On this special live Christmas Eve edition of A Public Affair, host Ali Muldrow is joined by Bianca Martin, the host of the podcast, City Cast Madison. They’re leaning into the festive season with loved ones, uplifting non-traditional ways of celebrating, and swapping favorite winter movies, like The Chronicles of Narnia and The Family Stone. The winter is a time to hibernate and try out traveling wood fire saunas and other cozy spots in Madison. They also share recipes that they make for friends and discuss how to celebrate solo. We listen to Olivia Dean’s version of the classic “The Christmas Song” and Bianca sings Joni Mitchel’s “River.” Featured image of Bianca Martin and Ali Muldrow. Did you enjoy this story? Your funding makes great, local journalism like this possible. Donate hereThe post Growing Our Hearts and Healing the Grinches appeared first on WORT-FM 89.9.
On today’s show, host Esty Dinur is joined by scholar Marc Becker to talk about the Trump Administration’s rapidly escalating attacks on Venezuela. He puts the strikes on boats allegedly trafficking drugs in the context of Venezuela’s oil economy and Latin American politics. Venezuela is considered to have the world’s largest oil reserves which leads many mainstream news sources to call the country the wealthiest in Latin America. But Becker says that wealth is poorly distributed. Under the presidency of Hugo Chávez, Venezuela was successful at redistributing that oil wealth. However, the US has worked to remove Chavez and more recently Nicolás Maduro from power. Even the media circulates narratives that these left-wing leaders have “illegitimate” power. They also talk about how the US embargo has had a catastrophic effect on the Venezuelan economy, how the US might be gearing up for attacks on Cuba, Chinese policy in Latin and South America, and the Ineligibility of María Corina Machado in the recent Venezuelan elections. Marc Becker is professor of history at Truman State University. He studies the Latin American left with a particular interest in race, class, and gender within popular movements in the South American Andes. Among other works, he is the author of Contemporary Latin American Revolutions (Rowman and Littlefield, 2022); The CIA in Ecuador (Duke University Press, 2020); The FBI in Latin America: The Ecuador Files (Duke University Press, 2017); and Indians and Leftists in the Making of Ecuador’s Modern Indigenous Movements (Duke University Press, 2008. He has served on the executive committees and has been web editor of the Peace History Society (PHS) and Historians for Peace and Democracy (H-Pad). Becker is currently working on a project on Philip Agee and the CIA in Ecuador in the early 1960s. Featured image of a mural outside a Venezuelan state-owned oil and gas company from 2009 via Wikimedia Commons (CC BY-SA 4.0). Did you enjoy this story? Your funding makes great, local journalism like this possible. Donate hereThe post Oil Motivates US Attacks on Venezuela appeared first on WORT-FM 89.9.
More than 3,800 Starbucks baristas have joined a nationwide strike since mid-November. They’re demanding increased staffing, more predictable hours, and better wages. To talk about the exploitation of service workers like baristas, host Allen Ruff is joined by Annie McClanahan who says that the struggle of Starbucks workers to get a fair contract is very common across low-wage service work. More than 80% of the nation’s workforce is in the service sector. It’s made up of doctors, lawyers, and restaurant workers, all united in the ways that their labor can’t be scaled up, automated, or outsourced. McClanahan describes how this sector also includes 75% of the folks earning minimum wage or sub-minimum wage, folks who are more likely to live below the poverty line and less likely to be protected from maximum hour or minimum wage protections. Because service work doesn’t produce a “product” in a classical sense and because this labor is often racialized and feminized, service work is excluded from labor reforms and regulations. McClanahan outlines a few ways that service workers become prey to “super-exploitation” – through intensifying and surveilling technologies and through the informalization of policies and contracts. The result is that service workers get stuck in what McClanahan calls “reproductive rifts” where people who deliver groceries can’t afford groceries, or people who provide childcare can’t afford their own childcare. McClanahan says that conceptualizations of capitalism that are tied to industrial manufacturing are complicated by the rise of the service sector, which requires a different relationship between wages and technology. They also talk about the outsized influence of the National Restaurant Association and the difference between gig work and the service industry, namely that gig workers aren’t paid hourly but through wage algorithms that are black boxed. Gig work draws on traditions of tipped work but adds to it forms of technological exploitation from wage algorithms and GPS systems, management by app, and the targeting of migrant workers for this kind of labor. Meanwhile, rank and file Starbucks workers are making demands. And McClanahan says that service workers are drawing on tactics of domestic worker unions that aren’t just about wages, but about rent control, mutual aid, and more. Annie McClanahan is an Associate Professor of English at University of California, Irvine. She writes about U.S. popular culture, political economy, and contemporary capitalism and is the author of Dead Pledges: Debt, Crisis, and 21st Century Culture. Her second book, Beneath the Wage: Tips, Tasks, and Gigs in the Age of Service Work, is forthcoming in 2026. Featured image of Starbucks workers rally and march in 2022 via Wikimedia Commons (CC BY-SA 2.0). Did you enjoy this story? Your funding makes great, local journalism like this possible. Donate hereThe post From Tips to Gigs to the Picket Line appeared first on WORT-FM 89.9.
