#671 Derf’s “Kent State”

So, yeah, just... getting a lot of episodes done while i don't have school um and this time we're talking about derf's um upcoming book can't state uh which will be out on september 8th uh for anybody who's not aware of it now i don't know so may 4th was the 50th anniversary of this, and I don't know how much coverage it got with all of the COVID stuff going on.

I don't recall seeing or hearing much of anything about it, but of course, I don't watch American TV.

Well, he's, you mean the book itself? I

mean, the shootings.

Oh, coverage of the shootings.

Yeah, I mean, usually, you know, 50th anniversary, you would expect there would be some reports, but with the pandemic, that might have put a damper on that.

uh yeah yeah but um he said to cancel all his book promotion stuff too but i mean the book it couldn't be more timely uh if every line of it

yeah well it kept reminding me of things happening this year

yeah this minute

um Yeah, and I've got some of that in my notes.

We'll get to that.

In case anybody who's listening isn't aware of the Kent State shootings, I mean, I was not quite five years old at the time.

I think you were not around yet.

No.

But in the context of protests against the Vietnam War at Kent State University in Ohio, during a protest, while the National Guard had been called out, for strange reasons.

And for some reason that still isn't completely known, they started shooting some of them directly into a crowd of students, hitting 13 of them, four of whom died.

And Neil Young did a song about it, and it was a big thing.

I didn't know that much.

I'm pretty sure I had no idea what was going on at the time.

I mean, as a little kid, I did kind of watch the news sometimes, but I don't remember knowing anything about this until maybe 10 years later when there was an anniversary.

I

didn't know anything.

Well, I knew maybe just from headlines, maybe even just from the past year or two.

I can't remember.

I knew that four people had been killed.