Knox Pods

In  A Call to Action: Women, Religion, Violence, and Power , President Carter addresses the world’s most serious, pervasive, and ignored violation of basic human rights: the ongoing discrimination and violence against women and girls. Wanda Sobieski responds to his book in this recording. “Carter makes a well-documented argument that the worst of prejudice, discrimination, wars, violence, distorte...

Where is the intersection between happiness and urban design? Knoxville Area Transit director Dawn Distler reviews  Happy City: Transforming Our Lives Through Urban Design  by Charles Montgomery and answers several questions about her plans to improve Knoxville's mass transit system for a happier rider. (Recorded March 18, 2015)

Dr. McIntyre, Superintendent of Knox County Schools, discusses Last child in the woods: saving our children from nature-deficit disorder by Richard Louv. He is joined by Knox County School’s Aneisa McDonald, Supervisor of Coordinated School Health, and Lisa Wagoner, Supervisor of Health Services. Louv emphasizes the important role interaction with nature plays in our personal emotional, physical a...

Dawn Coppock and Pat Hudson of Lindquist Environmental Appalachian Fellowship (LEAF) discuss the issue of mountaintop removal coal mining and the book Something's rising: Appalachians fighting mountaintop removal . View their presentation slides as you listen to the recording below. The people who live, work, and raise families in central Appalachia face not only the physical destruction of their...

Dr. William D. Shiell, Senior Pastor of First Baptist Church, discusses Cheap: the high cost of discount culture by Ellen Ruppel Shell. " Cheap addresses our need for more stuff by challenging our assumptions about discounts," Dr Shiell said. "The book says that just because something is on sale does not make it a good value. During the shopping season, this book asks us to look beyond the sale pr...

Dr. Dana Christensen, Associate Laboratory Director of the Energy and Engineering Sciences Directorate of the Oak Ridge National Laboratory, discusses   Coming clean: breaking America's addiction to oil and coal  by Michael Brune, executive director of Rainforest Action Network. (Recorded June 10, 2009)   "Michael Brune is a political activist who has been successful in bringing attention to socia...

In Salt, Sugar, Fat , Pulitzer Prize–winning investigative reporter Michael Moss shows how the trillion-dollar-per-year processed food industry has brought us to the point of today's obesity rates. The average American eats thirty-three pounds of cheese and seventy pounds of sugar annually, and daily injests double the recommended amount of salt. Grounded in meticulous research, this book exposes...

Todd Witcher responds to Elizabeth Kolbert's  The sixth extinction: an unnatural history  and explains the actions that can be taken. (Recorded December 17, 2014) Over the last half a billion years, there have been five mass extinctions, when the diversity of life on earth suddenly and dramatically contracted. Scientists around the world are currently monitoring the sixth extinction, predicted to...

Susanna Sutherland, of Sutherland & Associates, offers a critique of The infinite resource: the power of ideas on a finite planet by Ramez Naam. Naam contends that with innovation and expanding human knowledge, humanity will meet the very real and enormous environmental challenges we face. Ms. Sutherland summarizes, "Though dealing with global issues, this book notes that individual choices drive...

John W. Craig, owner of Segundo Properties, discusses Growing greener cities: urban sustainability in the twenty-first century , edited by Eugenie L. Birch and Susan M. Wachter. The book examines urban sustainability and environmental issues beyond parks and recreational spaces, such as public transit, water resources and food production. The topics are important for city planners, policy makers,...

Elizabeth Eason, a Knoxville architect accredited with the U.S. Green Building Council's LEED system, led a community discussion of the book Cradle to cradle: remaking the way we make things by William McDonough and Michael Braungart. McDonough and Braungart question the wisdom of "reduce, reuse, recycle" and propose that products might be designed so that, after their useful life, they provide no...

In The green-collar economy: how one solution can fix our two biggest problems , author Van Jones illustrates how we can invent and invest our way out of the pollution-based grey economy and into a healthy new green economy. Chris Woodhull, a former Knoxville City Council member and co-founder of TRIBE ONE, led a community discussion of the book. "I am interested in this book because it combines t...

