Goodbye Christopher Robin

Guest: Quinn Mecham, PhD, Assistant Professor of Political Science, Brigham Young University Each month we highlight three world events worth a closer look. Over the last week, hundreds of Saudis – including princes, prominent businessmen and former senior officials have been arrested. Why? What's the fallout from referenda in Catalonia and Kurdistan? The source of violence in the Congo?

Guest: Kevin Franke, PhD, Assistant Professor of Civil Engineering, Brigham Young University Sunday night, a major earthquake struck the border between Iran and Iraq. Devastation is substantial and urgent rescue efforts are still underway. In the weeks ahead, scientists will arrive in the area to try and understand what happened. Kevin Franke is a volunteer scientist for Geotechnical Extreme Events Reconnaissance (GEER) and they recently worked on the big earthquake in Mexico a few months ago. He explains what scientists hope to learn in the aftermath of earthquakes.

Guest: Erin Meyer-Gutbrod, PhD, Postdoctoral Scholar, Marine Science Institute, University of California, Santa Barbara  Things are not right among the world’s North Atlantic right whales. They’re a highly endangered species and over the summer 15 of them turned up dead in US and Canadian waters. That’s a major blow, considering there are fewer than 500 on the planet as it is. Another year like 2017 could wipe them out entirely, according to research coauthored by Erin Meyer-Gutbrod.

Guest: Ernest Istook, Former Republican Congressman from Oklahoma, Lecturer at Utah Valley University For years, Republicans—and some Democrats—have called for a “Balanced Budget Amendment” to be added to the US Constitution that would make it illegal for the federal government to spend more than it takes in.  But, if Republicans manage to pass the tax cuts they’ve proposed, they’ll add an estimated one-and-a-half trillion dollars to the deficit over ten years. The hope is that cutting taxes will lead to economic growth to counteract that deficit increase. But what does it really matter if the federal government spends more than it brings in? Do we really want to force Congress to balance the checkbook every year? And is amending the Constitution of the United States really the way to go?

Guest: Katherine MacTavish, Associate Professor in the School of Social and Behavioral Health Sciences, Oregon State University, Co-author of “Singlewide: Chasing the American Dream in a Rural Trailer Park” Home ownership is a cornerstone of the American Dream, and owners of mobile homes or trailers often feel like they’ve almost, but not quite, made it—owning a trailer is one step closer to owning their own traditional home. But there are factors unique to trailer parks that can combine against residents to trap them in what they had thought would be a temporary situation.