Host Sarah Fenske talks with seventh-generation Ozarker Kaitlyn McConnell about her new guidebook, "Passport to the Ozarks," which lists 61 “out-of-the-way places to see, visit and experience throughout the Missouri Ozarks.”
In the wake of St. Louis Public Schools’ termination last month of Trey Porter, Roosevelt High School’s now former football coach and athletic director, there were more questions than answers. Porter joins host Sarah Fenske to share his perspective on the events of recent days.
What happens when you pair hip hop and violin? Host Sarah Fenske explores the answer with acclaimed hip-hop violin duo Black Violin, alongside St. Louis music producer and musician Brandon McCadney, known as Mad Keys.
The International Institute of St. Louis has been a welcome community for immigrants and refugees to the area for 100 years. In this segment, Sarah Fenske talks with the group's president and CEO, Anna Crosslin, as well as the founder of St. Louis Bosnians Inc. and the director of Grupo Atlantico.
Filmmaker Lynn Novick’s new documentary “College Behind Bars,” set to air on PBS later this month, follows the journeys of men and women pursuing academic degrees while in prison. In doing so, it illustrates the life-changing nature of educational opportunity while also putting a human face on mass incarceration and, as the film’s website puts it, “our failure to provide meaningful rehabilitation for the over two million Americans living behind bars.” Prison education programs including the one featured in Novick’s film, the Bard Prison Initiative, are among efforts to address that failure across the nation. Locally, both St. Louis University and Washington University run programs that bring faculty members to several of the region’s correctional institutions to lead college-level classes. And like other such programs, they boast extremely low recidivism rates for participants who have since been released from prison. In this episode, Novick sits down with host Sarah Fenske to discuss her film and the critical issues it puts in the spotlight. An alumnus of the Bard Prison Initiative, Salih Israil, participates in the conversation, too, as does Paul Lynch, the director of SLU’s Prison Program.
In the new Netflix documentary, "Game Changers," the former team physician for the St. Louis Rams and Cardinals challenges what he refers to as a “locker room mythology about meat, protein and strength.” Dr. James Loomis says that contrary to popular belief, protein isn’t what sustains a person’s energy. Rather, energy comes from carbohydrates, and when carbohydrate calories are sacrificed for protein calories, athletes can develop symptoms like chronic fatigue or loss of stamina. In this segment, Sarah Fenske talks with Loomis about the rise of plant-based eating in professional sports.
The Trump administration’s formal withdrawal of the U.S. from the Paris Agreement on climate change has members of the Mississippi River Cities and Towns Initiative concerned. The organization is worried that the withdrawal could lead to U.S. commodities producers being taxed or penalized by countries that signed on to the accord, something that the European Union has signaled they would like to pursue. In this interview, Sarah Fenske talks with the executive director of the Mississippi River Cities & Towns Initiative, Colin Wellenkamp, as well as Kimmswick, Missouri, Mayor Phil Stang, about what leaving the accord could do to the competitiveness of Midwest commodity exports.
At their core, Missouri and Illinois programs do the same thing: They allow doctors to certify patients to use cannabis if they have a qualifying condition. But there are significant differences in the details of each law. In this segment, Sarah Fenske talks with St. Louis Public Radio reporter Jaclyn Driscoll about the differences between the two state's medical marijuana programs.
The weather outside may be frightful, but Patrick Horine, co-founder of the popular Tower Grove Farmers Market, isn’t exactly closing up shop for the colder months these days. As he looks toward the final market of the season this weekend in the south St. Louis park, he’s also gearing up for its wintry equivalent — which is growing. Initially launched in 2007 as a monthly affair, the Winter Market this year will take place weekly beginning Dec. 7. And it’s moving to the spacious Koken Art Factory in St. Louis’ Fox Park neighborhood to accommodate dozens of local vendors. In this segment, Horine joins Sarah Fenske for a sneak peek at the wintry offerings, which also will feature a holiday theme the first three Saturdays of the season. He also discusses farmers market trends in the region as a whole.
In 2012, Rita Csapo-Sweet and her husband, the late Frederick Sweet, jointly published a paper on the ghastly but little-known legacy of Carl Clauberg, a German physician who conducted mass sterilization experiments at Auschwitz during World War II. Clauberg would use his work in the concentration camp to develop a pioneering fertility test. “Clauberg’s name needs to be placed next to [Josef] Mengele’s in its rightful place in infamy,” the two scholars concluded, emphasizing that Clauberg’s medical crimes against humanity “must be disclosed whenever the test bearing his name appears” in modern biomedical texts. As Csapo-Sweet and Sweet dug into their research, filmmakers Sylvia Nagel and Sonya Winterberg also began a documentary about Clauberg — and the St. Louis-based couple’s academic article filled in key gaps in the filmmakers’ story. Nagel and Winterberg reached out to Csapo-Sweet in 2015, and she joined the documentary as its American producer. Now complete, “Made in Auschwitz: The Untold Story of Block 10” will be screened this weekend as part of the St. Louis International Film Festival. In this episode of St. Louis on the Air, host Sarah Fenske talks with Csapo-Sweet about the film and the history of genocidal collaboration by medical professionals, both during the Holocaust and more recently. Csapo-Sweet is an associate professor of media studies at the University of Missouri-St. Louis.
