In today's episode, Jules speaks with Michelle Acciavatti. Michelle is a funeral director and an End of Life Specialist working in Vermont. She is a board member of the National Funeral Home Alliance, president, and co-founder of Vermont Natural Burial, she is president of Green Burial Vermont, and she is a founding member of the Collective for Radial Death Studies.

She and I spoke about her role as a death doula, her role as a funeral director, and the general labor of death. As you'll hear in our conversation, we talk about death from many angles, from the arranging of a funeral to guiding people through their end of life transition, and there's even some radical politics thrown in there.

For Further Reading

• Thinking About Having a 'Green' Funeral? Here's What to Know
• Helping Vermonters Prepare For 'Their Own Good Death'
• The National Home Funeral Alliance

Michelle's Links

• Michelle's website | Ending-Well
• Green Burial Vermont
• Collective for Radical Death Studies 
• Vermont Natural Burial Incorporated
• Follow Ending-Well on Twitter, and Follow Green Burial Vermont on Twitter

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--- Music provided by: Self-Taut 

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Following the capitol riots, social media platforms are cracking down on subversive accounts. With the threat of the surveillance state amplifying, and the Patriot Act 2.0 on the horizon, Rainer Shea joins us to talk about the events of January 6th and his recent banning from Facebook.

You can follow Rainer on Twitter, read his journal on his website , and listen to his podcast 'Revolutionary Socialist Review'

Call to action from Rainer: COMMUNICATIONS FOR REBELS

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Jules sits down with Professor Todd May and asks him questions about politics, philosophy, and the human condition. A sprawling conversation that spans from the indifference of the cosmos to why we should say hello to the cat.

Articles Mentioned:

Todd May interviewed by George Yancy for the New York Times

Books by Todd May

Books mentioned by Todd - Why Civil Resistance Works 

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Jules takes a broader look at death from a social perspective by comparing the plague of 14th century Europe and the American Civil War.  These time periods are seemingly incommensurate, but they're worth comparing to gain a perspective on the social effects of mass death.

Links for further reading

Barbara W. Tuchman, A Distant Mirror: The Calamitous 14th century

Klaus Schwab and Thierry Malleret, Covid-19: The Great Reset

Ars Moriendi Translation (the shorter version)

Drew Gilpin Faust, This Republic of Suffering

Drew Gilpin Faust, The Civil War Soldier and the Art of Dying

Transcription of a letter by James Robert Montgomery

Videos

Death & the Civil War | Library of Congress 

Brad Harris – Context: Reflections from A Distant Mirror

Lerone Bennett Jr. C-Span Interview  (~snippit taken from around the 24 min mark)

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In a follow up to Episode 13 - "On Death", Jules' research leads him to a conversation with two End of Life facilitators from British Colombia.

Jo-Anne Huan and Karen Hendrickson are cofounders of the Death Doula Network of British Colombia.

Jo-Anne Huan is an End of Life Doula, Death Educator, and Licensed Willow EOL Facilitator. She is a member of the End of Life Doula Association of Canada and the National End of Life Doula Alliance. She provides educational seminars, workshops, and private Doula services through her company End of Life Alternatives.

Karen Hendrickson is a Life Coach, public speaker, End of Life Doula, Death Educator, and Licensed Willow EOL Facilitator. She is a member of the End of Life Doula Association of Canada, the National End of Life Doula Alliance, and the Death Doula Ontario Network. She offers private coaching, EOL Doula services, and digital legacy planning through her company Take The Journey, Coaching for Success.

The Death Deck: https://ddnbc.com/the-death-deck

Music by: Self-Taut 

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Jules ruminates on the topic of death, existential philosophy, and the afterlife. Intro / Outro Music by Samuel Thomas (Self-Taut)

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Introducing: Dr. Maximillian Alvarez and Working People  This is a crossover / collaborative episode between No Easy Answers and Working People. Follow Working People on Twitter: @WorkingPod Follow Dr. Maximillian Alvarez on Twitter: @maximillian_alv Working People Listen Now: Working People Music by: Self-Taut

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Overpopulation is a controversial topic with certain grim implications. These ideas were first popularized by economist Thomas Malthusin 1798 when the world's population was around one billion people. Although Malthus was clearly wrong, proven by the fact that our global population is currently around 7.6 billion and we already grow enough food for 10 billion people, his ideas persist and are resurgent in our society and national conversations.

