Heartland Economy, Libraries in Digital Age, Medical Quackery

How America’s Coastal Cities Left the Heartland Behind (15:58) Brian Feldman is a Researcher-Reporter with the Open Markets Program at New America. He previously worked for an education technology company in Cleveland, OH through Venture for America, an entrepreneurship fellowship centered on regional economies.  Many of America’s Midwestern cities are experiencing an economic decline with big employers moving to bigger cities or out of the country. While many believe it to be an issue of deindustrialization and the trends in the free market, it may not be that simple. Brian Feldman says that the problems is actually a result of decisions made by “presidents and lawmakers in both parties, influenced by a handful of economists and legal scholars, quietly altered federal competition policies, antitrust laws, and enforcement measures over a period of 30 years.” So why are many Midwestern cities seeing such heavy economic blows? How have laws affected the growth of the cities? And will they ever return to their former “glory days”? What role do libraries play in the internet age? (1:02:32) Donald Barclay is the Deputy University Librarian at the University of California Merced campus. He graduated in 1990 from Cal Berkeley with his Master of Library and Information Science. Libraries. What visuals enter your mind when you hear the word library? Maybe an old curmudgeon shushing you, maybe you remember sitting on the floor as a child while hearing a story, maybe you think of hours searching computers and bookshelves for an academic assignment. But is the library a thing of the past? Donald Barclay's research may surprise you.  Medical Quackery (1:46:47) Dr. Ron Hager is an Associate Professor of Exercise Sciences in the College of Life Sciences at Brigham Young University. "Health fraud" is often used as a synonym for quackery, but quackery's salient characteristic is aggressive promotion ("quacks quack!") rather than fraud, greed or misinformation. "Pseudo-medicine" is a term for treatments known to be ineffective, regardless of whether their advocates themselves believe in their effectiveness. Ron Hager with tips on how to detect medical "Quackery".