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A Kansas Farmer goes to Africa
Donn Teske, a self-described “red-neck farmer from Kansas” who’d never left the country before, recently found himself in Senegal on fairly short notice.
President of the Kansas Farmers Union, and a star of the movie “What’s the Matter with Kansas?” Donn just returned from two weeks in Kaolack and Dakar. He participated in an international farmer [...]
FiveThirtyEight: Is Obama losing his cool?
Nate Silver, the political forecaster who famously called Obama’s 2008 victory six months before election day, reacts to Robert Gibb’s rant against “the professional left” in an interview with The Hill:
The euphoric feeling among liberals in the days between the election and the inauguration seems so quaint now — like something that happened decades ago [...]
Village Voice gives the thumbs up
The movie opens in New York tonight, and the Village Voice weighs in:
The subtle structure and elegant editing build to the pointed insight that the vast gulf in the country isn’t between right and left but between secular and religious. Wisely, Winston includes only a couple of the narrow-minded comments that provoke viewers to snort, [...]
Get Involved–Organize a Screening Today!
After the sea change of the 2010 midterm elections, understanding the conservative movement, who is in it, where they come from, and what they want – is more important than ever. A screening of What’s the Matter with Kansas? is the perfect tool to energize the conversation, get beyond the shouting and the stereotypes and engage people in a way that can make a difference.
NYC: Thomas Frank & Barbara Ehrenreich at Borders Park Ave. 7/28/10
UPDATED 7/24/10 – Barbara Ehrenreich will join Thomas Frank for this special event!
Barbara Ehrenreich and Thomas Frank will speak and sign books (including copies of Franks recently-revived Baffler magazine) on Wednesday, July 28, at Borders Park Avenue, 461 Park Avenue (at 57th Street) in New York City.
The title of the forum is: “What’s the Matter with [...]
Wichita reacts to “What’s the Matter with Kansas?”
For audiences across the country, “What’s the Matter with Kansas?” is a fascinating journey into the heart of American conservatism, a place that for many of us is warmly familiar yet utterly foreign — in the best documentary fashion, the movie gets viewers close to people they don’t really know. In Wichita, however, everybody feels they already know these folks, they are their neighbors.
Robert Reich: Guilded Age-level inequality threatens us all
Robert Reich, economist and former Secretary of Labor in the Clinton Administration, contributes an opinion piece in The Nation which is a particularly eloquent statement of the liberal case for sweeping economic reform.
Reich begins with the familiar outlines of the situation we face: for a variety of reasons, since the 1970s, a tiny share of the [...]
“More subtle, perhaps even more provocative.”
Aubrey Streit Krug is an intern at the Center for Rural Affairs in Lyons, Nebraska. She saw What’s the Matter with Kansas? in Lincoln, and posted her thoughts in the Blog For Rural America, which we’ve re-posted here:
Stories We Tell Ourselves
By Aubrey Streit Krug
Thomas Frank’s 2004 book What’s the Matter with Kansas? gave clear, yet provocative, [...]
New York City run EXTENDED thru Aug 12, 2010
What’s the Matter with Kansas? starts its commercial New York theatrical run on Friday, July 30th at the Producers’ Club Indie House theatre, the latest addition to Manhattan arthouse cinemas. Located in Mid-town Manhattan, near the Theater District, Indie House promises to be a destination for independent film lovers.
Huffington Post: why we need to get past stereotypes of conservatives
Clay Farris Naff of Nebraskans for Science shares some reflections on “What’s the Matter with Kansas?” after viewing it with in a packed house in Lincoln, Nebraska — a region with, of course, close ties to Kansas and itself home to a fiesty, hopeless outnumbered band of progressive prairie populists.
Perhaps in part because he recognizes [...]
Wichita screening – Thursday, July 8 – one night only!
After running for eight weeks in Lawrence and Kansas City, “What’s the Matter with Kansas?” will finally screen again in Wichita, in the heart of the state, where much of the filming took place.
The Wichita Public Library will screen the movie on Thursday, July 8 at 6:00 pm.
The screening is part of the library’s 25th [...]