
Hey everyone. I’ve got a new podcast out today that I’ve been working on since early this year, and I’d love for you to give it a listen. It’s called Two Minutes Past Nine, produced by BBC Radio 4’s brilliant Georgia Catt. The first five episodes are out now (here’s a link to the show on iTunes).
This past April 19 marked 25 years since the Oklahoma City Bombing: the worst act of domestic terrorism in history, which killed 168 people and left nearly 700 people injured. I was 14 years old when it happened, but I still remember the images of the obliterated Alfred P. Murrah Federal Building coming across the television screen in my family’s house. All this time later, I write about extremist groups for a living. The bomber, Timothy McVeigh, who unleashed hell on Oklahoma City comes up all the time in my reporting. He’s a warning. He’s a ghost. He’s always there.
When Georgia and I started this project, it was going to be a simple retrospective. But… if you’ve followed my work for any length of time, you’re probably starting to realize I have a knack for making simple projects quite complicated. And when I started digging into the history surrounding what happened in 1995, I kept finding more and more relevance to things happening in America right now.
I hope you’ll give the show a listen, and that maybe this podcast can help you get clarity into things happening right now. Or maybe it can help you have a tough conversation with someone you love. I know there’s a way forward in America. But I think in order to find that path, we always have to keep an eye on where we came from.
I'm in the middle of listening to the series now. So good!