Podcasts: Vaya Con Muñoz
Vaya Con Muñoz
Vaya con Muñoz is hosted by Natalia Muñoz, a multimedia journalist from San Juan, Puerto Rico. Interviews and rants and raves on politics, culture and media, in English and en español. Airs Saturdays 10-11am and Sunday nights at 7pm.
Vaya Con Muñoz 5.15.21
This week our panellists, Nathaniel Waring, Tanisha Arena, Matt Szafranski, and Dan Torres – join Natalia in discussing Liz Cheney’s break from the rest of Trump’s GOP in saying that Biden won the 2020 election, and whether her doing so is admirable, or if her past record makes her irredeemable; Trump’s chances in 2024, and what that says about almost half of the people in this country; the announcement by the Springfield city clerk that she is stepping down, and how Mayor Sarno’s attempt to appoint a replacement is the latest in a string of actions he has taken that overstep his power; Where we are in the pandemic, and how we are failing our neighbors in the global south; And vaccine hesitancy, and how much of it is born from very real trauma that has been inflicted by the United States on minority groups for centuries
Vaya Con Muñoz 5.8.21
5.8.21 Kate Albright-Hanna, Tanisha Arena and Natalia Muñoz on questions about trans rights, women’s rights and more.
Vaya Con Muñoz 5.1.21
This week on Vaya con Munoz, Natalia is joined by our regular panelists, Tanisha Arena, Matt Szafranski, Kate Albright-Hanna, Dan Torres, and Nathaniel Waring. We discuss President Biden’s first speach before a joint session of congress, and what having Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi and Vice President Kamala Harris standing behind Joe Biden means for a country with a long tradition of white supramacy; How campaign finance is a broken system that needs to be updated to take the financial burdon off of the poor and middle class, without sacrificing civic participation; how there will always be members of any given racial or ethnic group that espouse ideas that are contrary to the interstest of their group, and how that shouldn’t be given more credence than the thousands of minority voices speaking on their own behalf; how identity politics plays out in America, and here in Western Massachusetts; what the CDC changing their mask requirements for outdoors means to us all, and what we look forward to (or not) about going back to “normal”, and what that might look like; Natalia’s cancer and the copays she had to pay for her treatment, and how heathcare company CEO pay plays into the need for single payer health care; How words matter, and Biden speaking to White Supremacy being terrorism and calling the Armenian genocide as such was a huge moment for our country; And return once more to speaking about police reform, and why ending qualified immunity is such an impotant part of that process.
Vaya Con Muñoz 4.24.21
This week, as we approach the Oscars, our regular panelists – Tanisha Arena, Dan Torres, Matt Szafranski, and Nathaniel Waring – are joined once again by Larry Hott, renowned documentary filmmaker and member of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences to discuss the Documentaries that have been nominated for this year’s Oscars. We discuss My Octopus Teacher, a film about a South African filmaker’s time with an octopus, and the effect it had on his life and wellbeing; A concerto is a conversation, a film about a black composer, and his relationship with his father; Crip Camp, a film about a summer camp run by hippies for special needs folks, and how it led them to have the confidence to challenge how people with disabilities are treated in the United States, and to fight for the passage of the Americans with Disabilities Act; and a slew of other films that didn’t make the cut, but were important and fantastic in their own rights. The panel then discusses the verdict in the Derek Chauvin trial, and what it means for the soul of our nation; how his defence chose to trample of George Floyd’s memory; whether the three other officers involved will be found guilty of a crime in their own trials, and what their defence might be; and how all this fits into the bigger picture of policing in America, and how it plays into the Defund the Police movement, and rethinking what policing looks like.
Vaya Con Muñoz 4.17.21
This week Natalia is joined by regular guests Kate Albright-Hanna, Dan Torres, Matt Szafranski, and Nathaniel Waring. We discuss Joe Biden’s announcement that the US will be pulling all of its troops out of afghanistan by Sept 11th of this year, and what that means for the two counties; how we all feel about the Biden administration so far, and what direction we would like to see it take going forward; what will happen with the midterm elections coming up in 2022, and whether the lack of frantic urgency on the side of the left will result in losses for Democrats; what impact the census will have on redistricting and, by extension, the house make up; what the lack of Trump in our daily lives means for our anxiety levels, and whether the right being in a similar state of panic indicates there’s a fundamental problem with American politics; if the left should take the high road when the right breaks the rules, or they should stoop to their level in order to keep things “fair”; and what the fate of the supreme court and the filibuster look like under biden, and a democratic majority in the house and senate.
