Vaya Con Muñoz 1.8.21

This week on the show we are joined by Nathaniel Waring, Kate Albright-Hanna, and Matt Szafranski in discussing Coid, and how both Kate and Nathaniel’s families have gotten Covid in the last few weeks; The new Covid variant(s) and how our elected officials are responding to them; what Covid means for our children, and public school; Eric Lesser’s announcement that he’s running for Lieutenant Governor of Massachusetts, and what it will mean both for western mass, as well as the whole of the commonwealth; President Biden’s January 6th memorial speech, and what we feel it’s strengths and weaknesses were; Kate’s plan to move to Costa Rica to escape America’s problems; and how the Democrats are looking at politics in 2022 and beyond, and how it indicates a lack of understanding of the world we are moving into.

Vaya Con Muñoz 12.25.21

 

Vaya Con Muñoz 12.18.21

Vaya Con Muñoz 12.11.21

This week on the show Nathaniel fills in for Natalia and is joined by Matt Szafranski and Dan Torres in discussing the recent strike by the staff of the Daily Hampshire Gazette, and how it relates to insistence on getting our news for free; the ongoing saga of the fight between Springfield Mayor Sarno and the Springfield City Council over the future of leadership for the Springfield Police Department; what’s happening in the Governor’s race in Massachusetts, and how does the way in which politics are run in the commonwealth affect the way candidates run their campaigns; the situation in eastern Europe on the border between Ukraine and Russia, and what Putin’s motives might be behind the scenes; and what will happen with the US olympic team heading to China, and how the Biden administration’s handling of it will be received by Beijing.

Vaya Con Muñoz 12.4.21

This week on the show Natalia is joined by Dan Torres, Tanisha Arena, Matt Szafranski, and Nathaniel Waring in discussing the appointment of a General from the UAE with human rights issues to the top position in interpol; how capitalism pushes the worst among us to the top, and how modern events are starting to sound like bad writing; Charlie Baker announcing that he won’t be seeking relection, and his Lt. Govenor Polito also anouncing she will not be running for Govenor; the state of the Repubical party in Massachusetts, and how Trump’s influence has shaped it’s modern incarnation; World’s Aids Day, and what Springfield is doing to address HIV/AIDS; the ongoing pandemic, and how the covid centric reporting by the news is ignoring the whole range of other pathegins and epedemics, including opiod addiction; how the news and politicians’ relationships have changed over time, and what is driving that change; how the press should handle covering extremists in politics, and how to do it without feeding into Trump’s “fake news” claims; and Chris Cuomo’s indefinet suspension from CNN following relivations around his involvement with his brother’s responce to sexual assault allegations.

Vaya Con Muñoz 11-27-21

This week Nathaniel fills in for Natalia, and is joined by Tanisha Arena, Kate Albright-Hanna, Matt Szafranski, and Dan Torres in discussing the recent verdict in the Kyle Rittenhouse trial, and how it’s related to white supremacy in our country; what we, as citizens of this country, can do to change things if we find that the laws don’t align without morality; what kind of fallout we can expect from this verdict in terms of copy cat vigilantism, and if we can expect to see more cases like this in the future; whether a 17 year old black kid would’ve ever been able to get away with something like this, let alone walk away from the scene alive; how research by a prominent anthropologist suggests that Native American ideals of liberty and equality were brought back to fFrance, and seeded the both the French Revolution, and the founding of the United States; how property is a concept rooted in power dynamics and classes.

Vaya Con Muñoz 11.20.21

11.20.21 This week the panel dives deep into COVID questions, the Kyle Rittenhouse trial, higher death rates from COVID striking Black men, and the Gazette byline strike.

Vaya Con Muñoz 11.13.21

This week Nathaniel returns as host and is joined by Tanisha Arena, Dan Torres, and Matt Szafranski to discuss two trials currently happening, and how race plays into how they’re unfolding; the phenomenon of white tears, and how they play into consequences; possible problems with mail in ballots in Springfield, and what it means for elections in the city; potential recalls in the elections in Holyoke and Amherst, and how close these races were; who does the labor to make elections happen, and how much of that labor is unpaid – and whether it should be or not; Ruth Bader Ginsburg’s statement on Colin Kaepernick’s kneeling, and what we do when one of our idols lets us down; the state of the environment, and what we can expect to happen in Glasgow; how environmentally sound policies can also be good for the commonwealth, and what’s happening in Massachusetts with east-west rail.

Vaya Con Muñoz 11.6.21

This week Natalia is back in the hosting chair, and she is joined by Kate Albright-Hanna, Tanisha Arena, Dan Torres, Matt Szafranski, and Nathaniel Waring to discuss this past week’s election in Holyoke, and what an all new progressive city council will mean for Mayor Elect Joshua Garcia; the election in Buffallo NY, and how the incumbant Mayor’s write in campaign went; how a slate of candidates for school commitee in greenfield teamed up, worked together, and swept the election; how ranked choice voting would change the way elections are run by candidates, and how it would foster teamwork between like minded candidates; What happened with the mayoral election in westfield, and how Don Hummason’s legacy took a surprising turn; how voter turnout in springfield – and the rest of the valley and the state – looked this election cycle, and how that bodes for 2022; how the degredation of local news played into the low turnout, and what can be done; what to call people from Holyoke, and what Kate thinks they should be called; social media, and how Facebook is changing their parent company to be Meta, and how that is a usual tactic of large corperations; and how the country might be more progressive than Natalia has thought in the past, including how the local elections in the Pioneer valley bode for the future.

Vaya Con Muñoz 10.30.21

This week on the show Nathaniel Waring fills in for Natalia again, and is joined by Kate Albright-Hanna, Tanisha Arena, Dan Torres, and Matt Szafranski to discuss the environment, and what a recent study said about what we can expect in terms of a global temperature increase; the likelihood of space travel being used to evacuate people in the face of climate change, and how silly it is to think that another planet would be easier to terraform than Earth would be to save; the Mayoral election in Holyoke, and other elections around the valley; Buffalo’s mayoral race between Byron Brown and India Walton, and what sore loser laws have to do with it; the recent rash of progressive attorney general, and the difference between Chesa Boudin and Larry Krasner, the DA of philadelphia; and how mass incarceration is a tool of white supremacy to disenfranchise black and brown people.