On this edition of Parallax Views we present an election post-mortem featuring journalist Albert Lanier dissecting the 2020 Presidential Election. Albert argues the election can be summed up with the humorous line "Shift Happens". From Albert's point of view the election, when analyzed, indicates big shift for Democratic Party Centrists, the renegade progressive wing of the Democratic Party, and the GOP. He also argues that the Democrats win by "losing". He'll explain what that means in the cour...
Nov 17, 2020•1 hr 42 min•Ep. 355
On this edition of Parallax Views, Henry Kissinger is perhaps the most-well-known political figures associated with United State foreign policy and geopolitics since the post-WWII period. Reviled as a war criminal by many, such as Christopher Hitchens and Greg Grandin, and lauded as the 20th century's greatest statesman by others, Kissinger is, regardless of what one may think of him obviously someone who has left a lasting impact. Prof. Thomas A. Schwartz, author of Henry Kissinger and American...
Nov 13, 2020•1 hr 5 min•Ep. 351
On this edition of Parallax Views, last month two female scientists, Jennifer Doudna and Emmanuele Charpentier, won the 2020 Nobel Prize in Chemistry for their revolutionary work on CRISPR-Cas9, a technology that opens the door gene editing in ways previously unimagined. The win has been, rightfully, seen as a pivotal moment for women in science, but what, beyond that, what is the broader story of CRISPR and gene editing? What are the broader implications of gene editing and what does it entail ...
Nov 11, 2020•1 hr 15 min•Ep. 352
The U.S. Election is finally, it appears, over. It looks as if Joe Biden is the next President Elect of the United States and that Donald Trump and his will be out of the White House by 2021. Kamala Harris will join Joe Biden in the White House as Vice President replacing Mike Pence. Democrats are celebrating in the streets over the victory, believing it represents the defeat of a 21st century fascist threat, while Trump and his supporters accuse the election of being rigged through a voter frau...
Nov 09, 2020•1 hr 27 min•Ep. 350
I thought this episode would be interesting as we get through the election process this year. Enjoy! - J.G. On this edition of Parallax Views, much has been made about the role of money in the outcomes of political elections, at least within . In academic disciplines, however, this has often been seen as heresy. In fact, some view it as nothing more than conspiracy theory. And, truth be told, it would likely be overly simplistic to argue that a small handful of shadowy individuals select the two...
Nov 05, 2020•1 hr 2 min•Ep. 349
On this edition of Parallax Views, Morris Kight was a radical antiwar, civil rights, and labor activist, but he's probably most remembered today as a gay rights icon. "Wait," you may be saying, "I've heard of Harvey Milk. I've heard of RuPaul. But I've never heard of Morris Kight." No, folks, I'm not exagerrating. Morris Kight had a long and storied life as an activist, especially within the burgeoning LGBTQ community, on the West Coast during the 20th century. So who was Morris Kight and why is...
Nov 02, 2020•45 sec•Ep. 348
For the penultimate episode of our Parallax Views Halloween series, John Cussans joins us to discuss his book Undead Uprising: Haiti, Horror, and the Zombie Complex . Believe it or not, the zombie wasn't always simply a figure of flesh-ripping, brain eating apocalyptical disease and undead horror. The zombie begins as a figure within Haitian folklore and Voodoo (Voudon) before eventually coming to Western pop culture. John argues that the zombie's migration to the West was underpinned by white W...
Oct 31, 2020•1 hr 56 min•Ep. 346
For the Devil's Night edition of the Parallax Views countdown to Halloween we delve into the real history of the New Jersey Devil myth and how it connects to today's problem fake news. Joining us to unravel the story is Prof. Brian Regal, co-author with Frank J. Esposito of The Secret History of the Jersey Devil: How Quakers, Hucksters, and Benjamin Franklin Created a Monster . In this fascinating book Regal and Esposito argue the the tale of the Jersey Devil, the hideous, pegasus-like, cursed "...
Oct 30, 2020•1 hr 33 min•Ep. 345
On this bonus edition of Parallax Views we take a break from our Halloween series to chat about getting out the vote w/ filmmakers Angela Barnes (formerly Angela Gomes) and Paul Fox. In case your unfamiliar, Angela and Paul are the creators of the "Get Your Booty to Poll" Public Service Announcement that employed pole dancers and strippers to explain the importance of voting, specifically in local elections, in Atlanta. Targeted towards Atlanta's potential black male voters, "Get Your Booty to t...
Oct 29, 2020•46 min•Ep. 347
The Parallax Views Halloween special continues as we talk to a filmmaker who has been bringing together social issues, specifically racism, and horror together years before Jordan Peele's Get Out and Us . Pittsburgh-native Rusty Cundieff has directed episode of of Chappelle's Show , acted as a correspondent on Michael Moore's TV Nation , acted in Spike Lee's School Daze , and helmed the hip hop mockumentary Fear of a Black Hat . But he is perhaps best known for his 1995 horror anthology Tales fr...
