WDRT: Recent Episodes
WDRT
Philothea hosts Grace Anders from Chaparra Provisions discussing Latin Fusion influenced menus
In the fifth episode of Jackie On:, Jackie explains her disdain for the electric scooter as it's used on college campuses through four different reasons: legality, danger, necessity, and stupidity.
Don't be that guy, stay away from the electric scooters!
Sources:
Abdulahi, Safia. 2022. “E-scooters spark safety concerns across campuses.” Inside Higher Ed. https://www.insidehighered.com/news/2022/12/16/e-scooters-spark-safety-concerns-across-campuses.
Disanto, Matt. 2023. “Scooters are everywhere at Penn State, but are they allowed on campus? A commuter's guide.” Centre Daily Times. https://www.centredaily.com/news/local/education/penn-state/article273634030.html.
Fan, Kevin. 2024. “How e-scooters are a plague on Tech’s campus.” Technique. https://nique.net/blogs/opinion-blog/2024/04/12/how-e-scooters-are-a-plague-on-techs-campus/.
Glatter, Robert, Peter J. Papadakos, and Ava R. Papadakos. 2024. “Exploring the Rise in Severe Injuries Associated With Electric Scooters.” Anesthesiology News. https://www.anesthesiologynews.com/Commentary/Article/01-24/Exploring-the-Rise-in-Severe-Injuries-Associated-With-Electric-Scooters/72720.
Philothea hosts Jesse Downs from Trout Creek Farm discussing high tunnel peach tree growing in the Driftless.
The birds we see so many of in summer, the cliff swallows fly long distances to come to North America to raise their young. They nest under bridges and culverts and have many fascinating secrets.
We will visit wetlands again today, and some deep history, with Aldo Leopold. His A Sand County Almanac was published in 1949, not many months after his sudden death at age 60. He dedicated this book “To My Estella”. This is Part II, Sketches Here and There; Wisconsin, Marshland Elegy.
I'm so grateful to the Aldo Leopold Foundation for permission to read this timeless book.
Episode 21 - Professor Ilana Redstone - The Mill Institute at the University of Austin
Ilana Redstone outlines her work and approach towards tackling polarization on college campuses and beyond.
Ilana Redstone is an Associate Professor of Sociology at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, a Founding Faculty Fellow at UATX, and the Faculty Director of The Mill Center at UATX. She is the co-author of “Unassailable Ideas: How Unwritten Rules and Social Media Shape Discourse in American Higher Education” and the creator of the “Beyond Bigots and Snowflakes'' video series. She is the founder of Diverse Perspectives Consulting and has a joint Ph.D. in demography and sociology from the University of Pennsylvania.
The University of Austin, Texas (UATX): https://www.uaustin.org/
The Mill Institute at UATX: https://www.uaustin.org/mill
Diverse Perspectives Consulting: https://diverseperspectivesconsulting.com/
Beyond Bigots and Snowflakes: https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLDBD1QdLvr8CiEL7-vyWdyB7s9lc7Nsrl
Learn more about Thoreau College and the microcollege movement at: https://thoreaucollege.org/Driftless Folk School: https://www.driftlessfolkschool.org/
Placing the Santee Dakota Nation on reservations for the first time in 1851 was an act of cultural genocide. A mere decade thereafter, deprived of the freedom of the hunt, this ancient people stared starvation in its grim face. In August of 1862, there began a final defense of the Dakota Oyate – the long road to Wounded Knee. When the Wars of August were quelled, 303 Dakota were marked for the gallows. President Lincoln, in commuting the sentences of all but 38, paved the way for the largest mass execution in United States history. Featured songs: Water In The Rain (Honoring the Dakota 38) by Larry Long & Amos Owen (BMI); Lay Hatred Down by Larry Long (BM()
Every winter Mother Nature reminds us that she could kill us if she wanted to. Snowstorms. Ice. While driving along those back road, we recognize that we could freeze to death. Time slows down when you’re cold. There are things you can learn through your body that you can’t learn from your mind. Coldness teaches compassion. Coldness reminds us that a warm bed, enough to eat, and a hot shower are precious gifts that many of our brothers and sisters are not able to attain. Thank God for those places and people who give those in need of a place called home shelter.
