In the Meanwhile

The world feels like it's on fire. So what do we do besides doomscroll? This week, Nora and Marcus sit down with author and activist Paul Loeb to talk about his updated classic, The Impossible Will Take a Little While. In the midst of authoritarian creep, climate chaos, and collective exhaustion, Loeb makes the case that hope isn't wishful thinking. It's a practice. A discipline. A choice to act anyway. From South Africa to South Korea, from political prisoners to everyday organizers, this conversation is a reminder that history has always been changed by ordinary people who refused to accept that the future was already written. If you're looking for a reason to keep fighting without losing your joy, this episode is for you. This episode originally aired July 31, 2026. Mentioned in the episode:  The Impossible Will Take a Little While, by Paul Loeb | Archbishop Desmond Tutu | Wendell Berry: The Peace of Wild Things | Minnesota Proved MAGA Wrong | How the Word is Passed, by Clint Smith | MLK: Letter from a Birmingham Jail | theimpossible.org | Schmitz Park |  Follow Paul Loeb: https://paulloeb.substack.com/ | theimpossible.org  Support the pod: Donate here to support In The Meanwhile Follow us: Instagram | BlueSky | Website Read Nora and Marcus's Books: Crowded Out: The True Costs of Crowdfunding Healthcare | Readying to Rise Music: No Tears for a Wolf · Ahamefule J. Oluo · Okanomodé. Used with permission. Logo by Nikki Barron. Transcripts are machine-generated and imperfect. Nora and Marcus's work on the podcast is separate from their professional roles and does not represent the views of their employers.  Links to bookshop.org are affiliate links.  

In Marcus' final episode as co-host of In the Meanwhile, he and Nora turn the microphones on each other to ask what this strange, joyful experiment has taught them about surviving a slow-motion apocalypse. They reflect on the conversations that changed them, the power of community, the everyday work of making change, and why joy is something worth collecting even in the bleakest times. It's a bittersweet farewell, a love letter to the people who carried the show, and a reminder that whatever comes next, we survive the meanwhile together. Mentioned in the episode:  Marcus is leaving journalism, but he'll never stop fighting for the south end | More about Marcus | Ad Astra | Ella Baker: Strong people don't need strong leaders | Camp Laurel's final Family Camp |  Related Episodes: Minneapolis Solidarity | Father Ray Riding | Peter Beinart | Loretta J. Ross | Ijeoma Oluo | Dean Spade (2025) | Dean Spade (2026) | Sen. Chris Murphy | Sen. Pramila Jayapal | Warm Cookies of the Revolution | Mark Paschal | The Impossible will Take a little while |  Support the pod: Donate here to support In The Meanwhile Follow us: Instagram | BlueSky | Website Read Nora and Marcus's Books: Crowded Out: The True Costs of Crowdfunding Healthcare | Readying to Rise Music: No Tears for a Wolf · Ahamefule J. Oluo · Okanomodé. Used with permission. Logo by Nikki Barron. Transcripts are machine-generated and imperfect. Nora and Marcus's work on the podcast is separate from their professional roles and does not represent the views of their employers.  Links to bookshop.org are affiliate links.  

Across the country, everyday people are fighting some of the most powerful AI companies on earth — and winning. But the untold story of data center resistance is that it's not just tech-NIMBYism, but a civil rights and environmental justice fight led by Black and Brown communities. This week, Nora (flying solo while Marcus is out) sits down with Abre' Connor, Director of the Center for Environmental and Climate Justice at the NAACP, to talk about the fast-growing movement against AI data centers. They dig into why this fight is following a painfully familiar playbook of environmental racism, what it took to sue Elon Musk's xAI over unpermitted gas turbines in Southaven, Mississippi, and what Gary, Indiana's weeks-long power outage really tells us about who bears the cost of the AI boom. It's a conversation about what's possible when communities refuse to be told they're disposable — and build the power to prove it. Mentioned in the episode:  Robert Reich Explainer on Data Centers | AOC presses EPA administrator on water and data centers | PBS Overview on Data Centers | US Data Center Moratorium Tracker | Trump: Communities that reject data centers will end up 'backwards and poor' | Data Centers could be the winning issue for democrats | NAACP | How the NAACP Is Stopping Dirty Data | Earthjustice | Gary Indiana power failures | east coast data center accused of violating federal law Support the pod: Donate here to support In The Meanwhile Follow us: Instagram | BlueSky | Website Read Nora and Marcus's Books: Crowded Out: The True Costs of Crowdfunding Healthcare | Readying to Rise Music: No Tears for a Wolf · Ahamefule J. Oluo · Okanomodé. Used with permission. Logo by Nikki Barron. Transcripts are machine-generated and imperfect. Nora and Marcus's work on the podcast is separate from their professional roles and does not represent the views of their employers.  Links to bookshop.org are affiliate links.

