Making Contact

Spoken word. It’s poetry…it’s hip-hop…and increasingly, it’s the chosen means of expression for today’s youth. On this edition, to celebrate National Poetry month, we bring you performances by the poets and students of Youth Speaks, from their annual event in honor of another master orator, Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.

With the passage of New York’s Domestic Workers Bill of Rights in 2010, workers are now organizing in California and other states to win basic rights and protections long denied to this labor force. On this edition, we look at past and present struggles of domestic workers.

Honey bees help pollinate 1 in every 3 bites we eat. But they’re fighting to survive, in a world filled with pesticides and parasites. We’ll learn about colony collapse disorder and hear from beekeepers, researchers, and gardeners who are trying to protect the honey bee.

We’ve all seen how high water devastated New Orleans. But another historic Jewel, Venice, Italy, is struggling to plan for sea level rise. On this edition, Producer Zoe Sullivan takes us to both Venice and New Orleans, to look at some creative solutions they’re trying, and what other coastal cities might do as the effects of climate change set in.

Author Glenn Greenwald talks about his book, ‘With Liberty and Justice for Some.’ Americans claim to live under the rule of law; that no one is above our system of justice. But as we witness more exceptions to that rule, there are growing doubts that fairness is a value we as a nation, still hold dear.

It’s not even the crime that counts sometimes. It’s that little box on an application that asks you to reveal if you have a criminal history. Checking that box can mean the difference between failure and success. We look at the nationwide movement to ‘ban-the-box’, and make criminal histories less of a stigma.

A look at pregnancy, and motherhood, inside US jails and prisons. What does the huge number of incarcerated women in prison foretell for the next generation of America’s kids?

40 years after the Clean Water Act became law, the landscape of our water supply has been transformed, and regulation is being framed by some as an enemy of progress. On this edition, we look at how we manage our water in the twenty-first century. Are we doing too little, or are we trying to control too much?

What’s the connection between the increase in chronic diseases, mental illness and drug addiction in our society today? On this edition, Dr. Gabor Mate talks about the relationship between mind and body health – and what the rise of capitalism has done to destroy both.

Occupy Wall Street has changed the conversation about the distribution of wealth. So what now? What policy changes and initiatives should the movement be pushing for? Economics Professor Richard Wolff has some answers.