Last week, the US Supreme Court voted 8-1 to keep guns out of the hands of domestic abusers. In United States v. Rahimi the justices found that the federal law prohibiting domestic abusers subject to protective orders from possessing guns is constitutional under the Second Amendment. The Court’s decision affirms that individuals who pose a credible threat to the safety of another person should not be able to buy or possess a gun. The sole justice to vote against came from Justice Clarence Thomas. 

Mariel Barnes, is a founding faculty member of UW–Madison’s Sexual Violence Research Initiative. She joined host Allen Ruff to talk about the Supreme Court case as well as statistics of domestic violence in Wisconsin, which Barns writes about in a recent article in the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel. Barns reiterates that persons with a record of domestic violence are likely to commit domestic violence again, especially if they have access to a firearm. 

If you need help with or want more information on domestic abuse, you can contact Domestic Abuse Intervention Services (DAIS) at 608-251-4445 or at abuseintervention.org.

Mariel Barnes is an Assistant Professor in the La Follette School of Public Affairs at UW-Madison. Her work primarily focuses on the interaction between social and housing policies, and domestic violence.

Photo courtesy of Bart Everson via Flickr.

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June is Pride Month and on today’s show we celebrate the legal and social advancements made for LGBTQ Wisconsinites. In 1982 Wisconsin was the first state to make it illegal to discriminate based on sexual orientation in employment and housing. 

Host Ali Muldrow is joined by Governor Tony Evers who talks about allyship from public officials, Judy Davidoff who reflects on the 2014 overturning of Wisconsin’s same-sex marriage ban (the year before the US Supreme Court’s marriage equality decision in Obergefell v. Hodges), and Steve Starkey who’s been an advocate and leader for social justice in Dane County since the 1970s. 

Governor Tony Evers is a Wisconsin native and former educator. He was first elected to the governor’s office in 2018 and was reelected in 2022. Governor Evers was the first Wisconsin governor to raise a Pride flag over the state Capitol and has continued to do so every Pride Month since he took office in 2019.

Judith Davidoff is the editor of Isthmus. She and a team of Isthmus journalists won a Gold award from the Milwaukee Press Club in 2014 for their coverage of the overturning of Wisconsin’s same-sex marriage ban. 

Steve Starkey is a longtime advocate for social justice causes in Dane County. Steve was the Founding Vice President of the Social Justice Center, and currently is the executive director of OutReach LGBT Community Center, where he has worked for 18 years. At OutReach, Steve advocates for clients who have been affected by anti-LGBT laws and who experience homophobic or transphobic culture across Wisconsin.

Image courtesy: Vicki Kenyon / WORT News.

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The local partisan primary election is coming up on August 13, 2024. On the ballot are constitutional amendments, state legislative races, and the race for Dane County Executive–for a seat recently vacated by longtime Executive Joe Parisi. And in this third episode of our series of interviews with candidates for Dane County Executive we’re joined by Meilssa Agard, who shares her goals for the county with News Director, Chali Pittman.

Agard wants voters to know that she champions working class issues and is committed to addressing the significant affordable housing shortage in Dane County. She says that “democracy is a verb” and that she’ll continue to advocate for cannabis reform, if elected. Agard also discusses Dane County’s leadership on climate change and the necessity of addressing the budget by tackling shared revenue in the state legislature. 

Melissa Agard is a Dane County native and single mom to four sons. Before diving into politics, she owned a small business and worked in the private sector. Now, she’s been a lawmaker for over a decade, and is currently finishing out a stint as state Senator for the 16th district, representing the eastern part of Dane County along with parts of Jefferson and Dodge Counties.  Before being elected to the state Senate, she served as a Dane County Board Supervisor and in the state assembly.

Photo courtesy of Chali Pittman/WORT.

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WORT’s Summer News Collaborative trains underrepresented journalists to become creators of and leaders in local media. The fellows in this first cohort will learn the basics of journalism, storytelling, and audio production, participate in field trips and workshops with guest speakers, and be introduced to a network of mentors in local media.

On today’s show, host Douglas Haynes interviews all of the Fellows about their backgrounds and what stories they want to tell on the radio.

WORT’s Storytelling Fellows:

Shyelle Aikens is a proud native of west Madison who brings a wealth of experience in trauma recovery education, sustainable farming, and Indigenous agricultural practices to her community endeavors.

