Forward Radio podcasts

Doctors Mike Flynn and Gene Shively share insider insights into our system corrupted by profit over patient interests.

Chris Hartman is the director of Kentucky’s Fairness Campaign. In the past several years he has helped increase the number of municipalities with LGBTQ antidiscrimination fairness ordinance from 3 to 24. Chris had previously served as Congressman John Yarmuth’s campaign press secretary and as an Amri core Vista volunteer in St. Louis and the Philadelphia Democratic National open ear grass roots campaign committee in the 2004 Presidential Election. He holds an M.A. in drama from Washington University in St. Louis. Chris served on the board of the National Equality Federation and chair of the Louisville Land Marks commission. He was named the Louisville business and convention bureau 2017 partner of the year. He is a former community of Louisville founding fellow and a LBGTQ fellow of the Rockwood Institute. He formerly toured the nation performing Shakespeare for youth and continues to improvise. The Louisville Courier Journal named Chris Hartman as one of its “20 to watch in 2020.

K.A. Owens interviews Michael T. Topic: Michael's new play about Ida B. Wells-"Let it Resound, Loud as the Rolling Sea"

Recorded Friday March 10, 2023, 9PM.

Jud Hendrix, Executive Dir. of Interfaith Paths to Peace in Louisville, KY, describes his work with organizations throughout Louisville to reduce gun violence -- in particular, helping put on a Community-Wide Summit to be held March 28 and 29, 2023, as well as hosting ongoing violence intervention training sessions.

This week we’re chatting with Lygia Day Peñaflor, the author of several YA novels, her most recent being Creep: A Love Story.

If you’ve listened to the radio or any kind of streaming service, you’ve almost certainly heard Radiohead’s song Creep, and it was this song that partly inspired Lygia’s story. We chat with Lygia about obsession among the young adult crowd and how her work as a teacher of child stars on television and movie sets such as Gossip Girl and Boardwalk Empire helped her see that she could live out her dream of being an author.

Creep: A Love Story is a Junior Library Guild Gold Standard Selection and Publisher’s Weekly called it “spine-chillingly disturbing.”

For show notes for any episode, go to our website at www.perksofbeingabooklover.com. We are also on Instagram @perksofbeingabookloverpod and on FB Perks of Being a Book Lover

Books Mentioned In This Episode:

1- Creep: A Love Story by Lygia Day Peñaflor

2- Maybe You Should Talk to Someone by Lori Gottlieb

3- Unscripted Joss Byrd by Lygia Day Peñaflor

4- All of This is True by Lygia Day Peñaflor

5- You by Caroline Kepnes

6- The Devil Wears Prada by Lauren Weisberger

7- Macbeth by William Shakespeare

8- Atonement by Ian McEwan

9- The Body by Stephen King

10-Mystic River by Dennis LeHane

11- Fleishman is in Trouble by Taffy Brodesser-Akner

12- His Dark Materials by Philip Pullman

13- Nothing To See Here by Kevin Wilson

14- Edie Richter is Not Alone by Rebecca Handler

18- Now is Not the Time to Panic by Kevin Wilson

19- The Golden Couple by Greer Hendricks and Sarah Pekkanen

20- Upright Women Wanted by Sarah Gailey

Movies/Shows mentioned--

1- Banshees of Inisherin (2022)

2- Shrinking (Apple +, 2023)

3- The Devil Wears Prada (2006)

4- Atonement (2007)

5- Stand By Me (1986)

6- Mystic River (2003)

7- Fleishman is in Trouble (HULU, 2022)

8- His Dark Materials (2022)

9- Stranger Things (Netflix 2022)

Dr. Yanilda Gonzalez, Assistant Professor of Public Policy at the Harvard Kennedy School, talked with the Community Control Now crew about her book "Authoritarian Police in Democracy: Contested Security in Latin America" which studies the persistence of police forces as authoritarian enclaves (defined as systems that use violence as a main tactic, that are not beholden to the rule of law).

Topics discussed:

- Dr. Gonzalez's research studying policing in Brazil, Colombia, Argentina

- The limitations of tracking police scandals as a way to build power in social justice movements

BRIGHT GREEN LIES, WITH MAX WILBERT | HOW THE ENVIRONMENTAL MOVEMENT LOST ITS WAY AND WHAT WE CAN DO ABOUT IT

HART HAGAN: My guest is Max Wilbert who, along with co-authors Lierre Keith and Derrick Jensen, wrote the book “Bright Green Lies, How the Environmental Movement Lost Its Way and What We Can Do About It.”

Max, how are you today?

MAX WILBERT: I'm doing good, Hart. Nice to be with you.

HART HAGAN: It's great to be with you. I'm a big fan of your effort to Protect Thacker Pass (Nevada), as well as your book and your movie. Max, what motivated you to write the book “Bright Green Lies, How the Environmental Movement Lost Its Way and What We Can Do About It.”

MAX WILBERT: Well, in a way, it was a very personal motivation. I started to become an environmentalist at a pretty young age, and I was taught from the very beginning that solar panels, wind turbines, electric vehicles were going to save us. I'm lucky that I grew up in an environment where I was surrounded by older activists--grassroots environmentalists--who hung on to the older values of the environmental movement, things like moderation, reducing consumption, critiquing consumption and critiquing capitalism and the role of advertising in shaping our so-called needs.

So I never fully bought into the idea that these technologies were going to save us.

