Tatter
67 episodes - English - Latest episode: over 3 years ago - ★★★★★ - 17 ratingsHosted by social psychologist Michael Sargent, this podcast has become a place for conversation about policy and politics, where Sargent talks with people who nerd out on the topics, bringing extensive knowledge, including knowledge of the limits of their knowledge. These nerds don't have the pocket protectors and social awkwardness of nerd stereotypes. They have wit, a love of fun, and most importantly, an understanding gained from the tattered pages of journals, books, and printouts of statistical analyses, or they've been tattered by experience. As host, Sargent isn't above asking dumb questions, because he knows we all learn from the answers.
If you're looking for overconfident, ill-informed (or misinformed) bloviation, this isn't the place for you. (But maybe Fox & Friends is.) If that's the opposite of what you want, then stick around.
Homepage Apple Podcasts Google Podcasts Overcast Castro Pocket Casts RSS feed
Episodes
Episode 17: Unsafe Harbor (A Special Briefing)
June 23, 2018 05:30 - 34 minutes - 16.7 MBSarah Sherman-Stokes is Associate Director of the Immigrants' Rights and Human Trafficking Program at Boston University Law School, and she graciously spoke with me about what's been happening along the southern border of the U.S., where prosecution of families seeking asylum has gained national and international attention, especially since children have been intentionally separated from their parents by the U.S. government. She also spoke to historical context, including the origins of MS-13...
Episode 16: The Golden Door (A Special Briefing)
June 19, 2018 23:00 - 20 minutes - 10.3 MBOn June 18, 2018, White House Press Secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders and Secretary of Homeland Security Kirstjen Nielsen held a briefing largely focused on the Trump administration's treatment of families seeking asylum at the southwestern border of the U.S. On June 19, I spoke with Sarah Pierce, Policy Analyst for the U.S. Immigration Policy Program at the Migration Policy Institute (https://www.migrationpolicy.org/). We discussed the predominant home countries of those who have been recentl...
Episode 15: Where True Stories Lie
June 18, 2018 14:30 - 35 minutes - 16.5 MBThis is a conversation with four people who all know stories well, and who were willing to think with me about how stories can work for and against those fighting injustice. Jonathan Adler is a psychologist at the Olin College of Engineering, who has studied the stories people tell while addressing mental or physical health challenges. Skylar Bayer is a marine biologist who is currently working on marine policy in DC as a Dean John A. Knauss Fellow in the U.S. Senate, and is also a storytelle...
Episode 14: Spoiled
June 07, 2018 16:00 - 27 minutes - 12.9 MBIn elections with three or more candidates, spoiler effects are thought to occur when one candidate, one with supporters who are ideologically similar to those of another candidate, garners enough support that a third, ideologically dissimilar or even opposite, candidate can win without a majority. For example, in the 2014 Maine gubernatorial general election, Democratic nominee Mike Michaud received 43.4% of the vote, while independent candidate Eliot Cutler received 8.4%. Because Cutler's i...
Episode 13: Open, Bar None
June 05, 2018 09:00 - 54 minutes - 26 MBAccording to the Brewers Association (https://www.brewersassociation.org/statistics/number-of-breweries/), in 1994, there were 537 brewpubs, microbreweries, and regional craft brewers in the U.S. In 2017, that number had risen to 6,266. Coast to coast, there's been an explosion in craft brewing, with brewers producing a delightful diversity of types of beer. But demographic diversity has been a different story. It's a story still being written, but it's still a different story. In this episod...
Episode 12: Strait and Narrow
June 01, 2018 09:00 - 51 minutes - 23.9 MBWriting is important in many areas, and the sciences are no exception. Publications such as Nature (https://www.nature.com/scitable/topicpage/effective-writing-13815989) offer guidance on such issues as when to use past tense and when to use present tense. In these contexts, grammar is more than something for the Grammar Police to enforce. It matters substantively, as it shapes how assertions are understood by readers and listeners. These effects matter for understanding policy, because resea...
Episode 11: Magic Carpet Ride
May 16, 2018 09:00 - 26 minutes - 12.4 MBLucas St. Clair is famous (or, for some, infamous) for leading the successful effort to persuade former U.S. President Barack Obama to designate 87,500 acres in northern Maine as the Katahdin Woods and Waters National Monument (https://www.nps.gov/kaww/index.htm). Now, St. Clair is running for Congress in Maine's Second Congressional District. As a follow-up to the "I-95 Northernmost (https://tatter.fireside.fm/10)" episode of Tatter, in which St. Clair was discussed and briefly quoted, this ...
Episode 10: I-95 Northernmost
May 14, 2018 09:00 - 28 minutes - 13.7 MBMaine political writer Al Diamon (The Daily Bulldog (http://www.dailybulldog.com/db/) and The Forecaster (http://www.theforecaster.net/)) and political scientist Amy Fried (University of Maine (https://umaine.edu/polisci/faculty-and-staff/amy-fried/) and The Bangor Daily News (http://pollways.bangordailynews.com/author/asfried/)) discuss Maine's Second Congressional District, the district's pivot from Democratic presidential candidates to Donald Trump, and the upcoming election of its represe...
