Peace Is Here with Avis Kalfsbeek

The Great Disarmament Part 12: Arms & Arguments – When Peace Learned to Speak Up. In an era dominated by Cold War brinkmanship, something remarkable happened. Peace became public. From the Nuclear Freeze movement to televised debates, this 100th episode of the Peace is Here Podcast tracks how citizens learned to speak up, protest, and challenge the very premise of global militarism. We explore the 1980s and ’90s not as a triumph of treaties, but as the moment peace gained fluency—in arguments, in law, and in imagination. We also remind ourselves: disarmament is not a speedy process, and it is never guaranteed. But it happens. And we are still part of it. Featuring historian Howard Zinn and James Baldwin’s The Fire Next Time. Download the Peace Resource Guide: AvisKalfsbeek.com/PeaceGuide Follow my Kickstarter: AvisKalfsbeek.com/Kickstarter Get the books: aviskalfsbeek.com   🎵 Music by Javier “Peke” Rodriguez Bandcamp: javierpekerodriguez.bandcamp.com Spotify: Javier “Peke” Rodriguez

The Great Disarmament Part 11: Fallout & Flower Powers. As nuclear fire darkened the sky, a global peace movement took root. This episode explores the cultural birth of The Great Disarmament—from Hiroshima to Haight-Ashbury, from anti-war protests to international arms control treaties, from monks on fire to flowers in rifles. We mark the year 1963—the year of the Limited Nuclear Test Ban Treaty—as the beginning of The Great Disarmament. Not the beginning of bombs. But the beginning of refusal. This turning point in Cold War history reminds us that resistance is not the opposite of despair. It is the antidote. Featuring the words of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. and the voice of Kurt Vonnegut through Slaughterhouse-Five, we trace how conscience, courage, and creative protest began to build a counterweight to destruction—and a new peace culture began to rise. Download the Peace Resource Guide: AvisKalfsbeek.com/PeaceGuide Follow my Kickstarter: AvisKalfsbeek.com/Kickstarter Get the books: aviskalfsbeek.com 🎵 Featured Music: “Dalai Llama Rides a Bike” by Javier “Peke” Rodriguez Bandcamp: javierpekerodriguez.bandcamp.com Spotify: Javier “Peke” Rodriguez on Spotify

The Great Disarmament: Gas & Conscience – When the World Said Never Again World War I ushered in the age of mechanized killing—from mustard gas to machine guns. But amid the devastation came something new: organized resistance, international treaties, and the first serious conversations about disarmament. In this episode, we mark the moment when the world’s conscience awoke—and disarmament began. Download the Peace Resource Guide: AvisKalfsbeek.com/PeaceGuide Follow my Kickstarter: AvisKalfsbeek.com/Kickstarter Get the books: aviskalfsbeek.com   🎵 Music by Javier “Peke” Rodriguez • Bandcamp: javierpekerodriguez.bandcamp.com • Spotify: Javier “Peke” Rodriguez on Spotify

The Great Disarmament: Powder & Principles – When Conscience First Spoke As gunpowder redefined the global balance of power, another force quietly emerged—conscience. This episode explores the 1600s to 1800s, when the rise of modern empires was met by the first organized refusals to fight. From the Quaker Peace Testimony and early abolitionist resistance to Enlightenment philosophers imagining peace as policy, we follow the voices who rejected war, empire, and extraction as the price of civilization. We trace the moral origins of nonviolence through: The Religious Society of Friends (Quakers) and their refusal to bear arms The philosophical foundations of Utopia and early social contract theory William Penn’s peaceful treaties and anti-militarist governance The link between war, slavery, and the moral awakening that would influence Tolstoy, Gandhi, and King Through these stories, we ask: When did peace stop being passive? And how did disobedience become a sacred act? This episode is part of The Great Disarmament – The Great Disfarmament, a 14-part podcast series on the deep history of war, agriculture, and the movements to end them. 📚 Get my latest book Mono Mutante: aviskalfsbeek.com/mono-mutante 💛 Follow my Kickstarter: aviskalfsbeek.com/kickstarter 🎵 Music by Javier “Peke” Rodriguez • Bandcamp: javierpekerodriguez.bandcamp.com • Spotify: Listen here

