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WORT 89.9FM Madison · Who Does Madison Better, the Eastside or the Westside? Today on A Public Affair, host Ali Muldrow investigates one of the greatest debates of our time: which side of Madison is better, the east side or the west side? Alder Sabrina Madison represented the east side. Sabrina is a Madison Alder for district 17, the founder and CEO of the Progress Center for Black Women, and the founder of the Black Women’s Leadership Conference. Her leadership was integral to the opening of the new Imagination Library, which will officially open this Friday, September 25th – the first library to open in Madison in over 25 years. Representing the west side is Angela Russell. Angela was the former chief diversity officer of Truestage financial group which employs over forty two hundred people, and she is the creator of the Black Oxygen podcast, which gives space to black voices in Wisconsin and was the recipient of the Innovation Award in 2021 in partnership with Madison365. Ali and her guests discussed the culture, restaurants, coffee shops, bookstores, gardens and more found on each side of the city. Although disagreements remain, they found common ground in their love for Madison as a whole as a city founded on values of curiosity and an open mind.  Did you enjoy this story? Your funding makes great, local journalism like this possible. Donate here The post Who Does Madison Better, the Eastside or the Westside? appeared first on WORT-FM 89.9.

WORT 89.9FM Madison · How did Wisconsin Become the Pioneer of Fusion Energy? It was announced earlier this month that the new tech startup Realta Fusion will partner with Madison Gas and Electric and build a nuclear fusion plant in Southern Wisconsin. Realta also announced that they would be building a fusion research facility at the old Oscar Mayer location in Madison. Fusion energy scientist Stephanie Diem and Director of the Great Lakes Fusion Energy Alliance Kathleen Gallagher joined Patrick Casey to talk about what this collaboration means for Wisconsin. UW Madison has a 50 year fusion energy program, one of the oldest programs of this type in the world, and along with MIT, is leading the way in developing this industry. There are 90 fusion companies in the world, and nearly all of them have graduates from the UW Madison, which has graduated close to 600 students from the program. It’s rare for these companies to progress to forming a partnership with an energy company; The partnership with MG&E makes Wisconsin a possible leader in this emerging industry. Fusion is a hydrogen based energy, and it is the process of heating light elements, such as deuterium and trivium, to a temperature ten times hotter than the sun to fuse together. Fission, in contrast, is the process of heating heavy elements until they break apart. The initial heating involves using lasers and microwaves inside magnetic bottles to maintain the hot temperature, because once the bottles are heated, they must remain at this temperature to continue the reaction. Some of the energy produced is used to continue heating up the bottles to continue reactions, while the rest of the energy can be turned into usable energy.  Stephanie Diem received her PhD in Plasma Physics from Princeton University where she studied at the Princeton Plasma Physics Laboratory. Prior to joining UW-Madison, Professor Diem was a Research and Development Scientist in the Fusion Energy Division at Oak Bridge National Laboratory and spent two years at the National Fusion Facility at General Atomics in San Diego. She was a speaker at the 2022 White House Summit on Commercial Fusion Energy and co-developed the US Fusion Energy website for the United States Department of Energy. Kathleen Gallagher is Executive Director of 5 Lakes Institute, a non-profit that works to improve the Great Lakes region’s technological and entrepreneurial landscape. 5 Lakes runs the Great Lakes Fusion Energy Alliance and the Wisconsin Fusion Energy Coalition, which was launched by WEDC in January with a $778,000 Ignite Wisconsin grant. Kathleen is also a guest columnist for the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel and hosts “Midwest Moxie,” a radio show/podcast that features interviews with Midwest company founders. Did you enjoy this story? Your funding makes great, local journalism like this possible. Donate here The post How did Wisconsin Become the Pioneer of Fusion Energy? appeared first on WORT-FM 89.9.

