Senator Jessica Bateman represents the 22nd District in the Washington State Legislature. She is the chamber’s most outspoken housing advocate. She joined us for a conversation about the wins, losses, and unfinished work on housing...
Jul 07, 2025•47 min
Bill Fitzgerald is a privacy activist and vociferous critic of the data protection practices of Big Tech. In this week’s episode Bill came on to talk about the data privacy implications of putting AI in...
Jun 25, 2025•51 min
After seventeen emails, dating back to December, we finally have the conversation I’ve been chasing with Diana Kuprych. Diana is a Ukrainian student doing her graduate studies at the London School of Economics. Her thesis...
Jun 09, 2025•45 min
Melissa Santos is a reporter for Axios covering Seattle and the State Legislature. We’ve been podding with Melissa since 2017. She is a regular on the show and one of our most requested and re-requested...
May 20, 2025•41 min
Tori is an anti-racist educator and writer. She grew up in a deeply conservative evangelical family and is now an out-spoken critic of racism and misogyny that lurks within in some Christian communities. She joined...
Apr 28, 2025•54 min
This is a conversation about tariffs—with an economist who is an expert in making it plain. We’re starting with the basics: Tariffs are taxes on imports, and they’re usually passed on to consumers. So, in...
Apr 10, 2025•41 min
Marguerite Martin is a co-founder of Channel 253 and creator of Move to Tacoma. This is an update to her and my ongoing conversation about housing policy and real estate. You can find my previous...
Mar 17, 2025•43 min
Amanda Willams is a former teacher in Seattle Public Schools and is the creator of the Seattle Green Book, an online listing of Black Owned Businesses in the Seattle Area. She joined us to talk...
Mar 03, 2025•47 min
This week’s episode is a change of pace for the show. Film critic Chase Hutchinson joined us for a conversation about the upcoming 97th Academy Awards. We talked through who we think will win each...
Feb 21, 2025•53 min
Following the inauguration of Donald Trump last month, reactions in the U.S. ranged from jubilation to alarm—depending on one’s political leanings and level of engagement. But how is the new admin being received beyond American...
Feb 10, 2025•33 min
In this episode, we discuss the US’ renewed expansionist ambitions with Zoltan Grossman, a professor of Geography and Indigenous Studies at Evergreen State College. Grossman helped me unpack some throughlines connecting 19th century Manifest Destiny...
Feb 02, 2025•45 min
One of the least discussed stories in US public education is our decision to walk away from what worked. School integration in the US peaked in 1987, coinciding with the achievement gap between Black and...
Jan 21, 2025•45 min
The war in Ukraine is a functional stalemate with the Russian death toll nearing 200k. Growth is down in the Russian economy and inflation and prices are up. Former Syrian President Bashar al-Assad, Russia’s greatest...
Dec 23, 2024•51 min
Hundreds of fishermen laboring on U.S.-flagged ships in American waters face a harsh reality: wage theft, exploitative conditions, and little recourse. Cyrus Donato, one of over 140 inspectors for the International Transport Workers’ Federation (ITF),...
Dec 09, 2024•48 min
In this episode, we sat down with Anne Lutz Fernandez—former investment banker, retired teacher, and co-author of Schooled—to discuss education’s role in the 2024 election. We discussed Trump’s first-term policies, Biden and Harris’s records on...
Oct 29, 2024•42 min
The Civil War in Sudan is arguably the worst humanitarian crisis in the world. The fight to control the government in Khartoum has reportedly claimed upwards of 150,000 lives and conditions for people on the...
Oct 21, 2024•37 min
This is Part One of a Tacoma Audio Voters’ Guide. In this conversation, we talked through the Congressional races, statewide initiatives, statewide offices, Pierce County judges, and a proposed fire and safety levy for the...
Oct 10, 2024•49 min
In spite of an avalanche of outside money, Tacoma voters recently adopted a sweeping Bill of Rights for tenants that provides relocation assistance to families, in the case of steep increases in rent, and bans...
Sep 16, 2024•43 min
Mario Amaya is the owner and operator of Balcon X, a taco and pupusa (and putaco) restaurant located on Sixth Ave. Balcon X is named after his balcony where he got his start selling meals...
Aug 26, 2024•48 min
Quincy Henry is the co-owner and proprietor of Campfire Coffee, located at 1554 Market Street. He joined us for Part 4 of our ongoing series on running a small business in Tacoma. We talked about...
Aug 08, 2024•41 min
Last week Tacoma lost one of its brightest lights. Matt Driscoll was a columnist for The News Tribune and the editor for the paper’s Opinion Section. But he was so much more than that. Rather...
Jul 29, 2024•38 min
Chase Hutchinson is a Tacoma-based freelance journalist and movie critic. He came on the show to talk about the year in movies. For our conversation, we tried to focus on films not based on pre-existing...
Jul 22, 2024•52 min
In today’s irregular edition of the podcast, we discussed Saturday’s attempted assassination of former President Trump and the political fallout from it. I was joined in studio by Producer Doug and Evelyn Lopez, host of...
Jul 16, 2024•45 min
Dave and Carol are longtime Seattle Sounders season ticket holders and former hosts of the Hands-Free Footy podcast. They decided, for a host of reasons, this would be their last year with season tickets. I...
Jul 08, 2024•51 min
Cameron Harwick is a professor at State University of New York Brockport. He previously joined us in 2022 for a conversation about the causes and impacts of the inflationary crisis in 2022. My goal in...
Jun 17, 2024•53 min
Emmett O’Connell is a recovering journalist, who writes the blog Olympia Time and hosts the podcast Olympia Standard. He recently published an article examining the hoovering up of homes by corporate and institutional landlords and...
May 27, 2024•51 min
In this episode, we are joined by Randy Girdner, an educator, filmmaker, and the comic artist creator of the web comic Maurice the Beaver. This is a conversation about AI and my trepidation about its...
May 13, 2024•42 min
In this episode, we dove into recent shifts in real estate with Jasmyn Jefferson, Designated Broker and co-Owner of Windermere Abode Lakewood. Jasmyn gave us her take on the Tacoma Housing market and the low-down...
Apr 23, 2024•48 min
This month observant Muslims around the world are fasting in observance of Ramadan. Jasmine El Shear is an Egyptian-American school counselor in the Gulf, advising Emirati students in navigating an American school system. She joined...
Mar 31, 2024•41 min
Nathan Perl-Rosenthal is an historian of the eighteenth and early nineteenth-century Atlantic world. He focuses on the political and cultural history of Europe and the Americas in the age of revolution, with a emphasis on...
Mar 11, 2024•45 min