To Humanists in Red States

What’s happening in your area that you don’t want to miss? I bet your local radio station knows!

Where the action is: an essay about communication (in screenshots)

The car radio popped on to an interview with someone . . . I was impressed.

Took a minute to figure out who: Shannon Rudder, CEO and President of MLK Jr. Family Services in Springfield, Massachusetts.

It’s January 18, 2025.

And, what was the name of the show I was listening to? That took a bit of online searching….

Screenshot (from a phone) of a search result. The search bar at top shows “88.5 New England Public Radio.” Below that is a row of format options; highlighted is “All formats.” Next row says WFCR in large bold type, underneath it says “Radio station.” Next is an image of their logo in white and red lettering against a blue background, with a stylized image that seems to merge a common visual for controlling volume with a symbolic representation of radio waves. The AI overview says, “WFCR is a non-commercial radio station licensed to Amherst, Massachusetts. It serves as the National Public Radio member station for Western Massachusetts, including Springfield.” Frequency: 88.5 Broadcast area: Pioneer Valley including Springfield, Massachusetts at the very bottom is the url bar with a lock icon (which might, supposedly, be suggesting a secure connection), the beginning of a url “www.google.com/search?q=8…” followed by an icon for text and the icon to refresh the webpage.
I started searching with the FM number showing on the car radio’s digital interface [IMG_0606_January_18_12:44pm_2025]
list of 4 search results from google: 1st Listen: From traditional FM radio to online streaming, mobile, podcasts, and HD radio, listeners can access news, information and music…” 2nd listing—NEPM | PBS, NPR and local perspective for western Massachusetts: “New England Public Media endeavors to share new voices and inspire new conversations through a deep commitment to independent local journalism…” 3rd google search listing—88.5 NEPM Radio Schedule: “For assistance accessing our public files, please contact hello@nepm.org or call 413-781-2801” 4th listing—Where to Listen: “88.5 NEPM, the western Massachusetts home for NPR, The Fabulous 413, local journalism, and great jazz. Listen in for important conversations and interesting stories.”
There are so many options – how do I find the show that is playing now? [IMG_0607_January_18_12:44pm_2025]

The Fabulous 413!

Note: all the screenshots and photos have image descriptions in the alt-text field for people who have difficulty reading or seeing the screen.

white text on blue background: new england public radio (nepm) is on social media (X, Instagram, YouTube, Facebook, LinkedIn) with FCC public inspection files WGBY•WFCR•WNNZ•WNNU•WNNZ-FM•WNNI and the show Steph was listening to is shown in the playbar at bottom, “The Fabulous 413”
I found the name of the show in the playbar after clicking to the option to “Listen now.” The show is a radio podcast called “The Fabulous 413” [IMG_0609_January_18_12:45pm_2025]

 

 

Same google search layout as above, with search bar, format selection row, then the NEPM red/white logo combining volume & radio waves (it’s stylized in the shape of an arrow pointing right toward the name) New England Public Media. Beneath is the full url in small print https://www.nepm.org • podcast The biggest typesize is blue with the podcast’s name The Fabulous 413, and brief description: “The Fabulous 413 is a daily afternoon radio show celebrating life in western Massachusetts—a kind of ‘Mister Rogers’ Neighborhood for grown-ups.” Next to the image is a tinted green photograph of a white guy in a ball cap with headphones around his neck and a younger black woman with her gaze cast upwards in a mode suggesting being thoughtful while listening.
Show description for the radio podcast called “The Fabulous 413” [IMG_0611_January_18_12:46pm_2025]

I know where I’ll be on January 20!

The episode I heard on The Fabulous 413 featuring Shannon Rudder is called Dream Big!

Shannon and a teammate joined The Fabulous 413’s co-hosts Kaliis Smith and Monte Belmonte to pitch the Celebration planned to honor the Rev Dr. Martin Luther King Jr at the Springfield MassMutual Center. Meanwhile, I’m still driving, listening to the next podcast, and it occurs to me:

how will people in red states be able to know local news, journalism, scientific discoveries, historical developments, and critical crisis communication?

The churn of spinning social media is designed to prevent Americans achieving even the possibility of perspective. Without perspective, there’s no knowledge, only opinion.

