Thoughtcast I was preparing for my talk at the Melbourne Unitarian Universalist Fellowship about the Peabody Sisters, three 19th century Unitarian women living in Boston and Salem who mixed in Transcendentalist circles, but are mainly known as the wives of important men, rather than significant figures in their own right who were at the founding (and even prefigured) Transcendentalism. This interview conducted by Jenny Attiyeh is with Megan Marshall, the author of The Peabody Sisters: Three Women Who Ignited American Romanticism, and it gives a good flavour of the book.
The Human Subject. This rather gory podcast looks at The Prisoners Used for their Skin at Philadelphia’s Holmesburg prison (AKA ‘the Terrordome’) during the 1960s. Dermatologists at the University of Pennsylvania, led by Dr Albert Kligman, instituted a program where they would pay prisoners, the vast majority of whom were black and on remand, $1.00- $1.50 per day to subject themselves to experimentation. The prisoners were told that they were testing bubble-bath, but many of the experiments were funded by Dow Chemicals, but without their oversight. Kligman tested the effects of dioxin at concentrations 480 times the level recommended by Dow, and also experimented with depigmentation of black skin.
The Rest is History Episode 229 Portugal: Gold, Earthquakes and Brazil (Part 3) starts with the Lisbon earthquake of 1755, which destroyed 85% of the city and killed perhaps 50,000 people. Because Portugal was now under the Spanish crown, they were at war with the Dutch, and the Portuguese felt that the Spanish weren’t pulling their weight. Because of slavery in Brazil, huge wealth was pouring into Portugal. During the Napoleonic Wars, the British (with whom Portugal had always had a good relationship) gave escort to the Royal Family to Brazil, in exchange for opening Portuguese ports to British trade. (Huh. They were doing ‘deals’ back then too.) Wellington invaded Spain successfully, but withdrew in order to secure Lisbon. With the Royal Family ensconced in Brazil, it was becoming the metropole for Portugal- a strange turn of events. In 1821 the King returned to Portugal and was forced to sign the Constitution, and Brazil achieved independence.
The Resident Judge of Port Phillip 