Dr. Ben-Ghiat visited the University of Iowa as a guest speaker for the UI Lecture Committee on October 3rd, 2024. KRUI had the opportunity to speak to her before her public appearance to talk about her significant research findings on the blueprint of fascist movements, strongmen, and why the MAGA political movement has been so successful just over a month ahead of the 2024 Presidential Election.

Since the time of this conversation, Republican Donald Trump and his running mate JD Vance have been declared and confirmed as the winner of the Presidential election, and were inaugurated on January 20th, 2025. All comments were made in speculation of a tight race and in the context of rising political tensions between the two parties with the end of campaign season rapidly approaching.

This interview has been edited for clarity.

Julia Anderson: In preparation for speaking with you today, of course, I watched just about every video of yours I could find on YouTube. An interesting fact that you mentioned, that I thought would be a really good starting point here is that 30% of the population at any given time has authoritarian leanings. This is in a global sense, and so according to the trending news today, there are many right-wing political movements happening across the world, such as in Hungary with President Viktor Orbán and in France with the rise of the National Rally Party led by Marine Le Pen. There’s also a couple of others I believe in Germany and whatnot, along with several places in Europe. What distinguishes fascism from other types of nationalist movements, and where do we see fascism rising in the world today?

Ruth Ben-Ghiat: Yeah, so that’s a great question. I mean, classic fascism was a product of the 1920s and ’30s, with Mussolini being the person who invented fascism. It was very much a product of World War I and the total upheaval of everyone’s lives, with millions and millions of men who were killed and disabled, along with changes in gender relations. One of the things I found in my research, and fascism as the first example, is that authoritarianism is appealing when societies have had a huge amount of change.

World War I was the biggest example, with progress made with gender, racial equity, and the beginning of anti-colonial activities. That leads to a backlash, and so fascism was this very pure form of state driven racism, you know? Nations wanted to turn back the clock and make women kind of the tools of the state for procreation, but only the right kinds of babies. In the Nazi version, it was having the state channel to create a master race, right? That leads to imperialist campaigns of conquering, looting, and plundering. So today, things work differently, and there are many fascist aspects that remain. For example calling people garbage, scum, or vermin, and talking about them as animals. This has remained from fascism. Hitler used it for the Jews. Mussolini used it eventually for Jews, but also for leftists.

There’s the whole idea of needing these hyper nationalist movements to defeat Marxism and defeat communism that comes out of fascism. But things work differently today. There are not as many one party states where there’s no political opposition allowed. Really, it’s places like North Korea and China, which are communist. So fascism remains in its spirit, in its language, and many policies, but today I use the word authoritarian because that encompasses the fact we still have elections. Like in Hungary or Turkey, you have authoritarians, but they have elections and they’re not one party states.

Anderson: Is it possible to see fascism in a democracy such as what we’re seeing across Europe? Are these actually considered fascist movements?

Ben-Ghiat: Some people use the word fascism for them, and there’s a whole debate on this including what we do about Trump and the GOP. Are they fascist? Do they want fascism? So, there’s a debate on whether you could use the word today, right? Or, you want to restrict it, and I’m kind of in the middle where in some ways it’s not useful to label Viktor Orbán a fascist, because then people say, “Well, wait a minute, it’s not a one party state. It’s not a pure dictatorship. So, what are you talking about?” That’s why I use the word authoritarian. Fascism was just the first stage of authoritarianism, which is when the executive, personal power of the leader kind of takes over, and eradicates or highly damages the independence of the judiciary and opposition parties. That allows the leader to have supreme power and even immunity from prosecution.

So, there are many similarities, but definitely some of the same conditions that led to fascism—like people feeling they need to turn the clock back on racial or gender emancipation, all that stuff—that exists today.

Anderson: You brought up a good point a second ago with mentioning how this relates to Donald Trump and the rise of this kind of Trumpism version of Republicanism in American politics. Since the release of your book, which served as an analysis of the rise to power of Benito Mussolini in Italy, he essentially created the blueprint for right wing dictatorship.

As it relates to Donald Trump and with the upcoming election, you’ve spoken very publicly and been very critical of the policies contained in Project 2025, and how they relate to fascism. A common response is, “It can’t happen here in the U.S. We have too many guardrails in place. That really wouldn’t be possible. As entertaining as politics is right now, nothing’s really a threat, an actual tangible threat to our democracy.” But, what is it that experts making this claim, that there is a connection between the two, what are they seeing that indicates that the U.S. is susceptible to a fascist movement?

