Making Contact

This is a special encore edition. Renowned biologist Sandra Steingraber has made fighting environmentally induced cancers her lifes work.  Steingraber’s book, Living Downstream, has been turned into a movie chronicling a year in her life trying to create a world free of cancer causing toxics.  On this edition, we hear excerpts of the documentary film, Living Downstream.   Special thanks to The Peo...

From unpaid bills to entire governments facing bankruptcy, debt is never far from our minds or the news. It’s deeply embedded in our lives: our language, culture, even major religions. It’s also at the heart of many of our most pressing political debates. But have you ever thought about where debt comes from?   On this edition of Making Contact we hear from Anthropologist David Graeber, author of...

The female body as medium, and as message. How can a woman determine how she is perceived by the world, and even by herself? On this edition, we hear stories of women who are using their bodies for political protest, and as tools of  self-empowerment…f orcing everyone to reevaluate their perspectives on the female form. Featuring:   Neda Topaloski &  Xenia Chernyshova , Femen members Galia Ackerma...

When journalist Ta-Nehisi Coates set out to write about police killings he went to visit Mable Jones. Back in 2000, Jones son, a friend of Coates from their time at Howard University, was shot and killed by police in Virginia. He was twenty five years old. Written in the form of a letter to his own teenage son, Coates' book "Between the World and Me" puts police shootings in a wider context. Ta-Ne...

Over 6,000 migrant deaths were recorded on the U.S. side of the border with Mexico between 1998 and 2013. The true number of deaths is likely higher, and thousands of families never hear from their loved ones again. This documentary travels to the desert ranch lands of Brooks County and the border town of Reynosa, Tamaulipas to introduce us to the human cost of “prevention through deterrence,” a b...

This show takes a look at issues within the foster care system in the U.S. from the high rate of teen pregnancy to the alarming use of psychiatric medications in California’s foster care system.   Featuring: Nicole Rocke , former foster youth Kyle Lafferty , the National Campaign to Prevent Teen and Unplanned Pregnancy Linda Bryant ,   Clinical Professor at New York University’s School of Social W...

What do our voices say about us? On this edition we explore voice and identity. We'll hear from someone who nearly lost their voice, the challenges that come with ordering a pizza with a speech generating device, and and how voice contributes to trans women's sense of safety and of self. Featuring: Mya Byrne,  singer-songwriter Kathe Perez , creator of EVA app Samuel Sennott , assistant professor...

We go back to the night in June 1969 at the New York City Stonewall Inn that sparked the LGBT rights movement. On today’s show we’ll hear about the day that galvanized a generation and the continued fight for LGBT civil rights. The first Pride parades took place in June 1970 marking the 1st anniversary of the Stonewall Uprising. Michael Schirker and David Isay bring us an oral history Remembering...

We bring you to Alaska s Tongass Forest, where the Alaska Native Claims Settlement Act turned tribes into corporations and sparked a lengthy logging frenzy. In this radio adaptation of the documentary film, Walking in Two Worlds, we meet a Tlingit brother and sister, who are trying to heal both the forest and their native community.  Special thanks to Specialty Studios. Featuring: Wanda Culp & Bob...

What is it like to be a student who has fought in a war? Producers at The Stanford Storytelling Project’s podcast, State of the Human asked six Stanford students and recent alumni, all veterans of the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, to tell their stories about “Returning Home.” Featuring: Dustin Barfield, Chris Clark, Josh Francis, Annie Hsieh, Russ Toll, and William Treseder , military veterans Hei...

On this week's show we’re exploring how some women have been dehumanized to the point of indifference. We’ll learn how one community is undoing the silence around the violence women of color face. We’ll also hear about how serial killers were able to hunt down mostly Black women for three decades in South Los Angeles. Then we’ll take you to the Yucatan where pregnant indigenous women struggle unde...

Black Lives Matter. This simple phrase has become the motto of a growing movement calling for true justice and equality for black people. Alicia Garza, co-founder of Black Lives Matter, first typed out those three words back in 2013. In March of 2015, Alicia Garza visited the University of Southern Maine to tell the story of how Black Lives Matter came to be, and express her hopes for where it’s h...