Vaya Con Muñoz 4.3.21
This week our panelists, Kate Albright-Hanna, Tanisha Arena, and Dan Torres, discuss the murder trial of George Floyd’s murderer, Derek Chauvin, and the instituational problems that exist within the police forces in the US that contributed to the killing; what defunding the police might look like, and how the polcing system’s racist roots as a slave catching organization play into the conversation; corperate responcibility, what companies like Coca Cola and Delta should be doing in responce to the voter suppression laws in Georgia, and what they’re doing instead; and discuss the sex trafficing allegations against Florida man, Matt Gaetz. And our engineer, Nathaniel Waring, spends most of the hour yelling at his microphone in the cold, sad silence of zoom technical purgatory.
Vaya Con Muñoz 3.27.21
This week Natalia is joined by Nathaniel Waring, Dan Torres, Tanisha Arena, and Matt Szafranski to discuss the recent mass shooting in Colorado, and what it says about our country that these events have become so commonplace; our country’s addiction to guns, and why we can not seem to pass meaningful gun control; what colorism is, how it relates to racism, and what that means in the context of the United States, but also in Brazil, Puerto Rico, South Africa, and around the world; The end of the Morse era in Holyoke, and why Mayor Sarno of Springfield isn’t going anywhere anytime soon; and the trouble at the Social Security office in getting data to the IRS for the latest round of relief checks, and what that has to do with how power changes hands between administrations, and over the decades.
Vaya Con Muñoz 3.20.21
This week our regular panelists – Tanisha Arena, Kate Albright Hanna, Dan Torres, Matt Szafranski, and Nathaniel Waring – are joined by the legendary documentarian and member of the academy of motion picture arts, Larry Hott. We discuss Gumersindo Gomez’s selection to replace his son Adam Gozem who recently was elected to the state senate, and why the Springfield City council’s membership were less than happy to have to cast the vote; the extreme polization in the US House and Senate, and how ‘bipartisan’ can mean passing legistlation that is widely popular among the voters of both parties, even if no republicans in either chamber will vote for it; Larry Hott introduces to the documentary Boy’s State, and we discuss how the film shows us a world that paralells the work of fiction Lord of the Flies; We discuss ALL IN The Fight for Democracy, and how Stacy Abrams being a producer leaves some of us with questions about how much creative control she had over the film; We learn about a third documentary Time, in which a mother of twins records home videos surrounding her raising her children alone while her husband serves a 60 year jail term for bank robbery; and Kate expresses bemoans that the filmmakers who made Boy’s State beat her to an idea she had years ago to make a film inspired by her own experiences at a similar camp, Junior Statesmen of America.
Vaya Con Muñoz 3.13.21
This week our regular panelists – Tanisha Arena, Kate Albright Hanna, Dan Torres, Matt Szafranski, and Nathaniel Waring – are joined by the legendary documentarian and member of the academy of motion picture arts, Larry Hott. We discuss Gumersindo Gomez’s selection to replace his son Adam Gozem who recently was elected to the state senate, and why the Springfield City council’s membership were less than happy to have to cast the vote; the extreme polization in the US House and Senate, and how ‘bipartisan’ can mean passing legistlation that is widely popular among the voters of both parties, even if no republicans in either chamber will vote for it; Larry Hott introduces to the documentary Boy’s State, and we discuss how the film shows us a world that paralells the work of fiction Lord of the Flies; We discuss ALL IN The Fight for Democracy, and how Stacy Abrams being a producer leaves some of us with questions about how much creative control she had over the film; We learn about a third documentary Time, in which a mother of twins records home videos surrounding her raising her children alone while her husband serves a 60 year jail term for bank robbery; and Kate expresses bemoans that the filmmakers who made Boy’s State beat her to an idea she had years ago to make a film inspired by her own experiences at a similar camp, Junior Statesmen of America.
Vaya Con Muñoz 2.27.21
This week on our show we are joined by Nathaniel Waring, Kate Albright-Hanna, Dan Torres, and Matt Szafranski, and we discuss the recent inquiry by Justin Hurst into why there are not more minority and woman owned businesses getting contracts with the city, and whether racism – overt of systemic – is playing a part in this lack of representation; Senator Markey’s recent visit to the site of the proposed biomass site in Springfield, and how his visit is a sign of support to Jesse Letterman and others in Springfield who supported his 2020 run; whether so called green energy sources will be able to keep up with a growing energy demand globaly, and where we might find our next source of power; why we are going to Mars now and in the future, and what that means for our species (and our resident martian, Nathaniel); the Northampton middle school pricipal’s recent comments on the confederate flag, and the community support that the hateful reaction from a new facebook page has spurred; the happenings at Smith College involving a former employee who is claiming that being forced to sit through racial sensitivity trainings is racist against her as a white woman; A California city’s entire school comintee retiring over a hot mic incident, and how parents and teachers have found themselves at odds in the pandemic; the horrible job Gov Baker has done with the vaccine rollout, and what it will take for Massachusetts to wake up to his incompetency.