Ben-Ghiat: Well, we already have many signs of this. So basically, you know, Trump is an authoritarian. He’s in my book. It was one of the first books to put him in historical perspective, look at him and see how does he bring forth not just fascism, but also right wing military dictatorships. Trump has been on record many times saying he wants the military to have a new role. Not just abroad, which has been their role, but also he thinks protesters should be shot. He’s talked about executing generals who are not loyal. He wants the military to be used, in part, for domestic repression.

So, he doesn’t just borrow from fascism, he borrows from these other forms of authoritarianism. What has happened to the GOP since he became president is that in my analysis it’s become an autocratic party. Trump has a genuine leader-call. It’s extraordinary what he’s been able to do. Working in a democracy, he has been able to have this personal control over the party. Now, he has his daughter in law, Laura Trump, who’s the head of the Republican National Committee, and the money is raised from ordinary Republicans around the country. It goes to Trump and not to other campaigns. There’s a lot of personalization of politics, and the GOP is now a party that is dependent on lying, such as the idea that Trump won the 2020 election. Also, they lie about January 6th, which was an attempt to overthrow the government. So that’s an example.

How far have we come down the path of authoritarianism? We already had an attempt to overthrow the government with tens of thousands of people committing violence, along with the GOP, Fox News, and all the other allies that have been trying to cover this up and say it was just terrorists. They said it wasn’t violent, because that’s what you do in history if you’re not done. So, they’re dependent on corruption, on lying, on violence, and that’s how authoritarian parties work. They can’t really have fair and free elections anymore in countries. That’s why they engage in this election denial.

The last thing I’ll say is that we never had a national experience of dictatorship in America, but we had a regional authoritarianism which was the Jim Crow South. We have a long history, and not just in the South, of voter suppression, a lot of which is racially motivated, but also just political trickery, right? So, in places like Ohio the GOP uses voter suppression very effectively. Redistricting and gerrymandering, these are all forms of voter suppression and just trying to game the results so that it’s not really a free and fair election, even though it seems to be. So, we have all this history and that’s why it can happen here, but it always looks different. That’s why people don’t see it coming. When you analyze something like the tool book of global authoritarianism, and then look at our history here, you see how they meet.

Trump was very smart from the very beginning in 2016 to address himself to all kinds of extremists, including southern racists who never liked Barack Obama, never thought he should have been there, along with neo-Nazis and the militias. So, he created a big tent so that everybody could be part of his Trumpism and that’s why some people would say, “Okay, well, isn’t he repeating fascism?” and in part, he is, but he’s also activating things that are specific to our country, if that makes sense.

Anderson: Yes, it does seem that his popularity increased with this emotional appeal. It was like an appeal to people that felt like they had been forgotten, given that they weren’t at the forefront of the progress being made for people that have historically been left behind.

As a response, as you mentioned, the GOP does use a lot of rhetoric to combat against claims that they’re fascists, such as blaming the left, accusing the “the radical left” of being a fascist, or an authoritarian movement that’s attempting to oust him from politics and disrupt the democratic process. Is there any validity or any weight to those claims, or are they simply just diversion tactics? 

Ben-Ghiat: That part is diversion tactics. I call it the upside down world of authoritarianism, you take everything and you flip it. So, a diversionary tactic is claiming that when Joe Biden stepped aside due to age and a sense that he wasn’t as effective as he could have been, and Vice President Kamala Harris became the nominee, the Republicans are saying that was a coup attempt. What we have to pay attention to is the big narrative lines they use, and one of them is that it’s the Democrats who are authoritarians. They’re very good at doing that.

But you brought up something really important about the validity of all this. Democrats had kind of neglected white working class people and rural populations. The Biden administration has hugely corrected this, both with like manufacturing policies and stuff about addressing the opioid rhetoric epidemic, right? But they were a population that was not served by Democrats. So, Trump is a marketer at heart, and he’s a brilliant marketer. He’s not the first one, there are others in my book who scan the political marketplace and see who is underserved, and is going to be susceptible to his appeals. He doesn’t care about the working class, but he came to them and he said, “You’ve been forgotten. I love you, and I will fix it for you,” and of course they voted for him. Here was somebody speaking to them directly, and authoritarians from Mussolini, Berlusconi, even Putin do the same. They know how to use emotion to make people feel they care about them.