Today, In the Meanwhile is taking a much-needed breather and sharing the final three episodes of Facing It with Dr. Jennifer Atkinson, a podcast about climate grief, eco-anxiety, and the deeply inconvenient reality of being a human being on a planet in crisis. Because knowing the world is on fire doesn't automatically tell us how to live in it. How do we face grief without surrendering to despair? How do we stay engaged without burning ourselves out? And how might actually feeling the enormity of what we're losing become the first step toward fighting for what remains? Mentioned in the episode:  Facing It | The Existential Toolkit for the Climate Crisis: How to Teach in a Burning World | Gardenland: Nature, Fantasy and Everyday Practice  Support the pod: Donate here to support In The Meanwhile Follow us: Instagram | BlueSky | Website Read Nora and Marcus's Books: Crowded Out: The True Costs of Crowdfunding Healthcare | Readying to Rise Music: No Tears for a Wolf · Ahamefule J. Oluo · Okanomodé. Used with permission. Logo by Nikki Barron. Transcripts are machine-generated and imperfect. Nora and Marcus's work on the podcast is separate from their professional roles and does not represent the views of their employers.  Links to bookshop.org are affiliate links.  

Today, In the Meanwhile is taking a much-needed breather. But we're not leaving you alone with the slow-motion apocalypse. Nora and Marcus are still here to open and close the show, and in between, we're sharing three episodes of Facing It with Dr. Jennifer Atkinson, a podcast about climate grief, eco-anxiety, and the deeply inconvenient reality of being a human being on a planet in crisis. Because knowing the world is on fire doesn't automatically tell us how to live in it. How do we face grief without surrendering to despair? How do we stay engaged without burning ourselves out? And how might actually feeling the enormity of what we're losing become the first step toward fighting for what remains? Mentioned in the episode:  Facing It | The Existential Toolkit for the Climate Crisis: How to Teach in a Burning World | Gardenland: Nature, Fantasy and Everyday Practice | Dungeon Crawler Carl | Seattle Public Library Support the pod: Donate here to support In The Meanwhile Follow us: Instagram | BlueSky | Website Read Nora and Marcus's Books: Crowded Out: The True Costs of Crowdfunding Healthcare | Readying to Rise Music: No Tears for a Wolf · Ahamefule J. Oluo · Okanomodé. Used with permission. Logo by Nikki Barron. Transcripts are machine-generated and imperfect. Nora and Marcus's work on the podcast is separate from their professional roles and does not represent the views of their employers.  Links to bookshop.org are affiliate links.

What if democracy involved fewer town halls, and more dance parties? What if our civic engagement also brought us snacks, new friends, and creative joy? This week, Nora and Marcus speak with Evan Weissman, founder of Denver's Warm Cookies of the Revolution, about his wonderfully unhinged experiment in making civic life actually enjoyable. Think Tax Day carnivals, lucha libre, Hot Wheels-powered participatory budgeting, and the radical proposition that regular people should have some actual power over the places where they live. It's a conversation about joy as political fuel, why being right isn't the same as winning, and what happens when building a better world starts feeling less like mandatory homework and more like somewhere you'd actually want to be. Mentioned in the episode:  Arturo Béjar and Trials against Meta | Zuck's boat not responding to an SOS | USS Abraham Lincoln | Death of Jason Arday | Vigil for Jason Arday | Claudine Gay | Warm Cookies of the Revolution | Librarians hosting how to resist AI workshops | Furious (TV Series) |  Related Episodes: Laura Marquez-Garrett | Sen. Chris Murphy Support the pod: Donate here to support In The Meanwhile Follow us: Instagram | BlueSky | Website Read Nora and Marcus's Books: Crowded Out: The True Costs of Crowdfunding Healthcare | Readying to Rise Music: No Tears for a Wolf · Ahamefule J. Oluo · Okanomodé. Used with permission. Logo by Nikki Barron. Transcripts are machine-generated and imperfect. Nora and Marcus's work on the podcast is separate from their professional roles and does not represent the views of their employers.  Links to bookshop.org are affiliate links.

America is lonely, angry, unequal, and increasingly wondering whether democracy is still working or just buffering indefinitely. This week on In The Meanwhile, Nora and Marcus sit down with U.S. Senator Chris Murphy to discuss his new book, Crisis of the Common Good, and his argument that beneath our political dysfunction is something even harder to filibuster away: a crisis of belonging, meaning, and human connection. We get into loneliness, capitalism, higher education, AI, faith, family, political tribalism, and the apparently radical proposition that billionaires maybe shouldn't get to purchase democracy wholesale. It's a conversation about what politics can fix, what it can't, and whether we can build a new social contract before the old one completely rage-quits. Mentioned in the episode:  Crisis of the Common Good | Orcas at the Ballard Locks! | Trump's School Sports Day | LES Tenement Museum Related Episodes: Gina Baskin | Julie-C | Dean Spade Support the pod: Donate here to support In The Meanwhile Follow us: Instagram | BlueSky | Website Read Nora and Marcus's Books: Crowded Out: The True Costs of Crowdfunding Healthcare | Readying to Rise Music: No Tears for a Wolf · Ahamefule J. Oluo · Okanomodé. Used with permission. Logo by Nikki Barron. Transcripts are machine-generated and imperfect. Nora and Marcus's work on the podcast is separate from their professional roles and does not represent the views of their employers.  Links to bookshop.org are affiliate links.  

