Eastern Standard

The Trump administration cuts to federal funding of colleges and universities, and the linkage of funding to the termination of DEI programs is raising concerns at the Kentucky Council for Postsecondary Education, as we hear from CPE President, Aaron Thompson.

The heavy presence of celebrities in politics is the focus of ES Contributor Carolyn Dupont and her guest, Darrell West, author of Celebrity Politics.

ReString Appalachia, headed by folk musician and musicologist Nicholas Edward Williams, is pairing working musicians who have lost their instruments in recent floods with replacements.

Lexington-based Jazz-Rock-Fusion violinist Zach Brock launches a new series of interviews with The Greats in today’s music scene.

On this week's Eastern Standard

• Debra Hamelback, executive director of the Kentucky Veterinary Medical Association, on the factors driving a shortage of large animal veterinarians in Kentucky
• Daily Yonder reporter Ilana Newman, host of "Getaway," a new podcast series about rural tourism
• Amanda Higgins, executive director of the Lexington History Museum, on the history of the Women's Club of Central Kentucky
• Christine Genoveley, executive director of The American Printing House in Louisville, discusses their partnership with the Dolly Parton Imagination Library to publish braille children’s books
• WEKU reporter John McGary visits a service providing vital resources for the visually impaired
• Berea College cat cognition researcher Rebecca Singer takes a pair of listener questions 

On this week’s Eastern Standard:

Tracking “cause and effect” of the Trump administration’s federal funding and staffing cuts brings us to the closures of Mine Safety and Health Administration inspection offices in Kentucky; an end to BRIC, a program that has been helping communities get better prepared for extreme weather events; the closure of the office shaping NAEP, known as The Nation’s Report Card which provides a measure of how Kentucky public school students are doing in math and reading; and an explanation of Diversity, Equity and Inclusion (DEI). We also hear about the plans of the James Baker Hall Foundation to encourage and highlight Kentucky’s budding writers and poets.

In this week's episode...

• In her book “Stolen Pride,” the Berkeley professor emerita Arlie Russell Hochschild uses reactions to a 2017 white supremacist march in Pikeville as a window into the political and sociological shifts that have transformed the country. “It occurred to me,” she writes, “that a close look at this vulnerable patch of red America — Kentucky’s Fifth Congressional District — might offer clues to red America as a whole, and indeed to the winds of white nationalism blowing around the world.”
• What is moral psychology and how can the discipline help us understand and overcome today’s political and ideological divides? Eastern Standard contributor Carolyn Dupont talks with University of North Carolina moral psychologist and professor, Kurt Gray, author of “Outraged: Why We Fight About Morality in Politics and How to Find Common Grounds.”
• Kentucky is among 11 states that do not require civics education in its public schools. The Kentucky Student Voice Team is out to change that. Our guests are Chase Colvin, research coordinator for the Kentucky Student Voice Team and a junior at DuPont Manual High School in Louisville,  and Daniela DiGiacomo, associate professor of youth development and learning sciences at the University of Kentucky and KSVT’s adult research partner.

John Koehlinger is the Executive Director of Kentucky Refugee Ministries. He discusses the atmosphere of uncertainty and fear among refugees and asylees who have resettled in Kentucky as the Trump administration takes aggressive actions to revoke documentation and carry out detentions and deportations.

Becky Jordan, State Coordinator for the Kentucky Office for Refugees. She shares the perspectives of one who has worked with refugee resettlement since the 1990s.

Professor Matthew Boaz teaches Immigration Law at the University of Kentucky. Before getting into teaching law, Prof. Boaz was a Senior Detention Attorney in Newark, NJ, where he represented individuals held in immigration detention centers while in removal proceedings.

Nestor Gomez is a master storyteller and his talents will be on full display at the Paris Story Fest, May 9-11. But we wanted to explore his back story, that of a 15-year-old who escaped civil war in Guatemala to come to the States where he lived for many years as an undocumented immigrant. Gomez has since achieved citizenship. He discusses his journey and what it means to become a documented citizen of the United States.

** WEKU is working hard to be a leading source for public service, and fact-based journalism. Monthly supporters are the top funding source for this growing nonprofit news organization. Please join others in your community who support WEKU by making your donation.

Eastern Standard launches "The First Kentuckians", a new series on Indigenous life in what became The Commonwealth of Kentucky. In this initial segment, co-hosting archeologists Chris Begley and Gwynn Henderson discuss coverage plans. We're joined by Blake Moss from the Big Sandy Area Development District to talk about a program to aid small businesses and entrepreneurs, especially those hit by recent flooding. We get details on 250Lex Literary Month and visit with 2025 Lexington Poet Laureate Eva Alcaraz-Monje, as well as the authors of "Haint Country". And with the launch of a second new ES series about animals sharing our planet, Natalie Voss Nevills with Sgt. Bryon Creekmore and Officer Alison Winters from the Lexington PD to talk about the mounted patrol unit horses.

President Trump’s use of his presidential powers to retaliate against certain law firms has sent a chill throughout the legal profession, threatening not just the ability of lawyers to do their jobs but also the ability of private citizens to hire lawyers to represent them. Joining us to sort out the meaning of this is Jonathan Shaub, a professor at the University of Kentucky’s Rosenberg College of Law, where he teaches courses in constitutional law and federal courts and leads a seminar on executive power. Ivy Litton is a senior at Rowan County High School in Morehead and a member of the Kentucky Student Voice Team. KSVT is calling for the return of civics education in Kentucky schools. Lexington sculptor Amanda Matthews, creator of "The Girl Puzzle" monument to investigative journalist Nellie Bly on New York's Roosevelt Island, recalls recently speaking before the UN. Lexington History Museum director Mandy Higgins details a display of the iconic civil rights photographs of Calvert McCann. Haitian Creole-jazz drummer Johnbern Thomas prepares us for his band's Greenroom Exchange concert in Lexington.

Thinking of the times we are all living through, our bandwidths stretched to the limit, and our patience with those who see things differently stretched thin, contributor Carolyn Dupont, EKU historian and state coordinator of the Red-Blue dialogue facilitators Braver Angels, hosts a conversation with the author of a book about overcoming all of that divisiveness in our daily lives. Gerald Smith discusses his account of Slavery and Freedom in the Bluegrass State. We have Steve Vest on his book about the Kentuckian who coined the phrases “Dog is man’s best friend” and “History is written by the victors.” And, the latest in our series on dog and cat behavior. This week’s focus: that thing about dogs and mail carriers.

The “Excellence Gap.” Many Kentucky school districts lack the resources to offer the advanced courses required for employment in the Commonwealth’s growing tech industry. Dolly Parton’s “Imagination Library” is getting books into the hands of children across Kentucky. Richmond novelist Wesley Browne is out with a new crime novel. He describes it as “The Sopranos meet the Hatfield & McCoys.” Time to dust off and spruce up that old guitar you never use. It has a new life waiting: WoodSongs creator and host Michael Johnathon tells us about plans to provide replacement instruments to eastern Kentucky musicians who lost their own in recent flooding.

Crystal Wilkinson and Frank X Walker on being named to the Kentucky Writers Hall of Fame. The erasure and resurrection of Julia Chinn, the enslaved Civil War era Scott County plantation manager who was the common-law wife of the ninth vice president of the United States, Richard Mentor Johnson. All about a podcast series on the Jessamine County Confederate Statue controversy. And how the art of Lexington sculptor John Tuska lives on in the classroom.