8 O'Clock Buzz

As marijuana becomes legal and mainstream in state after state, the claims for cannabis medical and health benefits continue to grow.  The legal and social history of marijuana criminalization means, however, that there’s a scarcity of research into the substance. It’s hard to study something when the mere possession of it is a felony.  Lucas Richert, an Associate Professor at the University of Wisconsin School of Pharmacy studies intoxicating substances and the pharmaceutical industry. He’ll be giving a talk on the history of marijuana later this week.  But first, he joined host Brian Standing on the Monday 8 O’Clock Buzz on January 27, 2020.

 

Jan talks with Reverend Gralan S. Hagler, senior pastor of the Plymouth Congregational United Church of Christ in Washington, DC and Director of Faith Strategies, about Martin Luther King, Jr., voting rights, fighting poverty, voter roll purges, and more.

January 20, 2020 is Martin Luther King, Jr. Day. Throughout the day, a variety of events take place, and speakers around the nation offer their interpretation of what Dr. King’s legacy means for us today. Here, at the Monday Buzz, though, it has become an annual tradition to hear from the man himself. So, here is Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. at the National Conference on New Politics in Chicago, Illinois on August 31, 1967, speaking on the “Three Evils of Society.”

Speaker Vos organized a Task Force in 2019 to obtain information of the state of water quality in Wisconsin. That report has been completed, along with legislative recommendations. Staff Attorney from the Midwest Environmental Advocates, Adam Voskuil, talks about some of the findings and preliminary shortcomings.

Image: Wisconsin State Legislature website

Jan talks with Lindsay Koshgarian from the National Priorities Project about her recent article in The Progressive Magazine entitled “Can’t Afford Another War”. She refers to data researched by the Watson Institute showing the cost of the Iraq War and related costs to $6.9 Trillion since 2001, and how that money could be spent better.

Graph: Watson Institute

“Making the Connection” refers to the connection between environmental health and people’s health. That’s the title of the conference being held on March 6th, sponsored by the Wisconsin Environmental Health Network and Physicians for Social Responsibility. It is open to the public and will offer talks from environmental physicians and ecologists.

Photo by WEHN

In 1879, German naturalist Ernst Haeckel drew his version of a “Genealogical Tree of Humanity” to show how human beings are related to other species of animals on the earth.  The tall, slender, tree rendered by Haeckel has a distinct hierarchy: “monera” or single-celled animals at the bottom, mammals at the top, and at the very peak of the tree is “Man.”  This simplified model, with humans shown as the inevitable result of evolutionary progress was taught for years. Now, though, thanks to breakthroughs in archaeology and DNA research, we know our heritage is much, much messier. Elizabeth Sawchuck, Postdoctoral Fellow and Research Assistant Professor of Anthropology at the State University of New York at Stony Brook and Mary Prendergrast, Professor of Anthropology at Saint Louis University – Madrid joined the Monday Buzz on January 13, 2020.

In his first year of office, Wisconsin Governor Tony Evers declared 2019 the “Year of Clean Drinking Water.”  To back that up, Evers put 70 million dollars into his executive budget dedicated to drinking water initiatives.  Little of the governor’s money made it past the Wisconsin legislature, which scrapped much of Evers’ budget before passing their own spending plan. Perhaps recognizing that one ignores water issues in Wisconsin at one’s own political peril, Assembly Speaker Robin Vos put together his own task force to come up with a set of recommendations.  On January 8, too late for the Governor’s declared drinking water year, the Speaker’s Task Force on Water Quality released its — considerably cheaper — recommendations. Raj Shukla, Executive Director of the River Alliance of Wisconsin joined Monday Buzz host Brian Standing on January 13.

Sarah Anderson, Director of the Global Economy Project at the Institute for Policy Studies and Co-Editor of Inequality.org, recently studied the financial benefit to Military Contractor CEOs of Trump’s assassination of Iran’s top military general, Qassem Soleimani. On the following day, the stock portfolios of a number of CEOs jumped by over $5 million.

The FISA Act is expires in March, and The Brennan Center’s Director of Liberty & National Security, Elizabeth Goitein has been studying the use and abuse of this data collection act for many years. In her talks with Jan Miyasaki, she reveals the problem issues and which parts should not be renewed.