César Gonzalez Paz is originally from the small country of Honduras. César is a photographer and DJ, and is married to the beautiful Mexican, Rocio Gonzalez. They have 4 beautiful children. César has been living in the city of Madison for 22 years and is proud to be part of this great work team that will be a great blessing to our community.

Jeliel Peña de First is a medical doctor from Caracas Venezuela who moved to Madison for love in 2011. Since moving here, she has been active in the Latino community with a focus on wellbeing and mental health. She is excited to participate in the Summer News Collaborative and learn to tell the stories of her community.

Faleshuh Walker, also known as Lashay The Artist!, is a resilient mother of four who embodies the spirit of creativity and entrepreneurship. She truly enjoys working with youth and encouraging positive change. Despite the challenges she faces, Lashay’s passion for art and her entrepreneurial drive propel her forward in life. As an artist with many facets of lived experience, she channels her emotions and experiences into her work, creating pieces that resonate with others on a profound level. Along with teaching art classes, she shares her way of expressing through poetry, motivational speaking, and hair styling. Her entrepreneurial spirit and drive to inspire others shines through in her ability to turn her passion into a thriving business, managing both the demands of motherhood and the responsibilities of running her own enterprise. Lashay is not just a mother; she is a beacon of strength, an active community liaison, who consistently displays creativity, and determination, while inspiring those around her to pursue their dreams against all odds.

Ze Yang is the Hmong Bilingual Community Connector for the City of Madison. She works in the Department of Civil Rights Social, Justice and Equity Division and is also a small business owner. She has been a resident of Madison almost all her life. She served on the Wisconsin Women Council for four years as the Governor’s Designee. She takes joy in gardening, cooking, traveling, and storytelling.  

Diego Alegría was WORT’s 2023-2024 Community Access & Development Fellow. Diego is a poet, essayist and scholar from Chile. 

Jade Iseri-Ramos is a radio and podcast producer based in Madison. She has been the producer of A Public Affair since October 2022, but is taking the summer off… Because she is currently the program manager of WORT’s Summer Journalism Program. 

Photo courtesy of Sara Gabler/WORT.

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On June 5, Dodge County Sheriff Dale Schmidt charged the Waupun Correctional Institution’s warden, Randall Hepp, with misconduct in public office. Eight other Waupun employees face charges of felony inmate abuse. Three of them are also charged with misconduct.

On today’s show, host Esty Dinur talks with Sheriff Schmidt about the arrests and ongoing problems at Waupun. We’re also joined by attorney Lonnie Story who represents the families of Donald Maier, Cameron Williams, and Tyshun Lemons who died in Waupun, and whose deaths are the cause of the arrests earlier this month.

At issue is the ongoing lockdown, which the state’s Department of Corrections calls “modified movement.” But Sheriff Schmidt says that the lockdown didn’t contribute to the deaths. 

Attorney Story also represents the plaintiffs in a class action lawsuit. He says his clients are asking for restoration of medical, psychological, and dental treatment along with better conditions in the prison in general. Waupun is an over 125-years old facility that is infested with rodents and insects and where inmates are exposed to contaminated water. Since the warden at Waupun has been removed, attorney Story says a receiver should be appointed to run the prison. 

Attorney Lonnie Story represents the families of three men who died in Waupun Correctional Institution in the last year. He also represents the 10 lead plaintiffs from Waupun who have filed a class action lawsuit demanding an end to the facility-wide lockdown.

Dale Schmidt is the Dodge County Sheriff, President of the Badger State Sheriffs’ Association and President, and the Dodge County Executive Law Enforcement Association.

Image courtesy of Wisconsin Department of Corrections.

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On today’s show, host Allen Ruff discusses Israel’s military complex with author and political activist, Jeff Halper. They cover Israeli armaments, including F35s and training programs in the US, like the one at Georgia State University. Halper has written about instruments of population control and the use of Gaza as a “laboratory” to create “permanent pacification.”

Halper argues that you have to understand settler colonialism to understand what’s happening in Gaza right now. He defines settler colonialism as what happens when one population arrives in a place with the intent to take over. The occupying group then invents a narrative about why they’re entitled to the land rather than the indigenous population. In combination with ethno-nationalism, narratives of entitlement form the basis for Zionism. 

Settler colonialism is a “unilateral” project, says Halper, who adds that we have to adopt an anti-colonial language. That means getting rid of the idea that there are “two sides.” 