Peter Coffin joins Jules for a conversation about all the ways a social critique from an angle of overpopulation is problematic, and ultimately promulgates a world view that is reductive, utilitarian, harsh, and inhumane.

Peter Coffin's Video: Overpopulation is Bullcrap

Follow Peter Coffin: Twitter @petercoffin, Low Society Podcast, Peter Coffin on YouTube, Buy his book: Custom Reality and You, Patreon

Music by: Self-Taut

*This episode was recorded during a rainstorm so there are some audio glitches that happen on Jules' end but they do not last the entire conversation.

Support for No Easy Answers comes from our listeners. You can become a monthly supporter of No Easy Answers by clicking here, or making a one-time donation here: PayPal Venmo

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Today on the show is another longtime friend of mine, Brandon Villarreal.  He's a guy I met while I was still too young to legally drink or buy my own smokes.  This is the guy who took me to my first strip club while I was still underage.  He's like an older brother to me in a lot of ways.  He was always down to get into trouble, and he was sometimes a bad influence, but you need friends like that and aside from drinking and raising hell, he's also the person who first encouraged me to apply for a job in radi0 - and that was a step that would set in motion the rest of my adult life and career.    

He and I are long overdue for catching up, and of course, that's part of why I wanted him to come on the show.  The other reason is that Brandon received a new liver a while back, and being a transplant survivor, he's got a new lease on life.  He's taken up drone photography as a hobby, he's out in nature taking hikes, road-tripping, and I get the feeling he's really enjoying his life.  Brandon went through a seminal event that qualitatively changed him.  I wanted to focus a lens on his life and story because it's remarkable and deserves to be heard.   

Music provided by Self Taut  

Follow Brandon on Instagram: @bravill  Listen Now: https://bit.ly/no_easy_answers

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Today on the show I'm speaking with another longtime friend of mine, Nick Ross. I met Nick while we were working for the same music store in Nashville. We were both wet behind the ears punks at the time. He was a sales hotshot and I had just been made manager over our department, so Nick and I tended to clash on the sales floor. You could probably say that we didn't like each other when we first met and looking back, I was just not a good manager.

When we stopped working together, he and I became the best of friends. We spent a lot of time in our early twenties drinking beer and playing video games and in that time the person that Nick is came into focus, which is part of why I wanted to have this conversation.

If you've ever hung out with the guy, you know he's immediately likable. He's an intense dude, but that intensity mainly comes from his drive, determination, competitiveness, and heart. When I describe him using those terms, I want to emphasize that all of those traits are rooted in such awesome authenticity. His drive doesn't come from a place of insecurity, his determination isn't rooted in his ego, his competitiveness is fueled by his passion and his heart is fiercely loyal to his friends.

He and I have kept in touch since then but a few years ago, as you'll hear, things took a really bad turn for him. If you were to see a picture of this guy today, in the year 2020, you'd never imagine that anything like that happened to him. And that's a big reason I wanted to have Nick on the show - Nick is a beacon of positivity in these dark times. Dude is literally living his best life RIGHT NOW. IN THIS VERY MOMENT - and he radiates positive motivation to those around him, and so I wanted to dig further into all of that in hopes that our listenership can find ways to take some of his positivity, motivation, and inspiration and maybe apply some of that to these difficult days we find ourselves in.

Nick Ross is the Sales Manager for Iron House Strength and Conditioning in Nashville, TN.  Follow Nick Ross on Insta:  @r0ssfit

Music provided by 'Self-Taut':  https://soundcloud.com/samuel-thomas-2

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