KPFA - Making Contact

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The post Special Fund Drive Programming – September 27, 2024 appeared first on KPFA.

Today’s episode of Making Contact is preempted by fall 2024 special fund drive programming.

The post Special Fund Drive Programming appeared first on KPFA.

Today’s episode of Making Contact is preempted by a 2024 fall fund drive special.

The post Special Fall Fund Drive Programming appeared first on KPFA.

The attacks on Imane Khelif’s gender at this year’s 2024 Paris Olympics is not new. In fact, the focus on women’s appearance and gender expression goes back to the founding of the Olympics, the minute women entered elite sports.

We talk to Rose Eveleth, host and producer of the podcast Tested, about the history of sex testing in the Olympics; why it existed in the first place; why there’s no easy way to classify the natural, biological variation that exists in human beings; and why we might want to consider new ways of organizing athletes that is less sexist, racist, and more accepting of genders outside of a simple binary.

The post The Problematic History of Gender Testing at the Olympics appeared first on KPFA.

The last few years have seen a wave of labor organizing, as it becomes more and more clear to workers that what they do is not expendable but actually the heart of every business. From walkouts to unionization, workers from Starbucks to Amazon to your local coffee shop have come together to build and exercise their power. In this episode, we explore the issues that led people to organize their workplaces, the ins and outs and ups and downs of the process, and the backlash.

On the forefront of the next labor revolution, we visit a coffee shop in Maine called Little Dog, whose staff starts a union. Then we talk to Robert Chlala from the UCLA Labor Center about the rise in unionization efforts among service workers and the social and cultural ethos in a post lockdown country that have led to this new wave of the labor movement.

GUESTS:

Robert Chlala – Assistant Professor, CSU Long Beach & Visiting Researcher at UCLA Labor Center

The post The Rise of the New Labor Movement (encore) appeared first on KPFA.

On today’s episode, we look more closely at two stories that underscore the importance of affordable housing.

First, we’ll examine what the recent Supreme Court ruling in Grants Pass v. Johnson means for unhoused people who are living on the streets and how historical disinvestment in affordable and public housing has created our current homelessness wave.

Then, we’ll hear about the fight to legalize and preserve one important type of affordable housing units in New York City – basement apartments – and how the escalating impacts of climate change are making that campaign more urgent than ever.

GUESTS:

Paul Boden, executive director of the Western Regional Advocacy Project

Annetta Seecharran, executive director of Chhaya Community Development Corporation

The post We need affordable housing now! appeared first on KPFA.

On today’s episode, we speak with Bay-Area-based comedian, writer, and actor Karinda Dobbins about the release of her debut comedy album, Black & Blue. In Black & Blue, Karinda shares personal stories, finding humor in the most ordinary moments of her daily life, including her girlfriend’s arbitrary policy on household pests, the changes hipsters have brought to Oakland, and a Black woman’s unique packing list for hiking.

The post Karinda Dobbins: Black and Blue appeared first on KPFA.

In part 1 of our series on water in the Central Valley of California we visited a town called East Orosi, which has been fighting for clean water for over 20 years. This week we turn our attention to their sewage system, which is also falling apart. Why has it been so difficult for East Orosi to get clean drinking water and fix its sewage problems?

To answer that question we take a look at the entities that run things like sewage and water in unincorporated towns all across California. They’re called Community Utility Districts. Community Utility Districts are often one of the only forms of self governance in unincorporated towns. But they’re staffed by volunteers, they’re underfunded, and they’re trying to share a vital resource, water, which is also slowly disappearing in the San Joaquin Valley.

We talk about the problems with Community Utility Districts and ways to save them.

GUESTS:

Berta Diaz Ochoa – community member of East Orosi

The post East Orosi’s Long Struggle for Water (part 2): The Role of Community Utility Districts appeared first on KPFA.

In the late 1990s, psychologist Dr. Joseph Gone, a professor and member of the Aaniiih Gros Ventre tribe, returned home during his doctoral training to the Fort Belknap Reservation in north central Montana. There, he set aside eurocentric concepts of psychology he was learning in school and instead asked tribal members how mental illness is addressed using traditional Indigenous practices. What he learned changed the trajectory of his career. Listen to find out how he helped bring precolonial cultural and spiritual practices into substance use disorder treatment in contemporary Indigenous settings.

GUEST:

Dr. Joseph Gone, psychologist and interdisciplinary social scientist at Harvard University and member of the Aaniiih-Gros Ventre tribal Nation of Montana.

The post Culture and Spirituality as Substance Use Treatment in Indigenous Communities appeared first on KPFA.

East Orosi hasn’t had safe drinking water in over 20 years. The water is full of nitrates, runoff from industrial agriculture, which is harmful to human health. The community has taken action to find a solution, from lobbying at the state capital to working with neighboring towns.

And they may finally have one. New California laws, passed in the last five years, have opened up funding to build water infrastructure in small towns like East Orosi. But even as laws and funding develop, implementation has been challenging.

We visit East Orosi and talk to Berta Diaz Ochoa about what it’s like living without clean drinking water and the solutions on the horizon. This is part one of a two part series.

GUESTS:

Susana De Anda – Co-Founder and Executive Director of the Community Water Center;

The post East Orosi’s Struggle for Clean Drinking Water (part 1) appeared first on KPFA.