Signal eNewsletter | WSIU Radio | December 2013

Signal WSIU Public Radio

An Online Newsletter

Vol. 6, No. 12 • December 2013

This Month on

Morning Conversation

APM Holiday Programs

The holiday season is here! Tune in each week to hear these holiday programs from American Public Media.

Candles Burning Brightly December 4 • 8-9pm

Join hosts Mindy Ratner and Bill Morelock for a one-hour celebration of Chanukah, the Jewish Festival of Lights. There’s plenty of music from Jewish communities around the world, plus an exploration of holiday traditions and a special story reading by the incomparable Theodore Bikel.

Advent Voices

December 9 • 8-9pm Don’t miss this one-hour special of contemplative music for the season, hosted

by Classical 24 host Lynne Warfel of Minnesota Public Radio.

Welcome Christmas

December 16 • 8-9pm (repeats December 25 at 1pm) Morning Conversation is hosted by WSIU Radio’s Jennifer Fuller. The show airs at 8:30am on Tuesdays and other weekdays, as scheduled, and repeats at 5:30pm. For updates, check the Morning Conversation Calendar at wsiu.org/programs morning-conversation.

December 3: Carbondale Human Relations Commission representatives talk about issues facing the community.

December 10: SIU Carbondale Chancellor Rita Cheng shares her thoughts on campus expectations.

December 23: SIU President Glenn Poshard addresses campus issues.

It’s an hour of joyful holiday music featuring the Minneapolis-based chorus, VocalEssence, and hosted for the fifteenth year by APM’s John Birge. Gramophone magazine called VocalEssence “excellent and vibrant.” NEA Chairman Dana Gioia named them “one of the irreplaceable music ensembles of our time.” Join us in December for holiday classics new and old, when Philip Brunelle and VocalEssence Welcome Christmas.

A Chanticleer Christmas

December 19 8-9pm (repeats December 25 at noon) A Chanticleer Christmas is APM’s one-hour celebration of the season as told through the glorious voices of Chanticleer, the 12-voice San Francisco-based men’s choir. The program spans the globe and the centuries – from England in the 1300s to new arrangements of classic and contemporary carols.

St. Olaf Christmas Festival December 23 • 8-10pm

St. Olaf Christmas Festival – a service in song and word – has become one of the nation’s most cherished holiday celebrations. The festival includes hymns, carols, choral works, and orchestral selections celebrating the Nativity and featuring more than 500 student musicians who are members of five choirs, along with the St. Olaf Orchestra.

A Festival of Nine Lessons and Carols December 25 • 8-10pm

Hosted by Michael Barone, this is a live stereo music and spoken-word broadcast from the chapel of King’s College in Cambridge, England. The 30-voice King’s College Choir performs the legendary Festival of Nine Lessons and Carols service of Biblical readings and music.

SIRIS Volunteer

Marilyn Davis SIRIS volunteer Marilyn Davis.

Photo: Christina Clayton

M

eet Marilyn Davis. Davis is originally from St. Louis, Mo. She holds a Bachelor’s degree from Southeast Missouri State University and a Master’s in English from Southern Illinois University (SIU) in Carbondale. Davis spent most of her career working for SIU’s Office of Research Development and Administration writing and designing publications and websites. She is now retired.

Davis heard about the Southern Illinois Radio Information Service (SIRIS) years ago when she attended the SIRIS Classic Vinyl & Media Sale. Davis had always wanted to volunteer, but her career left her little time for any regular commitment. “I always felt like I should be doing some type of volunteer work, but I never had time to do it while I [was working],” she says. “SIRIS is my first step into volunteering.”

Davis has been volunteering with SIRIS since October as a weekly reader. She reads local articles from areas like Du Quoin, Harrisburg,

and Mount Vernon. “It’s important for people to have news about their local community,” she says.

“It’s important for them not to feel isolated. SIRIS can [connect individuals with disabilities to] their community.” Davis says she’s glad she can help provide news to people who wouldn’t have access to it otherwise.

In her spare time, Davis likes to blog and take photographs. She exhibits her photos through the Illinois Artisans Program and manages a site for her photos, as well. Most of her work is abstract.

“I look for abstracts in the urban environment and nature,” she says.

“Sometimes I’ll crop out a section of a nice photo that I think has an interesting abstract design.”

Davis also likes to travel and enjoys taking road trips because it allows her to see the beauty of the United States. “I’ve traveled to New Mexico and southern Utah,” she says, “and hope to drive to the Pacific Northwest one day.”

Movie watching is another one of Davis’s hobbies. She likes dramas, comedies, and documentaries.

Some of her favorite movies include Stranger Than Fiction, Vertigo, Office Space, and Monty Python and the Holy Grail.

On a perfect winter day, Davis loves to curl up and read. She’s been an avid reader since she was three. “I can’t imagine not reading,” she says. “That’s one reason I volunteered with SIRIS. I thought it would come naturally to me.”

She enjoys reading contemporary literary fiction, non-fiction, and classics. Her favorite authors include Nobel Prize winner Alice Munro, Margaret Atwood, Richard Powers, Jonathan Franzen, and former SIU English professor Richard Russo.

Davis had the honor of interviewing Russo in the early 1990s when she was working on a research magazine for the university. “It was a lot of fun to talk to him…it was a high point of my job to interview him,” she shares.

Davis doesn’t listen to the radio or watch television too often, but when she does she likes to listen to Car Talk, A Prairie Home Companion, and All Things Considered on WSIU Radio. On WSIU-TV, she enjoys American Masters, Great Performances, Nature, NOVA, PBS Newshour, and Expressions.

