8 O'Clock Buzz

Today on the Tuesday 8:00 Buzz with Tara Wilhelmi and 1neofmani (Breyon Sommerville): president of MATC’s Black Women Affinity Group, Chevon Bowen joins us to talk about “Protecting the Black Woman,” BWAG’s latest exhibit in honor of the late Dzigbodi Akyea at Madison College’s Truax Gallery on Wright Street;  in the second half, legendary Madison artist, activist, and defender of Black girlhood, Lilada Gee joins us to talk about her new children’s books, Black art in Madison, and her work to open up Madison’s potential for Black girls, women, and artists.

More on Protecting the Black Woman, hours and directions: https://madisoncollege.edu/student-experience/event-calendar/black-womens-affinity-group-presents-protecting-black-woman 

More about Lilada and her work at https://lilada.org/ and the Defending Black Girlhood Podcast: https://lilada.org/defending-black-girlhood-podcast/ 

Find Lilada’s “I Am” books at a local Madison bookstore or worldwide on Amazon.

Listen in Madison at 89.9FM or online anywhere at wortfm.org.  Support your community radio with a donation online at wortfm.org.

Art by Lilada Gee

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WORT 89.9FM Madison · Comedy Against Work

If you think about it, the very idea of selling hours of your life to a nebulous entity that bosses you around for a while, then attempts to compensate you with some sort of agreed-upon scrip is fundamentally absurd.  Imagine trying to explain this arrangement to a Cro-Magnon human.  As long as work has existed, artists, comedians and satirists have found audiences eager to laugh at their workplace.  Look at any video streaming service or podcast site and try to count the number of workplace satires or stand-up routines pointing out how ridiculous it is to spend 8 hours a day or more doing someone else’s bidding for cash.  Is laughing at work just a way to blow off steam so we can go back to work the next day, or does some comedy point the way to a more revolutionary project: a world without work?  Madeline Lane McKinley writes about culture, feminism and Marxism.  When she sells hours of her life for money, she does so as a Lecturer in the Writing Program of the University of California Santa Cruz.  Her new book, “Comedy Against Work: Utopian Longing in Dystopian Times” is out now from Common Notions press.

 

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WORT 89.9FM Madison · An Evening With Wisconsin Artifacts

Humans have settled in what is now Wisconsin since at least the end of the last ice age 10,000 years ago.  As people will do, all those generations of residents left things behind – tools, clothing, perhaps trash, which we now call archaeological artifacts.  If you’d like to get up close and personal with some of this history, Madison College has you covered.  On Tuesday, February 21, Madison College and the Center for Wisconsin Archaeology will sponsor “an evening with artifacts,” featuring a range of objects from different periods of Wisconsin history.  George W. Christiansen is an Instructor at Madison College and the Director of the Center for Wisconsin Archaeology. Also in the studio is Beth Giles-Klinkner Associate Dean, School of Arts, Humanities, and Social Sciences of Madison College.

Photo of Wisconsin artifacts, Daderot, CC0, via Wikimedia Commons

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Exactly 50 years ago the Beatles released a double album of their early hits. Songs that were recorded between 1962-1966. “The Red Album,'' as it’s called, will be performed in its entirety at the Barrymore Theater on Saturday, February 18. The performers are part of a musical cult called “Madison Mystery Tour,” local artists who have faithfully kept the Beatles’ music alive. The ensemble is led by Madison singer-songwriter Sean Michael Dargan who joins guest host Beatrice Lawrence on the Friday 8 O'Clock Buzz for an interview and a live in-studio performance of the Beatles' "Norwegian Wood."

Sean Michael Dargan is a Madison-based musician. He plays with the Madison Mystery Tour, as well as with his own band. Tickets for Saturday's performance at the Barrymore Theater can be found at barrymorelive.com/event/madison-my…r-the-red-album/

Photo courtesy of Madison Mystery Tour via their website.

If you have HBO, or your parents have HBO, or your girlfriend’s roommate’s dad has HBO, you’ve probably been watching The Last of Us, which is the #1 most popular show streaming right now. The story is set in an alternate but uncomfortably familiar reality where a pandemic has ravaged humanity. In this case, however, the outcome was much worse, because it’s not a virus that infects people—it’s a mind-controlling fungus. In the show, the Cordyceps fungus takes over the body and brain and compels its host to infect or eat any uninfected person it can find. And unlike in most entries in the zombie genre, the cause of this apocalypse exists in the real world.

