Trump and the Press, Genesis, Mayan Apocalypse, News Satire

Trump’s Angry Rhetoric About the Press Guest: RonNell Anderson Jones, Professor of Law, University of Utah; Lisa Grow Sun, Professor of Law, BYU President Donald Trump appears to have won a minor skirmish in his war with certain media outlets, over the number of players and staff from the New England Patriots who visited the White House this week. The President angrily condemned the error by The New York Times, which he called “failing,” as he has many times before. The Times quickly apologized and retracted the photo that misrepresented the number of attendees as too small, but the minor Twitterstorm around the event is only the latest in a long-running feud between the President and the organizations he often calls “fake news.”   Two law professors argue in a paper that will be presented at the Yale Freedom of Expressions Scholars Conference later this month that President Trump’s battle with the press goes well beyond the usual acrimony that exists between a President of the United States and the media, and warn that the rhetoric President Trump employs could have an effect on democracy, if left unchecked. Genesis, Apocalypse and the Maya Guest: Mark Z. Christensen, Professor of History, Assumption College in Massachusetts, translator of “The Teabo Manuscript” Several years ago, a BYU alum who now teaches history at Assumption College in Massachusetts went digging in some dusty boxes housed in BYU’s Special Collections library and came up with a whopper of a find.  It’s a rare and mysterious 44-page booklet that dates back centuries and comes from a Mayan town on the Yucatan Peninsula in Mexico called Teabo. The booklet talks about the creation of the world, the mission of Jesus Christ and the Apocalypse. How’s that for intriguing?  Check out the Teabo Manuscript here. Satire and the News Guest: Silvia Knobloch-Westerwick, PhD, Professor of Communications, Ohio State University, author of “Choice and Preference in Media Use” Satirical news is having a heyday with Donald Trump’s presidency. Saturday Night Live’s spoofs of the President and his cabinet have become pop culture phenomena. Stephen Colbert – who struggled to get his footing when he made the leap from Comedy Central to the Late Show on CBS – is now surging in the late-night ratings, thanks to his news-heavy take on comedy. Does satire about the news just make us laugh? Or does it actually affect our views on politics? Our willingness to get engaged in the political process?  Preventing Concussions in Professional Football Guest: Kevin Guskiewicz, PhD, Dean of the College of Arts and Sciences, University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill, 2011 MacArthur Fellow After years of research into a devastating brain disease called CTE “chronic traumatic encephalopathy,” the NFL last year acknowledged its connection with concussions and settled a class-action lawsuit brought by retired players who accuse the league of not warning players and hiding the damages of brain injury.  This new awareness has led the NFL to change some of its rules and it’s also given rise to calls for tackle football to be prohibited in kids and teenagers.  How to Quit Your Job Guest: Anthony Klotz, PhD, Assistant Professor of Management, College of Business, Oregon State University There’s more than one way to quit a job, it turns out. At least seven ways, in fact. The most common is a fairly amicable parting of ways. But research conducted by Oregon State University management professor Anthony Klotz finds it’s surprisingly common for people to quit in dramatic fashion – even calling the boss names and torching all good will on the way out.  Given how common it is for people to quit these days – hardly anybody stays at the same job their entire career anymore – Klotz and his colleagues say it’s important to understand how people resign and what effect their chosen method has on the company they leave behind. How Hoodoos Are Formed Guest: Thomas Morris, PhD, Professor in Department of Geological Sciences, BYU This week marks National Park Week, and in celebration, the National Park Services is allowing free admissions this Saturday and Sunday to all attendees. Here in Utah, we have quite a few national parks within driving distance. One of them being Bryce Canyon National Park. If you’ve never been, this is the park famous for tall, spindly rock formations called hoodoos. Bryce Canyon has more hoodoos than any other place in the world. Some of the pictures look to me like a giant toddler was playing in the mud millennia ago, taking handfuls of mud that was not too wet or too dry and drip, glop, dripping it into totem pole-looking structures that have frozen in time. But they’re actually not frozen. We spoke with BYU Geology professor Thomas Morris late last year soon after a famous landmark hoodoo crumbled. He offered us his expertise on these formations.