ALPINE NO DROPS 3/25

A moving visit to the National Memorial for Peace and Justice in Montgomery, Alabama, and the nearby Freedom Monument Sculpture Park there on the banks of the Alabama River, prompts a Massachusetts woman to reflect on the history of slavery in the United States and the phrase sold down the river. Although today sold down the river may simply mean “betrayed,” the phrase first appears with reference to selling those who were enslaved and sending them down the Mississippi River to labor under even harsher conditions than farther north. The terrorizing threat of being sold down the river is referenced in such books as Uncle Tom’s Cabin by Harriet Beecher Stowe. http://waywordradio.org

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A Louisiana listener shares a favorite passage from Laurie Lee’s memoir Cider with Rosie (Bookshop|Amazon), about his boyhood in post-World-War II England. http://waywordradio.org

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The new book Gesture: A Slim Guide (Bookshop|Amazon) by linguist Lauren Gawne includes some fascinating studies about the movements that accompany spoken or signed language. In one, participants were asked to learn rules of a game, then explain those rules to someone else they were going to play the game with, either a teammate or competitor. Each time the people giving the instructions used pretty much the same words, and made about the same number of gestures. The key difference? Their gestures were smaller when explaining the rules to a potential opponent, suggesting they didn’t want to be as clear or emphatic. http://waywordradio.org

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A memorable commencement speech by author Kurt Vonnegut celebrates books and “the sweet reluctance of their pages when you turn them with your sensitive fingertips.” http://waywordradio.org

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Why is it harder to talk if we don't gesture? Why do we still move our hands if we're talking on the phone but the other person can't see us? Such questions are tackled in the new book Gesture: A Slim Guide (Bookshop|Amazon), a sort of survey course of the state of gesture studies. The author, linguist Lauren Gawne of Latrobe University in Melbourne, Australia, is also cohost, along with internet linguist Gretchen McCulloch, of the Lingthusiasm podcast, an entertaining, informative show that all about, as they put it, “what’s neat about linguistics.” http://waywordradio.org

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In an article in the July/August edition of Foreign Affairs magazine, “Might Unmakes Right: The Catastrophic Collapse of Norms Against the Use of Force”, Oona Hathaway and Scott Shapiro look at the history of the prohibition of the use of force between states and discuss what they see as the current assault on this prohibition.

To discuss her article, in July 2025 the Phelan US Centre spoke to Professor Oona Hathaway, the Gerard C. and Bernice Latrobe Smith Professor of International Law at Yale Law School. They spoke about the shift in US foreign policy since the return of the Trump administration, the historic move from war being a legitimate diplomatic tool to being constrained by law, and the role of sanctions in enforcing international norms about the use of force.

This episode was produced by Chris Gilson and Luke Digweed.  

Further reading and resources

•	Follow Professor Oona Hathaway on X (@oonahathaway), Bluesky (‪@oonahathaway.bsky.social‬‬) and LinkedIn (https://www.linkedin.com/in/oona-hathaway) 
•	“Might Unmakes Right: The Catastrophic Collapse of Norms Against the Use of Force”, Oona Hathaway and Scott Shapiro, Foreign Affairs, 24 June 2025
•	“The Dangerous Rise of “Dual-Use” Objects in War”, Oona A. Hathaway, Azmat Khan & Mara R. Revkin, The Yale Law Journal, June 2025
•	“War Unbound Gaza, Ukraine, and the Breakdown of International Law”, Foreign Affairs, Oona Hathaway, 23 April 2024
•	The Internationalists: How a Radical Plan to Outlaw War Remade the World Oona Hathaway and Scott Shapiro (Simon and Schuster, 2017)


LSE: The Ballpark | Might unmakes right with Professor Oona Hathaway

This Poet Is Dust - Episode One - produced & voiced by r. gulamhussein ladha - various poets/authors

uptempo feel good music every body could rock to!

Bitches losen they mind

Matthewgrindtime Kiley