Where We Live

Elle. Marie Claire. Cosmopolitan. For generations, magazines such as these have informed the world's women, serving as fashion manuals, as well as vestibules between the conventional and taboo.

This hour, we look back on the history of these publications, and talk about the challenges faced by many women's magazines today. 

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Literacy. It's something many of us take for granted. The ability to read health forms, headlines, or the latest bestsellers. Yet, across the U.S., there are millions of adults who have difficulty reading.

This hour, we find out why. We talk with literacy experts and advocates, and we also hear from you.

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Painful rashes, diarrhea, even possibly blindness or deadly brain inflammation -- these are all symptoms of measles. Before researchers developed a vaccine, this disease once affected millions in the U.S. and hospitalized tens of thousands every year.

Thanks to the vaccine, measles was eliminated from this country two decades ago. Yet today, communities in New York and Washington state are experiencing devastating outbreaks today. This hour, we ask why is a virulent, deadly, but entirely preventable disease reappearing in the U.S.?

We learn about how low vaccination rates can put vulnerable members of our community in danger.

And we ask given continued fears in some communities around vaccines despite years of overwhelming scientific consensus about their safety, do we need to change how we talk about vaccines?

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From the bestselling author of Lilac Girls comes a new novel. It's called Lost Roses and it centers on Eliza Ferriday, a one-time Connecticut resident and mother of esteemed philanthropist Caroline Ferriday.

This hour, author Martha Hall Kelly returns to our studios to talk about the book, and about her experience researching war and revolution in the early 20th century. 

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Journalist and author Scott Wallace has dedicated years to documenting the so-called "unconquered" tribes of South America. This hour, we sit down with Wallace who, in addition to traveling and writing, is a professor of journalism at the University of Connecticut.

We walk along the path that guided Wallace into the thick of the Amazon, and learn about the issues threatening the forest's most isolated people today. 

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GUEST:

• Scott Wallace - Associate Professor of Journalism at the University of Connecticut; he’s also a contributor to National Geographic and author of The Unconquered: In Search of the Amazon's Last Uncontacted Tribes (@wallacescott)

READING LIST:

National Geographic: Isolated Nomads Are Under Siege in the Amazon Jungle - "The government agency responsible for indigenous affairs is Fundação Nacional do Índio, or FUNAI. The agency’s Department of Isolated and Recently Contacted Indians has placed Arariboia at the top of a list of Amazonian flash points, where tribes are at greatest risk of imminent contact. But severe cuts to FUNAI’s budget have made it all the more challenging to safeguard isolated tribes such as the Awá from the inexorable pressures of a resource-hungry global economy."

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What’s it like to build a house, a family, a life… and then have a war take it all away?  

This hour we sit down with West Hartford, Connecticut residents Adeebah Alnemar and her son, Naji Aldabaan. They’re Syrian refugees who fled during the civil war, and came to Connecticut in 2016.

Their family is the subject of a 2018 Pulitzer Prize-winning cartoon series in The New York Times. We also talk with one of the people behind the cartoon series—New Haven-based journalist Jake Halpern.

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When it comes to responding to the nation's gun violence epidemic, Congress is finally starting to take some action. At least in the U.S. House of Representatives, which, in February, passed legislation to expand background checks for the sale of firearms.

The question now is what is the Republican-controlled Senate going to do.

Today, we speak with Democratic Connecticut U.S. Sen. Chris Murphy, who's made gun safety one of his signature issues. 

What do you want to ask the senator on that and the multitude of pressing issues currently before Congress? 

• What's happening with efforts to get the full Mueller report released?
• Are there too many Democrats running for president?
• Should NCAA student athletes be paid?

We take your calls.

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Where does your food come from? Most of us go to the grocery store to buy produce, dairy, and meat. And these items aren’t necessarily local; they may come from hundreds or thousands of miles away.

This hour we hear how more people are getting involved in producing the food they eat. It’s called “modern homesteading.”

We hear from two Connecticut residents who’ve tried this practice. What drove them to pursue homesteading? And what barriers exist for Connecticut residents who want to live off the land? We find out.

And we want to hear from you. Do you want to learn how to be more self-sufficient, but don’t know where to begin?

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Between War & Here is a one-of-a-kind collaboration, which serves not only as a reminder of the U.S.' ongoing involvement in war, but also as a lens into the complexities of U.S. veterans' experiences.

Plus, we learn about an event at the Mystic Seaport Museum, which spotlights women in the maritime industry. 

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With recreational marijuana on sale in Massachusetts, Connecticut lawmakers are looking at legalizing recreational cannabis more seriously than ever.

Meanwhile, research continues to show that the enforcement of drug laws in recent decades has disproportionately impacted communities of color. This hour, we ask: if Connecticut legalizes recreational marijuana, can it do so in a way that corrects some of this history of discriminatory enforcement?

We talk with Judiciary co-Chair Senator Gary Winfield, who is calling for putting equity at the front of legalization efforts. And we check in about how racial justice has--or hasn’t--come along with legalization in states that already have legal weed, from Massachusetts to California.

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