Wednesday, Aug 26, 2009

TTT AUG 26: TOBACCO ADS AND KIDS: The Pied Pipers of Death

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WEDS, AUG 26-11AM: TOBACCO ADS AND KIDS: The Pied Pipers of Death

Despite lawsuits and compacts and consent agreements and judgments, tobacco companies continue their all-too-clever marketing ploys peddling death wrapped in paper, directed at our kids and grandkids - the next generation of smokers and another generation hooked on the most powerful drug in the world - nicotine. Every trick in the book is being used to rope our children into the death-dealing addiction.

Hear the kids themselves tell the story of their detective work and how Big Tobacco deftly employs the psychology of subtle association and gimmickry.

TTT's ANDY DRISCOLL and LYNNELL MICKELSEN talk with young advertising sleuths, an anti-smoking program organizer, an epidemiologist and local policymaker to get to the core of the deceptive ad practices kids encounter when they walk into a retail store and other venues selling smokes.

GUESTS:

• KATIE ENGMAN - Tobacco Programs Manager, Association of Nonsmokers' Rights (ANSR) Minnesota

• RACHEL WIDOME, PhD - Asst. Professor, UofM Department of Medicine; Principal Investigator on study of Point of Sale tobacco advertising and marketing in Ramsey Co. West St. Paul and South St. Paul

• ROBERTA PERRY and SHANICEE DILLON - Student Assessors of point of sale tobacco advertising in their St. Paul neighborhood.

• MELVIN CARTER III - St. Paul City Councilmember and sponsor of anti-advertising ordinance that bans imitation tobacco products.

Link to Video - Roberta Perry Testimony

AND YOU! CALL 612-341-0980
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Wednesday, Aug 19, 2009

TTT AUG 19-FoodOrganics

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WHAT'S UP WITH OUR FOOD?: Safety and Nutrition vs. Cheap Vittles

America is the most obese nation on earth, consuming tons more fat, sugar and starches than the fresh fruits, vegetables and organic meats necessary to sustain good health and long life. Worse, many of those critical foods are unavailable to a huge percentage of urban and rural dwellers who must either travel miles for access to fresh foods or spend far in excess of their budgets just to balance their diets.

Minnesota is among the worst of the nation's states in obesity and unhealthy eating habits, no thanks to the heavy marketing of fast foods and the price differential between unhealthy commodities produced by polluting feedlots and the fresh produce and clean meats from sustainable organic farming practices.

How can we change our addictive consumption of unhealthy sugars and fats and produce and consume the nutrition-bearing foods necessary for early childhood development and learning behavior? How can we bring healthy organic food prices in line with cheap commodities and the genetically modified and antibiotic-infused meats and crops now poring off the industrial farms of Minnesota, despite state laws prohibiting corporate farming?

TTT's ANDY DRISCOLL and LYNNELL MICKELSEN query organic farmers, sustainable food systems advocates and analysts about the state of nutrition and the impact of producing, processing, marketing and consumption of 21st-Century foods.

GUESTS:

• ATINA DIFFLEY - Organic Farmer; Founder, Gardens of Eagan

• SARAH CLAASSEN - Program Organizer, Community-based Food Systems, Land Stewardship Project

• TOM TAYLOR - Rural Food Systems Organizer, Land Stewardship Project; former staff, Organic Consumers Association

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Wednesday, Aug 12, 2009

TTT AUG 12: YouthMusicEducation

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AUG 12: MUSIC AND THE YOUNG: Inspiring Hope and Education- but what about Funding?

Arts and music education programs in the schools are under fire. In spite of evidence that arts and music programming in schools enhances over all academic learning in significant ways, these programs too often take a back seat to such activities as organized sports and to budget cutters on school boards, in the Legislature and Governor's office.

TTT's ANDY DRISCOLL and LYNNELL MICKELSEN talk with leaders of four Twin Cities youth music organizations: directors, conductors, and educators about their music, their programs and their recruiting methods for ensemble members - and we'll hear from students and music from the orchestras themselves, playing the excellent work of these young ensembles. Listen to a live flute performance as well.

GUESTS:

• DIANE SOLLENBERGER - Director, Twin Cities Youth Band (TCYB); Music educator, Capitol Hill Magnet School, St. Paul

• FELIX JAMES - Jazz Program Director, Walker-West Music Academy, St. Paul

• AMIR KATS - Artistic Director/Conductor, Greater Twin Cities Youth Symphonies - Minneapolis

• MANNY LAUREANO - Co-Artistic Director, Minnesota Youth Symphonies; Principal Trumpet, Minnesota Orchestra

• HANNAH PETERSON - Award-winning flutist with Minnesota Youth Symphonies and a 2009 graduate of St. Paul Central High School, heading for the Cincinnati Conservatory of Music as a flute performance and music education major.

LINKS:

• Twin Cities Youth Band INFORMATIONTwin Cities Youth Band (TCYB):

• Minnesota Youth Symphonies (MYS) AUDITIONS

• Greater Twin Cities Youth Symphonies (GTCYS) AUDITIONS

• Walker-West Music Academy (WWMA) JAZZ ENSEMBLE AUDITIONS/PERFORMANCE SCHEDULE

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Wednesday, Aug 05, 2009

TTT AUG 5: SECOND CHANCES: Reforming Justice, Repatriating Minnesota's Offenders

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To suggest our so-called system of "corrections" is correcting a damned thing is to stick one's head firmly in the sand over the racist and inhumane disparities not only of incarceration itself - where prisons and institutions - now disproportionately populated by with African-Americans and other women and men of color - quick to become colleges of crime wallowing in the underlying, unspoken presumption that, like Les Miserables, no one imprisoned for any crime can be anything but a crook the rest of their natural life.

But others know better - and many organizations and activists are working to restore the rights and privileges of citizenship so often now denied to those returning to society and are thus themselves victimized by a justice system that too often provides little justice to those who have paid for their errors and offenses. But, these are the easy targets of "tough-on-crime" politicians and law enforcers who play on the contempt of citizens to foster permanent punishment for those who have offended society's rules and laws, rarely forgiving and never forgetting - much of it aided and abetted by a sensation-loving media industry.

TTT'S ANDY DRISCOLL and LYNNELL MICKELSEN meet and talk with those who believe that permanent punishment for those who have paid their debt to society must stop. We talk about Second Chances for formerly incarcerated offenders in job, housing, voting rights and other privileges society offers us all. We speak with Second Chance advocates and a former felon, now an attorney and member of "*Save Our Sons*":.

GUESTS:

• State Senator MEE MOUA, Chair, Senate Judiciary Committee

• SARAH WALKER - Chief Operating Officer, 180 Degrees, Inc. and co-founder, Second Chance Coalition; Co-Chair, Ramsey County Juvenile Detention Alternative to Incarceration-Disproportionate Minority Contact

• LORI STEE - Director of Student Learning, Rebuild Resources and Member, Second Chance Coalition

• DAVID MARTIN, Attorney; Former felon; Board member, Save Our Sons

• "SINA BLACK": - Community Engagement Associate, Community Action Partnership of Ramsey & Washington Counties and Member, Take Action Second Chance Organizing Committee

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