Originally broadcast 09/25/2015
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This show covered the recent International Peace Walk at Ada Hayden Heritage Park (sponsored by IRIS), the history and development of the Octagon Art Festival taking place September 27th on Ames Main Street, and a discussion between two veteran reporters talking about covering the Iowa Caucuses.
Photo Credit: Farwell Brown Photo Archive, Courtesty of Ames Public Library
Originally broadcast 09/23/2015
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Peregrine falcons are hawk-like raptors, or birds of prey, that eat other birds. Historically they nested in the alcoves and ledges of 300 foot lime stone cliffs of NE Iowa. Peregrine falcons were lost as a nesting species during the biocide era of the 1950s and 1960s. DDT was the problem, and when it was banned in 1973, work began to return falcons. During the 1980s and 1990s, concerted and synchronous efforts to release young peregrines in cities and wilds were embraced. Falconers Lowell Washburn, Dave Kester and Dr. Pat Redig discuss their efforts to return these birds to the Mississippi Flyway.
Originally broadcast 09/21/2015
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Co-hosts Gale Seiler and Greta Anderson focused on the Pope’s visit and the role of immigration issues leading up to the Iowa caucuses. Dr. Ann Clifford, the Msgr James A. Supple Chair of Catholic Studies at ISU, spoke about the Pope’s encyclical letter on ecology and what we might expect to hear from the Pope while he is in the U.S.
Hector Salamanca, from the American Friends Service Committee, talked about a project called Governing Under the Influence, which calls attention to corporate influence on immigration and other governmental policies. He also highlighted an event called Immigration, Detention, & the Iowa Caucuses, which will take place this Wednesday evening at Trinity United Methodist Church in Des Moines. And Nathan Thrailkill, who has built a “tiny house” in Ames, gave us a tour of his home.
Originally broadcast 09/18/2015
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On today's show we had Merry Rankin back to focus on sustainability. She brought Shelene Codner who works the Iowa DNR for the Iowa Waste Exchange. that helps to reduce and reuse waste. We then talked to John Pleasants, the Cantor for the Ames Jewish Congregation, about the Jewish High Holiday. Finally, we wrap up Eric McCabe, a Zen Buddhist Priest in Ames. He talks about Zen Buddhist spiritual practices.
Originally broadcast 09/16/2015
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From September 17 - 20, the annual Story! Festival in Story City, will once again celebrate the art of story-telling with nationally acclaimed story-tellers performing in Story City. Paul Wierson speaks with two of the featured artists, Jeff Doyle and Connie Regan-Blake. They describe their art and craft and offer a story or two on the air. Naturalist reporter Pat Schlarbaum describes the current nesting activities of our state bird and then, in our Tuning Into Agriculture segment, interviews Joe Kooiker, Story County's Roadside Biologist about how Story County plants prairies along the roadsides instead of mowing and spraying, with the Integrative Roadside Management program.
Originally broadcast 09/14/2015
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Our special guest co-host is Emma Wilson, Nevada girl and student of Middle East politics and broadcast journalism. She brings us Esam Boraey, an Egyptian human rights advocate, now an exile living in Des Moines, who was in the middle of the Tahrir Square in 2011, where the demand to the Mubarek regime was three words: "Freedom, Justice and Dignity". He shares the horror of seeing friends killed and blood on the street, and shock from the U.S. non-response. We also hear from two members of the local Egyptian community, ISU PhD candidate Noor Abdelsamad and professor Ayman Fayed, about life in Ames after growing up in Cairo. Then, host Greta Anderson shares footage from outside Saturday's GOP tent at the tailgater preceding the Cyclone-Hawkeye game, where candidates were scheduled to appear, and where an ad hoc student group "Students against Bigotry" carried a banner in protest of the hate speech of one of those candidates. We talk with the group's leader, Maria Alci'var, about the goals of the protest, the solidarity in numbers and some of the harassment her group faced from haters. Also: a fond look back at this weekend's Maximum Ames Music Festival, with a poem from Saturday's reading by Brett Brinkmeyer.
