Your Call

On this edition of Your Call’s Media Roundtable, we're discussing media coverage of the post-Roe landscape in the US. This week, West Virginia became the latest state to pass a near-total ban on abortion and Indiana's ban went into effect on Wednesday.

On Tuesday, Republican Senator Lindsey Graham introduced an extreme 15-week federal abortion ban.

How are the media covering the impact of anti-abortion laws on the lives and well being of women, girls, and pregnant people?

Guests:

Jodi Jacabson, writer and former president and editor-in-chief of Rewire News

Meaghan Winter, freelance magazine writer and author of All Politics Is Local: Why Progressives Must Fight for the States

On this edition of Your Call, we're discussing three of the films featured in this year's virtual Food Justice Film Festival, which is presented by the Center for Biological Diversity. The festival is free and runs from September 15 to 18.

In 2020, the Center created the festival to "elevate and amplify the voices of farmers, food workers, activists and filmmakers while continuing a dialogue on the issues surrounding who grows our food, how our food is grown, who has access to sustainable food and who is harmed by industrial-farming practices and policies."

Guests:

Andrea Spako, member of the Seneca Nation, exercise specialist, featured in RETURN: Native American Women Reclaim Foodways for Health and Spirit

Shoun Hill, assistant professor of journalism at University of Nebraska at Lincoln, photographer, and producer of I’m Just a Layman In Pursuit of Justice: Black Farmers Fight Against the USDA

On this edition of Your Call, we’re discussing media coverage of worker uprisings across the country.

More Perfect Union launched in October 2020 with a mission to center working people in media coverage. They say the powerful spend billions selling us their side of the story. We aren’t buying it anymore. In just two years, they’ve managed to break stories about workers unionizing and demanding dignity and better working conditions. How does the public respond when workers are at the center of the story?

On this edition of Your Call, we’ll continue our series on worker organizing. California Governor Gavin Newsom has until September 30th to sign or veto AB2183, a bill that would allow farmworkers to unionize free from intimidation. The Governor is feeling pressure after President Biden and Vice President Harris announced their support for the bill.

Then we'll discuss the FAST Recovery Act, a groundbreaking new law that could raise wages to $22 for California's fast food workers.

On this edition of Your Call, we're discussing The Visiting Room Project, an initiative that invites people to sit face-to-face with men serving life without the possibility of parole. Nearly 5,000 people are sentenced to die in Louisiana prisons without any possibility of parole.

The Visiting Room Project is the largest collection of first person testimonials ever gathered from people serving this sentence. We’ll speak with two participants of the project who were recently freed and find out what it’s like to re-enter the world after decades behind bars.

Guests:

Marcus Kondkar, co-founder of The Visiting Room Project, associate professor and chair of the department of Sociology at Loyola University New Orleans, and director of the Loyola Prison Education Project

Terrence Guy, released from prison on June 15 after spending 28 years at Louisiana State Penitentiary

Anthony Hingle, released from prison in April, 2021 after spending 32 years at Louisiana State Penitentiary

On this edition of Your Call’s One Planet Series, we're discussing the disproportionate effects of climate driven extreme heat on the most vulnerable groups, including farmworkers, low-income communities, and the elderly.

By midcentury, given slow or no action to reduce global heat-trapping emissions, the increased intensity, frequency, and geographic extent of extreme heat would cause a three- to fourfold increase in the exposure of outdoor workers to days with a heat index—or “feels like” temperature—above 100°F, the point at which the CDC recommends that work hours begin to be reduced, according to the Union of Concerned Scientists.

Guest:

Dr. Kristina Dahl, climate scientist for the Climate & Energy program at the Union of Concerned Scientists

On this edition of Your Call’s One Planer Series, we're discussing a new UC Berkeley study that finds the heat index calculated by National Weather Service meteorologists may underestimate the perceived temperature on the most sweltering days, sometimes by more than 20˚F.

Last week, a blistering heat wave smashed records in at least a dozen California cities. What is the heat index and why is it important?

Guest:

Dr. David Romps, professor in the Earth & Planetary Sciences department at University of California Berkeley

On this edition of Your Call's Media Roundtable, we're discussing the deepening energy crisis in Europe, which has been fueled by Russia's war on Ukraine.

Russia’s state-owned exporter Gazprom halted gas supplies to Europe by shutting off the main pipeline carrying gas to Germany, causing high fuel prices and household utility bills. Gazprom blamed the closure on an oil leak, claiming the problems could not be fixed because of sanctions.

Guest:

Eric Reguly, European bureau chief for The Globe and Mail based in Rome

On this edition of Your Call, we're discussing the Apparatus of Repair, an aerial dance performance addressing the devastating impacts of mass incarceration in the US and the power of restorative justice.

The free performance is the culmination of The Decarceration Trilogy: Dismantling the Prison Industrial Complex One Dance at a Time, a series of site-specific aerial dance and public art events by Flyaway Productions. Apparatus of Repair premieres at UC Hastings Quad in San Francisco from September 15-25.

The United States is the world’s leader in incarceration. There are two million people in the nation’s prisons and jails, a 500 percent increase over the last 40 years, according to the Sentencing Project. Women are the fastest growing segment of the incarcerated population. The Sentencing Project says changes in sentencing law and policy, not changes in crime rates, explain most of this increase.

Guests:

Jo Kreiter, artistic director of Flyaway Productions

Kevin Martin, restorative practices strategist at Community Works West