WORT 89.9FM Madison · The Tragic Repetition of School Shootings This week marks the 1-year anniversary of the shooting at the Abundant Life Christian School in Madison. Meanwhile the search for the Brown University shooter is ongoing. To talk about these events and the ongoing crisis of school shootings across the US, host Ali Muldrow is joined by Dr. David Riedman who tracks these shootings and the online communities that foster gun violence. Dr. Riedman takes an evidence-driven approach to the study of school shootings. He’s tracked 3,400 shootings back to the 1960s, including 226 of which were deliberately planned. He says there are some common denominators when it comes to shootings: the vast majority are committed by a current or recently former student who has likely experienced abuse in their home, has easy access to a gun, and has shown signs of distress, like leaving weapons out, leaving out maps of their schools, and making shrines to previous school shooters. These realities may run counter to the desire to view school shooters as deranged, lone-wolf outsiders. Instead, Dr. Riedman calls the majority of school shootings “violent public suicides.” They also talk about the stereotype that public and urban schools are more dangerous than private, rural, or suburban schools, even though the majority of school shootings occur in small suburban communities and rural schools. Dr. Riedman advises that parents be educated about past school shootings in order to spot signs that kids are becoming radicalized by online communities like the True Crime Community (TCC) and Groyper movement, led by white nationalist influencer, Nick Fuentes. Meanwhile young people in Wisconsin have been calling for better mental health resources and better gun storage laws. Dr. David Riedman is the founder of the K-12 School Shooting Database and hosts the podcast Back to School Shootings. Featured image of students from Des Moines Public Schools participating in the National School Walkout to end gun violence in 2018 by Phil Roeder on Flickr (CC BY 2.0). Did you enjoy this story? Your funding makes great, local journalism like this possible. Donate hereThe post The Tragic Repetition of School Shootings appeared first on WORT-FM 89.9.
WORT 89.9FM Madison · One Man Stalled Healthcare Expansion for New Moms Currently, Wisconsin and Arkansas are the only two states that have not expanded healthcare coverage for new moms. On today’s show, host Dana Pellebon speaks with ProPublica reporter, Megan O’Matz, about her investigation into Robin Vos’s rejection of postpartum Medicaid expansion in Wisconsin. Even though there is bipartisan support in the Wisconsin legislature to expand Medicaid coverage for up to a year for low-income new moms, Robin Vos has blocked a bill that would do just that. O’Matz reports that Vos broke with other anti-abortion members of his party and that this decision is timed with the overturning of Roe v. Wade. She calls it hypocritical not to give new moms healthcare past two months and claim you’re “pro-life” because the early months after birth are a vulnerable period when parents often need ongoing medication and treatment. O’Matz also tracks the influence of business interests on Vos’s decision, including the Uihlein family’s financial contributions to the Republican Assembly Campaign Committee. They also talk about O’Matz’s most recent article on Sen. Ron Johnson’s support of a discredited Wisconsin doctor whose new book on chlorine dioxide–a bleaching agent used as a disinfectant and deodorizer–spreads misinformation. Sen. Johnson has written a blurb on the book’s dust jacket and has joined the doctor on panels on vaccine skepticism even though chlorine dioxide is not a drug or a medicine approved for therapeutic use. O’Matz says that we’re in a place where people don’t trust the CDC and that studies cited in Dr. Kory’s book are not scientifically rigorous. O’Matz says that she got her start in Florida, where open records laws support journalists’ work of keeping elected officials accountable. However the newspaper industry has been contracting over the years due to influence from media conglomerates. She’s now with ProPublica, a nonprofit, independent newsroom that seeks to deliver a level of accountability to readers by reporting on how people with power use it. They rely on open records, data, and fact checking to foster reader trust. Megan O’Matz is a ProPublica reporter covering issues in Wisconsin and throughout