“If somebody runs over me, I’m gonna have my teeth in the tire."
Fighting within institutions + listens and reads for your weekend
In your Death, Sex & Money podcast feed this week: From Indie Rockers to Full-Time Caregivers. We revisit an episode from 2018 about caregiving within a family, because of a son’s addiction and then a mother’s degenerative illness. Listen to the end to hear how musicians Johnny and Molly Solomon’s family has changed since I interviewed them with Johnny’s mom in the home they were then all sharing.
And get ready for Tuesday, when **we launch into regularly releasing new Death, Sex & Money episodes** from our new home at Slate. I can’t wait for you to hear what we’ve been working on. (One change that’s come with our move to Slate is our release date. Look out for new drops from us on TUESDAYS now.)
The quote in your subject line is courtesy of Albert Sommers, the outgoing Republican Speaker of the House in Wyoming. You may remember him from our Death, Sex & Money episode about marriage, and ranching from last fall. He announced his retirement from the legislature this week, as reported by Wyofile. He told Wyofile in March, “If somebody runs over me, I’m gonna have my teeth in the tire." He was talking about the persistent pressure he’s gotten from the right, from both the Wyoming Freedom Caucus and conservative media.
But as he announced his departure, he said this: “In this job, you’ve got to have compassion for the whole [legislative] body. And you’ve got to try to treat people fairly, but you’ve also got to be firm. You’ve got to remain who you are. That, I’m sure I have.”
Now, how exactly do you do that, Albert? What does it look like in American institutions in 2024 to have compassion for everyone’s view and be fair while also staying true to who you are? Sometimes it looks like listening and giving ground, and sometimes it requires clamping down hard.
I have been turning this over a lot in my own journalistic work as I’ve thought about how to invite in listeners and readers — and encourage their loyalty and buy-in — while also wanting to challenge and complicate what they think they know for sure. I’ve been chewing on an essay that’s critical of NPR written by a current editor here — and there’s reporting on the fallout here and here. How NPR — and all of mainstream media — understands its mission and audiences is a critical question in 2024, for journalism and democracy. Who gets to do this work? Who does our work bring in? Who do we not mind overlooking or dismissing?
Journalists, myself included, need to constantly review which parts of the population we are engaging with and covering well — and what we’re missing. Critiquing NPR’s lack of ideological diversity doesn’t need to be a rebuke of the important gains the place has made in the diversity of its go-to sources and employees. This isn’t a zero-sum game. I want more diversity, not less! In the reporters I hear, the stories they uncover, and the people I meet through reading and listening to the news.
In that spirit, I thought I would offer some reading and listening that’s enriched and complicated my thinking in the last week or so.
I’ve continued to follow the conversation and critiques around the book White Rural Rage, which prompted this frustrated and hurt column from me a few weeks back. Wendell Berry wrote about his disappointment in Paul Krugman’s incurious analysis of the book, and in The Atlantic, Tyler Austin Harper dug into the book’s footnotes and described its findings as “utterly misleading. And Dee Davis, publisher of The Daily Yonder and president of the Center for Rural Strategies, wrote a review of White Rural Rage, calling the book “a smug misdirection.” He concluded this way:
There is plenty enough resentment out there to mess it all up both in the city and in the town. As former Speaker of the House Sam Rayburn said, ‘It takes a special kind of man to build a barn, but any jackass with a box of matches can burn one down.’ If we let ourselves think those jackasses are confined to rural America, the barn is in great peril.
On the bright side, I caught wind of an interesting gathering at University of Chicago’s Institute on Politics about Bridging Differences from writer Sarah Smarsh’s Instagram. This panel, about transforming narratives with NPR’s Mary Louise Kelly, Smarsh and hiphop artist Che "Rhymefest" Smith, is worth checking out. (Sarah Smarsh hosted a great episode of Death, Sex & Money in 2019 where she interviewed her dad about class and Kansas.)
Other highlights from what I’ve read and listened to recently:
She Has A Name (APM Studios & TMI Productions) - Tonya Mosley’s new podcast season from Truth Be Told, in which she investigates the disappearance and death of a young woman, Anita, whom Tonya found out as an adult was her sister. It’s about Detroit in the 1980s, the drug epidemic, policing, and how families sort through mysteries and grieve together over time.
Latinos are growing frustrated and angry about migrants and the border. Here’s why (Sacramento Bee, via The California Sun) - A deep look at attitudes in California about immigration and migration with polling and interviews with immigrants to California, some of whom are undocumented.
The Texas Governor’s Political Genius (Slate) - Writer Alexander Sammon tracks how Governor Greg Abbott’s bussing tactics created a “national agenda-setting power” under a Democratic president, and Sammon considers how other leaders of big states could borrow from Abbott’s playbook.
The Brooklyn literary power throuple all working and baby-raising from home (NYMag) - Families look a lot of ways these days. Choire Sicha visits the household of Danny Lavery, Grace Lavery and Lily Woodruff to report on their relationship and their expectations for parenting.
Division in Oregon highlights growing political rift between rural and urban areas (Newshour, via KQED) - Judy Woodruff visits Oregon to report on the stark political division in the state of Oregon, including a political campaign in eastern Oregon to secede and join Idaho in search of a state government that better understands their agricultural economy, water politics, and culture.
Larry David’s Rule Book for How (Not) to Live in Society - I loved Wesley Morris’ appreciation of Curb Your Enthusiasm and his examination of what the show says about values and etiquette—and how we enforce them.
A listen for pure fun: Handsome! If you haven’t started listening to this podcast with comedians Tig Notaro, Fortune Feimster, and Mae Martin, do it today. I love it and have become a dedicated pretty little lady.
Thanks for reading and, as always, let us know if it sparked any thoughts for you in the comments below.
Until next week,
Anna
Come out and see me in real life!
Washington, DC on 5/2 – I’m interviewing Natalie Foster about her new book The Guarantee: Inside the Fight For America’s Next Economy at Politics & Prose. Info here.
San Francisco on 5/23 – I’m interviewing Miranda July about her sexy new novel All Fours live on stage at City Arts & Lectures. Info and tickets here.
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THANK YOU Anna, Been loving digging into all of the links you've shared here on the discussion of urban and rural. As someone who's only lived in urban/suburban areas yet has made my work in listening to farmers and ranchers across the west, I've learned so much hangs on our willingness to listen to each other and beginning to understand each other's values and where there is so much commonn ground. love that Wendell Berry is still going strong!!
Tanya Mosley's voice is sooooo soothing to me. Her Fresh Air conversations feel like a hug to me. Thank you for recommending her new podcast -- I wouldn't have heard of it otherwise!