Pandemic Relief, Pioneer Suffragists, Intention and Memory

Congress and White House Agree Another COVID Relief Package is Important. But That’s All They Agree On. (0:35) Guest: James Curry, Professor of Political Science, University of Utah For 20 straight weeks, more than a million Americans have filed for unemployment benefits–but the $600 extra emergency unemployment payments that have helped many families stay afloat during the pandemic expired last week. So did the moratorium on evicting people who can’t pay their rent because of the pandemic. But Republicans and Democrats in Congress have not been able to agree on a plan for another round of emergency relief. President Trump says he’s preparing to do something by executive action instead of waiting for Congress. The Results From a Guaranteed Income Pilot Program in Stockton, CA (20:08) Guest: Sukhi Samra, Director, Stockton Economic Empowerment Demonstration (SEED) Program A year and a half ago, the city of Stockton, California started handing out $500 a month in cash to about 100 low-income residents. The money came with no strings attached. It was a pilot project for a concept called “universal basic income,” which has been gaining some national traction. Stockton’s experiment was supposed to end this summer, but it’s been extended because of the pandemic. Turning Farms Vertical in the City (36:37) Guest: Dickson Despommier, Emeritus Professor of Public Health, Columbia University Most of the food we eat in the US is grown somewhere many miles from where we live. Big cities have to bring food in on trucks because there’s just not enough open space to farm the amount of food people in those cities needs. But there’s a solution some crowded cities in Asia are experimenting with where food is grown inside high-rise buildings. It’s called vertical farming. The Untold Story of the Pioneering Suffragists in the American West (52:49) Guest: Neylan McBaine, CEO, Better Days 2020, Author of “Pioneering the Vote: The Untold Story of the Suffragists in Utah and the West” This month marks the 100th anniversary of the 19th Amendment giving women the right to vote. But women had voted in the US before–a number of Western states and territories were the first to put equal suffrage laws in their constitutions. The first woman in the nation to cast a vote under an equal suffrage law was a young school teacher in Salt Lake City, Utah named Seraph Young. It was February 1870, a full fifty years before the US Constitution would be amended to guarantee that right to all women. Why did Western territories lead the way in women’s suffrage? And why Utah, of all places, for such a milestone? Did I Do That Thing, or Did I Just Think About Doing It? (1:30:29) Guest: Dolores Albarracin, Rrofessor of Psychology and Marketing, The University of Illinois, Director, Social Action Lab Here’s a thing that happens to me all the time. I get an email or a text. I think of the response that I want to send. And a few hours–or days later–I’m sure I responded to that message. But I didn’t. How does that work?