the Midwest. She has been with ProPublica since 2021 and writes about voting processes in Wisconsin, a swing state, as well as stories about family court, prosecutorial blunders and predatory lending. She has also worked at the South Florida Sun Sentinel. She and her colleagues were finalists for the 2006 Pulitzer Prize for stories about widespread fraud in federal disaster aid programs after a series of devastating hurricanes. She also shared in the 2019 Pulitzer Prize for reporting on the failures of school administrators and police officers in connection with the Parkland school shooting. Featured image of a pregnant person holding their belly via Wikimedia Commons (CC0 1.0). Did you enjoy this story? Your funding makes great, local journalism like this possible. Donate hereThe post One Man Stalled Healthcare Expansion For New Moms appeared first on WORT-FM 89.9.
As WORT celebrates its 50th birthday this year, we’ve been reflecting on what the last half-century has meant to our community. But on today’s show, host Douglas Haynes asks, what will the next 50 years look like? He’s joined by the next generation of radio leaders, Olivia O’Callaghan and Daniel Stein from WSUM and Ted Hyngstrom from the Daily Cardinal who produces the weekly feature, Cardinal Call, on WORT. Record numbers of UW Madison students are signing up to volunteer at WSUM, say O’Callahan and Stein. There’s interest from students wanting to play music on air and from listeners wanting to engage in digital content, like DJ spotlights and vinyl takeovers. Hyngstrom speculates that there’s such a demand for radio because it’s easy to consume, you can just put on your headphones and get music or news on demand. There may be something to the generational generalizations about Gen Z-ers ditching the algorithm in favor of analog media, from cassettes to radio. O’Callahan says it’s rewarding to be a part of a medium with a long history. And Stein says that even if the medium is an old one, people are consuming radio content in very 21st century ways, by listening on apps, by setting reminders for their favorite shows, replaying favorite shows, and listening on the go. Stein says that “radio is a big market for people who are looking for an itch that’s not already being scratched.” Whereas AI is zapping people’s creativity, people tune into WSUM or WORT “because they want to hear something authentic.” College Radio and community radio are shaping local culture, and that work excites these three students. Hyngstrom says that the work of “making something” motivates him, like an art form would. He’s driven to work on human-centered stories shaped by expert knowledge, like the Daily Cardinal’s recent AI issue. O’Callahan says that getting to know show hosts contributes to the intimacy of the listening experience of radio. She got connected to college radio as a way to meet people, and now she’s getting professional experience by applying classroom work in a real-world capacity. And from multimedia content to dynamic programming, our guests envision a bright and innovative future for radio. Ted Hyngstrom is the producer of Cardinal Call, a collaboration between WORT and UW-Madison student newspaper “The Daily Cardinal.” As Podcast Director, he has overseen a comprehensive overhaul of how the Cardinal approaches audio journalism, working to integrate podcasting and audio journalism into the newsroom while simultaneously supporting multimedia storytelling. Academically, Ted is a sophomore Honors college student at UW-Madison studying Journalism and Political Science. Someday, he hopes to work as a local news multimedia journalist. Olivia O’Callaghan is a junior at the University of Wisconsin-Madison studying journalism and sociology. She joined WSUM Student Radio her freshman year, and worked as a Traffic Director in 2024 before being elected to serve as Station Manager for the 2025 calendar year. She hosts a music show at 10pm on Wednesday nights called “Kitchen Sink.” Daniel Stein is the Program Director at WSUM where he oversees the content broadcast on their FM and online signals, develops show schedules for nearly 200 active members, and enforces federal broadcast regulations. Featured image of a soundboard at a college radio station via Wikimedia Commons (CC BY-SA 4.0). Did you enjoy this story? Your funding makes great, local journalism like this possible. Donate hereThe post College Students Say Radio Still Has a Lot to Offer appeared first on WORT-FM 89.9.