Bush honeysuckle isn't native to Missouri, but the species is flourishing in the state. In an effort to upset honeysuckle infestation, the Missouri Botanical Garden has organized public events and volunteer removal days to raise public awareness about the need for bush honeysuckle removal and the benefits of replacing it with native plants. Host Sarah Fenske talks with the garden’s restoration outreach coordinator, Ali Brown, about the organization’s Honeysuckle Sweep Month, the impacts of honeysuckle and other invasive plants in Missouri and what can be done to combat their disruptions.
In 2009, New York Post reporter Susannah Cahalan suddenly experienced hallucinations, paranoia, seizures and catatonia. She was misdiagnosed for a month before she was finally treated for a rare autoimmune disease that can attack the brain, anti-NMDA receptor encephalitis. She investigated her experience and published the details in her 2012 book, “Brain on Fire: My Month of Madness.”
Led by a concern that others suffering from this condition were being mistreated in psychiatric hospitals, she began looking into an influential 1973 study titled "On Being Sane in Insane Places" by psychologist David Rosenhan. The details of her investigation are found in her latest book, “The Great Pretender: The Undercover Mission That Changed Our Understanding of Madness.”
For nearly three decades, the Whitney R. Harris World Ecology Center at the University of Missouri-St. Louis has bestowed its World Ecology Award on prominent biodiversity-minded individuals ranging from John Denver to E.O. Wilson. But this year the center is instead honoring a pair of world-class local institutions — the Missouri Botanical Garden and the St. Louis Zoo — for their critical research and conservation work in Madagascar. In this episode, Sarah Fenske talks with the center’s interim director, Patty Parker, and with a Malagasy scientist, Fidisoa Rasambainarivo, who is in St. Louis to speak at an upcoming gala where the zoo and garden are being honored. The conversation also includes comments from zoo and garden staff.
Last night, a meteor shower caused a bright flash in the night sky that many home security cameras in the St. Louis area captured. The annual Taurid meteor shower, which is known to burn more brightly than other meteor events, hit its peak on Monday evening. In this segment, Sarah Fenske talks about the science behind Monday's meteor with Will Snyder, manager of the James S. McDonnell Planetarium at the St. Louis Science Center.
In 2009, when Sheila McGlown began battling metastatic breast cancer at the age of 43, she was already a skilled fighter. She’d spent 25 years in the U.S. Air Force, a background she says gave her strength as well as a sense of defiance that would serve her well amid new challenges. Ten years later, McGlown is still undergoing cancer treatment — and still focused on the service to others that she cherished during her military career. The Swansea, Illinois, resident has found a new passion for advocacy around the inclusion of women of color in clinical trials. Meanwhile, she’s also 16 months into a clinical trial participation herself. In this episode of the talk show, in light of Veterans Day, McGlown joins Sarah Fenske to discuss her ongoing journey.
Parents and educators often look for various ways to engage kids in reading. While traditional novels are seen as the “ideal,” graphic novels can be just as effective. Similar to comic books, graphic novels tend to be in a longer format, and the narrative is largely self-contained. With the combination of text and pictures, graphic novels have complex plots, characters and conflicts. DC Comics recently introduced a line of superhero-based graphic novels aimed at middle-grade readers — kids between the ages of 8 and 12. Host Sarah Fenske talks with authors Ridley Pearson and Meg Cabot ahead of their St. Louis County Library appearance.
For months on end, consultants with an interest in privatizing St. Louis Lambert International Airport have billed tens of thousands of dollars while working to craft language underpinning an airport lease. Their chief antagonists have been working just as long — only they’re doing it without any hope of a payday. Calling themselves STL Not for Sale, the group of gadflies has been a familiar presence at public forums. They want to force a public vote on a deal that Mayor Lyda Krewson prefers to leave to the Board of Aldermen. In this segment, host Sarah Fenske talks with Josie Grillas and Chris Ottolino of STL Not for Sale about their efforts and the “town hall” they’re hosting on Nov. 14.
St. Louis’ relatively low cost of living is an oft-touted point of pride for the region. But a newly released report by the Metropolitan St. Louis Equal Housing and Opportunity Council, or EHOC, suggests that life in the Gateway City isn’t so affordable for everyone — especially when it comes to paying rent. Compiled by the organization’s community engagement specialist, the report aims to fill an information gap when it comes to understanding local rent costs. And one of the key takeaways from Glenn Burleigh’s ZIP-code-level analysis is that perceptions of gentrification are rooted in reality: Across the city of St. Louis, rents are rising faster than in the metropolitan region as a whole, and twice as fast in the central corridor and south St. Louis. In this episode, Burleigh joins host Sarah Fenske to discuss the implications of EHOC’s recent findings as well as related topics.
The 28th St. Louis International Film Festival returns this week to offer local moviegoers the chance to view international films, documentaries, American indies and shorts over the course of 11 days. Host Sarah Fenske talks with Cinema St. Louis artistic director Chris Clark about some of this year’s highlights. Also joining the discussion are two film directors whose works take a look at issues pertaining to the region, albeit vastly different ones.
stLouIST