The Leftscape
the shape of progressive conversation
Episodes
April 16, 2025 • 54 mins
Brittany Smith is a key volunteer with the 21st Century Packhorse Librarians, a group that delivers free books throughout the Appalachian Mountains, especially to those affected by Hurricane Helene. The organization is a revival and revisioning of the librarians who made book delivieries in the same region during the Great Depression. Smith resides in Jonesborough, Tennessee, works in Projects Control for an engineering firm, a...
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April 2, 2025 • 66 mins
Featured guest Ray Katz started and currently leads The Saners, a group dedicated to preventing climate collapse and building a better civilization worldwide. He holds a BA in Economics from Stonybrook University as well as an MBA from Fordham University and he co-founded one of the first web development agencies in Philadelphia in 1994. Katz first appeared on The Leftscape in Episode 160, "Saving the Planet With Joy." He returns t...
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January 19, 2025 • 19 mins
The Leftscape is back after an extended holiday hiatus. Co-hosts Robin Renée and Wendy Sheridan have a casual chat and reveal a new direction for the show. Moving forward, expect less news that imitates doom-scrolling and more reporting on ways we as progressives can come together to make an impact and to nurture communities. Expect thoughtful conversations and a couple of new segments to go with old favorites.
Wendy introduces an...
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November 14, 2024 • 53 mins
Painting by Wendy Sheridan
Robin Renée and Wendy Sheridan speak for the first time after the U.S. presidential election. Together they process the loss by Kamala Harris and Tim Walz to Donald Trump and JD Vance. Between surmising why a majority of Americans voted for the Republican ticket and worrying what changes the next four years may bring, they begin to work through the deep sadness and disappointment, anger, frustration, and...
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October 31, 2024 • 88 mins
Lemalé Torres has a calling in educating union members on how they can be empower themselves to take charge. She is passionate about understanding the political landscape as an advocate of social justice. Another role in her life deeply affects how much she cares about the issues -- motherhood. She met co-host Wendy Sheridan at an event sponsored by Indivisible. They sat down to talk about Torres' knowledge of Project 2025 and its ...
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October 16, 2024 • 84 mins
Ivo Becica is an attorney who represents businesses and Human Resources professionals in employment disputes, including providing advice and training on staying in compliance with the law, as well as defending against employee claims when necessary. He writes about labor and employment law at his firm’s blog, HR Legalist. Becica joined co-host Robin Renée for an even-tempered conversation on what Project 2025 has to say about labor...
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October 2, 2024 • 75 mins
Lisa Vandever is an organizer and activist with over 30 years of experience in media, communications, arts and events. A lifelong Democrat, she is a co-leader of the progressive group, Indivisible Rahway, and an active member of Fair Ballot Alliance NJ and OneNJ7. An enthusiastic Garden Stater by way of Oregon, Chicago and Brooklyn, she has been happily settled in Rahway, NJ for two decades with husband, Alan, and two ginger tabbie...
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September 18, 2024 • 75 mins
Tom Limoncelli is an LGBTQ organizer, trainer, and speaker from New Jersey. His speaking and training repertoire includes time management for activists and support group facilitation skills. He is the recipient of several activism awards including the Brenda Howard Award for bisexual activism. Tom spoke about Time Management for Busy Activists on Leftscape Episode 86 almost exactly four years ago in 2020. In this episode he shares ...
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September 4, 2024 • 69 mins
Wendy Sheridan and Robin Renée are back after summer break for the 2024 Season 2 of The Leftscape! Featured guest Jonah Minkoff-Zern (he/him) is the co-director of Public Citizen’s Democracy Campaign. He has organized nationwide mobilizations to challenge ongoing threats to democracy from former President Donald Trump and his allies, coordinated grassroots activities to pass federal voting rights and democracy reforms, and mobilize...
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July 3, 2024 • 78 mins
Hal Robins is known for his radio broadcasts and public performances, as well as for his participation in the Church of the SubGenius (as Dr. Howland Owll, Master of Church Secrets). He has worked in film and television and is a poet and playwright. Robins is also a fine artist and cartoonist. In this featured conversation with Rev. Andrew Genus, he shares his wit and insight into the world of the SubGenius, the current political s...
