A Public Affair

On today’s show, guest Abigail Swetz sat down with Ali Muldrow to discuss the future of LGBTQ+ advocacy in Wisconsin. They talk about how public disparagement of queer joy creates a crisis of compassion, how being a teacher and being an advocate inform each other, and how difficult activism can be during the noise of an election year. Their conversation also explores the power of incorporating your own identity into your work, and on how demonstrations of support can bring more people to the table.

Abigail Swetz is the new Executive Director of Fair Wisconsin, a non-profit dedicated to advancing LGBTQ+ rights and acceptance. She previously worked as Communication Director for the Wisconsin Department of Public Instruction. She is a former teacher and new parent.

Image Courtesy of Chali Pittman/WORT news department.

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On today’s show, guest host Jessa Nicholson Goetz sat down with Professor Aisha Beliso-De Jesús to discuss her new book “Excited Delirium: Race, Police Violence, and the Invention of a Disease.” Their conversation explores the history of “excited delirium syndrome” and its roots in religious bigotry, racist policing, and bad science. They talk about the way medical examiners put the onus of violence on the victims of police brutality, how our society racializes drug use, and the long history of fear toward Black and Brown bodies.

Aisha Beliso-De Jesús is a cultural and social anthropologist at Princeton University. Her work examines practitioners of the Santería religion, police officers, and police violence. “Excited Delirium” is available through Duke University Press.

Image courtesy of Duke University Press.

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On today’s show host Douglas Haynes sits down with Heather Swan to talk about her new book “Where the Grass Still Sings: Stories of Insects and Interconnections.” Heather Swan is a poet, writer, and lecturer in the University of Wisconsin – Madison’s English Department. Her book tells stories of human-insect connections through the lens of science and art, with a focus on the way we can connect across species.

Heather talks about the way insects have been categorized as pests, how honeybees and other pollinators are a great on-ramp to considering the larger world of insects, and how humility and openness can open your eyes to the awe-inspiring insects all around us.

Image courtesy of Ernesto Rodriguez/Pixabay.

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On today’s show, host Esty Dinur speaks with journalist Joe Conason about grift, Trump University, and what Conason says is the moral decay of conservatism. In Conason’s new book, The Longest Con: How Grifters, Swindlers, and Frauds Hijacked American Conservatism, he traces the long line of con artists leading up to the rise of Trump within the GOP. 

Conason points to the Australian physician, Frederick C. Schwarz, who founded the Christian Anti-Communism Crusade, Robert Welch and the John Birch Society, Richard Viguerie and direct mail campaigns, and Jerry Falwell as key figures in the run-up to Trump. He says that Trump practices the same deception as conservative religious leaders preaching the prosperity gospel.

Conason also discusses how grifters profit off people’s fear and attack institutions like public education. Today we’re seeing some of the same themes and tactics that were used during the communist scare. From his mentors like Roy Cohn, Trump learned to position himself as the victim of a liberal conspiracy, says Conason. But Cohn learned this trick from Senator Joseph McCarthy’s philosophy of impunity. 

Joe Conason is an American journalist and commentator. He is editor-in-chief of The National Memo, a daily political newsletter, and a senior fellow at Type Media Center. His articles have appeared in many publications around the world, including The New Republic, The Nation, The Guardian, Salon, and The American Prospect. He was executive editor of The New York Observer and a staff writer at The Village Voice. Two of his previous books, The Hunting of the President and Big Lies, were New York Times bestsellers.

Image courtesy of St. Martin’s Press.

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On today’s show, Armando Ibarra joins Allen Ruff to talk about the prevalence of anti-immigrant rhetoric in the GOP platform. Ibarra discusses what makes anti-immigrant narratives so appealing and how politicians use the language of “safety” and “invasion” to fuel racism and xenophobia in their base. 

To counter the anti-immigrant narratives promulgated by conservatives, Ibarra tracks the long history of anti-immigrant political rhetoric, points out the huge economic gains that migrant laborers provide to the US, and says that unauthorized immigrants pay taxes and contribute to Social Security, a program that they won’t have access to. Ibarra asserts that unauthorized immigrants are the most vulnerable when states institute austerity practices. 

Armando Ibarra is a Vilas Distinguished Achievement Professor in the School for Workers at UW-Madison. He is the co-author of the award winning The Latino Question: Politics, Labouring Classes and the Next Left. Ibarra also works with Voces de la Frontera and Centro Hispano. 

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On today’s show, Ali Muldrow hosts a late summer roundup. From the Madison Public Market to the new BRT system and the Madison Night Mares, there’s a lot going on that makes Madison a beautiful place to live. 

We’re joined by Keisha Harrison, the new CEO of the Madison Public Market. Before Keisha came to Madison, she was the executive director of the Indianapolis City Market Corporation where she led activities related to the operation and restoration of the historic city market. In her new role, Keisha says it’s a priority to foster equity through entrepreneurship and make the market vendors representative of Madison as a whole.

