Shows
A Public AffairHow Aid is Being Weaponized in Gaza
On today’s program, Allen Ruff speaks with friend of the show, Mouin Rabbani, about Yasser Abu Shabab, the continuing genocide in Gaza, the chaos created by US-backed aid organizations, and Israel’s military and political interventions in surrounding states like Syria, Yemen, and Iran.
Rabbani describes how the Gaza Humanitarian Foundation, a joint US-Israel project, is weaponizing aid in order to gain control over the distribution of supplies. The GHF’s former leader, Jake Wood, was an exorbitantly paid US mercenary and well known Christian Zionist, resigned last month saying the organization couldn...2025-06-1200 minA Public AffairA Safe, Decent, Affordable Home for Everyone
On today’s show, guest host Matvei Mozhaev speaks with Maria Foscarinis, a principal architect of the 1987 McKinney-Vento Homeless Assistance Act, the first major piece of federal legislation to address homelessness. They discuss her recent book, And Housing for All: The Fight to End Homelessness in America, which details the impact of homelessness on people’s lives and argues that ending homelessness in the US requires the recognition of housing as a basic human right.
Foscarinis discusses the last four decades of the homeless crisis in the US. She started her career when Regan...2025-06-1151 minA Public AffairA Safe, Decent, Affordable Home for Everyone
On today’s show, host Matvei Mozhaev speaks with Maria Foscarinis, a principal architect of the 1987 McKinney-Vento Homeless Assistance Act, the first major piece of federal legislation to address homelessness. They discuss her recent book, And Housing for All: The Fight to End Homelessness in America, which details the impact of homelessness on people’s lives and argues that ending homelessness in the US requires the recognition of housing as a basic human right.
Foscarinis discusses the last four decades of the homeless crisis in the US. She started her career when Regan came...2025-06-1151 minA Public AffairWhat’s in Madison’s Water?
On today’s show, guest host Greg Michaud interviews Joe Grande, the Water Resources Manager at Madison Water Utility. They discuss what’s in Madison’s drinking water, how consumers can have confidence in their tap water and stop buying bottled water, and what Madison Water Utility does to determine if water is meeting standards, as is disclosed in the recent Annual Drinking Water Quality Report.
Grande describes how Madisonians get their tap water, which typically is sourced from 1-3 of Madison’s 20 wells. To produce their annual report, the Utility samples roughly 27,000 times ove...2025-06-1100 minA Public AffairWhat’s in Madison’s Water?
On today’s show, host Greg Michaud interviews Joe Grande, the Water Resources Manager at Madison Water Utility. They discuss what’s in Madison’s drinking water, how consumers can have confidence in their tap water and stop buying bottled water, and what Madison Water Utility does to determine if water is meeting standards, as is disclosed in the recent Annual Drinking Water Quality Report.
Grande describes how Madisonians get their tap water, which typically is sourced from 1-3 of Madison’s 20 wells. To produce their annual report, the Utility samples roughly 27,000 times over the...2025-06-1100 minA Public AffairAI Data Centers are Coming to Wisconsin
On today’s show, host Douglas Haynes unpacks the future of AI in the state of Wisconsin. He’s in conversation with Brett Korte who describes why big tech companies are looking to Wisconsin as the future home of their data centers. Wisconsin happens to be water rich, and these data centers require water. But Korte says that Great Lakes water is governed by compacts with lots of stakeholders, making water harder to access. Korte adds that data centers require rezoning, so there’s room for community action. Nevertheless, there’s been widespread support for these ce...2025-06-1052 minA Public AffairAI Data Centers are Coming to Wisconsin
On today’s show, host Douglas Haynes unpacks the future of AI in the state of Wisconsin. He’s in conversation with Brett Korte who describes why big tech companies are looking to Wisconsin as the future home of their data centers. Wisconsin happens to be water rich, and these data centers require water. But Korte says that Great Lakes water is governed by compacts with lots of stakeholders, making water harder to access. Korte adds that data centers require rezoning, so there’s room for community action. Nevertheless, there’s been widespread support for these ce...2025-06-1052 minA Public AffairMedia in the time of the American Empire’s Decline
On today’s show, economist Richard D. Wolff joins host Esty Dinur to talk about the state of the American empire and the state of independent media. We’re also joined in the studio by Norman Stockwell who reiterates that funding independent media is as important as ever in light of potential cuts to the Corporation of Public Broadcasting. Wolff says that we’re living through the decline of the American Empire and that decline is gathering speed. He says that we can’t accept that what has happened to every other empire won’t happen her...2025-06-0653 minA Public AffairMedia in the time of the American Empire’s Decline
On today’s show, economist Richard D. Wolff joins host Esty Dinur to talk about the state of the American empire and the state of independent media. We’re also joined in the studio by Norman Stockwell who reiterates that funding independent media is as important as ever in light of potential cuts to the Corporation of Public Broadcasting. Wolff says that we’re living through the decline of the American Empire and that decline is gathering speed. He says that we can’t accept that what has happened to every other empire won’t happen her...2025-06-0653 minA Public AffairTrue Community is a Subversive Thing
Today we turn the tables; Allen Ruff sits in the guest seat to talk about his life and times. Ruff has been hosting the show for over 20 years and logged over 1000 hours of tape over that time, many of which you can find on the WORT website. Guest host, Bert Zipperer, interviews Ruff about what brought him to Madison, how he developed his subversive analysis, and the early days of WORT.
In this rare interview, Ruff opens up about how his youth among the Jewish working class in New Haven and later education a...2025-06-0553 minA Public AffairTrue Community is a Subversive Thing
Today we turn the tables; Allen Ruff sits in the guest seat to talk about his life and times. Ruff has been hosting the show for over 20 years and logged over 1000 hours of tape over that time, many of which you can find on the WORT website. Guest host, Bert Zipperer, interviews Ruff about what brought him to Madison, how he developed his subversive analysis, and the early days of WORT.
In this rare interview, Ruff opens up about how his youth amidst working class radicals in New Haven and later education at A...2025-06-0553 minA Public AffairLife Lived on the Edge of Freedom
On today’s show, guest host Yuri Rashkin is joined by independent journalist, Jonathan Fink. These two popular YouTubers of the Rashkin Report and the Silicon Curtain (respectively) break down the recent development in the war in Ukraine and champion the work of independent media on the increasingly politicized topic of Ukraine.
They discuss Ukraine’s recent drone strike on Russian aircraft and how the world is starting to see that Ukraine has more cards in its hands. Fink calls this an “inflection” moment because Ukraine is acting from a position of strength and inno...2025-06-0452 minA Public AffairLife Lived on the Edge of Freedom
On today’s show, guest host Yuri Rashkin is joined by independent journalist, Jonathan Fink. These two popular YouTubers of the Rashkin Report and the Silicon Curtain (respectively) break down the recent development in the war in Ukraine and champion the work of independent media on the increasingly politicized topic of Ukraine.
