Forward Radio podcasts

Michael Slider is the executive director of Kentucky Citizens for Democracy, Oldham County Branch. Kentucky Citizens for Democracy has become the go-to group in Kentucky media and other organizations looking for information on the connections between immigration/ICE and Kentucky jails. Michael Slider has been featured in the Louisville Courier-Journal, the Lexington Herald-Leader and Jeffersonville Indiana’s News and Tribune, Forward Kentucky, the Oldham Era, WAVE 3, WDRB, WLKY and WHAS News. Michael Slider has a blog on Medium.com where he writes on political and societal issues, education, and spirituality. He spoke at rallies in Kentucky at Shelbyville, Louisville, and Lexington. He ran as an independent candidate for U.S. Congress in 2004 in Kentucky’s 4th District. He is a retired, Kentucky high school social studies teacher and principal.

Forward Radio was a proud media sponsor of Louisville VegFest - Kentucky’s premier celebration of all things vegan - on Saturday, September 6, 2025 from noon-6pm at the Mellwood Art Center! Formerly known as Bluegrass VegFest, this all-vegan, community-focused event highlights the joy of plant-based eating and conscious, sustainable living. Enjoy delicious food from regional restaurants and food trucks, craft beer and cocktails, inspiring speaker talks, a live cooking demo, an amazing lineup of vendors, kids’ activities, educational exhibits, and so much more. In addition to interviewing several of the vendors and participants, we brought you full, wall-to-wall live coverage of all of this year's speakers, including:

12:15pm Kennedy Little, Food Empowerment Project

Kennedy Little from Lexington is a senior pursuing pre-Law and Agribusiness with a minor in Public Administration at Morehead State University. After going vegan in 2019, Kennedy began to use her background in agriculture organizing to help change the unethical norms many agriculture workers face. Kennedy works as a Youth Advocacy Team Member for the vegan and food justice nonprofit known as the Food Empowerment Project.

1:15pm DOMINICK THOMPSON, Activist, Athlete, Creator, Author

Dominick Thompson is a powerhouse voice in the vegan movement - an Ironman triathlete, social entrepreneur, and animal rights activist who has inspired hundreds of thousands through his story and his work. After making the life-changing decision to go vegetarian while incarcerated 24 years ago, he’s gone on to become a leader in the No-Meat Athlete movement, launch his wellness brand Eat What Elephants Eat, and publish a cookbook with the same title. He’s also the real-life inspiration behind the upcoming film Land of Wolves.

2:15pm BECKI STREIF, Founder of TRIBE ANIMAL SANCTUARY

Becki Streif is the co-founder and managing director of Tribe Sanctuary, a 10-acre haven just outside Louisville that provides lifelong homes to rescued cows, pigs, horses, goats, and other farmed animals - many with special needs. After watching Forks Over Knives in 2013, Becki and her husband, Greg, went vegan and began what would become a life-changing journey into animal rescue. Becki’s talk, “Creating Sanctuary: Saving Lives and Building Hope,” will take you behind the scenes of what it takes to turn compassion into a mission, build a sanctuary from the ground up.

3:15PM TODD ANDERSON, Cooking Demo by Chef & Cookbook Author @TURNIP VEGAN

Todd Anderson, better known as @TurnipVegan, is a self-taught chef, content creator, and cookbook author who’s inspiring hundreds of thousands to see plants in a whole new way. With nearly a million Instagram followers, Todd’s laid-back, creative approach to vegan cooking has made him one of the most beloved voices in the plant-based space. After watching a life-changing documentary, Todd transitioned to a vegan lifestyle and hasn’t looked back. Now based in Joshua Tree, he’s busy creating vibrant, flavorful vegan recipes and even building his dream greenhouse in the desert - all while showing the world just how delicious plants can be. His new cookbook is It’s All About Plantz & Mushroomz

4:15pm NEMANJA GOLUBOVIC, Founder & CEO of Chicago vegan restaurant KALE MY NAME, Host of KALE CREW, the hit vegan travel and food show streaming on UnchainedTV.