There are huge crowds at Trump rallies. They feel that he loves them, and he’s very good at making them think that. So, he went and he said, “You were forgotten.” Democrats didn’t have anything to compete with that. Emotion is extremely important, and it’s actually been authoritarians who have known how to use emotion until very recently, with the Kamala Harris joy and love sentiment. That’s really recent, but Hillary Clinton was not a joy and love type of emotional person. It was Trump who knew how to do that, and he gets credit for that. I believe it’s a terrible tragedy for our nation that he doesn’t actually care about the American people. He cares about his own power and riches, but he’s very good at making people feel like he cares about them.

Anderson: As someone who has obsessively watched the news since probably 2016—even when I was a little too young to understand exactly what was going on—I could tell the emotional appeal was strong, even if you don’t have much of a political background. Donald Trump on TV is someone that anyone can understand. Just breaking down his vocabulary, it’s not the most complex, but it appeals to people and it’s accessible.

Ben-Ghiat: There are studies that he, especially in the whole 2016 campaign and while he was president, was at a fourth or fifth grade level with his vocabulary. The other thing he did is that he used all caps. Most of his posts are all caps. I study propaganda, there’s a chapter in my book about propaganda, and I also studied visual things. He’s a hugely visual person, and so at the beginning, he would capitalize only some words in his tweets. They were words that he knew when people were scrolling would stand out. Stuff about his victimhood, stuff about the horrible Democrats, stuff about him being so great, he would capitalize those things, and he would use this very basic language that appealed to people who wanted a politician who they feel is down to earth.

Anderson: When there are serious, credible threats of authoritarianism or fascism on the rise globally in a political climate, what are the most effective practices in curbing that rise?

Ben-Ghiat: So recently, we had a really good example in Poland. In 2023, the opposition mobilized to the polls and voted out a far-right government that had all but banned abortion nationally and was horribly anti-immigrant, which is the same checklist of far-right things that we are having here and all kinds of other places. So, what do they do? They expose the corruption of the far-right government and their hypocrisy. That is a little harder to do here because the GOP is highly organized with a very effective party machine for messaging. They also have Fox News, and there was no Fox News equivalent in Poland. But, they did expose the hypocrisy, showing that government politicians were actually selling visas to immigrants and profiting, gouging them. People didn’t like that. They also appealed to women about abortion rights and so and they had positive messaging.

They also had like a six party coalition. Now, we are really hindered with this because we’ve only got the two parties. We’re a giant nation, a big, powerful nation, and when one of those parties leaves democracy, doesn’t recognize election results anymore, and uses violence, what do you do? That’s hard, and that’s why we have Republicans endorsing Harris now. Hundreds and hundreds of prominent Republicans, people who served with Trump, and generals are coming out and saying things like, “For the good of the country,” and “Put country over party this time and keep him out,” because we know how dangerous it is for national security. So in Poland, the polls were able to get six parties representing a wide swath of opinions. They all unified against the far-right government.

The final thing they did was mobilize emotion. They had the March of a Million Hearts, and literally a heart as their logo. It was about positivity, solidarity, kindness, all of it was a values based campaign. Plus, the anti-corruption and pro-reproductive rights. It was the largest turnout since communism fell in 1989. Then that led to the largest voter turnout since 1989 and now they have progressives in power. Those are things that are much harder to do here, but that’s why when the Harris Walz campaign started talking about joy and love, I was like, “This is good, this is what we need.”

Anderson: Honestly, I do take a more moderate stance between the two, specifically when it comes to being on radio, but I do really enjoy the positivity that’s been coming from the Democratic Party since they’ve switched to having Vice President Harris be the primary candidate as opposed to Joe Biden. There is a massive tonal switch that I don’t think really anyone can deny. If you watched the DNC, it just seemed like there was a lot more positivity in the room than there has been in the last eight years that we’ve seen from the Democratic Party.

Ben-Ghiat: On that positive, moderate note, it’s really important to engage people on a positive basis and not just attack. It’s not by demonizing each other, it’s by actually reaching out to those you know. Bridge building is important, and a lot of people have family members or friends they don’t talk to anymore because of politics. You have to have those conversations. All the research says you should not shame them, you should not condescend them. You have to meet them where they are and keep the connection going, because otherwise we don’t have a civic fabric anymore, and that’s what can lead to political violence, and nobody wants that except a very small minority of extremists. Most Americans don’t want that.

In fact, on some of the major issues, Americans are much more moderate than MAGA. They are for reproductive rights. They are for same-sex marriage. Those things have been accepted. There’s a lot of repair we can do. That’s why I’m also on this tour talking about these things. It’s just we can all do things our own way and have our own contribution, because what is the alternative?

The post Ruth Ben-Ghiat on Fascism and the Modern MAGA Movement appeared first on KRUI Radio.

