Old Mole Variety Hour

Remembering Salmon Scam

Airs at: Mon, 10/14/2024 at 9:00am - 10:00am
Produced for:  Old Mole Variety Hour
In a continuation of the “Fish Wars” of the 1960s and 70s, a 1982 federal sting operation scapegoated and criminalized Columbia fisher people for diminishing salmon runs. This segment, which originally aired in May 2023, we feature commentary from Wanapum fishing rights act... Read more

Indigenous Food Sovereignty

Airs at: Mon, 10/14/2024 at 9:00am - 10:00am
Produced for:  Old Mole Variety Hour
In September, WSU Vancouver broke ground on two new campus gardens–one a student community garden, the other centering Indigenous Traditional Ecological Cultural Knowledge. Julian Ankney speaks with Lakota-Cheyenne activist Roben White about the role of the gardens in revit... Read more

Indigenous-Palestinian Solidarity

Airs at: Mon, 10/14/2024 at 9:00am - 10:00am
Produced for:  Old Mole Variety Hour
“We need to dismantle settler colonialism in the United States. What Israel is doing to Palestinians in Gaza and the West Bank shows the world that settler colonialism only speaks the language of violence,” observes Diné (Navajo) Prof. Melanie Yazzie, in excerpts from a wid... Read more

Review of Jacqueline O'Mahony's Sing, Wild Bird, Sing on the Irish famine

Produced for:  Old Mole Variety Hour
The Irish Famine: Larry Bowlden brings a review of Jacqueline O'Mahony's novel about the 1849 famine in Ireland, Sing, Wild Bird, Sing, a story of leaving and finding the Oregon Territories and a different sort of wanderer. The novel is sad and lovely, informative and enter... Read more

Anti-Trans Genocide

Produced for:  Old Mole Variety Hour
With June 12 marking the eighth anniversary of the Pulse Nightclub shooting in Orlando, Florida, that left 49 people dead and 53 injured, we bring excerpts from an April 19 talk by trans activist Ash DeBuse at WSU Vancouver in which they argue that anti-trans violence, tran... Read more

Libraries as Grammar Schools of the Commons

Airs at: Mon, 04/08/2024 at 9:00am - 10:00am
Produced for:  Old Mole Variety Hour
Joe Clement shares commentary and news on the political significance of libraries, examining the material context of social attacks on them and the utopian potential of their sharing ethos.  We hear audio from Mariame Kaba on the podcast Death Panel speaking to how librarie... Read more

Climate Change and NeoFascism

Produced for:  Old Mole Variety Hour
  A shorter version of this was broadcast on the Old Mole for October 22, 2018 In the most recent report from the IPCC, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, those conservative scientists have finally sounded the alarm, though  many commenters have noted that the ... Read more

Capitalist Realism

Produced for:  Old Mole Variety Hour
  [For the Old Mole Variety Hour June 28, 2010].      The British blogger and theorist Mark Fisher recently published a slim little volume from Zer0 books titled Capitalist Realism: Is There No Alternative? By "Capitalist Realism" he means, roughly, the notion that, as M... Read more

Against Teach for America

 For the Old Mole Variety Hour January 12, 2015 (audio here) It has come to my attention that not everyone has heard the criticisms of Teach for America that have been raised in recent years. Since the end of this month marks one of their due dates for applications, I want ... Read more

Happy Bastille Day

For the Old Mole Variety Hour, July 14, 2014. The fourteenth of July marks a key event of the French Revolution in 1789; and the French Revolution, in turn, is generally seen as a key turning point in the transition from feudalism to capitalism. The storming of the prison ... Read more