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.
A documentary about Prison Performing Arts will be shown this weekend at the Missouri History Museum. Director Lisa Rhoden Boyd talks about her experience documenting a group of prisoners at the women's prison in Vandalia, Missouri as they developed the St. Louis-based organization's first commissioned play.
Environmental problems make a lot of news, but solutions are in the works in many places too. Where thinking around a whole system is taking place, ideas-in-action deserve a listen!
Beth Porter, Climate Campaigns Director for the DC based non-profit Green America, digs into making solutions work, toward a green economy.
Green America works to harness economic power - the strength of consumers, investors, businesses and the marketplace - to create a socially just and environmentally sustainable society.
THANKS to Andy Heaslet, Earthworms engineer
Music: Butter II, performed live at KDHX by Ian Ethan Case
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.
There is no legal place in Missouri to buy medical marijuana, even though more than 17-hundred patients are already in the state's medical cannabis program. That number indicates greater access in Missouri compared to Illinois, where an initiative has been in place for almost five years.
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 Public Radio’s Julie O’Donoghue and Jaclyn Driscoll welcome state Rep. LaDonna Appelbaum to Politically Speaking for the first time. The discussion includes her effort to improve health care.
Appelbaum represents Missouri’s 71st House District, which takes in portions of Chesterfield, Creve Coeur, Maryland Heights, Olivette, Overland and unincorporated St. Louis County. She was first elected in 2018.
Increasing tuition is putting pressure on students throughout the country. Many state universities in Missouri are relying on it for more than half of their budgets. We examine how the rising cost of higher education is affecting students at Missouri's flagship university.
On the latest episode of Politically Speaking, St. Louis Public Radio's Jason Rosenbaum, Julie O'Donoghue and others talk about the St. Louis airport privatization efforts, sports betting and the ongoing controversy over Paul McKee's city development plans.
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.
The internationally renowned political dissident and artist Ai Weiwei is presenting a major exhibition at the Kemper Art Museum. The artworks examine questions related to the horrors of war and various forms of violence. Many of the pieces are being presented in the United States for the first time.
Nurses say that the threat of violence is increasingly part of their jobs, and both hospitals and college instructors are finding ways to help them maintain safety in the face of that danger. This troubling landscape is the focus of a new piece by "5 On Your Side" KSDK reporter Jenna Barnes.
Host Sarah Fenske talks with Mike Isaacson, artistic director and executive producer of the Muny. In addition to the 2020 season, they touch on the Muny’s $100 million capital campaign and recent renovations, as well as local and national musical theater trends.
Ten years ago, a trio of recent law school graduates formed a nonprofit law firm. They called it ArchCity Defenders. And they had a novel idea: wraparound services, not just legal representation, for the people who needed it most. As Michael-John Voss explains it, he and his co-founders, Thomas Harvey and John McAnnar, were inspired by the Jesuit tradition at St. Louis University School of Law. After taking classes in public interest law, they found themselves working on projects representing those too poor to afford lawyers. “We saw the fact that the existing entities that were supposed to serve the indigent population were overburdened and overworked,” he say. “And there was no communication between the civil and criminal organizations that are supposed to serve this population. We thought, ‘There’s got to be a better way to do this.’” In this episdoe, he and ArchCity Executive Director Blake Strode talk with host Sarah Fenske.
St. Louis County police officials are dealing with the impact of a nearly $20 million verdict against the department for discrimination against a gay officer. There are questions about the culture of one of the state's largest police departments and how Missouri handles discrimination against the LGBTQ community.
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