13 episodes
Boy and Island Andrew Hurst
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- Society & Culture
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5.0 • 12 Ratings
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This podcast explores the development of the book, Boy and Island by Andrew Hurst which centers on the Three Mile Island (T.M.I.) nuclear power accident that occurred near his childhood home in Middletown, Pennsylvania on March 28, 1979—the most significant accident in U.S. commercial nuclear power plant history. Boy and Island examines T.M.I.’s impact on local citizens by unveiling the previously untold story of his family’s incredible journey in search of sanity and justice on the frontline of a nuclear nightmare. Hurst was six-years-old when the accident occurred, while his father, James Hurst, was a founding member of PANE (People Against Nuclear Energy). PANE’s mission to hold T.M.I.’s owners and operators accountable for psychological and emotional trauma went all the way to the United States Supreme Court. In waging this war, the Hurst family found themselves in an astounding series of circumstances that uprooted their lives and led them to seek refuge in strange places, leading to encounters with remarkable people. Hurst’s first-person account of these experiences is sensitively crafted with poetic insights from his insider’s perspective and loaded with rare, unpublished photos and archival materials.
Boy and Island also examines the ways the T.M.I. experience has impacted Hurst’s creative instincts as an artist and how it has shaped his character as an adult. Ultimately, Hurst sees Boy and Island functioning as a story that transcends the confines of the T.M.I. issue by mining the tragedy for unconventional wisdom and forward thinking about place, family, and social justice.
Read more about Boy and Island at www.boyandisland.com
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Episode 6: Three Mile Island 45th Anniversary
To commemorate the 45th anniversary of the accident at Three Mile Island, I present a very special interview with my sister Leigh Hurst!! In this impromptu and revealing discussion we share memories and compare notes on our personal experiences from the day of the accident 45 years ago and its aftermath to the present day. We cover in length the far reaching impact of our parent’s Anne and Jim’s involvement in the anti- nuclear grass roots organization P.A.N.E. (people against nuclear energy), and the ongoing ways it has effected and influenced our character and world view. We also explore Leigh’s journey as a breast cancer survivor and her creation of the Feel Your Boobies Foundation, which is currently celebrating its 20th year! There’s all this and much more.
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Episode 5: "Where Does It Come From? Where Is it Going To?”
An audio exploration of some profound, irreverent, unforgettable and unforgivable events of 2023 that continue to forcibly shape the psychic landscape of ’24 and beyond. Fragments of music by some of the artists we lost last year have been interwoven throughout this episode to pay tribute to their brilliance and invite their spiritual energy to invigorate and enrich the context of the information within.
Topics included:
- Buddhist meditation advice form Mary Finnigan from the Off The Record: David Bowie Podcast
- My dad retelling his famous tastycake/dog turd story
- Train song collage into news coverage of the East Palestine, Ohio train derailment
- News coverage of Fukushima radioactive wastewater release into the Pacific
- Far East Nuclear Net Zero goals
- Nuclear Fusion breakthroughs
- US expands nuclear weapons arsenal
- Barbie/Oppenheimer films
- Pro Nuke “influencer” Madi Hilly on the Decouple Podcast
- Radiation leak cover up in Minnesota
- Trump legal woes
Music fragments included from artists who passed in 2023:
David Crosby, Damo Suzuki, Tina Turner, Wayne Kramer, Sinead O’ Connor, Andy Rourke, Tom Verlaine, Jamie Reid, Robbie Robertson -
Episode 4: "Honor Thy Error as a Hidden Intention"
After a routine medical procedure goes awry, sending his father Jim into a months-long health crisis, Hurst embarks on an esoteric ponderance on the nature of errors that includes the zen wisdom of composer John Cage, Brian Eno’s “Oblique Strategies,” the roving spirituality of walking, the pleasures and terrors of misunderstood song lyrics, the tragic convergence of mechanical and human error at the center of the accident at Three Mile Island, and more!
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Episode 3: 44th Anniversary
In honor of Women's History Month, this episode contains a very special interview with my mother, Anne Hurst in which we reflect on the 44th anniversary of the accident at Three Mile Island with a revealing and heartfelt discussion on the trials and tribulations of caregiving amidst a nuclear catastrophe, the true spirit of activism and much more!
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Episode 2: From Sorcery to Utility (Part 5)
In this final part of Episode 2, the question; "How did Three Mile Island Nuclear Power Plant wind up in my backyard?" is finally answered through ruminations on violence as spectacle, the brilliant and turbulent early history of Radioactivity, from its inspired discovery at the dawn of the 20th century, to its weaponization by the U.S. Military in World War 2, and much, much more!
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Episode 2: From Sorcery to Utility (Part 4)
In this episode, Hurst weighs in on "Meltdown" the Netflix documentary on Three Mile Island, and continues his deep dive into Deja Vu and its ubiquitous presence in the modern popular psyche through revealing personal insights on "The China Syndrome" movie, his disturbing eyewitness account of the attacks on 9/11, the concept of Militainment, "wild history" and more.
Customer Reviews
Love the personal angle
Refreshing take on a topic that can be fact heavy. The personal angle about how our family navigated this really brings it to life in an interesting way.
Interesting Angle
With a mix of music.