Spears & Surrender – When Peace Was Older Than Progress Before nations, before bombs, before “progress,” there was another kind of peace—one rooted in ritual, kinship, and restraint. In this episode, we trace the earliest forms of disarmament: warriors who buried weapons before councils, spiritual leaders who practiced nonviolence, and poetic traditions that chose mercy over might. With voices from The Bhagavad Gita, the Rig Veda, and Zulu proverbs, we rediscover surrender as sacred wisdom. 📚 Get my latest book Mono Mutante 💥 Get ready for Bullet Poof 💛 Follow my Kickstarter 🔔 Subscribe so you don’t miss an episode 🎵 Music is by Javier “Peke” Rodriguez: The Red Kite and Dalai Llama Rides a Bike • Bandcamp • Spotify

This episode marks the turning point between The Great Disfarmament (Parts 1 - 6) and The Great Disarmament (Parts 8 - 13). We look back across centuries of agricultural violence—fertilizer bombs, chemical dependency, and genetic control—and begin to see a new story taking root. We recap key voices: the ecological grief of The Epic of Gilgamesh, the defiant poetry of William Blake, the wartime witness of Erich Maria Remarque, the prophetic science of Rachel Carson, the double-edged legacy of Norman Borlaug, and the braided wisdom of Robin Wall Kimmerer. The Great Disarmament didn’t begin with a summit or a ceasefire. It began when people said no. When they composted control. When they made peace in the soil. Next episode, we follow that thread—into Spears & Surrender. 📘 Download the Peace Resource Guide: aviskalfsbeek.com/peaceguide 📢 Share this episode using #TheGreatDisarmament 📚 Get Mono Mutante: aviskalfsbeek.com/mono-mutante 💛 Follow my Kickstarter: aviskalfsbeek.com/kickstarter 🎵 Music is by Javier “Peke” Rodriguez: The Red Kite Javier on Bandcamp: javierpekerodriguez.bandcamp.com Javier on Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/artist/3QuyqfXEKzrpUl6b12I3KW?si=iFFXM2gYR2CuuGjmsfNViQ

In this episode, Avis Kalfsbeek marks the final chapter of The Great Disfarmament—and the quiet rise of a different kind of power. As war tactics evolved from Cold War standoffs to post-9/11 surveillance and global contracting, the logic of control continued to infiltrate the land. Seeds were genetically modified, patented, and, in some cases, designed never to reproduce. Farmers were no longer growers but users—dependent on licensing, chemicals, and contracts. The soil was stripped. Sovereignty was sold. And the disfarmament, it seemed, was complete. Yet even as these systems tightened their grip, something ancient stirred beneath the surface. This episode honors the seed savers, the land listeners, and the quiet movements that began to push back. We meet Indigenous leader Winona LaDuke, whose work on food sovereignty and cultural memory reminds us that “food is medicine—not only for the body, but for the soul.” We also reflect through the lens of Braiding Sweetgrass by Robin Wall Kimmerer, who teaches that reciprocity, not ownership, defines our relationship with the earth. In a time of mechanized control, these voices call us to remember the seed not as a product, but as a promise. This is the story of regeneration and resistance— Of choosing ceremony over commodity, memory over monopoly, and kinship over control. Next, we begin Part II: The Great Disarmament. 📘 Download the Peace Resource Guide: aviskalfsbeek.com/peaceguide 📢 Share this episode using #TheGreatDisarmament 📚 Get Mono Mutante: aviskalfsbeek.com/mono-mutante 💛 Follow my Kickstarter: aviskalfsbeek.com/kickstarter 🎵 Music is by Javier “Peke” Rodriguez: The Red Kite Javier on Bandcamp: javierpekerodriguez.bandcamp.com Javier on Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/artist/3QuyqfXEKzrpUl6b12I3KW?si=iFFXM2gYR2CuuGjmsfNViQ

