In living with a two year old, SpongeBob rules the domestic airwaves. Additionally, the margin I once used to hit up my favorite news websites has diminished to near nonexistence. So it’s this out of touch cavern that I reside in and to be honest, it’s not all that bad. Frustration spawned from political insanity and the daily global chaos has been replaced by the antics of an underwater world ruled by Krabby Patties. But one of the pitfalls of unplugging like this is reaching a comfort level with omitting certain things that should never be dismissed from my daily stream of consciousness. (more…)

Mountain Bike Oregon (MBO) captures the essence of their community in numerous ways. Not only do they offer exhilarating mountain biking adventures for everyone from beginner to expert in some of the most beautiful terrain in the world, they are a major part of the Oakridge community’s rebirth. (more…)

What You Should Be Listening To – The Hip-Hop Edition with Willie Evans Jr.

Sounds of the Re:Union - Willie Evans Jr.

Sounds host Brenton Crozier spoke with hip-hop producer and performer Willie Evans Jr. about albums that influenced him, the albums that may have gotten past your radar and some upcoming releases that he is looking forward to. Willie Evans Jr. performed with national act Asamov, produced for underground favorites Mr. Lif and Akrobatik, has recorded with Rawkus Records and now performs as a solo artist across the country. (more…)

It was only weeks after the SOTRU team was in New Orleans that the explosion on the Deepwater Horizon oil rig in the Gulf of Mexico began sending millions of gallons of oil on a slow creep towards the Louisiana shore. We spent much of our time in the Crescent City talking to people about the slow, painstaking work of recovery from the winds and floods of Hurricane Katrina—and here they are, facing another natural disaster. (more…)

In case you missed it, State of the Re:Union was on NPR’s ‘All Things Considered’ last Friday. They featured Al’s piece on Greensburg, Kansas, a town that’s rebuilding green after a devastating tornado three years ago. It’s a shortened version of our hour-long episode on Greensburg, named ‘To the Stars through Difficulties.’

You can listen to the story on NPR’s website.

Or, to hear the entire Greensburg episode of State of the Re:Union, visit our page featuring the show as well as supplemental stories and videos.

On our Facebook page, we recently asked you what your dream job as a child was, and what your dream job is now. That got me thinking.  As so many of us are dependent on wage labor, how can we begin to think about our “dream” jobs?  It’s almost as if we don’t have time to think about what we would really want to do.  Or maybe we know what we’d ideally do, but don’t realistically think we can actually make it happen.  But I think maybe we can actually do what we want to do.  In fact, we’ve reported stories from all over the country about people who are, yes, DOING WHAT THEY WANT TO DO. (more…)

Whether by default or design, all of us on the SOTRU team are gradually becoming city experts. With each fresh location we go to, we accumulate new perspectives on how different places are approaching a frequently overlapping set of challenges, be it how to stem a rise in crime or reverse a loss of jobs, halt a wave of foreclosures or repair an urban infrastructure that’s seen better days.  What if to solve some of these problems we turned not to the usual handful of urban planners and economic development honchos… but to a group of physicists? (more…)

Catching State of the Re:Union is now as simple as clicking “Subscribe” in your iTunes. That’s right, take us with you on long trips, for a jog, we even sound good pumping through the speakers at the club! Both an audio and video feed are available. May we suggest subscribing to both? Our audio feed includes all of our radio episodes and will include some extra audio podcasts created for our website. The video feed features Al’s podcasts, Sounds of the Re:Union and some of the slideshows and additional media that we’ve created. Thanks for listening and watching!

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One of our underlying intentions in everything we produce is to spark conversation. We would love to hear your thoughts on our shows and the stories that were part of them. Each of our episodes not only has a dedicated page filled with the full radio episode, the episode in segments, a video documentary, podcasts, images and staff blog posts, but a place to discuss the radio show. Whether it’s praise, criticism, suggestions, an insider perspective, we want to hear it. Put your thoughts in the “Leave a Reply” section on the page of the episode you want to discuss (links below). So go ahead and take the next bold step in kicking off the conversation!

Discuss Brooklyn – Change Happens

Discuss Greensburg – To the Stars through Difficulties

Discuss Milwaukee – City of Vision

Discuss New Orleans – The Big Easy

Discuss Oakridge – A Work in Progress

Thanks, we look forward to hearing from you.

Listen to the episode and check out our video documentary, podcasts, images and articles on New Orleans!

If you’ve listened to our NOLA episode, we want to hear from you. Please tell us what you liked, what you didn’t like and what you thought we could have done differently. The SOTRU team appreciates your feedback!

Listen to the episode and check out our video docs, podcasts, images and articles about Oakridge!

If you’ve listened to our Oakridge episode, we want to hear from you. Please tell us what you liked, what you didn’t like and what you thought we could have done differently. The SOTRU team appreciates your feedback!

Listen to the episode and check out our video documentary, podcasts, images and articles from Milwaukee!

If you’ve listened to our Milwaukee episode, we want to hear from you. Please tell us what you liked, what you didn’t like and what you thought we could have done differently. The SOTRU team appreciates your feedback!