The podcast following The Fabulous 413 is called “Talking Across the Lines.” This screenshot shows the search bar, format menu, title of the show and its url: https://www.folktalk.org with a brief description: “Michael & Carrie Kline • Links to recent broadcasts • Talking Across the Lines Featured Product • Written in Blood: Courage and Corruption in the Appalachian…”
Another great radio podcast: “Talking Across the Lines” [IMG_0613_January_18_12:46pm_2025].
The episode of “Talking Across the Lines” was about a special project called “New Lights in the Dawnland.” This screenshot captures the same google search format. The top result shows a logo for Soundcloud • Michael and Carrie Kline with 7 likes from 1 year ago. The second result is a blogpost by Atowi from February 26, 2024 describing “‘New Lights from the Dawnland’ [as] a two hour audio documentary based on five individually recorded voices recounting 13,000 years of Indigenous [oral and archeological history]”
The episode of the radio podcast, “Talking Across the Lines,” was about an oral history project called “New Lights in the Dawnland” [IMG_0615_January_18_12:46pm_2025]

Sidebar (life continuing . . . snippets, tastes and teasers)

You know how it is, you’re reading an article, a text comes in. You’re scrolling through Facebook, check your email, jump over to another social media platform to find the item you saw earlier that now you want to share, catch some news—such co-incidental communication intersections can be fascinating…

Shows a calendar for the month of January. The date selected is Saturday January 18, 2025. Movie times are shown for each of five films, currently showing. Highly recommend the first two, “A Real Pain,” and "Flow." (I probably won't watch the others: Porcelain War, The Brutalist, or The Room Next Door.)
The 11:40 showing of “A Real Pain” was sold out! I went to the matinee. Excellent film btw. (And so is Flow.) [IMG_0617_January_18_12:58pm_2025]
This is a screenshot of a skeet on Bluesky from user learningresiliency@bsky.social. At the top there are a few lines of the bio showing: "god is change | Combahee | humor much (with a winking emoji)." It includes the title of an article in The Washington Post, "DNA analysis reveals skull did not belong to Cleopatra's half sister." And there is an embedded screenshot of two short paragraphs from the full article: "The youth may have had a disorder like Treacher Collins Syndrome, a rare disease that affects facial development...probably leading to 'functional, as well as...aesthetic and subsequent psychosocial problems' during his lifetime.The discovery of the mystery boy was a 'big surprise,' researchers say in a news release. And in a way, it opens up more questions than it answers. Who was the boy? What was his status in life, and why was he buried in such a grand tomb?"
This news caught attention because it is evidence supporting a social history of humanity provided by David Graeber & David Wengrow in “The Dawn of Everything.” [IMG_0624_January_18_2:05pm_2025]
A cartoon with the title, in stylized gothic lettering: “TikTok: In Memoriam.” There are six panels showing, the first four in black and white. A person on the toilet reading TikTok; the same person at work reading TikTok during a meeting. The same person on a sofa at home, still reading TikTok. The same person at bed (with a sleeping partner) still reading TikTok. The first full color panel shows a woman with twins in a front-pack and three other kids clamoring for attention (example of a trad wife). The last panel has a caption: “Podcast bros sharing misinformation.” The podcast bro in the panel is saying “Sunscreen is the enemy.”
A premature requiem for TikTok although whether it retains or regains its salience remains an open question [IMG_0626_January_18_3:50pm_2025]
Black and white photograph of the Rev. Dr Martin Luther King, Jr. His hands are gently gripping the front edge of (what looks like) a student’s desk but could be a podium. His face is relaxed, his gaze on whoever is speaking to him at that moment. The photo caption reads, “The Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. in March 1964. (Marion S. Trikosko/Library of Congress Prints and Photographs Division). This is the featured photograph in an article by Jonathan Eig for The Washington Post. His byline reads: “Jonathan Eig is the author of “King: A Life,” winner of the 2024 Pulitzer Prize for biography. The first line of the article reads, “The Martin Luther King Jr. federal holiday has been observed now for 39 years — the same length as King’s life.”
A featured story in The Washington Post in the lead-up to the Martin Luther King civil rights holiday on January 20th. [IMG_0653_January_19_7:14am_2025
 

Pursue Justice, Persist in Peace

Extremely colorful, larger than life, painting of Dr King against a dynamic background. Participants are adding comments in graffiti style, for instance “Fight,” “Do Better” “Be Love.” A woman with a backpack and black/white headscarf is kneeling while adding her comment to the lower right corner. The floor is also covered with the same flare of wild colors, with the last word of a slogan showing at the base: Rocks”
Participatory mural. Participant shown with permission. [IMG_0765_January_20_1:23pm_2025]
A large pasteboard on a stand, white lettering on a black background, reading “Be Love.” Inside the letter “O” is a vertical 413 (which is the area code for western Massachusetts). The “line” made by the column of 413 looks like the letter “I” giving a second reading, “Believe.”
Be Love, Believe in the 413 [IMG_0754_January_20_12:42pm_2025]
Another large pasteboard on a stand, black lettering on a white background, reading “Protest is Patriotic.”
“Protest is Patriotic” [IMG_0753_January_20_12:42pm_2025]
Table for New England Public Media strewn with stickers for various programs, two different books to giveaway (Clifford The Small Red Puppy and Clifford’s ABCs). Program stickers include: Valley Voices Story Slam, classical nepm, All Creatures Great and Small, NEPM Media Lab, PBS Learning Media, PBS Kids, and Wild Kratts. There’s also a general 88.5 nepm sticker and a postcard with info about nepm. One large sticker allows people to write in why they “heart” nepm. Two answers are showing: “PBS kids!” And “local, honest news.”
Table for New England Public Media strewn with program stickers and giveaway children’s books [IMG_0766_January_20_1:32pm_2025]

Local Artists!

