8 O'Clock Buzz

The International Court of Justice deliberated the decolonization status of Western Sahara from Spain between 13 December 1974 and 16 October 1976, and granted the peoples self-determination through the free and genuine expression of the will of the peoples of the Territory. Immediately, Morocco began a bloody war to annex the territory and exile the Sahrawi people, recognized by the African Union… a war, supported by the United States, which continues to today, according to Bill Fletcher, co-coordinator of the “Campaign to End the Moroccan Occupation of the Western Sahara“.

Fletcher gives a history of the conflict and the involvement of the U.S., and recommends action of the U.S. to end this conflict.

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Today on the Tuesday 8:00 Buzz with Dr. Damita Brown, Alexis Gardner, Abolitionist and Restorative Justice Coordinator at Flywheel Skill Share joins us to talk about the importance of history, working with youth, what Restorative Justice is and how we can improve our community!

Contact Alexis for information on becoming a Youth Ambassador and help build the network of community members: [email protected] or [email protected] 

Join them for open mic youth poetry, 6PM on April 21 at Flywheel Skill Share on Atwood! 

More on Flywheel Skill Share: https://flywheelskillshare.org/ 

Listen in Madison at 89.9FM or online anywhere at wortfm.org.  Support your community radio with a donation online at wortfm.org!

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Today on the Tuesday 8:00 Buzz with Dr. Damita Brown, poet, community builder and activist Carmen Murguia joins us from Milwaukee to read poetry, talk about community building and rebuilding, making room for creativity, and what’s been going on in her world!

More about Carmen and her work: https://www.lulu.com/spotlight/murguia and http://carmenaliciamurguia.yolasite.com/ 

Provided Photo

U.S. native, Carmen Alicia Murguía is an award-winning Author, Educator, and Community Builder.

A graduate of the prestigious Loft Literary Center’s “Inroads: Latino/Chicano Writers Program,” in Minneapolis, MN, Carmen is the author of “The Voices Inside,” “Carmen,” “The New Carmen (in this opera our heroine lives),” “Love: Poetry & A Short Story,” and “A Poem For All My People!”

Carmen appears in multiple anthologies and reviews, has read widely, and conducts workshops on “Finding Your Voice,” “Navigating Life After the Closet,” and “The Intersections of Culture & Identity.”  

Carmen loves traveling to beachfront climates, dancing to R&B and Cumbias, spending time with her 90 year old mother, and most importantly, makes time for Love.

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WORT 89.9FM Madison · Children’s Theater of Madison’s “Calabasas Street”

Children’s Theater of Madison’s production “Calabasas Street” is running now till Sunday March, 27th and is a story of unlikely friends, second chances and the transformative power of art. The theater reached out to Midwest Mujeres who helped them connect with a group of local third graders at Lincoln Elementary. The children were given workshops to help them learn about Latinx culture and the Spanish language while making 83 mini pinatas for the production.

Joining Friday Buzz host, Peter Haney, to talk about the production and the project to make the pinatas is Araceli Esparza, the founder of Midwest Mujeres, and Simona Simkins, the Associate Director of the production at the Children’s Theater.

 

 

(Image courtesy of Children’s Theater of Madison)

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WORT 89.9FM Madison · The Forced Relocation of Japanese and Japanese Mexicans during WWII

Last week, to parallel an exhibit at the Jewish Museum of Milwaukee – “Then They Came for Me: Incarceration of Japanese Americans during WWII and the Demise of Civil Liberties” – the Center for Latin American & Caribbean Studies organized a series of lectures to tell the stories of Japanese Latin American populations during the same time period.

Dr. Jerry Garcia, headed the series with “Inside an Invisible Iron Wall: The Forced Relocation of Japanese and Japanese Mexicans during World War II.” Dr. Garcia received his Ph.D. in Mexican and Chicano history from Washington State University and focuses his research on Chicana/o History, Labor, Latin American and Mexican History, Asians in the Americas, immigration, empire, masculinity, and race in the Americas. He joins Friday Buzz host, Peter Haney, to talk more about this.

 

 

(Images courtesy Hans on Pixabay and Jerry Garcia)

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WORT 89.9FM Madison · James Webb Telescope Is Ready to Look into the Darkest Reaches of the Universe.

On March 16th, the $9 billion James Webb telescope sent a test infrared image from its current orbit 930,000 miles from Earth. 

The simple image, focused on a single, brilliant star, represented the culmination of decades of planning, a dangerous and unpredictable launch, and months of painstaking calibration. 

Even this simple test image hints of why the Webb telescope has the astronomy community so excited: in the background you can make out what are clearly distant galaxies.

Dr. Kenneth Sembach joins today to discuss his work as the Director of NASA’s Space Telescope Science Institute, which oversees the James Webb mission.

Dr. Sembach received his doctorate in astronomy from the University of Wisconsin-Madison, and won the Newton Lacy Pierce Prize in astronomy in 2001. 

 

Image Courtesy: Aldebaran S / UNSPLASH

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WORT 89.9FM Madison · Exotic Pet Surrender Event in Wisconsin

Do you have a boa constrictor, a ferret, or an iguana that you can no longer care for? Don’t release the critter in the wild!

J&R Aquatic Animal Rescue and the Aldo Leopold Center have an exotic pet surrender event happening on April 9th.

J&R’s Director, John Moyles, joins to discuss what happens when people can no longer take care of nontraditional pets.

 

Image courtesy: Claudio Guglieri / UNSPLASH

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“Holding Israel Accountable” is the theme of the Rachel Corrie Commemoration, sponsored by Madison Rafah Sister City Project. Israel has been listed as an apartheid state by both Amnesty International and Human Rights watch, according to Cassandra Dixon and Rowan Attala from the Rafah Project. The commemoration, in honor of the 19th anniversary of the death U.S. peace activist who was crushed by an Israeli bulldozer while trying to peacefully prevent the demolition of a Palestinian home. Registration for tonight’s 7 PM virtual (March 16, 2022) commemoration, which includes a panel of presenters and a Q&A afterwards, can be found on the Rafah Sister City website.

 

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Bailout Watch monitors how the oil industry uses federal bailout money to their enrichment. Christopher Kuveke talks to Jan Miyasaki about a recent article showing how oil company executives have been taking advantage of high oil prices stimulated by the Russian invasion of Ukraine to cash out millions of dollars of their stocks.

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Despite hardened encasements at the nuclear plants in Ukraine, the facilities are not bomb proof, according to Kevin Kamps from Beyond Nuclear. Outside the encasements are electrical and water supplies which must be maintained or the reactors will overheat, and these were put at risk by recent Russian attacks at the Zaporizhzhia nuclear plants. In addition, a workforce of 211 workers have been held hostage at the Chernobyl facility for two weeks with no relief to the workers.

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