In this podcast we read two articles (transcript below) from the 1920s and 30s that appreciate the development of Market Square as a farmer's market. Author Jack Neely is a special guest commentator; his book is entitled Market Square: a history of the most democratic place on earth .

Dr. Jack D. Fellows, Director of the Oak Ridge National Laboratory Climate Change Science Institute, discusses Hot: living through the next 50 years on Earth by Mark Hertsgaard. "This book is a great history of the climate change debate as well as offering a look at the threats and opportunities future generations will face from a changing climate. It is a must-read for anyone who wants to underst...

Ben Epperson, Coordinator of Beardsley Community Farm , discusses some issues of local food resources based on the memoir Animal, vegetable, miracle by Barbara Kingsolver. " Animal, vegetable, miracle is an important story for all of us," says Epperson, "especially here in East Tennessee where our growing season can last up to 10 months." (Recorded July 15, 2009)

Scientists are sounding alarms that climate change is happening right now. Inaction looks like a risky roll of the global-warming dice. Erin Gill, Director, City of Knoxville's Office of Sustainability, reviews  The climate casino: risk, uncertainty, and economics for a warming world  by William D. Nordaus in this podcast. “ The climate casino  offers a no-nonsense look at why communities should b...

On April 8, 1897, a small fire began in back of a hotel in Gay Street's business district and quickly spread through the expensive establishments that were the pride of the city. The fire claimed five lives and a million dollars' worth of property. Citizens criticized the city council for spending money on a new market house and Centennial celebrations rather than spending more on the newly-establ...

Alvin Nance, President and Chief Executive Officer of Knoxville Community Development Corporation, discusses Sasha Abramsky's book The American way of poverty: how the other half still lives , which  explores the new realities of poverty in America 50 years after the publication of Michael Harrington's groundbreaking book, The other America . (Recorded August 20, 2014)   Freelance reporter   Abram...

The Internet age is giving residents of the free world direct access to information and more responsibility in consuming it. Are modern media consumers smart, savvy, and well-informed enough for the responsibility? Dr. Edward Caudill holds us accountable in his discussion of the graphic book The influencing machine : Brooke Gladstone on the media by Brooke Gladstone. (Recorded July 16, 2014) “Broo...

Dean Rice, Knox County Chief of Staff, looks at the future as discussed in the book The next 100 years: a forecast for the 21st century by George Friedman. (Recorded June 18, 2014) “Clearly, predicting events over a century is next to impossible; however, Friedman builds strong, logical cases for the shifts and changes he believes lie ahead.  The next 100 years  is an extremely thought provoking l...

Law professor Joan MacLeod Heminway critiques Conscious capitalism: liberating the heroic spirit of business by John Mackey and Raj Sisodia. Professor Heminway remarks, "There has been a longstanding debate in business and legal circles about whether corporations exist solely or primarily to maximize shareholder wealth or whether the corporate form serves—or even is permitted to serve—a larger pur...

Dr. John Bohstedt connects the dots in his discussion of  Food politics: what everyone needs to know  by Robert Paarlberg. His passionate interest in the politics of hunger is both historical and modern. As a University of Tennessee history professor, his research revealed hundreds of food riots during the Industrial Revolution. Today’s struggles over food are again making headlines. “As they did...

Reverend Bob Galloway, Pastor Emeritus of the Metropolitan Community Church, takes some issues with the book "You can tell just by looking": and 20 other myths about LGBT life and people by Michael Bronski, Ann Pellegrini and Michael Amico. The three scholars and activists challenge both positive and negative myths about lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender people and culture. (Recorded Februar...

College football has never been more popular, but behind the glittering success are darker truths. Mike Strange, sports reporter for the Knoxville News Sentinel , discusses The system: the glory and scandal of big-time college football by Jeff Benedict and Armen Keteyian. "A hot dog fresh off the grill on a summer picnic is sublime," Strange says. "But, you probably wouldn't want to be at the meat...

Suddenly there’s a desert in a region that receives almost 60 inches of rain a year. That desert in the middle of the lush, diversified Southern Appalachian forest took Atlanta attorney Duncan Maysilles by surprise, as he tells in his book Ducktown smoke: the fight over one of the South's greatest environmental disasters . He reads from his book and reveals his research in this podcast. (Recorded...