This week on Inside Appalachia, a Hare Krishna community in West Virginia serves vegetarian food made in three sacred kitchens. Also, an Asheville musician’s latest guitar album is a call to arms. And, we talk soul food with Xavier Oglesby, who is passing on generations of kitchen wisdom to his niece.
It’s been a year in America with lots of big political news and some very disturbing events. Supreme Court decisions are reshaping the nation’s policies as violence and shootings continue to take lives.
Us & Them host Trey Kay has been traveling around asking people “How’s America doing?” and “Why do you think that?”
Trey spent Election Day in a swing district in Pennsylvania talking with voters about the state of America. Some worry financial strains have made things worse while others say they see good things to come. There’s concern that politics has become just another sporting event, where all that matters is the winner.
But politics can also help shape the policies that lead to the American dream, so how do we come together and collectively do the right thing for the future?
This episode of Us & Them is presented with support from the West Virginia Humanities Council and the CRC Foundation.
Subscribe to Us & Them on Apple Podcasts, NPR One, RadioPublic, Spotify, Stitcher and beyond.
Trey Kay
/
West Virginia Public Broadcasting
Us & Them host Trey Kay outside of a polling place in Luzerne, County, PA on Election Day on Nov. 8, 2022.
David Greenberg
/
Courtesy
David Greenberg is a professor of History and of Journalism & Media Studies at Rutgers University in New Brunswick, NJ and a frequent commentator in the national news media on contemporary politics and public affairs. He specializes in American political and cultural history. His most recent book, Republic of Spin: An Inside History of the American Presidency (W.W. Norton, 2016) examines the rise of the White House spin machine, from the Progressive Era to the present day, and the debates that Americans have waged over its implications for democracy.
Courtesy
Lisa R. Pruitt is a law professor at University California Davis. There, she works in the Center for Policy and Inequality Research with a specialty in rural issues. She has a lot to say about America’s urban-rural divide.
Courtesy
Henry Cisneros served in President Bill Clinton’s cabinet as the Secretary of Housing and Urban Development. Before that, the San Antonio native was a city council member and mayor of that Texas city. These days, Cisneros serves on the board of the Bipartisan Policy Center — a think tank dedicated to looking for “the best ideas from both parties.”
This week on Inside Appalachia, a Hare Krishna community in West Virginia serves vegetarian food made in three sacred kitchens. Also, an Asheville musician’s latest guitar album is a call to arms. And, we talk soul food with Xavier Oglesby, who is passing on generations of kitchen wisdom to his niece.
Affrilachian poet and playwright Norman Jordan is one of the most published poets in the region. Born in 1938, his works have been anthologized in over 40 books of poetry. He was also a prominent voice in the Black Arts Movement in the 1960s and 70s. He died in 2015, put part of his legacy is the Norman Jordan African American Arts and Heritage Academy in West Virginia. Folkways Reporter Traci Phillips has the story.
The 303-mile Mountain Valley Pipeline from West Virginia to Virginia took 10 years to complete. Author Denali Sai Nalamalapu was part of the protests to stop the pipeline. They have a new book, called HOLLER: A Graphic Memoir of Rural Resistance. It’s written and drawn in comics form and profiles six activists who fought the pipeline. Mason Adams spoke with Nalamalapu.
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 conditions. This is the hidden crisis at the heart of Appalachia's housing landscape.