KPFTOJ

Rich Levy and Krupa Parikh from Inprint Houston join OJ

Comedian and host of Whiskey Brothers joins us on Open Journal

David Leslie of the Rothko Chapel joins KPFTOJ

Listen in for a conversation with voting registration activist Tamara Sell

Cherry Steinwender, Founder/Co-director, Center for the Healing of Racism & Joel Goza, author/activist Can our current racial and ethnic divide be turned around? Recent events surrounding the police murder of George Floyd and others have brought tens of thousands into the streets. The BLM movement has galvanized the moment. Images of protestors confronted, attacked and gassed by military units in our nation’s capital have exacerbated old wounds and brought others into focus. The Houston-based Center for the Healing of Racism is dedicated to the healing of racism through education and empowerment. The organization’s roots go back to 1989 when an ethnically diverse group of individuals met in Houston to discuss the impacts of racism. Founder and Co-director, Cherry Steinwender of the Center for the Healing of Racism,is with us. Joel Goza is a writer, minister and advocate who has lived with his wife and children in Houston’s 5th Ward for over a decade, where he has provided leadership in urban redevelopment, immigration and educational reform initiatives. He has written for The North Star, The Houston Chronicle, and Salon. His first book, “America’s Unholy Ghosts: The Racist Roots of Our Faith and Politics” - is an examination of the religious and secular thinkers who inspired our Founding Fathers and leaders addiction to racist and classist ideas.

Loreta Kovacic is known for her virtuoso performances from Mucky Duck to Carnegie Hall. She calls herself a “three for one special”: pianist, singer-songwriter and a storyteller. She started out as a classical pianist in her native country of Croatia. After immigrating to Texas and graduating with a Doctorate in Music from Rice University, she worked as a performer and a teacher, later adding the "Alchemist Piano Theatre" children's theatre. She has created 7 albums over the years and her "Brother Tadpole Classics" was nominated for a Grammy in 2011. This pandemic time found her recently creating her first album based on her original one-act tragic play, The House of Gilda Haas, set in 2019 in Houston Northside immigrant neighborhood, the story revisits Federico Garcia Lorca’s classic play La Casa de Bernarda Alba with a new, contemporary twist. She has a flair for transformative work and is sometimes found performing in a style she likes to call: Texas Slav. A friend of KPFT, an HISD teacher at Burbank Middle School, we are pleased to welcome Loreta Kovacic to this edition of Open Journal.

In a different time, Ginny Stogner McDavid would be jetting off to here and beyond as a crew member on a United Airlines flight. In addition to her duties as flight attendant whose career goes back to 1990 and Continental Airlines, Ginny is the first woman to serve as president of the Harris County Labor Assembly. She’s with us this evening to discuss her dual role as airline employee and labor leader, as well as the struggles caused by Covid-19. And, with the election only a couple of months away, she likely has some ideas of who labor is supporting this time around. Welcome Ginny and thank you for joining us on Open Journal.

The United States Postal Service(USPS) has existed since 1775 and the first Postmaster General was Benjamin Franklin. The USPS aka the Post Office, delivers over 48% of all the mail in the world; it has a fleet of over 228,000 vehicles; processes and delivers 182 million pieces of first class mail daily (~20M/hour); for $.55 you can send a letter to anywhere in the USA; it employs over 600,000 people (497K career/136K contract ~2019), generates $236M in revenue per day and costs the American taxpayer ZERO $.
Gordon Anderson is a retired postal worker with 37 years as a letter carrier in Houston, Texas and served 10 years here as union representative in NALC- National Association of Letters Carriers, Local 283, with the aim of upholding the rights of letter carriers who were at times subject to management injustices. Gordon is currently the host of the Black on Both Sides radio program, airing every Friday from noon until 2:00pm on KPFT-HD2. His show primarily focuses on issues impacting diaspora Blacks from a Pan Africanist perspective.
Jamie Partridge is a retired letter carrier from Portland, Oregon. He is an organizer with CPWU - Communities and Postal Workers United, a national network of local coalitions to save the postal service (cpwunited.com), a member of Rank and File Postal Organizers, a national network organizing to save the postal service during the pandemic (FB: Save Our Postal Service)
In the past, he served as shop steward, editor, organizing chair, and political director, NALC -National Association of Letter Carriers, branch 82. He is currently on the local union executive board.

Karen Warren has a job that many people envy. As the lead Houston Astros photographer for the Houston Chronicle, she spends countless summer nights near the dugout in Minute Maid Park photographing baseball games. Since landing at the Chronicle in 1997, she’s photographed more than 1,500 Astros games. She has also worked at 14 Super Bowls, and covered the 1996 Summer Olympics in Atlanta and a Little League World Series. In addition to keeping her eye on sports, her other duties include taking portraits of the Chronicle’s Pets of the Week.
Karen was there during the loud, exciting games when the Astros won the World Series in 2017 and lost the series in 2019. Today Minute Maid Park is a much quieter place as the Astros and their opponents play out the season before a few officials and a small contingent of media. Karen is with us this week to tell us what it’s like to cover Major League Baseball these days.

Among the methods used to help slow the spread of the COVID-19 virus (pandemic) - beyond hand-washing, social distancing, masking up and getting tested is the process known as contact tracing. If someone tests positive for COVID-19, a contact tracer from the Houston Health department will contact you by phone, email or text message. Making a choice to work with contact tracers helps protect your family and your community by slowing the spread of COVID-19. It involves tracking down persons who may have interacted with someone who has contracted the virus and informing them they should self-quarantine, among other things. The City of Houston has hired hundreds of contact tracers to assist in getting a handle on this deadly pandemic. Many of us have only heard anecdotal information about this process; some of it perhaps not fully accurate, some even incorrect or misleading. Joining us this week on OJ to discuss their job as contact tracers are Basel Simon, a graduate of Michael E. Debakey HS and current junior at Vaughn College in NYC as well as Jackson Cloyd, a graduate of Houston Academy for International Studies (HAIS) and junior at the University of Houston. They are both global citizens and Eagle Scouts that have served as friends and volunteers to KPFT. Basel and Jackson, welcome back and thank you for joining us today.