On today’s show, host Ali Muldrow takes the bait and rages against the patriarchy. She’s joined by scholar and former midwife Annie Menzel, and they evaluate the trad wife archetype and social media empire represented in the popular new release, Yesteryear. Yesteryear opens the door to conversations about: eugenics and the purity of the white family; nostalgic settler colonial fantasies of frontier life; the misogyny of the current MAGA movement and the drudgery of nineteenth century life; rape culture and heterosexuality; white Christian nationalism; and so much more. And on top of all that, the novel looks behind the curtain to scenes of labor and laborers that make this highly curated lifestyle popular and very visible. Annie Menzel is a political theorist, former midwife, and Associate Professor of Gender & Women’s Studies at UW-Madison. Her work focuses on understanding how white supremacy, colonization, and gender-based oppression shape human reproductive life, health, and care. Featured image of the cover of Yesteryear. Did you enjoy this story? Your funding makes great, local journalism like this possible. Donate here The post Yesteryear Makes Us Burn with Feminist Rage appeared first on WORT-FM 89.9.

The federal government–from the Justice Department to the FDA–is spending a lot of money on banning gender affirming care for trans youth. And though there is no state mandated ban, providers have stopped offering gender affirming care in Wisconsin. At the same time, Republican leaders like Pete Hegeseth are pro-hormone therapy when it comes to giving cisgender people hormones. On today’s show, host Dana Pellebon takes on the state of hormone therapy with journalist Orion Rummler and two local advocates, Skye-Gia and Venus of OutReach.  In Rummler’s latest article for The 19th, they write that the Trump administration is aligned with science when it comes to giving estrogen to cisgender women experiencing perimenopause and menopause. But the administration also mischaracterizes why this is important, saying that estrogen makes women docile and less likely to get divorced. Then there’s Pete Hegeseth who is obsessed with testing cisgender men in the military for low testosterone. That’s on top of broad cuts to Medicaid that disproportionately affect LGBTQ+ folks and new regulations that limit how states are able to provide HIV services.  Venus says that they’ve noticed more people stressed out by the shrinking options for trans healthcare, but people are organizing and planning. Community care shouldn’t have to go underground, and Venus wants to see a new system, not simply a reformed one shaped by electoral politics.  Skye-Gia is frustrated by the failure of many Democrats to speak up about trans rights. It was only three years ago that Governor Evers vetoed a bill that would have banned gender affirming care for people under 18. But campaign promises won’t change a broken system. Skye-Gia Garcia is a community organizer who currently holds a position at OutReach LGBTQ+ Community Center working with unhoused youth. Orion Rummler covers LGBTQ+ health for The 19th, a nonprofit newsroom. They have covered this beat from Capitol Hill, the White House, inside the Supreme Court, and in states across the country.  Venus is a Black 24-year-old transexual artist, dancer, and visionary, and is also a rapid rehousing navigator for EverStrong, helping young adults obtain and maintain stable housing. Featured image of a hypodermic needle. Did you enjoy this story? Your funding makes great, local journalism like this possible. Donate here The post Hormones Are Having A Strange Moment appeared first on WORT-FM 89.9.

There are term limits on the President of the United States, but why aren’t similar conditions placed on Congress? On today’s show, guest host Douglas Alexander has a friendly debate about the likelihood and efficacy of congressional term limits with scholar Anthony Fowler.  Congressional term limits are generally popular with US voters across the political spectrum, but Fowler says that if you look closely at the studies and academic literature, there isn’t a lot of evidence that term limits would be good or effective. In democratic elections, voters are able to choose their favorite candidate, and whoever is in office has an incentive to get reelected. Fowler argues that term limits would make these two aspects of electoral politics less effective.  One argument for term limits is that they would restrict politicians’ likelihood of pandering to voters, says Fowler. Instead of term limits, Fowler recommends other kinds of reform, like changing the nature of legislative jobs so that more competent people will run for them. But Alexander asks, would imposing term limits make it possible for more diverse candidates to run for office to begin with? Fowler tracks political polarization and studies electoral incentives within political institutions. He works on the web series, the Democracy Reform Primer Series in which scholars break down issues like congressional term limits, filibuster reform, the electoral college, and more.  Anthony Fowler is the Sydney A. Stein, Jr. Professor in the Harris School of Public Policy at the University of Chicago. His research applies econometric methods for causal inference to questions in political science, with particular emphasis on elections and political representation. Specific interests include unequal political participation, electoral accountability, political polarization, and the credibility of empirical research. He is the director of the Center for Effective Government, an editor-in-chief of the Quarterly Journal of Political Science, an author of Thinking Clearly with Data, and a host of Not Another Politics Podcast. Featured image of the House of Congress chamber from 2011 via Flickr. Did you enjoy this story? Your funding makes great, local journalism like this possible. Donate here The post Term Limits are Popular, But What Would They Actually Do? appeared first on WORT-FM 89.9.

