Access Utah

On Thursday's Access Utah, Richard White, Stanford University historian and lecturer, joins us to talk about the transcontinental railroad’s impact on Utah’s environment, culture and political atmosphere. We preview his talk Thursday, Sept. 19, at 7 p.m., at the Logan Tabernacle as part of Utah State University Libraries’ 25th annual Leonard J. Arrington Mormon History Lecture.

On this pledge drive edition of Access Utah, we're joined by Dean Joseph Ward of the College of Humanities and Social Sciences at USU. We’ll feature segments from our conversations with Nathan Richardson and Renée-Noelle Felice, Jeannie Johnson, and a conversation on community trauma and resilience.

There are few remaining frontiers on our planet. But perhaps the wildest, and least understood, are the world’s oceans: too big to police, and under no clear international authority, these immense regions of treacherous water play host to rampant criminality and exploitation.Traffickers and smugglers, pirates and mercenaries, wreck thieves and repo men, vigilante conservationists and elusive poachers, seabound abortion providers, clandestine oil-dumpers, shackled slaves and cast-adrift stowaways — drawing on five years of perilous and intrepid reporting, often hundreds of miles from shore, Ian Urbina introduces us to the inhabitants of this hidden world. Through their stories of astonishing courage and brutality, survival and tragedy, he uncovers a globe-spanning network of crime and exploitation that emanates from the fishing, oil and shipping industries, and on which the world’s economies rely.

On Monday's Access Utah, we preview an Ethics Slam: an event modeled around a Poetry Slam in the sense that it occurs in a community space and it is open mic. Members of the community are asked to share their thoughts in a civil, respectful manner about a pressing social issue. This slam will focus on responding to climate change. The event takes place on Monday, September 9th at 7:00 p.m at Lucky Slice pizza in Logan.

Legend Tripping: A Contemporary Legend Casebook explores the practice of legend tripping, wherein individuals or groups travel to a site where a legend is thought to have taken place. Legend tripping is a common informal practice depicted in epics, stories, novels, and film throughout both contemporary and historical vernacular culture. In this collection, contributors show how legend trips can express humanity’s interest in the frontier between life and death and the fascination with the possibility of personal contact with the supernatural or spiritual. The volume presents both insightful research and useful pedagogy, making this an invaluable resource in the classroom. Selected major articles on legend tripping, with introductory sections written by the editors, are followed by discussion questions and projects designed to inspire readers to engage critically with legend traditions and customs of legend tripping and to explore possible meanings and symbolics at work. Suggested projects incorporate digital

You’re riding in your self-driving car when suddenly the doors lock, the route changes and you have lost all control. Then, a mysterious voice tells you, “You are going to die.”

Utah State University is joining the nation and state in celebrating significant voting rights anniversaries in 2020: the 150th anniversary of suffrage for Utah women; the 100th anniversary of women’s suffrage in the United States; and the 55th anniversary of the Voting Rights Act. As the university honors these important milestones in our history, and as part of those celebrations, Utah State University also declares this the Year of the Woman.

“Northern Indigenous Crees were native to Montana and the northern Plains long before the US-Canada border divided the region. But bisected by the line, Crees became asylum-seekers on their own lands 150 years ago. Though some were granted political refugee status, Crees were still denied basic rights. Instead, many were killed, ignored and deported on both sides of the border. … The Chippewa Cree story is little-known outside the tribe, but it echoes the uncertainty in the immigration crises the US faces today.”

Activists battling climate change, a former child soldier and health workers pioneering new treatments around the world are among thousands of participants who will gather in Salt Lake City, Utah, from 26 to 28 August at the sixty-eighth annual United Nations Civil Society Conference for a global conversation on building inclusive and sustainable cities and communities. More information on the conference can be found here.

Yoga is growing in popularity in the U.S. There were 36 million practitioners (or ~9% of the population) in 2016, up from 20.4 million in 2012, and 28% of Americans have participated in a yoga class at some point in their lives. (Yoga Journal 2016 U.S. Market Research Study). We’ll talk about Yoga, past, present and future on Tuesday’s Access Utah. Our guests include Emily Perry, Director of Yoga Studies at USU; Chantel Gerfen, Owner of Transcend Yoga Studio in Logan; Jennifer Sinor, USU Professor of English, who has been practicing yoga for ~20 years; and Michael Sowder, Poet, USU Professor of English, and affiliated faculty member in USU’s Religious Studies Program and its Yoga Studies Program, where he teaches a course on the History of Yoga.

A terminal cancer patient rises from the grave. A medical marvel defies HIV. Two women with autoimmunity discover their own bodies have turned against them. Matt Richtel's An Elegant Defense uniquely entwines these intimate stories with science's centuries-long quest to unlock the mysteries of sickness and health, and illuminates the immune system as never before.

