Talks with Jim Grube

When we got to Woodlawn, Maggie told us that the whole family loves to talk about politics and that they are always open for an interesting argument. I was excited because I really like to talk about many different topics, too, and I love to challenge my political positions.

At first i thought it would be difficult to start talking about rather critical topics. But that turned out to be false. Especially Jim loves to argue about politics and so we rather quickly found ourselves in the position of talking about guns and gun control, abortion rights, LGBTQIA+ rights and much more.

We also had very interesting discussions about the war in Ukraine and whether or not the US should support Ukraine with weapons and tanks to fight Russia’s invasion.

We also talked about the atomic attacks on Hiroshima and Nagasaki and if it was the right decision to use those atomic bombs. That was highly interesting discourse, especially because we watched the new movie “Oppenheimer” which deals with exactly this topic.

We also had discussions about veganism and whether or not using animals for a primary food source is justifiable practically or morally.

I really enjoyed Jim’s stories about American history. Our talks with Jim got me to see topics from other perspectives and to revisit my positions.

Thank you, Jim. Thank you so much for talking with us, teaching us better English and making us more reflective on so many different topics.

—Mathias Scheibl

2023 Slack Farms Intern

August 10, 2023