Today marks the 25th anniversary of the attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon. On the show, Norman Stockwell of The Progressive remembers September 11, 2001 by discussing how WORT covered the breaking news on the day of and in the weeks following the attacks.  We hear clips from the WORT archive, including the moment on the 8 O’clock Buzz when news of the attacks broke into Eugene Parks and Stanley Woodard’s broadcast. We also hear Zoltán Grossman speaking with Robert Fisk, author of Night of Power: The Betrayal of the Middle East, and an interview with Arjun Makhijani. We also listen to local peace demonstrators saying “our grief is not a call for war,” and take calls from listeners who share their memories of 9/11.   Finally, we hear a clip from Democracy Now’s Juan Gonzalez speaking of the toxic air conditions, which he laid out in his book, Fallout: The Environmental Consequences of the World Trade Center Collapse. This week, The Progressive published a Palestinian’s perspective on 9/11.  A big thanks to WORT’s Archiving committee for digitizing the clips for today’s show. Featured image of a view of lower Manhattan a month before 9/11 via Flickr (CC BY 2.0).  Did you enjoy this story? Your funding makes great, local journalism like this possible. Donate here The post From the Archives: WORT Coverage of 9/11 appeared first on WORT-FM 89.9.

On today’s show producer Sara Gabler gets personal about white Christian womanhood with scholar Kristin Kobes Du Mez. Her new book, Live Laugh Love: The Secret History of White Christian Women and the World They Made will be published next week. Live Laugh Love offers a genealogy of modern Christianity that doesn’t center male theologians. Instead Du Mez highlights the lives of powerful female leaders whose popular books and blogs helped teach white Christian women to submit to their husbands and protect their sexual purity. Women like Hannah Whitall Smith who wrote The Christian’s Secret of a Happy Life in 1875 and Helen Andelin who wrote Fascinating Womanhood in 1963 are the forebears of the influencer @ballerinafarm and figures like Erika Kirk. There was always a darker side to their happy, fascinating lives. Many of these women were subjected to abuse and were silenced when they spoke up about it. Even a leader as powerful as Beth Moore was ostracized for speaking out against the Southern Baptist Convention’s (SBC) embrace of Donald Trump and for the SBC’s silence on Trump’s history of abuse of women.  White Christian women can be both victims of an unforgiving culture and perpetrators of that culture. For everyday women, their choice of an ideal of love and happiness over freedom and equality keeps them trapped. It can be hard to exit that world because the Christian culture industry is all encompassing: from ideologically coded candles to spandex leggings. In this world, MLMs reign as the perfect tool of white Christian nationalism because they replicate the same hierarchical structures of the church. What’s Christian about Tupperware? The gospel of free enterprise.  They also discuss the women who have tried to change the system from the inside, like Sarah Bessey, Rachel Held Evans, Nadia Bolz-Weber, Latasha Morrison, and many others. Kristin Kobes Du Mez is a New York Times bestselling author and Professor of History at Calvin University. She is a Senior Democracy Fellow with the Public Religion Research Institute. Her research focuses on the intersection of gender, religion, and politics. She has written for The New York Times, The Washington Post, NBC News, Religion News Service, and Christianity Today, and has been interviewed on NPR, CBS, and the BBC, among other outlets. Her most recent books include Jesus and John Wayne: How White Evangelicals Corrupted a Faith and Fractured a Nation (2020) and Live Laugh Love: The Secret History of White Christian Women and the World They Made (September 2026). Featured image of the cover of Live Laugh Love: The Secret History of White Christian Women and the World They Made. Did you enjoy this story? Your funding makes great, local journalism like this possible. Donate here The post What’s So Christian About Tupperware? appeared first on WORT-FM 89.9.