Known for his infectious energy and passion, Nemanja has become one of the most influential voices in the vegan movement, inspiring hundreds of thousands through his restaurants, media projects, and advocacy for animals. His Chicago-based restaurant Kale My Name has been crowned “America’s Vegan Restaurant of the Year” by VegOut Magazine, won VegNews’ Veggie Award for “Best Vegan Casual Restaurant,” and has earned national recognition from PETA and the Chicago Reader. At VegFest, Nemanja filed an episode of Kale Krew’s new season and shared how we can harness the power of social media to create meaningful change, from raising awareness and sparking conversations to inspiring action and helping build a more compassionate world.

Full details: https://vegkentucky.org/vegfest

Patty and Brian discuss Nicholas Carr's new book, but they get sidetracked into hate-reading.

In this conversation from May 2024, Dr. Ricky L. Jones, an esteemed professor of Pan-African studies at the University of Louisville, discusses education, party affiliations, and the enduring legacy of historical figures with Lamont Collins, host of the Roots 101 Podcast and founder in 2020, of the Roots 101 African-American Museum. Located in downtown Louisville at 124 N 1st St., Roots 101 is a place where visitors can see themselves in history, explore the African-American story in its entirety, and gain a greater understanding of the achievements, cultural contributions, and experiences of our community. Get ready for an enlightening exploration of the past, present, and future. Learn more and watch these conversations at https://www.roots-101.org/podcast

This program features Andrew Owen, Louisville's 9th District Councilman, tackling two topics: (1) Changes to Louisville's elections as a result of passage of HB 388 in the Kentucky General Assembly. Starting in 2026, Mayoral and Metro Council elections will be non-partisan; and (2) How Councilman Owen envisions making housing affordable and plentiful, especially in the city center, so that less people will end up homeless.

We bring you something a little lighter and more fanciful on this Labor Day holiday on Sustainability Now!, as your host, Justin Mog, shelves his plans for colonizing Mars with Barry Zalph, retired engineer and environmental advocate. Tune in for a conversation that will debunk some of the myths about our ability to successfully settle humans on Mars and, hopefully, help you understand just how precious Earth is and how important it is that we focus all of our energy and innovation into protecting the only truly habitable planet we know of.

The ideas for colonizing Mars fall into two categories: Living underground for protection from the radiation that bombards the surface; and terraforming Mars to make it more suitable for human habitation. Tune in to hear more about Barry’s top ten list of the stupidest assumptions behind the “terraforming” idea:

1) We can increase the density of the Martian atmosphere by 160x;

2) We can shift the Martian atmosphere from 96% CO2 to match the earth's atmosphere;

3) We can control the CO2 concentration of the reconstituted atmosphere to 350 ppm +/- 100 ppm, outside of which humans can't function;

4) We can bring enough organisms from earth to build not one but many diverse, resilient ecosystems there, so that inevitable fluctuations in ecosystem health don't collapse all life on the planet;

5) We can bring enough small and large animals, not just microbes and plants, to reproduce without inbreeding;

6) We can function well with the day length, year length, sky color, solar radiation, solar wind, weather, clouds, gravity, magnetic field, etc. all different from that with which we have evolved for millions of years;

7) The first group of colonists, no more than a couple hundred, didn't die of boredom, claustrophobia, mutual murder, and alienation while living underground and slaving toward an impossible terraformed utopian ideal;

8) The resident population of Earth would keep busting their asses to provide the ludicrous amounts of energy, materials, and labor over at least 100 years in an attempt to fulfill this dream;

9) There is no life on Mars, or any life on Mars can coexist with our living systems or deserves to be killed off to make room for us; and

10) It is ethically sound for us to colonize another planet. What could possibly go wrong??

