My Weekly Recommendations

See you soon (I hope)! On May 20, I will be speaking at Eastern Kentucky University Center for the Arts. The event is open to the public, and you can buy tickets here. It’s one of my favorite things to see you all in person.

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Now on to what you might have missed…

White Supremacy, Funded by Prayer and Profit

These are the words that stopped my scroll – and here’s what they say about us: “This is white people finally being fed up with this s**t,” she said. Her eyes are an arresting blue, and her hair cascades around her face in effortless waves. “And the fact that we have brown people trying to take away white people’s rights in a white country, when we have the Constitution and freedom of speech, and they come from their s**t countries where you can be locked up for hate speech — this is just disgusting. This is white country for white people.”

A Crisis of Faith. And Not the Religious Kind.

Young Americans have lost faith in the system. Not just in politicians or a particular party — in democracy itself. And that disillusionment is reaching crisis levels. A staggering 81% of Americans under 30 say they don’t trust the federal government to do “the right thing” most of the time — the lowest level in the poll’s 25-year history. This leaves us wondering: What happens when an entire generation loses faith in democracy?

The Most Controversial Nominee in America

President Trump was forced to replace his nominee to be DC top attorney. How did a man who once called a neo-Nazi an “extraordinary leader” and a “great friend” get nominated in the first place?

From Bible Mandates to Election Lies

This isn’t the first time Oklahoma state school superintendent Ryan Walters has been in the news. But this time because of last-minute changes to the Oklahoma Social Studies curriculum standards that require students to learn 2020 election conspiracy theories. I chatted with Judd Legum, who writes Popular Information here on Substack, and who has been covering issues related to education for a long time — about what’s going on, and why it should matter to all of us.

Can US Citizens Legally Be Deported?

The United States recently deported three young children, all three of them citizens of the United States. One has metastatic cancer and was sent away without their treatment medications. Their mothers — citizens of Honduras — were in the US without authorization, and the children’s removal raises profound legal questions about the rights of minor citizens and who is subject to deportation.

What I’m reading…

Death, divorce and the magic of kitchen objects: how to find hope in loss

By Bee Wilson for The Guardian

As they pass through different hands, cooking utensils can magically connect us to loved ones who are no longer with us. Some people say they can still feel the presence of a lost parent or partner in their china cupboard. Another told the author that the one object belonging to his mother that he and his siblings all wanted when they cleared her house was a glass salad-dressing maker.

How Lorna Simpson Broke the Frame

By Julian Lucas for The New Yorker

For more than four decades, Lorna Simpson has been complicating what it means to see, and to be seen. Her early portraits of Black women with turned backs helped define conceptual photography; her newest paintings are planetary in scope and intimate in feel. New Yorker writer Julian Lucas profiles an artist whose work has always invited the viewer to look again—and look harder.

Russia’s ‘Ghost Detainees’: The Investigation That Cost Viktoriia Roshchyna Her Life

By Phineas Rueckert with Tetiana Pryimachuk for Forbidden Stories

Ukrainian journalist Viktoriia Roshchyna was pronounced dead in Russian captivity in October 2024, after being secretly held for months in Russian-occupied Ukraine and a Russian prison. In February 2025, her body was repatriated. Forbidden Stories investigated her detention and death, which came on the heels of a reporting trip to Zaporizhzhia aimed at telling the stories of Ukrainian civilians unlawfully held by Russia.

The Daring Polish Resistance Fighter Who Volunteered to Be Sent to Auschwitz So He Could Sabotage the Nazi Death Camp From the Inside

By Paul Hockenos for​​ Smithsonian

Witold Pilecki smuggled reports about Germany’s war crimes to the Allies, urging them to stop the atrocities at Auschwitz by bombing the camp. But his warnings went unheeded.

What I’m listening to…

Growing Your Flower Garden This Spring

1A

Spring is here and whether you've a balcony or a big yard, it is a great time to garden. Maybe you're growing some vegetables this season or experimenting with new plants. But nothing says 'Spring' quite like flowers. NPR answers your flower gardening questions and spend some time talking about one flower in particular: orchids.

An American Pope

The Daily

The world’s 1.4 billion Catholics have a new pope, and for the first time, he is from America. Jason Horowitz, the Rome bureau chief of The New York Times, introduces us to Pope Leo XIV.

Is This the Most Unexpected Voter Turnout Strategy Ever?

Not Another Political Podcast

What if one of the most powerful tools to boost voter turnout isn’t a flashy campaign or a new voting law—but being randomly forced to work the polls? In this episode, Not Another Political Podcast explores a surprising study of women in 1930s Spain who were randomly assigned to serve as poll workers—just after they gained the right to vote. The results? A massive, 30-point increase in future voting behavior. Is this just a historical curiosity—or a window into how habit, exposure, and civic experience shape democracy?

Democracy and America with Heather Cox Richardson

Here’s Where It Gets Interesting

When did the political parties change sides? Is America a democracy, or a constitutional republic? I welcomed back political historian, author, and Professor Heather Cox Richardson to discuss her book “Democracy Awakening.” Taking a different approach to this book from her previous work, Heather answers some of the big picture questions – once and for all – relating directly to America’s current standing as a democracy.

What I’m watching…

Alaska's Vanishing Native Villages

Frontline

A look inside Alaska Native villages fighting for survival against climate change. With the Howard Center at ASU, FRONTLINE examines why communities are relocating and why they’re struggling to preserve their traditions.

The unheard story of the Sistine Chapel

Ted Talks

The Sistine Chapel is one of the most iconic buildings on earth -- but there's a lot you probably don't know about it. In this tour-de-force talk, art historian Elizabeth Lev guides us across the famous building's ceiling and Michelangelo's vital depiction of traditional stories, showing how the painter reached beyond the religious iconography of the time to chart new artistic waters. Five hundred years after the artist painted it, says Lev, the Sistine Chapel forces us to look around as if it were a mirror and ask, "Who am I, and what role do I play in this great theater of life?"

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As always, thank you for being you, and for being here. And a very happy Mother’s Day to all who celebrate.