They discuss Ukraine’s recent drone strike on Russian aircraft and how the world is starting to see that Ukraine has more cards in its hands. Fink calls this an “inflection” moment because Ukraine is acting from a position of strength and inno...2025-06-0452 minA Public AffairOn the Morality of Taxpaying
On today’s show, host Sara Gabler speaks with sociologist Dr. Ruth Braunstein about money and morality. They discuss her new book, My Tax Dollars: The Morality of Taxpaying in America, which was published on April 15, or Tax Day–an auspicious day that Braunstein calls an American “ritual.”
Braunstein says that tax paying is the most significant way that everyday people interact with the federal government. And people invest a lot of symbolic value (in addition to material value) in the act of tax paying. Groups like war tax resisters and anti-abortion activists resist pa...2025-06-0352 minA Public AffairBuilding Symbiotic Relationships with Beavers
In Wisconsin we don’t have a shortage of beavers, despite over hunting and over trapping in the nineteenth century. But their resurgence isn’t without friction, especially as development encroaches on their environments. On today’s show, host Douglas Haynes is joined by journalist Bennet Goldstein whose recent reporting covers the ways that people are living with beavers and learning how to mitigate floods and drought from them.
Goldstein describes how human-built dams were constructed around Wisconsin in the early twentieth century to mitigate floods in the very hilly Driftless region. An increa...2025-06-0253 minA Public AffairResisting Nuclear Energy in Wisconsin
On today’s show, host Esty Dinur is joined by two representatives from Physicians for Social Responsibility (PSR) to talk about the Point Beach Nuclear Reactor in Two Rivers, Wisconsin on Lake Michigan. Amy Schulz and Alfred Meyer discuss the potential relicensing of this power plant despite the reactor being past its lifespan and how to oppose this relicensing.
Meyer is concerned that the regulatory studies done on nuclear plants don’t account for the effects of climate change on these reactors. Meanwhile the Trump administration last week issued four executive orders that would...2025-05-3053 minA Public AffairAn Update from Cuba
On today’s show, host Allen Ruff speaks with three solidarity activists who recently returned from Cuba as part of a delegation to Santiago de Cuba called Levantate por Cuba. For decades, Cuba has been the target of a vindictive blockade, used as a punishment of the island’s people because they dared seize their own history and break free of neocolonialism from Washington DC and across the hemisphere.
Jordan Muhammad is a recent graduate, activist, organizer, and substitute teacher based in Chicago. On the solidarity trip Muhammad spoke with many people...2025-05-2900 minA Public AffairFocus on Housing with Briarpatch Youth Services and Porchlight
A few weeks ago, host Ali Muldrow spoke with State Senator Kelda Roys about the housing crisis in Madison and Dane County. As the average price of a home has soared to nearly half a million dollars, the number of kids experiencing homelessness in the city is also growing. Today we’re picking up that theme with two guests from local homeless services agencies: Karla Thennes of Porchlight and Jen Ripp of Briarpatch Youth Services.
From her over thirty years at Porchlight, Thennes describes how accessible housing has decreased over the years and th...2025-05-2853 minA Public AffairHow Health Became a Luxury Product
In 2023, wellness was a $6.3 trillion dollar industry, it’s also notoriously riddled with grifts and scams. As online wellness influencers drive the anti vax movement, white Christian nationalists and the Make America Healthy Again movement are transforming body purity into body fascism. On today’s show, host Richelle Wilson is joined by journalist Amy Larocca to talk about the world of wellness and her new book, How to Be Well: Navigating Our Self-Care Epidemic, One Dubious Cure at a Time.
Larocca started tracing the emergence of our current wellness movement when she noticed the ma...2025-05-2752 minA Public AffairThe Crises of Regional Colleges and Universities
On today’s show, host Douglas Haynes is joined by journalist Molly Parker to talk about the erosion of educational access in rural areas, the value of regional universities, and Parker’s recent article for ProPublica, “A University, a Rural Town and Their Fight to Survive Trump’s War on Higher Education.”
Parker describes her experience of going to college at Southern Illinois University, Carbondale and how this was an adventure for her as a young person from a rural environment. Schools like SIU are affordable and allow students to be closer to family. Th...2025-05-2652 minA Public Affair“You can’t put the oil back in the pipeline”
On today’s show, host Esty Dinur is joined by two legal experts from Earthjustice–Andre Segura and Stefanie Tsosie–to talk about the Trump administration’s attacks on the environment.
They discuss the reconciliation bill that was passed yesterday and what this billionaire’s bill will mean for the environment. Segura says that this bill is a huge giveaway to the oil and gas industry and will make it easier to drill and transport oil and gas, impacting ecosystems the world over. Increased drilling in the Alaskan Arctic, Gulf of Mexico, and beyond will...2025-05-2352 minA Public AffairHow to Build Civic Courage with Henry Giroux
On today’s show, social critic Henry Giroux discusses what he calls the “politics of cleansing,” the multi-pronged offensive currently being waged against civil liberties, dissent, and ultimately democracy by “American-style fascism.” He says that cleansing means to purify in the service of domination. And in his recent article in CounterPunch he seeks a language that is comprehensive enough to describe Trump’s assault on democracy.
From religious fundamentalism, to educational repression, the imposition of ideological conformity, and attacks on DEI, we’re watching racial cleansing unfold. That’s coupled with the hollowing out of government...2025-05-2252 minA Public AffairThe role of the artist is to sing
Continuing our focus on the arts as an antidote in times of political turmoil, today we’re joined by local poet Nate Marshall to talk about his most recent collection, Finna. His poems consider the brevity and disposability of Black lives, question how gendered language is related to violence, and explore the vastness of Black vernacular.
Marshall and Muldrow discuss the weight of writing about challenging moments in history. He says he remains curious about power, language, and masculinity. But too often readers have been primed to expect racialized suffering in Black American li...2025-05-2253 minA Public AffairRebroadcast of a Conversation with Ada Deer
On today’s show we’re rebroadcasting an interview from 2019 in which outgoing News Director Chali Pittman interviewed Ada Deer, the late Native American social worker, activist, professor, lobbyist, and author. They talk about Deer’s life, work, and American Indian history.
Deer grew up on the Menominee Reservation and graduated from UW–Madison with a degree in social work. She later taught courses that fused Indian history and social work. She also served as Assistant Secretary of the US Department of the Interior as the head of the Bureau of Indian Affairs and was t...2025-05-2053 minA Public AffairGuaranteed Income Helps People Put One Foot Forward
On today’s show, host Douglas Haynes speaks with Dr. Michelle Robinson about the Madison Forward Fund 2.0, which was recently unveiled by the Foundation for Black Women’s Wellness. The guaranteed income program will focus on maternal-child health and support 42 families, each getting $500 a month for 12 months. This program builds off of the Madison Forward Fund that ran from 2022 to 2023.
Robinson provides insightful context on the history of income inequality, the interacting realities of racial and gender-based inequity, and the fact that there is precedent for these kinds of programs in our existing publi...2025-05-1953 minA Public AffairA Conversation on Seeds, Stories, and Solidarity
On today’s show, host Esty Dinur speaks with three panelists taking part in a program next week to celebrate World Day for Cultural Diversity. Dr. Claudia Calderón, Avexnim Cojti, and Cherie Thunder are part of a panel called Let’s Get Growing: Seeds, Stories & Solidarity happening on May 21 from 5-7pm at Aubergine on Willy Street.