Sand County Almanac, Soundscapes and Wildlife
This week, soundscapes, specifically the sounds that Aldo Leopold heard, sitting outside the Shack, watching and listening in the early dark hours. The sounds that he heard have changed dramatically since he was listening and scientists have reconstructed them. And because sounds of wildlife are often directly related tolight intensity, both topics are intertwined. I will also talk about sounds that sturgeon make here in Wisconsin, and the Sound Forest Lab at the University of Wi at Madison, studying sounds of tropical forests.
two links
The power of strangers gives us the moral imagination where we have the capacity to care for not only family members but people we do not even know. Mother Teresa was asked, “Mother, why do you do the work you do?” She looked at the reporter and said, “If I hadn’t picked up that first man, probably never would have picked up the other forty-five thousand.” We live in the company of strangers. Do not fear the stranger, welcome the stranger, for whatever we do to the least is most significant.
Featured songs: Tramp on the Street | Words & music by Grady Cole & Hazel; Somalia | Words & music by Larry Long | Copyright Larry Long 1999 (BMI); Jesus Says | Words & music by Larry Long | Copyright Larry Long 1991; Renewed 2022 (BMI)
All of us have an Uncle Mel, Uncle Dale, Uncle Jimmy, Uncle Jamie, Aunt Florence, or a character in the family who makes us smile whenever we think of them. In times of need they’re always there to help out, asking nothing in return, except our love and affection.
Giving us all the gift of joy that bonds the generations together.
Featured Songs: Uncle Mel | Words & Music by Larry Long | Copyright Larry Long 1976;Renewed 2022 (BMI); Grandmother’s Song | Words & Music by Larry Long | Copyright Larry :ong 2022 (BMI)
Contemplation is the opposite of reaction. It’s the ability to pay attention. Wherever your attention goes your energy flows. Silence is the language of intimacy. Where words are not spoken, yet everything is understood. I am yours and you are mine. We are one, but we imagine that we are not. Contemplation is taking a long loving look at what is real and to receive in the eyes of another human being the reflection of one's own self. The contemplative is so much needed in our society today.
Featured songs: Innisfree | Words by William Butler Yeats | Music by Larry Long | Copyright Larry Long 2022 (BMI); He Gave His Life | Words & music by Larry Long | Copyright Larry Long 2022 (BMI); Heaven | Words by Mary Phillips | Music by Larry Long | Copyright Larry Long 2018 (BMI)
Our neighborhoods are the kernels of democracy. Strangers get to know and depend on each other. We learn this as young children. If we’re going to have enough kids to play baseball, we will need everybody. Stokely Carmichael said, “Politics is what you can see from your living room window.” We may not be able to change everything in Washington DC, but we all can have an impact on what happens right outside of our house. What our neighbors have done or are in need of doing shapes our lives. Neighborhoods are not perfect places; they are human places, where we live. It’s where beauty is born.
Featured songs: When Brother Ron Makes It | Words & music by Larry Long | Copyright Larry Long 2018 BMI; Welcome Home | Words & music by Larry Long | Copyright Larry Long 2020 BMI; In My Neighborhood | Words & music by Larry Long | Copyright Larry Long 1991 BMI
Our neighborhoods are the kernels of democracy. Strangers get to know and depend on each other. We learn this as young children. If we’re going to have enough kids to play baseball, we will need everybody. Stokely Carmichael said, “Politics is what you can see from your living room window.” We may not be able to change everything in Washington DC, but we all can have an impact on what happens right outside of our house. What our neighbors have done or are in need of doing shapes our lives. Neighborhoods are not perfect places; they are human places, where we live. It’s where beauty is born.
