Elizabeth

Hi. Things are a bit different at Kairoticast today.

We don’t have a full episode for you today because I, Elizabeth, had to take a mental health day in the middle of our usual recording time.

But we thought that would give us a minute to talk about mental health and how important that is.

There is a stigma around mental health, and we all know it. But if you don’t take care of your mind and your emotions there is simply no way to function in a healthy, efficient, productive way – not in the long run. [Read More]

We had the NYT story on Trump’s taxes (which seems like a lifetime ago, if you even remember that), in which we discovered that the President payed $750 dollars in taxes one year on all of his wealth. That struck a number of people as….unfair, to say the least. Then there was the quote/unquote debate. That was the worst hour and a half of politics I have ever witnessed. And anything that gives the Proud Boys and new motto is a bad thing. That’s just facts. Then there was Melania Trump’s tirade about children at the border and Christmas, which in comparison to other things doesn’t seem to rank real high but was a news story for about two minutes. And then the news story to top all stories hit us on Thursday – The President has COVID. And the world was thrown into turmoil. [Read More]

It’s a strange phenomenon where women climb the ranks of a man’s world and instead of trying to make the stage a little friendlier for women, they re-affirm all those things that make the world hostile to women. People have varying theories for this – internalized misogyny, or a desire for individualized, unique power, but it’s a phenomenon we see in the corporate world, the world, of entertainment, the legal world, and the political world. And as long as women are going to throw other women under the bus progress is going to be slow. I’m going to call this the Schlafly Phenomenon. [Read More]

Ruth Bader Ginsburg died at the age of 87 on Friday, September 25th. The shockwave this sent through the political sphere was immediate and cannot be overstated. Justice Ginsburg had become an icon in the last decade. As the leading liberal voice on the Supreme Court she had, in many people’s minds, become the leading protector of women’s rights, the rights of People of Color, and the LGBTQ community. In her many opinions and dissents she had been the voice of the marginalized and the long-oppressed and stood up to an increasingly powerful conservative movement that was etching away at voting rights, women’s rights, and was trying to stop the march of gay and trans rights that was sweeping the nation. [Read More]

We have been talking a lot about education recently, both in public and on this podcast. It’s a pretty hot topic. I know I am probably more immersed in these conversations than many people because I work in higher education, but there is no denying the fact that schools are on a lot of people’s minds right now. We’re worried about schools opening because of the spread of COVID. We’re worried about schools NOT opening because of pressure on parents, the economy, and the damage that could do to our kids. We’re worried about both of these things because this is causing us to come together to question what is education and what is the best way to do it? We have realized that education is more than just the transference of knowledge – the education system is the backbone of our economy and in many ways, our society. [Read More]