As part of today’s roundtable, they talk about seed sovereignty, which is the right of people to use and exchange their own seeds in order to maintain the foodways and autonomy. This movement counters the bill...2025-05-1654 minA Public AffairSocial Security Is Affordable and Popular
On today’s show, host Allen Ruff speaks with Nancy J. Altman about the status of Social Security under the Trump administration. As the program enters its 90th year, Altman reflects on how it was created during the Great Depression but was meant to provide basic economic security (not dependent on wages) even in times of prosperity. Now, the program serves over 70 million people.
Altman has written about how Elon Musk and DOGE are trying to undermine the program by appealing to an old playbook of lies and misinformation. Contrary to false claims that...2025-05-1552 minA Public AffairWe’ve Got To Live Together
Good luck trying to find an affordable apartment or buy a home in Madison these days. As the city keeps growing, so does the cost of housing. To talk about the situation we’re in and what local and state governments can do about it, host Ali Muldrow is joined by Senator Kelda Roys.
They discuss the Ella Apartments and programs like the Wisconsin Housing and Economic Development Authority (WHEDA), zoning and accessory dwelling units, the very narrow pathways to home ownership, how hard it is for people to downsize and stay in the...2025-05-1453 minA Public AffairRoundtable on Black Leadership in Madison
On today’s show, Alder Isadore Knox Jr. hosts a roundtable discussion on Black political leadership in Madison. He says that this is a unique time for this conversation given the reduction of Black elected officials on the Madison City Council, from 9 alders to 5 in the current term. He’s joined by Richard V. Brown Sr., Sheri Carter, and Amani Latimer Burris. They talk about their reasons for running for political office as well as their civic accomplishments.
Latimer Burris says that she’s proud of asking tough questions at Council meetings and she’s...2025-05-1353 minA Public AffairRebroadcast: Status of Childcare in Wisconsin
Today’s show is rebroadcast of a show from April 28.
On April 17, a record breaking number of child care advocates marched on the Wisconsin state capital and sent a message to legislators that the state needs to invest $480 million in childcare. According to the Institute for Research on Poverty, without this investment, 1 in 4 childcare providers in the state could shut down.
To shed light on these changes, host Douglas Haynes is joined by Corrine Hendrickson and Ruth Schmidt, two child care professionals and advocates. Schmidt says that Wisconsin is one of six...2025-05-1254 minA Public AffairWhy Is Trump Still So Interested in Greenland?
“We need Greenland for national security and even international security,” President Trump said during his first State of the Union of his second term. “One way or the other, we’re going to get it.”
That bold claim set off a new wave of awkward diplomacy, including surprise visits from Donald Trump Jr., and Vice President JD Vance and his wife, Usha.
Acquiring Greenland is not a new obsession. Trump floated the idea in his first term. Numerous presidential administrations have floated the idea, at least privately. Even Truman made a secret offer...2025-05-0953 minA Public AffairNeoliberalism on Steroids
On today’s show, host Allen Ruff is joined by David McNally to reflect on Donald Trump’s first 100-ish days in office. They try to make sense of Trumpists’ multi-pronged offensive on immigrants, trade, DEI, and so much more. McNally says that Trump relies on shock, awe, and fear, but even within this climate, there are cracks that can be exploited.
While some are claiming that neoliberalism is over, McNally says that Trumpism is a natural outgrowth of neoliberalism that includes a weakening of organized labor and social movements and a celebration of big...2025-05-0851 minA Public AffairWhat are schools for? A Conversation with Eve L. Ewing
It’s a common refrain to hear that getting an education opens doors, even in a community like Madison with its huge achievement gap. But today on the show, host Ali Muldrow speaks with Dr. Eve L. Ewing, who argues that instead of creating equal opportunities, the American education system perpetuates inequality. Ewing is the author of Original Sins: The (Mis)education of Black and Native Children, in which she demonstrates how schools were designed to propagate the idea of white intellectual superiority.
Ewing asks a deceptively simple question, what are schools for? Th...2025-05-0752 minA Public AffairHow to put data over dogma
On today’s show, host Sara Gabler speaks with author, scholar, and prominent TikToker Dan McClellan about his new book, The Bible Says So: What We Get Right (and Wrong) about Scripture’s Most Controversial Issues. They discuss how Christians derive their notions of sexuality, gender, and authority by going straight to the source, the Bible itself.
McClellan uses an approach that he calls “data over dogma” in which he strives to put aside any of his own beliefs and assumptions in order to assess what the historical record and the texts themselves say. Inst...2025-05-0654 minA Public AffairThe Miraculous and Disastrous with Author Tamara Dean
The Kickapoo River Valley is one of Wisconsin’s most beloved landscapes. On today’s show, host Douglas Haynes speaks with author Tamara Dean about this magical region and the miraculous, disastrous, and difficult changes she observed while living on the land. Her new book, Shelter and Storm: At Home in the Driftless, is a collection of essays about what she learned from moving to this area in the early 2000s.
When she and her partner purchased a farm in the Driftless, she had many goals: of becoming an organic farmer, creating a poll...2025-05-0552 minA Public AffairPeace activists are shut out from getting aid into Gaza
On today’s show, host Esty Dinur speaks with a peace activist and a scholar about the humanitarian situation in Gaza. It has been two months since Israel began a full blockade of all aid to Gaza. In response, the Freedom Flotilla Coalition, made up of volunteers from over 21 countries, attempted to open a sea-based relief route. Last night, their vessel was attacked by drones, and the vessel was substantially damaged. Cassandra Dixon joined us today from Malta to describe the attack.
We’re also joined by Jennifer Loewenstein who discusses the healthcare situ...2025-05-0253 minA Public AffairMay Day with Armando Ibarra
On today’s show, host Allen Ruff is joined in the studio by Armando Ibarra to celebrate International Workers Day or May Day, a day that has long been one of working class mobilization. Initiated in Chicago in 1886, May Day commemorates organized workers’ strength against oligarchs of the past and present.
While workers’ movements have made great gains since that first May Day, today’s plutocrats haven’t ceased in their efforts to take away workers’ gains. Across the country today, people are taking to the streets again, demanding dignity and fair treatment. Many events a...2025-05-0152 minA Public AffairA Roundtable of Black Women Leaders in Madison
On today’s show, host Ali Muldrow is joined by four accomplished Black women who are or have been in public office and who serve in organizations at the executive level. Brandi Grayson, April Kigeya, Sabrina Madison, and Dana Pellebon are local leaders who bring years of expertise and care to their work. However, they face an inordinate amount of scrutiny in their professional and personal lives.