Oct 29, 2020•1 hr 29 min•Ep. 344
The count to Halloween continues as Parallax Views celebrates the ladies of horror movies otherwise known as "Scream Queens"! From Janet Leigh in Psycho to her daughter Jamie Lee Curtis in Halloween, a variety of actresses have appeared in scary movies over the years and made the role of women in horror a pivotal one to say the least. And, often times, the "Scream Queens" aren't just relegated to using their well-known superpowered lungs. Indeed many a horror film has featured females who fight ...
Oct 28, 2020•1 hr 46 min•Ep. 339
With only a few days left till Halloween, we continue the #ParallaxViewsHalloweenMassacre by turning our attention the urban legend/creepypasta mash-up known as Polybius. According to internet a strange video game, known as Polybius, briefly popped up around arcades in or near Portland, Oregon during the height of arcade-mania in the 1980s. Allegedly the game cause strange, spooky side effect including being highly addictive, causing physical illness, and psychological impacts leading to outcome...
Oct 27, 2020•1 hr 36 min•Ep. 343
The Parallax Views countdown to Halloween continues as we revisit the life and times of the actor most associated with Count Dracula, Bela Lugosi, w/ the world's foremost Bela Lugosi scholar Gary D. Rhodes. Previously joined us to discuss Lugosi's cinematic career from his runaway success and rise to superstardom courtesy the Universal Studios classic Tod Browning's Dracula (1931) to his later years appearing in the notorious films of the infamous Ed Wood such as Plan 9 from Outer Space (1959) a...
Oct 27, 2020•45 sec•Ep. 335
The Parallax Views #HalloweenPodcastMassacre continues as we turn our attention to the horror movies archetypal villain: the boogeyman. The cinematic boogeyman that haunt our nightmares comes in a variety of forms from classic monsters like Frankenstein's Creature, the Wolf Man, and Dracula to fictional serial killers (often with a supernatural twist!) like Michael Myers, Jason Voorhees, and Freddy Krueger. And they come in all shapes and sizes too from gigantic beasts like Godzilla and King Kon...
Oct 25, 2020•1 hr 25 min•Ep. 342
The Parallax Views #HalloweenPodcastMassacre continues as the 13 O'Clock Podcast's Jenny Ashford returns to discuss her new game design venture Giallo Games, based on the 70 Italian horror/thriller movies of the 60s-80s, and spooky cases from her three volume book series The Faceless Villain: A Collection of the Eeriest Unsolved Murders of the 20th Century . We begin the discussion by talking about horror movies and Jenny's various board games based on giallos, or Italian murder mystery thriller...
Oct 23, 2020•1 hr 46 min•Ep. 340
On this edition of Parallax Views' #HalloweenPodcastMassacreSeries, "The Historian of the Strange" Robert Damon Schneck shares with us macabre and ghoulish tales of autoerotic asphyxiation, man in black attacks, homicidal preachers, and... bigfoot porn? Robert Damon Schneck is the author of The President's Vampire: Strange-but-True Tales of the United States of America (later re-issued as The Bye Bye Man: And Other Strange-but-True Tales) and Mrs. Wakeman Vs. the Antichrist: And Other Strange-bu...
Oct 21, 2020•2 hr 16 min•Ep. 341
The Parallax Views #HalloweenPodcastMassacre continues as we delve into the infamously mysterious disappearance of a young woman at a scandalous hotel with journalist Jake Anderson, author of Gone at Midnight: The Mysterious Death of Elisa Lam . For the unfamiliar, Elisa Lam, a Canadian student with a history of mental health struggles, disappeared while visiting L.A. in January 2013. Lam was staying at the Cecil Hotel near L.A.'s skid row that has a very seedy history of scandals, suicides, and...
Oct 19, 2020•1 hr 18 min•Ep. 337
Parallax Views initiates the #HalloweenPodcastMassacre, a series of episodes devoted to celebrating the Halloween season, by highlighting the brand new horror movie The Good Things Devils Do, a wild ride of gory vampire hijinks set appropriately on All Hallows' Eve, with the film's director Jess Norvisgaard and director of photography James Suttles. Boasting a a cast headlined by a trio of horror icons in the form of the Emmy Award and Lon Chaney Award-winning Bill Oberst Jr., scream queen Linne...
Oct 18, 2020•1 hr 18 min•Ep. 336
On this edition of Parallax Views, much has been made of the religious right's political power in America, especially in light of President Donald Trump's nomination of the ultra-conservative Amy Coney Barrett to fill the seat of the recently deceased Ruth Bader Ginsburg in the Supreme Court. Ginsburg along with Trump administration officials like Attorney General Bill Barr have a great deal of support coming from the religious right or what has alternately been called Christian Nationalist. Joi...
Oct 16, 2020•1 hr 14 min•Ep. 338
On this edition of Parallax Views, it's often been said that U.S. war in the Middle East are fought not to protect America from Weapons of Massa Destruction, terrorist threats, or to spread democracy but rather for the cynical purpose of gaining access to natural resources, specifically crude oil. "No more blood for oil!" cried many an antiwar protester and pro-peace activist during the the George W. Bush administration's Iraq War debacle. But Robert Vitalis, a Professor of Political Science at ...