In 2020, CHOP became one of the most debated protest movements in modern American history. Six years later, as calls for more policing and tougher public safety policies grow louder, artist, educator, and community organizer Julie-C joins the podcast to reflect on what that moment actually was and what lessons have been lost. Julie explores the myths that still surround CHOP, the rise of movement amnesia, the importance of relationships over rhetoric, and why investing in young people, artists, and community remains the strongest path toward real safety. It's a thoughtful conversation about organizing, conflict, creativity, and what it takes to keep building toward liberation when history feels like it's moving in reverse. Mentioned in the episode:  On the Block | Black Coffee Co-Op | Read about Hidmo in Charles Mudede's piece honoring Rahwa Habte | Embedded S27: We Keep Us Safe | Erotics of Liberation | Gregg Gonsalves in the Nation |   Support Julie-C's work: On the Block Related Episodes: Loretta J Ross | Emily M. Bender Support the pod: Donate here to support In The Meanwhile Follow us: Instagram | BlueSky | Website Read Nora and Marcus's Books: Crowded Out: The True Costs of Crowdfunding Healthcare | Readying to Rise Music: No Tears for a Wolf · Ahamefule J. Oluo · Okanomodé. Used with permission. Logo by Nikki Barron. Transcripts are machine-generated and imperfect. Nora and Marcus's work on the podcast is separate from their professional roles and does not represent the views of their employers.  Links to bookshop.org are affiliate links.

The world feels like it's on fire. So what do we do besides doomscroll? This week, Nora and Marcus sit down with author and activist Paul Loeb to talk about his updated classic, The Impossible Will Take a Little While. In the wake of the Seattle Center shooting, and in the middle of authoritarian creep, climate chaos, and collective exhaustion, Loeb makes the case that hope isn't wishful thinking. It's a practice. A discipline. A choice to act anyway. From South Africa to South Korea, from political prisoners to everyday organizers, this conversation is a reminder that history has always been changed by ordinary people who refused to accept that the future was already written. If you're looking for a reason to keep fighting without losing your joy, this episode is for you. Mentioned in the episode:  Marcus's Column | Renee Hopkins episode | Alliance for Gun Responsibility | The Impossible Will Take a Little While, by Paul Loeb | Archbishop Desmond Tutu | Wendell Berry: The Peace of Wild Things | Minnesota Proved MAGA Wrong | How the Word is Passed, by Clint Smith | MLK: Letter from a Birmingham Jail | theimpossible.org | Schmitz Park | Missouri ends felon disenfranchisement |  Follow Paul Loeb: https://paulloeb.substack.com/ | theimpossible.org  Support the pod: Donate here to support In The Meanwhile Follow us: Instagram | BlueSky | Website Read Nora and Marcus's Books: Crowded Out: The True Costs of Crowdfunding Healthcare | Readying to Rise Music: No Tears for a Wolf · Ahamefule J. Oluo · Okanomodé. Used with permission. Logo by Nikki Barron. Transcripts are machine-generated and imperfect. Nora and Marcus's work on the podcast is separate from their professional roles and does not represent the views of their employers.  Links to bookshop.org are affiliate links.

What if the same government that can find billions for a war in a matter of months insists there's never enough money to feed a hungry kid or keep a school library stocked? Marcus and Nora sit down with Jesse Hagopian — Seattle educator, Rethinking Schools editor, and author of Teach Truth: The Struggle for Antiracist Education — to follow the money from the Pentagon to the classroom. Jesse traces the fight against book bans and "anti-CRT" laws sweeping the country, and grounds it in his own history: teaching in an underfunded DC classroom, then at his alma mater, Garfield High, where keeping snacks in a desk drawer became part of the job. He connects Seattle's fight for universal school meals to the legacy of the Black Panther Party's Free Breakfast for Children Program, and James Baldwin's claim that "the children are all ours." On the heels of an all-too-tough fight for school meals in one of the wealthiest cities in the world, Hagopian shows us that "there's no money" has always been a ruse, not a fact.  In the middle of recording this episode, Seattle's fight for universal school meals actually won. Jesse walks through how that happened: years of students, parents, and teachers showing up, organizing, and refusing to accept austerity as the final word. It's a blueprint for hope in tough times.  Mentioned in the episode:  Guest Rant: Seattle Can't Afford Not to Feed Every Child | Teach Truth: The Struggle for Antiracist Education | July 21 City Council Meeting |  More from Jesse Hagopian: https://iamaneducator.com/  Support the pod: Donate here to support In The Meanwhile Follow us: Instagram | BlueSky | Website Read Nora and Marcus's Books: Crowded Out: The True Costs of Crowdfunding Healthcare | Readying to Rise Music: No Tears for a Wolf · Ahamefule J. Oluo · Okanomodé. Used with permission. Logo by Nikki Barron. Transcripts are machine-generated and imperfect. Nora and Marcus's work on the podcast is separate from their professional roles and does not represent the views of their employers.  Links to bookshop.org are affiliate links.