At an unusually blunt press conference at the NATO summit in London we have more from N.P.R.'s Frank Langfitt the leaders disagreed on various issues including the role of Turkey inside the military alliance and how to address what remains of ISIS Trump to take back French citizens who joined the group and have now been captured would you like some nice ISIS fighters let's be serious responded by a crawl under mused the French president pointed out that Europeans make up a tiny percentage of the ISIS fighting force and the West faces much bigger unresolved business and they think No one priority because if you look at it if you get rid of micros implicitly criticizing President Trump for pulling troops out of northern Syria allowing Turkey to attack or just forces who had worked with the us fighting ISIS Frank Langfitt n.p.r. News London the Dow closed down more than one percent and the day 27502 this is n.p.r. 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This is Fresh Air I'm Terry Gross my guest b.j. Miller is a hospice and palliative care doctor who got into this work because he came close to death when he was a sophomore at Princeton University it was late one night he was out with friends and as they crossed the railroad track he climbed on top of a 2 car commuter train parked for the night and was immediately electrocuted by 11000 volts the damage resulted in the loss of both legs below the knees and half of an arm Miller is now a palliative care physician at the University of California San Francisco Cancer Center he was the executive director of San Francisco's Zen hospice project from 2011 to 2016 he's the co-author with Shoshana Berger of the new book a beginner's guide to the end practical advice for living life and facing death and he started a new project the Center for dying and living now in its early stage it's a website designed for people to share their own stories related to living with illness disability and loss or caring for those who are b.j. Miller welcome to Fresh Air If you don't mind let's start with the experience that brought you close to death you and your friends had some drinks when you were in college as like 4 am and you climbed on top of a 2 car shuttle train in Princeton to member what you were thinking when you climbed on the train. You know I don't I don't really have many memories of the night itself to sort of spotty once. But it was very back in very easily imagine what I was thinking. And having talked to my buddies who you know if they actually kind of patched it all together I think the basic thing we were thinking was oh here's a jungle gyms is sitting here let's climb it Mike you climb a tree or something like that I don't I'm quite certain we did not think we're doing anything spectacularly dangerous Did your friends who were with you describe to you later what they witnessed because you have no memory of it. Once I was through much of the trauma it just became sort of the whole thing just became interesting to me and so yeah talking and piecing it together with the nurses who were in the burn unit when I arrived he d. When I arrived but most importantly with my friends that night. Pete and Jonathan in particular. So so I just happened to be the 1st one up and they didn't see anything they just there was a big explosion a big flash a light and I was thrown I don't know how many feet but quite some distance happened to land on top of the train still on my head apparently my head so it was bleeding and so Pete Pete scrambled up on top of the train behind me to see what had happened by the way at great risk to himself I mean obviously something was amiss up on the train and there was no telling whether it was a still alive or what was going on but but Pete kept common and meanwhile Jonathan ran to the nearest telephone and dial 911 who a puppy got up there and found me lying still bleeding from the head and that seemed to be the beginning or it was you know most my head was bleeding like stink . But it wasn't and then he noticed I was smoking too I mean my body was literally smoking steam coming out of off of me and Pete ran over to me and sort of I don't know exactly but shook me. And I came to but I came to visit a very violent way as happens with electrical injuries because it's can you get sick a little grotesque but the energy the heat and electricity enters your body it is think of it as something running around inside of you and so you burn from the inside out. And so with all this heat trapped in you you are you are on fire inside and the huge adrenaline surge is apparently I mean you get violent So I'm I'm swinging I'm punching Pete I'm swinging wildly flailing around and peach trying to hold me down so I don't roll off the train and make everything worse and thank God I mean he held me down that Jonathan got the bill and they came one of the cops from Princeton he dared to get up there with Pete and then the paramedics had handed them the stretcher they put me in the stretcher strapped me and then handed me down and off I went to the e.r. Well. Yeah and. How long was your life in jeopardy after that. Accident happened November 27th and I was in the burn unit until who I think Fed mid February. And so the fact that you're in the burn unit which is a very specialized place not to be confused with anything in the natural world. You know the fact that you're in there for however many months to have months or so