Rural Remix

In 1999, the state of Missouri destroyed more than 900 clandestine meth labs. Among the officers tasked with carrying out that constant cleanup process, fear reigned. In response, the state trained an astronomical amount of resources on understanding the problem. A slew of state and federal laws were passed to limit access to meth’s precursor chemicals. But meth cooks got scrappy, replacing older recipes with new, soda-bottle scale techniques. What was it like to police meth in this era? What was it like to use it? Learn more on our website.

Home can be a difficult place to leave, even for Oregonians in the danger zone of a major earthquake. In this episode of Keep It Rural, Daily Yonder reporter Claire Carlson discusses natural disasters of the past, present, and future.

In the 1950s, meth was available over the counter. In the 1960s, it was still unscheduled by the FDA and widely prescribed by doctors. All kinds of people – among them housewives, truckers, and college students – used the stimulant to induce weight loss, wakefulness, and high spirits. But in 1971 meth was reclassified as one of the nation’s most dangerous drugs and its legal production quickly fell by 90 percent. Demand, on the other hand, persisted, and outlaw biker gangs stepped into the supply vacuum. How’d biker gangs come to dominate the meth trade in the 80s? And why did they eventually lose control of it?

Welcome to Home Cooked: A 50-Year History of Meth in America. In the early 2000s, the “Faces of Meth” were tacked to cork boards in high school hallways and the nightly news was full of meth lab explosions. In this period, the stimulant was stigmatized as a “white trash” drug, and thought to favor rural trailer parks and farmhouses over inner-city drug dens. Today, however, meth use is increasing rapidly among non-white populations in big, east-coast cities like New York and Boston. So what changed? And why was meth seen as a hillbilly drug in the first place? Find the full show notes on the Daily Yonder website.

Country music is inextricable from Black culture, no matter how much the music industry has tried to separate them. Beyoncé’s new country songs could force a long-overdue change to how we think about a genre. Daily Yonder reporter Claire Carlson discusses the overhaul of country music that is happening before our very eyes.

To love something is to eventually grieve the losing it. But what happens when climate change speeds up our rate of loss? Daily Yonder reporter Claire Carlson discusses love, life, and loss in the anthropocene.

This is Keep It Rural. Your spot for musings on rural news, exploration of rural culture, and queries about rural life. Today Daily Yonder reporter Claire Carlson discusses a Colorado effort to reintroduce gray wolves and the debate over humans' place in the natural world.

It's 2024 and we're still talking about how to get high-speed internet to the rural people and places that need it. An influx of federal dollars coming from the Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act of 2021 may offer a path forward, and a group of Illinois government and business leaders are getting ready to seize the opportunity. As part of the Benton Institute for Broadband and Society's, "Broadband Breakthrough" program, local stakeholders are getting coached up on broadband basics, community outreach, and how to take their best shot when competing for a chunk of the federal funding available for internet infrastructure. Producer's Note: The Benton Institute for Broadband and Society is a contractor for the Center for Rural Strategies, our parent organization. The Rural Remix team operates independently in all editorial decisions.

This is Keep It Rural. Your spot for musings on rural news, exploration of rural culture, and queries about rural life. Today Daily Yonder reporter Claire Carlson discusses how a viral airplane near-disaster made her think about pedestrian safety on rural roads.

With Halloween in the rear view maybe you thought spooky season was over. But the scariest day of the year is yet to come… the horrors of Christmas are almost upon us. It's time for a Rural Horror Holiday Special. Join us for a bonus episode of the Rural Horror Picture Show as we explore this uniquely absurd and terrifying sub-genre of films that represent the darker side of the holiday season. Films discussed include "Krampus" (2015), "Silent Night" (2012), and "To All a Good Night" (1980).