Midday

It's time for another visit with Midday's theater critic J. Wynn Rousuck, who stops by each week with her reviews of Maryland's regional stage. Today, she joins guest host Ashley Sterner to tell us about the world-premiere production of Ghost/Writer, the new drama by trans Black playwright Dane Figueroa Edidi at Rep Stage in Columbia.

The theater's program describes Edidi's new work as "part history play, part ghost story." "Ghost/Writer spans time and place," it continues, "to examine the intersections of race and gender, inviting us to explore the role of love, justice and joy in a world where the spirits of the past have yet to be laid to rest."

Directed by Danielle A. Drakes, the play stars Edidi herself, along with co-star Chris Stinson.

Ghost/Writer continues at Rep Stage through February 26. Click the theater link for more information.

Ghost/Writer is the second-to-last offering from Rep Stage. After a creative, 30-year partnership, Howard County Community College will cease hosting the professional theater company following its April 27-May 14 run of Falsettos, William Finn and James Lapine’s groundbreaking, Tony Award-winning musical.

Email us at [email protected], tweet us: @MiddayWYPR, or call us at 410-662-8780.

Welcome to a science and tech edition of Midday, with guest host Ashley Sterner sitting in once again for Tom Hall.

Earlier this month, four unidentified flying objects were spotted moving across U.S. airspace. The first object was eventually identified as a surveillance balloon deployed by the Chinese government, and was shot down once it had floated over the Atlantic coast. The other three objects are believed to have been launched by private companies conducting research or recreational activities.

In a press conference yesterday, President Biden clarified why we are seeing more aerial phenomena and how he plans to address the matter.

If you thought spy balloons were new and unusual, think again. These high-altitude tools have been in use since the 1950’s and are now in use by governments and private companies for surveillance and a multitude of other reasons. Will the new radar tracking of U.S. airspace lead to findings of more aerial objects and phenomena?

Joining Ashley is John Herrman, a staff writer for New York Magazine, and the author of a recent piece for the mag called “Spy Balloons Are a Growth Industry.” John Herrman joins us today on Zoom from Brooklyn, New York.

Artificial Intelligence, or "AI" is all around us, affecting our daily lives through iterations like Siri, Alexa and Roomba. But an emerging field called generative AI made a major splash recently with the release of Chat GPT, a computer program or chatbot that uses AI to respond to questions and compile information as a human would.

Here to discuss the promise — and potential perils —of generative AI is Tinglong Dai, Professor of Operations Management at Johns Hopkins University’s Carey Business School.

Professor Tinglong Dai joins Ashley on Zoom.

In our final segment today, Ashley turns to the subject of human-robot interaction. Different types of robots have become familar features in our lives, such as Roombas, self-driving cars or robotic children's dolls. But will robots ever evolve to become friends that will laugh, hug and cry with us?

Joining Ashley to discuss this is Kathryn Hulick, a science writer who wrote an article for Science News Explores called “Can A Robot Ever Become Your Friend?” She’s also the author of numerous educational books for children. Her most recent book about science and technology is called “Welcome to the Future: Robot Friends, Fusion Energy, Pet Dinosaurs and More.”

Kathryn Hulick joins us on Zoom from Hopkinton, Massachusetts.

Email us at [email protected], tweet us: @MiddayWYPR, or call us at 410-662-8780.

On Midday today, guest host Ashley Sterner spotlights some of the legislative, health policy and spiritual developments in transgender rights here in Maryland.

Democratic leaders in the General Assembly have made strengthening abortion rights in Maryland a top priority.This session, they’re expected to approve a bill that would create a state constitutional right to abortion access. If the amendment passes, voters will decide its fate next fall.

This comes as abortion rights are being restricted in many states, following last year’s Supreme Court ruling overturning Roe V. Wade.Governor Wes Moore wants Maryland to stand against this tide and be what he calls a “safe haven for abortion rights.”

Abortion rights aren’t the only rights under assault in many parts of the country. Many Republican-led state legislatures are also working to strip rights from transgender people.

More than 150 anti-trans bills have been proposed around the country, many focused on younger trans people… but not exclusively. There are bills restricting and criminalizing crucial medical care for youths and adults, bills preventing trans people from performing in public, and more.

Some Maryland leaders are working to shore up the rights – and protect the dignity – of trans people here in our state. And this hour, we’ll be taking a look at two pieces of legislation that would do just that.A

We’ll start with the Trans Health Equity Act, which got its first hearing before a House of Delegates committee on Tuesday.

