Think from KERA

As the government shutdown enters its fifth week, many Americans are wondering if they will receive their tax returns this year. Paul Kiel joins host Krys Boyd to talk about how the IRS has actually been withering away before our eyes for nearly a decade, providing less revenue for the government and less oversight for corporations. His story“How the IRS was Gutted”– written with Jesse Eisinger – was reported for ProPublica.

Millennials are increasingly claiming to be burned out by work and everyday life. Anne Helen Petersen is one of them, and she joins host Krys Boyd to talk about how her generation has internalized the idea that in our digital world, we should be working all the time. Her essay “How Millennials Became the Burnout Generation” appears on BuzzFeed News.

For decades, government regulators have known about toxic mine dust that is killing coal miners in Appalachia – and have done little to address the problem. That’s according to a new joint Frontline-NPR investigation. Howard Berkes worked on the report, and he joins host Krys Boyd to tell the stories of miners dying from dirty lungs. The Frontline episode “Coal’s Deadly Dust” airs tonight on PBS stations.

Imagine that the person you loved – the person you planned to spend the rest of your life with – wasn’t who you thought they were. That’s what happened to Abby Ellin, who joins host Krys Boyd to talk about what it’s like to have your life turned upside down by a duplicitous partner, which she writes about in “Duped: Double Lives, False Identities, and the Con Man I Almost Married” (PublicAffairs).

Many black millennials have watched as their parents and grandparents faced the reality that the American Dream was just out of their grasp no matter how far they reached. Reniqua Allen joins host Krys Boyd to talk about how this generation is rethinking what it means to make it, which she writes about in“It Was All a Dream: A New Generation Confronts the Broken Promise to Black America”(Bold Type Books).

Our laws are fairly accepting when it comes to the use of violence in cases of self-defense. Things are less clear when it comes to defending yourself against officers of the law. Georgetown University professor Jason Brennan joins host Krys Boyd to make the case that we should rethink the immunity granted to those whose job is to protect us. His essay “When Nonviolence Isn’t Enough” appears in Reason magazine.

President Trump said, “I would almost say definitely,” when asked if he is willing to bypass Congress and declare a state of emergency to build the border wall. Elizabeth Goitein, co-director of the Liberty and National Security Program at the Brennan Center for Justice, joins host Krys Boyd to talk about the powers that open up to presidents who declare states of emergency, which she writes about in her article “What the President Could Do If He Declares a State of Emergency” for The Atlantic.

Internet memes can seem pretty trivial (Grumpy Cat, anyone?). But when used correctly, they can actually tap into the zeitgeist in a way that connects like-minded people across the globe. An Xiao Mina joins host Krys Boyd to talk about how memes, emojis and other pieces of internet culture connect people offline, which she writes about in “Memes to Movements: How the World’s Most Viral Media is Changing Social Protest and Power” (Beacon Press).

In the last decade, newspapers and other publications have drastically cut the number of arts and culture writers they employ. This hour, host Krys Boyd talks with a panel of critics, artists and journalism teachers about the relationship between an arts community and the media and how it’s changed in an era of consolidation and social media.

During the Cold War, America had a number of allies ready to join us in the fight against communism. Foreign Affairs magazine editor Gideon Rose joins host Krys Boyd to talk about how these relationships have shifted and softened since those days when the mission was very clear, the subject of his essay “The Fourth Founding: The United States and the Liberal Order.”