Latin American music with Midwestern vibes can mean a lot of things to a lot of people, but it’s unlikely that Los Chechos incorporates polka music into its wide-ranging repertoire. Band leader Alejandro Punbra, who joined 8 O’Clock Buzz host Tony Casteñeda, explains that it includes reggae, ska, cumbia and rock and a fair amount of improvisation. Punbra hails from Ecuador but impresses those of us impressed by polyglots by singing in Spanish, English, Portuguese, French, and Quechua. For that, we’ll forgive the absence of a polka. You can hear this energetic group’s new album Sunday, April 14 at Lola’s Hi/Lo Lounge from 8-10.

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Today on the Too Turnt Up Tuesday 8:00 Buzz with Tara Wilhelmi, Antoine McNeail featuring RR Moore and Lolo Lature, remembering Vicki Lynn, Antoine’s 10 years in comedy, putting on events in town and what’s going on…  and of course the power of the eclipse!

Catch RR Moore’s poetry solo in Las Vegas on 4/20, and with Lolo and more at Intimate Affairs in Beloit on May 4th follow him at https://www.facebook.com/rausea.moore.5 !

Keep an eye out for info Antoine’s 10th anniversary show coming up May 18th on https://www.facebook.com/AntoineMcNeail 

Tara and EOTO have a full summer of events coming up, looking up and coming catering, performers and more for the Father’s Day Brunch and more, contact Tara via https://www.facebook.com/EOTO.tribelife/

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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Mary McCoy, Outreach Director, Center for Southeast Asian Studies, and organizer of an upcoming multimedia event “Requiem for a Massacre: A Concert of Healing and Reconciliation with Vân-Ánh Vanessa Võ & Screening of ‘The Whistleblower of My Lai'” on April 14,2024, 5:30 PM – 7:30 PM, at the Wisconsin Historical Society Auditorium. This free event will include documentary showing how the Kronos Quartet produced a haunting opera, “My Lai”, that reveals the inside story of the tragic My Lai Massacre during the Vietnam War, complimentary food, and conversation.

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White people in the U. S. are being discriminated against — at least that’s the opinion authors of the document “Project 2025” — a far-right playbook for their proposed changes to the U. S. society, according to Wendy Via, CEO and Co-founder of Global Project Against Hate and Extremism. This group tracks, monitors, and exposes the rise of far right extremism worldwide, and has identified over 100 sponsors of the document, spearheaded by the Heritage Foundation, many with racist ties.

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Blocked by Zionists from becoming an “official” Madison Sister City in 2004, the Madison-Rafah Sister City Project nevertheless continues their efforts of humanitarian aid to Rafah and the entire Palestinian people through their collaboration with the Middle East Children’s Alliance. Organizer Amy Atalla Hill talks about an upcoming fundraiser “Remembering Rachel Corrie: A Benefit for Gaza Emergency Relief”, free, donation-supported event on Sunday, April 14, 2024, from 1:30-3:30 at the Christ Presbyterian Church, 944 E Gorham St.

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April is National Poetry Month.  To celebrate, the Wisconsin Book Festival will host a reading featuring three young poets from Texas, Mississippi, and Wisconsin.

Those poets are Joshua Barton, Patrycja Humienik, and Sadia Hassan.

Barton, Humienik, and Hassan will read their work on Wednesday, April 10 at 7:00 p.m. at Madison Central Library’s community room.

Photo: Patrycja Humienik (top), Joshua Barton (left) and Sadia Hassan, courtesy Wisconsin Book Festival website.

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If you are a fan of cinema you may have spent last weekend at the Wisconsin Film Festival, taking in films on a variety of different themes. Many festivals are like those that run out of Madison and Milwaukee, screening films on a broad selection of topics.

 

However, some festivals focus on individual themes and issues of public concern. With depression, suicide and drug addiction increasingly touching the lives of so many, one local activist decided it is time for a film festival about mental health.

 

Max Blaska is an accomplished writer, actor, filmmaker, and mental health activist who is organizing The Mental Health Warrior Film Festival. He is also the screenwriter of the film Last Rung on the Ladder, a short film adapted from a Stephen King story and which will play at the festival.

 

Max Blaska came by WORT’s studio to talk about the festival with Buzz producer Nicholas Wootton.

Photo courtesy of Mental Health Warrior website.

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The Israel-Hamas war now enters its seventh month, with forty thousand dead, eighty thousand wounded and 2.4 million people displaced from their homes.  Much of Gaza lies in rubble and the destruction of healthcare infrastructure, ongoing embargoes and attacks on aid workers have left millions of Palestinians facing famine and disease.

 

In the United States, which supplies 66% of Israel’s military budget, activists distressed at the Biden Administration’s continued support for the Israeli war effort have encouraged voters to cast protest votes in state Democratic presidential primaries.

 

In Wisconsin, the Listen to Wisconsin campaign urged voters to vote for “uninstructed” in the April 2nd state presidential preference primary.  The group hoped to get at least 20,000 votes in protest to send a message to the Biden campaign. They got more than twice that number. When all the ballots were counted, “uninstructed” received over forty-seven thousand votes, nearly nine percent of the total votes cast.

 

Listen to Wisconsin campaign manager Reema Ahmad called in to the Monday 8 o’Clock Buzz to tell host Brian Standing about the campaign’s success and what their plans are for the future.

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The Wisconsin Historical Society (WHS) is hosting the exhibit and programs, Waging Peace in Vietnam, from April 1 through April 22, which will include panel discussions, book talks and films.  Film producer Glenn Silber joins the Thursday edition of the 8 O’Clock Buzz to talk about his documentary film, The War at Home, which will be shown at the WHS and via livestream on Tuesday evening, April 9, at 7:00 pm, which provides insight into the anti-war movement on the UW-Madison campus during the time of the Vietnam War.  Other films and presentations will highlight the little publicized dissent and resistance protests within the armed forces at that time, which involved thousands of military personnel. 

Image by Welcome to all and thank you for your visit! from Pixabay

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Political intrigue is being cultivated in Columbus, Wi with a fight to save the historically significant Dingee Farm from demolition and redevelopment.  Last year the City Council met in a series of closed sessions to purchase the property after two local residents were in the process of negotiating its purchase and preservation.  The funding for the City’s purchase reportedly came from ARPA funds that were intended to stimulate the economy during the pandemic.  Now the City is faced with the decision on how best to proceed with development of the property.  The former City Council narrowly voted to proceed with a housing development plan over a plan to preserve the farm despite widespread opposition from the community.  But with new elections for City Council, it seems possible that a new vote on development plans could change that decision.  Jesse Pycha-Holst, a Madison based realtor, joins the 8 O’Clock Buzz in the studio to talk about efforts to preserve the farm.  Stay tuned.

Photo by Tomasz Filipek on Unsplash

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