you're touch and go by virtue of your being in the burn unit. But I think from talking to my surgeons and Bob a blood I think we've pieced together that and talking to my parents the sort of news that they were getting along the way I think the 1st month or so was sort of like you know you're my kiss good night who knows where I'll be in the morning something essentially you know and I could have this a little bit wrong but it was a while it was many many weeks and well and to me being conscious. So I didn't know whether I knew that I don't know but I never really felt Interestingly or not I didn't ever really think I was going to die it was really only in retrospect hearing a bunch of the stuff I said wow I you know then the stories are taken taking light in my in my mind but while that was happening no it was just scary painful thing but I didn't feel death's presence so so the story that you've told you've probably told that many times over the years what do you feel when you tell it now what is the experience of telling it years after the fact having told it so many times. Well if you could see me now Terry see a smile on my face I mean it in part because it's just I feel like I'm describing of exciting movie and then you realize oh you're that you're the Cape you're the character in that movie and then you and then you know if I'm honest there's a little bit of pride like hey I went through something I survived something extremely intense and there's so there's there's pride in retrospect there's. You know tons and this actually one of the things that's taken years to really come to terms with is how grateful I am to Pete to Jonathan to Tommy to the nurses to my friend I mean on and on we can talk about that take it's taken me years to let the full load of gratitude in and that's have been an interesting journey because that that required me realizing how dependent on others I had become and I and that was hard information to let in. So you have you know prosthetics now so you can you can walk your bicycle. But for a while you were in a wheelchair and then a golf cart. You know your mother had polio I don't know if she's still alive or she is yeah so I know throughout a lot of your life and maybe still she was using a wheelchair what was her attitude toward wheelchairs having seen your mother. Using one for so many years so this is a really key piece of the story for me to have a mother with whom I'm very close Ted to grow up around disability from a young age to have that carved in your her world view was it you can imagine are hugely helpful for me as a as a 19 year old kid with us then sadly everything going form you know your Princeton Baba. You know to know in your bones that you're on borrowed time with being quote unquote able bodied I mean I knew that I didn't have to learn that and that was a huge advantage when a mother I just and watching her. And such beauty and grace deal with her own disability you know so she had polio when she was 18 months and then she had. When she had about 40 as happens she got what's called post-polio syndrome and then became a. Progressive disability and you know but in my early childhood she used crutches and a brace and was extremely physically capable and then over time from the early eighty's on it's just been a very slow decline to the point now where she really requires she requires a electric wheelchair has a little bit of ability to stand but not for very long it's hetero So being around being close to a person having that as a role model having my mother as a role model having watching her deal with it watching my father love her watching how the world treated her and this weird and I got a lot of this too in the early ninety's and. Either people think you're Jesus because you've seen some you've gone through something special they treat you like this sort of. In a I don't know like you cut special knowledge or they teach a little bit like Frankenstein of course those 2 responses are related neither of them is accurate but that's the kind of vibe you can there's a lot of us who have disabilities know very well and I'd seen that I knew how to read that thanks to my mother cetera so I can't make enough of how important that background was for me if you're just joining us my guest is Dr b.j. Miller he's a hospice and palliative care doctor at the University of California San Francisco Cancer Center and he's co-author of the new book a beginner's guide to the end practical advice for living life and facing death will be right back after we take a short break this is Fresh Air. 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This is Fresh Air and if you're just joining us my guest is Dr b.j. Miller he's a hospice and palliative care doctor at the University of California San Francisco Cancer Center and co-author with Shoshana Berger of the new book a beginner's guide to the end practical advice for living life and facing death how did you decide that what you were going to do was become a hospice and palliative care doctor. I started doing a little work in arts advocacy and disability rights but basically I realized thanks to the disability or disability rights movement I realize that this disability is not going to be ashamed of it's not something to overcome to put behind you it's something to work with and it doesn't go away I can't overcome this is my daily experience so instead find ways to like the compulsion