There is much to fear in the dark corners of cyberspace. From well-covered stories like the Stuxnet attack which helped slow Iran’s nuclear program, to lesser-known tales like EternalBlue, the 2017 cyber battle that closed hospitals in Britain and froze shipping crates in Germany in midair, we have entered an age in which online threats carry real-world consequences. But we do not have to let autocrats and criminals run amok in the digital realm. We now know a great deal about how to make cyberspace far less dangerous–and about how to defend our security, economy, democracy, and privacy from cyber attack.

Nearly every US city would like to be more walkable—for reasons of health, wealth, and the environment—yet few are taking the proper steps to get there. The goals are often clear, but the path is seldom easy. Jeff Speck’s follow-up to his bestselling Walkable City is the resource that cities and citizens need to usher in an era of renewed street life. Walkable City Rules is a doer’s guide to making change in cities, and making it now.

One beautiful September day, three men convene on Martha’s Vineyard, friends ever since meeting in college circa the sixties. They couldn’t have been more different then, or even today–Lincoln’s a commercial real estate broker, Teddy a tiny-press publisher, and Mickey a musician beyond his rockin’ age. But each man holds his own secrets, in addition to the monumental mystery that none of them has ever stopped puzzling over since a Memorial Day weekend right here on the Vineyard in 1971: the disappearance of the woman each of them loved–Jacy Calloway. Now, more than forty years later, as this new weekend unfolds, three lives are displayed in their entirety while the distant past confounds the present like a relentless squall of surprise and discovery. Shot through with Russo’s trademark comedy and humanity, Chances Are . . . also introduces a new level of suspense and menace that will quicken the reader’s heartbeat throughout this absorbing saga of how friendship’s bonds are every bit as constricting and rewar

In May, a 5-year-old girl, Elizabeth “Lizzie” Shelley, went missing in Logan. Many in the community got involved in the search. Most in the community sent their thoughts and prayers for the safe return of the girl. Then Lizzie’s body was found and an uncle is charged in her death. This was and is a community experience. A community trauma. Our communities suffer trauma on a frequent basis, recent mass shootings are examples. How does a community heal from such trauma? How does a community become resilient?

Why was gin and tonic the cocktail of choice for British colonists in India and Africa? What does Starbucks have to thank for its global domination? What has protected the lives of popes for millennia? Why did Scotland surrender its sovereignty to England? What was George Washington’s secret weapon during the American Revolution? The answer to all these questions, and many more, is the mosquito. Across our planet since the dawn of humankind, this nefarious pest, roughly the size and weight of a grape seed, has been at the frontlines of history as the grim reaper, the harvester of human populations, and the ultimate agent of historical change. As the mosquito transformed the landscapes of civilization, humans were unwittingly required to respond to its piercing impact and universal projection of power. The mosquito has determined the fates of empires and nations, razed and crippled economies, and decided the outcome of pivotal wars, killing nearly half of humanity along the way. She (only females bite) has dis

On her 120-acre homestead high in the Colorado Rockies, beloved writer Pam Houston learns what it means to care for a piece of land and the creatures on it. Elk calves and bluebirds mark the changing seasons, winter temperatures drop to 35 below, and lightning sparks a 110,000-acre wildfire, threatening her century-old barn and all its inhabitants. Through her travels from the Gulf of Mexico to Alaska, she explores what ties her to the earth, the ranch most of all. Alongside her devoted Irish wolfhounds and a spirited troupe of horses, donkeys, and Icelandic sheep, the ranch becomes Houston’s sanctuary, a place where she discovers how the natural world has mothered and healed her after a childhood of horrific parental abuse and neglect.

Through the technology embedded in almost every major tech platform and every web-enabled device, algorithms and the artificial intelligence that underlies them make a staggering number of everyday decisions for us, from what products we buy, to where we decide to eat, to how we consume our news, to whom we date, and how we find a job. We’ve even delegated life-and-death decisions to algorithms–decisions once made by doctors, pilots, and judges. In his new book, Kartik Hosanagar surveys the brave new world of algorithmic decision-making and reveals the potentially dangerous biases they can give rise to as they increasingly run our lives. He makes the compelling case that we need to arm ourselves with a better, deeper, more nuanced understanding of the phenomenon of algorithmic thinking. And he gives us a route in, pointing out that algorithms often think a lot like their creators–that is, like you and me.

From the tempestuous fight for statehood to the evolution of Utah voters from Democrats to Republicans, Rod Decker analyzes the intersection of politics and faith in the complex political culture of modern Utah. Beginning with the state’s roots as a communal theocracy, Utah Politics deftly examines how Mormon morality influenced and continues to shape conflicts on both the local and federal levels.

Here is the opening passage from Angelica Shirley Carpenter’s book “Born Criminal: Matilda Joslyn Gage, Radical Suffragist:”