Instagram influencer @jillisblack says she’s tired of the constant curation of our identities. After garnering thousands of followers and millions of views, she wrote an incisive book of essays called Unfollow Me.

Today, Tuesday host Ali Muldrow spends the hour with Jill Louise Busby talking about these essays on race, gender, sexuality, fame, performance, and more.

Jill Louise Busby (also known as @jillisblack) is a writer and filmmaker. Her debut book is Unfollow Me: Essays on Complicity (Bloomsbury, 2021).

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America’s largest aquifer, the Ogallala Aquifer, is depleting. It’s a big problem, but it hasn’t gotten very much national attention.

At least, until Lucas Bessire wrote Running Out, which has been named a finalist for the National Book Award for Nonfiction. In it, he sifts through history, memory, myth, and policy to explore why the High Plains are running out of water.

Today, Monday host Patty Peltekos talks with Lucas Bessire about water rights in Kansas, the myth of the family farmer, what it will take to save the aquifer, and more.

Lucas Bessire is an associate professor of anthropology at the University of Oklahoma, a filmmaker, and writer. He is co-editor of Radio Fields: Anthropology and Wireless Sound in the 21st Century (NYU Press, 2012) and the director of the documentary films Asking Ayahai: An Ayoreo Story (2004), From Honey to Ashes (2006), and Farewell to Savage (2017). His latest book is Running Out: In Search of Water on the High Plains (University of Princeton Press, 2021).

Cover photo by Mary Hammel on Unsplash

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On November 7, 1995, just a few days after the assassination of Israeli Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin by a right-wing Jewish settler, I hosted my first A Public Affair show. My guest was Professor Joel Beinin of Stanford University and we discussed the assassination and other issues relating to Israel and Palestine.

Marking my 26th anniversary as a host of the show, I will be talking again with Professor Beinin, now emeritus, and Huwaida Arraf, a Palestinian-American human/civil rights lawyer and activist who has also been my guest a number of times, about the latest from Israel and Palestine: Israel’s declaration of six civil society organizations as “terrorist”; terrorist attacks by Israeli settlers on Palestinian villagers and soldier attacks on Palestinians harvesting olives; B’Tselem’s report on Gaza; Palestinian adults and children in Israeli prisons and the recent jail break; and more—all with lavish support from the U.S. government, regardless of what party or who is in power.

It is terribly unfortunate that not much has changed in this part of the world, and what has may be worse. But I appreciate the opportunity I’ve had over the past 26 years to bring these and many other important issues to light, with your support. Onward!

—Esty Dinur

Note: The original broadcast included a reading of Rasha Abdulhadi’s poem “Safe Harbor in Enemy Homes.” You can read the poem or hear the author reading it at poets.org/poem/safe-harbor-enemy-homes/.

Cover photo by Ehimetalor Akhere Unuabona on Unsplash

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Today, Thursday host Allen Ruff explores the life and times of the early anti-slavery rebel Benjamin Lay with historian Marcus Rediker and graphic artist David Lester, whose new book Prophet Against Slavery is out this week.

Marcus Rediker is Distinguished Professor of Atlantic History at the University of Pittsburgh. He is the author of many books, including his award-winning The Slave Ship: A Human History (Publisher, Year). He is the co-author of Prophet Against Slavery: Benjamin Lay, A Graphic Novel (Beacon Press, 2021).

David Lester is a painter, graphic designer, and publisher at Get to the Point Press. He is the illustrator of Prophet Against Slavery: Benjamin Lay, A Graphic Novel (Beacon Press, 2021).

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Two weeks after the tragic accidental shooting on the film set of Rust in Santa Fe, New Mexico, today we take a close look at the issues of on-set/on-stage safety and working conditions in film and theatre.

Our guests are film and TV armorer and prop master Dutch Merrick from IATSE Local 44 Hollywood Property Craftspersons, prop master and stage firearm safety specialist Jim Guy from Milwaukee Repertory Theater, and Milwaukee-based stage manager Martinique Barthel.

