Democracy Now UPDATE 08-06

Good day listeners and supporters of KBCS, 

I really appreciate your listenership and support.  It is discouraging when disconnects in the system cause a broadcast issue for pertinent and important programs for us, TODAY!   A software within our chain of broadcast network crashed this morning just before 8am and before I could get to a system to make adjustments.  Unfortunately,  yesterdays’ broadcast of Democracy Now repeated this morning.  Please go to Democracy Now.org for today’s broadcast. 

Democracy Now for today 08-06 was very critical for information exchange on the fires currently in the NW.  Here is the specific report:

“Fire Climate”: Hot, Dry, Windy Days Are Becoming Common, Making Wildfires Harder to Control

KBCS is on the air because of support from listeners in the community.  Community support has kept KBCS on the air for over 50 years, since 1973. Thank you.

91.3FM KBCS HD-1 is on-the-air because of listeners like you!  Providing these programs and music are thanks to your financial support.  Please consider contributing to KBCS and make a financial donation today.  Click the Green Donate button.  Thank you for your support!
— Gregory D’Elia, KBCS Director of Broadcast Operations

Thinking Out Loud: Why Cultural Events Matter

By Kevin P. Henry for Thinking Out Loud

This summer, there will be plenty of cultural events in the area, many of which are appropriate for all ages. But these events are more than just entertainment or simply fun activities to enjoy while the weather is nice.

Attending cultural and community events is a meaningful way to learn about and connect with people on a deeper level. They are about more than just music, food, dance, or art. They provide opportunities to see history being preserved, traditions being honored, and current social issues explained.

This is especially vital today, when many people feel heightened tension, intolerance, and even fear between different groups and communities.

Every cultural festival, heritage celebration, and museum exhibit offers an opportunity to experience perspectives that may differ from our own. By listening to personal stories, observing traditions, and engaging in conversations with people from diverse backgrounds, we gain a clearer understanding of the struggles, triumphs, and contributions that have helped build our communities and our country.

This kind of learning is critical, particularly when history itself has become the subject of intense public debate and even “controversy.” Some people avoid discussing culture and history altogether, saying they do not want to talk about “politics.”

Across the country, disagreements continue over how America’s past should be taught and remembered. Discussions about slavery, Reconstruction, Jim Crow, the Civil Rights Movement, Indigenous history, immigration, and other chapters of our nation’s story have become heated and emotional. Some people argue that teaching about America’s most violent and disturbing time periods is divisive.

But how can facts—history itself—be divisive? These events happened. We cannot rewrite the past. If we do not understand and learn from it, we are destined to remain ignorant and repeat it. Some would argue that this is already happening.

How will people today and future generations understand America’s past if the horrors of slavery are diminished or ignored? How will future generations view our history if immigrants continue to be demonized, books are banned, and racism and homophobia are tolerated?

When you attend your next Pride festival, cultural celebration, or educational event, remember that your participation can encourage empathy and help eradicate stereotypes. It can also help us recognize the humanity we all share. Understanding another person’s history and life experiences helps define who we are as individuals, as communities, and as a nation.

Everyone deserves to live in a safe society rooted in respect, honesty, and mutual understanding. We must invest in preserving history while strengthening our shared future.

Madinah in the Market Season 3, episode 32

Episode 32 – Don and Joe’s Meats

This week, Friday July 17th (and 24th), Madinah features a visit with Don & Joe’s Meats. 

Inside Seattle’s sole full-service butcher shop at Pike Place Market, Ben Frey is carrying forward a century-old legacy.

More than twenty years after first stepping into Don & Joe’s Meats for a “cleanup kid” gig, Frey now stands behind the block as owner and head butcher of one of the region’s oldest family businesses. In this conversation, he reflects on the discipline of whole-animal butchery and the relationships that continue to shape the community around him.

Filmed on location inside the historic shop, we follow “Bennie ‘Da Butcha” as he processes a whole lamb by hand while discussing regional farm partnerships, charitable food efforts within the Market, and what it means to preserve a disappearing trade in modern Seattle.

This episode marks the conclusion of Act One of Season Three of Madinah In The Market.

Act Two continues live from The Rabbit Box Theatre on September 4, 2026.

Originally broadcast on KBCS. Distributed by Madinah Slaise Media.

· Madinah In The Market | S3, E32

Editor’s Note: During this episode, the monthly community meal hosted by Atrium Kitchen is mistakenly identified as “Nourished Meals.” The correct name is “Nourished Neighborhood.”

Don & Joe’s Meats at Pike Place Market

KBCS Community Resource Calendar

Bicycle Weekends

Bicycle Weekends are here on Seattle’s Lake Washington Boulevard! Streets are closed to cars from Mt. Baker Beach to Seward Park so that cyclists, walkers, and runners, can enjoy safe, open streets throughout the summer. The closures run weekends through September 7. Happy walking and rolling!