Muldrow starts the show by reminding listeners of the words of Ida B. Wells, the investigative journalist and a founder of the NAACP, who said that the...2025-04-3000 minA Public AffairBonnie Raitt Day
Fifty years ago today, on April 29, 1975, Bonnie Raitt gave a benefit concert with Mose Allison for WORT at the Capitol City Theatre in downtown Madison. This was a major event in the history of our station. On today’s very special edition of A Public Affair, WORT’s Production Coordinator Aaron Scholz is behind the mic to explain why. In addition to a special message from Bonnie Raitt, we hear four interviews with folks who helped coordinate the benefit show, were at the show, or were involved with WORT before we went on the air over...2025-04-2953 minA Public AffairAn update on lawsuits brought against Standing Rock protesters
In late March, the climate advocacy group Greenpeace was ordered to pay $660 million in damages to Energy Transfer, the oil company behind the Dakota Access Pipeline. The grassroots protests against DAPL in 2016 and 2017 were organized by the Standing Rock Sioux Tribe and Indigenous water protectors. Greenpeace peacefully supported the protests but was charged with defamation by Energy Transfer.
On today’s show, host Esty Dinur is joined by Cody Hall who reminds listeners of what happened at the Standing Rock protests and No DAPL movement against the incursion of the Energy Transfer oil pip...2025-04-2553 minA Public AffairA Robert McChesney Retrospective
On today’s A Public Affair we’re honoring the life and legacy of Robert McChesney who passed away on March 25. In addition to being a renowned academic and activist who fiercely advocated for independent media, McChesney was also a host on this show. In this episode from 1997, he interviews Allen Ruff about his first book, “We Called Each Other Comrade”: Charles H. Kerr & Company, Radical Publishers.
Featured image: photo of Bob McChesney.
Did you enjoy this story? Your funding makes great, local journalism like this possible. Donate hereThe post A...2025-04-2450 minA Public AffairLocal Poets Roundtable
Continuing our April theme of talking with poets and artists about the role of art in times of political turmoil, today host Ali Muldrow is joined by three local poets in the studio to talk about their craft and their work in the community.
juj e lepe, Jonny Teklit, and Andrew Chi Keong Yim talk about the competitiveness and performance of slam poetry, how art takes on a greater meaning in moments of social and political upheaval, how to address both human rights violations and joy within their craft, and the storytelling of...2025-04-2354 minA Public AffairThe Freedom of Biking with Artist Julia Bourdet
On today’s Earth Day edition of A Public Affair, host Patty Peltekos speaks with artist and writer, Julia Bourdet, about her decarbonized journey across the US. With a sketchbook in hand, Bourdet spent seven months traveling by boat, train, and bike from Europe and across the continental US. Along the way she met with environmental activists and Americans of all walks of life during the presidential election cycle of last Fall.
Bourdet says that traveling is an experience of self-discovery and that bicycling, in particular, is a form of freedom for her. She...2025-04-2253 minA Public AffairClimate Art with TetraPAKMAN
In the spirit of Earth Day, today’s show features an artistic wake-up call about the climate emergency. Host Douglas Haynes is joined by Madison artist, TetraPAKMAN, to talk about his role as artist in residence at the Madison Public Library. His current installation “Wake Up!” and exhibit “Doing Something” are on display at the Central Library through this week.
They talk about the meaning of “hacking,” the role of humor in communicating difficult subject matter, the recyclability of tetra pak material, and how people are manipulated by corporations and the media about what’s actually...2025-04-2152 minA Public AffairSkunk Hill Spring Gathering
This Spring, Fred and Germaine Pidgeon have reason to celebrate. On May 3, the Friends of Powers Bluff are hosting a Spring Gathering and Homecoming at present day Powers Bluff County Park in Arpin, Wisconsin, also known as Skunk Hill or Tah-qua-kik. This area was originally home to the Potawatomi, Ho Chunk, Ojibwe, and Menominee People. After years of work by the Pidgeons, the land is being preserved, and this will be celebrated with presentations, walks, crafts, and giveaways.
Host Esty Dinur outside the WORT station with Fred and Germaine Pidgeon.
The Pidgeons tell h...2025-04-1800 minA Public AffairVan Jackson on Zombie Economic Nationalism
On today’s show, host Allen Ruff is joined by Van Jackson to talk about Trump’s tariffs and their impact both on global trade and domestic labor. Aimed at China, these tariffs are part of a larger strategic project that many worry could lead to an economic downturn worldwide. They talk about how tariffs will hurt the working class, the rise of crony capitalism, the increasingly flagrant spoils system, and Arundhati Roy’s vision of civil disobedience.
Jackson puts Trump’s tariff regime in the context of international politics. He says we’re past th...2025-04-1753 minA Public AffairState of the Arts: Wisconsin Humanities Loses Funding
On today’s show, we’re continuing our April theme of highlighting the role of the arts in times of political turmoil. As federal cuts to arts and culture programs are hitting local organizations hard, host Ali Muldrow speaks with Jessica Becker and Jen Rubin of Wisconsin Humanities. Last week the organization was notified from the National Endowment for the Humanities that all of their grant funding had been canceled.
Becker says that their funding comes from a 53-year-old grant program that ended overnight when the Executive Director of Wisconsin Humanities received an unide...2025-04-1654 minA Public AffairMariel Barnes explains the “manosphere”
On today’s show, host Christina Lieffring speaks with scholar Mariel Barnes about misogyny online and in public life. They discuss the rise of what Barnes calls the “manosphere,” its rising influence on US politics, and how it leads to doxxing and violence.
Barnes studies how this form of online misogyny took off around 2008 with the emergence of Web 2.0. She says that the manosphere is made up of “a group of loosely connected websites, blogs, and forums that share the belief that men are oppressed in modern day society because of women, feminism, and gende...2025-04-1553 minA Public AffairUSDA Ends Farm to School Programs
Last month the USDA eliminated two programs that help schools, child care centers, and food banks buy food from local farms. This cut erased more than $1 billion in support, and a USDA spokesperson said these programs “no longer effectuates the goals of the agency.” Now, school districts and local organizations are scrambling to save these programs.
To talk about school nutrition and farm to school programs, host Douglas Haynes is joined by Erica Krug, the Farm to School Director at Rooted, Kaitlin Tauriainen, the President of the School Nutrition Association of Wisconsin, and Jenni...2025-04-1454 minA Public AffairThe Uhuru 3 Legal Victory
On today’s show, host Esty Dinur is joined by Chairman Omali Yesitela, the leader of the African People’s Socialist Party and the Uhuru Solidarity Movement, and Penny Hess, the Chairwoman of the African People’s Solidarity Committee. Uhuru means “freedom” in Swahili and is used as a greeting and a demand because of its historical significance in the struggle against colonialism.
In 2022, Chairman Omali and Hess, along with Jesse Nevel, were targeted by the FBI. Their homes were occupied, equipment confiscated, and financial records taken with military force. They were later charged, wi...2025-04-1153 minA Public AffairRachel Ida Buff on Birthright Citizenship and Due Process
On today’s show, host Allen Ruff is joined by scholar and activist Rachel Ida Buff to talk about the right to due process through the 14th Amendment and the Trump Administration’s goal to end birthright citizenship. She’s written a recent article on this topic for The Progressive, “As Trump Sets His Sights on Birthright Citizenship, Deported Mothers Fight for Their Children’s Rights.”
