8 O'Clock Buzz

Started in 2015 Madison’s own Ethical Trading Co, an anti-trafficking nonprofit, has been working on creating jobs in towns and villages across Asia to help bring an end to human trafficking. And they recently opened a pop-up shop on South Park Street to help bring high quality fair trade goods to Madison.

The Ethical Trading Co pop-up shop is open now through the spring, Thursdays and Fridays from 11am-6pm and Saturdays from 11am-5pm at 1702 South Park Street.

For more information visit www.ethicaltradeco.com.

Image courtesy the Ethical Trade Co

Scott Gordon, editor and chief of Tone Madison, published an article about the recent $15,000,000 in grants to music and performing arts venues around the state from the The Wisconsin Department of Administration. About $1.5 million of that money will go to venues located in the city of Madison. However, the biggest grants will go to the city’s largest concert promoter and to venues that already receive significant public funding and/or private philanthropic support. Smaller venues that really make a local music scene tick will get relatively little, and the people who run them are getting frustrated.

Photo by Magnus Lunay on Unsplash

On the day before the Nobel Prize for Chemistry is awarded to the developers of the novel CRISPR gene-splicing technology, Jan Miyasaki speaks to Stuart Newman, Professor of Cell Biology and Anatomy at the New York Medical College, about the technology, its applications, safety in human genetic engineering, and commercialized gene patenting.

As Biden works to coalesce his cabinet and Executive Branch leaders, 1000s of educators and leaders have signed a letter to the President-elect recommending Dr. Kevin Kumashiro for as the next Secretary of the Department of Education. Kevin Welner, co-founder of the National Education Policy Center, discusses the idea of a “Education New Deal” to invest in education rather than the past policies of austerity or maintain status quo of school funding.

The Ohio state legislature, in a vaguely-worded bill, is proposing funding nuclear “reactor farms” using experimental technology capable of producing prodigious amounts of radioactive waste… according to Terry Lodge, attorney for the Toledo Coalition for Safe Energy. That group, along with a consortium of 56 safe energy organizations (including Beyond Nuclear in Wisconsin), are working to halt this project.

Today on the Tuesday 8:00 Buzz with guest host Stan Woodard (in exile)…

Prison reform activist Isabelle Martinez joins to talk about the prison industrial complex, and University of Wisconsin’s relationship with Badger State Industries and the prison labor used to build its furniture. Sign the petition to divest UW from prison labor at BSI.

Community Power Building Director Mankher Dahnweih, and Community Power Building Lead Jewel Adams from Freedom, Inc talking about working in the Dane County Jail, coaching people after domestic violence and drug addiction helping people recover. Volunteer to help Freedom, Inc support people in recovery.

Photo by Ken Fager on Twitter

With live performances and gatherings too risky, many arts organizations have had to make artistic lemonade out of pandemic lemons.  Normally, around this time, the Madison Ballet would be gearing up for one of their most popular annual events, the Ballet’s seasonal production of Tchaikovsky’s classic ballet, the Nutcracker Suite.  With a full production impossible, the Ballet company got creative and is offering a series of virtual Nutcracker Master Classes through Sunday December 20th.  Madison Ballet School Director Rachelle Fochs, will teach a December 13th class on the Snowflake dance.  Madison native and professional dancer and choreographer Zachary Guthier will conduct a master class on the Waltz of the Flowers on December 20th.  Rachelle and Zachary joined Monday Buzz host Brian Standing on December 7, 2020.

Pandemic or no, the Madison / Dane County real estate market is hot.  According to recent real estate sales, the median home price rose to $311,000 in November of 2020.  Meanwhile rents have skyrocketed by 23% over the last five years, well more than the pace of inflation. There are more buyers than sellers in Dane County, and that’s pushing buyers into neighborhoods like Madison’s North Side that have traditionally been bastions of affordable housing.  On Wednesday, December 9th the North Side Planning Council sponsors a virtual talk by Olivia Williams, the new executive director of the Madison Area Community Land Trust and member of the Dane County Affordable Housing Action Alliance.  Williams will discuss how land trusts and other tools can help resist gentrification.

Even as the nation saw an unprecedented drop in driving at the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic, Wisconsin recorded a significant increase in fatal car crashes and crash fatalities during the initial months of the crisis. Here to talk about a recent research report from the Wisconsin Policy Forum entitled “Alcohol, Speeding Deaths Fuel Increase in Crash Fatalities,” is the organization’s communications director and policy researcher Mark Sommerhauser.

Photo by Gabriel Meinert on Unsplash

647 individuals in the U.S. have amassed almost a trillion dollars during the pandemic, at the same time as millions of Americans have struggled to make ends meet. Researcher for the Program on Inequality and the Common Good, Omar Ocampo, recently authored an article “Billionaire Wealth vs. Community Health” where he discusses Trump’s bailout dollars being distributed to private equity groups, and how the needs of the pandemic have created new billionaires this year.