In this episode, host Avis Kalfsbeek examines the Cold War’s eerie balance between restraint and escalation. While world powers held their fire through Mutually Assured Destruction, another kind of battle intensified in the fields. The Green Revolution promised to end hunger, but often delivered dependency. With hybrid seeds, fossil-fuel fertilizers, and pesticides drawn from wartime chemistry, agriculture became a new theater of control. Countries in the Global South were offered technological salvation—at the cost of local knowledge, biodiversity, and sovereignty. Our featured voice is Rachel Carson, whose 1962 book Silent Spring revealed the hidden cost of domination disguised as innovation. Her quiet courage helped spark a global movement for environmental awareness and restraint. We also reflect on Norman Borlaug’s legacy through The Man Who Fed the World—a reminder that even well-intentioned interventions can carry unintended consequences. Control, scale, and speed defined the era. But memory, humility, and care may yet define the future. 📘 Download the Peace Resource Guide: aviskalfsbeek.com/peaceguide 📢 Share this episode using #TheGreatDisarmament 📚 Get Mono Mutante: aviskalfsbeek.com/mono-mutante 💛 Follow my Kickstarter: aviskalfsbeek.com/kickstarter 🎵 Music is by Javier “Peke” Rodriguez: The Red Kite Javier on Bandcamp: javierpekerodriguez.bandcamp.com Javier on Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/artist/3QuyqfXEKzrpUl6b12I3KW?si=iFFXM2gYR2CuuGjmsfNViQ

What happens when chemical warfare doesn’t end at the battlefield—but follows us home? In this episode of The Great Disfarmament – The Great Disarmament, we travel from the trenches of World War I to the poisoned fields of mid-century agriculture. We explore how the same compounds used for mustard gas and explosives were rebranded as fertilizers and pesticides—and how the Green Revolution masked a deeper ecological unraveling. We meet Sir Albert Howard, a botanist who saw soil not as a battleground but as a living system, and we revisit the literary trauma of All Quiet on the Western Front, where war clings to lungs and lingers in the land. If disfarmament began with conquest, this is the moment it became chemical. Listen in as we unearth the roots of modern agriculture—and how healing may begin by remembering what we’ve tried to forget. 📘 Download the Peace Resource Guide: aviskalfsbeek.com/peaceguide 📢 Share this episode using #TheGreatDisarmament 📚 Get Mono Mutante: aviskalfsbeek.com/mono-mutante 💛 Follow my Kickstarter: aviskalfsbeek.com/kickstarter 🎵 Music is by Javier “Peke” Rodriguez: The Red Kite Javier on Bandcamp: javierpekerodriguez.bandcamp.com Javier on Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/artist/3QuyqfXEKzrpUl6b12I3KW?si=iFFXM2gYR2CuuGjmsfNViQ

What happens when the hunger for yield becomes an imperial mission? In this episode, we travel to the 18th and 19th centuries to explore two seemingly unrelated substances—gunpowder and guano. One shaped the battlefield. The other reshaped the farm. But both emerged from a growing belief that nature could be extracted, measured, and conquered. We trace the rise of nitrogen obsession, colonial fertilizer wars, and the passing of the Guano Islands Act—all moments that reveal how food systems were drafted into the logic of empire. Poet William Blake reminds us that even rivers and soil were being claimed, chartered, and commodified. His words—drawn from The Chimney Sweeper and London—anchor this episode in the moral undercurrent of ecological-industrial harm. This isn’t just a history of weapons or fertilizer. It’s a warning about what we begin to forget when we turn living systems into engines—and when we trade birdshit for blood. 📘 Download the Peace Resource Guide: aviskalfsbeek.com/peaceguide 📢 Share this episode using #TheGreatDisarmament 📚 Get Mono Mutante: aviskalfsbeek.com/mono-mutante 💛 Follow my Kickstarter: aviskalfsbeek.com/kickstarter 🎵 Music is by Javier “Peke” Rodriguez: The Red Kite Javier on Bandcamp: javierpekerodriguez.bandcamp.com Javier on Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/artist/3QuyqfXEKzrpUl6b12I3KW?si=iFFXM2gYR2CuuGjmsfNViQ

What if we remembered the wisdom buried in the soil? In this second episode of The Great Disfarmament – The Great Disarmament, we go back—before fertilizers, before bullets, before the conquest of land and people. We trace the quiet origins of farming and war, when both were bound by ritual, proximity, and care. We explore ancient practices of composting, communal stewardship, and restraint—methods rooted in renewal, not extraction. We meet a voice from the Sumerian world—Shuruppak—whose 4,000-year-old instructions remind us that farming was once a moral act. And we revisit The Epic of Gilgamesh, one of the earliest ecological warnings in literature. Together, these ancient texts ask: What if agriculture had never become a tool of conquest? This is a story of what we knew before we knew what we’d lose. A mirror held up to the beginnings of disarmament—not in politics, but in the ground itself. 📘 Download the Peace Resource Guide: aviskalfsbeek.com/peaceguide 📢 Share this episode using #TheGreatDisarmament 📚 Get Mono Mutante: aviskalfsbeek.com/mono-mutante 💛 Follow my Kickstarter: aviskalfsbeek.com/kickstarter 🎵 Music is by Javier “Peke” Rodriguez: The Red Kite Javier on Bandcamp: javierpekerodriguez.bandcamp.com Javier on Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/artist/3QuyqfXEKzrpUl6b12I3KW?si=iFFXM2gYR2CuuGjmsfNViQ

