Podcast Roundup May 2024

Here are a handful of podcast episodes that have touched me recently.

Illustration by Damien Linnane

"What's Up, Michael Freeman?" from Ear Hustle (S13, E02) - Ear Hustle has been spending a lot of time discussing the aging of the prison population in recent seasons and this episode was all about a hospice facility in a California prison. It was so sad and so hopeful and made me feel all the feels. 

"In the World of Medicine, Race-Based Diagnoses Are More than Skin Deep" and "Who Does Language Belong To? A Fight Over the Lakota Language" from Code Switch 

Maya recommended the first of these episodes in my last podcast roundup and I am so grateful to her for that recommendation. Basically, we have these heuristics about health and race (black people are more susceptible to sickle cell disease, Hispanic kids get asthma more often, etc.), but that those heuristics are often wrong or based on outdated information. Furthermore, doctors learn these shortcuts and often rely on them to the point of forgetting that there are other diagnoses out there for people of color, leading to delays in treatment. Super interesting and worth a listen.

The episode about the Lakota language is also really interesting. The language is slowly becoming extinct as the average speaker is over seventy years old. There's infighting about who should have the rights to the dictionary and recordings of elders speaking the language. It's honestly too bad because it's possible that infighting will prevent a new generation from learning the language and will further fracture the Lakota peoples. 

"Oregon's Drug Decriminalization Experiment" from Fresh Air - I have so many questions about why drug decriminalization doesn't work in the US and this podcast episode convinced me that it's because we don't have proper treatment facilities for mental illness or substance abuse. We don't have safe injection sites, we don't have resources for homeless people, and it all means that this is a mess. *sigh*

"Towers of Silence" from 99% Invisible - A heartbreaking story about the effects of climate change, human intervention in the natural world, and how it has impacted an important religious practice that has been going on for centuries. I listened to this on a long road trip and can still remember just what desolate part of the interstate I was on while I was listening. Haunting.

"We Regret to Inform You" from Reveal - When law enforcement officials go to tell relatives that their loved ones have died, they sometimes use that time to gather evidence. This episode discusses how this practice came to be and the ethics of what's going on during death notifications. I found the whole thing incredibly upsetting.

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What's the best thing you've listened to recently?