Albany area native Michelle Dworkin back home after the Trump administration shut down USAID this year ending her foreign service career talks about people dying globally, disasters like Hurricane Melissa in Jamaica unanswered, taxpayer dollars wasted and national security endangered by the ill-informed closure of that agency.
Michelle Dworkin served as a foreign service Officer with the US Agency for International Development for 17 years. Most recently, she was director of the Program Office in USAID/Colombia where she managed a $1.2 billion portfolio of some 50 projects focused on peace building, counter-narcotics, economic growth, biodiversity conservation, and support for Venezuelan migrants. Previously, she worked in Honduras on addressing the Root Causes of Migration in Central America. She previously was a Congressional Liaison Officer with the Bureau for Legislative and Public Affairs in USAID/Washington and participated in a Brookings Institution fellowship in Congress. Other assignments and titles include Deputy Director of the Program Office in USAID/Guatemala, Program Officer for USAID/Afghanistan’s Western Regional Platform in Herat, and Program Officer in USAID/Egypt. Before USAID, she worked on USAID-funded education and training programs, primarily for students from the West Bank and Gaza. She holds a master’s degree in Sustainable International Development from Brandeis University and a bachelor’s degree in International Relations and Anthropology from Tufts University. She is bilingual in English and Spanish, and has knowledge of French, Arabic, and Hebrew.
In another selection from a recent in-person salon with opinion writer Jay Jochnowitz and an audience in Vermont we mourn the continued razing of Gaza, young Republicans reveling in their love of Nazis, disrespect of the military by the Trump regime and contempt for the US Constitution. We are, in short, very sad.
Host Rosemary Armao and Times Union opinion writer Jay Jochnowitz talk at their public salon about loved ones dying, grief, and find the way to remember that life goes on.
Host Rosemary Armao talks with retired teacher and. researcher Laura Bellinger about books, documentaries and other resources that explain America's historically schizoid view on immigrants: We like them to come do our dirty, hard, low-paying jobs but not to actually settle and live here.... Do you approve of the Trump administration's mass deportation and tight quota for legal immigrants into the US?
As we hit the two-year anniversary of the terroristic Hamas raid on Israel, the horrific war of Israel on Gaza has been labeled GENOCIDE by the United Nations. Rosemary Armao, host of the podcast Beyond the Brink and Fighting Back pairs with opinion writer Jay Jochnowitz at a community public affairs salon to talk about US support of Israel and increasing world-wide recognition of Palestine as a separate state.
Host Rosemary Armao and Opinion writer Jay Jochnowitz talk with each other and guests at their monthly public affairs salon about the implications of the Charlie Kirk assassination, Trump's many media lawsuits, and the suspension of comedians Jimmy Kimmel and Stephen Colbert on our American right to speak freely. President Trump maintains that any news critical of him is criminal. Sec of Defense Pete Hegseth is banishing any reporter who does not first get department permission to publish information. Journalists are worried, late night TV viewer sare alarmed. What happens now? Are we doomed to go down the path Germans did in the 1930s?
In the newest episode of An Armao Beyond the Brink, Rosemary speaks with renowned media lawyer and professor Lucy Dalglish. Dalglish cannot recall a time in American history when threats to a free and independent press were so numerous or potent. She doesn’t even like thinking about the future of media because it’s impossible to ignore the possibility that Freedom of Thought and Expression enshrined in the First Amendment are being crushed by censorship and lack of public support.
Lucy Dalglish, as a reporter, media lawyer, and educator has been a standout player in American journalism for decades. She was executive director for a dozen years of the Reporters Committee for Freedom of the Press which provides free legal aid and other support to protect the news gathering rights of journalists. She left that position in 2012 to become dean of the journalism school at the University of Maryland for 11 years. She still teaches media ethics and law there. Dalglish began her career in 1980 as a reporter and editor at the St. Paul Pioneer Press. Dalglish has been awarded the Kiplinger Award by the National Press Foundation in 2012 for her service to journalism. She was also awarded the Wells Memorial Key, the highest honor bestowed by the Society of Professional Journalists and is an inductee in the National Freedom of Information Act Hall of Fame in Washington, D.C. She holds a juris doctor degree from Vanderbilt University Law School; a master of studies in law degree from Yale Law School and a bachelor of arts in journalism from the University of North Dakota.
Host Rosemary Armao talks with gun-owning son Francisco Liuzzi about the first major political assassination of his lifetime, gun control, and what the Charlie Kirk murder portends for future social unrest and violence.
