In the Shadow of the Wall: From Gaza to Arizona | 30th Anniversary Capsule
In dozens of countries, millions of people live beside militarized border walls, areas which can be quite dangerous. From Palestinian farmers to shootings at the US and Mexico border; living in the shadow of the wall.
Trade Shifts: Reflections on the Seattle WTO Protests | 30th Anniversary Capsule
On November 30th, 1999, tens of thousands of people shook the streets of Seattle, WA, in protest of the World Trade Organization (WTO). The WTO symbolized the corporate takeover of human needs and the environment. On this edition, we revisit the voices from that week. This episode, originally released in 2009, is part of the Making Contact Anniversary Capsule: celebrating 30 years of social justice journalism. The miniseries takes...
The Agony and the Ecstasy: Race and the Future of the Love Story | 30th Anniversary Capsule
In 2019 a well known romance writer began tweeting about other writers in her community and concerns about racism. It led to a huge reckoning within an organization called the Romance Writers of America. And although the online debate seemed to be isolated to a specific community of romance writers and their fans, it was really a microcosm of what’s been happening all over the US. In this episode we learn all about romance...
Family Matters: How Communities Support Trans Kids in Conservative States | 30th Anniversary Capsule
In 2023, Kirin Clawson’s endocrinologist placed a puberty-blocking implant in her arm, a medical intervention that is associated with improved mental health for many trans kids with gender dysphoria. In February 2024, Indiana joined several other conservative states banning this treatment for minors. In this episode we hear from the Clawsons how the ban has impacted their family. And, we hear from psychologist, Dr. Myeshia Price about...
The Feminist Birth of the Home Pregnancy Test (Encore)
This episode was originally published in 2014, and this episode is a republishing of the Feb 28, 2024 Encore, titled “The Feminist Birth of the Home Pregnancy Test.” In 1965 Margaret Crane was a young designer creating packaging for a pharmaceutical company. Looking at the rows of pregnancy tests she thought, “Well, women could do that at home!” and so she made it a reality for potentially pregnant people to be able to...
Disability Visibility: Celebrating the Voice of Alice Wong
This episode honors the life and legacy of Alice Wong (Mar 27, 1974 – Nov 14, 2025). We start the show with the Making Contact segment she produced in 2015, exploring the complex relationships between caregivers and care receivers: the vast majority of care recipients are exclusively receiving unpaid care from a family member, friend, or neighbor. The rest receive a combination of family care and paid assistance, or exclusively paid...
Exposed Part Two: the Human Radiation Experiments at Hunters Point from SF Public Press
The military exposed thousands of servicemen to radioactivity when it called them to participate in nuclear weapons tests, including Operation Teapot in 1955. One was Eldridge Jones, who later deployed to exercises in the Bay Area to try to clean up radioactive substances, directed by the Naval Radiological Defense Laboratory. Source: National Nuclear Security Administration’s Nevada office. In episode two of “Exposed” from our...
Exposed Part One: The Human Radiation Experiments at Hunter’s Point from SF Public Press
Today we present the first half of a two-part radio documentary from our friends at the San Francisco Public Press, “Exposed,” opening a window into the little-known history of the Hunters Point Naval Shipyard. The sprawling abandoned naval base, in San Francisco’s southeast waterfront Bayview neighborhood, is currently the site of the city’s largest real estate development project. The base played a key role in the Cold War nuclear...
The Way Home (Encore)
We visit two distinct projects working with food to revitalize identity and ancestry: Part one: In many Indigenous communities, there’s a gap in knowledge about growing and cooking traditional foods. On the Blackfeet Nation in rural Montana, Mariah Gladstone and Kenneth Cook are trying to change that. They launched an online cooking show called Indigikitchen and in this episode, we follow them into the field as they harvest a...
When Survival is Criminalized (Encore)
October is National Domestic Violence Awareness Month, so we are revisiting a show from our archives about criminalized survival, the criminal justice system’s long practice of imprisoning survivors of intimate partner violence when they fight back against their abusers. We’ll hear from journalist Natalie Pattillo and filmmaker Daniel A. Nelson, who followed the stories of imprisoned women Kim Dadou Brown, Tanisha Davis and...