On today’s show, host Esty Dinur is joined by Ojibwe elder, Great Grandmother Mary Lyons, who recaps what happened at the United Nations Climate Conference of Parties (COP 30) in Belém, Brazil last month. The gathering of world leaders and representatives of international organizations happens every year to address the climate crisis. This year, over 50,000 people from 193 nations gathered with at least 5,000 Indigenous participants, who Lyons says were intentionally left out of decision making conversations. Though the conference was marketed as the Indigenous people’s COP, Lyons says that it was difficult for Indigenous leaders to get access to the badges that would give them access to the conferences meetings and negotiations. There was also a large military presence that Lyons says was so different from past events. Lyons and others were trying to send the message that there is great danger to the planet, but “we were met with closed ears.” There were some good outcomes of the COP30, like the land tenure commitment, Brazil’s recognition of ten Indigenous territories, and the tropical forest forever facility. These will be good outcomes if they are acted upon. They also discuss the protection of waters of the Earth, the wealth of decision makers, and the lack of leadership on the climate emergency from the US federal government. Lyons says that she considers all children of the world her grandchildren and is concerned with the future of the whole planet and population. Great Grandmother Mary Lyons is an Ojibwe elder from Minnesota. She is also an author, humanitarian worker, wisdomkeeper, knowledgeholder, recovery and culture speaker, UN Elder Observer, and spiritual guide. Featured image of one of the buildings at the COP 30 in Belém, Brazil from UNclimatechange on Flickr (CC BY-NC-SA 4.0). Did you enjoy this story? Your funding makes great, local journalism like this possible. Donate hereThe post Indigenous Voices Speak Out at COP 30 appeared first on WORT-FM 89.9.
In the news this week, the President’s birthday was added to the list of free entry days at the National Parks, meanwhile Martin Luther King Jr. Day and Juneteenth were removed from the list. On today’s show, host Allen Ruff is joined by activist and scholar Nicholas Powers to talk about the Trump administration’s attacks on Black history and his latest article for Truthout, “Black History Has the Power to Ignite Movements. That’s Why the Right Fears It.” Powers says that the Trump Administration is waging attacks on Black history at three levels: the economic, the cultural, and through voting rights. The closed doors of the African American History Museum in DC are both a symbolic and material closing off of Black history and culture. And that’s added to the mass firings of more than 300,000 Black employees from their federal positions. The Trump administration is also criminalizing the teaching of Black history in schools. Attacking school curriculum gives permission to conservative activists who are now rewarded for promoting greater and greater acts of racism. The softening or erasing of the historical reality of American slavery and racism creates what Powers calls “a cartoon image of the nation,” one in which the US is presented as a nation always living up to its values. In Black history, Powers says, there is an opposing grand narrative to the American Dream, that of the American nightmare. He says we need a vision of “American realism” that is taught by Black history: that Black Americans belong here through their blood sweat and tears and that we’re all equal in the eyes of god. Moreover, Black history has a transformative effect, empowering people to see more clearly the strategies and tactics that Black people used to gain greater freedom. Powers previews that there’s another social movement, another wave, on its way to counter the reactionary work of the Right. When it arrives, we should add ourselves to it so that it becomes stronger. Nicholas Powers is the author of Thirst, a political vampire novel; The Ground Below Zero: 9/11 to Burning Man, New Orleans to Darfur, Haiti to Occupy Wall Street; and most recently, Black Psychedelic Revolution. He has been writing for Truthout since 2011. His article, “Killing the Future: The Theft of Black Life” in the Truthout anthology Who Do You Serve, Who Do You Protect? coalesces his years of reporting on police brutality. Featured image of the facade of the National Museum of African American History and Culture by Ron Cogswell via Flickr. Did you enjoy this story? Your funding makes great, local journalism like this possible. Donate hereThe post The Transformative Power of Black History with Nicholas Powers appeared first on WORT-FM 89.9.
