Podcasts

It’s summertime and the livin’ is easy. At least if you have good books to read, gardening to do, and social media fights to get into.
This week, we listened to a few “In Conversation” discussions from earlier this year. Two Louisville librarians recommended summer reads for both adults and children. A panel of gardeners give advice on potting and planting. And First Amendment experts talk about the interplay between free speech rights and social media. 

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, former state Representative Charles Booker launched his campaign for the U.S. Senate seat held by Rand Paul. Paul says he’s confident he’ll win reelection. And two lawmakers say they’ll pass a bill allowing student athletes to make money off their name, image and likeness.

Everyday Finance Gal is on a mission to help people build generational wealth. She and her family immigrated to the United States from Armenia. Her earliest money memory was translating a rent increase to her parents. “That’s when I first realized we didn’t have money,” she recalls. This experience influenced her to become an expert saver. Eventually, she built generational wealth for her family by learning how to invest in ETFs and real estate. Today, she shares the money lessons she has learned on her Instagram platform – Everyday Finance Gal. She is also a single mom. Plus, this week’s listener-submitted money memory shares lessons learned along a paper route.

Attica Scott is the only black female legislator in the red state of Kentucky and she has used the tools of law and peaceful protest to seek justice for the death of Breonna Taylor. Along the way, she’s battled and overcome COVID-19, which has disproportionately affected the black community.

We talk about getting into “good troub

Thanks for unwrapping race with us in 2020! We’ll see you next season, and in the meantime, you can keep in touch at raceunwrapped@wfpl.org. We’re a public radio podcast, which means we’re listener supported. Help us fund future seasons at http://wfpl.org/supportraceunwrapped

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.

Is the perfect character preventing your story from being believable?
The Galatea Trap (aka Mary Sue) is a real problem in fiction and film.
Characters’ flaws are what make them compelling, so when can you use
the Galatea Trap to your advantage?

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. +

This episode is an extra special musical journey that explores the world of time signatures, also known as meter. We’re calling it “Meter: The Musical,” which features original music from host Faith Murphy and Kiana Del, WUOL’s engagement manager for music education. In the musical, two kids find a magical music box that transports them to Meter World, where they learn about different genres of music and try to find where they really belong.

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Meter: The Musical! Music and lyrics by Faith Murphy and Kiana Del; book by Faith Murphy
Special thanks to our guest musicians: Noah Barker, Trevin Little, Jailynn Lake-Noel, Fiona Palenski, and Stephen Murphy
Recording and mixing engineer: Eric Matthews

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Donate to support this and future seasons of The Music Box.

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.

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.

Your daily dose of music news on Thursday, July 22, 2021 from 91.9 WFPK and Louisville Public Media.

Did you know?

– The first record Aloe fell in love with as a child was “Double Dutch Bus” by Frankie Smith, which he and his sister would listen to on a Fisher Price record player.

– Aloe’s first group, the hip hop duo Emanon, took its name from a Dizzy Gillespie song.

– Aloe got his first record deal as a vocalist by singing Sam Cooke’s “A Change is Gonna Come” over a hip hop instrumental.

If you answered NO to any of these questions, then you’ve got a lot to learn from this episode of WFPKs The First Cut!

The latest news for Thursday, July 29, 2021 from the WFPL newsroom in Louisville.