Us & Them

16/04/2025

🎉 Us & Them Turns 10! 🎉
Hey friends—and especially all of you who’ve tuned in over the years! This May marks a decade of Us & Them digging into the stories that divide and unite us. I’m working on a special anniversary episode and I’d love your help:
🔹 Your Favorites: Which episodes have stuck with you—and why?
🔹 Moments That Moved You: Were there conversations that surprised you, made you think, or brought you to tears?
🔹 Missed the Mark: Any shows you felt didn’t land—what would you have done differently?
🔹 Riled You Up: Which ones infuriated you, and what about them sparked that reaction?
Drop your go‑to episodes, critiques or must‑remember moments in the comments—and tag a friend who’s also been on this ride! Your feedback will shape our celebration and help guide us into the next ten years of honest, curious conversation. 👇💬
Thank you for listening, sharing, and being part of the Us & Them community. Here’s to many more stories together! 🥂🎧

07/04/2025

I am incredibly disturbed to have received this news from the West Virginia West Virginia Humanities Council. This organization, as well as the National Endowment for the Humanities has supported work like mine for decades. I really failed to see how curtailing the work of this great institution serves in anyway to “make America great.” It just doesn’t make sense. 

The West Virginia Humanities Council is sorry to report that, due to federally mandated cuts to the National Endowment for the Humanities (NEH), our statewide grantmaking is suspended immediately.

The West Virginia Humanities Council relies upon federal support from the NEH, our primary partner, to operate our grants program and to pay out the grants we award. Our grantmaking is contingent upon that federal support, which was secured for us in 2025, as it has been since 1974, through regular Congressional appropriations.

In early April, the West Virginia Humanities Council and every other state humanities council received a Notice of Grant Termination from the NEH, which cancelled our federal funds effective immediately, under the direction of the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE). No further federal funds are expected for the remainder of 2025.

With no further federal funds expected, and no indication whether any federal support for our work will be restored in the future, we must pause our grants program indefinitely, until Congressionally appropriated funding is again made available to us.

We are deeply aware of the immediate negative impact this will have on West Virginia’s cultural life and economy. As the NEH’s official state affiliate since 1974, the West Virginia Humanities Council provides over $1 million every year to the statewide network of cultural organizations, local historical societies, schools, museums, libraries, community centers, and individuals who work to preserve, document, and celebrate the Mountain State’s rich history and cultural heritage.

For 50 years we have worked to support and sustain one of the most vigorous, committed, and cost-effective statewide cultural networks in the nation. We remain committed to our mission, and will do everything possible to continue to be a resource for West Virginia’s cultural institutions, so that our history, culture, and living traditions may be preserved for our state, our nation, and West Virginia’s future generations.

Please visit our website to see how you can make a difference: https://wvhumanities.org/save-the-neh/

13/02/2025

In West Virginia, homeownership is a paradox. While the state boasts the nation’s highest homeownership rate, low incomes mean many homes are aging and in disrepair. In one county, 67% of houses are over 80 years old. Across Appalachia by one measure, there are 500,000 people living in substandard...

27/06/2024

Fifty years ago today, the Kanawha County Board of Education set off a chapter of the nation’s culture wars as it debated whether to purchase a controversial series of new textbooks. The meeting room was packed and emotions were hot. This was the subject of the award-winning documentary that I produced about the textbook controversy that played out in Kanawha County, WV in 1974.

Fifty years ago, June 27, 1974, the Kanawha County Board of Education set off a chapter of the nation’s culture wars as it debated whether to purchase a controversial series of new textbooks. The meeting room was packed and emotions were hot.