Saturday Morning for Saturday 4 March 2023

8.10 Dr Bessel van der Kolk: how to heal trauma

Psychiatrist Dr Bessel van der Kolk is one of the world's foremost experts in the treatment of post traumatic stress. 

He is a professor of Psychiatry at Boston University School of Medicine and president of the Trauma Research Foundation in Brookline, Massachusetts.

His 2014 book The Body Keeps the Score is a fixture on the New York Times best-seller list and has sold more than 4 million copies.

It outlines van der Kolk’s theory that trauma is stored in the body and that, for a treatment to be effective, it must address the physiological changes caused by the traumatic event.

He’s studied a range of therapies, including yoga, neurofeedback, MDMA and EMDR (Eye Movement Desensitisation and Reprocessing).

9.05 UMO's Ruban Nielson: "I Killed Captain Cook"

‘I killed Captain Cook’ is the name of a single off Portland-based New Zealand psychedelic rock group Unknown Mortal Orchestra’s album V which is released later this month.

Frontman Ruban Nielson’s Hawaiian heritage has been a key inspiration, and the song’s video features footage of his mother, Deedee Aipolani Nielson, Miss Aloha Hula 1973. 

Nielson and his brother Kody’s band The Mintchicks gained widespread acclaim in Aotearoa in the 2000s, before Ruban shifted to Portland and formed his now internationally celebrated band. These days Kody is back in the band, with V recorded amidst the pandemic between Portland, Hawaii and Palm Springs. 

 

9.35 Ann-Helén Laestadius: coming of age amongst Sweden’s reindeer people

Swedish author Ann-Helén Laestadius is descended from a long line of reindeer herders, growing up in Kiruna, 145 kilometres north of the Arctic Circle. Her people are the Sámi, the indigenous people of Sweden and the wider region of Sápmi (formerly Lapland).

Known previously as a young adult author, Laestadius’ first book for adults Stolen has been a Swedish bestseller, and Book of the Year. It is now in English translation and being made into a Netflix film.       

Stolen is the story of a young Sámi girl’s coming of age. It is informed by painful real-life events: the killing and torturing of reindeer, and the hatred Laestadius has seen as a journalist directed towards her people.

10.05 AI ethicist Dr Timnit Gebru: why we can't trust Silicon Valley 

In the race to create and release Artificial Intelligence (AI) tools, are Silicon Valley companies such as OpenAI failing to fully consider the consequences of their work?  

The speed of development in the field is dizzying, with new tools such as ChatGPT and DALL·E offering a sneak peek at the potential of AI to work for us.

Ethiopian born US computer scientist Dr Timnit Gebru is a leading researcher on the ethics of artificial intelligence.

Google hired Dr Gebru to co-lead its Ethical Artificial Intelligence Team, but then fired her in 2020 after she co-wrote an article questioning the dangers of the large language AI models the company was developing.

In 2021 she founded the nonprofit Distributed Artificial Intelligence Research Institute (DAIR). The following year Time magazine named her one of its "100 most influential people".

10.40 Whare Timu: building on mātauranga Māori

From humble beginnings as a teen dad in Heretaunga to heading Warren and Mahoney’s Advanced Indigenous Design Unit, designer Whare Timu (Ngāti Kahungunu, Te Arawa, Ngāti Tūwharetoa) has come a long way.

Passionate about co-design and using low impact and natural materials, his work is built on a firm foundation of mātauranga Māori.

He led the design of Rotorua's recently opened Sir Howard Morrison Centre, the National Library 's He Tohu Exhibition, and is co-designing Tauranga's Te Manawataki o Te Papa Civic Precinct.

11.05 Playing favourites with yeehawtheboys’ Daniel Vernon

Whether it’s the Auckland floods, European cultural erasure or youth crime Daniel Vernon’s comics, art and music have become a go-to for smart, biting satire.

As well as commissions - like for the new illustrated edition of Murdoch Stephens’ book Rat King Landlord  - and contributions to The Spinoff and Re: News, Vernon (Ngāti Kahungunu) posts his work as @yeehawtheboys on Instagram and Substack.
 
Dan is also known as Danz from the band Dartz, whose second album The Band from Wellington, New Zealand  came out late last year. A new single ‘Steal from the Supermarket’ is being released 10 March with a show in their hometown, and they play Cubadupa 25-26 March. 

 

Books featured on this show:

The Body Keeps the Score
by Bessel van der Kolk 
Published by Penguin Press
ISBN: 9780141978611

Stolen
by Ann-Helen Laestadius 
Published by Schribner
ISBN: 9781668007167

Music featured on this show

"A Roller Skating Jam Named "Saturdays""
Performed by De la Soul
Played at 8.55am

I Killed Captain Cook
Performed by Unknown Mortal Orchestra
Played at 9.05am

Drag
Performed by Unknown Mortal Orchestra
Played at 9.30am

I can't give everything away
Performed by Spoon
Played at 10.35am