What if I told you The Great Disarmament has already begun? Not as a headline, or a treaty, or a dream—but as something quiet. Ongoing. Something you might not have noticed. In this opening episode, we trace the overlapping histories of agriculture and war—and ask what it means to disarm a system built to dominate. We start with a simple truth: for most of human history, farming and war were opposites. One fed. One destroyed. But in the last century, their paths began to merge—military chemicals were recast as fertilizers and pesticides, and the language of conquest entered our relationship with land. We end with the voice of Rachel Carson, whose 1962 book Silent Spring challenged the chemical mindset reshaping our world, and offered, instead, a way of seeing nature as something we belong to, not something we conquer. This is not a series about easy answers. It’s a listening project. A way of seeing what was built—and what is being unbuilt. — 📘 Download the Peace Resource Guide: aviskalfsbeek.com/peaceguide 📢 Share this episode using #TheGreatDisarmament 📚 Get Mono Mutante: aviskalfsbeek.com/mono-mutante 💛 Follow my Kickstarter: aviskalfsbeek.com/kickstarter 🎵 Music is by Javier “Peke” Rodriguez: The Red Kite Javier on Bandcamp: javierpekerodriguez.bandcamp.com Javier on Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/artist/3QuyqfXEKzrpUl6b12I3KW?si=iFFXM2gYR2CuuGjmsfNViQ

Welcome to The Great Disarmament – The Great Disfarmament. Host Avis Kalfsbeek, peace storyteller, ecofiction author, leads us in this 14-part nonfiction podcast tracing how violence became embedded in agriculture, policy, and culture—and how people across history have resisted it. From soil to soul, this series blends history, science, activism, and hope. 🔹 First: The Great Disfarmament explores how agriculture became a war zone—through guano, pesticides, and genetic control—and how farmers, scientists, and elders fought back. 🔹 Next: The Great Disarmament tells how humans unlearn war. We follow voices of resistance—Gandhi, Rachel Carson, MLK Jr., Winona LaDuke, Greta Thunberg—and everyday peacebuilders shaping a new future. This episode also grounds us with⏳ The Doomsday Clock. In 1947, atomic scientists created the Doomsday Clock—a symbol of our proximity to global catastrophe. That year, it was set at 7 minutes to midnight. Today: 89 seconds. But this podcast isn’t about panic. It’s about possibility. It’s about the scientists, poets, and peace warriors who believe in a different future—and are building it now. 🎧 There will be 14 episodes. Start with Part 1: Spears & Surrender. 📘 Download the Peace Resource Guide: aviskalfsbeek.com/peaceguide 📢 Share this episode using #TheGreatDisarmament 📚 Get Mono Mutante: aviskalfsbeek.com/mono-mutante 💛 Follow my Kickstarter: aviskalfsbeek.com/kickstarter 🎵 Music is by Javier “Peke” Rodriguez: The Red Kite and Dalai Llama Riding a Bike Javier on Bandcamp: javierpekerodriguez.bandcamp.com Javier on Spotify: Listen here

