Eyewitness History

During his tenure as a writer for NBC’s Saturday Night Live alongside Will Ferrell, Maya Rudolph, Norm MacDonald, Tina Fey and Tracy Morgan, Fink not only earned a reputation for his fearless lampooning of pop culture, but also appeared as a commentator on the show’s Weekend Update. During his final season at SNL, Hugh Fink received the Emmy Award for Outstanding Writing for a Comedy Program. Last year, he was brought back to SNL as a guest writer to share his expertise with the newer cast members and writers.We discuss his time as a writer with SNL, his part in the infamous Eddie Murphy controversy, as well his experience writing the last sketch Chris Farley appeared in, in addition to a lot more.Find out more about Hugh Fink at: https://hughfink.com/See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Jim Horacek served as an analyst, supervisor, and instructor in the Central Intelligence Agency from 1999-2014. A specialist in the ethnic conflicts that broke out after the break-up of the Soviet Union, his first assignment in the Agency was as an analyst in the Caucasus and Central Asia Group. After 9/11, he volunteered to join the newly created Office of Terrorism Analysis within the Counterterrorism Center (CTC). As an executive assistant in the CTC front office in 2002, he worked on both the internal and external reviews of the events of 9/11 and witnessed the creation of the Department of Homeland Security and the FBI’s Counterterrorism Analysis group. He then became one of the first analysts to follow the terrorist network that would become known as ISIS, with its founder Abu Mus’ab al-Zarqawi, and he served as a senior analyst in the Iraq Group during the height of Operation Iraqi Freedom. From 2006-2008, he served as a supervisor in both the CTC Weapons of Mass Destruction Group and the National Counterterrorism Center’s CBRN Counterterrorism Group. After a tour as a leadership and management instructor in the Sherman Kent School for Intelligence Analysis, he became one of the CIA’s representatives to US Strategic Command in Bellevue, Nebraska in 2011. Jim resigned from the CIA in 2014 in order to accept a position as a manager in Nebraska Medicine’s Project Management Office. In 2019, he became the lead project manager charged with opening the Nebraska Medicine-UNMC Global Center for Health Security. Jim returned to US Strategic Command in 2021, where he now works as a Sr. Deterrence Analyst in the Plans and Policy Directorate.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

This is a sample of a recent episode of Steve Guerra's History of the Papacy Podcast (https://www.parthenonpodcast.com/history-of-the-papacy-podcast/) about Freemasonry, the Catholic Church, and the modern world.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

After his exposure to toxic debris from the collapsed twin towers, Tom Wilson, a former NYPD sergeant on 9/11, recalled his eyes and throat burning.Wilson secured the Manhattan side of the Williamsburg Bridge on 9/11, conducted security around Ground Zero in the month following, was involved in rescue efforts, and among other assignments, searched rooftops in lower Manhattan for remains. He also combed through the Fresh Kills landfill on Staten Island for hours at a time into April 2002, sifting and raking through debris for items like bone fragments, rings and personal belongings to bring victims' families closure.Though cancers weren't yet covered by the World Trade Center Health Program for treatment in 2008, when Wilson was diagnosed, current federal figures note 23,710 program members, including responders and survivors, with at least one cancer, and by 2020, members had 50,611 noncancer WTC-related certifications. As of the end of July of this year, 4,627 program members had died, though data don't indicate the cause of death. According to CDC/NIOSH spokesperson Stephanie Stevens, the most common health conditions seen among responders and survivors include chronic rhinosinusitis, gastroesophageal reflux disease (GERD) many types of cancer, asthma, sleep apnea, post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) and depression.Wilson went on to endure over one-third of his tongue removed and rebuilt with a skin graft from his wrist, along with two radical neck dissections to remove 39 lymph nodes and place an arterial graft in the neck to supply blood to the new tongue. He is still grappling with long-term effects from subsequent head and neck radiation, and deals with severe pain, dizziness and headaches.Source: https://www.foxnews.com/health/9-11-toxic-exposure-cancer-20-years-laterSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Former Apple Co-Founder Ronald Wayne and I discuss getting on the ground floor of Apple, his relationship with Steve Jobs and Steve Wozniak, his experience creating the very first Apple logo, and so much more!See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