On today’s show, host Ali Muldrow speaks with Dionne Koller about her new book, More Than Play: How Law, Policy, and Politics Shape American Youth Sport. As a former athlete who signed her kids up for youth sports, Koller says she wrote the book to make the experience of youth sports more acceptable and accessible. Koller says that physical and emotional abuse are issues across sports, not just in the high-profile abuses in women’s gymnastics. That’s because hierarchies fuel our current approach to youth sports, hierarchies like parent-child and coach-athlete relationships. In both instances, kids aren’t given rights. And this is a very American problem, as the US is the only nation not to sign on to the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child. Our youth sports culture has internalized the idea that being yelled at and playing through pain are good for “character development,” despite all data to the contrary. And kids are harmed when their parents and other adults get swept up in the positive and negative emotions that come from competitive play. Koller says that we’ve given sports sponsors and coaches both social and policy gatekeeping authority and there’s not enough regulation when it comes to youth sports. We should have some minimum safety standards for youth sports, like coach background checks and other health standards. She observes that legislators are trying really hard all of a sudden to keep trans girls out of youth sports; meanwhile these same legislators aren’t supporting the enforcement of Title IX regulations. And they also discuss the emphasis on winning at all costs, the rise of youth sports gambling and AAU sports, the nefarious history of the term “student-athlete,” and how overtraining kids leads to preventable injuries. Koller wants to imagine sports as an equalizer, as athleticism has been a vehicle for upward mobility in the Black community. She says there’s a lot more romance we can get out of youth sports, we just have to open doors and make youth sports more accessible. Dionne Koller is Director of the Center for Sport and the Law at the University of Baltimore, where she also serves as a law professor. In 2021, she was appointed to co-chair the Commission on the State of US Olympic and Paralympics. She also has served as chair and a member of the executive board for the Sports Law Section of the Association of American Law Schools (AALS), is a member of the United States Anti-Doping Agency’s Administrative Review Panel, and serves on the editorial board for the International Sports Law Journal. A graduate of Harvard Law School, Koller was awarded the AALS 2024 award for significant contributions to the field of sports law. Featured image of the cover of More Than Play by Dionne Koller. Did you enjoy this story? Your funding makes great, local journalism like this possible. Donate hereThe post Aren’t Youth Sports Supposed to be Fun? appeared first on WORT-FM 89.9.
On today’s show, host Dana Pellebon is joined by Dane County Human Services Director, John Schlueter, to help listeners understand the breadth of the largest department in our county. Schlueter is a long-time Madison resident whose service to the community began with volunteering at Centro Guadelupe and the Dane County Humane Society. After graduating with a degree in social work, he worked in human services and the Social Security Administration before taking his new position with Dane County. He says that he sees his new role as an opportunity to give back to the community and guide the department through challenges posed by the federal government. This year, departments across Dane County faced structural deficits requiring reductions across the board. The Human Services budget looms at over $300 million and funds housing, mental health services, and so much more. Schlueter praises the work of the Needs Network and Sunshine Place and the spirit of volunteerism that they foster. However, the uncertainty created by funding cuts by the federal government is causing real problems for local leaders. It becomes difficult to anticipate or brace for changes, as with the recent back-and-forth over SNAP benefits. Schlueter is bracing for the new federal Medicaid requirements that will roll out in 2027, which he says will make it even more difficult for people to qualify for healthcare. Despite the hardships that so many across the county are facing, the Human Services Department is able to keep serving the diverse needs of its constituents because it is currently not required to strike DEI language from its programs. John Schlueter is the recently appointed head of the Dane County Department of Human Services. He brings his experience running large organizations, commitment to volunteerism, and service to drive compassionate and responsive service delivery. Dane County Human Services provides a vast array of programs that help our community thrive from children living with disabilities, or those in foster care, to young people finding a way forward on the path to meet their own goals, to employee training, job support, and housing, and those working through behavioral health or substance abuse, to the residents at our county-run nursing home who have some of the most complex care needs for the aging population, and so much more. It takes the entire community to do this work in the best of times. As we face challenges in the years to come, John invites the entire community to get involved, join him and the expert team, partners, and clients working daily toward a community where each person is thriving. Featured image of the Dane County Human Services logo. Did you enjoy this story? Your funding makes great, local journalism like this possible. Donate hereThe post What Does the County’s Human Services Department Do? appeared first on WORT-FM 89.9.
