Lois Ahrens (and another friend/neighbor), joins me in the studio to talk about how she got started with the Real Cost of Prisons project, prison friendships, the comix she printed and mailed out for 10 years…
…How 50% of people in county jails are there because they can’t afford bail… and more.

Riffraff:

Land-O-Lakes butter box imagery  – what does a young woman with a headband and feathers have to do with the butter industry?  And did you know, if you buy Land-O-Lakes American cheese, the white kind, the receipt says, “White American LOL”

Hafiz’s poem:  “I am so glad”… “I am so glad you have come….”  Eric’s dad’s memorial, love between children and elderly parents ;making calls to ICE to #FreeEduardo; Bike cassette freezes up when it’s very cold after  a rainy day; reaching out to one another

16m: Eddy Grant, Living on the Frontline

Last night I saw “Whose Streets?”, a documentary about the 2014 events in Ferguson, after Michael Brown, an unarmed Black teenager, was shot by police.  The community rose up to demand justice, in this situation and many other, week after week, month after month, despite being portrayed in mainstream media as being rioters. thanks to all the black freedom fighters.     http://www.coming-together.org/

Buffy Sainte Marie: Starwalker

32m: David Rovics minipodcast on the housing crisis in the US, and his hometown or Portland, OR  https://drovics.podbean.com/e/living-room-elephant/

43m: panel discussion from April 2018 in Knoxville TN at the TN theater, a woman giving her memory of when her white high school was integrated in the 60s; also a college student today talks about her perspective.

Jean Ritchie sings “Movin On” and “Jubilee”

DownTownTrash profile clip: Linda tells about her situation:  “Walk in my shoes, and you’d be the same way!”

My observations/comments about things that are sold for hair removal, as I observe them downtown.  So bizarre.  (if you’re interested in more on this topic, check out Ep 96: Bearded Ladies Three)

Be active; push/find your physical capabilities.

Frances Crowe, as she goes into her 100th winter, she has her first power chair!

-a little about light pollution

-changes in the global recycling market: we (Pedal People/trash haulers) are paying by the pound for recycling cans and bottles.  PP pays the same for cans and bottles as for trash, at Valley Recycling. PLEASE empty water etc out of bottles you put in the recycling or trash.  Water is best transported by gravity/evaporation, not fossil fuels.  and pls don’t entomb water in a landfill.

And, Blue Apron food marketing system entails a lot of waste.

Live guest Debin Bruce, Northampton resident, joins me in the studio.  Debin recently finished a report on pedestrian safety for the National Transportation Safety Board     https://www.ntsb.gov/safety/safety-studies/Documents/SIR1803.pdf

Key points:

Crash vs Accident:  these are crashes, they’re preventable by better behavior and design, they’re not fault-free unavoidable events.

The slower motorists go, the safer everyone is.  Pedestrian survival rates are much much higher when motorists are going under 30mph vs over 40 mph.

Distracted travel is dangerous for everyone; whether it’s driving or walking under the influence.

Be seen – reflective surfaces are great for reducing nighttime crashes.

53m: letter to Eduardo Samaniego, in ICE detention in GA

Does Verizon’s light pollution violate City ordinance?  they’ve got an advertising screen just inside their window, broadcasting 24-7, according to the Verizon manager I talked to.   ):

7m:thank you letter to Timi, someone my friend Shira and I met in KY when we were there in Sept.  we traded contact info, and then I received a calendar from Timi on New Year’s Eve.

and for the rest of the show:  Kristen Brennan, Daniel Staub, and their kids Dora, Noah, and Rory talk about why they have chosen to be car-free in their Springfield home/neighborhood for the last 15+ years.

Are there ways in which you feel invisible?  I posed this question to some random people, most of whom chose to remain anonymous.  The main interviewee speaks about how her (10-yr-old?) son feels  in school, and trying to instill in him a strong sense of character despite other influences.

John Sinton, Florence neighbor and author of “Devil’s Den to Licking Water: The Mill River Through Landscape and History” (c 2018) joins me in the studio for the first 20min.

Then I have a story about a Christmas eve bike trip in Texas, woven into tips on staying warm when it’s cold, both outside and inside.

And I replay one of my first segments from Out There from November of 2014:  The Darkest Place,   Alex, Nao, and Ben R share their ideas of the darkest place in Northampton, and then Nao -and later myself, alone in the dark – go to the long, large, dark, dripping culvert that goes from the CT river under the RR tracks/innerstate/Rte 5&10/BigY Parking lot.

Madeline Marie Norris is  a recent resident of Northampton, and graduate of Iowa State Univ.  She studied fashion design, and started her own clothing line (Mudra) that she makes in her apartment.     (We originally met at the Bike Lab.)  She gives me a tour of her workspace, and talks about making the clothing industry more environmentally sustainable.

also comments from Laurie Loisel (N’ton Human Rights Commission), Sharon Arslanian about an upcoming Arabic Music Ensemble performance she’s been organizing and rehearsing for.

a few DTT treasures – pot bar from NETA, whippet cannisters