Francisco Liuzzi is a certified fitness professional, home gym design expert, and seasoned fitness entrepreneur based in New York City. A former collegiate and competitive athlete, he has built multiple successful fitness businesses over the past 20 years. He loves hunting, reading, and travel.
RPI's computing guru Jim Hendler says it's not artificial intelligence we have to worry about -- it's the people using AI that you have to watch out for. And those people. include tech bros after profits and a president out to win political points. Jim Hendler holds the impressive titles of Tetherless World Professor of Computer, Web and Cognitive Sciences at Rensselaer. Polytechnic Institute and Founding Director of the Institute for Data, Artificial Intelligence and Computing. He also is the director of the RPI-IBM Artificial Intelligence Research Collaboration. He is a data scientist with interests in open government and scientific data, data science for healthcare, AI and machine learning, semantic data integration and the use of data in government. He has authored more than 450 books, technical papers, and articles.
In this segment coming up you’ll be hearing Rosemary Armao, host of the On the Brink podcast, talking with Albany Times Union opinion columnist Jay Jochnowitz. The two met in Bennington Vermont for a special two-hour podcast before a live audience at the Orchard Club to consider the transformational changes the Trump administration is ushering in including how we think about the law and corruption, American values and national unity.
Jay Jochnowitz joined the Times Union as an Albany City Hall reporter in 1987. He became state editor in 2000, editorial page editor in 2008, and retired as opinion editor in 2022. He remains a member of the newspaper’s editorial board and continues to write editorials and a monthly column.
St. Paul had a female traveling companion but we never hear about her; women suffering at all times of their lives from menstrual cramps to menopause are told by untrained doctors that it’s in their heads, and even when mice are the subjects of medical experiments, they are almost always male. Long accustomed to taking a back seat and suffering in silence, women are increasingly speaking up for better treatment at the hands of medicine. Two of them from different generations, Abby Lorch, a UAlbany student, and Liz Seegert, a long-time health journalist talk about what should be done — and their despair that Health Secretary RFK will do it.
Abby Lorch is a 21-year-old UAlbany student graduating with a journalism degree and a law and philosophy minor. She plans to attend Albany Law School starting in fall 2025. She has always been interested in women's issues, and reporting on the university community and the Capital Region has given her insight into how these issues affect her neighbors.
Liz Seegert is an award-winning, freelance journalist with more than 30 years experience writing for magazines, newspapers, radio and TV news, digital, PR, corporate, government, non-profit, and educational institutions. Her work has appeared in national, regional and local consume and trade outlets. She has done numerous fellowships with organizations such as the Institute for Healthcare Improvement, the center for Health Policy and Media Engagement, and the Gerontological Society of America. She is active in the Journalism & Women Symposium and is an instructor at the Empire State College.
New York is on the verge of becoming the 11th state plus DC to give citizens suffering from terminal diseases the right to die when and as they choose. Oregon was the first state 25 years ago to grant this right. Religious leaders, champions of the right to life, even some advocates for the disabled worry that such laws open the way to abuse, coercion, and worse. It seems never to have occurred anywhere, but death is a fearful issue and dying fraught with guilt and worry. We talk with a lawyer and a legislator who have led the campaign in New York for a better say to die, forcing the issues into the open and swaying opinions so that a bill making it’s way through the legislature now could shortly be on the governor’s desk for a signature.
Corinne Carey from Troy NY is a lawyer, organizer, and policy strategist. For some time her mission has been to improve care and expand options for people facing the end of their lives. She joined the non-profit organization Compassion & Choices after nearly a decade with the New York Civil Liberties Union where she served as deputy legislative director and where as co-chair of the statewide Women’s Equality Coalition she helped lead efforts to modernize New York’s abortion law well before most believed that Roe v. Wade was in jeopardy. She is a graduate of the University at Buffalo School of Law.
State Assemblyman Al Taylor has represented the 71st District of Upper Manhattan since 2017. He’s been an advocate for that community for more than 20 years pushing economic opportunities, social change and reform of the criminal justice system. He has fought to reduce gun violence and hate crimes against transgendered people in his neighborhood. He holds a degree in public communication from Lehman College and a Master of Divinity from Nyack College Alliance Theological Seminary. He and wife Gwendolyn have five children.
