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‘It’s disheartening’: College students feel impacts, see programs cut as funding trends continue

6 years 6 months ago

On Wednesday’s St. Louis on the Air, host Don Marsh discussed the impact of higher education’s ongoing budget crisis on those at the heart of the whole project: the students. Several local undergrads from Southern Illinois University Edwardsville and the University of Missouri-St. Louis joined the conversation, along with Dennis McDonald, an adjunct instructor at St. Louis Community College and at Jefferson College.

Texas Tales from "A Thirsty Land" with Seamus McGraw

6 years 6 months ago

Subtitle of the new book by Seamus McGraw is Making of the American Water Crisis. McGraw turns his curiosity and storytelling skills to focus on Texas, where he says every aspect of water use, issues, needs and potentials are in play. 

      

 From a state he says is more like an Empire, where multiple desert climates overlay multiple aquifers, where water use planning and water rights laws still work in a form of frontier justice - what can we learn about how diverse interests might cooperate to equitably manage what all parties need? Water is life, but can people work out ways to share it?

      

 Left Bank Books, STL's premier independent bookseller, will host Seamus McDaniel on May 1 for a reading and book-signing. A Thirsty Land (2018) comes from University of Texas Press.

Music: Cadillac Desert performed live at KDHX by William Tyler

THANKS to Dan Waterman and Andy Coco, engineering this edition of Earthworms.

Related Earthworms Conversations: Water Issues - Meddling, Muddling, Advocacy (Dec 2017)

Mississippi River Infrastructure Investment Plan (April 2017)

 

Ham and Benson on how spirited debate is vanishing from political discourse

6 years 6 months ago

The latest edition of Politically Speaking takes a bit of a break from the frenetic discussion of Missouri politics by welcoming conservative writers Guy Benson and Mary Katharine Ham onto the show.

Benson and Ham are co-authors of the book End of Discussion: How the Left's Outrage Industry Shuts Down Debate, Manipulates Voters, and Makes America Less Free (and Fun). They were in St. Louis last week to speak at the St. Louis Chess Club.

Four huge events this week that diminished Greitens’ political standing

6 years 6 months ago

On the latest edition of Politically Speaking, St. Louis Public Radio’s Jason Rosenbaum, Jo Mannies and Rachel Lippmann break down all of developments in ongoing saga around Gov. Eric Greitens.

This week was particularly newsworthy. After last week’s release of an explosive House report that lead to widespread calls for Greitens to resign, at least three events ended up placing Greitens’ political career on virtual life support.

Trained pigs usher in Circus Flora’s earlier start, permanent home in Grand Center

6 years 6 months ago

For more than 30 years, Circus Flora, a one-ring circus that makes St. Louis its home, has offered a circus show that’s best described as live theater. It’s an intimate setting that is in stark contrast to the images some people might conjure of the large Ringling Bros. and Barnum & Bailey Circus which performed for the last time 10 months ago. Two things are significantly different about this year’s Circus Flora season, as Cecil MacKinnon and Jack Marsh noted this week on St. Louis on the Air.

Mantovani on why he should lead Missouri's largest county

6 years 6 months ago

On the latest edition of Politically Speaking, St. Louis Public Radio's Jason Rosenbaum and Jo Mannies welcome Mark Mantovani to the program.

The Democrat is running for St. Louis County executive. He's seeking to deprive incumbent St. Louis County executive Steve Stenger of a second term.

Carl Pope: Creating a Climate of Hope

6 years 6 months ago

The 2016 book Climate of Hope conveys a broad, powerfully encouraging view from a longtime environmental champion, Carl Pope - former Sierra Club national Director - and his co-author Michael Bloomberg, philanthropist and former Mayor of New York. 

                             

This report on civic, economic, business and cultural alliances proclaims what Pope calls "Bottom-Up Climate Progress" even as U.S. federal leadership rolls back climate protections. Pope's perspective aims to foster citizen engagement and especially locally-based actions to boost clean energy and curb climate disrupting emissions from many sources.

                         
Carl Pope comes to St. Louis on Monday April 23, as Keynote Speaker for the Saint Louis University Climate Summit.

Music: Cadillac Desert, performed live at KDHX by William Tyler

THANKS to Dan Waterman and Andy Coco. engineering for Earthworms

Related Earthworms Conversations: Project DRAWDOWN (March 2018)

Dr. Peter Raven, Science advisor to Papal Academy and Climate Encyclical (June 2015)

David and the Giant Mailbox: Climate Conversations (December 2015)

From backyard ant-watching to World Ecology Award: A conversation with E.O. Wilson

6 years 6 months ago

Edward O. Wilson’s long career has been marked by enormous contributions to the field of biology, with an impact on global conservation efforts that is difficult to overstate. All of it grew out of his close attention years ago to something relatively small: the behavior of ants. Wilson recalled one of his earliest interactions with the insects, a memory from his boyhood in northern Alabama, on Tuesday’s St. Louis on the Air in conversation with host Don Marsh.