On today’s show, host Douglas Haynes takes an inside look at innovative local efforts to teach young people through urban agriculture. Our guest is Brian Emerson of Rooted, a local nonprofit developing community connections through agriculture and food access. Emerson comes from a long line of growers and says a lot of gardening is about paying attention. When he moved to Madison he got a plot at the Eagle Heights community garden where he learned from the international students and their families about growing in all kinds of ways. He’s built a career around teaching others how to grow their own food for their families and for their communities. At the Madison School Farm, Emerson runs programs for local schools, primarily field trips at the farm. Students get a full sensory experience of the garden, help out with garden chores, and cook a meal together. He says that kids love working with soil and that this year he’s had a 90% success rate at getting kids to eat raw okra. They also gain valuable social-emotional skills from working together in the garden. He wants to partner with more school districts and create more opportunities and connect more small farms to grow food for schools. Emerson also works at the Grow Academy, a juvenile facility part of the Wisconsin Department of Corrections. He shows the kids in the program about how to read a seed packet and troubleshoot common gardening issues in order to foster a sense of peace and personal agency. Brian Emerson is the Director of Urban Agriculture Education at Rooted. He is a native of Cedar Rapids and now is a Northside Madison resident. After graduating from the University of Iowa he worked with the USDA-NRCS on various mapping and watershed projects. Since 2004 he has been with the UW Madison trialing fruits, flowers, and veggies. Most recently, he served as Trial Manager for the Seed to Kitchen Collaborative in the Urban and Regional Food Systems program. In his free time, Brian works in his community coaching, teaching horticulture, and running a small urban farm. Featured image of urban agriculture via Rawpixel. Did you enjoy this story? Your funding makes great, local journalism like this possible. Donate hereThe post Teaching Kids a Love of Growing Food, Even Okra appeared first on WORT-FM 89.9.
On today’s show, we’re broadcasting host Esty Dinur’s conversation with Kamau Franklin, recorded at the Socialism 2025 Conference. They discuss organizing against the militarized law enforcement training center called “Cop City” in Atlanta, the assault of and targeting of Black communities by police, how to respond to Trump’s agenda, and how the left can have diverse approaches to organizing. Kamau Franklin (he/him) is the founder of Community Movement Builders. He’s been a dedicated community organizer for over thirty years. For 18 years, Kamau was a leading member of a national grassroots organization dedicated to the ideas of self-determination and the teachings of Malcolm X. He’s spearheaded organizing work in areas, including youth organizing, police misconduct, and developing sustainable urban communities. Kamau has coordinated community cop-watch programs, liberation schools for youth, electoral and policy campaigns, large-scale community gardens, organizing collectives and alternatives to incarceration programs. Kamau was an attorney for ten years in New York with his own practice in criminal, civil rights and transactional law. He now lives in Atlanta with his wife and two children. Featured image of graffiti saying “Stop Cop City” in Atlanta via Wikimedia Commons (CC BY-SA 4.0). Did you enjoy this story? Your funding makes great, local journalism like this possible. Donate hereThe post “Cop City”: The Problem of Police Violence in Atlanta and Beyond appeared first on WORT-FM 89.9.
On today’s show, host Allen Ruff is joined by Peter Kornbluh, senior analyst at the independent nongovernmental National Security Archive. He discusses the historic 1975 expose of the CIA, “Alleged Assassination Plots Involving Foreign Leaders,” a report made public fifty years ago by the special investigative US Senate Committee led by Idaho Senator Frank Church, the now little remembered “Church Committee.” They discuss the report’s revelations, the unsuccessful attempts of the Gerald Ford administration to halt its circulation, the impact of its release, made timely now as the Trump administration speaks quite openly and candidly about overthrowing and murdering Venezuelan president Nicolas Maduro. Kornbluh says that at the time of the Church Committee, the US was in a period of scandal. The nation was actively asking what the role of covert agencies should be in a democracy as people became more aware of the things that were being done with their tax dollars and in their name. This remains a question worth asking and a history worth remembering as there has been a covert operation scandal every five years since the Church Committee. Peter Kornbluh is a Senior Analyst at the National Security Archive. He currently directs the Archive’s Cuba and Chile Documentation Projects. He was co-director of the Iran-Contra documentation project and director of the Archive’s project on U.S. policy toward Nicaragua. From 1990-1999, he taught at Columbia University as an adjunct assistant professor of international and public affairs. Featured image of Senator Frank Church who chaired the 1975 Senate Select Committee to Study Governmental Operations with Respect to Intelligence Activities, known as the Church Committee via Wikimedia Commons. Did you enjoy this story? Your funding makes great, local journalism like this possible. Donate hereThe post Exploding Seashells and Poisoned Cigars: Assassination Plots of the CI... appeared first on WORT-FM 89.9.
