A Public Affair

In his just released book Barons: Money, Power, and the Corruption of America’s Food Industry, author Austin Frerick tells the story of the corporate titans who own most of our food and how that impacts the rest of us. On his publication day, Frerick joins host Bert Zipperer to talk about the companies, people, and policies behind the food industry. We also hear from a number of listeners with questions about the rapid changes in the food market.

Austin Frerick will be at Leopold’s (1301 Regent St, Madison) on Tuesday, April 2nd at 6pm for a book talk and signing in collaboration with the Wisconsin Farmer Union.

Austin Frerick is an expert on agricultural and antitrust policy. He is a Fellow of the Thurman Arnold Project at Yale University. He also serves on the Board of Directors for Common Good Iowa and the Socially Responsible Agriculture Project. In 2022, The Advocate named him a “Champion of Pride.” He has advised presidential candidates Elizabeth Warren, Bernie Sanders, and Pete Buttigieg on agricultural policy, and served as Co-Chair of the Biden campaign’s Agriculture Antitrust Policy Committee in 2020.

His writing has featured in Vox, The American Conservative, Buzzfeed News, Fast Company, and Forbes, among many other publications.

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Throw this archived show on your speakers or in the car with your kids or grandkids while they are home this spring break!

On this A Public Affair: Spring Break episode, Douglas Haynes is joined by two very special cohosts–his daughters! The show kicks off a handful songs from the King of Kids Music David Landau. You can check out David’s new and improved YouTube channel here.

Then, we hear about what is happening at the Madison Children’s Museum with Kia Karlen and Brenda Baker. They are open everyday this week and have free admission on Thursday evening. They also tell us about their upcoming programing that offers age appropriate activities around climate change.

Wrapping up the show, we talk with Tammy Ocampo from the Madison Public Library about the We Read Spring Break programing and the We Read Youth Voices Writing Contest.

Bye-Bye Sweetie-Pie by David Landau plays us out.

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This week, the US drafted a new UN security council resolution calling for an “immediate ceasefire” in Gaza tied to the release of hostages. That’s as a UN panel of experts is warning that a catastrophic famine there is imminent – and that up to half a million Palestinians will perish from war and famine if the conflict continues unabated.

Activist and author Ralph Nader argues that already, there are likely many more Palestinians killed in the conflict that mass media or governments have let on. In a recent post on his website, Nader argues that based on on-the-ground-accounts and photo and video documentation, a more likely appraisal of Palestinians killed so far is more likely to number in the hundreds of thousands.  He joins host Esty Dinur to talk why he thinks deaths in Gaza are being drastically underreported.

Read Ralph Nader’s webpost, “Stop the Worsening UNDERCOUNT of Palestinian Casualties in Gaza,” here.

About the guest: 

Ralph Nader is an author, attorney, consumer advocate and corporate critic. His 1965 book Unsafe at Any Speed propelled the passage of the National Traffic and Motor Vehicle Safety Act, which enacted safety standards for automobiles. He has run for president four times.

Photo courtesy @mjb on Flickr. 

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Our guest today argues that we’re all operating under the biased rules of capitalism – so much that we might forget to step back and take stock of the situation.

Marjorie Kelly is the author of Wealth Supremacy: How the Extractive Economy and the Biased Rules of Capitalism Drive Today’s Crises (Berrett-Koehler Publishers, September 2023). The manifesto seeks to debunk myths and norms implicit in our capitalist way of life – among them, the myths that that there’s no end to wealth, that expanding capital is the most important goal, and that material gain comes at all other social or environmental expense.

Marjorie Kelly joins host Esty Dinur to talk about the dangers of an extractive economy, and how it is at the root of everything from the climate crisis to the corruption of democracy. Together, Kelly and Dinur envision what a non-extractive economic structure might look like.

About the guest: 

Marjorie Kelly is Distinguished Senior Fellow at The Democracy Collaborative, a national research and development lab for a democratic economy. Her previous books include The Making of a Democratic Economy (co-authored with Ted Howard), Owning Our Future: The Emerging Ownership Revolution, and The Divine Right of Capital. 

Kelly was previously a Fellow at the Tellus Institute, a nonprofit that researches environmental and social issues, where she cofounded an initiative to envision and advocate enterprise and financial designs that integrate social, environmental, and financial aims.

She was cofounder and for 20 years president of Business Ethics magazine. You can find more about her at her website, marjoriekelly.org, and follow her on Twitter at @marjorie_kelly.

Image courtesy Berrett-Koehler Publisher

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In her latest book, Unshrinking: How to Face Fatphobia author Kate Manne uses intimate stories and sharp analysis to explain why anti-fatness has become a vital social justice issue. She joins host Richelle Wilson on today’s A Public Affair to discuss the harms caused by both blatant and subtle fatphobia.

“Between two thirds and three quarters of us by some measures are fat; and yet, we often regard ourselves as really a thin person waiting to emerge victorious after the next diet or exercise program,” Manne tells us. The feminist moral philosopher goes on to say that because of this perception, we don’t stand together in solidarity, instead  “we try to change ourselves rather than work on changing the systemic oppression that I argue is really what’s plaguing us.”

