8 O'Clock Buzz

Workers in the apple-packing industry in Washington State’s Yakima Valley are not receiving sufficient protection from COVID-19, according to Edgar Franks, Political Director of the union Familias Unidas por la Justicia. The number of workers on strike has quadrupled in the past week, with workers demanding better protection.

The COVID-19 pandemic has affected all parts of life, including the 2020 census and subsequent redistricting. Michael Li, Senior Counsel at the Brennan Center for Justice, has researched this in his report “How Changes to the 2020 Census Timeline will Impact Redistricting”. He also reports on redistricting litigation in the courts.

Jan Miyasaki talks with Katie Beilfuss, Director of the Wisconsin Wetlands Association, a wetlands protection, advocacy, and education group, about their activities and some of their recently-developed programs: Wetlands coffee breaks, wetlands walks, and wetlands words.

Damita Brown is joined by…

Jalateefa Joe-Meyers from Sankofa Educational Leadership United to talk about how they are repairing education disparities for black, brown and disenfranchised in Madison

Lorrie Hurckes Dwyer from Dane County Time Bank to talk about the Time Bank and their rejuvenated Garden Project with Rooted and FEED to GO, teaching the community to garden and getting real food to those who need it most.

Photo by Emily Mills: flic.kr/p/6e8r2s

Instant messaging, video conferences, social media are all good ways of staying in touch with family, friends, colleagues and acquaintances while you’re in social isolation.  But they’re all… sort of … cold.  Something’s missing.  Wouldn’t it be nice, to receive an actual, handwritten letter?  That’s the premise of a new collaborative project called Quarantine Connections.  Sign up — yes, online — and you agree to send an envelope, through the mail, with a postage stamp on it, and you get one in return from someone, somewhere out there, who you’ve never met before, but with whom you might share a connection.  The project is the brainchild of three primary collaborators, two of whom join us by phone now.   U-W Milwaukee professor of art and mechanical engineering Nathaniel Stern is a familiar voice to longtime Buzz listeners. We also  have Chris Butzen, a Milwaukee native web developer currently living and working in Toronto.

On Friday, May 15, the U.S. House of Representatives passed a three trillion dollar coronavirus relief bill entitled the Health and Economic Recovery Omnibus Emergency Solutions, or HEROES, Act. The bill passed on a 208-199 vote, but many among the Democrats’ left flank, including Progressive Caucus Co-Chair Mark Pocan, expressed disappointment that the final bill did not include things such as paycheck guarantees, automatic unemployment insurance extensions or recurring, ongoing stimulus checks.  Watered down though it may be, the bill does include some welcome relief for ordinary citizens — but faces a difficult road in the Republican-held Senate.  Rebecca Newman is a professor of economics at the University of Wisconsin Milwaukee.  She joined Monday Buzz host Brian Standing on May 19, 2020.

After a frightening spike of 19,457 new COVID-19 cases back on February 16, health authorities in China have reported mostly single digit increases during the month of May.  The City of Wuhan, where the novel coronavirus is thought to have originated, went 35 days without reporting a new case, before a small cluster of cases cropped up last week.  China’s recent success at curbing the COVID-19 virus has some wondering if it’s easier to adopt prevention measures in a tightly-controlled society and government.  Democracy, after all, is hardly efficient.  Charles Hankla is a professor of political science at Georgia State University, who’s been looking at who’s doing the best job of containing the virus.

Sarah Anderson, Director of the Global Economy Project at the Institute for Policy Studies and co-editor of the IPS web site Inequality.org, discusses the manufactured crisis of the bankruptcy of the U.S. Postal Service and why it should not be privatized.

The Trump administration appears to be hiding activities under the cover of the COVID-19 pandemic, and Friends of the Earth Senior Oceans’ Campaigner Hallie Templeton, suggests that gutting off-shore commercial aquaculture regulations to favor big industry has numerous environmental issues.

Jan talks with Verge Manyen, local mental health activist and drummer, about his 7 PM Drumming — his idea to provide community support across political differences.