During the first Trump presidency, the idea of removing birthright citizenship was just a “twinkle in the administration’s eye,” says Buff. But now immigrant mothers, particularly women who give birt...2025-04-1052 minA Public AffairState of the Arts: Round 1
On this show we regularly talk with poets and artists about their work. And today host Ali Muldrow is joined by three professionals who work behind the scenes to make local arts programming happen. And they happen to be artists themselves.
At a time when arts funding is being slashed left and right, we wanted to make the time to highlight some important arts programming happening in our community. Karin Wolf is the Arts and Culture Administrator at the Madison Arts Commission. She says that the city’s youth poet laureate application will ope...2025-04-0952 minA Public AffairRobert McChesney Retrospective
On today’s A Public Affair we’re honoring the life and legacy of Bob McChesney who passed away on March 25. In addition to being a renowned academic and activist who fiercely advocated for independent media, McChesney was also a host on this show.
In an obituary written for the Nation, John Nichols says that McChesney “inspired generations of people to challenge corporate power and support a media reform movement that lives on.”
To pay tribute to McChesney and his legacy, today we’re re-airing an episode of A Public Affair from Decem...2025-04-0853 minA Public AffairWhat we lose when schools close their doors
In June the UW–Oshkosh, Fox City Campus will close for good. It will join 5 other associate-degree granting UW campuses that have closed since 2023. These closures are mandated by Universities of Wisconsin President, Jay Rothman. And these closures have locked out non-traditional students from higher education and the cost of this will stretch across generations.
To talk about the impact of these closures, host Douglas Haynes is joined by Ken Brosky, who directed the documentary, Closure: The Dismantling of Wisconsin’s Colleges. They talk about the mission of the University of Wisconsin colleges inclu...2025-04-0753 minA Public AffairWisconsin Film Fest Preview Extravaganza
On today’s show, host Esty Dinur previews the Wisconsin Film Festival with four directors and the Festival’s senior programmer Mike King.
She speaks with filmmaker Tim Hunter, an American television and film director. His 1986 film River’s Edge won that year’s award for Best Picture at the Independent Spirit Awards. His film, Tex will air at the Wisconsin Film Festival on Saturday at 4pm at the UW Cinematheque. His narrative film, Returning to Earth will also play at that time, and his documentary, By Kevin Thomas will play on Sunda...2025-04-0456 minA Public AffairPoet Martín Espada Reads from Jailbreak of Sparrows
On today’s show, host Allen Ruff is joined by Martín Espada who has just published a new volume of poetry, Jailbreak of Sparrows. Espada is a longtime friend of WORT and former Madisonian. He reads from his collection on the air and discusses the supple power of language.
Ruff asks Espada about the importance of his father, Frank Espada, who was a civil rights activist, documentary photographer, and a leader in the Puerto Rican community in New York City in the 60s and 70s. Espada’s father plays an important role in his...2025-04-0353 minA Public AffairMoney Doesn’t Vote, People Do
Wisconsin’s Spring Election results are in, and host Ali Muldrow breaks down the results with Nick Ramos and Iuscely Flores. They talk about the role of big money in the Supreme Court election, the rise of constitutional amendments, and how fair maps are changing the terrain of Wisconsin’s electoral system.
Ramos and Flores reiterate the need to keep fighting for our democracy. As Ramos says, the beat goes on. This means listening to your neighbors. Flores says the work of organizing is the work of talking to each other. She adds that...2025-04-0253 minA Public AffairNews Roundup Call-In Show
On today’s show we take our cue from you, our listeners. Host Esty Dinur opens the phone lines to discuss current issues in national and state politics with callers. They cover the abduction of pro-Palestinian activists, Kristi Noem’s photoshoot in El Salvador, the importance of independent media, and more.
Wisconsin is under the microscope because of our state Supreme Court election next week. Billionaire Elon Musk promised voters money in exchange for their votes, but deleted a social media post saying he would “personally hand over” $2 million hours after he posted it. ...2025-03-2853 minA Public AffairDavid McNally Unpacks Two Months of the Trump Presidency
On today’s show, Allen Ruff speaks with David McNally about the first few months of the Trump Presidency. They talk about Trump’s real estate plans for Gaza, the attacks on universities, Tesla Takedown, and the model organizing of Ella Baker.
McNally has written about the “grifter capitalist,” a new iteration of the classic American figure of the con man. Grifter capitalists like Donald Trump tend to be connected with real estate and finance; they’re wheelers and dealers, self-promoters, and they don’t actually understand the modern global economy, says McNally.
For ins...2025-03-2753 minA Public AffairRace and Reproductive Politics with Annie Menzel
Continuing with host Ali Muldrow’s feminist book club series, on today’s show, Muldrow speaks with Annie Menzel, author of Fatal Denial: Racism and The Political Life of Black Infant Mortality. They discuss white racial innocence, the birth justice movement, and the history of obstetrics. Menzel diagnoses how white expertise and authority shape the world of reproductive health for mothers and birthing people.
Fatal Denial reframes the conversation about Black maternal health away from viewing Black parents as problems. Instead, as Muldrow asserts, the book makes clear that the conditions of Black Ameri...2025-03-2652 minA Public AffairRebroadcast: L’Eau Est La Vie Camp And Standing Rock
This week the climate advocacy group Greenpeace was ordered to pay $660 million in damages to Energy Transfer, the oil company behind the Dakota Access Pipeline. The protests against DAPL in 2016 and 2017 were organized by the Standing Rock Sioux Tribe and Indigenous water protectors. Greenpeace peacefully supported the protests but was charged with defamation by Energy Transfer.
Now, a North Dakota ruling in favor of Energy Transfer could have far reaching effects on first-amendment rights and is an alarming instance of a corporation using a lawsuit to intimidate activists. Greenpeace is appealing the verdict. ...2025-03-2551 minA Public AffairEngaging Youth in the Legislative Process
In a time when public trust in government is near historic lows, today’s show highlights regional efforts to revamp civics education. Host Douglas Haynes is joined by Kate Ullman and Adah Lambeck to talk about two initiatives to educate and engage young people in the political process. Ullman and Lambeck discuss how focusing on policies not “politics” is the key to engaging young folks. Lambeck says that young people are motivated by local issues that impact them, like gun violence.
