Ross Files with Dave Ross

Latest Episodes:

Sean Carroll, How Many Versions of You Are in the Universe? Sep 09, 2019

Show notes

Dave talks with Sean Carroll, a theoretical physicist at CalTech who hosts the popular podcast Mindscape.

His new book, Something Deeply Hidden, dives into the bizarre and unsettling theory of quantum physics - the idea that you are not the only version of yourself in the universe. Copies of you are generating thousands of times every single second, at every point where something that could have happened to you, didn't - no matter how small.

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Emily Bancroft, Delivering Life-Saving Vaccines With Drones Aug 27, 2019

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Dave talks with Emily Bancroft, CEO of the Seattle-based nonprofit VillageReach.

Her organization has started using drones to deliver vaccines, medicine and lab results to rural clinics in the Democratic Republic of Congo.

But the technology, while efficient and effective, is costly - and how do residents know that the drones are bringing life-saving drugs rather than being used as weapons of war?

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Jeramie Booker, Why Am I Homeless? Aug 26, 2019

Show notes

Jeramie Booker emailed the show, asking to provide a different perspective on Washington's homelessness issue.

Booker has been living in an RV camper for over a year and struggling to find affordable and permanent housing. He doesn't do drugs. He's clean shaven. He's self-employed full-time as a handyman in Everett. And yet his credit is shot, and he can't afford the skyrocketing costs of rent.

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Christopher Leonard, What Does Koch Industries Actually Do? Aug 23, 2019

Show notes

Dave Ross talks with author and business reporter Christopher Leonard about his seven years of research into the inter-workings of Koch Industries, an American company so big, it's perhaps unknowingly part of your life every day.

Leonard's new book is called Kochland: The Secret History of Koch Industries and Corporate Power in America.

He'll be in Seattle for a book event at Town Hall on Friday, Sept. 6th, 7:30 pm.

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Jeffery Robinson, The History of Racism Was Kept Out of Your Textbooks Aug 21, 2019

Show notes

Jeffery Robinson runs the ACLU Trone Center for Justice and Equality, and for a long time, he's been giving speeches about the way America's history of racism and white supremacy has been hidden from school textbooks throughout the country. Those speeches, which are part of a tour called Who We Are, are being turned into a documentary film.

Robinson is also a part-time Seattle resident, so he sits down with Dave Ross in the studio to talk about why this painful part of our nation's history is being hidden from us, and what we stand to gain by confronting it head on.

Robinson has an event at Town Hall on Wednesday, August 21st at 4pm. It's sold out, but keep an eye on the Who We Are homepage - a second event will be scheduled soon.

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Garen Wintemute, Taking Weapons from a Would-Be Killer Aug 20, 2019

Show notes

Who are the people trying to commit mass shootings, and how can they be stopped?

Dave talks with Garen Wintemute, the director of the Violence Prevention Research Program at UC Davis in Sacramento. Wintemute and his team, including Julia Schleimer, researched extreme risk protection orders (ERPOs), or "red flag laws" - a way for community members and family to alert local police to a would-be assailant's plans and disarm them.

Their resulting study released just yesterday turned up a fascinating array of cases: including one in which the FBI worked with local police. Wintemute and Dave talk legality, and discuss the study's conclusion: that zero of the 21 cases where an ERPO was filed ended in a mass shooting.

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Kate Starbird, Rumors vs. Lies: Our Social Media Crisis Aug 05, 2019

Show notes

How has the sudden rise of social media, full of purposefully misleading information from bad actors, completely shifted the way we get our news and information? Is there such a thing as being too skeptical of what we see and read online?

Dave Ross talks with Kate Starbird, a former professional basketball player in the WNBA for the Seattle Storm, and now an associate professor at the University of Washington where she researches online rumors and crisis informatics. Dr. Starbird is also a Co-Principal Investigator at the UW's Center for an Informed Public.

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Pramila Jayapal, Is Impeachment on the Table? Aug 01, 2019

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Dave Ross sits down with Pramila Jayapal to discuss everything from a possible impeachment of the president to the Congresswoman's recent op-ed about her personal experience with abortion.

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Ari Kohn, Facebook Algorithms and Funding for Former Inmates Jul 31, 2019

Show notes

Ari Kohn runs the Post-Prison Education Program, which provides scholarships to former inmates and community mentorship while they earn degrees.

Their graduates have a recidivism rate of only 7.8%, compared to the Department of Correction's average of 33.5%.

Recently, Facebook miscategorized the group as a political organization, preventing them from advertising one of their fundraising events on the platform. The mistake took months for Kohn to undo, and brings up questions about how Facebook has been watching for Russian interference since the 2016 election. How are stringent standards without seemingly much oversight affecting us on a community level?

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Col. Jeff McCausland, What's Up with Iran, North Korea and Russia? Jul 26, 2019

Show notes

Retired Colonel Jeff McCausland is CBS Radio's national security consultant. He visited the studios at KIRO to talk with Dave Ross about cybersecurity, threats from North Korea, Russia and the Middle East, and challenges with modern military recruitment.

If you'd like to zoom in on specific analysis, here's what you can expect throughout this episode:

Iran 1:48

North Korea 9:50

Middle East 12:50

Russia 15:20

Military Recruitment 17:52

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