Ashley's first guests are Democratic Del. Anne Kaiser (District 14 -Montgomery Co.), who is sponsoring the bill in the Maryland House, and Dr. Helene Hedian, director of Clinical Education at Johns Hopkins School of Medicine’s Center for Transgender Health, and Assistant Vice Chair for LGBTQ+ Equity and Education.

Studies show that transgender people suffer significantly higher rates of violence while incarcerated than the rest of the prison population.And members of the General Assembly are looking to address that, with a bill called the Transgender Respect, Agency, and Dignity Act. It’ll get its first hearing in the House Judiciary Committee next week.

Earlier, Ashley spoke with the co-conveners of the Trans Rights Advocacy Coalition: Jamie Grace Alexander, a Black trans woman activist and multidisciplinary artist who also serves as policy coordinator for Free State Justice, and the community director of the Baltimore Trans Alliance; and Margo Quinlan, a trans woman activist and the director of Youth & Older Adult Policy at the Mental Health Association of Maryland.

In today's final segment, Ashley speaks with Pastor Emily Scott. Pastor Emily currently serves two congregations who have formed a unique partnership: St. Mark’s Evangelical Lutheran Church and Dreams and Visions, in Baltimore. These two congregations, one old, one new, are sharing a building, pastoral staff, and a commitment to their neighborhood and the LGBTQ+ community. 

Email us at [email protected], tweet us: @MiddayWYPR, or call us at 410-662-8780.

Today on Midday, guest host Emily Sullivan, the enterprise City Hall reporter for The Baltimore Banner, takes a closer look at the annual Baltimore City tax sale.

Let’s say you’re a homeowner who had a tough year – and you don’t pay your property tax bill. The city can place a lien on your house…and auction off that lien at the annual tax sale each May. (The online auction is scheduled this year for May 21.)

An investigation by WYPR’s news partner, the Baltimore Banner, found that roughly 41,000 homes have been through the tax sale process since 2016. Debts attached to these properties have gone up for auction at a public, online process where individuals or LLCs can bid to purchase the liens. The buyer clears the debt with the city and state…but the homeowner now owes the third-party who purchased their debt.

If the third-party remains unpaid, they can charge the homeowner steep interest…and eventually, can begin a foreclosure process to claim the property as their own.

Joining Emily to discuss the problems created by the tax sales — and potential solutions — are three guests with unique perspectives on the issue:We begin with Baltimore Banner housing reporter Sophie Kasakove, who’s worked on the Banner's investigative series.

Then, City Council member Odette Ramos (D, Dist. 14), and Dan Ellis, executive director of Neighborhood Housing Services, join us to discuss their efforts to improve the city’s tax sale process and expand the options for city homeowners who get caught up in that process.

Email us at [email protected], tweet us: @MiddayWYPR, or call us at 410-662-8780.

Tom's guest today is the novelist and nonfiction author Madison Smartt Bell. He’s written 13 novels, including a trilogy of historical tales about Toussaint Louverture and the Haitian Revolution, one of which, All Souls Rising, was a 1995 finalist for the National Book Award. He’s also written three collections of short stories and two biographies.

His latest book is a novel set in the gritty, turbulent quartiers of Paris. It includes a large cast of memorable and fascinating characters, and it explores power dynamics, zealotry, inequity and racism, in a series of events that unfold under the watchful eye of a mystical Roma woman named in the book's title: The Witch of Matongé. 

Madison Smartt Bell joined Tom Hall in our studio last month to talk about the book.  Because their conversation is recorded, we aren’t able to take any calls or emails today.

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Bell's new book is published by the Concord Free Press, which gives all of its publications away for free, online, and through a network of independent bookstores that includes the Ivy Bookshop in North Baltimore.

Email us at [email protected], tweet us: @MiddayWYPR, or call us at 410-662-8780.

Tom's guest today is Ben Jealous. In 2008, at the age of 35, he was the youngest person ever chosen to lead the oldest civil rights organization in the United States, the NAACP. He’s a former journalist and executive director of the National Newspaper Publishers Association. He’s a philanthropist and venture capitalist, and in 2018, he was the Maryland Democratic party’s nominee for governor (who lost the election to Republican Larry Hogan).

Recently, he served as president of People for the American Way, and earlier this month, he took the reins as executive director of the Sierra Club, one of the nation's oldest environmental organizations.

The son of a white father and Black mother, Jealous' new book is a memoir that makes the case that racism as we know it can be eliminated. It is replete with stories from a very full life, flecked with insights drawn from some of the people he has met along the way.

At the book’s heart is the wisdom Jealous received from his grandmother, who died at the age of 105. The book's title is taken from the advice he says his grandmother often urged on him. It's called, Never Forget Our People Were Always Free: A Parable of American Healing.

