lives online; we rely on the internet as we work, interact with friends and loved ones, pay bills, stream videos, read the news, and listen to music. We operate with the understanding that data that traces these activities will not be abused now or in the future. But the data tracks we leave through our health information, the internet and social media, financial and credit information, personal relationships, and public lives continuously make us prey to identity theft, hacking and even government surveillance.

There was a tie atop the 2017 Digital Trend of the Year survey conducted by theUSU Digital Folklore Project. The top trends were: #MeToo and the phenomenon of fake governmentsocial media accounts like @AltUSNatParkService. Jeannie Thomas, co-director ofthe USU Digital Folklore Project and head of the USU English Department toldthe Logan Herald Journal that when they first started the project, She “thoughtit’d be memes all the time we’d be naming. One of the things this shows me ishow much people engage with political and social justice issues.” We’ll talkwith Jeannie Thomas and Lynne McNeill, the other co-director of the USU DigitalFolklore Project and USU assistant professor of English, about #TakeAKnee(second on this year’s list). We’ll also talk about “covfefe” and much more andwe’ll ask you for your selection for top digital trend of the year.

A Cache Valley elementary school art teacher was fired after he had his class pass around prints of classical art from a collection of postcards from the school’s library, which included prints of nude paintings. The teacher, Mateo Rueda said he didn’t know those paintings were part of the set and would not have used them. This story drew international press coverage. Rueda and Cache County School district have reached an agreement in the case. We’ll talk about it on Tuesday’s Access Utah. Our guests will include Mateo Rueda and the mother of one of the students.

“I’m not saying become homeless, but do understand it opens many doors, and helps us appreciate the doors we can close.” That’s Utah native Chris Ames, writing in his book, “An American (homeless) in Paris,” out from University of Utah Press.

Today we’ll explore all things tech with Jonathan Choate from SD7 Technology Group in Logan.