KPFA - Against the Grain

One of conservation’s greatest achievements happened mostly by accident and is still hiding in plain sight from most of us. When settlers established cities in the United States, they decimated the existing ecosystems. But in recent decades, as environmental historian Peter Alagona illustrates, there has been a remarkable return of wildlife to urban areas across the country. (Encore presentation.)
Resources:
Peter S. Alagona, The Accidental Ecosystem: People and Wildlife in American Cities UC Press, 2023
Photo by Tj Holowaychuk on Unsplash
The post The Fall and Rise of Urban Wildlife appeared first on KPFA.

How did conservatives come to dominate so much of the media in the U.S.? Historian A.J. Bauer looks at the formative period between the advent and repeal of the Fairness Doctrine in which the right borrowed from the left to sharpen its criticism of the media — ultimately giving rise to a rightwing media ecosystem with its own commercial imperatives.
A. J. Bauer, Making the Liberal Media: How Conservatives Built a Movement Against the Press Columbia University Pres, 2026
The post Weaponizing the Left’s Media Criticism appeared first on KPFA.

For many decades, the idea has held sway that we humans should leave consequential decisions to a higher power: computers. And that assumption has become more deeply entrenched, the more powerful computers have become. How did our world come to be seen as an imaginary casino, with every decision to be stripped down to costs and benefits, risks and rewards? Computer scientist Benjamin Recht traces the development of mathematical optimization, game theory, statistical testing, and machine learning — the basis of AI — to understand how medicine, the economy, and governance have been outsourced to computing, concentrating enormous power in the hands of the few.
Benjamin Recht, The Irrational Decision: How We Gave Computers the Power to Choose for Us Princeton University Press, 2026
Benjamin Recht’s Blog
Photo by Mika Baumeister on Unsplash
The post Deferring to Computers appeared first on KPFA.

The backlash against trans people, which has swept both the United States and the world in recent years, is not as new as it seems, according to historian Jules Gill-Peterson. She traces the emergence of trans misogynistic violence over the last two centuries, which she links to the establishment of colonialism, capitalism, and more recently neoliberalism. (Encore presentation.)
Resources:
Jules Gill-Peterson, A Short History of Trans Misogyny Verso, 2024
Photo credit: Norbu GYACHUNG
The post Why Trans Misogyny? appeared first on KPFA.

The rise and fall of unemployment, our dependence on the market for our livelihoods — such things are taken as a given. But economist Clara Mattei suggests we need to recognize them as being fundamentally political phenomena, not the product of natural laws outside of our control. She argues that a reconsideration of our capitalist economy is long overdue.
Clara E. Mattei, Escape from Capitalism: An Intervention Simon & Schuster, 2026
Forum for Real Economic Emancipation
Photo by Julio Lopez on Unsplash
The post Rethinking Capitalism appeared first on KPFA.