More than 47 thousand people have died in the earthquakes that devastated parts of Turkey and Syria earlier this month. Zahra Albarazi joins us from Turkey where she was during the February 6 earthquake. Zahra is the Research Director for Syrian Legal Development Programme. She tells us about the days right after the earthquake, the ongoing war in Syria, and the unequal aid victims in Syria received (or didn’t). 

Zahra Albarazi  serves on the Board of Directors of SLDP and is currently serving as Head of Research. She specializes in international human rights law, refugee law and specifically on the nexus between forced displacement and citizenship issues, as well as the interlink between discrimination and statelessness.

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When an 8-year-old Nicaraguan boy tragically died on a dairy farm just north of Madison in 2019, a miscommunication led to the official police report incorrectly stating who was driving the machinery that killed him.

In a new piece from ProPublica investigative journalists Melissa Sanchez and Maryam Jameel uncover the truth behind young Jefferson’s death, share the journey his father, José María Rodríguez Uriarte, has been on to clear his name, and shine a light on the lack of officers who are actually proficient in Spanish.

They join us on A Public Affair to share the story.

Melissa Sanchez is a reporter at ProPublica. She joined ProPublica in 2017 and is focused on immigrants and low-wage workers. She previously worked for The Chicago Reporter, Catalyst Chicago, el Nuevo Herald in Miami and the Yakima (Wash.) Herald-Republic, and has received numerous local and national awards for her reporting.

Maryam Jameel is an engagement reporter working on community-sourced investigations out of ProPublica’s Washington, D.C. newsroom. Her reporting focuses on how federal policy affects workplace rights. Previously, she was a reporter with the Center for Public Integrity,

Melissa Sanchez and Maryam Jameel welcome tips here: https://www.propublica.org/getinvolved/help-propublica-journalists-investigate-the-dairy-industry

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Earlier this month, a train carrying hazardous chemicals derailed in East Palestine, Ohio. The incident has drawn criticism across the board. Concerns have been raised from rail workers, environmental advocates, and people living on the Ohio-Pennsylvania border. The real impact on human and environmental health may not be known for years, but Emily Jeffers joins us on the show to explain what we know about burning vinyl chloride.

Emily Jeffers is staff attorney at the Center for Biological Diversity and an expert on plastics manufacturing. Emily works in the Center’s Oceans program.

Image by StockSnap from Pixabay

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“The things that are worth writing poems about are the things that we have the hardest time speaking of in other language. And those tend to be the things that matter most to most people, or maybe even all people.” -Nicholas Gulig on A Public Affair

On today’s show we talk with the newly appointed 2023-2024 Wisconsin State Poet Laureate, Nicholas Gulig, about what it means to be the MVP (most valuable poet) and his life long journey writing poems.

Nicholas Gulig is a Fort Atkinson resident and UW-Whitewater associate professor. He is a Thai-American poet, husband, and father to two girls. He is the author of North of Order, Book of Lake, and Orient. Gulig has received additional accolades for his work including the Rushkin Art Club Poetry Award, the Black Warrior Review Poetry Prize, the Grist ProForma Award, and the CSU Open Book Poetry Prize.

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Degrowth is a movement and set of theories in which production and consumption is reduced within an economy with the goal of conserving natural resources. The Future is Degrowth: A Guide to a World beyond Capitalism co-author Aaron Vansintjan joins us to image a world that valued the environment and an equitable quality of life over economic growth.

Aaron Vansintjan is a PhD Candidate in the Department of Film, Media, and Cultural Studies at Birkbeck, University of London. He studies gentrification in Montreal and Hanoi. He is the co-founder of Uneven Earth, a website focusing on ecological politics.

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In his forth coming book, Injustice, Inc.: How America’s Justice System Commodifies Children and the Poor, Daniel Hatcher exposes how the systems that proport to care for poor children and families are actually making massive amounts of money off of them. Daniel joins A Public Affair to expose the hidden revenue schemes and the systemic racialized harm engrained in the the family, juvenile, and criminal justice systems.

Daniel L. Hatcher is Professor of Law in the University of Baltimore’s Civil Advocacy Clinic and author of The Poverty Industry: The Exploitation of America’s Most Vulnerable Citizens. A former Maryland Legal Aid and Children’s Defense Fund attorney. He has long been a scholar, advocate, and teacher on poverty and justice.

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There was this influx of investors who had come to me chomping at the bit, salivating, saying, “it feels like the early days of the internet.” [They were] just so excited to be able to get in and be able to see the profit that they could get in a three to five year timeline. I wanted to write about the alternative protein boom and bust from that perspective. [The billionaires and investors] are looking at it for profit–even if they are talking about how they’re interested in the climate. At the end of the day, these funds need their returns.

[Those investors] eventually realized that you can’t put a food company on a three to five year venture capital cycle timeline. Food is not a cloud company, it is not, you know, a creator company. At the end of the day, people only have one mouth, and they’re only able to eat so much. –Chloé Sorvino on A Public Affair 

Chloé Sorvino joins us to talk about her recent book Raw Deal, and what she exposed in her reporting about the industrial meat industry and meat-alternative market.

Chloé Sorvino leads coverage of food, drink and agriculture at Forbes. Her debut book, Raw Deal: Hidden Corruption, Corporate Greed, and the Fight for the Future of Meat, is available from Simon & Schuster’s Atria Books. Her work has been featured by NPR, the Los Angeles Times and Fast Company.

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A proposed ordinance change would alter the definition of a “family” renting a house zoned as a single family home. The current ordinance defines a family as no more than 2 unrelated people. The proposal–which passed unanimously in the plan commission earlier this week–would allow up to 5 unrelated people to rent a single family home.

Alder Patrick Heck, who represents district 2 and is a sponsor of the change, joins us on A Public Affair to break down the reasons why he sees is as necessary.

Then we talk with Kori Schneider Peragine from the Fair Housing Council about the role of zoning laws in creating segregated housing.

We also hear from a caller who voiced opposition to the change, pointing to a website created by Neighbors from S Mills in the Greenbush Neighborhood.

Photo by Josh Sorenson on Unsplash

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“There are peaks and valleys, and that’s where some of the connection and communication and the problem solving can happen is when when you’re going through those peaks and valleys. For me, it’s also knowing when I’m able to have a compassionate conversation, and when I’m not.”   

–Angela Russell on A Pubic Affair

On today’s Valentine’s Day edition, we get deep about how we can have rich conversations, and we recognize that we are all a work in progress. Joining Ali Muldrow are two good friends and well practiced conversation havers:

Angela Russell is the host of Black Oxygen, a podcast where she interviews Black folks who live in Wisconsin on their lives and journeys.

Dr. Toby Campbell is a thoracic medical oncologist and he is UW Health Chief of Palliative Care.

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Last year, US Immigration arrested more than 2 million migrants at the southern border–a historic spike. The Biden Administration has since announced it will make seeking asylum more difficult and other central American countries have tighten their migration policies. Joining us on A Public Affair to talk about the impact of these polices are Astrid Montealegre from Nicaraguan American Human Rights Alliance and journalist Jeff Abbott.

Astrid Carolina Montealegre is a Political Scientist and US Immigration Attorney. She is an advocate for Nicaraguan migrants seeking asylum in the United States.

Jeff Abbott is an independent journalist currently based out of Guatemala. “The Other Americans” is a column created by Abbott for The Progressive on human migration in North and Central America. His work has also appeared in NACLA Report on the Americas, Al Jazeera English, and In These Times

Photo by Katie Moum on Unsplash

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