was to work with it and in a way that in a professional way that I could make a living in medicine lit up as a theoretically as a way where I could use these experiences and and pay them forward in some way or draw from them not overcome them and put them behind me and so I sort of said well and nothing else I really wanted to do medicine makes good sense let's give it a try and so I did in the deal with myself was I'll either not be able to do it and I don't at this point I knew enough about coming close to death to realize I didn't want to sacrifice my life it was too precious so they said if I die if I don't like it I'll stop and if it's just too hard i'll stop but so down the road I went and eventually eventually I let it in a in a palette of care aleck to give and at that point actually I was about to get out of medicine as was deep in senior year of med school my sister had just died. There's a lot going on you can talk about it but I don't want it I'm going to get out of medicine I was very much disillusioned with and falling out of love with the. Idea but then I stumbled onto a part of Kara lect of with the guys at the Medical College of Wisconsin where I was doing my internship and another life everything just lit up in a day you mention that your sister had died at about the time you discovered palliative medicine yeah she took her life it was suicide and I you know when I read that I was thinking you came so close to dying because of this horrible accident which you were electrocuted. How did you handle. Knowing that she took her life and she ended her life and it's it's a really I'm still working on that one and still but I think it has something to do with coming out of the back side of the experience of my own injuries my own brush with death etc I didn't come out I came out of there eventually holding life much more loosely so it didn't teach me to cling to life with my fingernails that that was the way through it taught me to sort of some some adult trick of of simultaneously holding on to opposing emotions and one of the things you know grief does this. But you know this anyone has dealt with pain chronic pain you know when the clouds part even for a moment and you have the absence of pain there's it's a stunning feeling it's. And I remember feeling that I really wanted to stay close to that interface between joy and sorrow between pain and pleasure between life and death it felt like such a rich rich place that I had been forced into that because you know I had to hang out there for a while but I became a little enamored with it because from there I could I could just as easily get to sorrow as I could get to joy and that to me has spent has as has felt like a kind of a dexterity earn agility something very good. So death is close by the pain is close by so is the rest of life so is the good stuff that zone. I can imagine and it helps me imagine what my patients are going for being close to death that helps me understand what my sister was feeling perhaps it just I guess my long winded answers it it's not as. As opposing Is it might appear my own fighting to Live Earth as my own sister's in a way fighting to die those seemed to be actually pretty darn closely related to me did she have a mental illness. She was posthumously diagnosed with one I mean Lisa Lisa was so friggin smart I was her one of her problems it was she was just so she could get anyone thinking anything and she was she ran hot like a furnace hot and cold and you know after she died my parents went through her they made a controversial decision to look at her journals with a psychologist. To try to make sense of what had happened and through that they hit very plainly on the diagnosis of bipolar. Bipolar depression. Manic depression or if you want to call it and it was odd to me there's a medical training I mean it's so in her case it's outrageously plain it's so incredibly incredibly obvious but somehow we all missed it including her therapist of a gazillion years she was just too clever. So getting back to your your pain your physical pain. I'm sure you were on a lot of opioids in the recovery period what did you learn as a palliative care doctor from your own experiences dealing with severe pain and dealing with the opioids that helped you. Survive the pain. How powerful the pain relief is how important it is. And how powerful it is and how much caution requires. You know that there's all of all of that. But I think the more interesting thing and much more relevant relevant to my work now and the work of hospice and palliative medicine just period is that you know. Bang is very interesting it's not you know when I when I was coming out they just phantom limb pain which I had that was considered like a psychiatric phenomena and they've since learned but it's a case in point of half I can see fascinating pain is now subject affects your identity how you see yourself your mood what you think of God I mean it is a thorough phenomenon and that's where it gets very interesting and that's why I think hospice and pet of medicine is so interesting you don't just treat pain you treat suffering suffering is suffering is a multi-headed beast Oh wait I want to stop you there what do you see as the difference between pain and suffering because I think that's an interesting distinction. Well tobacco present just for your listeners who palliative care that's pit basically particular is the treatment