Ben Jealous joined Tom by Zoom earlier in February. 

Because their conversation was recorded earlier, we aren’t able to take any calls or online comments.

Email us at [email protected], tweet us: @MiddayWYPR, or call us at 410-662-8780.

So, how did you sleep last night? Did you get up feeling rested and ready, or tired and frustrated?

Today on Midday, tackling the problem of insomnia.Tom's guest today is Dr. Jade Wu. She’s a board-certified behavioral sleep psychologist and researcher at the Duke University School of Medicine's School of Psychiatry and Behavioral Medicine, and she has written a terrific book that outlines a strategy for solving a problem nearly 25 million Americans face, night after night.

For some of us, sleep is hard. Why is that? Dr. Wu says we need to "improve our relationship with sleep."

In her new book, she suggests a series of steps to help us do that, and she puts to rest, you might say, some of the misconceptions we’ve long held about the reasons so many of us encounter problems when it comes to doing something that is so essential to human survival.

The book is called Hello Sleep: The Science and Art of Overcoming Insomnia Without Medications. 

Jade Wu joins us on Zoom from Durham, North Carolina.

Email us at [email protected], tweet us: @MiddayWYPR, or call us at 410-662-8780.

It's time for another visit with Midday theater critic J. Wynn Rousuck, who joins us each week with her reviews of Maryland's regional stage.

Today, she spotlights Strand Theatre Company's new production of Kaela Mei-Shing Garvin's High School Coven. The topical coming-of-age drama focuses on four high-school girls who form a witches' coven to cope with the pressures of being teenage girls. Those pressures range from mundane concerns over finding the perfect homecoming dress and connecting with a significant other, to the darker realities of sexual assault.

The play is directed at the Strand Theater by Lee Conderacci, who guides a cast that includes Greta Boeringer, Tatiana Nya Ford, Libbey Kim, Betse Lyons, Jess Rivera, Nichemat Judith (“NJ”) Saroff and Julia Creutzer as understudy/swing.

High School Coven continues at Strand Theater, located at 5426 Harford Road, Baltimore MD 21214, through February 12th. Click the theater link for more information.

Email us at [email protected], tweet us: @MiddayWYPR, or call us at 410-662-8780.

Continuing our observance of Black History Month, we begin today with a conversation about an important aspect of Black history here in Maryland concerning breaking the color barrier in the legal profession.

Next Thursday night (February 16), the University of Baltimore School of Law will host a symposium with two attorneys and legal historians, who will talk about the first Black lawyers in Maryland. The decades-long efforts by Black lawyers to be admitted to the Maryland Bar pre-dated the NAACP, and finally succeeded long after other Southern states had already seen their color barriers broken.

The two lawyers who will be presenting the program at UB next week join us today here on Midday.

John Browning is a former Judge on the Texas Fifth District Court of Appeals. He’s a trial lawyer with the Spencer-Fane firm in Plano, TX. He joins us on Zoom…

Domonique Flowers is Staff Attorney at the Maryland Pro Bono Resource Center here in Baltimore. He also joins us on Zoom.

For more information on UB Law's "Blazing the Trail" symposium next Thursday, click here.

Our conversation today was previously recorded, so we won't be taking any calls or comments.

Email us at [email protected], tweet us: @MiddayWYPR, or call us at 410-662-8780.

Now, another installment in our Midday in the Neighborhood series, which we are producing in cooperation with our news partners at the Baltimore Banner.

Today, we meet a Baltimore native who has toured the world as one of the legendary Harlem Globetrotters, and who has returned to his hometown to give back in a substantial way.

Charles "Choo" Smith, who founded and heads a youth coaching enterprise called Choo Smith Youth Empowerment, is working on a project to build what he calls a “Communiversity” — an educational and athletic "life center" in the Cold Spring, Parklane and Edgecomb neighborhoods of Northwest Baltimore.

Choo Smith joins Tom in Studio A…

Also joining us in Studio A is our colleague Jasmine Vaughn Hall, who covers West Baltimore for the Baltimore Banner, and wrote a feature last month about Smith's Arise Baltimore project.

There are 278 named communities in the city of Baltimore, and from time to time we will talk about what’s going on in some of those communities in our series, Midday in the Neighborhood, which we're producing now in partnership with our colleagues at the Baltimore Banner.  If you’ve got an idea for featuring your community in the Banner and on Midday, let us know! Drop us an e mail at [email protected].

Email us at [email protected], tweet us: @MiddayWYPR, or call us at 410-662-8780.