Episode 9: Just Another Word
May 04, 2018 10:00 - 49 minutes - 23.2 MBAs in previous years and decades, the freedom of exchange of ideas and freedom of inquiry on college campuses are subjects of debate. In this episode, Sargent talks with legal and literary theorist Stanley Fish (https://cardozo.yu.edu/directory/stanley-fish) (author of, among other things, "There's No Such Thing As Free Speech, and It's a Good Thing, Too") as well as Bates College classicist Margaret Imber (https://www.bates.edu/classical-medieval/faculty/imber-margaret-a/). Special Guests: M...
Episode 8: A Thinking Debater's Guide to the AR-15
March 28, 2018 13:00 - 49 minutes - 23 MBThe AR-15 style rifle is famous or infamous, depending on whom you ask. Celebrated by some as "America's Rifle (https://www.nytimes.com/2018/03/03/us/politics/ar-15-americas-rifle.html)," it is also notorious for its use in multiple mass shootings (https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2018/02/28/us/ar-15-rifle-mass-shootings.html). For any of us inclined to engage in debates about access to the AR-15, especially if we debate gun enthusiasts who use and know the weapon, it behooves us to be inf...
Episode 7: Rising Tide
February 26, 2018 10:00 - 28 minutes - 13.7 MBSeth Masket (https://www.du.edu/ahss/polisci/facultystaff/masket_seth.html) is Professor of Political Science at the University of Denver, and Director of DU's Center on American Politics (https://www.du.edu/americanpolitics/). He contributes to Vox's Mischiefs of Faction, and has contributed to The Monkey Cage, FiveThirtyEight (https://fivethirtyeight.com/contributors/seth-masket/), Politico, and The New York Times. Click here (https://www.vox.com/mischiefs-of-faction/2018/2/12/17001984/fore...
Episode 6: 2012
February 20, 2018 10:00 - 33 minutes - 15.6 MBSocial critic Cornel West has called President Barack Obama a neoliberal (among other things), and he's not meant it as a compliment. West appears to have been frustrated that Obama was not a forceful advocate of left-wing populism. These criticisms led me (your humble podcast host) to wonder if such an Obama would have been a one-term president. Julia Azari (http://www.marquette.edu/polisci/faculty_azari.shtml), of Marquette University, Christopher Federico (https://cla.umn.edu/about/directo...
Episode 5: Nonstandard
December 20, 2017 15:00 - 38 minutes - 19 MBAccording to Fordham University law professor John Pfaff (https://www.fordham.edu/info/23171/john_pfaff), the U.S. has experienced substantial growth in incarceration rates over the past several decades, and now has a higher incarceration rate than all other industrialized countries, and virtually all countries in general. He says that there is a "standard story" that attempts to explain why incarceration is so prevalent in the U.S. That story points to such factors as longer sentences, the "...
Episode 4: Multifunctional
November 19, 2017 15:00 - 28 minutes - 13.2 MBHannah Harleen lives in South Portland, Maine, and is a former radio personality and burlesque performer. She performed as Vera Velvet in the Voulez-Vous Burlesque (https://www.facebook.com/VoulezVousBurlesque/) company of Portland. We talk about burlesque, commercial stripping, pears, a vice-principal, boobs, and more. Special Guest: Hannah Harleen.
Episode 3: Sugar, Pt. 2
November 05, 2017 15:00 - 28 minutes - 14.5 MBHeidi Sawyer leads the Lewiston Rocks Facebook group (https://www.facebook.com/groups/LewistonRocks/) and website (https://lewistonrocks.org/). She agreed to sit for a lengthy conversation, and these excerpts constitute Part 1 of what I'm posting. She was too interesting for just one episode. Special Guest: Heidi Sawyer.
Episode 2: Sugar, Pt. 1
October 23, 2017 15:00 - 36 minutes - 18.4 MBHeidi Sawyer leads the Lewiston Rocks Facebook group (https://www.facebook.com/groups/LewistonRocks/) and website (https://lewistonrocks.org/). She agreed to sit for a lengthy conversation, and these excerpts constitute Part 1 of what I'm posting. She was too interesting for just one episode. Special Guest: Heidi Sawyer.
Episode 1: Doughboy
October 08, 2017 16:00 - 40 minutes - 38.1 MBThomas "Bummah" Gurney is a local musician in the community I now call home. He is famous locally (or, in some quarters, infamous) for such songs as "Dirty Lew" (https://youtu.be/6YTkxr3j2HQ) and "Infested" (https://youtu.be/N_H37tgk4Vo). I had so much fun interviewing him that I decided to feature him in the first episode of this new podcast. We talk about Lewiston/Auburn, his music, and his story. Welcome to Tatter. Special Guest: Thomas "Bummah" Gurney.