Spectrum

The Republican Party has morphed from one in chaos shortly after President Joseph Biden’s inauguration to one that is now firmly under the thumb of former President Donald J. Trump.

Loose ends are being roped in by the former President and the GOP is now firmly in Trump’s hands, says Philip Elliott, Time Washington correspondent and author of TIME’s weekday newsletter “D.C. Brief.”

Elliott believes that efforts by Trump devotees to limit voting access in many states, along with redistricting of Congressional districts after the 2020 census give the GOP the distinct advantage to gain seats in the House and the Senate in the 2022 midterm elections.

Add to that mix, Trump is still promoting the falsehood that his Presidency was stolen from him through election chicanery. This whips up and perhaps expands his base, Elliott notes.

This promise of regaining control of the legislative branch for the last two years of President Biden’s term is enough to keep, even anti-Trump Republicans in line through the midterms, Elliott adds.

All these factors lead to the conclusion the Trump is still in control and will be leading the GOP, at least through 2022 and most likely right up to the 2024 Presidential race.

Katie Quinn, sometimes known as qkatie to her millions of follows, has written a new book that was over 3.5 years in the making: “Cheese, Wine and Bread: Discovering the Magic of Fermentation in England, Italy and France.”

She studied the role of fermentation in the trio of staples of life: cheese, wine and bread as she worked in and studied all three industries in three different countries.

The book is a combination of personal stories, personality profiles of people she encountered and recipes. Mix in some scientific facts about fermentation and you have a book that is delightful but difficult to characterize.

It is part memoir and part travelogue, with huge doses of riveting storytelling and amazing photographs and illustrations.

Quinn also told WOUB’s Spectrum podcast about her rise from small town girl in Athens, Ohio to being a page at NBC in New York City and how that experience allowed her to learn from some of America’s greatest food personalities.

She talked about her rise in New York broadcasting but then her shift to attend the Le Cordon Bleu in Paris to become a chef.

Quin also tells us the story behind her “QKatie” YouTube channel with over 50,000 subscribers and her current life in Italy.

She also has a podcast called “Keep It Quirky,” her catchphrase for not being mundane or boring and she has a new podcast collaboration on the horizon

Dr. George Wood is an educator, a former school administrator, a writer, and a podcaster. He also is a resident of small town Amesville, Ohio.

Just before the onslaught of the COVID-19 pandemic, he retired from a lifetime in education, and he found himself restless and looking for something meaningful to do.

After conversations with his wife, he took off on a two-month 7,500 trip through the Midwest. He started his journey as a trout fishing trip but ended up spending much more time talking to people in the small towns that he visited.

He had two rules…he would not eat in a national chain restaurant and he would avoid driving on Interstates as much as possible.

Therefore, he spent his time on the backroads of the Midwest, eating in small town diners, and talking with fascinating people.

At night, he would go back to his small travel trailer and write about the conversations that he had and about the pride people took in their hometowns.

When he meandered back to Ohio, he started writing stories about these small forgotten towns and the interesting people who inhabit them.

He joined with two colleagues and turned the stories into a new podcast called “Positively No Outlet.”

He describes the podcast as: “Stories from Unplugged America - Our goal is to bring you stories from rural America — from the fly-over places that are far from the hot light of the national media. Stories of ordinary people doing ordinary and sometimes extraordinary things.”

Dr. Wood has now embarked on more trips. This time to the South. He hopes to continue his small-town storytelling and even expanding his podcast’s breadth.

Currently, you may find “Positively No Outlet” on one of your favorites podcast outlets.

As the trial of Derek Chauvin for George Floyd’s death comes to its conclusion this week, against a backdrop of additional police violence, many African Americans still feel the trauma of police violence.

While the trial of police officer Chauvin has moved forward, at least, two other people of color have been gunned down by police. Duante Wright in Minnesota and a 13 year-old Latino Adam Toledo in Chicago.

The other cases amp up even higher the desires in the Black Community for guilty verdicts in the Chauvin case, says Gayle Williams-Beyers, the first black judge of the South Euclid Ohio Municipal Court.

On this episode of WOUB’s Spectrum podcast, Judge Byers and host and former judge Tom Hodson break down the Chauvin trial. They examine prosecution strategies and defense positions in terms that non-lawyers can understand.

They discuss the importance of this trial and the anticipated verdicts on the future of policing and race relations.

Judge Byers also expresses the frustrations she feels that while one trial is transpiring, other incidents of police violence keep happening.

She also notes that the Chauvin trial has prompted a form of Post Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD) in many African Americans. She says it has been like reliving the horror of George Floyd’s and other deaths all over again.

She says it has caused major anxiety in black families – especially those that have young black sons. Mothers fear for their sons’ safety and fear that old precautions no longer can prevent unwarranted police attacks.

Conspiracy theories have grown and continue to multiply as newsrooms downsize and more people rely on social media to fill the void.

This is the belief of Dr. Michael Bugeja, distinguished professor of liberal arts and sciences at the Greenlee School of Journalism and Communication at Iowa State University.