Seattle Public Library Exhibit – Sentenced to Debt

The Seattle Public Library is featuring an exhibit called Living With Conviction-Sentenced to Debt in Washington State. Multimedia storytelling, photographs, and community conversations share the story of how court-imposed costs add an extra layer of burden on incarcerated individuals. The exhibit is on view at the Central Branch and Greenlake branch through July 26.

Music in the Meadow

Come out for music at Rock the Meadow in Bellevue to hear local bands on weekends in July. The new grassy park downtown is two minutes from light rail and the Bellevue Transit Center. On July 18 starting at 2pm you can hear Seeking Ivy and Flannel Sasquatch. And come back on July 26 for Blank Pages, Missing Company, and Lark vs. Owl. Concerts are free and open to the public.

KBCS Feature Programs – USA at 250

July 2nd and 3rd, KBCS presents Feature Programs while the Thom Hartmann Program and Studios take a break over the holiday weekend. Audio archives available at the studio links above and the KBCS Thom Hartmann Program page.

Thursday July 2nd – In the Meanwhile

July 2nd KBCS featured In the Meanwhile from 9am-12pm. In the Meanwhile is hosted by Marcus Harrison Green and Nora Kenworthy, and is a locally produced weekly hour-long podcast “for anyone trying to survive the slow-motion apocalypse without losing their soul (or their sense of humor).” It also airs on KVRU. 

These are the episodes we’re featuring tomorrow/Thursday:

• 9am: Staying in the Fight with Ijeoma Oluo
• 10am: The Art of Calling In with Loretta J. Ross
• 11am: The AI Hype Industrial Complex with Emily M. Bender

Audio archives are also available on the studio link above and the KBCS Thom Hartmann Program page.

Friday July 3rd – First America, Edge of America’s 250, US at 250: 

• 9am: First America Marking the 250th anniversary of the Declaration of Independence, First America uncovers the Indigenous history at the heart of America’s founding. Hosted by Cherokee journalist Rebecca Nagle, this one-hour special examines how Native nations and their resistance shaped the nation’s early history and its enduring challenges.
• 10am:  Notes from the Edge of America’s 250 (July 4th Special) – Notes from the Edge is a KALW program hosted by Jeff Chang and featuring Jamelle Bouie (NYT columnist), Paul Farber (Monument Lab) and three culture makers—Leyla McCalla, La Doña and Julian Brave Noisecat. 
• 11am: The US at 250: A Native Perspective on the Tending Our Roots podcast – also from KALW, this episode focuses on Indigenous collective healing

Audio archives are also available on the studio links above and the KBCS Thom Hartmann Program page.

Given the systemic erasure in the official America 250 narrative of how America was founded on Indigenous land and with Black labor, we uplift predominantly Black and Indigenous narratives, producers & voices this week. 

Tune in and learn more about these programs curated by current KBCS Director of Public Affairs Programming, J. Asarnow.

KBCS USA at 250 Feature Programs

Madinah in the Market Season 3, episode 6

Tune in every Friday about 12:50 on KBCS just after the latest episode of Travels with Rick Steves.

Episode 6 – Eclipse Hat Shop

This week, Friday July 3rd (and 10th), Madinah features a visit with Eclipse Hat Shop

Beneath the main levels of Pike Place Market along Western Avenue, a legacy craft is shaped and blocked in real time. Milliner Sharon Hagerty, owner of Eclipse Hat Shop, traces a lineage from master hatter Herman Hellman to the present, where every brim is fitted by hand.

Inside the shop, felt, steam, and instinct meet in practiced precision. From a global clientele to a singular point of view, curation here is both discipline and intuition.

This is not about hats. It is about the people who carry them into the world.

Originally broadcast on KBCS. Distributed by Madinah Slaise Media.

· Madinah In The Market | S3, E31

Eclipse Hat Shop

Madinah in the Market Season 3, episode 5

Tune in every Friday about 12:50 on KBCS just after the latest episode of Travels with Rick Steves.

Episode 5 – The Rabbit Box Theater

This week, Friday June 19th, Madinah features a visit with The Rabbit Box Theatre

Inside The Rabbit Box Theatre, located beneath Pike Place Market in downtown Seattle, owner and curator Robynne Hawthorne has fashioned a room where the arts converge. Film, music, theater, and literature on one stage, anchored by a bistro bar serving literary-inspired cocktails.

The theatre draws its namesake from author Joseph Pintauro’s “The Rainbow Box” quartet, a work grounded in what is felt rather than spoken.

