In May 2017, Conover went to Colorado to explore firsthand a rural way of life that is about living cheaply, on your own land—and keeping clear of the mainstream. The failed subdivisions of the enormous San Luis Valley make this possible. Five-acre lots on the high prairie can be had for five thousand dollars, sometimes less.
Conover volunteered for a local group trying to prevent homelessness during the bitter winters. He encountered an unexpected diversity: veterans with PTSD, families homeschooling, addicts young and old, gay people, people of color, lovers of guns and marijuana, people with social anxiety—most of them spurning charity and aiming, and sometimes failing, to be self-sufficient. And more than a few predicting they’ll be the last ones standing when society collapses.
Conover bought his own five acres and immersed himself for parts of four years in the often contentious culture of the far margins. He found many who dislike the government but depend on its subsidies; who love their space but nevertheless find themselves in each other’s business; who are generous but wary of thieves; who endure squalor but appreciate beauty. In their struggles to survive and get along, they tell us about an America riven by difference where the edges speak more and more loudly to the mainstream.
Ted Conover is the author of several books, including Newjack: Guarding Sing Sing, which won the National Book Critics Circle Award for nonfiction and was a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize. His writing has appeared in The New York Times Magazine, The Atlantic, The New Yorker, Harper’s Magazine, and National Geographic. He is a professor at, and the former director of, New York University’s Arthur L. Carter Journalism Institute.
Daniel Moran earned his B.A. and M.A. in English from Rutgers University and his Ph.D. in History from Drew University. The author of Creating Flannery O’Connor: Her Critics, Her Publishers, Her Readers, he teaches research and writing at Rutgers and co-hosts the podcast Fifteen-Minute Film Fanatics, found at https://fifteenminutefilm.podb... and on Twitter @15MinFilm.
Despite some uptick in cases and hospitalizations, COVID is disrupting life less this winter compared to winters past. Why, and what does that mean as we enter 2023? Andy speaks with epidemiologist and ITB favorite Katelyn Jetelina, who offers an hypothesis for why new mutations are not wreaking havoc like Omicron did last year. She also breaks down the added dangers of flu and RSV and predicts the worldwide implications if China relaxes its zero COVID policies.
As an added bonus, today’s episode includes an important conversation from the "Voices From the Frontlines" series, featuring Donnie Nelson and Dr. Nona Yunzhu Mei discussing their work in palliative care and how their holistic approach guided them through the pandemic.
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Georgia Senator Raphael Warnock is heading back to D.C. for a full 6-year term, after defeating Republican challenger Herschel Walker in Tuesday’s special runoff election. Warnock’s victory now gives Democrats an outright majority in the Senate with 51 seats, and brings a whirlwind midterm cycle to a close.
And in headlines: the suspect in the Club Q mass shooting was charged with over 300 counts, a Manhattan jury convicted the Trump Organization of tax fraud, and Indonesia’s parliament passed a controversial new criminal code.
Crooked Coffee is officially here. Our first blend, What A Morning, is available in medium and dark roasts. Wake up with your own bag at crooked.com/coffee
We're talking about what's next for the Trump Organization now that it's been convicted of fraud and what the former president is saying about it.
Also, the outcome of that highly-anticipated runoff in Georgia and a case before the Supreme Court could make a big difference in future elections.
Plus, a multi-billion-dollar boost coming from Taiwan to the United States, why Meta's own oversight board is calling for another change, and which TikTok videos went the most viral this year.
Those stories and more news to know in around 10 minutes!
The U.S. Supreme Court is hearing a number of cases this term, including two cases pertaining to affirmative action in college admissions.
The justices of the nation's highest court heard arguments for about five hours on Oct. 31 in the cases Students for Fair Admissions vs. President and Fellows of Harvard College and Students for Fair Admissions vs. University of North Carolina.
"So, what these cases involve is, basically at the heart, is racial discrimination. What Harvard and UNC have done, at least it's alleged by the plaintiffs, is that they have used their admission system to specifically keep down the numbers of Asian Americans who are being admitted into those two institutions," Lance Izumi, a senior director of education studies at the Pacific Research Institute, told The Daily Signal.
"And so, in the case of Harvard, for example, they have used race as a factor, has been allowed under previous Supreme Court rulings, but have used it in a way that basically sets a quota on the number of Asians who are being admitted into Harvard," said Izumi, who is also the author of Obama's Education Takeover.
Izumi added:
So, for example, if you took an Asian American applicant who had a 25% chance of getting into Harvard, if you changed his race to Hispanic American, that same person with the same characteristics would have a 77% chance of getting into Harvard.And if you change that Asian American to [an] African American, again with the same characteristics, that person would then have a 95% chance of getting into Harvard.
Izumi joins "The Daily Signal Podcast" to further discuss the Supreme Court cases, the impact of these cases, record-low ACT scores, and what he hopes the next Congress will accomplish on education policy.
Three botched lethal injections in Alabama have once again highlighted the practical complexity and possible illegality of the death penalty. Even states that are adamantly in favor of capital punishment are being stalled on a purely pragmatic level.
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Are we in an ebb of liberalism worldwide, or are recent events like the protests in Iran a sign of pushback? What would a "John Locke" movement for Islam look like? We’re joined by Mustafa Akyol, senior fellow at the Cato Institute’s Center for Global Liberty and Prosperity, whose work examines the intersection of religion, culture, and government. Plus, the first GMO aimed at solving a public health issue, social media's surprisingly positive effects on American teens, and the new paradigm for gay marriage in the US.