Kate Manne is an associate professor of philosophy at Cornell University, where she’s been teaching since 2013. Before that, she was a junior fellow at the Harvard Society of Fellows. Manne did her graduate work in philosophy at MIT. Her previous books are Down Girl and Entitled.

Photo by Diana Polekhina on Unsplash

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On today’s two-part show, host Jade Iseri-Ramos chats with Sarah Quinn, Academic and Career Planning Coordinator at West High School, about a pilot program happening on April 4th. The first annual Equity Symposium will bring 50 presenters into the school to discuss a wide-range of equity topics. Sarah explains the behind the scenes work behind the event and what she hopes students will get out of it.

Then, Sue Jennik, Program Director of the Dane County League of Women Voters and chair of the Wisconsin League of Women Voters Legislative Committee, comes down to the station to talk about two proposed constitutional amendments on the April ballot. Sue explains why the League is advocating for a no vote.

Photo by Tim Mossholder on Unsplash

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According to the December 2023 Challenger Report, which tracts job cuts and hiring, more than 3,000 digital, broadcast, and print news jobs were lost last year. In response to the dwindling newsroom, three  legislative Democrats introduced a package of bills to bolster the industry in Wisconsin.  The package, which consists of three bills would create a state tax credit for Wisconsinites who subscribe to newspapers, a state-funded fellowship program for early-career journalists, and a new Wisconsin Civic Information Consortium Board to distribute grant funding around the state. The bills didn’t go anywhere last session, but Tone Madison‘s Scott Gordon says they are a “flawed but useful starting point.”

Scott joins host Christina Lieffring to break down the bills and discuss the challenges facing journalism writ large. Jason Alcorn, Vice President of the American Journalism Project (AJP), also joins the show to offer a national perspective. Together they discuss funding transparency, the shrinking of traditional newspapers, and rise of non-profit and privately-owned newsrooms. 

Jason Alcorn is the Vice President of the American Journalism Project. He works closely with several of  local nonprofit grant-recipient news organizations across the country, including Wisconsin Watch. Previously, Jason was project director for NewsMatch, a national campaign that has helped raise more than $100 million for nonprofit newsrooms.

Scott Gordon is Editor-in-chief and publisher of Tone Madison which he cofounded in 2014. Previously, his writing has been seen in The A.V. Club, Dane101, Isthmus, and WisContext.

Photo by Utsav Srestha on Unsplash

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Today’s guest says that many evangelicals use characters from the Christian Bible to legitimize their support of Trump.  Dr. André Gagné  says the argument goes “God can use imperfect individuals. Look at King David: King David committed adultery and killed the husband of Bathsheba, and God still called him a man according to my heart. King David was not perfect. The apostle Peter, who was one of the 12 apostles, betrayed Jesus, and Jesus reinstated him forgave him… ‘oh, you see, God can use someone like Trump to bring America back to him.'”Gagné argues, that these stories lend imperfect figures that are easily compared Trump.

André Gagné joins Esty about his new book American Evangelicals for Trump: Dominion, Spiritual Warfare, and the End Times. In an hour full of listener calls, Gagné breaks down the reasoning behind many evangelicals’ support of Trump and offers a theological lens to the conversation.

André Gagné is a professor and the Chair of the Department of Theological Studies at Concordia University. His teaching and scholarship focus on political theology, religion and violence, and the interpretation and reception of the Bible. He is a member of the  National Expert Committee on Countering Radicalization to Violence with Public Safety Canada, a member of Centre for the Study of Learning and Performance (Concordia), and research associate with the Centre de recherche Société, Droit et Religions (Université de Sherbrooke).

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On today’s show, Allen Ruff is joined by environmental activist Aurora Conley of the Bad River Band and documentarian Mary Mazzio to discuss the ongoing fight between The Bad River Band of Lake Superior Chippewa and the energy multinational giant Enbridge Corporation.

We kick off the show with the award-winning documentary film maker Mary Mazzio. Mazzio is the director of the about-to-be released documentary, Bad River debuting in Madison and select cities across the country on Friday

Then we continue the conversation with Aurora Conley. She tells us about the Bad River Band of Lake Superior Chippewa’s enacting their tribal sovereignty to reject the seventy year old “Line 5” that carries toxic tar sands oil from west to east across the state and cuts through the Bad River reservation.

Image by The Kakagon Sloughs. © Richard Schultz 2022. Courtesy of 50 Eggs Films

The post “When we said no, we meant that” appeared first on WORT-FM 89.9.

Last December, after 12 years of being stuck with the worst partisan gerrymander in the US, the Wisconsin Supreme Court struck down the gerrymandered state district maps. Then on February 19, Governor Tony Evers signed new state legislative maps that are fairly drawn and will return competition to the political process in Wisconsin.

Dan Shafer joins host Sara Gabler to understand the long fight for new maps and grapple with what they might mean for future elections.

Dan Shafer is a journalist from Milwaukee who writes and publishes the weekly column and online publication, The Recombobulation Area. He previously worked at Seattle Magazine, the Milwaukee Business Journal, Milwaukee Magazine, and BizTimes Milwaukee. He’s won 13 Milwaukee Press Club Excellence in Journalism Awards. He’s on X (formerly Twitter) at @DanRShafer

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