IOWA CITY, Iowa – It isn’t the popular opinion, but all of the Patriots should make the White House visit. If it isn’t for something else planned, there are only reasons for the players to go meet President Trump.

The twist is that by attending they could still convey a message, and possibly a significantly more powerful one.

Earlier this week the University of Iowa Athletic Department held a town hall meeting for its student-athletes. The focus on the meeting, discussing diversity and inclusion. As thoughts were shared, the New England Patriots players who have decided to skip the White House visit were mentioned.

The topic brought about a critical response, from both perspectives. Some felt it hurt the team for the players not to attend, others said they have every right not to go. The media around the much anticipated visit was even brought into question.

Overall, the reaction to the players pledging their absence was that they need to make a statement against what they feel is wrong and that by not attending they will do so. Notable Patriots players Martellus Bennett, Devin McCourty, and LeGarrette Blount all have expressed that they will not attend, citing President Trump or the government as their reasoning.

Others have joined the list of players choosing to stay away. Dont’a Hightower’s reason was he had already attended in college; he also did not attend when the Patriots won Super Bowl XLIX. Alan Branch decided to be with family and Chris Long didn’t give any more reason than he didn’t want to go.

The players holding out because of their disgust or anger with the new President came as no surprise. Many athletes have expressed their displeasure with the President and his actions over the campaign and into office.

Results from many of those who spoke out was what ultimately lacked. High profile statements have a cause and effect. One side will feel empowered while the other will lash back at whatever the statement was, just as it happened when players announced they wouldn’t visit the White House or when Colin Kaepernick sat during the national anthem.

The difference for these players, and the reason why they should still attend, is that they are public figures. They have abilities and opportunities that the average American citizen doesn’t have.

Whether someone is for or against President Trump they have an opinion. And the players have made theirs’ clear, but these players are also being given a chance that everyone else isn’t. A chance to speak to the President himself, in person.

Blount, who has been outspoken about feeling unwelcome in the White House, has the opportunity to meet face to face with the person so many Americans are frustrated with. He has a chance to express his concerns to the source of what many see as the problem. By not attending, he doesn’t have that.

These players can use the White House visit to spread their message to the ultimate target. They have the ability to be ambassadors to the President for the American people. They can be a more direct route than many of the politicians that are also causing frustration.

Being able to stand up for what you believe says more about ones character than letting the opponent win. Not attending sends a message but it brings no tangible results along with it. Speaking to the President does.

The old fashion way of solving problems is to talk it out. Today it is easier to avoid a problem or to speak out with no result than it is to go to the source. Discussion can solve problems; an idea the country was built on.

By these players attending, they would be able to tell the story of how the President acted with them. Was he rude, as many think would happen, or was he willing to talk? Did the President listen to the concerns of the players or did he allow it to go in one ear and out the other?

There would be no more powerful a message to the American people than a professional athlete, someone who to many is a role model, telling them how the President acted and what he said. Being able to say that he listened, or didn’t.

If the Super Bowl Champions, New England Patriots players could return and tell the American people they expressed their thoughts directly to the President it would leave a lasting impact. A message to stand up for themselves but also that discussion to work things through is much stronger a weapon.

The town hall for the student-athletes ended with similar words from the panel. Finding the people who can help tell the message and confronting it head on. Issues today need to be solved by working them out, face to face.

The post All of the Patriots Should Go to the White House appeared first on KRUI Radio.

I had been to the United States a couple of times before, so the six lane roads, disciplined traffic, kind and gentle people was not a novelty to me. However, what was new to me was exploring all these nuances of American culture by myself. What I was most thrilled about the most, was exploring the Midwest– a region of America I had only heard good things of, but had never been to before. In fact, this was a major pull that had brought me to the University of Iowa.

My first impression of Iowa City was a small, homely, picture-perfect, artsy town, with a charm of its own. It was love-at-first-sight – I had fallen in love with the place and the people, who were absolutely outgoing, friendly, and liberal. Being assigned the dorm room that I was assigned, was perhaps the best thing that happened to me. My floor-mates are my closest friends, and meeting them just boosted my number of positives encounters at Iowa. Soon I was settled in and could not wait for classes to start. Before I could realize it I was living my dream—studying Journalism and Mass Communication, at one of the dream schools I had applied to!

Iowa City had given me a sense of independence—I learned to be responsible for myself, choose between what is good and what is bad; and most important—I learned to deal with my problems by myself. The absence of someone spoon-feeding me, had taught me to stand on my two feet.