For more, check out:

Book: A City on Mars (2023), Kelly and Zach Weinersmith - humorous and well-researched. Kelly Weinersmith is a professor of Biology at Rice University in Houston. https://acityonmars.com/

Podcast episode: “Infinite Monkey Cage” episode dated 7/16/2025, “Should We Settle in Space,” with panelists Tim Peake, Kelly Weinersmith, and Alan Davies. https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m002fwpz

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 https://forwardradio.org

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

Today’s Solutions to Violence program features a panel discussion concerning the now 1.06 Trillion dollar military budget, produced by the Quincy Institute for Responsible Statecraft and titled “The Trillion Dollar Pentagon Budget: Boondoggle or Beneficial?” Ben Freeman, director of the Democratizing Foreign Policy program at the Quincy Institute, will introduce the panel and moderate the discussion. The Panel includes Willaim Hartung, Julia Gledhill and Veronique De Rugy.

On the evening of August 19th, 2025 at the Filson Historical Society, Dr. David Narrett, professor of history at the University of Texas at Arlington, led a compelling discussion of his latest work, The Cherokees in War & Peace, which traces the Cherokee tribe’s resilience from early English contact to the Trail of Tears. Through vivid personal stories, the book reveals how the Cherokees overcame immense challenges to forge a unified nation. This conversation explores a powerful story of survival and perseverance through a thoughtful discussion. Presented by the Filson as a part of the James J. Holmberg Lecture Series. The evening began with an introduction by the Filson's CEO, Patrick Lewis. Learn more at https://filsonhistorical.org Watch a recording of the evening at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lOlmJuOFuWs

The Filson and Forward Radio are located on the ancestral homeland of the Eastern Band of the Cherokee, the Osage Nation, and the Shawnee (including the Absentee-Shawnee Tribe, the Eastern Shawnee Tribe, and the Shawnee Tribe), who suffered genocide and forced displacement from these lands. We give thanks for the longstanding relationship that Indigenous Nations have to this land and seek to learn from it in order to heal our own broken relationship with the land. We lament the historical and ongoing injustices that black, indigenous, and people of color endure in this country and around the world. May our words and deeds reflect this reality and contribute to fostering more respectful relationships. Learn more about native lands at https://native-land.ca.

On Truth to Power each week, we bring you community conversations like you won't hear anywhere else! Truth to Power airs every Friday at 9pm, Saturday at 11am, and Sunday at 4pm on Louisville's grassroots, community radio station, Forward Radio 106.5fm WFMP and live streams at https://www.forwardradio.org. If you like what you hear, share it with someone, donate to keep us on-air, and get involved as a volunteer!

What time of day is best to take pills for high blood-pressure? There is new research indicating that nighttime dosage of hypertension pills might be best, but is it true? Then hear an interview with particle physicist Dr. Harry Cliff, about how the current 'Standard Model of Particle Physics' is insufficient. What gaps are there in our knowledge of subatomic particles and energies? Thanks to the 'Big Picture Science' podcast for permission to rebroadcast this modified version of their August 11th show: https://radio.seti.org/beyond-the-standard-model.

‘Bench Talk: The Week in Science’ is a weekly program that airs on WFMP Louisville FORward Radio 106.5 FM (forwardradio.org) every Monday at 7:30 pm, Tuesday at 11:30 am, and Wednesday at 7:30 am.

Visit our Facebook page for links to the articles discussed in this episode: https://www.facebook.com/BenchTalkRadio

Music ('Homeroad' by Kai Engel) provided on public domain by SoundCloud: https://soundcloud.com/kaiengel/homeroad'.

Anita Davis is a native Kentuckian, raised in Meade County. She has a BS in mathematics education and advanced degrees in educational administration. After teaching high school math for nine years, Anita served as an assistant principal in Marion County. She later served as Asst Supt in Elizabethtown Independent Schools before moving to the Oldham County schools district. There she served as the Asst Supt of Curriculum and Instruction and as the Chief Academic Officer before retiring.

After watching the attacks on our democratic norms and institutions, she decided to join Kentucky Citizens for Democracy, a grassroots organization based in Oldham County. She currently serves as the Associate Director of Kentucky Citizens for Democracy..