Featured songs: When Brother Ron Makes It | Words & music by Larry Long | Copyright Larry Long 2018 BMI; Welcome Home | Words & music by Larry Long | Copyright Larry Long 2020 BMI; In My Neighborhood | Words & music by Larry Long | Copyright Larry Long 1991 BMI
Care comes from a Greek word that means ‘to cry out’. Who are the people who care for us when we cry out? They are the caregivers, but who cares for the caregiver when the caregiver needs care. Who takes care of that nurse, doctor, therapist, and EMT? Who takes care of the farmer, clerk, and forklift driver? Who takes care of the mother struggling to put food on the table, teaching her children, and struggling to hold onto her job? Today we honor those who cry out and need to be listened to when they, too, cry out. Who takes care of the caregiver? We all do.
Featured Songs: I Love You | Words & Music by Larry Long | Copyright Larry Long 2011 BMI; It Takes a Lot of Peope | Words & Music by Larry Long | Collectively written with students from Strother Elementary School in Little, Oklahoma | Copyright Larry Long 1989 BMI.
Once you’ve lived on the land, been a partner with its moods, secrets, and seasons, you cannot leave. The living land remembers, touching you in unguarded moments, saying, “I am here. You are part of me.” When this happens to me, I go home again in mind, or in person, back to that hilltop world in southwestern Wisconsin. . . The land is my genesis. I was born there, cradled by the land and I’m always there even though I’ve been a wanderer. I cannot leave the land. How can I when a thousand sounds, sights, and smells tell me that I’m part of it? Let me hear the murmur of the dusk of the summer nights. Sitting beneath the maple tree in the front yard hearing the voices of the people I have loved.” - Ben Logan, The Land Remembers: The Story of a Farm and Its People
Featured songs: Farmers, Miners, Preachers, & Cobblers | Words & Music by Larry Long | Copyright Larry Long 1976; Renewed 2022 BMI; John Deere Have a Beer | Words & Music by Larry Long | Copyright Larry Long 1979; Renewed 2022 BMI; Grandma’s Penny Sale (Give a Prayer for the Farmer | Words & Music by Larry Long | Copyright Larry Long 1981; Renewed 2022 BM
Poetry helps us to remember what we’ve forgotten. Poetry gives us images which words cannot capture in definition or doctrine. Poetry gives us comfort in difficult and uncertain times. Poetry lifts our spirits, captures our hearts and imagination in unsuspecting moments. Mary Oliver, one of the great American poets, writes, “It doesn’t have to be the blue iris, it could be weeds in a vacant lot, or a few small stones; just pay attention, then patch a few words together and don’t try to make them elaborate, this isn’t a contest but the doorway into thanks, and a silence in which another voice may speak.
Featured songs: A Little Longer | Words & music by Larry Long | Inspired from Psalm 37 | Copyright Larry Long Publishing 1998 BMI; Song of the Wandering Aengus | Words by William Butler Yeats | Music by Larry Long | Copyright Larry Long Publishing 2022 BMI; How High Can Angel Fly | Words by Evelyn Hurley | Music by Larry Long | Copyright Larry Long Publishing 2022 BMI.
The mere act of teaching means that one wishes the world well. As Pete Seeger spoke, “Long live teachers of children, because they can show children how they can change the world.”
Featured songs: Blowing In The Wind | Words & Music by Bob Dylan | Copyright © 1962 by Warner Bros. Inc.; renewed 1990 by Special Rider Music; Be Kind To All That Live (Honoring Helen Tsuchiya)| Music by Larry Long | Words by Larry Long with Brenda Dronen’s 4th Grade Class, Prairie View Elementary School | Copyright Larry Long Publishing 2004; Renewed 2020 (BMI)
Hospitality comes from the Greek word hospice. It means to be welcomed as a guest into the life of another. In the best of moments this is who we have been as a nation. Saw a wonderful sign in a gift shop out in the country that read, “If you have more than enough, don’t build walls, build a bigger table.” Invite each other to the table. Get to know them. Hear their stories. What do we see happening when people gather around tables? Strangers are welcomed. Community is born and the high aspirations of America are reignited. Let us all build larger tables and take down the walls.