Now when I look back, I think about how so much good happened to me. How and why did everything fall in place so well? How did I end up loving what I do so much? Was it my friends, the university, Iowa City or journalism- my field of study that had managed to charm me? The answer was always in front of me—it is the experience, that is shaped by all these factors, that has given me a chance to live my dream!

In this bi-weekly column, I will be talking about my experiences as an outsider, in Iowa City and the United States. It will include my encounters—both good and bad, with people, culture, traditions and norms, in Iowa City.

The post Putting Iowa in Perspective appeared first on KRUI Radio.

The 1960s are often referenced as a time of liberation in American culture. Free love, drug use, and social movements including women’s liberation and civil rights for Black Americans dominate popular discussion of the 60s. However, during this time of widening freedom for many social groups, Native American women were facing renewed discrimination and violence by the U.S. government.

According to a 2005 study published in Wicazo Sa Review, “from the early to mid-1960s up to 1976, between 3,4002 and 70,0003 Native women—out of only 100,000 to 150,000 women of childbearing age— were coercively, forcibly, or unwittingly sterilized permanently by tubal ligation or hysterectomy.”

Dr. Connie Pinkerton-Uri, a doctor of Choctaw and Cherokee heritage, was the first to notice the pattern of forced sterilizations done by the Indian Health Services (IHS) system. In November of 1972, a 26 year old patient asked Dr. Pinkerton-Uri for a “womb transplant” because an IHS doctor had performed a hysterectomy on her when he diagnosed her with alcoholism. After seeing two other patients who were forced to undergo sterilization by the IHS, Dr. Pinkerton-Uri started to investigate.

One tactic that the IHS routinely utilized was to sterilize women without their consent during other, unrelated surgical procedures. For example, performing a routine appendectomy and then also doing a tubal ligation without consent. According to the American Indian Quarterly in 2000, at least 25% of Native women between the ages of 15 through 45 were coercively sterilized during the 1970s. This is an overwhelming portion of the population.

The Guttmacher Institute finds that today, 25.9% of women have undergone some type of sterilization surgery as their chosen method of contraception. For the rate of Native women who were forced to have a sterilization to be the same rate as the amount of women who haven chosen to have the procedure done demonstrates how far this systematic sterilization campaign went.

It is important to analyze this injustice in the broader context of the relationship between Native people and the United States government. Since the first  Europeans came to the Americas, they have sought to manipulate and eventually exterminate Natives. This happened in many regions of the Americas — indigenous people in what is now Canada, the United States, Mexico, and Central and South American countries were all targeted and brutalized by European settlers. In this way, the violence of forced sterilization is nothing new and in fact only continues the history of genocide of Native people by the U.S. government; according to international law, targeting racial groups and trying to prevent them from giving birth is an act of genocide.

This has had a grave impact on Native communities. Dr. Pinkerton-Uri found that the IHS “singled out full-blooded Indian women for sterilization procedures.”, and had a larger initiative to reduce the birthrate of Native American tribes. From the 1970s to the 1980s, the birthrate among all Native tribes dropped drastically.

The impact of forced sterilization on individuals and communities cannot be overstated. It is one of the most violent ways that the state can destroy a person’s bodily autonomy. Because of the severity of this issue, I will be writing in later columns about other groups that have been targeted by the U.S. government, including Black and Latina women.

Genuine Justice is a column about reproductive justice focusing on current events, historical perspectives and systematic racism in women’s healthcare. 

The post Genuine Justice: Sterilization Abuse of Native American Women appeared first on KRUI Radio.

The game itself is quite simple. You and your team have 90 minutes to score a goal. No hands, except for your goalie but he/she is there to stop the ball from going in. You and your team have to pass the ball to each other in order for someone from your team to score. A total of 11 play at one time, this number includes the goalie.

Soccer also includes no timeouts. Your coach can’t call a timeout in the middle of the game to tell you what you’re doing wrong or to give you a quick breather. Nope. He/She has to wait until 45 minutes have gone by and its halftime or the game ends. As for substitutions? Most competitions allow for only three substitutions.

From June 3 until June 26 the Copa America will be taking place. The hosts? The good old USA. (I sadly could not get any tickets for any games). The Copa America brings together every country, who qualifies, that belong in either North, Central, and South America. Due to being hosts, USA automatically qualified. Mexico also automatically qualified. There are a total of 16 teams who will be attempting to win the trophy.

You see, like any sport, winning a trophy gives you pride at the fact that the team you supported won. At the international level in soccer it’s more than just team pride. It’s national pride. Nothing feels better than telling people your team is better than theirs. Bet on your team at fun888asia. Actually, one thing does and that’s telling people that your national country is better than theirs. No matter the topic.

