Vocalo.org Playlist for Week of September 7

During September, Vocalo is “Getting Schooled”. The whole month we’ll be talking about education, back-to-school, life lessons and how-tos. Vocalo invites guests from the Lake Michigan Region to discuss topics of the day. Note: Labor Day, Monday, September 7 is a broadcast holiday.

Guests throughout the week will include:

September Editorial: “Getting Schooled”

• Tuesday, September 8, 1:20 to 1:40 p.m. Alexander Russo is a journalist who runs a blog about the Chicago Public Schools -- District 299.com—which is  considered a must-read by people in town who follow education news/policy. He provides a roundup of local education news, and puts out topics for discussion-- often based on tips from readers.

• Tuesday, September 8, 3:20 to 4 p.m. Chicago's Community Kitchens is a training program run by the Greater Chicago Food Depository-- the food bank that supplies soup kitchens and food pantries throughout Cook County. In the program, unemployed adults go through an intensive 14-week training program, learning to work in a professional kitchen by cooking in an industrial kitchen at the Food Depository.  (The meals they create feed kids in after-school programs around Chicago.)  Students take on internships as part of the program, and 70 percent of graduates end up employed in the food industry. Anna Jones is the program director for Chicago's Community Kitchens, and Deborah Crump is a 2008 graduate.

• Wednesday, September 9, 8 to 8:30 a.m. Nance Klehm teaches workshops in Urban Foraging-- basically, wandering around and identifying what's edible (or medicinal).  As it turns out, there's a lot.  On her way in, she'll take a look around the flower boxes on the Pier, and maybe in the park just north of us, and she may bring some stuff to taste.  She also teaches Living Kitchen workshops, where participants use local, sometimes found, materials to make cider, mead, beer, soap, bread, pickles, tofu...

• Wednesday, September 9, 9 to 10 a.m. Tay Tilla is the CEO of the record label MFG. He will have two of the label’s recording artists with him, Merc and Burger. He will debut two of his tracks, talk about the music industry and how to start your own company.

• Wednesday, September 9, 1:20 to 2 p.m. This weekend (Sept. 12 and 13), at the Renegade Craft Fair in Chicago -- now in its seventh year-- more than 300 artists/crafters from around the country will be selling their handmade stuff. Danny Orendorff is a partner in putting on the fair-- which started in Chicago and now happens in Brooklyn, Los Angeles and San Francisco every year as well. The fair also has a year-round venue in Chicago -- the Renegade Handmade boutique in Wicker Park. The whole thing started in 2002, when Sue Daly was looking around for places to sell the jewelry and accessories that she was making, and she found that existing arts fairs were all really expensive to get a booth in, and they didn't really have a vibe that matched the funky, un-pretentious, craft-y stuff that she and her friends were making.  So she started her own.  It got huge, and now it's a year-round, nation-wide thing.

• Friday, September 11, 9 to 9:20 a.m. Lucy Gray is a former teacher who now works for an education center at the University of Chicago, and she is a non-stop geek about tech tools for teachers.  She keeps a blog called "High Techpectations:  Ideas and Resources For Teachers" and every week she publishes a list of 20-some links to new stuff.  We'll call her each Friday in September and ask her to describe one or two items on that week's list:  What are they, what's cool about them, what could teachers do with them?

• Friday, September 11, 2:20 to 3 p.m. Sex education:  Not just for kids. Searah Deysach is owner of Early-to-Bed, which describes itself as "Chicago’s first women-owned, women-oriented, boy-friendly, queer and trans-positive sex shop," located in Edgewater on Chicago's North Side. And in addition to selling gear, they run workshops with titles like "Sex Toys 101" and "Sex is good!"-- some at the store, others at community groups and colleges.

Business

• Wednesday, September 9, 3 to 3:20 p.m. Mary Paulson has owned Broadway Liquor store in Chesterton, Indiana for 26 years. She's surprised that they've lasted that long and now she's even more worried about a statewide proposal for grocery stores to carry beer and sell on Sundays. She thinks the food chains will put mom-and-pop stores out of business, including hers.

Comedy

• Friday, September 11, 3 to 4 p.m. Corey Bailey is a comedian, an actor and a motivational speaker.

Culture and Politics

• Tuesday, September 8, 2:20 to 2:30 p.m. Editor Geoff Dougherty of Chi-Town Daily News calls in to discuss the latest they are covering.

• Wednesday, September 9, 10 to 11 a.m. tentative. Folks from the Voice Newspapers (serving the Austin and Garfield/Lawndale Neighborhoods with two publications) bring us news from Chicago's West Side.  Local reactions to national stories, news that isn't being covered in mainstream media and hidden gems of Chicago are all fair game.

• Thursday, September 10, 2:20 to 2:30 p.m.  Latoya, editor of Racialicious blog.

• Friday, September 11, 7:30 to 8 a.m. Joe Arnold brings news of the Lake Michigan Region.

• Friday, September 11, 3:20 to 3:40 p.m. Alejandro Riera of Cafe Magazine talks about this week's events in the Latino community.

• Friday, September 11, 5 to 6 p.m. Kenneth Hite is the author of The Idiot's Guide to US History, an author of role playing games (including an award-winning Star Trek title), a University of Chicago graduate and an editorial cartoonist.  His most recent project, The Idiot's Guide to US History, is a graphic novel-style presentation of the quintessential moments in US History from the lives of Native Americans before by the landing of the colonists to the wars, scandals and advancements of the modern era.

Food

• Tuesday, September 8, 9 to 10 a.m. Damien Casten talks about an event called Tomato Fest that is coming up this Thursday the 10th. It’s a very cool potluck dinner style get together that features the best heirloom tomatoes of the season.

Human Interest

• Tuesday, September 8, and Thursday, September 10, from 7:15 to 7:30 a.m. Vocalo.org user AnalyticalDiva cruises the Twitterverse for weird news.

• Tuesday, September 8, 8:30 to 8:50 a.m. Tom Isakson, the head of New Creation Men's Center, a Valparaiso-based organization that helps homeless men, will be in to talk about how his organization will benefit from a new venture that allows companies to market themselves on bottled water.

Kids and Teens

• Thursday, September 10, 9 to 10 a.m. Respect Ours teen roundtable.

Movies

• Friday, September 11, 12 to 1 p.m. Reggie Ponder, The Reel Critic, discusses the latest movies.

Music

• Wednesday, September 2, 2:20 to 2:30 p.m.  Robert Loerzel, from local music blog Underground Bee gives us previews of Wire magazine's "Adventures in Modern Music" festival at the Empty Bottle and the Bloodshot Records 15th anniversary party at the Hideout.

Sports

• Thursday, September 10, 6 to 7 p.m. The winners of our Next Top Sportscaster contest – comedy troupe Blackout – get us caught up on the latest and not necessarily greatest news from the world of sports.

Vocalo.org can be heard on 89.5 FM throughout Northwest Indiana, Chicago and Southwest Michigan and streams online live to the world at www.vocalo.org/stream. Vocalo.org is the place to find diverse local voices engaged in conversations about topics close to the Lake Michigan region.

About the author

slp

I'm the PR Coordinator for Vocalo.org. In this space, you'll see new and archived news about what's going on in the Vocalo.org world! If you are interested in talking more Vocalo, I can be reached at sarahlynn@vocalo.org or at (312) 893-2991. Find Vocalo.org on Facebook and Twitter (@Vocalo).