In this episode, we talk to a 74-year-old woman who decides the only way to get over her husband’s death is to jump out of an airplane. And to a third generation beekeeper whose entire collection of hives has been stolen – he believes by Russian mobsters. After losing so much can they tell themselves new stories about themselves that allow them to function?
Special thanks to the following musicians:
When the Market Is Our Only Language
We Americans revere the creation of wealth. Anand Giridharadas wants us to examine this and how it shapes our life together. This is a challenging conversation but a generative one: about the implicit moral equations behind a notion like “win-win” — and the moral compromises in a cultural consensus we’ve reached, without reflecting on it, about what and who can save us.
FoxNews: Jamal Khashoggi the “Missing Activist”
THE LEAD STORY – TRUMP WAITS FOR ANSWERS IN MISSING ACTIVIST MYSTERY: President Trump said he wants answers in the disappearance and presumed death of Saudi activist Jamal Khashoggi, but is resisting the idea of the FBI conducting its own investigation … Trump said he would receive a full briefing from Secretary of State Mike Pompeo after he returned the United States on Wednesday. Pompeo traveled to Riyadh and Ankara, where he had talks with Saudi and Turkish leaders about Khashoggi’s disappearance and their separate investigations. Turkish crime-scene investigators searched the home of the Saudi consul general in Istanbul on Wednesday.
“I want to find out what happened, where is the fault,” Mr. Trump said. Asked about a recording described by the Turkish newspaper Yeni Safak that allegedly could reveal details of Khashoggi’s death, Trump said, “We’ve asked for it, if it exists.” At another point, he said, “I’m not sure yet that it exists.” The president has repeatedly urged caution and stressed the United States must know all the facts in the missing activist’s disappearance before taking potential action. Saudi and Turkish leaders have denied knowing what happened to Khashoggi. Several media outlets reported Monday that the Saudi government may reveal publicly that rogue intelligence operatives murdered Khashoggi by mistake inside the kingdom’s consulate in Istanbul during an interrogation that went wrong earlier this month. That public statement has yet to happen.
The U.S. has several business interests with Saudi Arabia and sees the country as a key ally in the war on terror and in neutralizing Iran. Trump insisted he is not trying to provide “cover” for the Saudis in Khashoggi case.
“If you can’t talk about something, you can’t think about something.”
I was first introduced to this quote in Zenju Earthlyn Manuel’s book The Way of Tenderness and was reminded of it after listening to Krista’s conversation with Eula Biss on whiteness, which we are re-airing this week. In the episode, Eula Biss helpfully articulates a truth about the silence around this topic: “If you can’t talk about something, you can’t think about something.”