The reason I’m bringing this up is because there is a stereotype that all Latinos are obsessed with soccer. This stereotype is both true and false. While you can find about 30 Latinos sitting around watching a game. You will also find about 30 other Latinos who couldn’t care less. The enjoyment of soccer has nothing to do with race, culture, or family. It has to do with personality. My mother hates when I spend all day watching soccer games but my uncle will be seated right next to me.

There are may reasons why some people choose not to watch soccer and the main one is that there are times when neither team is able to score and the game, if it’s not a championship game, will end in a tie. This leads many people to say, “Soccer is boring because sometimes it ends in a tie.” Well yes and no. Matches sometimes do end in ties but that’s not boring. That’s the beauty of it. In basketball, you know that scoring will consistently happen. In soccer, you don’t know. It’s the suspense of knowing that the game could go on for 89 minutes and then someone scores. Your team could lose the game at the very last minute. On the flip side, your team could win at the very last minute.

In honor of the 2016 Copa America I wanted to show not only amazing talent done by these soccer players but also the goals in an attempt to convince people to watch the Copa America and cheer on their national side. (Or just pick the team with the hottest players).  I will of course be cheering for Mexico and USA.

The 2015 Copa America was hosted by Chile. The final came down to Argentina and Chile with the winner of the tournament being Chile due to penalties. Hopefully the host’s winning will be repeated this year.

If neither USA or Mexico wins, you will find me crying in the corner.

Here’s a video of moments that made up the 2015 Copa America. Some moments are goals and skills and others are fights and arguments. (Which to be honest, are probably my favorite part).

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QPzhXwm8184

As I said before a total of 16 teams will be playing in the tournament. I have decided to include those teams here as well as how they did in the 2015 Copa America and their current FIFA Ranking. From these, you can go to the Copa America website and create a bracket. If you so wish.

If you don’t care to watch, that’s fine. You can join my mother in her judgment of me. If you would like to see what the big deal is then I highly recommend you watch. You can watch on ESPN, Fox, find the matches illegally online, find the matches legally online or you can watch on the Spanish channel, Univison. Even if you don’t want to watch the actual game, just listen to the commentary. It’s hilarious.

Soccer isn’t something that every single Latino loves and it isn’t a boring sport. I would rather watch a 90 minute scoreless soccer match than a basketball game and basketball is my second favorite sport.

Regardless of whether or not you want to watch:

Here’s a video of fights that happened in 2015. Because they always make me laugh.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4fFABx6mAy4

Here’s a video of goal celebration fails. Because these always make me laugh.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U5sF4PUtnpQ

Here’s a video of some goals from 2015.  If you don’t want to see all 100, skip to 14:58 to see the top 20. 16:37 to see the top 10 and 17:30 to see the top 5. (Order is subjective).

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0UCGGpQCszQ

My point is, watch soccer. It’s eventful, suspenseful, blows your mind, and at times, hilarious.

UPDATE on 2016 Copa America:

Group A: U.S. and Colombia advanced to Quarterfinals. Costa Rica and Paraguay knocked out.

Group B: Peru and Ecuador advanced to Quarterfinals. Brazil and Haiti knocked out.

Quarterfinal Matches: June 16: U.S. vs Ecuador

June 17: Peru vs Colombia

Group C: Current leaders are Mexico and Venezuela.

Group D: Current leaders are Argentina with Chile and Panama.

Quarterfinals take place June 16,17, and 18.

Semifinals take place June 21 and 22.

Third place takes place June 25.

Final takes place June 26.

Click here for easy to read schedule.

This is the eighth article of the column titled “Living in White America.” Every month there will be a new article discussing how one immigrant group, Latinos, live in America. This column will have articles dealing with anything and everything that concerns Latinos, this could include political and social talks. Some articles may discuss a culture of a different Latino group and interviews with a variety of Latinos will be added as well as interviews with non-Latinos asking for their opinion. Discrimination against Latinos has gone on long enough and now it’s time people get a look into a world they dislike so much. 

The post Living in White America: Soccer appeared first on KRUI Radio.

*This article contains language that may not be appropriate for minors*

In this actually insane, ridiculously controversial ride of an election season, a few candidates have made themselves known more than others. On one side of the table we have the former First Lady, Hillary Clinton, who was a household name before she made her second presidential bid. Perhaps the former FL has become even more spoken of in recent months because of the unprecedented challenger to her campaign, Vermont Senator Bernie Sanders, who has made his own name widely known.