International lawyer and judicial reforrmer Sally Fleschner who has worked on justice projects in Bosnia, Palestine, Kosovo, and Somalia disagrees with the American Jewish Committee and says the deliberation bombing and starvation of Gazans is genocide. Further more, the US is complicit in that crime against humanity and most Americans are not interested in even seeing (via movies) or hearing the real story of Israeli aggression.
Lawyer Sally Fleschner is an expert in rule of law, judicial reform and the drafting of legislation. She has worked with USAID and other international organizations in Afghanistan, Palestine, Kosovo, Bosnia and Somalia. She also teaches classes at Brandeis on war and ethnic cleansing in the former Yugoslavia. She holds degrees from the University of Pennsylvania and Northeastern University's School of Law. In spare time she is an animal lover, world traveler, marathon competitor and talented cook.
Investigative reporter Miranda Spivack who is an expert in government secrecy and use of public documents has written a book about people she calls accidental activists They are regular citizens with no expertise special knowledge of leadership motivated by grief or worry for their community who figure out how to network and mobilize and drag information out of government and corporations to successfully battle City Hall. She says we all can do this. Here she is talking about one of the Local Heroes.Sometimes regular people just trying to help their families and communities are forced to become heroes. Investigative reporter Miranda Spivack has written a book about some inspiring local heroes around the country with no experience in leadership or in giving speeches or reading government documents have fought back against government secrecy and shady deals between government and business to bring about reform. The message is that you too can fight the power.
Veteran NBC broadcaster and author Linda Ellerbee talks with us from Mexico about what she and our foreign neighbors think of Trump's first three months back in office and none of it is positive. This from a woman Trump once tried to date. So how do you fight back and how do you cope with dictatorship?
Once every semester I invite three students of mine from UAlbany to do a podcast featuring a decidedly younger point of view than mine. This is that chapter and outta the mouths of Zoomers you’l hear about the futility protesting, exhaustion over world events and fear of the future, Tik Tok and even the wonder of torpedo bats. Mirai Abe is an exchange student from Kansai Gaidai University in Osaka, Japan, to UAlbany where she studies journalism and sociology. She arrived in the US last August in time to learn English, take up a full load of classes, and write for the Albany Student Press as well as for the Japanese Student Association. She is interested in gender and sexuality in East Asia, American and Japanese politics, and social issues. Now a junior, she hopes to work as a local news reporter in the US after graduation. In her rare free time she is learning Korean, reads novels, and watches K-dramas. The biggest culture shock she faced coming to the US, she says, was seeing students wearing pajamas to classes.Sean Ramirez is a sophomore at UAlbany, double-majoring in journalism and political science. His passion for politics began through grassroots involvement, including volunteering in various upstate New York campaigns. He is an active contributor to the university’s radio station, and engages with MAP, the Minorities and Philosophy organization, exploring the intersections of identity, ethics, and public discourse. He’d like to merge his interests in media and political analysis, so is aiming to amplify underrepresented voicesthrough storytelling and policy advocacy. Latoya Wilkinson is a junior at UAlbany studying journalism and English. A Brooklyn native, she has danced, acted, and played the violin since childhood. She says she learned from the arts the importance and the satisfaction of rich storytelling. She loves travel and exploration for the same reason she is drawn to reporting and is looking for a career finding and writing stories that matter.
Long-time Albany County, NY Sheriff Craig Apple talks about the innovative programs he’s instituted in his 38-year reign including inmates doing yoga and fostering pets and using empty beds for a homeless shelter. He’s thinking about running for state office to help write laws about bail reform and gun safety that are thought out and smart.Craig Apple, began working in law enforcement in 1987, rose through the ranks, serving as a corrections officer and deputy sheriff, and starting in 2011 as Albany County Sheriff. In that job he oversees nearly 750 employees and a $100 million budget. But he is most known perhaps for his innovative community engagement and inmate enrichments programs such as the Sheriff's Heroin Addiction Recovery Program (S.H.A.R.P.) and the Sheriff’s Inmate Fire Training Program. He enrolls inmates in Obama care and most recently has opened up unused space in his jail for the area’ homeless people.
In this Chapter, Rosemary wanted to talk with leaders of Albany's unusually dynamic theater community about escape and make believe, but Patrick White and Chris Foster, the organizers of a unique Festival of Theater happening this summer, men who don't own a TV and watch plays every night of the week, say live theater demands engagement, community involvement and public debate of controversy ad issues. You aren't just seeing a play, you are making a statement about values. A fantastic look at the importance of drama in our lives.