of suffering 1st of the rest of minutes as for the treatment of disease and better care we treat suffering and hospices that sort of treatment of suffering specific to the end of life but pound of care regards as just a human suffering any time along the way of serious on this you don't have to be dying anytime soon to get it Ok so that just to get clear what that pound of care is now Ok so what is suffering well. Suffering there's a lot of different ways to define it you know Cicely Saunders for the grandmother of hospice works she called it total pain that had a physical component a psychological emotional component a spiritual component It's a multi-day headed entity it affects one might say it affects how you see yourself it affects your identity I've come to understand suffering as this is like as a wedge that something that gap it opens up in you the gap. Between the world you have in the world you want so it gets at your desire it gets at your longing it gets what you're lacking insist so you might as well see a priest as you would a doctor to treat your suffering. So one of things you learn from your pain was that you could treat the pain but there's also an emotional and spiritual element to components of suffering that need to be address that's right that and yes that there was not simply just trying to deaden the stimulus and that suffering by leaning into it by working with it by being changed by it by learning from it it's a very humbling experience. And it helps you makes you see things a little differently. And I guess there's a humility in it but there's also this sort of weight so if you open it up like this the ways to treat it become much more interesting like studying art was a way to treat suffering. Becoming a physician was a way to treat suffering these are ways to make meaning in those who as we know making meaning from your experience is a real savage and that is itself a treatment so it's just that it just explodes the subject and makes it much more dynamic. But also a very very importantly much more universal. My guest is b.j. Miller a hospice and palliative care doctor at the University of California San Francisco Cancer Center he's the co-author of the new book a beginner's guide to the and I'm Terry Gross and this is Fresh Air. The Neubauer Family Foundation supports w.h.y. Wise fresh air and its commitment to sharing ideas and encouraging meaningful conversation support for n.p.r. 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I know when you're working with people who are terminally ill and are nearing death you ask them about their fear and you differentiate between the fear of dying and the fear of being dead. And you ask them which if either they're afraid of it can you talk about the difference between the 2 and why you why you frame the question that way you have also fears you're such a bear and it's and it's also such a normal thing I mean one thing about the fear of death is sort of existential fear and dread and you know it's it's actually. It's a fear to look at not to run away from. It's a particular fear and why I say that is. It points you fear helps point you to things that you care about the things you love the things you're afraid to lose. Anyway fears big important subject and really requires demands looking at this in a way do the better. Because oftentimes it's not so darn scary so to your question it's helpful when when patients will confess some fear to me it's a really look at it get down in roll around with it so and very often it comes down to. That one on one push people say Aaron Yeah yeah actually is afraid of the pain I imagine is going to happen and during the dying process so the fear of dying the fear of the dying process that's an important distinction because any hospice and powder medicine team can do a lot to quell the pain and the sorrow that happens during the dying process there we have medications we have ways of being with each other we have ways of positioning your body there's all sorts of things to do so suffering is not necessarily part of the dying process and there's a lot of reassurance like we know we understand that process pretty well and there's a lot we can do. So that's an important distinction that's pretty concrete that's knowable Now some of my patients will say no do you know that's one thing but I'm actually afraid of being dead I'm afraid of being in the ground I'm afraid of what comes next or whatever else and then we get to say and then I get there then that my response of course is well gosh I I don't know what that's like either. But let's think about it let's talk about it and when we push on that one. I think most of us can get to a place where we realize that we're not just our bodies and our bodies once they're dead aren't likely to be feeling anything. But when you push on that one you can open up you know what ends up being where there's no modern acronym of foam Oh you know fear of missing out that's something that's very often at the heart of people's fear of being dead and all that they're going to miss this idea that the world's in to continue on without them all the things are not going to get to see it cetera but if you go there Terri what then Then what has that done that's just pointed us very squarely to all the things we love and care about and then that becomes a nice compass for our way forward how we're going to live until we die and so the fears there