The Legislative Semester is a nonpartisan civics and government curriculum that engages student...2025-03-2454 minA Public AffairColonialism and the Weather
On today’s show, Carlos Dávalos is joined by two atmospheric scientists, Mayra Oyola-Merced and Ángel Adames Corraliza from the Department of Atmospheric and Oceanic Sciences at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. They discuss how weather systems differ across tropical and mid-latitude regions, how meteorological data is in question under the Trump presidency, and the politicization of weather agencies. And they advise people to pay attention to weather issues from around the world like the Atlantic meridional overturning circulation (AMOC), the potential collapse of the rainforest, and the increasing number of aerosols in the atmosphere from...2025-03-2153 minA Public AffairThe Warfare State with Norman Solomon
On today’s show, host Allen Ruff speaks with journalist, media critic, author, and activist Norman Solomon about his article, “How the Warfare State Paved the Way for a Trumpist Autocracy.” Solomon says that so many military projects are being undertaken under the name of “defense,” but this is a smokescreen for vast amounts of spending that support the “warfare state.” He writes that “militarism has been integral to the rise of the billionaire tech barons who are now teaming up with an increasingly fascistic Donald Trump.”
When Trump first ran for president in 2015, he unders...2025-03-2052 minA Public AffairIs It Love or Unpaid Labor?
On today’s show, host Ali Muldrow speaks with Emily Callaci, author of Wages for Housework: The Feminist Fight Against Unpaid Labor. In it, Callaci writes about the second-wave feminist movement, Wages for Housework, and the important questions about unpaid labor, gender, economy, and social reproduction that it raised. Muldrow calls the book “immensely relevant for this moment.”
Callaci describes the 1970s as a time when social movements were focused on expanding people’s rights. But the Wages for Housework movement tried to address what they thought was a fundamental source of inequality: the econo...2025-03-1952 minA Public AffairWhite Supremacy in Law Enforcement
On today’s show, host Christina Lieffring, news and politics editor at Tone Madison, speaks with Mike German about his new book, Policing White Supremacy. German is a former FBI agent who worked undercover in white supremacist and militia groups, and his book documents the threat that violent far-right groups pose to the public and how the FBI ignores that threat.
White supremacy and white supremacist violence are foundational in the US, German says. Law enforcement agencies are more likely to focus on leftist social movements than white supremacists groups even though white supr...2025-03-1849 minA Public AffairWorking Shoulder-to-Shoulder with Immigrants
On today’s multi-lingual show, host Douglas Haynes checks in with two representatives from Voces de la Frontera and Voces de la Frontera Action, Wisconsin’s leading immigrants rights organization. Luis Velasquez and Nindik Figueredo discuss the daily realities of immigrants and migrants in Wisconsin. They share their stories of joining Voces and talk about the status of DACA and Assembly Bill 24 which, if passed, would force county sheriffs to work with ICE.
Figueredo says she has been busy with community education projects because it’s more important than ever to inform and organi...2025-03-1754 minA Public AffairA Crisis of Conspirituality
From the high costs of insurance and issues of quality of care, the US’s healthcare system leaves a lot to be desired. Here in Wisconsin, the maternal mortality rate is higher for Black women than white women. And about one third of hospitals in the state are run by Catholic groups who can select which reproductive procedures they’ll provide based on the Catholic Church’s directives.
But instead of coming to the conclusion that we need more and better healthcare, too many folks seem to be eagerly abandoning evidence-based medicine for the lav...2025-03-1453 minA Public AffairCapitalism, Corporations, and Co-ops with Richard D. Wolff
On today’s show, host Allen Ruff talks about the state of the US in the world economy with economist Richard D. Wolff. They discuss the sweeping cuts in the federal workforce, how the US is isolating itself through Trump’s tariffs, the value of the dollar, Trump’s threat to Social Security, and the 2017 tax cuts to the rich that lead to the US government’s borrowing from corporations and the wealthy.
Wolff says that we’re seeing the end of the American Empire. From WWII to the early twenty-first century, the US enjoyed...2025-03-1354 minA Public AffairA Hopeful Conversation to End Gun Violence
In December the Madison community was rocked by a mass shooting at the Abundant Life Christian School. It was just one of 330 school shooting incidents in 2024, as documented by the K-12 School Shooting Database. On today’s show, host Ali Muldrow is joined by two gun violence advocates–Tyler Kelly and Darrell Lofton– to talk about their work to change the narrative about school safety and power.
Kelly and Lofton work for WAVE Educational Fund, and they’re planning a Day of Action on May 20, and urging folks to speak directly with their represent...2025-03-1252 minA Public AffairThe History of Mexican Rock and Roll
On today’s show we travel back in time with Dr. Julia Palacios, a scholar of Mexican music from the 50s and 60s. She joins host Carlos Dȧvalos to talk about the influence of US rock and roll on Mexican culture between 1955-1965.
They talk about the bracero program that sent Mexican workers to the US, a program that started during WWII and continued until 1965. It was this labor program that helped ignite a cultural revolution in Mexican music. As Mexican workers returned to the country, they brought with them rock and rol...2025-03-1154 minA Public AffairRolling Back Climate Regulations
You might have missed the Trump administration’s roll back of climate regulations in the flurry of executive orders and DOGE actions over the past few weeks. To get caught up, today host Douglas Haynes takes a comprehensive look at climate related actions on the federal and state levels. He’s in conversation with Marianne Lavelle of Inside Climate News and Brett Korte of Clean Wisconsin.
The Biden administration made historic investments in a clean energy transition via the Inflation Reduction Act, but what we’re seeing now is a historic disinvestment, says Lavelle...2025-03-1054 minA Public AffairA Genocide Generating World of Lies
On today’s show, host Esty Dinur is joined by Raz Segal, a professor of Holocaust and Genocide studies. They talk about the history of Zionism and how settler colonialism and white supremacy are linked. Segal describes how the Holocaust is weaponized to justify genocide and ethnic cleansing in his most recent article, “Settler Antisemitism.”
In the US, Jews who voice support of Palestinians and criticize the Israeli state are increasingly censored and called antisemites. Segal says that this is possible because since 1948, the political discourse has come to conflate Jews with the state o...2025-03-0753 minA Public AffairA Fun Hour with John Nichols
On today’s show, Allen Ruff speaks with John Nichols about the crucial work of independent media. At a time when publications like the Washington Post are being turned into what Nichols calls “a tribune for oligarchy,” it’s more important than ever to support your trusted local media.
Nichols and Ruff catch up about the first six weeks of the Trump presidency, including this week’s 99 minute-long address in which Trump singled out Social Security. They also hone in on the campaign finance system that allows the rich to buy political influence. Elon Musk...2025-03-0653 minA Public AffairA Project 2025 Update with Lisa Graves
Last summer Lisa Graves sounded the alarm about Project 2025, the over 900 page plan written by the ultra-conservative Heritage Foundation that proposed to remake the US government. Now that Donald Trump is in the White House for a second term, he’s using Project 2025 as the blueprint for sweeping changes to governance and American society.
Lisa Graves joins host Ali Muldrow again to talk about where we stand: firings of national park rangers and other federal employees, locking the doors of USAID, and ripping away of foreign aid to Ukraine. They also discuss the tr...2025-03-0553 minA Public AffairThe Year 1999 Lives On
From Y2K and cable TV to pro wrestling and Jerry Springer, on today’s show we relish in all the lowbrow joys of the year 1999. Host Nate Carlin is in conversation with Ross Benes author of the forthcoming book, 1999: The Year Low Culture Conquered America and Kickstarted Our Bizarre Times. For Benes, low culture is mass produced entertainment that is both frowned upon and popular, epitomized by pro wrestling and its aesthetic called kayfabe.