Featured Songs: American Hymn | Words & Music by Larry Long | Copyright Larry Long 1981; Renewed 2022 (BMI); One More Day in Isolation with You | Words & Music by Larry Long | Copyright Larry Long 2022 (BMI) | This Land is Your Land | Words & Music by Woody Guthrie | Copyright 1956 (Renewed), 1958 (Renewed), 1970 and 1972 by Woody Guthrie Publications, Inc. & TRO-Ludlow Music, Inc (BMI).
In 1912 a peasant walked into an abandoned home in France and saw these words written on a wall. He copied them down and the words said, “Make me a channel of your peace. Where there is hatred, let us sow love; where there is injury, pardon; where there is doubt, faith; where there is discord, unity; where there is error, truth; where there is despair, hope; where there is darkness, light; where there is sadness, joy.”
Dr. Martin Luther King in a letter from the Birmingham jail said, “I want to be remembered as a drum major for justice.” These were his marching orders, “Make us channels of your peace.”
Featured songs: Love Will Lay Hatred Down | Words & Music by Larry Long | Copyright Larry Long 1985; Renewed 2022 (BMI); I Don’t Believe in Violence | Words & Music by Larry Long | Copyright Larry Long 1991; Renewed 2022 (BMI); May There Always Be Sunshine (Пусть всегда будет солнце) | Music by Arkady Ostrovsky | Words by Lev Oshanin & Korney Chukovsky.
Freedom to think. Freedom to speak. Freedom to gather. Freedom to worship. Freedom to love. Freedom to forgive. Freedom to serve. Freedom to lead. Freedom to continue on and make the world a better place. A gift worth preserving and to share with others.
Featured songs: Freedom, Oh Freedom | Words & Music by Larry Long with Children from Beatrice, Alabama | Copyright Larry Long Publishing 1996 (BMI); Road to Freedom | Words & Music by Larry Long | Copyright Larry Long 1984 (BMI); This Little Light of Mine | Traditional | Adapted by Zilphia Horton (Highlander Folk School).
When you’re in the presence of ultimate goodness there is joy. You can purchase pleasure. You can produce happiness, but joy is a gift. Friends are a gift, and they bring us joy. We enjoy being with our friends. We waste time with our friends. We hang out with our friends and when we think about them, they put a smile on our face and a skip to our soul saying, “Hello friends. Hello brother and sister. It’s just good to be with you.”
Featured Songs: Wonderful World | Words & music by George Weiss & Bob Thiele; Farm Song | Words & music by Larry Long | Copyright Larry Long 1974Renewed 2022 BMI; I’m Falling in Love with You | Words & Music by Larry Long | Copyright Larry Long 1982; Renewed 2022 BMI.
The elder storyteller of the Driftless is Ben Logan. In his memorable book The Land Remembers he writes this about summer, “I went out to the cornfields. I knelt by a stock of corn along with the other sounds. I could hear my heart beating. The ground was damp against my knees. The sweet sticky smell of the growing corn was everywhere. A light breeze started the leaves whispering. I put my ear up against the stalk. There was something there. It was a little stretching, popping noise, that could have been the corn pushing upward. I moved my ear away from the stalk and the sound was gone. I tried several times, each time the sound was there. I had heard corn growing. It was a pleasant secret I carried with me through the days.” As Larry Long writes in his song Going Home to the Driftless, “A hoot owl is calling. A coyote howling. Down in the wetlands a north wind blows. Moonlight on the water. No need to go farther than right where I am. In this place I call home.”
