Many hands were needed to help in the transition for the immense number of Afghans that fled Afghanistan with the fall of the government there to the Taliban last year. Among those answering the call was Sahar Taman, providing legal assistance to the 13,000 Afghans located to Fort McCoy, Wisconsin, last fall. The personal situations & the legal requirements were complex, demanding deeply dedicated work of both the heart and head.
Amar Ahmad is a young Muslim who has been working with Mass Peace Action the past 2 years, serving as co-chair of the Legislative/Political Committee as an organizer with the Fund Health Care, Not Warfare project, and with the Palestine/Israel Working Group. He is on the youthful end of the activists in the group, led into the work by wide-ranging reading.
Darryl Purpose says he's never had a real job, earning his living either from blackjack or making music, but he's worth every cent and more. Determined to live outside the box, Darryl's music regales the listener with beauty, inspiration, & free-flowing spirituality. His quirky contrarianism led him from a life of gambling into music via the Great Peace March for Nuclear Disarmament, and from there into a deep connection to the Earth perched above the Rocky Mountains.
Media can unite or divide, and the Conversations In Color (CIC) program on Converge Radio (101.9 FM) chooses to unite in depth instead of superficiality. Their mission statement is “To provide space for asking hard questions and open, honest conversation regarding race and racism in western Wisconsin and beyond”, and it's been enlarged to look at further spaces concerning marginalized groups.
Bryan Bielanski hails from Charlotte, North Carolina, though he's spending little enough time there as he takes his music almost everywhere in the US & in quite a few other countries as well. His band when starting out was called Angwish, but he morphed into Bryan's Super Happy Fun Time when he decided to go solo (see the bonus excerpt). His website says we should “Imagine Nirvana and the Beatles had a kid together who became an acoustic rock singer-songwriter”, and that then we'll understand Bryan's music.
Emma G brings together culture & family from all over the world, including Persia, Fiji, New Zealand, Iowa, and more. Her music is likewise expansive, including seeds of operatic voice training with a rock music emphasis. And perhaps the most moving part is the amount of healing that is part of Emma's journey, both for herself and for the young people she's worked with, as a youth empowerment through songwriting coach. Emma started her life steeped in the trauma of hydrocephalus, meaning that she had some 10 brain surgeries over the years, and she's dealt with a whole lot of other trauma - physical, emotional, and sexual – meaning that she had to learn about her own healing and facing challenges, often through songwriting.
Jane Addams, founder of Hull Settlement House in Chicago, was a powerful inspiration and aid to the poor and downtrodden, like Nellie Wicks, who was great-grandmother to singer/songwriter Kristin Lems. Kristin was inspired to create a musical play about Jane Addams & Nellie called Saint Jane and the Wicked Wicks, a production that is both entertaining & educational about one of the most influential women in US history, recipient of the 1931 Nobel Peace Prize and co-founder of several organizations, including the NAACP & the ACLU. Kristin's play features wonderful historical & personal glimpses, and also a lot of excellent music.
Even when he is being serious, comedian, storyteller, and podcast host, Esteban Gast is hilarious. And for climate advocates looking for some hope, perhaps the sweetest spot in the climate change podcast scene right now is Esteban’s new show, Comedians Conquering Climate Change. Only 15 minutes each episode, he features fellow comedians who learn along with the listener. The show is made in collaboration with Generation180.
Comedians Conquering Climate Change is the funniest, friendliest, and shortest podcast addressing today’s critical climate and clean energy topics. Join comedian, writer, and teacher Esteban Gast as he enlists the help of fellow comedians to single-handedly save the planet.
Today is the second time we'll have Jim Phillips with us, and this is kind of a new-and-improved-music of Jim Phillips, with significant overlap of songs from the last time, but with dramatically enhanced versions of some of his tunes. Jim is a chemistry professor at the University of Wisconsin, Eau Claire, and in his spare moments he is Eau Claire's go-to bass guitarist for a wide assortment of bands and configurations of musicians.