8 O'Clock Buzz

Last year was a busy year in the Wisconsin Department of Agriculture, Trade, and Consumer Protection, according to Division Administrator Michelle Reinen. With over 10,000 complaints, ranging from landlord/tenant conflicts, telemarketing, identity theft, home improvement complaints and more, that department collected $3.3 million in fines. Reinen talks about what you should do if you have issues. The department has created a list of the Top 10 Complaints for 2023.

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Sarah Anderson, Global Economy Project Director at the Institute for Policy Studies, calls 2023 “The Year of the Strike” — at a time when only 6% of private corporations are unionized, strikes by auto workers, hotel workers, Hollywood writers and actors, and others strengthened the rights of workers. Her article “10 Victories for the Working Class in 2023” details these victories.

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It can happen here: that’s the underlying message from author Jeff Sharlet’s latest book: “The Undertow: Scenes from a Slow Civil War”. In it, Sharlet talks about his travels across the country investigating the evolution of Trump’s fascistic policies, how the death of the January 5th insurrectionist Ashli Babbitt turned her into a martyr for the MAGA crowd, tapping into the feelings of the coming Civil war from people from California to Black River Falls, Wisconsin.

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Today on the Tuesday 8:00 Buzz with Tara Wilhelmi and RR Moore, Jackie “Brodean” Morris joins us to talk about his new magazine, The Boys and Girls Club Hearts for Helping, his upcoming birthday party, what makes community and much more!  Joined by special surprise guests Lolo Lature and Dane County Boys and Girls Club President and CEO, Michael Johnson! 

Catch Jackie and Michael and everybody who’s anybody at the Boy and Girls Club of Dane County “Hearts for Helping” fundraiser on Friday, February 23rd at the Concourse Hotel, tickets and more information at: https://www.bgcdc.org/h4h

Check out Jackie’s birthday and magazine release party the next night on Saturday, February 24th at Hayes Place!

To read Jackie’s new magazine, pick it up at the parties, in Black barber shops, beauty shops, the Black Business Hub, and other Black-owned businesses, or read it line: https://online.flippingbook.com/view/424588140/

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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Go to YouTube and search on “videos for dogs” and you’ll get hundreds of videos designed to keep your pet from getting bored or lonely while you’re away.  But dogs can’t upvote videos on YouTube, so no one really knows what our furry companions really think about these creations.

Dr. Freya Mowat is a veterinary ophthalmologist at the University of Wisconsin who has tried to answer the question, “What kind of videos do dogs like to watch?” She researches this question not to get more internet hits, but to better understand dogs’ vision and what’s going on inside their heads. 

Freya Mowat joins us now in the studio.

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Wisconsin’s legislative district maps have been a hot topic in the news. First, the Wisconsin Supreme Court declared that the state’s current maps are unconstitutional. Then other parties joined the debate and submitted new maps for consideration. Academics, legislators, activist law firms and even Wisconsin Governor Tony Evers offered versions of their vision for ideal voting districts for the state.

To help the Court with the task of reviewing these maps, the Court’s liberal majority hired two consultant political scientists, who dismissed maps drawn by the state Legislature and the conservative law firm Wisconsin Institute for Law and Liberty as “partisan gerrymanders not worthy of further consideration.” Unsurprisingly, Republicans claimed that the two consultants are biased.

But all this begs the question, what makes for a good redistricting map? Here to help us with the nuts and bolts of map-making is John D. Johnson, a research fellow in the Lubar Center for Public Policy at Marquette University.

 

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Join Thursday 8 O’Clock Buzz hosts Tony Castańeda and Eli Wilz as they pepper their guests with questions about WORT’s 7th annual chili cookoff and contest at the Harmony Bar this Sunday, Feb. 4th from 1 to 4pm. Doug Holtz, WORT’s Business Development Director and Chip Cruz, General Manager at the Weary Traveler and a partner in the recently opened Rotunda Cafe drop all the savory details in this delectable interview. Some of Madison’s best local restaurants are cooking up 10 different versions of their chili as they vie for the title of Supreme Commander of Chili. If it’s bean a while since you’ve attended ChiliOcracy, here are the deets:

$10 buys you, “Average Joe”, a sample of each chili, a plastic spoon and a voting chip

$25 upgrades you to “Lobbyist” status, which buys you the same samples along with a real spoon and 5 voting chips

The Grazers will serenade you with folk and bluegrass between spoonfuls and the best part is – ChiliOcracy is a fundraiser for WORT! If you’re bowled over by WORT’s great taste, join the pepperazzi at this wholesome event to support your favorite community radio station!

Photo courtesy of Micheile Henderson on Unsplash.

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In its decision last December in the redistricting case Clarke v. Wisconsin Elections Commission, The Wisconsin Supreme Court ruled that our current legislative maps are unconstitutional because most of the state’s Assembly districts are noncontiguous — meaning parts of some districts are actually located inside others. The Wisconsin Constitution states that in addition to the contiguity requirement, maps must maintain the integrity of communities of interest and ensure that districts be within town, precinct, ward or county lines. After declaring the state’s Republican-drawn legislative maps unconstitutional, the court’s majority subsequently appointed two experts to oversee Wisconsin’s redistricting process and established deadlines for the submission of new maps.

Iuscely Flores, Racial Equity and Economic Justice Advocate for the Wisconsin Democracy Campaign and Fair Maps Organizer for the Fair Maps Coalition, joins Tony and Eli on the Thursday 8 O’Clock Buzz to explain how this ruling opens the door to the possibility of unseating Wisconsin as the “most gerrymandered state” and how the process of approving a new plan for fair, non-partisan representation in Wisconsin will unfold this spring. Hopefully the Republicans won’t fiddle with it.

Photo courtesy of GeoJangoMaps on Pixabay.

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Jim Walsh, Policy Director at Food and Water Watch — whose goal is to protect people from the corporations and other destructive economic interests that put profit ahead of everything else, talks about “2024’s ten biggest fights for Food, Water and Climate“.

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In her recent book “Raising them Right: The Untold Story of America’s Ultraconservative Youth Movement and its Plot for Power“, author Kyle Spencer talks about how corporate resources are luring and grooming youth into far-right thinking and empowering them.

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