Jeff Halper is an anthropologist, Israeli anti-occupation activist, and founder and director of the Israeli Committee Against House Demolitions. He is also the author of multiple books including, War Against the People: Israel, the Palestinians and Global Pacification (2015).

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The local partisan primary election is coming up on August 13, 2024. And in the second episode in our series of interviews with candidates for Dane County Executive, we’re joined by Wes Sparkman who entered the race in February. 

News Director, Chali Pittman, spoke with Sparkman about his experience in leadership and management, including his work with Dane County, participation on several local advisory boards, and over 10 years working for the Madison Police and Fire Commission. 

Sparkman says he’s running to ensure that “Everyone in the county gets an opportunity to grow and thrive.” This is a big task that he says will require lots of listening, helping communities throughout Dane County sustain their growth, developing social service programs for mental health and addiction, and finding more opportunities for subsidized and “fair” housing. 

Wes Sparkman has worked in local government for over two decades. He’s the director of the Tamara D. Grigsby Office for Equity and Inclusion, where he works to implement equal employment, civil rights, racial and social justice, and organizational change to establish equity in public service. 

Photo by Chali Pittman for WORT.

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REAP Food Group was founded in the late ’90s, and officially registered as a nonprofit in 2002. For the past two and a half decades, it’s worked to connect the community with local food producers.

You might know REAP best through the Farm Fresh Atlas, a directory that helps consumers find local food in Wisconsin.  A print edition of the Atlas might be hanging on your fridge. It’s also now a web database, and the 2024 edition details over 400 farms, farmers’ markets, and producers.

The Farm Fresh Atlas is one example of REAP’s collaboration and understanding of regional food systems. Now, REAP is heading up a new, USDA-funded collaborative to create a food systems action plan for the Dane County region.

The action plan is dependent on input from local farmers, food retailers, institutional buyers, food banks and pantries, community organizations, and local residents. Our guests today liken the project to putting together a thousand-piece jigsaw puzzle in order to build a more complete picture of our local food system.

REAP’s Executive Director Phil Kauth and Events Coordinator/Farm Fresh Atlas Cooardinator Noah Bloedorn join us in the studio for more on the action plan. Bill Warner, of Snug Haven Farm and the Dane County Food Council, also joins us for a conversation about growing south-central Wisconsin’s food systems.

We also talk about other new projects from REAP, including “Mosaic Dinners,” a storytelling and community-building project in partnership with Dane County Food Collective and UW-Madison Art Department Artist-in-Residence Marlon F. Hall.

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“I’ve never felt more Jewish than I do nowadays,” says A Public Affair host Esty Dinur near the end of an hour with radical ideas about combating antisemitism and divorcing it from Zionism. We start the show with Professor Omer Bartov who explains his personal journey from writing about the Holocaust to writing on Israel-Palestine and how the actions of Israel has led to an increase in antisemitism.

Then Esty talks with Ben Lorber and Shane Burley about their brand book Safety through Solidarity: A Radical Guide to Fighting Antisemitism. Ben and Shane will be doing a book talk at A Room of One’s Own on Tuesday, June 25th at 6pm.

Omer Bartov is Samuel Pisar Professor of Holocaust and Genocide Studies in the Department of History at Brown University. His many books include Israel-Palestine: Lands and Peoples (2021), a  novel titled The Butterfly and the Axe, which was published in January 2023 and Genocide, The Holocaust and Israel-Palestine: First-Person History in Times of Crisis

Ben Lorber is senior research analyst at Political Research Associates, a social movement think tank, where he studies and publishes on antisemitism and white nationalism (analyst Chip Berlet was s guest on this show). He previously worked as national campus organizer with Jewish Voice for Peace, supporting justice driven young Jewish communities across the country, and has written extensively on antisemitism, Israel/Palestine and Jewish identity. 

Shane Burley is the author of several books on the far-right and social movements, and has contributed to NBC News, Jewish Currents, Al Jazeera, The Baffler, The Daily Beast, Haaretz, In These Times, Yes! Magazine, Tikkun, and The Oregon Historical Quarter.

Image of Bartov by Bildungsstätte Anne Frank, CC BY 3.0, Link

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Emma Claire Foley is a writer and filmmaker based in New York. Her writing and commentary has appeared in Newsweek, NBC, the Guardian, and elsewhere.

Image by The Nation Museum in the Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons

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