On her 63rd birthday, author and peace storyteller Avis Kalfsbeek takes a break between creative seasons to reflect on what peace really means—on Earth, in words, and in action. In this intimate episode, she reads Mark Twain’s The War Prayer, a searing and ironic satire written during America’s imperial turn but withheld during Twain’s lifetime for fear it would be “not publishable.” Twain was Vice President of the Anti-Imperialist League (1901), opposing U.S. intervention in the Philippines. His peace work was fierce, critical, and clear-eyed. “O Lord our God, help us to tear their soldiers to bloody shreds with our shells… help us to lay waste their humble homes with a hurricane of fire… We ask it, in the spirit of love, of Him who is the source of Love…” Excerpt from Mark Twain's The War Prayer Alongside the reading, Avis shares a personal “knowing” about peace, a birthday poem, and a call to stop the killing of just about everything for profit. If you’ve ever wrestled with whether peace is possible—or wondered how satire can hold a spiritual truth—this is a quiet, powerful episode to return to. Musical credits: “Una Mañana” by Javier “Peke” Rodriguez (full track featured at the end) Links to Peke’s music are in the show notes. The Great Disarmament is coming soon. Until then—peace is already here. 💌 Free Book Offer: Get Mono Mutante (Book 6 in the Pedro the Water Dog Saves the Planet series) free through September 15 when you subscribe to the email list. Coming Soon: Bullet Poof (Book 7) — a story about friendship, defiance, and the grip of guns in our culture. Subscribe to be notified of new books: https://us8.list-manage.com/contact-form?u=82bbb5a1424db416114055532&form_id=c2c98c09e84a7880e5699d37f0685155 Get Mark Twain’s A War Prayer in the book “Europe and Other Things” available for free on Gutenberg Press: https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/68604 💛 Follow my Kickstarter → aviskalfsbeek.com/kickstarter 🎵 Music: Dalai Lama Riding a Bike by Javier “Peke” Rodriguez 🎧 Bandcamp → javierpekerodriguez.bandcamp.com 🎧 Spotify → Listen here

What happens when your granola comes with spin instead of oats? In this bonus satire bulletin from Peace Is Here, Kitty O’Compost reports on Syndown Industries’ latest inventions: Gaslit Granola™ and Syndown Syrup™. With ads promising “freedom from inconvenient nutrition” and products boasting “pre-canceled fiber,” watchdogs warn breakfast may now contain 85% less reality than advertised. Each box comes with free Feel-Good Glasses™, rose tint only. Because in the world of Syndown, ignorance really is bliss. But after laughs (hopefully!), author Avis Kalfsbeek takes a moment to step away from the satire and share unscripted gratitude for the end of Mono Mutante’s launch week. Why did this series begin? Why does it continue? In a heartfelt reflection, Avis speaks about her father and brother—third- and fourth-generation farmers to whom Mono Mutante is dedicated—about her AA sponsor and the daily practice of recovery, and about the spiritual heart of this work: If we see the God in a tomato, or in the eyes of a beautiful cow, and realize those eyes are no different from our dog’s, then peace becomes possible. This bonus episode is both a wink and a bow: a thank-you to readers, listeners, and fellow travelers in the messy, hopeful pursuit of food justice, compassion, and joy. 📚 Get Mono Mutante: aviskalfsbeek.com/mono-mutante 💛 Follow my Kickstarter: aviskalfsbeek.com/kickstarter 🎵 Music: Dalai Lama Rides a Bike by Javier “Peke” Rodriguez 🎧 Bandcamp: javierpekerodriguez.bandcamp.com 🎧 Spotify: Listen here Kitty O’Compost Music: Thanks to Nicholas Panek on Pixaby

When was the last time you heard joy described as a public health threat? In today’s satirical bulletin, the Centers for Control of Happiness warn of dangerous “joy clusters” linked to Mono Mutante readings—and propose emergency bans on shared laughter in community gardens. Then, in our excerpt from Mono Mutante, we meet Lova Saskatoon, a Canadian farmer whose battle against a GMO giant became a legal precedent for seed sovereignty. Her story—rooted in courage, resilience, and loss—is a reminder that controlling the seed supply is just another form of controlling people. From absurd headlines to hard truths, this episode mixes comedy, conscience, and a deep respect for those who fight to keep our food free. 📚 Get Mono Mutante: aviskalfsbeek.com/mono-mutante 💛 Follow my Kickstarter: aviskalfsbeek.com/kickstarter 🎵 Music: Dalai Lama Rides a Bike by Javier “Peke” Rodriguez 🎧 Bandcamp: javierpekerodriguez.bandcamp.com 🎧 Spotify: Listen here Kitty O’Compost Music: Thanks to Nicholas Panek on Pixaby

In today’s War of the Worlds–style satire, the Department of Culinary Compliance issues a national security alert after “unpermitted lettuce” is detected in public school lunchrooms. We go live to the scene of a kale salad confiscation, before it can “radicalize the spinach.” Then, it’s an excerpt from Mono Mutante—a dirt-splattered, laugh-out-loud eco-satire about food, farming, and the fight for diversity. In this scene from Chapter 20, children take the stage at a farm conference to share staggering facts about monocropping… along with plant names so vivid they could start their own rock band. Expect both groans and giggles, with a few pesticide-free punchlines for good measure. 📚 Get Mono Mutante: aviskalfsbeek.com/mono-mutante 💛 Follow my Kickstarter: aviskalfsbeek.com/kickstarter 🎵 Music: Dalai Lama Rides a Bike by Javier “Peke” Rodriguez 🎧 Bandcamp: javierpekerodriguez.bandcamp.com 🎧 Spotify: Listen here Kitty O’Compost Music: Thanks to Nicholas Panek on Pixaby