Wisconsin has the dubious distinction of having higher than national averages for youth incarceration and Black youth are ten times more likely to be incarcerated than their white peers. On today’s show, host Dana Pellebon is joined by Nell Bernstein, author of In Our Future We Are Free: The Dismantling of the Youth Prison to talk about the youth and families leading the charge to close youth prisons and end the dehumanization of incarceration. In the 90s, Bernstein was an editor at a San Francisco youth newspaper at the height of youth incarceration in the nation. She watched as young writers for the paper would get picked up by police and “chewed up by the system.” Though there’s been a 75% drop in youth incarceration since the 90s, youth prisons are the same as they were 30 years ago. Given euphemistic names like “Lincoln Hill School,” these facilities are bound by razor wire and the children incarcerated there sleep in cell blocks. Bernstein calls these institutions the real source of recidivism because dehumanization goes hand in hand with incarceration. She gives examples of how a white community in Illinois fought to keep its youth prison open because they were financially profiting from it, and how in Louisiana, mothers successfully closed a youth prison where their children were being abused. Resistance has been led by those most impacted, like the tenacious youth who documented their conditions and sent letters to advocates who then successfully spread their stories such that California closed its youth prison network. Bernstein says that imprisoning children only happens when the system makes harm invisible and at the same time dehumanizes Black and Brown children. Despite some resistance, Bernstein says that there’s growing interest across the country in charging children as adults, undoing decades of reform work and running counter to the science of the adolescent brain. She says that the key to ending the racial targeting of the justice system is to better resource Black and Brown communities. The vast majority of Americans have broken the law in some way when they were an adolescent, but most were “rehabilitated” by living in a community where their activities weren’t policed. She gives an example from California, where organizations like Young Women’s Freedom Center are using housing programs to successfully keep girls out of jail. Nell Bernstein is the author of Burning Down the House, winner of the American Bar Association’s Silver Gavel Award; All Alone in the World, a Newsweek Book of the Week; and In Our Future We Are Free (all published by The New Press). She is a former Soros Justice Media Fellow, a MacDowell Fellow, and a winner of a White House Champion of Change award. Her articles have appeared in The New York Times, The Washington Post, Glamour, Salon, Mother Jones, and other publications. Featured image of the cover of In Our Future We Are Free by Nell Bernstein. Did you enjoy this story? Your funding makes great, local journalism like this possible. Donate hereThe post Incarcerated Youth Move the Needle on Justice appeared first on WORT-FM 89.9.
