Podcasts

If you have a job and also have young children, you know the rock and the hard place of needing good and affordable child care so you can go to work to pay your bills. 

On this week’s “In Conversation” we explored solutions to juggling parenting and holding down a job. That included a look at Kentucky House Bill 499, which creates a pilot program that provides incentives for employers to contribute to the child care costs of employees. 

While walking down 6th St., Kentuckiana Sounds curator Aaron Rosenblum found himself enveloped in a droning, omnipresent hum reverberating among the buildings on the block. Was it coming from an HVAC system? Or from the service vehicles parked nearby with giant tubes protruding from their trailers? Or from somewhere else entirely? To hear the full recording, explore the sound map, or submit a sound visit www.wfpl.org/sounds or www.kentuckianasounds.org.

This week in Kentucky Politics…the 2022 Fancy Farm political picnic was dominated by Republican politicians and voters. But Attorney General and GOP gubernatorial candidate Daniel Cameron took the heat during his speech for his role in the investigation into Breonna Taylor’s death. 

U.S. President Joe Biden visited Eastern Kentucky in the aftermath of the floods to tour the region and pledge federal help and support for victims. But Governor Andy Beshear’s plan isn’t entirely going to rely on aid and assistance from FEMA. A special legislative session is on the cards and Beshear aims to pass a relief package similar to the Western Kentucky tornado relief fund.

Also, the Kentucky Judicial Campaign Ethics Committee, a private, nonprofit, nonpartisan organization, has issued a statement on the Northern Kentucky Supreme Court race where an anti-abortion Republican legislator Joe Fischer is running against incumbent Justice Michelle Keller. The committee’s concerns have been around the partisan nature of campaigning in the election.

WFPL’s Bec Feldhaus Adams and Kentucky Public Radio’s Divya Karthikeyan talk about it on this week’s episode of Kentucky Politics Distilled.

Kentucky Politics Distilled is our weekly rundown of the big news — and sometimes the odd news — happening in the state Capitol.

As a new college graduate living in New York City, Aja Evans thought she had made it. She quickly realized, however, that the weekly bottomless brunches add up. Eventually, she took control of her spending habits. Today, Aja is a licensed mental health counselor specializing in financial wellness. She shares how her personal journey informed her decision to offer this unique angle to her therapy practice.

Riots. Protests. Uprisings. Even insurrections.

Each conjures up different images and feelings, doesn’t it?

On this episode, I sit down to discuss that very thing with Dr. Ricky Jones from the University of Louisville’s Pan-African Studies department.

We talk about how when Black people and Black allies come together to protest injustice, no matter how peaceful the protests, it almost always still gets characterized as a riot.

We’re closing out Say Yes by hearing from a few folks who’ve been instrumental in how Elliott Smith’s life and work have been presented — including Elliott Smith himself. +

Between growing public interest in the racial justice movement, a polarizing political landscape and folks trapped indoors for nearly nine months now, online activism is at an all time high. Accordingly, white supremacists who spew vitriolic and violent language and ideas also abound across social media platforms.

This week Ron Dawson joins us to discuss his recent essay, “There’s a Jim Crow Mentality on Social Media,” which outlines his experiences combating racist trolls and threats of violence online.

Later, diversity trainer Risha Grant joins us to discuss her idea that “radical acceptance” of our diverse selves makes us more valuable personally and professionally.

Cause and effect is the artist’s best friend. Not only can it help you
create in the moment, it can help you discover those “happy accidents”
that your muse most certainly intended for you all along. Listen in on
how our hosts discovered this style of creativity and how it can be
used to make you a better artist.

Iconic is an overused word these days, but “Weird Al” Yankovic deserves that designation. During our conversation, Al talks about surviving in show business for 40 years and how he dealt with a very public career setback in the late ’80s. +

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What IS a producer anyway? How many hats do they wear? How does a producer help a music track come to life? Find out the answers to all your questions on this episode of The Music Box! We’re going behind the music with producer Antonio Garder, AKA Yons!

Additional lessons and resources at musicboxpod.org. This episode is recommended for grades 6-8 and 9-12, but younger students can join in fun with some guidance.

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This is the fifth of several youth talk shows WFPL has planned as part of The Next Louisville, supported by the Community Foundation of Louisville and WE Day Kentucky. In it, students Fernanda Scharfenberger, Bayley Amburgey, Scotty Monteith and Nia Douglas talk about the environment, climate activism and what they’d like to see politicians do to address the climate crisis.
This conversation was part of the Next Louisville, which is supported by the Community Foundation of Louisville and WE Day Kentucky…and by you! Click here to support our work.

You may have seen it while driving down Lexington road, away from downtown, just before Headliners Music Hall. A retaining wall in the side of the hill… with a door in the middle. What’s behind it? It’s a question we get a lot at Curious Louisville. On this episode, Ashlie Stevens takes us behind the door.

More Info

From the newsroom that brought you the Pope’s Long Con, check out our newest podcast, Dig. In the first season, we bring you the results of a yearlong look at how rape cases are investigated in Louisville. What we’ve learned: here, the police defer to prosecutors on rape cases — and prosecutors reject the vast majority of cases presented to them. Due to this unusual relationship, most people accused of rape here will never face consequences. Most won’t be arrested or convicted. And the case will be closed anyway.
(Note: There are descriptions of a rape, and audio from a police body camera on the scene of a rape investigation, throughout this episode.)

For more, visit kydig.org.

After Franz left in 2010, the band felt the departure in a big way. But thanks to a key anniversary years later, The Hold Steady was able to come back stronger than ever. +

“Tough and Universal: Stories of Grit” is a new series from WFPL produced in partnership with IDEAS xLab. In this episode, Louisville mother Asia Ford talks about the moment that made her realize she’d have to dramatically change her lifestyle. At the time, she weighed 507 pounds. Since then, she’s become a fitness enthusiast. +

The end of our series (for now…?) takes us to the places racetrack workers go at the end of their workday: juke joints. Emma Pearl’s, “the chippy joint,” and their descendent, Syl’s Lounge. We meet Sylvia Arnett, who grew up just north of Churchill Downs in a neighborhood called “The Hill.” We FINALLY stump Sam Alexander on something (“I’ve been coming on this spot I’m on right now since I was 13 years old,” Sam says, standing in a spot where there is noticeably no hill. “And now I’m 70 and never really knew why they call it The Hill.”) And we learn about the legendary Jake Bachelor and his horse, Naughty Jake, AKA “the horse that almost ran.”

Brian Anderson comes from a family that has a generations-long connection to West Virginia coal and fossil fuel development. Today he’s leading a Biden administration effort to make sure coal communities aren’t left behind in a transition to cleaner energy. Jeff Young talks with Anderson about the multi-agency federal working group he’s leading, and about his role as director of the Department of Energy’s National Energy Technology Laboratory. Also, what might a Green New Deal look like in Appalachia? Jeff talks with design professor Billy Fleming about a project to give form to Appalachian people’s ideas about a more sustainable future.

Did you know?

-Emily Saliers and her musical partner in the Indigo Girls, Amy Ray, met in middle school in the cafeteria where Emily and her band were playing? She is also a huge fan of hip hop and the band Heart. Currently she’s working on two musicals, something she had never done before. Find out more about these projects and a lot of the music she’s currently into on this week’s episode of WFPKs The First Cut!

The latest news for Wednesday, August 17, 2022 from the WFPL newsroom in Louisville.