Podcasts

The phrase “thoughts and prayers” has become overused almost to the point of cliché, but using faith and prayer as a tool to get through hardship is as old as recorded history. This week on “In Conversation,” we explored the role of religion in healing from the traumatic events of 2020 — a particularly poignant question to ponder here in Louisville, where protesters spent a good part of last year fighting for racial justice.

Louisville’s 25th annual Festival of Faiths is underway this weekend, and some of the panelists joined us to explore this year’s theme, faith and race.

The festival is produced by the Center for Interfaith Relations, an organization dedicated to celebrating the city’s diverse faith landscape. But this year, the planning process went beyond the center’s walls, tapping community leaders from Simmons College, Spalding University, the Baptist Seminary of Kentucky, and the Louisville Presbyterian Theological Seminary to help curate.

Here are the guests you’ll hear on our show this week:

Rev. Dr. Starsky Wilson
Ronda Magee
Imam Zaid Shakir
Sarah Kelley

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, an anti-abortion legislator is running for the state Supreme Court as Roe v. Wade hangs in the balance of the U.S. Supreme Court. Attorney General Daniel Cameron notched two legal victories as federal vaccine mandates were struck down in the courts. And a Democratic legislator has filed a bill to decriminalize cannabis possession. WFPL’s Jonese Franklin joins Capitol reporter Ryland Barton for this week’s edition of Kentucky Politics Distilled.

Jenn Uhen loves to talk about money as the Founder/Community Organizer of The Pledgettes. The Pledgettes is on a mission to abolish the gender wealth gap by facilitating money conversations with womxn through expert-led events and an engaged membership community. Jenn talks about her biggest money mistakes, why it’s important to empower women to be more engaged in their financial choices, and how you can be more intentional with your spending.

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.

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. +

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.

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.

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 Thursday, December 09, 2021 from the WFPL newsroom in Louisville.