Imprisonment, oppressive laws, and harassment of journalists - these are just a few means of censorship around the world. The use of these repressive tactics threaten freedom of expression and the public’s right to information. On this edition, we hear from journalists in Ecuador and Mexico, and learn about the most censored countries from the Committee to Protect Journalists. Featuring: William M...

Making Contact partnered with the 2014 National Poetry Slam in Oakland, CA to produce this special open mic highlighting the power of thoughtful, truth telling, community focused poetry. Featuring Poets:   Chris Cuadrado Lindsay Stone Jared Paul Caitlin Clark Queen T

Five years after the deepwater horizon oil spill in the gulf of mexico , not everyone is “back to normal”. On this edition, we follow BP’s trail from the Bayous of Louisiana to the fine art galleries of London.   Featuring:    Antonia Juhasz , investigative Journalist Monique Verdin & Beau Verdin , Houma tribe members David Gauthe , community organizer Thomas DarDar , United Houma Nation Chief Mar...

Climate change is here affecting weather conditions and sea levels. In India it's also having a more surprising influence on the country's tigers. On this edition of Making Contact, reporter  Daniel Grossman  takes us to India  in Heat of the Moment: Sea Level Rise. Heat of the Moment  was originally produced  for the Pulitzer Center on Crisis Reporting and WBUR. Featuring: Pranabes Sanyal ,  form...

Officially opening in 1914, the Panama Canal connected the Atlantic and Pacific creating a short-cut for ships. It was the biggest infrastructure project of its time. But originally the United States wanted to build the canal in Nicaragua.  The plans shifted largely after French engineer Philippe-Jean Bunau-Varilla convinced U.S. lawmakers otherwise. Well now  the  Nicaragua canal plans are back o...

It’s the second most-traded commodity in the world after oil but how much do you think about your cup of coffee? From coffee farmers in Colombia to the trash produced by your single-cup coffee machine, Making Contact and Green Grid Radio  team up to count the costs of your morning cup  o’joe .   Featuring:   Jairo  Martinez ,  Mariana Cruz ,  Suzana   Angarita ,  coffee farmers Jeff Goldman,  form...

On  last week’s show  we brought you to Idaho and Montana, where hundreds of trucks were routed to haul gigantic mining equipment to the Tar Sands oil fields of Alberta Canada, but an alliance of citizens and community groups was able to block the transport through environmentally sensitive land. This week we continue the saga of the megaloads heading to the Tar Sands through the Pacific Northwest...

The Canadian Tar Sands is the largest industrial project on earth. And the potential environmental consequences have brought together citizens from across borders, to fight its rippling effects. This is the first of a two part special, on the growing resistance to the tar sands, produced by Barbara Bernstein. Featuring: Kevin Lewis,  Idaho Rivers United conservation director Linwood Laughy , write...

We follow Dr. Ann Aurelia Lopez as she shows us the reality of farm workers' lives in the United States and Mexico. Dr. Lopez founded the Center for Farmworker Families in Watsonville, California. Featuring:     Dr. Ann Aurelia Lopez,  founder and director of the Center for Farmworker Families  Women farmworkers

Robert Neuwirth, author of "Shadow Cities: A Billion Squatters, A New Urban World", estimates that more than a billion people--thats 1 in 7--are squatters.  This week, we visit squats in Venezuela and the Philippines, and find out why squatters aren’t just tolerated...they are crucial to the growth of major cities and national economies. Featuring: Robert Neuwirth , author of "Shadow Cities: A Bil...

Why are so many of those killed by police young people of color? A recent ProPublica investigation found that a young black male is at twenty one times greater risk of being shot dead by police than his white counterparts. On this edition of Making Contact we'll hear from one of the reporters who analyzed the data on police killings to come up with that startling conclusion, as well as stories of...

Some call it a new civil rights movement. Others simply call it “black lives matter”. But its yet to be seen if the momentum for justice will result in systemic change. And to get there, what kind of strategies are needed?  On this weeks edition, a conversation about waging non-violence between civil rights movement veteran David Hartsough and Ferguson activist Reverand. Osagyefo Uhuru. Sekou. Fea...

Before it was legal in the United States, some doctors would risk arrest to provide women with access to safe abortions. When that wasn’t possible, some sought abortions from unsafe providers, often with deadly consequences. The Supreme Court legalized abortion in 1973, and the numbers of people dying after having an abortion dropped, but are we now seeing a return to the past? On this edition, wh...