This vibrant print is dominated by a stylized face with prominent makeup whose gaze is focused just to the side of the viewer, as if exercising the action, “Open your curious mind,” which is written in small black letters within the kaleidoscope of purple, blue, green and yellow swirling brushstrokes. A skull with hearts for eyes peers from behind a building in the lower right corner made of the stacked letters W, O, R, L, D. In the upper left corner the word, “‘CURIOUS” suggests exploring the off-kilter orientations of the built world. A skateboarder balances beneath a yellow star. A keyhole appears like a tunnel along a possible rollercoaster track or conveyer belt surrounded by swirls of color like vapors of life-force.
Art by local artist, Enaya Ajahnae. Find more about her work at ejahnaestudios.univer.se [IMG_0786_January_20_4:16pm_2025]
“Wake up and smell the roses” in the upper right corner isn’t what first catches the eye of the wild abundance of flowers and plants, eyes, lips, and ears in this striking perspective of life against dark. Most of the flowers are white outlines with snatches of greens and yellows, pinks and purples hinting at the magic within. In the lower left corner, when you can peel your eyes from the menagerie, the reason for waking up is explained: “There’s No Thing More Beautiful.”
Art by Enaya Ajahnae. ejahnaestudios.univer.se [IMG_0787_January_20_4:16pm_2025]
About 50 elementary school youth on stage singing Marvin Gaye’s classic song “What’s Going On.” Above them is a large screen playing an animation made to illustrate the themes of the song. The image showing is the head of a person with an afro hairstyle. Around the head - woven inside the black hair is the lyric, “talk to me so you can see.” The head is show in green and yellow with an outline of glasses, and the whole image is against a purple background.
The animation accompanying Marvin Gaye’s song “What’s Going On’ – sung by 50 elementary school children from Springfield schools – is made by Tim Fox. [IMG_0783_January_20_3:00pm_2025]

TL:DR – Pulazarak, “the good trail to follow”

Public radio and public television are supported in part by the United States federal government, through funding allocated by Congress for the Corporation for Public Broadcasting (CPB). This podcast episode (the link includes transcript for reading instead of listening) explains in detail why CPB funding matters especially for rural areas, such as

    • Marfa, a town in far-west Texas, where the small team at the local public radio station got warnings about the Rockhouse Fire out in time to save many people’s lives in one of the largest grassland fires in Texas state history (300,000 acres; April 2011).
    • KYUK in Alaska near the Bering Sea, which serves the largest town (6,500 people) plus over 50 different villages. KYUK is the only source for safe travel information and rescue operations for hundreds of miles.
    • the Blue Ridge Public Radio station in North Carolina was the only source of emergency information in English and in Spanish during the onslaught and aftermath of Hurricane Helene (September 2024) – covering an urban and rural listening area.

There are over 100 rural public radio stations in the United States, a few in each and every state and territory.

Also, if you’re wondering, the reporting on public media includes all perspectives. For instance, this series called “Red in a Blue State,” in which reporters embedded with Massachusetts’ state delegates to the Republican National Convention in Milwaukee, Wisconsin (2024).

Blessings and Beauty

Local community, getting along with your neighbors, is so important. I’m happy I was listening to public radio and learned where I wanted to be this past January 20th.

What’s happening in your area that you don’t want to miss? I bet your local radio station knows!

Two people standing in front of a window, the author of this blogpost is a white woman with short hair, glasses wearing a colorful vest over a blue turtleneck and light brown cords. She has a ski vest and a necklace. Next to her is a much taller younger black man in a black cap, white t-shirt and black jacket with black jeans. He is holding a painting he made of a young person with a slingshot showering the sky with stars. The person (probably a teenage boy) is wearing a pullover hat in celestial shades of pink, and a multicolored jacket full of blue, green and orange/tan earth and water hues. His black pants merge with the black background starscape.
Steph Kent and Richard Johnson pose with a piece of his artwork. Follow him on Instagram @akaruffin [IMG_0771_January_20_1:54pm_2025]
Top of a membership form for the NAACP - the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People. It says: “Join The Fight For Freedom During Our Membership Campaign. Membership is the life-blood of the NAACP. We depend on our members’ generosity to ensure the NAACP’s independence. We depend on you to keep the flames of Freedom bright!” This is followed by a field for Membership Information (please print clearly). There are three options for a respectful title: Mr, Mrs, or Ms. Ms is checked. The date field is filled in with 1/20/25. The name written in is Stephanie Jo Kent.
Becoming a member of the local NAACP is a satisfying longer-term action [IMG_0767_January_20_1:34pm_2025]

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