On this edition of the Friday 8 O'Clock Buzz, guest host Beatrice Lawrence is joined by Dr. Jae-Hyuk Yu, Professor of Bacteriology and Genetics at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. Together, Beatrice, Jae-Hyuk and his daughter Ezabell untangle fact from fiction in the representation of the Cordyceps fungus on the new HBO series.

Dr. Jae-Hyuk Yu is a professor of Bacteriology and Genetics at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. He’s an expert on fungi, molds and fungal molecular genetics and genomics.

Photo courtesy of Erich G. Vallery / U.S. Forest Service via Wikimedia Commons

Frankie Pobar Lay of the Northside Planning Council sits down with 8 O’Clock Buzz host Tony Castañeda to encourage folks to help out our local food pantries Thursday night at the Crystal Corner’s Bob Marley Birthday Bash. Bring your non-perishable food donations to help Healthy Food for All Dane County raise awareness and funds to support local food banks and pantries which are experiencing ever-increasing need from local residents. Your dollars and food donations earn raffle tickets, and proceeds will support Healthy Food for All Dane County, as well as your favorite volunteer-powered community radio station, WORT. Food drop barrel is now set-up at the Crystal and collection goes all week thru Friday 2/10!

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Car won’t start? Bus running late? Ride your bike to work (or anywhere) on Friday and be the envy your carbon-consuming pals with tales of the free coffee, snacks and swag you snagged on your commute. Colleen Hayes, Pedestrian Bicycle Outreach Specialist for the city, joins 8 O’Clock Buzz host Tony Castañeda to talk about the many ways you can participate in this year’s International Winter Bike Day, and meet other winter biking enthusiasts at various events (listed below) that will be held throughout the day.

Madison Bikes and the City of Madison Traffic and Parking Department have paired up to bring you a great way to spice up your Friday.

7-9am: AM Bike Station at the Monona Terrace (look for us just off the path next to the bike elevator parking lot). We will have hot coffee donated by Cafe Domestique, snacks and swag! Be ready to share why you winter biking…

4-7pm: Bike Happy Hour at the Settle Down Tavern’s (117 S Pinckney St.) outdoor Tundra Club! There will be Tundra Club hot toddy drink specials, solo stoves and fire pits to keep us toasty.

5pm: $10 cocktails at the Hilton Garden Inn Madison Downtown (770 Regent St.) AND $8 flatbreads from 5-7pm!

Noon-10pm: $1 off your first pint at Working Draft Beer Co (1129 E Wilson). Just mention Winter Bike Day and the discount will be applied).

Photo courtesy of Denise Jans on Unsplash.

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The recent train derailment and wreck in East Palestine, Ohio, where toxic vinyl chloride was released into the air resulting in a partial evacuation of the city, could very well of been prevented, or the damage minimized. Fritz Edler, Special Safety Representative of Railroad Workers United, joins the Thursday morning edition of the 8 O’Clock Buzz to talk about the current climate of the railroad industry in North America. An operational model called Precision Scheduled Railroading (PSR) is used extensively in the industry which ideally should streamline operations providing consistent and reliable service. However, over the past decade or more it has been used to increase profits while decreasing the workforce leading to poor inspection and a deficiency of trained personnel to deal with issues leading to preventable accidents. “Run her ‘til she leaves the rail, to be on time with the southern mail.”

Photo courtesy of Martin Winkler from Pixabay

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Silvia Rodriguez Vega, Assistant Professor at University of California, Santa Barbara (UCSB) in the Department of Chicana/o Studies, has worked with children of immigrants to the U. S. during the Obama and Trump administrations, and through their artwork comes to understand the fears and anxieties that trouble the minds of children living in the fear of deportation and separation of families. Her recent book, “Drawing Deportation: Art and Resistance among Immigrant Children” details how children cope with these concerns.

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Eli Clifton, Senior Advisor at the Quincy Institute and Investigative Journalist at large at Responsible Statecraft, talks about two of his recent Defense Department oversight reports: “Foxes watching the hen house? DC insiders oversee Biden defense plans” and “Enormous Lockheed stock buybacks and dividends come at the expense of taxpayers“.

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