With host Paula Lehman-Ewing away on a reporting trip, COJA Marketing Director Jamie Konegni sits down with his longtime friend, Jimmy Panepinto. In this midseason palette cleanser, Jamie and Jimmy, who have clashed on politics, policy, and principle for as long as they've known each other, talk through why they're still in it. Still talking. Still laughing.

In a moment when political difference has become a reason to cut people off, this episode asks a quieter question: what do we lose when we stop having the hard conversations — and what do we gain when we don't?

Get Me to the Gray is a podcast about the space between certainty and complexity. New episodes drop weekly.

Get Me to the Gray is built on the belief that most hard conversations are worth having. That polarization is often performance, and that real dialogue — across genuine difference — is possible if both people are willing to stay in it.

This week tested that belief. And what it gave me wasn't a failure. It was clarity.

There are extremes with which certain conversations can't be had. That's not a reason to stop trying — it's a reason to be honest about where the line is, and why it exists. This episode is about where I found mine.

Get Me to the Gray is produced by COJA Services. Visit cojaservices.com to learn more.

Instead of a single company controlling the platform, Nostr distributes communication across independent servers called relays, allowing anyone to build apps that connect to the same network.

Supporters argue this architecture reduces corporate control and protects free expression. But it also raises difficult questions: if no company is in charge, who is responsible when things go wrong?

What follows is a conversation about the trade-offs between freedom and accountability, the limits of corporate moderation, the risks of open systems, and what it might mean to rebuild the internet’s communication infrastructure from the ground up.
You can check out Wouter's Nostr page here.

In this episode of Get Me to the Gray, Paula Lehman-Ewing sits down with filmmaker and commentator Sara Alessandrini to explore how media narratives shape public perception around political figures and social movements. Drawing on Alessandrini’s docuseries This Is What New Yorkers Say, the conversation examines the tension between due process and public accountability, the role of media in amplifying political narratives, and the challenges of navigating truth in an era of polarized storytelling.

I’m releasing it as scheduled because the issues we discuss — peace, security, and human dignity — are especially relevant in moments like this. As a narrative consulting agency, we believe that if we only talk about these questions when things are calm, we miss the moments when they matter most. 

What does peace require in a place shaped by generations of conflict?

Paula speaks with peace studies scholar Raphael Cohen Almagor about the Israeli–Palestinian conflict, the conditions necessary for peace, and why negotiations have repeatedly failed.

The conversation explores security, human dignity, and the challenges of talking honestly about Israel and Palestine in a polarized world.
Learn more about Raphael and his upcoming book at almagor.blogspot.com.

In this episode, Paula speaks with Cristine Soto DeBerry, founder and executive director of the Prosecutors Alliance and former chief of staff to San Francisco district attorneys George Gascón and Chesa Boudin.

Drawing on her experience inside one of the country’s most closely watched progressive prosecution offices, DeBerry describes the challenges of translating campaign promises into policy — and the institutional resistance that often follows.

The conversation explores the tension between reform and public safety, the role of internal buy-in inside prosecutor’s offices, and the political pressures that shape reform efforts long after the election is over.

It also examines a question reform movements continue to face: whether backlash reflects rejection of reform itself — or a loss of public trust when change fails to make people feel safer.
Learn more about Prosecutors Alliance at prosecutorsalliance.org.
For more information about Prosecutors Alliance C4 visit prosecutorsallianceaction.org.

Edwin joined the NYPD after experiencing police harassment as a teenager, determined to challenge discriminatory practices from within. He later became the highest-ranking whistleblower in NYPD history and the lead plaintiff in the federal lawsuit Raymond v. City of New York.

Together, Paula and Edwin explore the difficult questions that sit between reform and abolition: Can a system built to resist accountability actually change? Is incremental reform progress — or the system absorbing change to survive? Are justice-minded officers a path forward, or a contradiction?

The conversation moves through whistleblowing, broken-windows policing, restorative justice, ICE enforcement, leadership, recruitment culture, and the emotional cost of challenging institutions from the inside. This episode doesn’t offer easy answers — it sits in the tension between two worldviews trying to imagine a different future for public safety.

Recorded live in Denver with audience Q&A.
To attend a LIVE recording visit bit.ly/COJAEvents
Learn more about Edwin at edwinraymond.com
Watch Crime + Punishment on YouTube or Hulu

In this episode of Get Me to the Gray, Paula Lehman-Ewing speaks with Josh Lewis, a CPA, government auditor, and conservative writer behind Saving Elephants, about a core political divide: whether the systems we’ve inherited are capable of correcting harm, or whether they were built to benefit some while excluding others — and therefore need to be reimagined.

Paula approaches the conversation from the perspective that questions preserving institutions that have consistently failed marginalized communities. Josh argues from a conservative framework that imperfect institutions may still be the most durable tools for reform. Together, they explore urgency versus restraint, reform versus rupture, and who bears the cost of change. 

Note: There will be no new episode next Tuesday due to our live Get Me to the Gray event in Denver. If you’re local, we’d love to see you there. Tickets are available at tinyurl.com/COJAEvents. The recording from that conversation will be released here in two weeks.

In this episode of Get Me to the Gray, Paula Lehman-Ewing sits down with criminologist David M. Kennedy to confront one of the most uncomfortable questions in public life: how do we reduce violence without falling into either punishment-for-punishment’s-sake or denial that harm is happening at all?

The conversation unfolds inside a tension most people avoid. On one side is the instinct to respond to violence with overwhelming force. On the other is the belief that structural change alone will eventually make violence disappear. Kennedy argues that both approaches miss what’s actually happening on the ground — and that the truth lives in the space between them.
To learn more about David Kennedy and focussed deterrence, visit nnscommunities.org.

In this episode of Get Me to the Gray, Paula Lehman-Ewing sits down with economist Doug Cardell for a candid, unscripted conversation that cuts through ideology and into reality. Together, they explore how capitalism and socialism are often treated as fixed, opposing systems—despite the fact that no true version of either exists in practice. What emerges is a conversation about power, implementation, and the gap between economic theory and lived experience.

Rather than debating labels, this episode examines how systems actually function, who benefits from the way they’re structured, and why so many political arguments get stuck before they ever reach substance. It’s a conversation about tension, assumptions, and what happens when ideas meet the real world.

Doug's book Why Socialism Struggles is now available for purchase, and you can learn more about him at DougCardell.com.

Hosted by journalist and author Paula Lehman-Ewing, the show creates space for conversations many of us avoid—across deep disagreement, uncertainty, and difference. This isn’t debate or performance, but dialogue that stays in the room when things get hard.

Full episodes launch soon. Follow the show to be part of it from the beginning.