In the 2023 State of Working Wisconsin report, the High Road Strategy Center (formerly COWS) found that Wisconsin workers experienced strong job growth and low unemployment. However, most workers’ wages didn’t grow fast enough to stay ahead of high inflation. Guest host Bert Zipperer talks author of the report Laura Dresser to help us understand the state of labor as we kick off the new year.

Laura Dresser is Associate Director of High Road Strategy Center (formerly COWS). Laura is a labor economist and expert on low-wage work and workforce development systems. She is a co-editor of The Gloves-Off Economy: Workplace Standards at the Bottom of America’s Labor Market, lead author of every edition of the State of Working Wisconsin, and frequent source on the Wisconsin economy and unions’ role in labor markets. She is also a Clinical Associate Professor at the University of Wisconsin-Madison Sandra Rosenbaum School of Social Work.

Photo by Alexander Grey on Unsplash

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Are we at a moment of crisis when it comes to the censorship of speech on college campus? The end of 2023 saw the resignation of UPenn President Elizabeth Magill after appearing in front of congress over her response to pro-Palestine protestors on campus and the termination of UW-La Crosse Joe Gow over porn videos. The new year rang in with the resignation of Harvard President Claudine Gay who also appeared in front of congress and received significant public scrutiny.

Host Carousel Bayrd is joined by a couple of First Amendment experts to discuss to what degree colleges and universities are responsible for preserving free speech and how we are seeing that play out today. Our guests are attorney Dillon White and Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression (FIRE) Executive VP Nico Perrino.

Nico Perrino is FIRE’s Executive Vice President and the creator and host of FIRE’s So to Speak: The Free Speech Podcast. Prior to his current role, he led FIRE’s Communications department for nearly a decade, most recently as its Senior Vice President of Communications.

Dillon Michael White is an attorney, constitutional law professor, and former scholar with the Silha Center for the Study of Media Ethics and Law, where his work focused primarily on the First Amendment. He also boasts upwards of a million followers on TikTok with his account @dadchats, where he posts about parenting, marriage, and, most pertinent for our conversation today, the law — most recently with several viral videos about what free speech actually means, both on campus and off.

Photo by Volodymyr Hryshchenko on Unsplash

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On Ali Muldrow’s first show of 2024, we welcome back an show favorite to talk about the role abortion access will play in the upcoming election season. “It’s not just about voting. Right? Voting is the first thing you do, and then the rest of it is how do you participate in your own democracy,” comedian and activist Lizz Winstead tells Ali. “You’re voting for somebody who you can literally put pressure on to move in a better political direction.”

Lizz Winstead is a comedian and co-host of the podcast Feminist Buzzkills Live. Lizz is a prominent abortion rights activist, and one of the founders of Abortion Access Front. Which is a team of comedians, writers, and producers that uses humor to destigmatize abortion.

Photo by Gayatri Malhotra on Unsplash

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“The more you look, the more you realize there is almost unlimited amount of good things out there that can be reported on,” says Will Doig, Executive Editor of the online magazine Reasons to be Cheerful. The magazine is a non-profit that was founded by artist and musician David Byrne in 2019. Will joins Douglas Haynes on A Public Affair to talk about the trend toward solution journalism and some of Reasons to be Cheerful’s biggest stories from 2023.

Will Doig is the Executive Editor of Reasons to be Cheerful. His work has appeared in the Guardian, Foreign Policy and NPR. His book, High-Speed Empire: Chinese Expansion and the Future of Southeast Asia, was published in 2018.

Photo by Quino Al on Unsplash

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Why do Americans love the free market so much? In The Big Myth: How American Business Taught Us to Loathe Government and Love the Free Market, authors Naomi Oreskes and Erik M. Conway document early 20th century campaigns to rewrite textbooks, combat unions, and defend child labor.

“We’re not saying that government is perfect, or that government always works well, or that government is always efficient,” Naomi Oreskes tells Esty Dinur on A Public Affair. “But what we’re saying is that we’ve been fed a bill of goods about the inefficiency of government and the power of the marketplace, when the reality is much more balanced.” Naomi joins the show to talk about the history of the propaganda that promoted the free market and how that plays out in today’s world.

Naomi Oreskes is a Professor of the History of Science and Affiliated Professor of Earth and Planetary Sciences at Harvard University. She is the author of the best-selling book, Merchants of Doubt, which is also co-authored by Erik M. Conway.  Oreskes is a leading voice on the role of science in society, the reality of anthropogenic climate change, and the role of disinformation in blocking climate action.

 

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On the first Thursday of 2024, we welcome analyst Mouin Rabbani on the show to talk about the history of ethnic cleansing or “transfer” as it pertains to Zionism. In a recent piece for Mondoweiss, Rabbani argues that Israeli leaders are calling for an ethnic cleansing. He writes, “their proposals are being presented as voluntary emigration schemes, in which Israel is merely playing the role of Good Samaritan, selflessly mediating with foreign governments to find new homes for destitute and desperate Palestinians. But it is ethnic cleansing all the same.”

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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Just before the Christmas break, the Wisconsin Supreme Court ruled that Wisconsin’s legislative maps are unconstitutional. On today’s show, host Jessa Nicholson Goetz gets into the issue of gerrymandering with mathematician Jordan Ellenberg. 

Jordan S. Ellenberg is a mathematician and professor of mathematics at the UW–Madison. He is also the author of Shape: The Hidden Geometry of Information, Biology, Strategy, Democracy, and Everything Else.

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In a new cookbook, Milwaukee-based food writer Lori Fredrich pulls together a state-centered collection of stories from the farmers who provide ingredients and the chefs who cook with them. Wisconsin Field to Fork features seventy chef-driven recipes from chefs and farm-to-table restaurants located across the state.

Lori joins A Public Affair host Esty Dinur to talk about the recipes in the book, the process of creating a cookbook, and some of the unique ingredients found in Wisconsin.

Lori Fredrich is the Senior Food & Dining Writer for OnMilwaukee and the co-host of FoodCrush, a podcast “for people who eat.” Her previous book is Milwaukee Food: A History of Cream City Cuisine (History Press).

Image by 12019 from Pixabay

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From Barbenheimer to the writers’ and actors’ strikes, 2023 was a big year for the movie industry. Let’s talk about it!

On today’s A Public Affair, hosts Richelle Wilson and Nate Carlin reflect on their favorite moments on the big screen this year. They are joined by Rob Thomas, features editor for the Cap Times and author of the newsletter Not That Rob Thomas on substack. The show is full of movie recommendations from the year and some hot takes about run times, the lack of a downtown theater, and the downsides of streaming.

Movies talked about in this show include Barbie, Oppenheimer, The Holdovers,  Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse, Showing Up, Sanctuary, The Killer, Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Mutant Mayhem, Bottoms, No Hard Feelings, Killers of the Flower Moon, Asteroid City, Past Lives, The Boy and the Heron, Godzilla Minus One, Dream Scenario, and American Fiction.

Image by Bruno from Pixabay

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On today’s show, guest host Jessa Nicholson Goetz sits down with Michael Cohen (who she introduces as, “not the one that’s always in the news, but an excellent attorney nonetheless”) to reflect on the past year. They discuss absolute immunity, Trump being bared from running in the primary in Colorado, the death penalty, and the Wisconsin Supreme Court fair maps decision. We also hear from a couple listener-callers.

Jessa will be back next Tuesday, January 2nd to host A Public Affair at 12pm CT.

Image by Mike Braun from Pixabay

 

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