Month: February 2023

Erdogan’s Role in the Critical Delay in Getting Rescue Teams to the Sites of Devastation from the Earthquake

We begin with the critical delay in getting rescue teams to the sites of devastation in Southern Turkey where thousands remain trapped under rubble from the 7.8 earthquake at 4.17 AM local time on Monday. Joining us to discuss the belated effort underway to get rescue teams into the area and warnings from seismic and building experts that were ignored by the Erdogan government is Hümeyra Pamuk, a foreign policy reporter for Reuters who covers the US State Department and has had postings in London, Cairo, Dubai & Turkey. Her mother’s cousin is stuck under the rubble in Hatay province and there is no help underway as of now and we assess the extent to which Turkish citizens are getting information about the government’s failings and questions about what happened to the earthquake tax money in spite of the control that Erdogan has over the mainstream press.

An Expert on Intraplate Earthquakes and Seismic Similarities Between Turkey and California

Then we look into why the earthquake in Turkey was so deadly due to the three tectonic plates – the Arabian, Anatolian and African plates that converge in the area where the earthquake broke along a 100 kilometer fault line. Joining us is and expert on intraplate earthquakes, Susan Hough, a seismologist with the U.S. Geological Survey in Pasadena, California. She has written extensively about the science of earthquakes and the way that earthquakes have affected human societies. Her books include Earthshaking Science: What We Know (and Don’t Know) about Earthquakes, Finding Fault in California: An Earthquake Tourist’s Guide, After the Earth Quakes: Elastic Rebound on an Urban Planet, Predicting the Unpredictable: The Tumultuous Science of Earthquake Prediction, and, most recently, The Great Quake Debate: The Crusader, the Skeptic, and the Rise of Modern Seismology.

Can Biden Close the Gap in his SOTU Between his Accomplishments and the Public Perception That Most Americans Are Not Satisfied With his Leadership?

 Then finally just ahead of tonight’s State of the Union address by President Biden we speak with Paul Glastris, the editor in chief of The Washington Monthly who spent ten years as a correspondent and editor at U.S. News & World Report’.  From September 1998 to January, 2001, he was a special assistant and senior speechwriter to President Bill Clinton. He wrote over 200 speeches for the president, on subjects ranging from education to health care to the budget. We discuss how Biden can close the gap between his impressive accomplishments and the perception in the public that most Americans are not satisfied with his leadership which is largely caused by the press.