Mick Rusch is Metro Transit’s Chief Development Officer, and he says that Metro’s new fast fare technology will create more access for folks with disabilities. Soon, folks will be able to purchase tickets online and won’t have to “make a trip to take a trip,” says Rusch. Find more info at mymetrobus.com/fares. And next spring, you’ll be able to take the BRT to the Madison Public Market.

Last week was the end of the Madison Night Mares inaugural season. Samantha Rubin, the General Manager of the Mallards and Night Mares reports that folks around Madison have embraced the new team. She says that the team is creating opportunities for collegiate women athletes to play and improve their skills over the summer season.

Image courtesy of Richard Hurd/Wikimedia Commons under the Creative Commons Attribution 2.0 Generic license.

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Today is primary election day in Wisconsin, and when you head to the polls, you can expect to see a number of partisan races and two proposed constitutional amendments on the ballot. Some voters may be electing new representatives because of Wisconsin’s new legislative maps. To break down what’s on the primary ballot and how the new maps might impact the election, guest host Abigail Leavins speaks with Nick Ramos of the Wisconsin Democracy Campaign. 

Ramos weighs in on the significance of the new legislative maps that many Democrats hope will end the partisan gerrymandering in the legislature. He unpacks the power of the Dane County Executive role. And he says that the two proposed constitutional amendments on the ballot are a kind of power grab and don’t make sense for Wisconsin.

Ramos says that this election is special because we’re seeing more competitive races on the ballot. The new maps are a sign of hope that candidates who before might not have campaigned now have a real shot to win in a general election. “People want to see choices,” says Ramos.

If you want to hear more on the election and hear the local candidates talk about their priorities, check out WORT’s primary voting guide. You can see everything on your ballot, and where your polling place is, at MyVote Wisconsin.

Nick Ramos is a lawyer, advocate, and community organizer who is currently serving as the Executive Director of the Wisconsin Democracy Campaign. Prior to joining the Democracy Campaign, he served as the Wisconsin Voter ID Coalition Coordinator with VoteRiders, a non-partisan organization that works to ensure that all eligible voters have access to photo ID in order to cast their ballot and have it count.

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On today’s show, host Douglas Haynes takes a field trip to speak with Alex Booker at Badger Rock Urban Farm. Booker is the Madison Public Library’s naturalist in residence. The theme of his residency, Find Your Way Back to Nature, focuses on ways to reconnect with the ecosystems that surround us. Naturalist programming includes nature walks, tea blending, flower arranging, sound baths, and more. 

Booker walks Haynes through the farm, from the food forest to the chicken coup. They chat about using all your senses when you garden, how to make pesto with weeds, books like Working the Roots: Over 400 Years of Traditional African American Healing, and how gardening can lead to liberation. 

Alex Booker is a Madison native whose passion for nature began at a young age. Over the past four years, Booker has focused on food insecurity and urban agriculture. He has worked as the Manager of the Badger Rock Neighborhood Center, where he started out as an Assistant Farm Education Manager growing his skills as a program facilitator for all ages. 

Photo courtesy of Sara Gabler/WORT.

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This week anti-immigrant rhetoric and online misinformation spurred riots in Great Britain following the fatal stabbing of three girls. The rioters attacked Muslim and migrant communities and immigration centers across the UK. Before that, at the Republican National Convention in Milwaukee, Trump supporters waved posters and changed “mass deportations now.”

In addition to these very visible scenes, profit-seeking corporations and individuals are quietly targeting vulnerable people escaping violence, poverty, and climate change. To discuss this, Esty Dinur speaks with lawyer and anthropologist Petra Molnar. Her new book, The Walls Have Eyes: Surviving Migration in the Age of Artificial Intelligence, exposes the inhumane use of experimental surveillance technology on migrants around the world. 

Molnar discusses the incursion of surveillance technologies into everyday life, the use of AI lie detectors used in courts, the normalization of Face ID and face scans during travel, the violence of the surveillance dragnet that pushes the border into dangerous areas of the Sonoran Desert, and the brave work of humanitarian activists like the group Battalion Search and Rescue.

Image courtesy of The New Press.

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Ismail Haniyeh, a top political leader of Hamas, was assassinated in Teheran, presumably by Israel, on Wednesday, July 31. The day prior, an Israeli air strike in Beirut killed Fuad Shukr, said to have been Hezbollah’s top military commander. Then, last Thursday, the day after Haniyeh’s death, the Israeli army confirmed that it had killed the commander of Hamas’ military wing Mohammed Deif in an attack in Gaza on July 13.

Coming amidst the ongoing Israeli onslaught and deteriorating conditions for the Palestinians of Gaza, these recent developments can only serve to further inflame the region’s conflict.

Returning to A Public Affair to share his perspectives and provide some context for these latest events and where things might be headed is the Palestinian commentator and Middle East observer, Mouin Rabbani.

Mouin Rabbani is a researcher, analyst, and commentator specializing in Palestinian affairs, the Arab-Israeli conflict, and the contemporary Middle East. He is the Co-Editor of Jadaliyya.

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