Access Utah

Hyperpartisanship is as old as American democracy. But now, acrimony is not confined to a moment; it’s a permanent state of affairs and has seeped into every part of the political process. So say political scientists Thomas Mann and Norman Ornstein. When their book “It’s Even Worse Than It Looks: How the American Constitutional System Collided With the New Politics of Extremism” was published a few years ago, it stirred up considerable controversy and altered the debate about why America’s government has become so dysfunctional. Now, at the end of the Summer of Trump, we’ll check back in with Norman Ornstein and Thomas Mann. We’ll talk about political extremism and polarization, another possible government shutdown, Utah’s caucus and convention system, the U.S. Supreme Court’s recent ruling on Arizona’s redistricting commission, Australia’s carrot and stick approach to increasing voter turnout, and much more.

Parenting techniques continue to fuel online debate: do we protect our children? Prepare them? Research suggests our communities are increasingly safer than ever before, but the average citizen assumes otherwise - how do we navigate ourselves through these colliding perspectives and realities? Furthermore, how can we both protect and prepare our children, and do we need a self-identifying label to declare our techniques as parents? Tuesday on Access Utah we invite author Julie Lythcott Haims ("How to Raise an Adult") and Lenore Skenazy ("Free Range Kids") to discuss our options and to review varying perspectives on how to parent present-day.

Today's broadcast of "Access Utah" originally aired in 2011.

Dixie State University and the DOCUTAH International Documentary Film Festival offers three screenings of "Selma: The Bridge to the Ballot," the true story of the forgotten heroes in the fight for voting rights — the courageous students and teachers of Selma, Alabama, who stood up against injustice despite facing intimidation, arrests and violence. 2015 is the 50th anniversary of the passage of the Voting Rights Act which was a direct product of this movement. By organizing and marching bravely, these "ordinary heroes" achieved one of the most significant victories of the civil rights era. The film is narrated by Oscar winning actress Octavia Spencer and includes music from Mavis Staples, Ry Cooder, The Roots and Blind Boys of Alabama. It has been submitted for consideration for an Academy Award. Today on the program we speak with the director and producer of the film, Bill Brummel.

It’s been several months since we got together as a community and compiled a UPR book list. Public radio listeners are famous as avid readers. We want to know what you’re reading. What’s on your nightstand or on your device right now? Fellow listeners may not know about it and may love it.

Today's Broadcast of "Access Utah" is an encore presentation from 2012.

Today's broadcast of "Access Utah" is an encore presentation from April 2015.

“My whole childhood, I never had a bed.” That’s how Elva Trevino Hart opens her memoir “Barefoot Heart: Stories of a Migrant Child.”

In his new book “Ways to the West” (Utah State University Press) Tim Sullivan embarks on a car-less road trip through the Intermountain West, exploring how the region is taking on what may be its greatest challenge: sustainable transportation. Combining personal travel narrative, historical research, and his professional expertise in urban planning, Sullivan takes a critical yet optimistic and often humorous look at how contemporary Western cities are making themselves more hospitable to a life less centered on the personal vehicle.

“In our region fire is to dry forests as rain is to rainforests; both are important in the life of a forest to provide clean water, climate stabilization, hunting and fishing, outdoor recreation and wildlife habitat. A fire does not destroy a forest; rather, it simply resets nature’s clock as it has been doing for millennia,” said Chad Hanson, Director and Ecologist with the John Muir Project, Earth Island Institute, and co-editor of “The Ecological Importance of Mixed-Severity Fires: Nature’s Phoenix”

On Monday's Access Utah we discuss the recruitment of western peoples by ISIS, the extremist militant group terrorizing Iraq and Syria. The group, utilizing social media, has managed to lure thousands of young adults from the United States, Canada and Europe to join their efforts in the Middle East. On the program today we speak with Christianne Bourdreau, a Canadian mother whose works to prevent the ISIS' recruitment follows the death of her son, Damian Clairmont, who died in Syria after relocating and fighting for the Islamic State. Christian Bourdreau now works with the Mothers For Life network, which aims to build support for mothers who have experienced Jihadist radicalization. Joining us for the hour is also Dr. Anne Speckhard, Adjunct Associate Professor of Psychiatry in the School of Medicine and of Security Studies in the School of Foreign Service at Georgetown University. Dr. Speckhard talks about the discourse and ideology of terrorism recruitment, which she details in her new book "Bride of ISIS."