are the things we're going to friend of Miss are the things that really we should uptick in terms of our attention now so that's these are couple ways you get to kind of work with this fear and find find a way through you must have seen so many people go through the dying process over the years you've been a palliative care and hospice doctor. What does your experience tell you about whether dying is an inherently frightening experience. I think from my experience dying is not inherently frightening experience experience. It's I think for us neurotic animal he Emmons it's it's most terrifying in anticipation you know with enough support. Most of the people that I've been around who are actually doing the dying. They get to a place where they're you know ready to go it is a necessary mean it's fun and light but it doesn't mean it's necessarily all miserable either in some ways it's a great relief. I think like so many things the anticipation of it can be way worse than being in it and in this way it's also harder on the family are on those who have to stay behind and these aren't absolute rules but that's basically the gist of what what I've seen. Having seen as many deaths as you have do you ever risk feeling like. Kind of numb to it you know like you have a new patient who's facing death for the 1st time you have heard so many people through the process and cared for them during the process do you ever fear you're going to feel like yeah been there done that you're somebody else is going to die. You know what I'm saying to you yeah I do I think this is one of the occupation we mentioned one occupational hazard earlier which is that that some of his work is empathy driven I mean such suffering this is all very subjective stuff but if you're empathic if you're around people are so not going to feel they're suffering one way or another so there's a big occupational hazard is that you can just get a laden with pain that's not just here on the other occupational hazard is you get a near to it you know that you yeah yeah of that if seduced yourself accidentally or otherwise into thinking oh I've seen it I know what death is like I've been there I've been around it and even in my own personal smears as close as I've gotten to my own death and those around me it's really I very disciplined about maintaining a little. Look over efficient a little corrective variable that says yeah I've seen these things I've seen patterns. But I reserve the right when it is my time to go when I'm actually dying not this partial death stuff that I had I reserve the right to freak out now I. Know I mean right part of this is a mystery and we here I am I just wrote a book was sure Shawna should I just write a book on this whole subject write it we. Implying we have some expertise but part of that expertise is knowing the limits of what we know and there's all sorts of things I don't know that's why I love my agnosticism I love I love the mystery but to your question no I I think one that the real hazard if I find myself going on in the little young. Yawning at the idea of death I shake myself and I remember my myself there's all sorts of stuff I don't know I don't see and and so far that's been enough to decide little reminders so your new book is a kind of guidebook for. People to help them prepare for death and get their things in order so that their their loved ones don't inherit a mess you know either like a messy home or a messy well or no well at all or no instructions about what to do with the body or any of that or one of the things that you recommend in the book is a death file a kind of file with like all of the relevant records and the Will d.n.r. You know whatever is relevant to your loved ones to see after you're gone and what point do you recommend getting that together and do you already have one. You know there are the when I die file Sean and I were talking earlier on about this sort of idea of how to kind of call your co-author dear yes your son is my co-author shown if we initially she she called herself saying calling it that if I die file we all and we had to gently correct each other that no no when when I filed as the the when I die filed away we call it but whatever be a shoe box would be but just make it easy for the people who survive you to find the stuff find your passwords to all your online junk so that they can close your you know Facebook account and they can turn off your cable and all this other stuff and honestly people have to go through months and you know without that stuff it takes years to wind down the physical residue of a life so yeah make a file put in it like your advance directive your you know your will your. You know instructions for how you'd want to be buried you can be very detailed do you want a certain music played at your funeral do you want certain one certain people there and once heard people not there. All that kind of stuff you know and it can be fun to live like a friend of ours Ira Byock talked about how his mother left him bunch of recipes Oh man what a beautiful legacy that was you can leave notes to family members you know one of the things that's been beautiful I've watched people do so there's sort of legacy work that goes on my friend fresh brand here because she she writes letters with folks social sit with folks who are dying and write letters to unborn grandchildren or kids before you know from their graduation or hypothetical