Filed under: Radio | Tags: Abortion, Adoption, Adoption Agency, Armhair, Attraction, Babies, Belfast, Birth Control, Birth Parents, Bitchiness, Boat Cruise, Boredom, Boyfriends, Catholic Church, Chatting Up, Chronic Fatigue, Concentration, Detroit, Diapers, Doctors, Downs Syndrome, Drugs, Energy Ration, Family, Flab, Flirting, Foster Parent, Gender, Grandparents, Health, HIV, Illness, Insanity, Love, Marriage, ME, Memory, Motherhood, Muscle, Myalgic Encephalomyelitis, Names, Night-feeding, Northern Ireland, Overbathing, Physical Therapy, Pittsburgh, Pregnancy, Prenatal Care, Race, Rape, Retirement, Russia, Sex, Social Life, Special Needs, Speed Dating, Students, Susan Darin Hagan, Swearing, Teenage Pregnancy, Travel, Urine, Vodka, Waitressing, Wheelchair, Yuppie Flu
The Chair
A young Belfast woman talks frankly about life with ME (or chronic fatigue syndrome) in the first half of the show. She discusses how the illness arrived, how it induced swearing and rattiness from her, and what the trade-offs have been. Also: whether she wants people to push her in the wheelchair, her plans for family or nunhood, and how she’s found men look at women in a chair.
In the second half, foster mother Susan Hagan talks about all the babies that have come in and out of her home. She, along with her husband and family, has been fostering newborns for the past seven years through a Pittsburgh agency. The babies stay for a weeks or months, and Susan describes what life with them (and without them) is like — including the health concerns, naming choices, attachment issues, and relationships with birth and adoptive parents.
A Foster Baby
Filed under: Radio | Tags: Abraham Lincoln, Belfast, Bipolar Disorder, Black Taxi, Britney Spears, Falls Road, Health, Hospital, Hostage, Johns Hopkins, Loyalists, Manic Depression, Mental Illness, North Belfast, Obesity, Politics, Race, Schizophrenia, The Troubles, Tourism, USA, Vivien Leigh
Peace Walls of Belfast
This week, the program goes to the Falls Road for an interview with a black taxi driver about his experiences giving tours and being taken hostage.
In the second half, Claire Hagan discusses her work with people with schizophrenia and bipolar disorder at Johns Hopkins medical center in Baltimore.
Filed under: Radio | Tags: Ethnic Minorities, Pittsburgh, Politics, Social Problems, The Troubles, Tourism, Orange Order, Election, Campaign, City Council, Race, Parades, Superheroes, Baltimore, John Hopkins, Northern Ireland, Rust Belt, Gentrification, Community Redevelopment, Orangefest, David Hume, Patrick Dowd, Cronyism, Lawrenceville
Orangefest
Episode 9 considers local politics: of the Orange Order in Northern Ireland and the City Council of Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. In the first half, David Hume talks about the future of the Orange Order, including its new superhero figure and tourism initiatives. Mid-July has been rechristened as ‘Orangefest’ and the Orange Order has big plans for brining more foreigners and locals together for the parades and activities around the 12th. Hume also discusses the Order’s international links, in Canada, the US, and Africa, along with its concerns for attracting young Northern Irish men to join its ranks.
In the second half, Patrick Dowd explains how he won a seat on Pittsburgh’s City Council and his plans for the city. He went from graduate student to teacher to politician, but his victory was not an easy one. Winning a seat as a Democrat but initially without the endorsement of Pittsburgh’s Democratic Party, Dowd had to mobilize the grassroots of the community, going from door to door to door and fount out a tremendous amount about the Pittsburgh neighborhoods he now represents.
