Wgtd's The Morning Show With Greg Berg

Nick Huff and Kaila Bingen, board members of the newly-organized Kenosha Opera Festival,  talk about how COVID upended their new company's plans for their first summer of operation - but also preview the virtual opera concert that the company will be streaming this Sunday, August 9th. 

Dr. James Ripley, director of instrumental activities at Carthage,  talks about the steep challenges that musicians have faced during the COVID-19 pandemic, as well as some of Carthage's preparations for in-person teaching/learning this fall.  (He is a member of Carthage's COVID Coordination Committee.)  He also summarizes the initial findings of an important study from the University of Colorado-Boulder that is specifically exploring what protocols can minimize the risk COVID transmission in band and choral rehearsals and lessons.  

Part One: Melba Pattillo Beals, author of "March Forward, Girl: From Young Warrior to Little Rock Nine."  In 1957, Beals was one of 9 African-American young people who were enrolled in the facially segregated Little Rock Central High School in the wake of the Brown vs. Board of Education decision of the U.S. Supreme Court.  Part Two:  ABC's Dan Harris, author of "Meditation for Fidgety Skeptics: a 10% Happier How-To Book."  Harris turned to meditation to help him through some anxiety issues; it worked for him, even though he was far from the typical practitioner of meditation.  

Part One:  Edward Goldberg, author of "Why Globalization Works: How Nationalist Trade Policies are Destroying our Country."  Part Two:  Dan P. McAdams, author of "The Strange Case of Donald J. Trump: a Psychological Reckoning."  McAdams is a psychology professor at Northwestern University.  

We speak with Dr. Gary Wood, Vice Provost at the University of Wisconsin-Parkside, about the challenges he and others are confronting in preparing UW-Parkside for this upcoming fall semester.  He is one of the people sorting out where in-person teaching can occur ....  how physical distancing can be achieved in various spaces .... and what alterations in class schedules and offerings might have to be made to accommodate this complicated situation.  

We are not certain exactly when this interview aired on WGTD.   The best guess of one of the guests in the interview is that is occurred in 2003.   The topic is Rosie the Riveter- a symbolic character representing the many women who worked in America's industrial factories during World War Two while so many men were off fighting.   The occasion of this interview was a local screening of a documentary about such women.  The three guests:  Dr. Fran Kavenik, Jane Harrington Heide, and Joyce Hill Westerman.  Ms. Westerman was an actual 'Rosie the Riveter.' 

We have dusted off a 1998 interview that celebrates the Great American Pastime: Baseball.   This is a conversation with Racine's own John Salvo,  a fervent baseball fan, who talks about seeing games in every single major league ballpark across the country. 

Both of today's interviews were recorded and initially broadcast in 2009.  Part One:   "The Design of Future Things" by Donald A. Norman.  Part Two:  "Keeping the Millennials." by Joanne Sujansky.  

Part One:  Guida Brown, Executive Director of the Hope Council on Alcohol and Other Drug Abuse talks about her agency's work during the COVID-19 pandemic and what it is like to resume in-person services.  Part Two:  from the archives:  actor Kevin Sorbo, who memorably portrayed Hercules on television, talks about his memoir "True Strength:  My Journey from Hercules to Mere Mortal - and How Nearly Dying Saved My Life." 

Part One:  Tiffany Cross, author of "Say it Louder: Black Voters,  White Narratives, and Saving our Democracy."   Part Two:  from the archives- Jon Meacham, author of "Thomas Jefferson:  The Art of Power."  

Analysis of current events and issues from Dr. Art Cyr,  Clausen Distinguished Professor of Political Economy and World Business - and Director of the Clausen Center. 

We speak with Thomas W. Jones, author of "From Willard Straight to Wall Street: a Memoir."   Jones was one of 80 black students at Cornell University who occupied Willard Straight Hall for two days in 1969.  Within a few years after his graduation from Cornell,  Jones was well on his way to a successful career on Wall Street.   His book explores the uncommon trajectory of his life.  

Dr. Kevin Crosby is Professor of Physics and Astronomy at Carthage College- and Director of the Wisconsin Space Grant Consortium.  (This interview was recorded in 2019 but was preempted by NPR coverage impeachment proceedings in Washington DC. ) 

From 2006 comes this conversation with Lisa Phillips, author of "Public Radio: Behind the Voices."  It's an illuminating look at some of the most important people in the world of public radio at that time.   

We spend most of the program with Lisa Boucher, author of "Raising the Bottom: Making Mindful Choices in a Drinking Culture."  Boucher's mother was an alcoholic and she herself struggled with alcohol abuse until she quit drinking thirty years ago.   We end the hour with Guida Brown, Executive Director of the Hope Council on Alcohol and other Drug Abuse, who offers her thoughts on the whole concept of "social drinking." 

We get an update on how the University of Wisconsin-Parkside is continuing to cope with the complications and challenges of the COVID-19 pandemic.  Joining us is Dr. Deborah Ford, Chancellor of UW-Parkside,  and Dr. Robert Ducoffe,  the school's Provost.   

From 2015 comes this interview with Laurence Steinberg, author of "Age of Opportunity:  Lessons from the New Science of Adolescence."  The book explores some of the new discoveries that have been made about the whole nature of adolescence and how the brain of the typical adolescent functions.  

From the archives comes this 2005 interview with Joel Seidemann, author of "In the Interest of Justice: Great Opening and Closing Arguments of the Last 100 Years."   

PBS is about to rebroadcast a two-part American Experience documentary titled "Clinton," an examination of the life and career of our 42nd President,  William Jefferson Clinton.  We speak with Barak Goodman,  who was the film's director, producer and writer.  

From 2002 comes this interview with Michela Wrong, author of "In the Footsteps of Mr. Kurtz: Living on the Brink of Disaster of Mobutu's Congo."  The book is a chronicle of the rise and fall of Mobutu Sese Seko, who was the highly corrupt president of Zaire for 32 years.