At best--or at worst I should say--I only thought of them as stopgap measures to reduce harms as we transition to a sustainable way of life. But what I saw begin to happen very rapidly throughout the last 20 years, is a transition where the environmental movement--which had been once focused on protecting habitat and defending wild places and wild creatures--has shifted almost entirely to focus on global warming and specifically on addressing global warming through technology.

I see this as a huge problem, not because I support fossil fuels--or I believe global warming isn't a problem. It's the exact opposite. It's because I believe these are inadequate solutions to global warming and because I think they're ultimately destructive to the planet as a whole. They're counterproductive to the environmental movement's goals.

But of course, they’ve become very popular--these technological so-called solutions. And I think it's mainly because they're profitable industrial products that you can sell.

There's a lot of money involved. That money has gotten governments on board. It's gotten corporations on board. It's led to a lot of foundation funding and big philanthropy money for nonprofits that promote this type of thing. That has led to the entire environmental movement--the entire climate movement--being focused almost with blinders on this one single approach.

HART HAGAN: I bet the environmental movement has welcomed you with open arms and given you nothing but positive feedback. How has that gone?

MAX WILBERT: It's a mixed bag because I would say that at the grassroots level, there are a lot of environmentalists who understand these issues, and who have never lost sight of the fundamental values of this movement, a love and reverence for the planet and for other beings and creatures around us. There is a real criticism and mistrust--justified mistrust--of technological solutions and especially solutions that are led by corporations and major international institutions.

Those people I think understand somewhat intuitively that the technological solutions to global warming are a farce to some extent.

On February 24, China offered a 12-point peace plan, in an attempt to end the war in Ukraine. President Biden said the plan was "not rational."

Here are the first four points of the plan.

1. Respecting the sovereignty of all countries. Universally recognized international law, including the purposes and principles of the United Nations Charter, must be strictly observed. The sovereignty, independence and territorial integrity of all countries must be effectively upheld. All countries, big or small, strong or weak, rich or poor, are equal members of the international community. All parties should jointly uphold the basic norms governing international relations and defend international fairness and justice. Equal and uniform application of international law should be promoted, while double standards must be rejected. 

2. Abandoning the Cold War mentality. The security of a country should not be pursued at the expense of others. The security of a region should not be achieved by strengthening or expanding military blocs. The legitimate security interests and concerns of all countries must be taken seriously and addressed properly. There is no simple solution to a complex issue. All parties should, following the vision of common, comprehensive, cooperative and sustainable security and bearing in mind the long-term peace and stability of the world, help forge a balanced, effective and sustainable European security architecture. All parties should oppose the pursuit of one’s own security at the cost of others’ security, prevent bloc confrontation, and work together for peace and stability on the Eurasian Continent.

3. Ceasing hostilities. Conflict and war benefit no one. All parties must stay rational and exercise restraint, avoid fanning the flames and aggravating tensions, and prevent the crisis from deteriorating further or even spiraling out of control. All parties should support Russia and Ukraine in working in the same direction and resuming direct dialogue as quickly as possible, so as to gradually deescalate the situation and ultimately reach a comprehensive ceasefire. 

4. Resuming peace talks. Dialogue and negotiation are the only viable solution to the Ukraine crisis. All efforts conducive to the peaceful settlement of the crisis must be encouraged and supported. The international community should stay committed to the right approach of promoting talks for peace, help parties to the conflict open the door to a political settlement as soon as possible, and create conditions and platforms for the resumption of negotiation. China will continue to play a constructive role in this regard.

This week on Sustainability Now!, your host, Justin Mog, takes you on a hike through our region’s newest park with Doug Scott, and Kristin Faurest who are part of the team working to develop Origin Park, a unique urban park set in over 400 acres on the north shore of the Ohio River, located on the Indiana side. This new park will celebrate and embrace the unpredictable Ohio River and the floods that come from it. It’s a forgotten landscape that will be restored so the over 1.2 million people who live in the area can come, relax, explore and enjoy its raw beauty filled with large green fields, bike and walking paths and much more. Learn more at http://originpark.org

Doug Scott is the Director of Development for River Heritage Conservancy. He has 25 years of business advancement, fundraising and non-profit leadership. As an avid outdoorsman, helping to create Origin park is the perfect intersection of personal and professional experience.

Kristin Faurest is a member of the River Heritage Consultancy team working to make Origin Park everyone's next favorite destination. She is a public garden professional and an adjunct lecturer in landscape architecture who is author or co-author of several books, most recently ""Community Built: Art, Construction, Preservation and Place. She is also a proud returned Peace Corps volunteer.

As always, our feature is followed by your community action calendar for the week, so get your calendars out and get ready to take action for sustainability NOW!

Sustainability Now! is hosted by Dr. Justin Mog and airs on Forward Radio, 106.5fm, WFMP-LP Louisville, every Monday at 6pm and repeats Tuesdays at 12am and 10am. Find us at http://forwardradio.org

The music in this podcast is courtesy of the local band Appalatin and is used by permission. Explore their delightful music at http://appalatin.com

Community Control Now- Louisville spoke with Dr. Jared Ball -Communications Professor at Morgan State University Co Contributor with Black Power Media and imixwhatilike and author of " The Myth and Propaganda of the Black Buying Power".

The CCN crew talked to Dr. Ball about a few topics:

- The strength of the myth of 'black buying power' throughout the diaspora.

- The state of today's Black radical tradition

- A brief discussion on the PBS hip hop documentary