If you’d like to volunteer like Marilyn, please call the SIRIS office at (618) 453-2808.

What’s the Scoop?

Planet Money on Morning Edition and All Things Considered

Planet Money, NPR’s team of multimedia reporters covering the global economy, is making a t-shirt. This shirt will tell you the story of its own creation as the Planet Money crew documents its journey around the world. Meet the people who grow the cotton, spin the yarn, and cut and sew the fabric, and learn about the crazy tangle of international regulations which govern the t-shirt trade.

On-air stories on Morning Edition and All Things Considered begin Monday, December 2.

Show Descriptions Seed To Shirt

Made In Colombia

Planet Money’s Alex Blumberg and Adam Davidson talk about the genesis of the Seed To Shirt project and why t-shirts are a great lens for exploring the global economy.

Marianne McCune reports from Colombia, where the women’s t-shirts were made. Colombia is much richer than Bangladesh, as workers there make four times as much. Marianne profiles some workers there, as well as the factory owner.

Morning Edition; Monday, December 2

A Visit To The Farm

All Things Considered; Monday, December 2 Planet Money’s Robert Smith visits the farm where the cotton for the Seed To Shirt project possibly came from. It turns out tracing your t-shirt back to a specific farm is a little like tracing your last gas-up back to a specific oil well.

Yarn Spinners in Indonesia Morning Edition; Tuesday, December 3

Yarn, which makes up every piece of fabric you wear or see, is awesomely, amazingly complicated. Garment companies like Jockey spend years and lots of money to develop a closelyguarded process. Planet Money’s Robert Smith answers the question: why did our cotton make a thousand-mile detour to Indonesia just to get spun into yarn?

Human Labor in Bangladesh All Things Considered; Tuesday, December 3

Bangladesh is where Planet Money’s t-shirts are cut and sewn, and that’s the step where human labor on a grand scale is required. Today, it’s still cheaper to have people – not machines – sew the clothes. Zoe Chace and Caitlin Kenney profile two sisters who worked on the t-shirt.

The Wage Squeeze

Morning Edition; Wednesday, December 4 Planet Money’s Zoe Chace and Caitlin Kenney break down just how much of the shirt’s total cost goes to labor. Bangladesh has one of the lowest wage rates in the world. Zoe and Caitlin talk to labor leaders and factory owners there about what it would take to increase the wages.

All Things Considered; Wednesday, December 4

Bangladesh’s Garment Industry Morning Edition; Thursday, December 5

Zoe Chace tells the fascinating tale of how the garment industry got to Bangladesh in the first place. It starts in the ‘70s, when a Bangladeshi businessmen hatched a plan with a Korean garment company to open a factory. Today, nearly every garment factory in Bangladesh is run by someone involved in the original delegation that went to Korea.

From Truck To Ship To Train

All Things Considered; Thursday, December 5 David Kestenbaum takes a voyage with the shirts on the container ship from Colombia to Miami. The unsung hero of the global economy, the container was invented in the ‘60s to reduced shipping costs by 70 to 90 percent. David talks about its history, and talks to retired stevedores who remember the way things worked before shipping containers.

The Shirts Come Home Morning Edition; Friday, December 6

Jacob Goldstein meets the Planet Money shirts at the port, where they must clear one more hurdle -- customs. The shirts’ fate is determined by a huge rule book which sets the tariff for basically everything in existence. The t-shirts from Bangladesh are charged a tax rate of 16.5 percent to enter the country. But the Planet Money t-shirts from Colombia come in for free.

Seed To Shirt Wrap Up

All Things Considered; Friday, December 6 The Planet Money team addresses questions about their project.

Acoustic Nature Hour

Christmas Edition On WSIU Radio HD1 & WSIU Main

Sunday, December 22 • 2am & 10pm On WSIU Radio HD2:

Sunday, December 22 • 5am Sit back, slow down, and destress from the craziness of the holiday season with familiar Christmas songs performed with the thoughtfulness and introspection that only the acoustic guitar can bring. You’ll also hear how animals survive the harshness of winter and enjoy stories of cold weather encounters, including an amazing account of having a staring contest with thousands of caribou on the Alaskan tundra!

Saturday 7pm • Sunday 6pm December 7 • New Releases Tune in for some of the last new releases of 2013 to arrive before our end-of-year choice of Album of the Year.

December 14 • English Folk English bands and folk singers are featured in this week’s program, including some of the newer young singers on the scene.

December 21 • A Celtic Christmas Music for the Christmas season features prominently in the Celtic lands of western Europe. Join us this week for a relaxing seasonal celebration.

Thank You,

Underwriters!

Please join us in thanking the underwriters who recently began, renewed, or expanded their partnership to make public radio possible:

The Chocolate Factory, Dixon Springs, IL Southern Real Estate Group, Carbondale, IL The UPS Store of Carbondale (formerly Mailboxes ETC),

Alto Pass, IL

December 28 • Best of 2013 Hear tracks from some of the best Celtic albums of the year, culminating in host Bryan Kelso Crow’s choice of Celtic Connections Album of the Year for 2013.

Happy Holidays from all of us at

WSIU Radio!

For a complete list of WSIU sponsors and information about sponsoring WSIU’s programs and services, visit us online at wsiu.org or call (618) 453-4344.

WSIU Public Radio Communications Building 1003 Mail Code 6602 Southern Illinois University 1100 Lincoln Drive Carbondale IL 62901 (618) 453-6101 wsiuradio@wsiu.org