Venezuela Democracy, Gardening Heals Trauma, YA Romance

Guest: Laura Gamboa-Gutierrez, PhD, Professor of Political Science, Utah State University The escalating crisis in Venezuela is Top of Mind today. For more than three months now, there have been almost daily clashes in the streets between protesters and security forces in Venezuela. At least 85 people have died, more than a thousand injured as Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro tries to crack down on protests against him. Last week, an armed group of Maduro’s supporters stormed the National Assembly and beat up some of his fiercest critics. Once one of the wealthiest and most stable democracies in Latin America, Venezuela is now in economic shambles and sliding quickly toward dictatorship. What role could the US play in aiding the Venezuelan people?

Guest: Claire Renzetti, PhD, Chair and Professor of Sociology, University of Kentucky This time of year, many of us head into the garden to clear our heads after a long day at work or to unwind over the weekend. Well, a women’s shelter in Kentucky taps into this therapeutic benefit of gardening to help heal deep trauma and pain experienced by victims of domestic violence. The directors of the shelter, named GreenHouse17, have recently teamed up with researchers at the University of Kentucky to study how weeding, pruning and gather bouquets of flowers help survivors heal from trauma.

Guest: Hyowon Gweon, PhD, Assistant Professor of Psychology, Stanford University America is having a crisis of critical thinking. We’re too easily fooled by fake news stories we read online. We’re way too inclined to believe information only from sources we already agree with and to discount anything that doesn’t jive with our preferred understanding of the world. This problem goes all the way to our nation’s top leaders.   So it’s comforting to learn from some new research out of Stanford that it doesn’t have to be this way. Even kids as young as four know the difference between “the whole truth” and just some of the truth. Maybe harnessing that ability is the key to raising a generation that really can think critically about the information they’re given.

Guest: Drew Yanno, Screenwriter, Former Professor of Film at Boston College, Author of “The 3rd Act” and thriller "The Smart One" Think about the ending to a movie you saw recently. Did you like it? Did it ruin the rest of the film for you? It’s amazing how vehemently people can talk about the somewhat sad, somewhat happy, ending of the recent film “LA LA Land.” People feel very strongly about movie endings. As they well should, says Drew Yanno, an author and screenwriter. A great ending can make or break a film. Yanno’s actually written a book on writing great endings to screenplays called “The 3rd Act.”

Guest: John Tanacredi, PhD, Professor of Earth and Environmental Studies, Director of Center for Environmental Research and Coastal Oceans Monitoring, Molloy College Horseshoe crabs have been on the earth for more than 400 million years. They survived the Ice Age and whatever it was that wiped out the dinosaurs, but they may not survive us, even though we owe a debt to these gnarly crabs for our own survival.

Guest: Rachel Wadham, Host of BYUradio’s Worlds Awaiting Rachel Wadham is the education and juvenile collections librarian here at BYU and host of Worlds Awaiting on BYUradio. It’s a show dedicated to encouraging a love of reading and discovery in children. It airs Saturdays at 1:30 p.m. Eastern and you can also hear it weekdays at 8:30 p.m. Eastern on BYUradio.