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3.16.15: From Prison To Table, Last Meals, & Swearing In Modern America

Granger Meador via flickr Creative Commons
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When you hear about prison work programs, you think license plates or chain gangs – not buffalo milk cheese. On today’s show, we’ll look into the artisanal foods and other under-the-radar, prisoner-made products that line the shelves of stores across the country.

Then, in 1939 Rhett Butler stunned audiences when he uttered the now famous line in Gone with the Wind: “Frankly my dear, I don’t give a damn.” We’ll talk about the history of onscreen cursing, and how four letter words have come out of the shadows and into the mainstream.

Listen to the full show and click Read more for individual segments.

From Prison to Table

The Last Meal

  • Brent Cunninghamis deputy editor of the Columbia Journalism Review. He wrote about the history and meaning of the last meal for Lapham’s Quarterly. We spoke to him in 2013.
    WOM03162015B.mp3
    The Last Meal

Prison Doulas

  • Shaunnah Ray brings us this story about the Birth Attendants-Prison Doula Project, who work with the Washington Correctional Center for Women in Olympia Washington.
  • You can listen to this story again at PRX.org.

Damn! A Cultural History of Swearing in Modern America

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