Access Utah

George Hirthler’s new historical novel, “The Idealist,” is the inspiring and tragic story of Baron Pierre de Coubertin, the French visionary who founded the modern Olympic Games. When the novel opens in early 1937, Coubertin is 74, he's broke, his health is failing, and although he has created one of the most influential international movements of the 20th century, he is completely unknown outside a small circle of admirers, whose financial help he has repeatedly declined. His wife can hardly withhold her bitter animosity, his son is an insensate abyss of sadness, his daughter in and out of touch with reality, and his great creation is about to fall into the hands of a Nazi madman leading the world to war. But hope begins to rise again when a new ally appears.

This extraordinary campaign season got more so over the weekend. What is your reaction to Donald Trump’s comments from 2005? And Utah Republican’s and some national Republican’s repudiation of their presidential nominee? What did you think of the debate? What is on the top of your mind as you get ready to vote? Cache County Libertarian Party Chair, Jonathan Choate of SD7 Technologies in Logan joins us for the hour.

When San Francisco 49ers quarterback Colin Kaepernick took a knee during the national anthem, he sparked a vigorous national conversation about Race, Police, Patriotism, Free Speech and other issues. We’re going to continue that conversation next time on Access Utah. We’ll be talking with Forrest Crawford, Professor of Teacher Education and former Assistant to the President for Institutional Diversity at Weber State University; and Jason Gilmore, Assistant Professor of Global Communication at Utah State University.

On April 20, 2010, a blast aboard the Deepwater Horizon offshore oil platform killed 11 workers, critically injured others and caused a leak that spilled thousands of barrels of oil into the Gulf of Mexico for more than three months. The Deepwater Horizon, one of worst environmental disasters in history, is now the subject of a pulse-pounding new movie. Historian and archaeologist, USU Professor of Environment and Society, Joseph Tainter will watch the film with special interest. He is author, with Tadeusz “Tad” Patzek of University of Texas-Austin, of “Drilling Down: The Gulf Oil Debacle and Our Energy Dilemma.” Tainter, also author of the influential book “The Collapse of Complex Societies,” says “It takes energy to find and produce energy and the world’s remaining, untapped petroleum reserves are in deep, dark, cold, remote and dangerous locations...Energy is becoming very costly in terms of resources, safety and environmental health.”

Charles Bock's daughter was 5 months old when his wife was diagnosed with acute myeloid leukemia. His wife died two and a half years later, just before their daughter's third birthday. Charles Bock has written a new novel that's based on that experience. It’s titled "Alice & Oliver."

Mark Twain, the highest-paid writer in America in 1894, was also one of the nation’s worst investors. “There are two times in a man’s life when he should not speculate,” he wrote. “When he can’t afford it and when he can.” After losing hundreds of thousands of dollars back when a beer cost a nickel, he found himself neck-deep in debt. His heiress wife, Livy, took the setback hard. She wrote, “I cannot get away from the feeling that business failure means disgrace.” Twain vowed to Livy he would pay back every penny. So, just when he imagined he would be settling into literary lionhood, he forced himself to mount the “platform” again. He did what no author had ever done, he embarked on a round-the-world stand-up comedy tour. Richard Zacks’ book “Chasing the Last Laugh,” chronicles this poignant chapter in Mark Twain’s life.

We’re going to talk about I.Q. v. E.Q. USU professors Jacob Freeman and Jacopo Baggio, along with UT-San Antonio professor Thomas Coyle, are studying the dynamics of nerds and poets. They want to understand the best brew of nerdiness and sensitivity to create teams that get things done. How can people work better together and why do some groups work well under pressure and some groups don’t? Professors Freeman and Baggio will join us to discuss the differences between I.Q. and emotional and social intelligence. They say that researching how different intelligences work together is especially important in a high-stakes world where natural resources are diminishing rapidly.

Nicholas Carr started his blog “Rough Type” in 2005, when MySpace was a fast-growing social networking site and Facebook was a Palo Alto startup. Now in his book “Utopia Is Creepy and Other Provocations,” he has collected the best of those posts and added influential essays such as “Is Google Making Us Stupid?” and “Life, Liberty, and the Pursuit of Privacy,” which were published in such magazines and sites as The Atlantic, the Wall Street Journal, and Politico. Carr’s favorite targets are zealots who believe so fervently in computers and data that they abandon common sense. Cheap digital tools, he says, do not make us all the next Fellini or Dylan. Social networks are not vehicles for self-enlightenment. And “likes” and retweets are not going to elevate political discourse.

