Radio Curious

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In this edition we again visit with Dr. Terry Allen Kupers, a forensic psychiatrist and the author of “Solitary: The Inside Story of Supermax Isolation and How We Can Abolish It.”
In our first visit, available on line at radiocurious.org, Dr. Kupers describes the abysmal conditions in which an estimated 100,000 incarcerated people, both men and women are held in solitary confinement in the United States. Kept in dark, cold, and often wet cells, more or less eight feet by ten feet in size, they have little or no human contact, sometimes for years on end. Many suffer from mental illness, prior to or as a result of living solitary confinement. This results in significant long term damage to these people as individuals and to our society as a whole.
In this second of our two part series, Dr. Kupers shares stories of prisoners held in solitary confinement and what he believes is necessary to achieve meaningful rehabilitation for people who have committed crimes and sentenced to prison.
When Dr. Terry Kupers and I visit by phone from his home in Oakland, California, on February 14, 2018, we began this second visit when I asked him to describe what he calls a rehabilitative attitude.
The book Dr. Kupers recommends is: Hell Is a Very Small Place: Voices from Solitary Confinement,” edited by Jean Casella, James Ridgeway and Sarah Shourd
This program was recorded on February 14, 2018.

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An estimated 100,000 people are held in solitary confinement in the United States.  The conditions in which they live are abysmal.  They have little or no contact human contact.
Often they are kept in dark, cold, wet cells eight feet by 10 feet in size. Many suffer from mental illness prior to or as a result of solitary confinement.  This results in significant long term damage to the individuals and our society as a whole.

Dr. Terry Allen Kupers, a forensic psychiatrist, is the author of “Solitary: The Inside Story of Supermax Isolation and How We can Abolish It.” In this first of a two part series on solitary confinement, Kupers shares interviews with prisoners who have been raped, subdued with immobilizing gas, beaten by prison guards and whose mental and physical health needs have been ignored.  He has found that prisoners of color are much more likely to be held in solitary confinement than are white prisoners.  Kupers argues that solitary confinement is tantamount to torture, and per se violates the constitutional prohibition of cruel or unusual punishment.

When Dr. Terry Kupers and I visit by phone from his home in Oakland, California on February 11, 2018, we began the first of two conversations when I asked him to define forensic psychiatry, and the background of solitary confinement.

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To assist in the consideration of the impact of Martin Luther King, Jr. on the United States, I invited my friend Orell Massey to join us again here at Radio Curious.  In February 2014, when Massey first visited us he shared his experiences as the first and, so far, the only black law enforcement officer in the history of Mendocino County, California.  Prior to becoming a Deputy Sheriff here 23 years ago, Massey served in the U.S. Marine Corps and was primarily assigned to the Foreign Service Embassy detail. A native of rural South Carolina, he suffered under the cloud, terror, threats and fears brought on by racial segregation throughout his childhood and early adult years before joining the Marine Corps.   Now, he continues to work part time as a Mendocino County Deputy Sheriff, since his retirement in 2017.

When Orell Massey visited the Radio Curious studios on January 14, 2018, we focused on the effect that Martin Luther King, Jr. had on his life.

The Civil Rights song featured is “Can’t Turn Me ‘Round” performed by The Roots.

The book Orell Massey recommends is “I Never Had it Made: An Autobiography of Jackie Robinson,”  by Jackie Robinson and Alfred Duckett.

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How many of us are lonely? What is loneliness and how does it affect us? Approximately 25 years ago, when asked the number of friends in whom we could confide, most people in the United States said “three.” When that question was asked recently most people said “none.”

Inquires reveal that twenty per-cent of people, — 60 million in the Untied States alone – are feeling lonely at any given moment. And, it appears that chronic loneliness may well compete with smoking, obesity and lack of exercise as a significant health risk.

In this edition of Radio Curious we visit with William Patrick, the founding editor of The Journal of Life Sciences and co-author of “Loneliness: Human Nature and the Need for Social Connection,” along with University of Chicago psychology professor John Cacioppo.

My conversation with William Patrick, recorded on October 13, 2008, began when I asked him to define loneliness as used in their book.

The book William Patrick recommends is “The Lost Gospel: The Book of Q and Christian Origins,” by Burton Mack.

Originally broadcast October 18th, 2008.

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In all successful social and political changes in here in the the United States and elsewhere, civil disobedience plays a significant role. Bus boycotts, sit-ins and marches, coordinated with constitution based legal challenges to blatant racially based restrictions imposed by the white supremacy in the American south, were at the core of the Civil Rights Movement of the 1960s and 1970s.

Our guest in this edition of Radio Curious is Attorney Kent Spriggs, the editor of “Voices of Civil Rights Lawyers: Reflections from the Deep South, 1964-1980.”  Spriggs compiled the voices of 26 lawyers, black and white, from the south and the north who began their law practices in the mid-1960s and successfully ended significant aspects of the then existing racial segregation. They describe their backgrounds and provide context for their civil rights litigation and other basic legal rights, as well as how their successes later advanced other movements for social justice.

