Saturday Morning for Saturday 6 March 2021

8:10 Matthew Remski: Conspirituality

The yoga and "wellness" world has had several high-profile members fall under the influence of QAnon and Covid denial.

This intersection between right-wing conspiracy theories and left-wing wellness utopianism has been dubbed "conspirituality".

Matthew Remski joins us to explain how and why these worlds have collided.

Remski is a cult researcher, and co-host of the Conspirituality Podcast who has written extensively about the pervasive cultism and abuse in yoga, spirituality and wellness culture.

He is the author of Practice and All is Coming: Abuse, Cult Dynamics, and Healing in Yoga and Beyond.

8:40 Katharyn Duffy: Forests reach temperature tipping point

Dr Katharyn Duffy is an earth systems scientist at Northern Arizona University.

Collaborating with a couple of colleagues from New Zealand, she lead a study, published in Science Advances, that suggests as global temperatures rise, a tipping point will be reached and trees will emit more carbon than they take in through photosynthesis – forests will become carbon sources rather than carbon sinks.

9:05 Dr Carl Hart: Drug use for grown-ups

Could the harm that results from recreational drug use and abuse be mostly caused by their criminalisation and demonisation rather than their physical effects?

When used responsibly, can drugs can enrich and enhance our lives?

These radical arguments are raised by Professor Carl Hart in his new book Drug Use for Grown-Ups: Chasing Liberty in the Land of Fear.

He asks us to question how much of our reaction to illicit drug use is based in the pharmacological facts versus social coding and moral judgement.

Carl Hart is the Ziff Professor of Psychology in the Departments of Psychology and Psychiatry at Columbia University and a world expert on neuropsychopharmacology and behavioral neuroscience.

Dr Hart is open about the fact that he uses drugs himself, including heroin.

For help with drug problems:

Narcotics Anonymous
Alcohol Drug Helpline
Ministry of Health
Youthline
 

10:05 Isabel Allende:The Soul of A Woman

Best-selling author Isabel Allende has a brand new book – The Soul of A Woman – a meditation on power, feminism and what it means to be a woman.

As a child, Isabel Allende watched her mother, abandoned by her husband, provide for her three small children. As a young woman coming of age in the late 1960s, she rode the first wave of feminism.

She has seen what has been accomplished by the movement in the course of her lifetime and hopes this book will light the torch for young women "to carry on the work still left to be finished".

11:05 Claire Robinson: Savage Politics

Author, political commentator and Professor of Communication Design at Massey University, Claire Robinson has now written a play about Aotearoa's first Labour Prime Minister, Michael Joseph Savage.

The Lee Letter explores Savage's legacy and his turbulent premiership during which he avoided seeking the medical treatment that could have prevented his early death from colon cancer.

Claire Robinson says underpinning his reluctance to get treatment was his fear of being challenged for the party leadership by the popular Labour MP John A. (Jack) Lee.

The Lee Letter is having its first public reading at Circa Theatre, Wellington, on 13 March as part of the Fringe Festival.

11:40 Bidge Smith: Mervyn Thompson vs. Six Angry Women

Women activists were protesting against all forms of oppression in 1984 when Auckland university lecturer and playwright Mervyn Thompson was kidnapped, beaten and chained to a tree by six women who accused him of being a rapist.

Thompson was never charged with rape, and his kidnappers have never been identified. That same year, Bidge Smith became Auckland University Students' Association Women's Rights Officer and spoke out in support of the anonymous women who carried out the attack.

She appears in the documentary Six Angry Women which premieres on TVNZ 1 this Monday 8 March at 8.30pm and can then be seen on TVNZ OnDemand. 

Books mentioned in this show:

Drug Use for Grown-ups: Chasing Liberty in the Land of Fear
By Carl Hart
Penguin Press
ISBN 9781101981641

The Soul of A Woman
By Isabel Allende
Bloomsbury Circus
ISBN 9781526630810

Music played in this show

Song:And She Was
Artist: Talking Heads
Played at 10:05