“Journalism is not dead but on life support. Social media dominates civic, political and familial debate, offering snap judgments to affinity groups,” Bugeja adds in a recent commentary.

Bugeja, an author, scholar, ethicist and journalist, lays much of the blame on the rise in conspiracy theories, at the feet of a news industry that has lost its way.

As use of social media as a news source has risen, the reliance on mainstream balanced journalism has plummeted, according to Bugeja.

In a recent commentary for “Poynter,” a journalism think-tank, Bugeja said: “…conspiracy theories have less to do with breakdowns in social machinery, weaponized politics or reason vs. intuition. Polarization materialized as millions of Americans googled answers from affinity groups, increasing screen time while mainstream media downsized newsrooms.”

As newsrooms have cut back reporting staffs, the need to fill a 24-hour news cycle has increased. However, mainstream media cannot fill the void. So, instead, it is filled by bloggers, social media and affinity groups pushing wild theories.

Newsrooms need to hire more reporters, editors and producers, according to Bugeja, and more clearly delineate their content as objective reporting versus analysis.

He also says that we should require courses in “media and technology literacy” in our schools and he is a strong proponent of non-profit localized news models to supplement mainstream media.

He concludes his Poynter commentary by saying: “We must replenish newsrooms, create more nonprofit outlets and require social media payouts, or conspiracies will continue, eroding what is left of democracy and the public’s ability to differentiate between fact and factoid.”Conspiracy theories have grown and continue to multiply as newsrooms downsize and more people rely on social media to fill the void.

This is the belief of Dr. Michael Bugeja, distinguished professor of liberal arts and sciences at the Greenlee School of Journalism and Communication at Iowa State University.

“Journalism is not dead but on life support. Social media dominates civic, political and familial debate, offering snap judgments to affinity groups,” Bugeja adds in a recent commentary.

Bugeja, an author, scholar, ethicist and journalist, lays much of the blame on the rise in conspiracy theories, at the feet of a news industry that has lost its way.

As use of social media as a news source has risen, the reliance on mainstream balanced journalism has plummeted, according to Bugeja.

The Biden Administration has targeted climate change as a priority in its first 100 days. It is unraveling four years of President Donald Trump’s deregulation and laisse-faire attitude toward the environment.

Rarely have we seen so much change so quickly, says Dr. Geoffrey Dabelko, professor and associate dean at the Voinovich School of Leadership and Public Policy at Ohio University and senior advisor on “climate issues” at the Wilson Center in Washington, D.C.

President Joseph Biden has made sweeping changes across administrative fields, according to Dabelko. Biden is appointing key cabinet members who promote tackling climate change problems, and the appointment of former Sec. of State John Kerry as a White House coordinator of climate change policies is significant.

Biden is seeking a more integrated approach to tackling climate change issues. He is even including the State Department and major financial institutions in his battle, Dabelko notes.

Although there have been far-reaching changes in the country’s climate change policies in the first 100 days of Biden’s presidency, Dabelko sees potential battles on the horizon.

Biden may confront skirmishes even within his own political party as “Progressive Democrats” push him to do more than “Moderate Democrats” find desirable.

Biden also will face staunch opposition from House and Senate Republicans.

This opposition may spark further debate about eliminating the “Filibuster Rule” in the Senate that requires 60% of the Senators to stop a filibuster and bring a matter to the floor for a vote.

Some Democrats are advocating the elimination of the rule while others find it a safeguard against overwhelming partisan changes when the party is in the minority.

On the international front, Dabelko sees American rejoining the Paris Climate Accords but questions whether the USA can re-establish its former leadership role.

Eunice Hunton Carter and her family were “unsung heroes” in social justice movements in the early 20th Century and now her life is brought into focus by a new biography, “Eunice Hunton Carter: A Lifelong Fight for Social Justice,” published by the Fordham University Press.

Co-Author and noted biographer Marilyn Greenwald highlights the many accomplishments of Carter. She was the first black woman prosecutor in the Manhattan Prosecutors Office in the 1930’s.

While trying her cases, Carter established the link between organized crime and prostitution, according to Greenwald. Carter used that information to be the only black woman and black attorney on the team of attorneys that convicted mobster Charles “Lucky” Luciano in 1936.

Earlier in her career, Carter was a writer and was active in the Harlem Renaissance. She wrote short stories and art criticism, says Greenwald.

Later in her career, she consulted with the United Nations and promoted causes for women on the global stage, Greenwald notes.

Carter’s family also was quite active in social justice causes. Her grandfather was a slave who purchased his freedom, moved to Canada and became a wealthy businessman.

Her father was a top official for the YMCA and devoted two decades of his life to integrate YMCAs in the South, says Greenwald.

Carter’s mother was a major pivotal figure in the Black Women’s Club movement and she even traveled to France during World War I to assist black soldiers.

The new biography of Eunice Hunton Carter will be out in April 2021, but it is available now through “pre-order” at Amazon and Barnes and Noble.