Featured songs: Going Home to the Driftless | Words & music by Larry Long | Copyright Larry Long 2021 BMI; Dr. Bauer You Mean the World To Me | Words & music by Larry Long | Copyright Larry Long 2021 BMI | Isabelle | Words & music by Larry Long | Copyright Larry Long 2021 BMI.
Justice is being in the right relationship with one another. Justice is giving back to people what is rightfully theirs. Making justice visible and having the courage to confront it. All of us have an opportunity to provide dignity, freedom, and respect to each other every day. Tell the truth, the whole truth, nothing but the truth, and things will go well for you. This is the work of justice.
Featured Songs: Love Will Lay Hatred (Honoring Leonard Peltier) | Words & Music by Larry Long | Copyright Larry Long 1989; Renewed 2022 BMI; George Floyd (Say His Name) | Words & Music by Larry Long | Copyright Larry Long 2021 BMI; Lift Every Voice & Sing (Black National Anthem) by James Weldon Johnson.
Where does all the food on our tables come from? From people who work the land, grow the crops, care for the animals, and make sure we have enough to eat. Those are your people. Those are my people. Give a prayer tonight for the farmer. Give a word of thanks for their labor.
Featured Songs: Pope County Blues | Words & Music by Larry Long | Copyright Larry Long 1977; Renewed 2022 | BMI; Hauling Freight, No Fences (Honoring Gerald Johanneck: A Truck Driver's Life) | Words & Music by Larry Long with Youth from Wabasso, Minnesota | Copyright Larry Long 1988; Renewed 2019 | BMI; Grandma’s Penny Sale | Words & Music by Larry Long | Copyright Larry Long 1982 | BMI
Veterans Day is celebrated around the world as Armistice Day. Veterans Day grew out of the Armistice signed to put an end to World War I in 1918. On the eleventh hour of the eleventh day of the eleventh month the world goes silent for two minutes to reflect upon peace and how we can put an end to war. As Army combat veteran and friend Max Siegrist shared upon returning from Vietnam, “If you want to help a veteran, put an end to war.”
Featured Songs: Agent Orange: My Country ‘Tis of Thee | Words & Music by Larry Long | Copyright Larry Long 1979 | BMI; All Gave Some, Some Gave All | Words & Music by Larry Long | Copyright Larry Long 2011| BMI; Strangest Dream | Words & Music by Ed McCurdy | Copyright Ed McCurdy 1950.
There’s nothing more sacred and precious than the love we have for our daughters and granddaughters. Filled with poetry, beauty, and goodness, they take us beyond who we truly are. Helping us grow and mature. Becoming our teachers, our guides, our mentors, and our love.
Featured songs: Sweet Lura Rose | Words & Music by Larry Long | Copyright Larry Long 1991 BMI; I Believe in You | Words & Music by Larry Long (Adapted from Psalms 139) | Copyright Larry Long 1996 BMI | Liliana | Words & music by Larry Long | Copyright Larry Long 2007 BMI.
Courage comes from the French word cœur, which means heart. How is the condition of your heart? Is your heart in it? What are the things you know by heart? What are the stories you will tell today that are heartfelt? Are you still tenderhearted, or warmhearted? We meet so many people today who are hardhearted, or coldhearted. More importantly there are so many people who are brokenhearted. Take care of your heart. It’s the source of our courage.
Featured Songs: Run for Freedom | Words & Music by Larry Long with Standing Rock Youth & Elders from the Oceti Sakowin Nation | Copyright Larry Long Publishing 1981 BMI | Tree of Life | Words & Music by Larry Long | Copyright Larry Long 2011 BMI.
New York Times Journalist and Author Thomas Friedman has a marvelous book called, “Thank You for Being Late.” In that book Friedman reminds us that we must learn to live in the eye of the hurricane. What’s in the eye of the hurricane? Calm, stillness, quiet. Yet, from within that space we can draw energy from the storm so we can be dynamic and stable in responding to the lives of each other. He goes on to say that the best analogue for the eye of the hurricane is a healthy community, where people feel protected, respected, and connected. A place we all call home.
