America is in the midst of a painful betrayal. Donald Trump's threats toward everyone, and every aspect of American democracy, are launched one after another. Americans are on a societal rollercoaster. The betrayals are as indiscriminate and unrelenting as they were in the story you'll hear here.

According to the US Department of Health and Human Services, over 700 scientific grants (or portions of grants) have been terminated during Donald Trump's second term, and his current nominee for Surgeon General doesn't hold a current medical license. This unprecedented attack on science is frightening.

I witnessed ground-breaking research back in the hills of West Virginia years ago. Research coal owners tried to stop so they wouldn't have to compensate miners who were suffocating from black lung.

For the first 17 years of my life, my only knowledge of the world beyond West Virginia came from missionaries on furlough. They brought us trinkets from places like the Congo or Korea and showed us home movies of natives wearing colorful costumes in a darkened church basement. They never talked about Muslim countries, so I'd never even heard of Iran.

When I arrived in multi-cultural San Francisco, I was newly 21. It was 1978 and large marches and protests against the Shah of Iran were already happening there. I just didn't notice it much at first.

This is the story of what I learned there and how what happened in 1979 mirrors today's events.