The 1968 Democratic Convention, 3D Printed Firearms, Questioning Marijuana Safety

The 1968 Democratic Convention, 3D Printed Firearms, Questioning Marijuana Safety

Top of Mind with Julie Rose

  • Aug 27, 2018 9:00 pm
  • 1:41:07 mins

Lookback At Chaos: The 1968 Democratic Convention 50 Years Later Guest: Taylor Pensoneau, Journalist, Author Fifty years ago this week, America watched on television as the Democratic National Convention in Chicago descended into violence. In the months before the 1968 convention, civil rights leader Martin Luther King Jr. and presidential candidate Bobby Kennedy had been assassinated. Public sentiment had turned against the Vietnam War. As protesters and police clashed brutally outside the Democratic National Convention in Chicago, Democrats inside the hall were hopelessly split between establishment forces who backed LBJ’s Vice President Hubert Humphrey and the anti-war supporters of Senator Eugene McCarthy. Looking back on that week in 1968, a young reporter named Taylor Pensoneau assigned to cover the convention says it showed him, “that the solid fabric of American political life, and even society itself, could be undone.” How Do 3D-Printed Firearms Work? Guest: Alfredo Orejuela, Founder/CEO, STEAMporio Earlier today, U.S. District Court Judge Robert Lasnik extended a ban prohibiting an organization called Defense Distributed from publishing blueprints for 3D-printable guns online. This extended ban marks the most recent development in a legal battle stretching back to 2013, when the founder of Defense Distributed, Cody Wilson, made the first fully-3D-printed pistol and posted the design online, but was told that uploading the files was the same as exporting illegal firearms. But how exactly do these 3D-printed guns work? What does it take to make one? What do we have to understand about the tech before we understand the issue? Amazon Tackles The Lord of the Rings Adaptation Guest: Dennis Cutchins, PhD, Professor of English, Brigham Young University Before there was Star Trek, Game of Thrones or Harry Potter, there was Lord of the Rings. JRR Tolkien’s classic fantasy epic has had vast influence on the genre – and for entertainment companies, it has vast potential. Amazon recently announced it bought the TV rights to develop a prequel to Lord of the Rings. Rumor has it the story will center on a young Aragorn and Amazon has hired the writers behind the third installment of the Star Trek movie reboot to develop the Lord of the Rings series. What will it take to please the legions of serious Tolkein fans? Should they even try?  Greek Music Guest: Armand D’Angour, classics professor at Jesus College at Oxford University What we think of as classical music today is considered by many experts to have originated here with the Gregorian chants of medieval times. But musical anthropologist Armand D’Angour says the true root of the European musical tradition lies in ancient Greece. D'Angour and his colleagues have reconstructed ancient Greek musical instruments and the music itself using clues available in the ancient texts and images. New Tech Helps Deaf Students on College Campuses  Guest: Korey Hocker, CEO of SignGlasses. Around the country, tens of thousands of college students who are deaf or hard of hearing are preparing to return to the classroom. They’ll need more than the standard laptop and books for coursework. They’ll also need sign language interpretation. Everywhere they go. Imagine the challenge of that – both for the student and the university that is required to provide the accommodation. A tech startup developed at BYU has a solution that uses smart glasses and real-time ASL translation over a wireless connection. Is Marijuana the Next Big Tobacco? Guest: Keith Humphreys, Professor, Section Director for Mental Health Policy, Department of Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences, Stanford University More than half of states now allow marijuana for medical or recreational use, and the Pew Research center says more than half of Americans support such laws. Public backing for marijuana legalization has blossomed in the last decade years, driven by a perception that the drug carries little risk – that it’s far less dangerous than opioids, or even alcohol. But doctors and researchers once insisted alcohol was harmless. And tobacco. And opioids. So are we now heading down the same path with marijuana?