Featured songs: Every time I Look at Someone (Honoring Clara Beebe) | Words & Music by Larry Long with Youth & Elders from Lac Courte Oreilles Anishinabe Nation | Copyright Larry Long 1999 BMI; Eyes of My Father | Words & Music by Larry Long 2011 BMI: Grandpa’s Song | Words & Music by Larry Long | Copyright Larry Long 1992 BMI
Hospitality is predicated in generosity. Generosity is predicated in gratitude. You won’t give people the time of day unless you have a generous spirit. Be generous with our kindness. Be generous with our patience. Be generous with our compassion. May we all have the courage to create a hospitable world where all are welcome.
Featured songs: Why Not Me Lord (Honoring Gladius Milton) | Words & Music by Larry Long with Children from Rural Alabama | Copyright Larry Long Publishing 1996 BMI ; Lucky Jacob (For my son Jacob Amos Keith Long) | Words & music by Larry Long | Copyright Larry Long 1989 BMI .
Wisdom is paying attention to the good stuff. Not all old people are wise, but all wise people are old. Age gives us an opportunity to look back to discern what is good, what is important, and what is significant. That is why we look towards our elders for their wisdom, to point us in a direction, to give us a new calibration, to remind us of what is good, what is right, and what is just. Whatever you pay attention to, you get more of, so why not pay attention to the good stuff.
Featured songs: Love of Life | Words & Music by Larry Long | Copyright Larry Long 2011, BMI; Grandmother’s Home | Words & Music by Larry Long | Copyright Larry Long 2021, BMI; Chicky Chicky Boom | Words & Music by Larry Long 2000, BMI
Friendship is a sweet gift. Friends are people who have our best interest in mind. Friends enjoy being in each other’s company. Friends are people who join together for the common good. We do so much more good together then we could ever do alone. Friends wish each other well. A friend takes joy in your success because friendship is truly the basis of community.
Featured songs: Building Community | Words & Music by Larry Long | Copyright Larry Long 1996 BMI; Mississippi Queens | Words & Music by Larry Long | Copyright Larry Long 1976 BMI; Michael | Words & Music by Larry Long | Copyright Larry Long 1981 BMI
Ever see a hospital built by cynics anonymous? No, it’s good people who join together to do good work every day. Wherever I go I meet good people who want to help me, serve me, and make my life a little bit better. Isn’t it true that we reap what we sow? If we are good, kind, and thoughtful it comes back to us. If we are mean and cynical that comes back to us as well. Let’s sow goodness and help make this world a little bit better one good deed at a time. Thanks for all you do.
Featured songs: Well May The World Go | Words by Pete Seeger | Melody from Weel May the Keel Row | Copyright Pete Seeger 1973, BMI; In My Neighborhood | Words & music by Larry Long | Copyright Larry Long 1991; Renewed 2022, BMI; My Old Friend | Words & music by Larry Long | Copyright Larry Long 2016, BMI.
Isn’t it wonderful? People are coming alive to the sounds of Spring. Birds are singing. Snow has melted. The creeks are whistling, “Oh to be mudluscious and puddle-wonderful again.” The poet Mary Oliver captures this in her poem, Why I Wake Early.
Hello, sun in my face.
Hello, you who make the morning
and spread it over the fields
and into the faces of the tulips
and the nodding morning glories,
and into the windows of, even, the
miserable and crotchety– . . .
Hello sun in my face. Thank you for waking me up to absorb the beauty of creation that is expressed with each new day of Spring.
Featured songs: Garden Song by David Mallett | Copyright David Mallett, Chrysalis One Music Publishing Group, Ireland; Mujer Sobre La Montana by Larry Long | Copyright Larry Long 2020/BMI; Tu BiShvat by Larry Long | Copyright Larry Long 2022/BMI