Decades in Seattle’s music scene inform the direction. The intent is exact: to hold space for expression that resists containment.

This episode also captures the quiet reveal of a new outdoor concert series at Pike Place Market, an extension of the stage and a defining moment in downtown Seattle’s nightlife.

Originally broadcast on KBCS. Distributed by Madinah Slaise Media.

· Madinah In The Market | S3, E30

Tune in about 12:55 just after the latest Travel with Rick Steves to catch this new episode of Madinah in the Market! Madinah In The Market is an editorial series captured on location, offering viewers access beyond the Pike Place Market high stalls and into conversations with featured artisans and vendors making Pike Place Market the spice of life it is today!

Robynne Hawthorne, Owner Operator of the Rabbit Box Theatre

Madinah in the Market – Season 3 Episode 4

Tune in every Friday about 12:50 on KBCS just after the latest episode of Travels with Rick Steves.

Episode 4 – Jacob’s Agro

This week, Friday June 3rd, Madinah features a visit with Jacob’s Agro

At Pike Place Market’s High Stall #7, Jacob’s Agro cultivates crops central to African and Caribbean cuisine—okra, sorrel, black-eyed peas, and other varieties seldom seen in the Pacific Northwest. U.S. Army veteran Mark Jacobs reflects on the cultural foodways that guide his seasonal plantings and the role those harvests play in feeding communities across the region.

Alongside Chloé Bramble Fulton of Bramble Babe, the farm’s produce is crafted into organic preserves and specialty goods that reflect a shared emphasis on texture, peak-season flavor, and culinary tradition.

Originally broadcast on KBCS. Distributed by Madinah Slaise Media.

· Madinah In The Market | S3, E29

Tune in about 12:55 just after the latest Travel with Rick Steves to catch this new episode of Madinah in the Market! Madinah In The Market is an editorial series captured on location, offering viewers access beyond the Pike Place Market high stalls and into conversations with featured artisans and vendors making Pike Place Market the spice of life it is today!

Jacobs Agro

KBCS Community Resource Calendar: Paws and Pride, World Cup events, Hiking Bus

Paws and Pride Walk

Pride month is coming right up in June. Head to Bellevue Downtown Park to celebrate with the community and four-legged friends. Paws and Pride dog walk runs 10-2 on June 6. There will be live music, food, performances, and local vendors. This event is free and open to all. Colorful dress encouraged.

Watch the World Cup

In a few days, soccer fans from around the world will arrive in Seattle for the 2026 World Cup! Seattle Center is hosting free watch parties in the Armory, the Mural Amphitheatre, and around the campus. The first match kicks off at 12pm on June 11. Join the excitement through the final on July 19!

Hiking Bus

Grab your sneakers or hiking boots and get ready to explore our local trails. Metro’s Trailhead Direct is running for the season and offers rides to Mt. Si and Squak Mountain in Issaquah. Hikers don’t need to worry about driving or parking. The shuttle is available through August 30. Use an Orca card or pay $3 each way. 18 and under are free. Happy hiking!

Photo by Fauzan Saari on Unsplash

KBCS Community Resource Calendar events May 22, 2026

Ben Brandow to Serve as KBCS General Manager

KBCS is excited to announce that Ben Brandow will serve as the station’s next General Manager. 

Ben joined KBCS as Development Director in September of 2016 and spent the last year serving as the station’s Interim General Manager.

During his time at KBCS, Ben has helped strengthen the station’s financial foundation while deepening relationships across its volunteer, donor, and listener communities.

After nearly a decade at KBCS, Ben is well positioned to help guide KBCS through a changing public media landscape while remaining grounded in the station’s community-centered mission.  His development experience will continue to be critical for the station to navigate a future without CPB funding and for finding new avenues of support.

Additionally, his tenure at KBCS has instilled in him a deep appreciation for the station’s rich history, commitment to community, and dedication to uplifting the voices often excluded from the mainstream media.

“KBCS is a testament to our community’s desire to have a more meaningful connection to the media we experience. In a time when we’re witnessing corporate media consolidation happening at an unprecedented rate, public media is more important than ever. I have deep gratitude to the listeners, donors, volunteers, staff, and community partners that have contributed to making KBCS the vibrant station it is today, and I’m honored to lead the station in its next chapter.”

– Ben Brandow

Prior to KBCS, Ben served as Membership Manager for Lakeshore Public Media where he oversaw individual giving for the organization’s public radio and television stations broadcasting in the Chicagoland area. Before that, he served as Membership Manager for High Plains Public Radio with studios in Garden City, KS and Amarillo, TX.

Outside of KBCS, Ben enjoys getting outdoors with his family and soaking up the beauty of the Northwest, rain or shine.