Last month the United Nations COP 30 released a statement that failed to call for the elimination of fossil fuels or even mention “fossil fuels.” More than 1,600 lobbyists from the fossil fuel industry attended COP 30, outnumbering almost all delegations. To talk about COP 30 and the decades-long campaign by the fossil fuel industry to spread climate disinformation, host Douglas Haynes is joined by two experts, Kathy Mulvey of Union of Concerned Scientists and Geoff Dembicki of DeSmog. They talk about how we got to a place of rampant climate disinformation in North and Latin America and how to hold polluters accountable. Dembicki says that fossil fuel corporations are spreading misinformation because they don’t want regulations or because they want to gain political favor. Dembicki has been following Exxon’s efforts to translate climate denialism from English to Spanish, with the stated aim of sowing doubt and confusion about UN climate change treaties. Mulvey says that the work to end the climate emergency hasn’t been vigorous enough and that the fossil fuel industry has been successfully preventing science-based action from being made. Mulvey breaks down disinformation tactics like greenwashing, as when Exxon says they’re developing biofuels from algae, a project that comes with a $175 million dollar price tag. Dembicki says that listeners should watch out for messages about “carbon capture and storage,” which are not serious solutions to the climate emergency. They also discuss the influence of fossil fuel corporations on higher education and how to contact your local representatives to urge them to hold fossil fuel corporations accountable. Geoff Dembicki is Global Managing Editor of DeSmog and author of The Petroleum Papers. He’s based in Montreal. Kathy Mulvey is the accountability campaign director and advocate for the Climate & Energy team at the Union of Concerned Scientists. In her role, she leads strategic development of UCS’s climate corporate accountability campaign, guides engagement with corporate targets, builds national and international coalitions, and mobilizes experts and supporters. Featured image from COP 30 by Jonas Pereira/Agência Senado via Wikimedia Commons (CC BY-SA 4.0). Did you enjoy this story? Your funding makes great, local journalism like this possible. Donate hereThe post Climate Disinformation Spans the Globe (Still) appeared first on WORT-FM 89.9.
In this prerecorded conversation from late July 2025, host Esty Dinur follows up with Dr. Feroze Sidhwa, a trauma surgeon who visited Madison last summer to report on his work in hospitals in Gaza. In this show, he speaks in more detail about Israel’s targeting of healthcare workers. He describes the difficulties of counting deaths in Gaza and tells the stories of other medical workers. This interview contains mentions of torture and sexual abuse. Dr. Feroze Sidhwa is a general, trauma, and critical care surgeon based in California. He is also a humanitarian surgeon, having worked most extensively in Palestine, but also in Ukraine, Haiti, Zimbabwe, and Burkina Faso. Dr. Sidhwa has written and spoken extensively about surgical humanitarian work, the United States’ role in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, and the political consequences of medical relief work. He approaches the Israeli-Palestinian conflict as a secular American and as a humanitarian physician. Featured image of Dr. Feroze Sidhwa. Did you enjoy this story? Your funding makes great, local journalism like this possible. Donate hereThe post A Trauma Surgeon’s Report From Gaza appeared first on WORT-FM 89.9.
Host Allen Ruff opens today’s program with a quotation from Mark Twain: “Thanksgiving Day, a function which originated in New England two or three centuries ago when those people recognized that they really had something to be thankful for–annually, not oftener–if they had succeeded in exterminating their neighbors, the Indians, during the previous twelve months instead of getting exterminated by their neighbors, the Indians. Thanksgiving Day became a habit, for the reason that in the course of time, as the years drifted on, it was perceived that the exterminating had ceased to be mutual and was all on the white man’s side, consequently on the Lord’s side, consequently it was proper to thank the Lord for it.” On this Thanksgiving Day edition of A Public Affair, Ruff is joined by our traditional Thanksgiving guest, Will Williams, to reflect on perennial issues like colonialism, militarism, and racism–issues that stretch from the Pequot Massacre to the genocide of Palestinians in Gaza. Ruff and Williams discuss the low-intensity war the US is now waging against Venezuela and the paramilitary role that ICE is now playing domestically. Williams reminds listeners that US imperialism is ongoing. Will Williams is a Vietnam veteran, a local peace veteran activist, and a long time friend of the show. Did you enjoy this story? Your funding makes great, local journalism like this possible. Donate hereThe post Annual Fireside Chat with Will Williams appeared first on WORT-FM 89.9.
Carlos Dávalos is in conversation with journalist Carlos Pérez Osorio who sailed with the Global Sumud Flotilla as a journalist last summer. The post Reflections on the Global Sumud Flotilla appeared first on WORT-FM 89.9.
Whether you’re hosting a large party at your home or visiting family or friends, you can still practice self care and set boundaries, says guest April Kigeya. The post April Kigeya Knows How to Survive the Holidays appeared first on WORT-FM 89.9.
Douglas Haynes is joined by journalist Phoebe Weston to talk about how the biodiversity crisis is happening in our own bodies and how efforts to reverse it are succeeding. The post Biodiversity Loss is the Local Face of the Climate Crisis appeared first on WORT-FM 89.9.