8 O'Clock Buzz

On March 24, 2020, the Wisconsin Department of Health Services issued a “Safer at Home” order in an effort to slow the spread of the COVID-19 virus.  The order mandated the cessation of all non-essential businesses and activities. On Friday, April 3, Governor Evers also banned foreclosures and eviction proceedings. The business closures have resulted in a huge spike of unemployment claims as affected employees have been laid off.  Imagine the surprise, then, to a recently jobless care worker when she had a process server knock on her door, to serve her with a summons to small claims court over an unpaid medical bill. That scene has repeated itself across the state, as Wisconsin Center for Investigative Reporter Bram Sable-Smith recently discovered.

Interim nuclear storage is a problem, not just with where the highly radioactive materials are stored, but the routes of transportation on rail, highways, and waterways. Leona Morgan from the Nuclear Issues Study Group and Rose Gardner from the Alliance for Environmental Strategies discuss the current proposals and are urging an extension to the public comment period for the bill.

Jan talks to Kelsey Freeman about her recent book “No Option but North: The Migrant World and the Perilous Path Across the Border”, a story of the issues surrounding the desperate travels of migrants to the U.S.

With the need to isolate, many more people are turning to mail-in absentee ballots for voting, which is causing overwhelming work in light of the April 7th primary in Wisconsin. Chad Dunn, director of litigation for the UCLA Voting Rights Project, talks about why mail-in voting should be the norm to allow equal access for everyone.

Richard Eskow, Senior Advisor for Health & Economic Justice at Social Security Works, talks in some detail about how the economic bailout money is targeting corporate bailout over individual assistance, with $500 billion in direct payments and $6 trillion to failing corporations like Boeing.

“I went to the woods because I wished to live deliberately, to front only the essential facts of life, and see if I could not learn what it had to teach, and not, when I came to die, discover that I had not lived.”  So wrote Henry David Thoreau in 1845, when he began the then-radical experiment in simple living that resulted in his best known work, “Walden.” As many of us now find ourselves suddenly uprooted from our familiar environments, isolated from our neighbors and friends, at home with unexpected time on our hands, and perhaps deeply worried about what comes next, is there solace to be found in a long-dead romantic writer from a hundred and seventy five years ago?  Robert “Thor” Thorson certainly thinks so. When he’s not teaching geology at the University of Connecticut, Thorson reads and writes on Thoreau. Recently, he meditated on the idea of what Thoreau might teach us about “social distancing.” “Thor” Thorson joined Monday Buzz host Brian Standing on March 30, 2020.

On March 17, 2020, Marist College and the New York Times released a poll on Americans’ attitudes toward the coronavirus pandemic.  38% of those polled felt that the threat of coronavirus was overblown, while 6% were unsure. What’s particularly startling about those numbers is that even though a majority — 56% — felt that COVID-19 was a serious threat, those numbers were down from what people thought just a few weeks prior.  Another poll a week later, from Monmouth University, found that a similar percentage thought the COVID-19 virus was the most serious issue facing the country at the moment.  These statistics point out the difficulty in conveying scientific and public health information to an increasingly, and often justifiably, skeptical public. Dominique Brossard has made a career on public opinion dynamics related to risk.  She is the Chair of the Department of Life Sciences Communication at the University of Wisconsin Madison, and she joined Monday Buzz host Brian Standing on March 30, 2020.

On November 6,1956, Americans re-elected Republican President Dwight D. Eisenhower over Democratic challenger Adlai Stevenson, Wisconsin voters elected Republican Vernon Wallace Thompson Governor over Democrat William Proxmire, and voters in the Wisconsin 26th Assembly District elected 29-year old World War II Navy veteran Fred Risser as their representative.  Six years later, Risser won a special election for the 26th district state Senate seat. He never left, winning thirteen elections in a row and becoming the longest-serving elected official in U.S. history. Last week, Senator Fred Risser, now 92, announced he will not seek reelection this November, ending a 64-year career in state politics. Fred Risser joined the 8 O’Clock Buzz on Monday, March 30th.

James Morgan, Peer Support Specialist at Madison Urban Ministries and member of Ex-PO interviews Latoya Greer about her experiences as a Black woman in the current system of law enforcement, incarceration, and the effects of the COVID-19 restrictions on the incarcerated individuals in the state.

The earth is a complicated place.  Cause and effect often take circuitous routes, thanks to a variety of ecological, atmospheric and geologic feedback loops that often take surprising turns.  That makes modelling the effects of climate change peculiarly difficult. For example, if you were an animal that eats grass, you might think that warmer temperatures and a longer growing season would mean happy days for you.  Lots of grass, lots to eat, you’re a happy grasshopper. But, as it turns out, that might not necessarily be so. Ellen Welti, is a Post-doctorate Fellow in The Kaspari Lab at Oklahoma University and she joins us now by phone.