High Uintas Mountaineering, Go Set a Watchman

Guest: Quinn Mecham is a professor of political science at BYU. His research focuses on political mobilization in the Islamic world and he joins us monthly with perspective on important international news events worth taking time to consider.  World news is TOP OF MIND today, as we welcome BYU political science professor Quinn Mecham back for his monthly analysis of three international events we should be paying attention to.

Guest: Cordell Andersen has been working on his High Uintas Wilderness Project for the last 13 years. You can follow his progress on his blog.  When you picture your retirement, where do you see yourself? On a beach? In a condo where you don’t have any yard work? Traveling the world? How about backpacking alone for weeks at a time? That’s how Cordell Andersen is spending his golden years. It’s a dream he envisioned as a teenager—documenting with his camera every corner of the High Uintas Wilderness Area of northeastern Utah. He shares his findings on a blog and has become something of a celebrity among outdoor enthusiasts here in Utah.

Guest: Melissa Sevy is the Founder and Executive Director of Musana International. You can find out more about Musana here.   A company called Musana International employs Ugandan women to make unique jewelry sold online and marketed through pretty pictures on Instagram and elsewhere.

Guest: Ranjana Mehta, a professor of Environmental and Occupational Health at Texas A&M University speaks with student producer James Perkins about the link between mental fatigue and muscle strength.  When your brain’s stressed, your body is too. Normally, we think about fatigue as a purely physical problem, but research from Texas A&M has shown that there’s a correlation between trying to perform mental tasks and your physical endurance. The more occupied your mind is, the more fatigued your muscles become. Student producer James Perkins spoke about this correlation with Ranjana Metha, a professor of environmental and occupational health at Texas A&M.

Guest: Dr. Chris Crowe is a professor of English at Brigham Young University. He writes historical fiction and biography for both young adult and adult audiences. His latest book is Death Coming Up the Hill, the story of a young man’s coming to terms with the Vietnam War.  The common refrain of readers and critics over the last week, seems to have been “Say it isn’t so, Atticus! Say it isn’t so!” They’ve bemoaned the newly revealed racism of a beloved literary hero, Atticus Finch. Harper Lee’s long-lost manuscript for Go Set a Watchman, has been marketed as a sequel to the classic To Kill a Mockingbird. Harper Collins sold more than a million copies in the first week – making it the publisher’s fastest-selling book ever.