Philo T. Farnsworth (1906–1971) has been called the "forgotten father of television." He grew up in Utah and southern Idaho, and was described as a genius by those who knew and worked with him. With only a high school education, Farnsworth drew his first television schematic for his high school teacher in Rigby, Idaho. Subsequent claims and litigation notwithstanding, he was the first to transmit a television image.

The abduction of Elizabeth Smart was one of the most followed child abduction cases of our time.

On Wednesday’s Access Utah our guest for the hour is Tershia d’Elgin, author of “The Man Who Thought He Owned Water: On the Brink with American Farms, Cities, and Food” (University Press of Colorado).

“Women talk more than men. Text messaging makes you stupid. Chimpanzees have language, just like humans. These are some of the most popular ideas about language that many people think are true. Rumor also has it that men are more direct in their use of language than women; women speak more correctly than men; being bilingual makes you smarter; and the most beautiful language in the world is French. But a myth-busting new study of how language really works is set to blow the lid off conventional wisdom on everything from linguistic sex differences to the impact of technology on language.”

New York, 1888. The miracle of electric light is in its infancy. Thomas Edison has won the race to the patent office and is suing his only remaining rival, George Westinghouse, for the unheard of sum of one billion dollars. To defend himself, Westinghouse makes a surprising choice in his attorney: He hires an untested twenty-six-year-old fresh out of Columbia Law School named Paul Cravath.

On Thursday's Access Utah, we revisit portions of our favorite episodes on race issues in America. We feature a discussion with Nikole Hannah Jones, talking about her book "A Letter From Black America," a segment from our episode on Black Lives Matter, and a conversation with author Sherman Alexie. Utah State University professor Jason Gilmore joined us in studio for the conversations.

On Wednesday's Access Utah, we revisit portions of our favorite book and author episodes. We feature a discussion with Laurel Thatcher Ulrich, talking about her book "Well-Behaved Women Seldom Make History"; a segment from our episode on with Scott Hammond discussing his book "Lessons of the Lost" and a conversation with listeners from an episode featuring Ron Chernow and his book "Hamilton," which inspired the musical "Hamilton."

On Monday's Access Utah, we revisit portions of our favorite "fun" episodes. We feature a discussion with USU Philosophy Professor Charlie Huenemann, talking about "the perfect language;" a segment from our episode on fandom and what fans own, and a conversation with award winning musician Rita Moreno.

The Utah Utes and BYU Cougars prepare to meet up at Rice-Eccles Stadium for the big rivalry game. Rep. Jason Chaffetz calls for another investigation into Hillary Clinton's deleted emails. Democratic gubernatorial candidate Mike Weinholtz addresses accusations of religious bigotry regarding a campaign fundraiser. And the summer's algal blooms prompt a deeper look into Utah's water quality and treatment.

From Epicurus to Sam Cooke, the Daily News to Roots, Gregory Pardlo’s collection “Digest” draws from the present and the past to form an intellectual, American identity. In poems that forge their own styles and strategies, we experience dialogues between the written word and other art forms. Within this dialogue we hear Ben Jonson, we meet police K-9s, and we find children negotiating a sense of the world through a father’s eyes and through their own.

Seventy percent of Americans say they would prefer to die at home, but nearly 70 percent die in hospitals and institutions. Ninety percent of Americans know they should have conversations about end-of-life care, yet only 30 percent have done so.

Mormonism is one of the few homegrown religions in the United States, one that emerged out of the religious fervor of the early nineteenth century. Yet, members of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints have struggled for status and recognition. In his book, “Religion of a Different Color,” W. Paul Reeve explores the ways in which nineteenth century Protestant white America made outsiders out of an inside religious group. Much of what has been written on Mormon otherness centers upon economic, cultural, doctrinal, marital, and political differences that set Mormons apart from mainstream America. Reeve instead looks at how Protestants radicalized Mormons, using physical differences in order to define Mormons as non-White to help justify their expulsion from Ohio, Missouri, and Illinois.