No matter how you feel about Jerry Springer, Benes argues that his brand of sensational performance is still al...2025-03-0453 minA Public AffairIt’s Better to be Awake than Asleep
On today’s show, host Esty Dinur speaks with Bill Fletcher Jr about the Trump presidency, independent media, and settler colonialism. He says that the Trump Administration’s actions have been predictable, and we know this because his advisors are taking pages out of Viktor Orbán’s playbook.
Fletcher and Dinur talk about Elon Musk’s shift to the political right after 2020, ecofascism, Trump’s admiration of President McKinley, and the plans to turn the Gaza strip into a US development. In response to criticisms of “wokeness,” Fletcher says “it’s better to be awake than asl...2025-02-2854 minA Public AffairGet Busy with Acts of Repair
On today’s show guest host Bert Zipperer speaks with scholar and activist Bill Ayers. WORT News Director Chali Pittman also joins the conversation, and they talk about the presidential election and the ascent of Trumpism. Ayers says that though we’re at a precarious time, this isn’t the first frightening time. He follows Barbara Smith, who says that this is “just another day in the struggle.” They also talk about abolition, dignity, the need for people to stay engaged and get busy with acts of repair.
From the perspective of being a long-tim...2025-02-2754 minA Public AffairThe Art of Protest
On today’s show, host Carlos Dávalos is joined by Tony Castañeda and two Chicano artists who will be in Madison in just a few weeks. Dewey Tafoya is an artist and screen printer who makes art echoing the urban landscapes, cultures, and communities of inner city Los Angeles. Malaquias Montoya is a major figure in the Chicano Art Movement, and professor emeritus of Chicano studies at the University of California Davis. His silk screen posters are notable for addressing social justice issues like immigration, the Zapatista movement, and Palestine.
They talk...2025-02-2653 minA Public AffairRoundtable on Immigrant Dairy Workers in Wisconsin
On today’s show we focus on immigrant dairy farm workers in Wisconsin. Hosts Bert Zipperer and Pete Hardin are joined by three guests: Ruth Conniff, Armando Ibarra, and John Rosenow. They discuss the humanity of immigrant farmworkers, their struggles and their dreams, their kids who attend local K-12 schools, and their families in Mexico who depend on remittances. Conniff and Rosenow are part of a group called Puentes Bridges, which organizes trips to rural Mexico to connect rural farmers across international borders. Their most recent trip to Mexico is featured in the Wisconsin Examiner.
...2025-02-2554 minA Public AffairPublic K-12 Education Under Trump
Already strapped public schools are scrambling in response to a letter sent by the Department of Education on February 14. The letter threatened loss of federal funding if K-12 schools and colleges don’t stop “race-based decision-making” within fourteen days. Meanwhile, the Trump Administration has been threatening to disband the Department of Education. To talk about how to teach history and truth at a time like this, host Douglas Haynes is joined by Jesse Hagopian and Kimber Wilkerson.
They discuss the Trump Administration’s intimidation of educators, book bans, the #TeachTruth movement, and the federal g...2025-02-2454 minA Public AffairA Roundtable on Proposed Medicaid Cuts
Medicaid is a complex social safety net program that provides healthcare to over 79 million disabled and low-income adults and children. In Wisconsin, roughly 1 in 5 people were enrolled in these programs according to numbers from December of last year.
Despite the reach and popularity of Medicaid programs, Congressional Republicans are drafting a federal budget proposal that would slash up to $2.3 trillion to Medicaid funding. These cuts could result in 20 million people being dropped from healthcare. To make sense of what these proposed cuts would mean to Wisconsinites, host Sara Gabler is joined by three g...2025-02-2153 minA Public AffairFighting Corporate Power by Empowering Workers
Our guest today, Ric Urrutia, is an organizer, podcaster, artist, and co-host of the We Rise Fighting! Labor Podcast. He’s hosting a free workshop tonight at the Madison Labor Temple from 6-8pm on building worker power. The workshop will show participants how to read corporate documents and analyze corporate political contributions, and think critically about corporate investments.
Urrutia wasn’t always a labor organizer, but his awareness of class grew from watching his dad who worked at a seafood restaurant. Then, when he went to college, he learned not to be afrai...2025-02-2052 minA Public AffairLiteracy and the Ongoing Freedom Struggle
On today’s show, host Ali Muldrow speaks with Derek Black whose new book, Dangerous Learning: The South’s Long War on Black Literacy, traces Black literacy between the American Revolution and Reconstruction. For Black citizens, literacy was a weapon of empowerment and rebellion, while for whites, it was the only tool that could destabilize their grip on power. Derek Black says that the ghosts of this fight live on today.
Muldrow and Black talk about leaders like Denmark Vesey who inspired thousands of enslaved people in Charleston, South Carolina in the nineteenth cent...2025-02-1952 minA Public AffairReckoning with White Christian Nationalism
On today’s pre-recorded show, host Sara Gabler speaks with two journalists covering religion and American politics, Phoebe Petrovic and Sarah McCammon. Over the last year Gabler has been on this show to talk about her upbringing in a conservative evangelical community in the South. Today the show focuses on how the rhetoric of Christian nationalism is influencing US politics and the daily experiences of growing up as an evangelical.
Petrovic describes the rise of the Christian right and how white Christian nationalist rhetoric is influencing the Trump Administration. McCammon discusses the long an...2025-02-1853 minA Public AffairServing an Aging Population
In response to a caller request in January, today’s show focuses on issues that older adults face in Dane County and beyond. According to the Dane County Area Agency on Aging, the number of folks 65 years and older is forecast to grow by more than 30,000 in the next fifteen years. Statewide, the senior population is growing rapidly, especially in urban areas. Yet the number of licensed nursing beds and the available workforce for nursing homes is declining.
To talk about these issues, we’re joined by two guests, Jodie Castaneda and Addie Coste...2025-02-1754 minA Public AffairThe Crisis in Gaza with Ilan Pappé
On today’s show host Esty Dinur is joined by Professor Ilan Pappé, an Israeli historian, political scientist, and former politician. They talk about Mahmud Muna, the Palestinian book shop owner who, along with his nephew Amad Muna, was arrested by Israeli police and charged with “inciting and supporting terrorism” because they carried books by Noam Chomsky, Ilan Pappé, and others.
Pappé describes how Palestinians inside Israel are daily being harassed and terrorized by Israeli gangs. He says that the death tolls from these attacks are rising and the Israeli police seem to be encour...2025-02-1453 minA Public AffairAre we in a constitutional crisis?
Our guest today, Howard Schewber, says we aren’t yet in a constitutional crisis, but we are in the middle of a constitutional revolution. Trump’s barrage of executive orders is radical, according to Schweber, because it denies Congress the authority of its power over the president. He’s in conversation with Chali Pittman about the separation of powers, the courts, the administrative state, and all the changes that the Trump Administration is making, including a call to end birthright citizenship.