Oct 14, 2020•1 hr 11 min•Ep. 334
On this edition of Parallax Views, how did we get to this moment of social uprisings and the repressive states, represented by ICE immigration detention centers and rising authoritarianism around the globe, that color the present? Sociologist William I. Robinson provides a theoretical framework for understanding how 21st century tumult came to be in his new book The Global Police State . Robinson argues that we are living in a world in which rapidly accelerating economic inequality have led the ...
Oct 12, 2020•1 hr 10 min•Ep. 333
On this edition of Parallax Views, the Weather Underground have been variously described, depending on one's perspective, as radical activists who opposed the Vietnam War or, more pejoratively, terrorists. Bill Ayers was one of the leaders of the Weather Underground in those tumultuous days and has written about his experiences in his memoir Fugitive Days . He joins us on this edition of Parallax Views to discuss his time with the Weather Underground, why certain factions of the antiwar movement...
Oct 10, 2020•1 hr 10 min•Ep. 332
In light of John McAfee recently being detained in Spain and facing charges leveled at him by the United State IRS we present this interview w/ McAfee that may serve to shed light on his psyche. On this edition of Parallax Views, an equal parts wild and tense conversation with the founder of McAfee associates (the creators of McAfee Antivirus), bitcoin bull, Presidential candidate, international fugitive, and person of interest in the Belize murder of Gregory Faull, John McAfee. Joining me to he...
Oct 09, 2020•45 sec•Ep. 331
On this edition of Parallax Views, the ultra-conservative Catholic order Opus Dei has come under scrutiny due to the nomination of the devout Catholic Amy Coney Barrett to the Supreme Court after the passing Ruth Bader Ginsburg, Although Barrett is connected to similar order known as the People of Praise, Opus Dei has come up due to the connections of Attorney General Bill Barr and The Federalist Society's Leonard Leo, the latter of whom is a board members of the Opus Dei's Catholic Information ...
Oct 07, 2020•1 hr 24 min•Ep. 329
On this edition of Parallax Views, Robbie Martin of Media Roots joins us to discuss his recent podcast series on the history of Freemasonry in America as well as his thoughts on the QAnon phenomena. In Robbie's estimation, QAnon seems to be a political, or perhaps even intelligence, operation. But to what end? Find out on this edition of Parallax Views! Among the topics covered: - Is the history of Freemasonry in the U.S. is more interesting than the sensationalist interpretations of Masonic fig...
Oct 05, 2020•1 hr•Ep. 328
On this edition of Parallax Views, sometimes it is necessary to examine the historical past to understand our present. For example, the current moment of rapidly increasing economic inequality that has colored the opening salvo of the 21st century appears to have a great deal in common with the "The Gilded Age" of the 19th and 20th centuries. Pulitzer Prize winning journalist Michael Hiltzik, author of Iron Empires: Robbers Barons, Railroads, and the Making of Modern America , joins us on this e...
Oct 05, 2020•1 hr 10 min•Ep. 327
On this edition of Parallax Views, we welcome a guest that has an inside track within the beltway. Namely, Ret. Col. Lawrence B. Wilkerson. For the unfamiliar, Col. Wilkerson served as the Chief of Staff under Secretary of State Colin Powell during the George W. Bush administration. He also served 31 years in the U.S. army and teaches as an adjunct professor of government and public policy at the College of William & Mary. Since retiring from the military Wilkerson has been an outspoken crit...
Oct 02, 2020•44 min•Ep. 326
On this edition of Parallax Views, 2016 Green Party Presidential Candidate Jill Stein is trending on social media after Ruth Bader Ginsberg's passing as many claim she acted as a "spoiler" against Hillary Clinton. As a result, they argue, Donald Trump will now be able to nominate another conservative Justice into the Supreme Court. Meanwhile, the Green Party continues to run the own Presidential campaign with Howie Hawkins and his Vice Presidential candidate Angela Walker. Walker joins us on thi...
Sep 30, 2020•39 min•Ep. 324
On this edition of Parallax Views, we revisit the subject of Steve Bannon, who was recently arrested along with his business partners Andrew Badolato, Brian Kolfage, and Timothy Shea were arrested on charges related to fraudulent skullduggery in relation to their "We Build the Wall" campaign. In this conversation we turn away from the legal controversies to discuss the ideas that undergird Bannon's thinking. Many journalists, including previous Parallax Views guest Jean Guerrero, believe that Ba...
Sep 28, 2020•1 hr 15 min•Ep. 315
On this edition of Parallax Views, much has been made of the scandal-ridden Presidency of Donald Trump. But how deep does the rabbit hole go and do the sordid saga of Donald Trump have a prequel in the form of his time as celebrity businessman? For 30 years, Pulitzer Prize winning investigative journalist David Cay Johnston of the DCReport (and author of the books The Making of Donald Trump and It's Even Worse Than You Think has been on what could be called the "Trump Beat". He joins us on this ...
Sep 26, 2020•1 hr 9 min•Ep. 321