wedding days you know that kind of thing I mean gorgeous or you can record it and put it in put it in this box this is a way to actually kind of help you wrap your head around your own mortality get creative with it to their greedy one too and also as important and perhaps most importantly it makes it so so much easier for your heirs to know what you want to know it's important to you and to enter their grief filled with some more of a beautiful cleaner sorrow than a guilt ridden or task Laden affair. P. J. Miller it's really been cry to talk with you thank you very much. Terry it's been such a joy Thank you. B.j. Miller is the co-author of the new book a beginner's guide to the end he's a hospice and palliative care doctor at the University of California San Francisco Cancer Center. As we take a short break book critic Maureen Corrigan will go through her list of the best books of the year this is Fresh Air I enjoy this capital radio every morning and then the way great way to get my day started all right everybody listen to this you guys need to get off your ass and help this radio station that we don't love so much. Listen to that guy he's he's kind of speaking for us just do it we are bringing you fresh air today glad to have you listening I'm Joseph Martin here at the station in the studio with Katie Kidwell and we're taking just a minute now to tell you how to keep everything you're listening to on capper radio funded for another year if you've been meaning to contribute today is the day to do that. 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This is Fresh Air our book critic Maureen Corrigan has put together her list of the best books of the year and it's a mix of books by authors old and new Here's her top 10 there's a lot to talk about so let's just get into it here are my top 10 books of 2019 the nickel boys is yet another extraordinary novel by Colson Whitehead Like the Underground Railroad which just came out in 2016 the nickel boys is rooted in history and American mythology yet it's painfully topical in its vision of justice and mercy erratic Lee denied in the early 1960 s. An African-American teenager named Elwood Curtis finds himself wrongfully convicted of a crime and sent to a brutal reform school called the nickel Academy Whitehead's novel is short and intense its chapters as compact as the isolation cells the nickel boys are thrown into and sometimes never leave Susan choice trust exercise is a delicious Lee sharp and self-aware novel set in the 1980 s. In a performing arts high school to 1st year students David and Sara fall in love within the hermetically sealed world of the school and choice somehow makes out of that teenaged affair a wily meditation on memory and art Choi tells us that the theater students live by the adage acting is fidelity to authentic emotion under imagined circumstances that's also not a bad description of how this novel or any powerful novel works any year in which a new novel by and patch it comes out is a standout year in my book The Dutch hell. Is a subtle devastating novel about a brother and sister who stand by each other through the loss of their parents the home they grew up in and the bedrock certainties about their shared childhood I'm not exaggerating when I say that I've really read the ending of this novel at least 5 times trying to unpack its sad magic. Out of all the novels that came out in 2019 last and wanted by Nell Freud number girl is the one that I found myself buying over and over again to give to friends its main character Helen Clapp is a professor of physics at m.i.t. And when the story opens her cell phone rings and an old friend's name comes up on caller id the problem is that friend has just died from that classic creeper premis Frydenberg or crafts a deeply engaged in novel about friendship midlife puzzlement and the mysteries of the universe like Freud and Berger Karen Russell always has her eye on the big picture our injured world is Russell's latest short story collection and it contains a masterpiece that story set in the Great Depression is called the prospectors in 33 in Cannes Desson pages Russell gives us the grit desperation and hollow dreams of deliverance that characterize that era the other 7 stories in this collection aren't so bad either poet ocean watching emigrated to this country from Vietnam when he was 2 and his autobiographical novel called on earth where briefly gorgeous explores the vexed situation of a child who surpasses his immigrant parents Wang's novel is structured in the form of a letter written by a son to his illiterate mother dear ma the novel begins I am writing to reach you even if each word I put down is one word further from where you are. In that single line Wang has captured the unintended rift that education can cause within a working class immigrant family on to nonfiction say nothing by Patrick Redden Keefe is a panoramic investigation into the disappearance of a young widowed mother of 10 in Belfast Northern Ireland in 1972 the era of the troubles say nothing belongs as much to the genre of narrative history as it does true crime however you want to characterize it it's a stunning book the yellow house by Sarah m. Broom is a sweeping multi-generational memoir focusing on her family's house in New Orleans which was blown off its foundations when Hurricane Katrina hit Broome pieces together a larger narrative about race class and the long term toxic consequences of shame. 