Music by 6 of the top 13 finalists of the 2018 Songs of Social Change contest, rich in world-changing energy and genres, with influences from Canada, Equador, Japan, New Mexico, and everywhere. December 1, 2019 is deadline for the this year's contest.. Songs of Social Change is a project of the Renaissance Artists and Writers Association (RAWA.net), led by Dada Veda, part of Ananda Marga.
Adam Rosenbalm and Austin Ramsey study at East Tennessee State University (ETSU.) Both raised in Conservative families in the South, they arrived on campus at a time when American citizens were more politically polarized than ever. After the 2016 election it seemed the country was more polarized than ever.
There's excitement as science seeks ways back from the brink of climate disaster. Peterson Toscano of Citizens Climate Radio talkes with Dr. Michael L Curry & Dr. Donald White about one potential solution, with Blair Bazdarich & Hannah Pickard of NNOCCI about communication strategies, with Catherine Pierce about her poem, Anthropocene Pastoral, and with Sean Dague, envisioning a fossil fuel-free world.
Susan Salidor is a voice you will not forget. Starting in musical theater, progressing through activist music with Voices, having co-hosted a show on WLUM-FM, at Loyola, and with decades of enriching young souls and bodies as a music specialists at schools in the Chicago area, Susan makes beautiful, meaningful, & memorable music.
Hayat Imam is an American-Muslim of Bangladeshi origin. She is a feminist-activist committed to building global social justice movements. Former Executive Director of the Boston Women’s Fund and Board Chair of Grassroots International, she is an active member of Mass Peace Action and Dorchester People for Peace. Hayat was a keynote speaker at the Boston Women’s March in January 2017 and, in the summer of 2018, at the Poor People’s Campaign on the War Economy. She offers a four-part Course on Islam called: Understanding Islam: A Muslim Woman’s Perspective on the Essence of Islam, the Diversity of the Muslim World, and its Relationship with the West.
Will the issues every stop repeating themselves? Everything is not about the Bible, but a good share of everything is in the Bible, at least if you look with the discerning eyes of Peterson Toscano, a gay man who produces the monthly Citizen's Climate Radio blog, and Liam Hooper, a North Carolinian trans man of Ministries Beyond Welcome. In this episode of Bible Bash they look at the experience of being the unacceptable/unloved child (like Ismael) and the foreign boy with a need for a caring adult (Daniel with Ebed Malech). Long ago stories, but so relevant today, like on the southern US border.
Liam shares the story of five sisters who appear in Numbers 27. Without any attachment to a male heir, they will end up desperately destitute that is of course until they lobby for their cause and end up changing Mosaic law.
Peterson follows up with the "Other Text." A reading from Gender Outlaws--The Next Generation. Peterson reads an excerpt from Kate Bornstein's introduction.
Justin Jay Arnold is himself and nobody else, happy to wrestle with the full range of beliefs, heading toward preacher-hood complete with his tattoos, scraggly beard, & shaved head, and making his own music of whatever type. With a father who played in the Feather River Canyon Band, and with influences like CCR, Waylon Jennings, & Elvis, Justin's gravelly, open-hearted vocals and lyrics swim on the deep side with no saccharine taste at all. Who else sings of choosing between a guitar and a bullet to his head? Find his 3 albums to-date on CDBaby.
In Powerarchy: Understanding the Psychology of Oppression for Social Transformation, psychologist Melanie Joy helps us find a way to rethink power, rewrite our future by understanding the structure, workings, & consequences of powerarchy. Melanie is also author of Why We Love Dogs, Eat Pigs, and Wear Cows, and currently lives in Berlin, Germany, doing her work of building compassion in the world.
Past/current religious/spiritual influences:
Buddhism, Non-affiliated, Quaker
Tuskegee University is a historically Black University in Alabama founded in 1881. From the early work of George Washington Carver, Tuskegee has trained generations of researchers who are unraveling mysteries from the natural world. Dr. Carver wrote, “I love to think of nature as an unlimited broadcasting station, through which God speaks to us every hour, if we will only tune in.”