Joe Hill was a Swedish immigrant, a songwriter, a worker and a member of the Industrial Workers of the World, the Wobblies. He was a prolific songwriter for his union, which contributed to the IWW’s growth in the early 20th century AS a singing union. While working in Utah, he was accused of a double homicide, which he likely did not commit. Despite an international campaign to save him, which included the Swedish ambassador, Helen Keller and President Wilson, he was executed for those murders. The State of Utah easily condemned Joe Hill and his union as troublemakers.

Author Leanne Brown moved to New York from Canada to earn a master’s degree in food studies at New York University. Facing the reality that 46 million Americans have to survive on only $4/day, her focus soon became food insecurity, and more specifically the question: how well can someone really eat on $4 a day? That’s the amount provided through the U.S. government’s food stamp program. To determine the answer, she took to her kitchen, developing resourceful recipes made of whole, unprocessed foods that promote the joy of cooking and that show just how delicious and inspiring a “cheap” meal can be when cooked at home.

During its sometimes awkward years of adolescence and maturation, Utah was gradually incorporated into the American political, social, and economic mainstream. Urban and industrial influences supplanted agrarian traditions, displacing people socially, draining the countryside of population, and galvanizing a critical crisis in values and self-identification. National corporations and mass labor movements took root in the state as commerce expanded. Involvement in world events such as the Spanish-American War, two world wars, and the Great Depression further set the stage for entry into the modern, globalized world as Utahns immersed themselves in national politics and became part of the democratic, corporate culture of twentieth-century America.

As Holly Isaac sees it, Planned Parenthood saved her life.

Research on human beings saves countless lives, but has at times harmed the participants. To what degree then should government regulate science, and how? The horrors of Nazi concentration camp experiments and the egregious Tuskegee syphilis study led the US government, in 1974, to establish Research Ethics Committees, known as Institutional Review Boards (IRBs) to oversee research on humans. The US now has over 4,000 IRBs, which examine yearly tens of billions of dollars of research -- all studies on people involving diseases, from cancer to autism, and behavior. Yet ethical violations persist.

Anyone would be hard-pressed to find a pastime more emblematic of the western spirit than fly-fishing. Liberating, poetic, wild, soothing and inspiring, it pushes the boundaries of the mind. In essays ranging from introspective to ironic, angler authors Chadd VanZanten and Russ Beck distill the purest truths of fly-fishing into essential, often humorous rules of thumb. With kernels like "always tell the truth sometimes" and "all the fish are underwater," wade into the blue ribbon waters of Montana, Idaho, Wyoming and Utah to reflect metaphysically on these lines of practical wisdom.

In the spring of 1983, a massive snowmelt sent runoff racing down the Colorado River toward the Glen Canyon Dam. Worried federal officials desperately scrambled to avoid a worst-case scenario: one of the most dramatic dam failures in history. In the midst of this crisis, a trio of river guides secretly launched a small, hand-built wooden boat, a dory named the Emerald Mile, into the Colorado just below the dam’s base. The captain of the dory, Kenton Grua, aimed to use the flood as a hydraulic slingshot that would hurl him and two companions through 277 miles of some of the most ferocious white water in North America and, if everything went as planned, catapult the Emerald Mile into legend as the fastest boat ever propelled through the heart of the Grand Canyon.

Journalist, advocate, and teacher, Michael frome has spent decades engaged with conversation and America’s national parks. From this experience and knowledge he understands what challenges remain and what momentum must be recovered to revitalize and preserve these special places. Part memoir, part history, and part broadside against those who would diminish our natural heritage, Rediscovering National Parks in the Spirit of John Muir bears witness through reflection and rumination to the grandeur of our parks, to the need for a renewed sense of appreciation, and to individual responsibility for their care.

Jamie Bianchini needed a lift. A big one. After a series of spectacular business flops drove him into bankruptcy and the love of his life kissed him goodbye, Bianchini knew he needed a world of help. But instead of seeking assistance from a counselor or support group, he sought comfort where he’d always found it…on his bicycle. As his world hit rock bottom, Bianchini hatched a crazy plan that just might make everything right. His life lacked purpose, passion, and connection with his fellow man. So Bianchini decided to go for a bicycle ride…around the world…on a tandem…solo…inviting everyone he met to join him for a spin. “A Bicycle Built for Two Billion” is the story of an audacious optimist who tried to change the world – while hoping the world would change him – one rider at a time.