8 O'Clock Buzz

Ever heard about a “video poetry festival”? Well prepare to have your horizons broadened as the Midwest Video Poetry Fest‘s 3rd Annual program takes place on October 21 & 22, 2022, sponsored by the Arts + Literature Laboratory. With the goal to “invite new audiences to discover (or rediscover) poetry”, the Video Poetry Fest invites video submissions made about pieces of poetry — and has attracted over 2000 submissions from 91 countries.

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In following their goals to inform, inspire, and mobilize local presence of the U. N., this year marks the 77th anniversary of the United Nations, and Linda Bauman, President of the Board of the United Nations Association – USA, Dane County Chapter, talks about the activities of their celebration on Sunday, October 16th, 2022. Visit their site for more information on the virtual event.

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WORT 89.9FM Madison · WISCAP Kickstarts New Affordable Housing Action Network

Budgeting and personal financial experts tell us that we shouldn’t be spending more than a third of our monthly income on housing. That’s fine for people with middle and upper class incomes, but that’s a nearly impossible standard for people who earn significantly less.  According to the Low Income Housing Coalition, 69% of Wisconsin’s 187,000 very low income households are spending 50% or more of their already meager monthly income on rent.  State affordable housing tax credits aim to increase the supply of housing available to people earning close to the state median income, but families earning much less than that tend to fall through the cracks.  The Wisconsin Community Action Program, or WISCAP, is starting an Affordable Housing Action Network to increase advocacy for housing for people at the lower end of the income scale.  Andy Heidt is the Affordable Housing Program Director for WISCAP, and he joined Monday Buzz host Brian Standing on Monday, October 10, 2022.

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WORT 89.9FM Madison · Forward Truth Collective Celebrates And Protests Wisconsin Triennial

For many years, the Madison Museum of Contemporary Art’s Wisconsin Triennial has served as one of the state’s premiere art exhibits, with artists selected to, as the museum has boasted, “personify the scope of what’s going on in the state.”  Perhaps unintentionally, the 2022 Triennial has lived up to that mission by embodying institutional racism.   After black woman artist Lilada Gee was barred from entering the building, her art vandalized and portions of it stolen, 17 Triennial artists withdrew their work in protest over Gee’s treatment and the museum’s response.  The Triennial exhibit officially closed on October 9.  In previous years, the Museum has held gala closing events – not this year.  Triennial artists, through the collective FWD:truth , instead held their own event and protest outside the museum’s doors.  Monday Buzz host Brian Standing caught up with artist and organizer Portia Cobb and “Ain’t I a Woman” curator Fatima Laster on Sunday, October 9, 2022.

All photos by Brian Standing. Used with permission.

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Jason Davison, Senior Food and Agriculture Campaigner at Friends of the Earth, talks about the need to pass PACTPA, the Protect American Children from Toxic Pesticides Act, introduced by senators Booker, Gillibrand, Sanders, Warren, and Padilla in the fall of 2021. This Act’s goal is the correct some of the failings of the EPA in updating the science of pesticides, enforcing current regulations, and allowing the continued sale of potentially dangerous stocks of pesticides after registration has been canceled, suspended, or otherwise voided.

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With symptoms resembling myalgic encephalomyelitis/chronic fatigue syndrome (ME/CFS), an often-disabling illness, long-COVID is only just now being understood, according to Shawn Fremstad, Senior Policy Fellow and co-author of a report “Understanding and Addressing Long COVID“, investigated and published by the Center for Economic and Policy Research. An estimate of about 7.6 percent of all U.S. adults (3-5 million adults) reported currently having one or more symptoms lasting 3 months or longer that they did not have prior to having COVID-19, with considerable effect on the workforce population. Unfortunately, ME/CFS research has been poorly funded in the past, limiting our understanding of long-COVID.

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U. S. drug manufacturers are weaponizing drug patents, giving themselves a continuous monopoly and the ability to exclude generic manufacturers from competition, according to Tahir Amin, LL.B., Dip. LP., founder and executive director of the Initiative for Medicines, Access & Knowledge (I-MAK), a nonprofit organization working to address structural inequities in how medicines are developed and distributed. With 40-year history of weakening patent laws, allowing over 300 patents in the case of Humira, the U. S. Patent Office has allowed patents on procedures which are routine in laboratory practices to large drug manufacturers who can afford to continue to litigate against smaller generic drug companies — to keep their monopoly. I-MAK investigated the abuses of the patent system by drug manufacturers in their new report “Overpatented, Overpriced: How excessive pharmaceutical patenting is extending monopolies and driving up drug prices“

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WORT 89.9FM Madison · US Disaster Relief Fails Many

On September 28th, Hurricane Ian made landfall in Southwest Florida. After devastating Puerto Rico and Cuba, the Category 4 storm lashed Florida’s Gulf Coast with 150 mile per hour winds and a 7-foot storm surge, flattening entire cities. Florida officials report the storm’s death toll at 83 and climbing. So far, the total damage from the storm is estimated at 63 billion dollars and also climbing. A year ago, we were talking about Hurricane Ida. Five years ago, Hurricane Harvey. Before that, Hurricane Sandy. The U.S. government spends billions each year on disaster recovery efforts, but is that money well spent? Max Besbris is an Associate Professor of Sociology at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, and he thinks we need a new approach.

Photo of Hurricane Ian rainfall: National Weather Service of Tampa Bay, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons

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By this time tomorrow, a small Palestinian village, along with several others in the West Bank, will be leveled by the Israelis to make space for military training firing range, according to Cassandra Dixon of Palestine Partners 4 Justice. She discusses the issues surrounding this atrocity along with a celebration of Palestinian Culture at James Madison Park on Sunday, October 2, 2022, beginning at noon.

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Thursday, September 29th, 2022, marks the start of the “Mills Folly Microcinema Fall Series” a monthly series of experimental film and video art at the Arts and Literature Lab. James Kruel, curator of the film series, talks about the films featured this week, as well as those scheduled for the last Wednesday of the month for the remainder of the year.

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