The American Digital Divide; The Looting Of Cultural Artifacts; Book Censorship In Prisons

The US is going through a broadband crisis. What can be done to break the telecom cartel’s hold on internet access?

Esther Iverem, multidisciplinary author and independent journalist, host of "On The Ground: Voices of Resistance From the Nation's Capital" on Pacifica Radio, and founding member of DC Poets Against the War, joins us to talk about a couple of stories reflective on the state of policing in the country, with the case of Clifford Owensby, a paraplegic man who was pulled out of his car during a search under suspicion of drug possession in Ohio, and four Maryland police officers not being charged after a fatal shooting where the evidence does not exactly fit the officers’ narratives.

David Rosen is writer on media, tech, politics and sex whose books include “Sex, Sin & Subversion: The Transformation of 1950s New York’s Forbidden into America’s New Normal” and “Sex Scandal America: Politics & the Ritual of Public Shaming.” His most recent book is "Prohibition New York City: Speakeasy Queen Texas Guinan, Blind Pigs, Drag Balls and More.” He tells us about the growing digital divide in the U.S., why our internet is both so bad and so expensive, how we have fallen so far behind some other countries, how telecom giants are becoming a new cartel, and how community broadband networks could not just fill in gaps big internet providers won’t cover, but also offer an alternative to those companies.

James Early, former Director of Cultural Heritage Policy at the Center for Folklife and Cultural Heritage at the Smithsonian Institution and board member of the Institute for Policy Studies, joins hosts Michelle Witte and Bob Schlehuber to talk about the looting of cultural artifacts at a global scale after new revelations from the Pandora Papers, how not only collectors, but also recognized elite institutions engage in theft of priceless cultural items, and efforts underway to try to get stolen artifacts returned to their rightful homes.

Sean Wilson, National Organizing Director for Dream Corps JUSTICE, talks to us about how hard it can be to access any books in prisons sometimes, what it’s like trying to send books to people in prison, and how administrators engage in arbitrary censorship.

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