Kent Spriggs, raised in Washington, D.C. went to the Deep South in 1965 after finishing law school in New York.  He has been a Civil Rights lawyer since he arrived there over 50 years ago. Spriggs, now a resident and former mayor of Tallahassee, Florida, and I visited by phone from his home office on December 4, 2017.  We began our conversation when I asked him describe the contributors and some of their stories in “Voices of Civil Rights Lawyers.”

The three books Kent Spriggs recommends are: “The Shock Doctrine,” by Naomi Klein; “Why Are All the Black Kids Sitting Together in the Cafeteria?: And Other Conversations about Race” by Beverly Daniel Tatum; and “The New Jim Crow: Mass Incarceration in the Age of Color Blindness,” by Michelle Alexander and Cornel West.

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This is the second in a two part series on why police in the United States kill more citizens than in any other developed nation.  Our guest is Professor Franklin E. Zimring from the Law School at the University of California at Berkeley.  He is the author of the 2017 book “When Police Kill.”

In part one, Zimring discusses why police killings are such a serious problem in the United States. He asserts it is in large part because of widespread ownership and use of handguns, which increase the vulnerability of police to life-threatening assault.

Here, in part two, Zimring explains how the problem of police killings can be effectively controlled without major changes in the performance or the effectiveness of police.

When Frank Zimring and I visited by phone from his office in Berkeley, California, on November 17, 2017, we began with his discussion of ways to effectively address the problem of police killings.

The book Frank Zimring recommends is “Memos From Midlife: 24 Parables of Adult Adjustment,” his only non-law related book.

And finally for full disclosure, Frank and I met in elementary school in Los Angeles.

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This program is devoted to some of the reasons why police in the United States kill and who the dead are.

Of the 1,100 killings by police in the United States in the year 2015, 85% were a result of a fatal shooting. 95% of those victims were male.  The death rates for African Americans and Native Americans are twice their share of the population.

Our guest in this first of a two part series on why police kill, is Franklin E. Zimring a law professor at the Boalt Hall Law School at the University of California at Berkeley.  He is also the author of “When Police Kill.”

Zimring’s conclusions, based on evidence garnered from the empirical research revealed in his book show: 1) “Police use of lethal force is a very serious national problem in the United States”; 2) “Killings by police are a much larger problem in the United States than in any other developed nation, in large part because of widespread ownership and use of handguns which increase the vulnerability of police to life-threatening assault;” and 3) “Police killings are a very specific problem that can be effectively controlled without major changes in the performance or the effectiveness of police.”  This third point is the topic of part two in this series.

And, for the sake of full disclosure, Frank Zimring and I have been friends since our early years in elementary school.

Frank Zimring and I visited by phone from his office at Boalt Hall Law School in Berkeley, California on November 17, 2017.   We began our conversation when I asked him to discuss policing as a governmental function.

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Whiskey:  Scotch, Irish, Absinthe and Moonshine, among others, are the topics of this edition of Radio Curious.  Our guest is Crispin Cain, an artisan liqueur maker, distiller and co-owner of Greenway Distillers and American Craft Whiskey based in Redwood Valley, California, about 10 miles north of the Radio Curious studios. We met in his office of at the Greenway distillery on October 27, 2017, and began our visit sampling some his most tasty products.  After a few sips I turned on the recorder and asked Crispin Cain to describe the distilling process.

Crispin Cain’s website is: http://www.greenwaydistillers.com.

The book Crispin Cain recommends is “Writings from Ancient Egypt,” by Toby Wilkinson.

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This program is about some of the consequences of that small pocket size electronic device which, as of January, 2017, 95% of adult Americans own and carry. (www.pewinternet.org/fact-sheet/mobile) This device is commonly called a cell phone.

In May, 2017, estimates indicate the average American over age 18 spends 2 hours, 51 minutes on their cell phone every day. (https://hackernoon.com/how-much-time-do-people-spend-on-their-mobile-phones-in-2017-e5f90a0b10a6).

Dr. Dan Gottlieb, our guest on this edition of Radio Curious, is a clinical psychologist, author and the host of Voices in the Family (https://whyy.org/programs/voices-in-the-family/) aired regularly on WHYY in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. He provides clinical therapy to people who suffer from feelings of worry, nervousness, or unease, typically about an imminent event or something with an uncertain outcome. This condition is commonly known as anxiety and appears to be an unanticipated consequence of cell phone usage.

I met with Dr. Dan, as he is often called, in the studios of WHYY in Philadelphia on October 16, 2017.  We began our conversation when I asked him about the consequences of current cell phone usage especially by young people.

The books Dr. Dan Gottlieb recommends are:  “The Black Widow,” by Daniel Silva, and “What Happened,” by Hillary Rodham Clinton.

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