What happens when your novel gets outed for “tucking impossible optimism into every chapter”? In this launch-week episode for Mono Mutante—a dirt-splattered eco-satire through the monoculture Midwest—we bring you a breaking bulletin from the Bureau for Imaginative Compliance. A compostable thumb drive has been unearthed at the Decorum seed swap, carrying a handwritten confession: the author admits she wrote the book as a Trojan Horse of hope. Officials warn the manuscript could spark “direct action, vegetable planting, or worse—community.” Then, we turn to Mono Mutante itself. In today’s excerpt, corporate lobbyists Bruno and Red square off at a plant-based restaurant in St. Louis, where jackfruit masquerades as pork and pesticide-free futures are debated like high-stakes poker. Between the bites of faux barbecue, questions rise: Who really controls our food? Can slow food and land-back movements rewrite the rules? From satirical seeds to serious struggles over pesticides, power, and land, this episode blends comedy, conscience, and the messy taste of resistance. 📚 Mono Mutante is out now. Download your free copy (through 9/15) and see why some are calling it “a Trojan Horse of hope.” Links: 📖 Get Mono Mutante: https://aviskalfsbeek.com/mono-mutante 🚲 Follow my Kickstarter: https://www.aviskalfsbeek.com/kickstarter 🎵 Music: “Dalai Llama Rides a Bike” by Javier “Peke” Rodriguez.  Bandcamp: https://javierpekerodriguez.bandcamp.com  Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/artist/3QuyqfXEKzrpUl6b12I3KW Kitty O’Compost Music: Thanks to Nicholas Panek on Pixaby

What happens when meat leaves the dinner table and enters the stock exchange? In this launch-week episode for Mono Mutante—a dirt-splattered eco-satire through the monoculture Midwest—we cut to a breaking bulletin from the Council on Consumable Compliance. The charge? Corporations have launched BeefCoin™—the world’s first meat-backed cryptocurrency—and are marketing Freedom Cuts™, beef you can finance like a new pickup. A whistleblower even warns of “synthetic nostalgia,” bottled to make your backyard smell like burgers, long after the cows are gone. From absurd speculation to the politics of appetite, this episode skewers the future of food with wit, worry, and a side of satire. Then, we dive into Chapter 13 of Mono Mutante, where Tilly and Camas share a glass of starlight, a conversation about meat bans, and a strangely tender thought experiment about the last steak on Earth. 📚 Get Mono Mutante: aviskalfsbeek.com/mono-mutante 💛 Follow my Kickstarter: aviskalfsbeek.com/kickstarter 🎵 Music: Dalai Lama Rides a Bike by Javier “Peke” Rodriguez 🎧 Bandcamp: javierpekerodriguez.bandcamp.com 🎧 Spotify: Listen here Kitty O’Compost Music: Thanks to Nicholas Panek on Pixaby

What happens when your novel gets dragged before the Council on Narrative Morality for “uplifting satire in zones of regulated despair”? In this launch-week special for Mono Mutante—a dirt-splattered eco-satire through the monoculture Midwest—we interrupt our regularly scheduled program for a War of the Worlds–style bulletin on the dangers of “dangerous inspiration.” First up: a breaking news alert about fiction accused of reducing productivity by making people… hopeful. Then, an excerpt from Mono Mutante’s Chapter 11, where Camas and Tilly return to Camas’s childhood home—and discover the pink envelope containing a letter from her mom, later included in the book as a short story. From satirical headlines to intimate moments of grief and memory, this episode mixes comedy with conscience—and maybe inspires a little “dangerous” hope of your own. 📚 Get Mono Mutante: aviskalfsbeek.com/mono-mutante 💛 Follow my Kickstarter: aviskalfsbeek.com/kickstarter 🎵 Music: Dalai Lama Rides a Bike by Javier “Peke” Rodriguez 🎧 Bandcamp: javierpekerodriguez.bandcamp.com 🎧 Spotify: Listen here Kitty O’Compost Music: Thanks to Nicholas Panek on Pixaby