Patrick White is a Capital Region "theatre maker" with more than 45 years experience acting, directing, producing, reviewing, and podcasting. He attends 300 shows a year. He has worked at nearly all the Capital Region theatres, teaches an adult acting class at the Albany Barn, and is a co-founder of Harbinger which has produced 14 Capital Region premieres in three years. White is also president of the Capital Region Festival of Theatre which will celebrate the 100+ theatres in Albany and its surrounding cities, towns and hamlets.
Chris Foster is the director of the Harbinger Theatre and secretary of the Capital Regional Festival of Theatre. He has directed numerous productions at the Harbinger theatre, Curtain Call Theatre, the Schenectady Civic Playhouse, the Albany Civic Theater and the Actor's Collaborative. His acting credits include: Ben Butler, In the Heat of the Night, Destroying David, The Normal Heart, Gross Indecency: The Three Trials of Oscar Wilde, Time Stands Still, Turn of the Screw, Clever Little Lies, The Night Alive, Urinetown, Tigers Be Still, Opus, On the Twentieth Century, Bill W & Dr. Bob, The Andersonville Trial, Urinetown, and Sunday in the Park with George. He holds a BA in theater from Cal State University at Long Beach and an MFA from Penn State.
No pleasant introductions, or quaint toast at the end of this one folks. We may have moved past the brink, and into the abyss, but that's to discuss in later episodes....
Today, three long-term USAID staffers now retired and free to talk describe their anger over how the foreign aid program has been gutted and colleagues maligned, their fear about global suffering and losses that will result ,and their hope for a come back in the future.
Francisco Bencosme was formerly the China Policy Lead for USAID, the principal advisor on issues relating to China and Taiwan. Prior to joining USAID, he was deputy to the Special Presidential Envoy for Compact of Free Association talks, helping conclude agreements with the Marshall Islands, Micronesia, and Palau in the Pacific Islands. He was at the same time senior advisor to the assistant secretary for East Asian and the Pacific Affairs.Before joining the Biden/Harris administration, he was a senior policy advisor at the Open Society Foundations covering Asia and Latin America. During his time at Amnesty International USA, Bencosme led the US human rights policy and advocacy program towards the Asia Pacific. In 2018, he was named one of The Hill’s Top Lobbyist for a campaign on Myanmar Rohingya issues. He also has served on the Senate Foreign Relations Committee staff.
Ann Posner spent more than 32 years working in USAID missions in the Czech Republic, Russia, Albania, Bosnia and the West Bank-Gaza. As a Foreign Service Executive Officer she led local administrative staffs and helped manage programs involving issues ranged from crop marketing in the Eastern Caribbean, anti-corruption and free election laws in Russia, and agricultural aid in Albania to investigation journalism and judicial reform in Bosnia
Susan Reichle is a retired Senior Foreign Service officer of USAID and former president and CEO of the International Youth Foundation — global non-profit working to equip and inspire young people everywhere to transform their lives. Before joining IYF, Susan spent 26 years in leadership positions at USAID missions overseas and in Washington, D.C. During her last three years at USAID, she served as the Counselor to the Agency, USAID’s most Senior Foreign Service Officer, and advised the administrator and senior leadership on global development policies and management issues. She served in Haiti, Nicaragua, Russia, Colombia and her last assignment in USAID/Washington she led the Democracy, Conflict and Humanitarian Assistance bureau.
Cambodian travel guide Tek Leng grew up in a country devastated by war, genocide, and poverty. He works now taking tourists through old prisons and mass graves turned into memorials and museums and he preaches a Buddhist mentality about acceptance and letting go of the past so you can face the future.
Tek Leng, 45, was born soon after the end of the Khmer Rouge’s genocide in Cambodia. His, like every family in the country, lost loved ones to the killing fields. He grew up in the countryside along the Mekong River amidst staggering poverty and mass PTSD. Schools were not operating, teachers, like doctors, engineers and government officials had been mostly all murdered. He has talked extensively with his two teen-aged daughters about what he calls the Dark History of Cambodia and he earns his living as a licensed guide taking tourists around mass graves and old prisons converted now into museums and memorials. He calls it a passion to share the terror and the rebirth of his culture with others. English was the key for Leng. After Cambodia reopened to the world following 1993 elections, sponsored by the United Nations, he began learning English in bits and pieces, even biking for 40 miles a day for six months to take lessons in a city school. For his country, he maintains, Buddhist therapy has been the salvation. Cambodians, he said, have had to move on and leave the horrors of the past, leaving aside anger and longings for retribution.