The Dave Thomas Foundation recently celebrated its 10,000th adoption of a child from foster care and the milestone was reached during the COVID-19 pandemic.

The Foundation was created by Wendy’s founder Dave Thomas as an independent non-profit foundation separate from the restaurant chain, says Rita Soronen, CEO of the Foundation.

The Foundation focuses on the adoption of children who have been in foster care the longest and those who might soon turn 18 without being adopted by a family.

It works with its Wendy’s Wonderful Kids program which partners with private and public adoption agencies to fund specially trained adoption recruiters. These recruiters work specifically to find adoptive homes for teenagers, children with special needs, and siblings who have been in foster care the longest, according to Soronen.

The Dave Thomas Foundation tries to find adoptive homes for children before they “age-out” of foster care – turn 18 or 21 years of age depending on the state. The Foundation understands that if a child ages-out of foster care they are more likely to be homeless, unemployed, and face a myriad of other issues.

The Foundation also has been urging states to put moratoria on youth’s aging-out of the system during the COVID pandemic, says Soronen. To date, through Soronen’s efforts, the Foundation has convinced 9 states and the District of Columbia to enact such moratoria.

The COVID-19 crisis has presented special problems for the Foundation’s work, but it has successfully pivoted to find ways of continuing its adoption efforts even through pandemic isolation.

The Foundation was recently highlighted by the “New York Times” for its pandemic efforts.

After President Joseph Biden’s inauguration and the attack on the Capitol on January 6, the Republican Party has undergone a struggle to chart the future of the party.

Will it still be the party of Trump and his zealous base or will more traditionally mainstream Republicans take the party’s helm? Will Trump’s appeal fade?

Daily news unfolds showing a chess game for control between groups led by GOP Senate stalwart Mitch McConnell and more radical members of his party in the House and the Senate aligned with former President Trump.

Each move is met by a countermove as the story unfolds.

All of this political drama is playing out against the backdrop of upcoming 2022 elections which have at least six GOP Senators at risk, says Philip Elliott, Washington correspondent for TIME and author of TIME’s weekday newsletter D.C. Brief.

Also, according to Elliott, people are already lining up to be the GOP presidential candidates in 2024. This adds to the jockeying for position and appeals to certain elements of the Republican base.

Threats of primary battles, a possible third party launched Trump, and further party disruptions paint a vary blurry landscape of the GOP’s future, Elliott says.

He also notes that Democrats are not totally unified either and that President Joseph R. Biden’s early months are going to be clouded by Congressional disarray.

You can read Elliott’s daily newsletter at https://time.com/tag/the-dc-brief/

As of Jan. 13, the Athens County Ohio Health Department has vaccinated only 438 of its approximately 65,000 population for a frustratingly low .67 percent. Meanwhile, the county remains one of the counties in Ohio that is in greatest danger of COVID-19 spread.

Athens County is a rural Appalachian County in Southeast Ohio that also houses a major state university – Ohio University. Athens County is indicative of many rural counties across America.

The Spectrum Podcast decided to look deeper into this issue

Why is the number of vaccinations so low? The answer is lack of supply of vaccine, according to Dr. James R. Gaskell, Athens City-County Health Commissioner and Medical Director. Each Thursday or Friday, the local Health Department is notified by the Ohio Department of Health of the number of vaccine doses it will receive on the following Monday.

The trickle-down of the vaccine from the manufacturers to the federal government, to the states and then to local rural areas is not flowing smoothly.

For example, next week, Athens County hopes to get about 200 to 300 more doses of vaccines to start to inoculate people 80 years of age or older. About 600 local people in that age group have requested the shot, but less than half will be able to be inoculated next week. The delays continue and the disease spread grows.

Meanwhile, residents of some assisted living facilities and other congregate settings for older Athens County residents (Groups 1-A) have still not received vaccinations to be supplied by CVS and other pharmacies.

So, Group 1-A in priority has not been served and now Groups 1-B (ages 65 and over) will need to wait because supplies are not reaching the local areas.

Dr. Gaskell emphasizes that every week’s supply of vaccine is put into arms that same week.

The slowdown is not in the administration of vaccinations. It is in obtaining the vaccine.

We have the facilities and the staff to get the job done if we can get the vaccines, Dr. Gaskell says.

Athens County has about 8,000 residents 65 years old and older, according to Dr. Gaskell, and to date, about 1,300 have requested the vaccine. At this point, Dr. Gaskell cannot predict how long it will take to get vaccines in the arms of this group.

Meanwhile, COVID-19 case numbers continue to rise, and masking and social distancing are mandatory to protect against spread, Dr. Gaskell says. He suggests that virus precautions will need to be taken until 80 percent of the population has been vaccinated.

We are ready if we can get the vaccines, says Dr. Gaskell, even though his staff is already stretched thin with increased case numbers, increased contact tracing and vaccinations.

Add to these problems, thousands of Ohio University students return next week to increase the area population and increase congregate living settings.

Yet, Dr. Gaskell calls his staff indefatigable and ready to go when doses get to the county. But, for now…they wait.