Cover photo by Brands&People on Unsplash

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When responding to surveys, young people are more likely to toss out the sex question than the race or ethnicity question. This got developmental psychologist Ritch Savin-Williams wondering: if youth are rejecting these categories, how are they experiencing sexuality and romance?

So he set to work interviewing hundreds of young people (eighteen and up). What he found is that Zoomers are expanding their vision and vocabulary around sexuality. And, as Ritch Savin-Williams argues, this is not a phase—youth aren’t changing how they feel about themselves, but how they express it.

Today, he joins Tuesday host Ali Muldrow to talk about this research on youth sexuality and findings from his new book, Bi: Bisexual, Pansexual, Fluid, and Nonbinary Youth.

Ritch C. Savin-Williams is an emeritus professor of developmental psychology at Cornell University. His latest book is Bi: Bisexual, Pansexual, Fluid, and Nonbinary Youth (NYU Press, 2021).

Cover photo by Jonathan Kemper on Unsplash

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With wolf hunting season approaching, today Patty spends the hour with Tony Wilkin Gibart from Midwest Environmental Advocates, former Natural Resources Board chair Dave Clausen, and Fred Clark from Wisconsin’s Green Fire.

They talk about the upcoming wolf hunt, the history of Wisconsin’s Natural Resources Board, how it works with (or doesn’t) the DNR, and the controversies surrounding Frederick Prehn, the current chair of the board who has refused to step down since the end of his term in May and has been working with lobbyists.

Cover photo by M L on Unsplash

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Lawyer Steven Donziger has been on a house arrest for more than eight hundred days and is now facing six months of incarceration on charges of “criminal contempt.”

The crime? Donziger won a landmark $9.5-billion pollution case against Chevron in Ecuador in 2011, and they have been taking him to court ever since. So much about Donziger’s case is unprecedented, and many consider it a gross miscarriage of justice.

Today, Friday host Esty Dinur spends the hour untangling this story with journalist James North, who has followed the Donziger case for a long time.

They dive into the details of this history, including Chevron’s operations in Ecuador and their consequences, the case brought against the oil giant, and the strange twists that ended up with Donziger’s incarceration.

James North has reported from Africa, Latin America, and Asia for four decades. He is the editor-at-large of Mondoweiss and author of Freedom Rising (Plume, 1986), and he regularly writes for The Nation.

Cover photo: Screenshot from Steven Donziger’s interview with KolectiVOZ Digital in July 2021, licensed under CC BY 3.0 / filter added

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How are the clothes we wear produced? Where? By whom and under what conditions? At what cost? And who profits?

These are only a few of the questions political economist Ashok Kumar takes up in his latest book, Monopsony Capitalism (“monopsony” referring to “the unequal power dynamic of many sellers and only a few buyers“).

Today on the show, Thursday host Allen Ruff speaks with Ashok about the global garment and footwear sectors, why we might be nearing “the twilight of the sweatshop age,” and the way forward out of capitalism.

Ashok Kumar is a senior lecturer (associate professor) of political economy at Birkbeck, University of London. He is the author of Monopsony Capitalism: Power and Production in the Twilight of the Sweatshop Age (Cambridge University Press, 2020).

Cover photo by Rio Lecatompessy on Unsplash

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Every ten years, the Wisconsin state legislature draws new maps that divide the state into ninety-nine state Assembly districts and thirty-three state Senate districts.

As Wisconsin approaches another redistricting process, we speak with State Senator Kelda Roys about redistricting, gerrymandering, and fair maps in advance of the legislature’s public hearing tomorrow.

Then, for the second half of the show, we hear from Ken Opin, the chair of the Dane County nonpartisan redistricting commission to learn about their process and how it could provide a better model for drawing district maps locally and statewide.

Cover image from maps.legis.wisc.gov

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