2019 was a very good year for essay collections but of all the ones I've read Emily Bernard's Black is the body stays with me the most Bernard writes with depth poetic intensity and humor about growing up black in the south and living and teaching in the snow globe state of Vermont Bernard's personal essays on race never hew to the safe or expected paths and last but certainly not least in how we fight for our lives Saeed Jones writes about growing up black gay and isolated in Texas Jones's voice and Sensibility are so distinct he turns the traditional coming of age memoir inside out and upside down along with Sara broom and ocean water psyche Jones is one of the 3 debut prose writers on my top 10 list which is a hopeful thing to take notice of I think as we move into the next decade Marine Corrigan teaches literature at Georgetown University you can find her top 10 list on our website Fresh N.P.R.'s org where you'll also find a link to N.P.R.'s book concierge which includes hundreds of $21000.00 titles recommended by n.p.r. Staff and critics So that's at fresh air npr dot org Tomorrow on fresh air we'll talk about what happens to the clothes furniture and electronics you drop off at the thrift store more specifically what happens to the stuff they can't sell and there's plenty of it my guest will be Adam Minter author of the book 2nd hand 3 generations of his family were in the junk business he's reported on waste and recycling for nearly 2 decades I hope you'll join us Fresh Air's executive producer is Danny Miller our interviews and reviews are produced and edited by. Any Salat for this Meyers Sam Briger Lauren presell Heidi's among 2 recent Madden Seth Kelly and will from I'm Terry Gross support for n.p.r. 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And if you've been listening to fresh air all hour you might know that I'm jealous of Martin in studio with Katie Kidwell and we are in our year end fun drive and we're asking for your support and why now is the perfect time to do it that's right and I'm going to ask you to think about it when do you find yourself listening to cap radio maybe cap radio is your commute partner making sure you have up to date info on what's going on in the world as you had to work or are we your afternoon companion at the end of the day helping make your ride home more informative whatever it is we're asking you to please take a moment right now and keep cap radio funded for every ride going forward I'm listening to the passion in your voice Katie and I'm I think we're going to move some people to donate right about now and when you do that a portion of your donation can benefit a food bank in your area call now or donate online and select the food bank option is your sort of thank you gift and a portion of your gift account radio will go toward buying meals at a food bank determined by your zip code pretty cool so give now at Camp radio dot org or call 180805867 again the number 180-805-8678 really is just as easy as that phone on line by mail we've had members walk their contributions into our front office whichever way is easiest for you please donate this Giving Tuesday right now 180805867 or cap radio dot org listeners like you have been giving over the years you know initially helped launch cap radio 40 years ago since you know a good thing when you hear it take time now to make a donation you'll get our new cap radio sticker on you can pretty logo as a thank you and you could qualify for additional welcome gifts donate right now by calling 180805867 or at Cap radio dot org. Donating now helps give your community the gift of public radio so what it costs is up to you make a difference for everyone who relies on public radio right now pick up your phone and just call 180805867 that's 180805867 or cap radio dot org And thank. From Sacramento State this is Capital Public Radio 90.9 f.m. And. Radio dot org I'm Carmen Johnson. Magazine. Profile of. A new play about a serial killer. A cover story on great places to. And from Indigo him and Les are integrating our. Energy environment. And custom home. Hello I'm Debbie rests with the b.b.c. News a Democrat led congressional panel in the United States has released a report outlining its case we impeaching President Trump for soliciting Ukrainian interference in the 2020 us election for his own benefit the report accuses Mr Trump of intimidating witnesses and instructing stuff to ignore more than 70 subpoenas his Chris Butler in Washington this report accuses him of a campaign to bend u.s. Foreign policy for his own personal political gain it will infuriate a president who has dismissed this whole process as a witch hunt he denies the central allegation that he inappropriately used his position to try to pressure Ukraine into Logan investigations into his political opponents by withholding hundreds of millions of dollars of military aid for the country Democrats are keen to hold a vote in impeaching Donald Trump before the end of the year setting up the potential of a trial in the Senate perhaps as early as January ahead of the House Intelligence Committee of Washington Adam Schiff said the issue went to the heart of democracy in America and could have repercussions in the future I am gravely concerned that if we merely accept this that we invite not only further corruption. Of our elections by this president but we also invited of the next President Assad.