Rich Howells

NEPA SCENE PODCAST: NEPA elections, politics, teachers’ strikes, and education

NEPA SCENE PODCAST: NEPA elections, politics, teachers’ strikes, and education
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Professionally recorded every Monday at The Stude in TwentyFiveEight Studios in Scranton and released exclusively on nepascene.com every Tuesday, the NEPA Scene Podcast is a free supplement to the website, expanding on the arts and entertainment stories covered on the site and going beyond them to discuss other news and entertainment topics.

Each week, the unedited and uncensored podcast features Rich Howells, NEPA Scene founder and editor; Mark Dennebaum, president and owner of TwentyFiveEight Studios; and Lauren Quirolgico, commercial and content strategist at Lavelle Strategy Group and editor at TwentyFiveEight. Every episode streams on iTunes, SoundCloud, Stitcher, and nepascene.com.

In Episode 37, we return after two months and explain why we’ve been gone for so long (hint: it has something to do with the gigantic fire at the Sandone Tire warehouse right next to the studio and almost losing everything) before talking to our guest, Tom Borthwick, who is a teacher in the Riverside School District, the communications director for his union, an adjunct professor at Marywood University, a political blogger, and a science fiction writer. We discuss the local and national elections; disenfranchised voters and why they’re not coming out to the polls; the working conditions of teachers and the current state of education; teachers’ strikes, particularly in Scranton; the increasing challenges of teaching modern students; Northeastern Pennsylvania politics and the role that media plays in informing voters; blogging and making enemies; and Borthwick’s firsthand experience running for school board and working with the John Kerry presidential campaign. We also get into “Solacium,” the indie film adaptation of one of Borthwick’s short stories, and what it’s like seeing his writing come to life. Jer Tobin of Big Idea Photo and Video Productions fills in for Lauren this week.

In The Last Word segment, we talk about the prevailing negativity in NEPA and on social media and how to combat it, which leads us to a funny idea for a new series.

Listen on iTunes.

Listen on SoundCloud:

Listen on Stitcher.

Watch the first 10 minutes of our interview with Borthwick on YouTube:

Photo by Mark Dennebaum/TwentyFiveEight Studios