News Nerds

 We'll be gone for the summer, so I thought that I would leave you with a treat. Every week day this summer we'll be posting a new mini crossword that you can print or solve online. Have fun with those!

This week on News Nerds we’ll be speaking with Pulitzer Prize winning writer Kathryn Schulz. Her new book, Lost & Found grapples with the loss and then later discovery in Kathryn’s recent life. The book is split into three sections, lost, where she recounts the event of her father’s death and her grief afterwards, found, when we learn of her relationship with fellow New Yorker writer Casey Cep who is simply known as ‘C’ in the book, and the final section titled ‘and’ in which Schulz and Cep get married

Ezra

 It’s primary season! Earlier this week, 7 states held primary elections including Montana were I produce this show. Because of the 2020 census, we’ve gained an additional seat in the U.S. House of Representatives. This week we’ll listen to my interview with former state representative, Tom Winter. He ran in Montana’s new western congressional district as a democrat against Monica Tranel and Cora Neumann.

In the years following the so called ‘secret war’, when the U.S. Central Intelligence Agency trained the ethnic group of the Hmong to fight against the Northern Vietnamese, mysterious reports emerged of a yellow substance falling out of aircrafts and causing harm, sometimes fatally, to the Hmong. Reports from Hmong migrants leaving Laos detailed the destruction this substance, which was later labelled as ‘Yellow Rain,' and a harsh debate regarding the possibility that it was a chemical weapon ensued. That’s the topic of Mai Der Vang’s second poetry collection which was published last year. It’s titled Yellow Rain and it was just named a finalist for this year’s Pulitzer Prize in poetry. Mai Der will talk about Yellow Rain and we’ll hear some of her poems.

In his first memoir, novelist Brian Morton chronicles the story of his mother as she suffers from the effects of a stroke and then dementia. The book, Tasha: A Son’s Memoir is an excellent look into the lives of not only one family, but I think, many others who have gone through similar experiences with their relatives. From when he resorts to hiding a recording device in his mother’s cluttered house, and finds out that her caretaker has verbally abused her, to when Tasha screams that she’s being kidnapped at a crowded restaurant when Brian attempts to take her to his house to care for her, to her insistence that anyone who enjoys angel food cake is an idiot, the story Brian paints is both heartbreaking, but also funny. Morton's past books include Florence Gordon and Starting Out in the Evening which was adapted into a film in 2007. Brian’s received the Academy Award in Literature from the American Academy of Arts and Letters, the Koret Jewish Book Award for Fiction, and the Guggenheim Foundation Award. He’s also been a finalist for the PEN/Faulkner Award. We’ll talk to Brian this week.

As the war in Ukraine continues, the information behind the conflict continues to change rapidly. This week we’re joined by Mark Cancian. He’s a senior adviser at the Center for Strategic and International Studies, a think tank based in Washington D.C; this week he’s helping us understand some of the crucial logistics and reasoning behind the war. We’ll also hear from his daughter, Caroline, who gives us her take on the war and her father’s work.

Ezra

When my guest this week, Neda Toloui - Semnani’s grandfather walked across the dessert to Tehran in search of work decades ago, he decided on a surname for his family. Toloui (of sunrise), and Semnani (of Semnan). This is just one of the stories described in Neda Toloui - Semnani’s new memoir, They Said They Wanted Revolution: A Memoir of my Parents. Her book chronicles the story of her parents, two young Iranian students who where swept up with the revolution of the 70s. Although Neda was very young at the time of the revolution, she pieces together the story of her father’s arrest because of his activism as a leftist and continues her story from there.

Ezra

PS: Yes, I know this is late, I'm very sorry.

It's our second year anniversary show, but do you know who’s been on the air a lot longer? It’s the British Broadcasting Corporation, or the BBC. This we’re talking to historian, author, and BBC insider, David Hendy. He’s latest books, 'The BBC: A People's History' (UK) and 'The BBC: A Century on Air' (USA) detail the 100 years of the BBC. We’ll talk about the BBC’s founding in 1922, it’s role in the second world war, and the challenges the service faces today.

Ezra

When Russia started its invasion of Ukraine in February, my guest this week, Michael Kimmage was watching the conflict unfold from Washington D.C. He oversaw the Russia/Ukraine portfolio from 2014 to early 2017 for the U.S. State Department. He’s now a professor at Catholic University. We talk about Russia’s ambitions for the war, possible outcomes of the war, and more.