On today’s show, host Ali Muldrow speaks with Karin Wolf about the power of local art and how the city of Madison has responded to police violence with public art projects. Wolf was instrumental to the Downtown Street Art and Mural Project following the police execution of George Floyed in 2020. She invited people who were impacted by racialized violence to create murals on the boarded up windows of State Street businesses. She says the project “unleashed a valve” of creative responses that transformed despair into empowerment. The project was careful to avoid “art washing” anti-Black violence, to decenter whiteness, and to foreground the talents of artists of color in Madison.  Ultimately, that project was temporary. But as people continue to grapple with the police murder of Corey Ruiz, there’s a renewed conversation about the possibility of a permanent memorial at Willy and Baldwin Streets. The occupation of Willy and Baldwin streets underscored the inequity of resources in Madison, prompting Muldrow and Wolf to problematize the need for both public art and public housing. They also discuss the need to counterpose the pain of police brutality with art reflecting Black life, self-determination, and joy.  Wolf describes the challenges of creating public art projects, especially when it requires working with complex bureaucracy and planning projects that represent the breadth of the city. And she highlights a new initiative called the Teejop Community Art Project. Karin Wolf is the Arts & Culture Administrator for the City of Madison. She has a background in arts project management, research, writing, and educational programs. She manages arts grants, gallery spaces, art collections, and public art projects. Featured image of the George Floyed mural displayed at the intersection of Willy and Baldwin Streets courtesy of Sara Gabler/WORT. Did you enjoy this story? Your funding makes great, local journalism like this possible. Donate here The post Public Art Responds to Police Violence appeared first on WORT-FM 89.9.

If you need a marriage license or adoption papers, you’ll have to engage with the legal system. But not everyone has a choice of when and how the law intrudes in their lives. On today’s show, host Dana Pellebon tackles the criminal legal system with scholar Jim Greiner, whose lab recently released a study of Dane County’s bail risk assessment tool. Greiner and the Access to Justice Lab use evidence-based methods to determine if criminal legal system processes are effective at accomplishing their goals. Dane County commissioned them to study their public safety assessment (PSA) tool that is used by judges to decide whether to release someone with or without posting bail based on their likelihood of missing their court date or committing another crime. Their randomized study found that the risk assessment did nothing: racial disparities and outcomes were neither better nor worse. Greiner says he was surprised by the findings, but that they were replicated in other counties around the country. The results show that bail itself doesn’t deter or prevent misbehavior. And the evaluation tool wasn’t any better than the judge’s personal assessments at determining who was high- or low-risk. Greiner studies how the legal system interacts with people who can’t afford to hire lawyers. When it comes to the criminal legal system, many question whether it’s accomplishing its goals at all. But Greiner says that the answer depends on what goals you have in mind. If you believe the system is meant to be retributive, then it’s possible to conclude that incarceration is its own end. And Greiner says few studies show that the carceral system works well for anything other than retributive goals. They also discuss the need for long-term supportive services, bail practices in Illinois, community courts in St. Louis, and how text messaging systems are very effective at reminding people to make their court dates. Jim Greiner is the Honorable S. William Green Professor of Public Law at Harvard Law School, where he teaches courses on civil procedure, expert witnesses, and voting regulation. He is the founder and Faculty Director of the Access to Justice Lab, which implements randomized field experiments to find out what works for individuals and families who cannot afford to hire lawyers in both the civil and the criminal justice systems. Before coming to HLS in 2007, Jim practiced law for six years (three for the U.S. Department of Justice, three for the law firm of Jenner & Block), followed by a Ph.D. in statistics at Harvard University. His work has been published in a variety of venues including the Science, the Harvard Law Review, the Journal of the Royal Statistical Society, and the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. Featured image of the Dane County Courthouse via Brian Standing/WORT. Did you enjoy this story? Your funding makes great, local journalism like this possible. Donate here The post Study Shows Bail Risk Assessments Don’t Work appeared first on WORT-FM 89.9.