On the other side, the notorious Donald Trump is all most people see (much to the fault of the TV news media). Trump sucks up the majority of the spotlight with the uncouth statements that he makes every few moments. Turning on the morning news often yields the same results– an update on Trump’s ravings from the last 24 hours.

Trump was up against Texas Senator Ted Cruz and the Governor of Ohio, John Kasich. His two contenders often fell into obscurity in his wake, though Cruz appeared to be a real contender for the Republican nomination. Despite his decision to drop out of the 2016 presidential race, it is important that we think about what might have been– many considered Cruz the “next best option.”

Multiple well-known figures have come out with statements recently telling America not to vote for Cruz. This includes former Speaker of the House, John Boehner, a member of Cruz’s own party. To be specific, Boehner reportedly called Ted Cruz “Lucifer in the flesh.” Boehner went on to say the following:

“I have Democrat friends and Republican friends. I get along with almost everyone, but I have never worked with a more miserable son of a bitch in my life.”

On a more humorous note, Ted Cruz’s college roommate, Craig Mazin, has also made a number of statements about Cruz via Twitter. These comments sometimes discuss Mazin’s college experience with Cruz, but also speak of Cruz’s character.

While none of these statements are explicitly about Cruz’s policies, this is where the Senator becomes more problematic. Just for clarification, here are some of Ted Cruz’s most staunch proposed policies:

In recent months, Cruz has made it very clear that he opposes all abortion– including abortions in the case of rape or incest.

Cruz has also said that if he were to become the President of the United States, he would attempt to abolish the Department of Education, along with four other major federal agencies, including the Department of Energy, the Department of Commerce, the Department of Housing and Urban Development, and the IRS.

On the topic of American Muslims, Cruz has said that he supports increased policing of neighborhoods with large populations of Muslim citizens. “We need to empower law enforcement to patrol and secure Muslim neighborhoods before they become radicalized,” Cruz has explicitly claimed. Apparently Cruz is under the misconception that the only population that can become radicalized is a Muslim population.

Ted Cruz is also a large proponent of ending the era of “political correctness,” or in other words, being a decent human being. Cruz claims that political correctness is “killing people.”

These are just a few of Cruz’s stunning policies. The list of ideological thought processes and fundamental principles gone awry goes on and on. While we now have Trump as the de facto Republican nominee and this seems entirely horrible, America just might have a dodged a Ted Cruz bullet.

And while it may seem as though Ted Cruz is effectively waging a war against himself with his undesirable social thought, the internet is waging a war that is much more fierce.

If you’re looking for a laugh, just Google “Ted Cruz Zodiac Killer.” Let the Internet tell you itself. But here is a final piece of beauty provided for you to feast your eyes on:

Shut Up and Listen is a politically-based opinion column in which you, the reader, shut up and listen to what I have to say and then formulate opinions and come to your own conclusions. 

The post Shut Up and Listen: Ted Cruz is the Zodiac Killer appeared first on KRUI Radio.

Chinese foods are everywhere. I mean, not only you can find at least one of them in most of the places in the United States, but you can also find them all around the world. But in this article I’m just going to focus on the Chinese restaurants in America. If you often eat in a Chinese restaurant in the United States, you surely realized that there are many “universal dishes” in the Chinese restaurants in the U.S. that you can surely find in almost all the Chinese restaurants in the nation.

Those dishes are, but not limit to General Tso’s chicken, sweet and sour chicken, Mongolian beef, crab Rangoon, and, of course, the fortune cookies. But did you know that many of those “universal dishes” are actually Americanized Chinese dishes?

In this article, we will talk about three different Chinese foods that can be considered “universal” Chinese foods in the United States: General Tso’s chicken, crab Rangoon, and fortune cookies; their origins, their ingredients, the history of the food, and how people think about them.

So let’s talk about General Tso’s chicken. Unlike some other dishes like sweet and sour chicken that the name directly reflects what is in the dish, General Tso’s chicken is actually named after a person. General Tso, or Zuo Zhongtang in Mandarin Chinese, was a Qing Dynasty general and statesman (1812-1885). However, there is no evidence that he had any connection with General Tso’s chicken.

General Tso’s chicken uses breaded chicken with sweet, sour, and spicy sauce. The dish is always served with broccoli.Although there are many versions of the origin of the General Tso’s chicken, there is a common notion that the dish is either from Taiwan, or created by a cook in the New York City. As many people have already guessed, there is no such dish in mainland China. However, there are dishes that use similar cooking styles in the Hunan providence in China.

