Why are people walking and biking along the narrow shoulders of Routes 7, 23 and 41, and what would it take to give them a safe place to go? In this episode, we sit down with James Barnard, a Beijing-based history teacher (and the host’s son) with a passion for active transportation infrastructure: the paths and lanes that let us get around under our own power.

James draws on lessons from the Netherlands and Sweden, where systematic road-safety design has cut traffic deaths by about two-thirds, and makes the case that the Berkshires could benefit from the same thinking. He explains why bike paths cost a fraction of what roads do and last for decades, how the Massachusetts DOT has already mapped a Priority Trails Network, and why South County lags behind the progress on the Ashuwillticook Rail Trail up north.

The conversation also covers bike tourism as an economic engine, kids’ independence and mental health, the surprising shared history of the bicycle and the car, and the difference between e-bikes and e-motorcycles. Above all, James argues that a Berkshire Bike Path from Ashley Falls to Williamstown is within reach, for about 1% of what the state spends on roads, if residents build the political will to demand it.

This episode examines how mainstream American media didn’t just fail to cover the destruction of Gaza accurately, but actively participated in obscuring it. Drawing on two works released a decade apart, the 2016 documentary The Occupation of the American Mind and Adam H. Johnson’s 2026 book How to Sell a Genocide, the discussion traces how a public relations infrastructure built since the 1980s shaped Western coverage of Israel and Palestine. The conversation looks at specific journalistic patterns Johnson documents in outlets like the New York Times and CNN, including language choices, source selection, and what he calls “Moats of Rationalization.” Rather than blaming right-wing outlets, the focus lands squarely on the center-left press and the uncomfortable question of institutional complicity in shaping public understanding of mass atrocity.