Schweber compares the Trump presidency to the Nixon years, and even to the ch...2025-02-1354 minA Public AffairThe Boom and Bust of Air Travel
Host Patty Peltekos starts today’s conversation by sharing all the ways people can have a miserable time traveling by air. From cancellations, delays, ever higher prices, cities losing air service, baggage fees, harrowing connections, and more, everyone has their own frustration with the airline industry. Our guest Ganesh Sitaraman, situates all these issues in the context of Congress’s bailout of the industry, economic policy, and US history to explain how we got here, and how we can fix it.
Sitaraman shares insights from his book, Why Flying is Miserable, including the reaso...2025-02-1152 minA Public AffairThe Corporate University under the Trump Administration
Last Week a Time Magazine poll of about 100 university presidents revealed that almost all of them believe that the Trump Administration is “at war with higher education.” From the attacks on DEI, student activism, and free speech, it’s easy to see why. All of this is also happening in the context of the increasing corporatization of higher education, in which administrators and politicians exert control through bureaucratizing higher education.
To talk about the corporate university under Trump, Douglas Haynes is joined by Becky Dolhinow, Mike Gavin, and David Schultz. They discuss the history...2025-02-1054 minA Public AffairBig Oil and the Climate Crisis with Rebecca John
In his first two weeks in office, Trump withdrew Biden’s “forever chemical reform plan,” sought to keep lead in Americans’ drinking water, and froze already allocated Inflation Reduction Act funds. Trump has also appointed chemical and oil industry insiders to the EPA, fired every scientist on two of the EPA’s most influential science advisory panels, and seems poised to attempt mass firings of EPA staff. And we just learned that 2024 was the hottest year on record, hotter than the previous record set in 2023.
To make sense of all these changes, we’re joined by...2025-02-0753 minA Public AffairThe Future of Labor Organizing with Dan Kaufman
Among the executive actions carried out on his first day in office, Donald Trump fired Jennifer Abruzzo from her post as General Counsel at the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB). Two days prior to Abruzzo’s dismissal from her influential position, journalist Dan Kaufman wrote an article about her and the NLRB for the New York Review of Books.
Kaufman joins guest host Chali Pittman today to discuss Abruzzo’s legacy, Elon Musk, and the future of the NLRB. They dive into the creation of this important entity with the 1935 National Labor Relations Act...2025-02-0654 minA Public AffairResponding to Trump’s Immigration Policies
The last few weeks have been harrowing for immigrants in the US. People in our community and across the country are worried about being detained or deported as Donald Trump tries to make good on his campaign promise of “mass deportations.” Although today a federal judge blocked Trump’s executive order to end birthright citizenship.
Host Ali Muldrow is joined by two guests today to talk about the threats that immigrants face right now and how people are organizing in opposition to ICE raids and more. Melissa Sanchez has been reporting on Nicaraguan communi...2025-02-0553 minA Public AffairDPI Superintendent Candidate Interviews
In Wisconsin’s February 18 primary, voters will get to choose from three candidates for State Superintendent: Jeff Wright, Jill Underly, and Brittany Kinser. The two candidates who receive the most votes will be on the ballot for the general election on April 1.
The State Superintendent runs the Department of Public Instruction, or DPI, a massive organization in charge of assessing, licensing, and distributing funds for Wisconsin’s 421 public school districts, running parental choice programs, the Wisconsin Educational Services Program for the Deaf and Hard of Hearing, and the Wisconsin Center for the Blind and V...2025-02-0452 minA Public AffairUnderstanding the City of Madison’s Referendum and Proposed Budg...
Early in-person voting begins today in Wisconsin, and we are just two week away from election day. Voters across the region will decided on state-wide referendums, and weigh in on school district and municipal levy increases.
On the ballot for Madison voters, is the question:
Under state law, the increase in the levy of the City of Madison for the tax to be imposed for the next fiscal year, 2025, is limited to 2.97%, which results in a levy of $296,149,162. Shall the City of Madison be allowed to exceed this limit and increase...2024-10-2252 minA Public AffairUnderstanding the MMSD Referendum Questions
Madison voters will encounter two referendum questions, one for facilities and one for operations, on the November 5th ballot. If passed, they would incrementally increase property tax over the next 4 years. By 2028, the average Madison property tax will be raised by more than $1,300. (That’s based on the average Madison home valued at $457,300.) The operations increase will be used in part to recruit and retain educators, invest in 4k programs, and support multilingual education. The increase for facilities will address the repair and remodel needs for aging school buildings and update technology in elementary and mi...2024-10-0852 minA Public AffairElection Coverage with Assembly District 47 Candidate Joe Maldonado
Assembly District 47 covers Fitchburg and parts of Southeastern Dane County, from Stoughton, McFarland, the towns of Rutland, Dunn, Dunkirk, Albion, and Pleasant Springs. It’s both urban and rural, with sprawling suburban subdivisions and dense apartment complexes.
Joe Maldonado is a candidate running to represent this area in the Wisconsin legislature. On today’s show, he speaks with host Carousel Bayrd about his priorities for the district. Maldonado currently serves on the Fitchburg City Council and has a background in youth development. He says he wants to be a voice for historically underrepresented and...2024-08-0652 minA Public AffairWisconsin Senate District 16 Candidates
On today’s show, longtime host Carousel Bayrd comes out of retirement to interview the three candidates for Wisconsin Senate District 16. The seat is currently held by Melissa Agard who is running for Dane County Executive.
Because of Wisconsin’s new legislative maps, District 16 now looks a little different and represents a diverse group of rural and urban communities. It includes Sun Prairie, Cottage Grove, parts of North Madison, Fitchburg, Cambridge, Fort Atkinson, Stoughton, and even parts of Dodge and Jefferson Counties.
Representative Melissa Ratcliff says that protecting abortion access is her to...2024-07-3052 minA Public AffairReal Life Parks and Rec: Celebrating Carousel Bayrd’s Last Show
After more than 10 years on A Public Affair, host Carousel Bayrd is stepping away from the show. To celebrate, we have a round table of colleagues and friends who work in different realms of local government. Analiese Eicher, Jenni Dye, and Ali Muldrow join Carousel to talk about the unique challenges they have each faced and why they keep showing up day after day.
Please email any parting messages for Carousel to talk@wortfm.org
Did you enjoy this story? Your funding makes great, local journalism like this possible. Donate here...2024-04-1054 min
Conscious Sexuality DiariesConscious Sexuality Diaries with dr. Shanna Bayrd who had quite the journey... from abuse to working in a strip club to being a doctorIn this episode I talk with Shanna Bayrd, a naturopathic physician practicing in Phoenix Arizona in the United States. She’s in her thirties now and had quite the life journey. Right now she’s experiencing more and more true pleasure in her life, but this was different. From abuse to confusing messages about sexuality in her teens to a full explorative but numb era… listen to her interesting story here!
Shanna offers guided gemstone meditations for free on YouTube. Write "Guiding Elements Medical Center" into the YouTube search and get started if you want to know more a...2020-11-0752 min