I gave some samples of General Tso’s chicken to three different people and ask for the feedback after they tastes them. Mentao, a Chinese international student; Walker, a domestic student who loves Americanized Chinese food; and McKenna, a domestic student who has been to China before all tried the samples.

Mentao liked the chicken as long as he didn’t compare it to the “real” Chinese food. He also pointed out that the chicken tastes like sauced chicken nuggets so it is more “American” than Chinese. Walker totally liked the chicken and he said it tasted good. However, McKenna wasn’t a big fan of General Tso’s chicken because after she tasted “real” Chinese food in China, she thinks that Americanized Chinese foods are not as good as the “real” Chinese food.

If we say that General Tso’s chicken was based on some kind of origin Chinese cooking style, then the crab Rangoon is almost having nothing to do with China.

Crab Rangoon uses cream cheese and wonton wrap as its main ingredients. The cook wraps the cream cheese inside the wanton wrap, and deep fries it until crispy. Although crab Rangoon can be found in almost all the Chinese restaurant in the United States, again, this dish has nothing to do with Chinese food.

The word “Rangoon” in the name “crab Rangoon” is really an old name of Yangon, the largest in Myanmar. Although the origin recipe of the crab Rangoon was probably a Burmese recipe, crab Rangoon was probably invented by a Hawaiian or a Pacific islander restaurant in San Francisco in 1950s.  Cream cheese is nonexistent in Chinese food, therefore, it is unlikely that this dish was invented by the Chinese.

After the tasting, Mentao liked the taste of the crab Rangoon, but refuse to recognize it as Chinese food. Walker likes it, and McKenna did not like it.

The common and the most famous Americanized Chinese food is probably the fortune cookie. There used to be a joke about fortune cookie that someone found a piece of paper in the fortune cookie saying: “HELP! I am a prisoner trapped in the Chinese fortune cookie factory!” For people who are really into this joke, you might be disappointed about what I’m going to say: Chinese fortune cookie factory does not exist, and fortune cookie is something invented by the Americans.

The fortune cookie’s original version came from Japan, which was imported into the U.S. in the early 20^th century. During WWII, Chinese fortune cookies drove Japanese cookies out and took control of the market, and they soon spread across the nation. Ironically, the fortune cookie never entered the Chinese market, even though there was an attempt of introducing the fortune cookie to the Chinese people in 1992; it failed because it was too “American”.

So now that you know where these dishes come from, do you still want to eat them? All of our guests agreed that as long as they taste good, it’s okay that they are not really authentic Chinese foods.

How do you feel after you learn the origin of these foods? Are you surprised? Feel free to comment!

Yihao is also the host of the show “Global Perspective” at KRUI every Wednesday from 3-4 pm. The show focuses on international students’ issues in Iowa City, as well as introducing different cultures around the world.

The post Global Perspective: The Chinese Foods That Aren’t From China appeared first on KRUI Radio.

Amid the chatter of the children, a voice rang out: “Slim Goodbody’s program will begin in two minutes!” The voices of the kids immediately replied: “What? No!” They eagerly anticipated the next two minutes and before too long, a man wearing a body suit ran out on stage. It was none other than Slim Goodbody! His program “Bodyology,” performed across the nation, teaches the elementary school children about their bodies.

Understanding the basics of nutrition from a young age sets the foundation for lifelong health and well-being. While shows like “Bodyology” make learning about the human body fun, the real challenge comes in translating that knowledge into daily habits. That’s where a nutritionniste can make a big difference. By providing expert guidance on balanced meals, portion sizes, and nutrient-rich foods, a nutritionist helps kids and adults alike understand how to make smart food choices that support energy, growth, and overall health.

Teaching children the connection between what they eat and how they feel empowers them to develop healthier relationships with food—something that will benefit them well beyond their school years.

Within moments, Slim had the children singing and chanting phrases like “yay body!” and “healthy habits!” After teaching them the Good Health of Allegiance, Slim sang and danced around the stage. Mr. Goodbody told his audience about the five food groups, body cells, and parts of the human body like the diaphragm. Additionally, he selected a few students to come on stage to show off their “marvelous muscles” by performing tricks such as the splits. One of the highlights of the show involved Slim Goodbody rapping about the body’s bones.

Eventually “Bodyology” wound to a close. Although Slim bid the audience farewell at 11, he performed again later that day at 11:40 AM. More information can be found on Slim Goodbody’s website, www.slimgoodbody.com, or by liking his page on Facebook.

The post Show Review: Slim Goodbody @ The Englert Theatre — 2/27/13 appeared first on KRUI Radio.