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June 21, 2024 • 81 mins
Co-hosts Robin Renée and Wendy Sheridan discuss the enormous and detailed Project 2025, a collection of policy proposals created by The Heritage Foundation to reshape the United States government in the image of current-day far right conservativism. It seeks to mandate conservative Christian values, dismantle many social programs and government departments, and to provide ready-made policy positions and personnel for the next Repub...
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June 6, 2024 • 74 mins
Ray Katz is a web developer—one of Philadelphia's first. He has many hobbies including collecting artifacts related to the history of space flight and animation. His passion and most pressing endeavor, however, is to find effective ways of dealing with climate change. To that end, he has created a new and unique movement, The Saners. He is also the host of the 5 Minutes to Save the Earth podcast. Don't miss his inspired thoughts on...
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May 23, 2024 • 67 mins
When Abby Driscoll, a senior at Fort Defiance High School in Verona, VA had a piece placed in a school art show, she likely didn't expect the drama that ensued. Listener Tony Rogers of Fairfax, VA sent the story to The Leftscape via X/Twitter to spark conversation between co-hosts Robin Renée and Wendy Sheridan. This featured discussion ranges from thoughts on the artwork, "But Not Enough to Save You," to serious concerns about ...
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May 8, 2024 • 78 mins
David Michael Jamison is the Assistant Professor of History at Edward Waters University in Jacksonville, Florida and the former Visiting Assistant Professor of Black World Studies at Miami University–Middletown in Middletown, Ohio. He previously worked as a special-education teacher, first with the New York Board of Education and then with the Los Angeles Unified School District. He is the Education and Programs Chair of the Jackso...
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April 25, 2024 • 62 mins
Meet Protest Singer Michael Naphys
Michael Naphys is a singer/songwriter from South Jersey. Music has always been a big part of his life, and he has some musical releases including his first original album, Coming Out of my Shell, that we'll learn about in this conversation. Michael performs live acoustic sets in Southern New Jersey including at Whims Brewing in Atco where co-host Robin Renée was lucky enough to catch his set not l...
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April 12, 2024 • 76 mins
Kyle Schickner has been a bisexual activist for the past 30 years. His company, FenceSitter Films makes films that tell the stories of women, people of color, and the LGBTQ communities. Kyle was our guest back in November 2021 on Leftscape Episode 113 when we talked about his film, A White Man Walks Into a Barbershop, a documentary of his cross country road trip focused on having down-to-earth conversations about race and racism. N...
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March 27, 2024 • 79 mins
David "Daxe" Axelrod is a holistic economist, currently teaching at Montclair State University. He developed and teaches the course "Economics of Time, Mind, and Spirit." He has also produced over a dozen albums of original music. Creativity, resources, aspirations, limitations, the problems with capitalism and what a society without it might look like all weave into his conversation with co-host Wendy Sheridan. The answers to all ...
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March 13, 2024 • 92 mins
Lieve Monnens was born in Belgium in the 1960s. She had a musical awakening when she was eleven years old through listening to her dad's records by the Beatles, the Rolling Stones, and the Beach Boys. She became interested in going to live shows, then later took internships with radio and record companies which led to several jobs in the music industry. In 1990, Lieve moved to England and began working at Factory Records in Manches...
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February 28, 2024 • 95 mins
The Leftscape 2024 Season 1 begins with special guest, Robert Brooks Cohen! Cohen is a writer, content creator, and life coach living in Los Angeles. He spent seven seasons writing and producing for Law & Order: SVU, and in 2019, he created Two Bi Guys, a podcast about sexual fluidity, masculinity, and the gender spectrum. His first book, Bisexual Married Men: Stories of Relationships, Acceptance, and Authenticity, was published by...
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December 14, 2023 • 75 mins
When Jan Steckel was a guest on The Leftscape back in April of 2019, she read from her book of poetry, Like Flesh Covers Bone (Zeitgeist Press, 2018), which went on to win two Rainbow Awards. Her earlier poetry book, The Horizontal Poet (Zeitgeist Press, 2011), won a 2012 Lambda Literary Award. Jan Steckel's creative prose and poetry have appeared in Scholastic Magazine, Yale Medicine, Bellevue Literary Review, Canary, Assaracus, a...
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