On today’s show, host Esty Dinur takes up the topic of Enbridge’s Line 5 pipeline, again, in response to the recent spill on August 25. We’re joined by journalist River Akemann, lawyer Evan Feinauer, and we hear a written statement from Gracie Waukechon of the Bad River Band of Lake Superior Chippewa (reproduced below).  Video journalist and Unicorn Riot contributor River Akemann was arrested on August 24, 2026, the day before the major spill, while documenting construction on a dry bed crossing on another section of the pipeline. Akeman noticed protected fish species near the site and was documenting the unauthorized logging with a group of other water protectors when they were arrested. Akemann says that Enbridge has a nondisclosure agreement with Ashland law enforcement, meaning that “police aren’t looking out for the local community’s best interest, they’re doing the bidding of a corporation.” The August 25 spill released around 1.3 million gallons of natural gas liquids, more than any other spill in Wisconsin history. While much of the gas evaporated, Evan Feinauer says that doesn’t mean it disappeared. Feinauer is a staff attorney for Clean Wisconsin and focuses on protecting Wisconsin’s waters. He does this by supporting Clean Wisconsin’s policy experts and lobbyists at the Capitol, and by litigating in state court. Feinauer says that much of the information about the spill is being provided by Enbridge because the Wisconsin Department of Natural Resources hasn’t been to the site yet due to the level of contaminants in the air. He describes the complex matrix of DNR and other state laws that govern waterways and pipelines. Because the spill took place at a valve project site, not technically part of the Line 5 reroute, there may not have been an official monitoring the construction. Clean Wisconsin is challenging the Line 5 reroute project.  Statement from Gracie Waukechon:  Boozhoo my relatives, As I prepare for rice camp this week, my heart is broken for all the beings put at risk from the recent actions in Northern Wisconsin. Line 5, the pipeline that transports over 23 million gallons of crude oil and natural gas from Superior to Ontario each day, is currently trespassing on a sovereign nation, the Bad River Band of Lake Superior Chippewa.  In 2023, Judge William Conley ruled that Enbridge had three years to either decommission Line 5, or reroute the line. Enbridge went with the latter plan. It has now been three years of appeal and protest from tribal nations, environmentalists, oceanographers, geologists, and concerned citizens from all corners of Turtle Island, from Montreal to Minnesota. Now, the reroute is over halfway complete, but at what cost? So far, there have been four reported frack-outs on the Line 5 reroute, releasing gallons of drilling fluid into the ecosystem. On August 25th, a subcontractor’s semi truck rolled, striking the pipeline and causing a gas leak near Saxon in Iron County. According to WPR, this released an estimated 31,000 barrels of natural gas, including propane, butane, and benzene into the atmosphere. These are highly flammable gases, and long term exposure of benzene, a carcinogen, is known to cause cancer. Nearby homes have been evacuated, and many nearby residents have gone without power, in an attempt to lower the risk of explosion. Let’s call this what it is: environmental destruction that was 100% preventable. None of these incidents are surprising. Countless legal and environmental groups, concerned citizens, and tribal nations have sounded the alarm for years that these events would occur should the reroute happen. But these warnings went unheeded, and so here we stand today, with toxins in the atmosphere and drilling fluid at our feet.  Time and time again, the profit of extractive companies are prioritized over the safety and concern of citizens who rely on this land. We need to change that. I urge everyone who relies on the Great Lakes to continue to sound the alarm. Show up, speak out, protect the Bad River and Lake Superior watershed. Now is the time to urge decision makers, like the Department of Natural Resources, to revoke the permits for the Line 5 reroute. We are all in this fight together. The accidents, leaks, and frack-outs off-reservation will impact everyone in Northern Wisconsin. But now is not the time to lose hope. Please remember that every single one of us is an extension of this Earth. We are from the Earth itself. Our ancestors are buried here, our children will be raised here. Will we leave a safe, sustainable world for them? Each one of us- whether we are an environmental activist or a decision maker for Big Oil, will one day return to Mother Earth. We must ask ourselves, what will she say to us upon our return? Gracie Waukechon is an environmental activist, community organizer, and tribal member of the Bad River Band of Lake Superior Chippewa and is a Menominee Descendant. She resides in Northeastern Wisconsin. Featured image from the Wisconsin DNR. Did you enjoy this story? Your funding makes great, local journalism like this possible. Donate here The post Line 5 Is a Rolling Disaster appeared first on WORT-FM 89.9.