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Barry Tompkins is a 48-year network television veteran. He is a play-by-play broadcaster, a four-time Emmy Award winner, and in 2006 was voted into the International Boxing Hall of Fame for his work as a boxing commentator.Barry was born and raised in San Francisco and began his career in local television at KPIX TV in 1968. Since then he has spent five years at NBC, ten years at HBO, eight years at ESPN, fifteen years at Fox Sports and currently does the ShoBox and Championship Boxing series' for Showtime while continuing to do a full schedule of college football and basketball.His credits include play-by-play commentary of The Super Bowl, the Rose Bowl, the NCAA Final Four, eight Olympic Games, The Tour de France, Wimbledon, the French Open and the U.S. Open Tennis, the World Gymnastics Championships, World Swimming and Diving Championships, World Figure Skating Championships, and horse racing's Triple Crown, World Cup Skiing, San Francisco Giants baseball, and over 200 World Championship fights.In addition he has covered the Masters, U.S. Open, British Open and PGA golf events, The Indy 500, Baseball World Series, hockey Stanley Cup, and the Soccer World Cup.Barry spent 35 years associated nationally with Pac 12 Conference football and basketball, and currently does Mountain West Conference football and Mountain West and WCC basketball for Time Warner Cable, Root Sports and Comcast Sports. He is also a weekly contributor on CSN Bay Area's Yahoo Sports Talk Live, a nightly one-hour sports conversation show.In addition to his broadcasting work, Barry writes a humor column for the Marin Independent Journal and is a contributing columnist for Comcast Sports Net Bay Area. He also teaches Storytelling for Television at Dominican University in San Rafael, CA.He is married to author Joan Ryan. They live in Sausalito, California. They have a son, Ryan who is 24 and are parents to a 3-year old Border Collie-Great Pyrenees mix named Rosie.Source: http://barrytompkins.com/See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

This episode, I speak with Vince Speranza. Speranza was drafted into the United States Army on October 25, 1943, and officially entered the service on November 15, 1943. He was sent to Camp Upton in New York where he stayed until he was sent to Fort Benning in Georgia where he trained for the Infantry with the 87th Infantry Division. He volunteered for the Parachute Infantry and was sent back to Fort Benning for training. He was sent overseas with Company H, 3rd Battalion, 501st Parachute Infantry Regiment, 101st Airborne Division from Camp Shanks on board the Queen Mary. His unit arrived in France and would later fight in the Battle of the Bulge.Speranza spent 144 days in combat. For his service, and other medals of distinction, He received two Purple Hearts and two Bronze Stars. After the war, Vince became a teacher at Curtis High School — most recently, he recounted the events attached to his years in the military in his books, “Nuts! A 101st Airborne Division Machine Gunner at Bastogne,”.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Encircled by Nazis and left abandoned after a team of British secret agents failed to secure their escape, eighteen U.S. airmen were left with little choice: flee or be killed. Lost Airmen: The Epic Rescue of WWII U.S. Bomber Crews Stranded behind Enemy Lines is a riveting narrative of survival and brotherhood told by the historian son of one of those gritty survivors, Charles E. Stanley Jr.In winter 1944, Yugoslav peasants looked to the sky to see American airmen—dozens of them—parachuting from crippled bombers. Some landed in safety. Others were slaughtered by German fire. Lost Airmen is the shocking true story of the eighteen men who beat all odds to escape the grip of the Nazis. Some found harbor with the Chetnik royalist faction led by General Mihailovic. Most were herded by Marshal Tito’s Partisans into a small town. There they were trapped. Extreme weather closed the skies for an air rescue. The Germans blocked the path to the sea. British secret agents extracted sixty-six airmen but had to leave the rest behind. The Partisans were desperate to rid themselves of the soldiers and forced them to attempt the treacherous winter crossing of the Dinaric Alps at the prodding of a gun, and no turning back.Drawing on over twenty years of research, dozens of interviews and previously unpublished letters, diaries, and memoirs written by the airmen, Stanley recounts the deadly journey across the blizzard-swept Dinaric Alps during the worst winter of the twentieth century—and the stories of the heroic men who fought impossible odds to keep their brothers-in-arms alive.In this episode, Joe Foto tells his story. Also, check out author Charles Stanley, Jr, and feel free to go to this website at https://www.charlesstanleyjr.com/the-lost-airmen-book/See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Martin Cooper is an engineer, inventor, entrepreneur, and futurist. He isknown as the “father of the cell phone.” He led the creation of the world’s first cell phone atMotorola—and made the first public call on it. Over nearly three decades at Motorola, Coopercontributed to the development of pagers, two-way radio dispatch systems, quartz crystalmanufacture, and more.A serial entrepreneur, he and his wife, Arlene Harris, have cofounded numerous wirelesstechnology companies. This includes Cellular Business Systems, SOS WirelessCommunications, GreatCall, and ArrayComm. Cooper is currently chairman of Dyna LLCand a member of the FCC’s Technological Advisory Council. He was the first to observe theLaw of Spectrum Capacity, which became known as Cooper’s Law.In 2013, Cooper became a member of the National Academy of Engineering from whom hereceived the Charles Stark Draper Prize for Engineering. He was awarded the Marconi Prize“for being a wireless visionary who reshaped the concept of mobile communication.” He hasbeen inducted into the Consumer Electronics Hall of Fame and Wireless History Foundation’sWireless Hall of Fame. The Radio Club of America awarded him a Lifetime AchievementAward in 2010. He is a lifetime member of the IEEE, was president of its VehicularTechnology Society and received its Centennial Medal. In 2007, Time magazine named himone of the “100 Best Inventors in History.” He is a Prince of Asturias Laureate.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.