3-30 min:  When my dad (Jim Woodring) was driving me to the bus station in Knoxville, TN, back in January, he asked me if I had any 5-yr plans. No, nothing major. I asked him about his, and he told me about the process of becoming certified in batterer intervention, and his work with domestic violence counselling.   You can read more in his book, “Always My Fault”, a survivor’s story.   There is one dv shelter, with 30 beds, serving a 9-county region in southeastern KY with a population of around 320,000 people.

20 min- John Prine sings “The Great Compromise.”

26 min:  David and Roosevelt from Shop n Share, an annual drive for supplies for domestic violence programs in KY.  David and Roose were at Kroger in Middlesboro, KY, on Feb 3rd asking for shoppers to take the list of supplies requested by the dv shelters, and add something to their shopping list if possible.      People were generous, donating 25-30 boxes of supplies by the end of the day.  A statistical note – mean household income in Bell Co, KY, is $21,000, compared with $61,000 in Hampshire Co, MA.

People were also very generous with the liquid hand soap bottles.  Liquid hand soap, how did this become normal?   A housemate once said to me that she was concerned about bacteria living on the bar.  No, research says it’s not a risk.  Liquid hand soap, it’s just another niche consumer market.  I read online that people tend to use a lot more, per hand wash, than with bar soap, and it can end up costing 10x as much.  Plus plastic trash.

31m Jim’s writing on Valentine’s Day and true love.

35m Hema Preya, a researcher from UMass, shares about her project, done last year, asking people who identified as black or as white what they thought were the most important things they could do for racial justice.  I only had time to play half of this interview, so check next week for the other half.

Check out coming-together.org, based in Amherst, for their racial justice resources.

53m Bideew Bou Bess sings “My Feeling”