Mass for Shut-ins: The Gin and Tacos Podcast: Recent Episodes
Mass for Shut-ins
An unholy amalgam of politics, historical anecdotes, cocktail recipes, performances by talented people, and interviews with people who are doing interesting things with their lives.
Questions Kyle and Jennie join me for an unusually strong mailbag. In this first part we talk the wild events of the last month in the presidential election, fielding several questions about what is and isn't different now that Harris-Walz has replaced Biden-Harris. Is "You're weird" a good strategy? Do they have their shit together at long last? Why does the campaign feel so different, and is that real or in our heads?
This is the (free!) first half of a two-part episode; Part II is available here to Patreon subscribers, so go ahead and sign up for as little as 1 American Dollar. It's worth it, I promise.
Please support Mass for Shut-ins, an independent and ad-free podcast, via Patreon. Contact me on Bluesky at edburmila.bsky.social.
Questions Kyle and Jennie join me for a close look at three of the wildest weeks in recent American political history - we talk the Trump assassination attempt, Biden's brain, JD Vance, and (checks notes) former Buffalo Bills kicker Scott Norwood. You are currently listening to the first half (free!) of a two-part episode; Part II is available to Patreon subscribers here, so go ahead and sign up for as little as 1 American Dollar.
Please support Mass for Shut-ins, an independent and ad-free podcast, via Patreon. Contact me on Bluesky at edburmila.bsky.social.
Thanks: QK, QJ, the bands that contribute music (IfIHadAHiFi, The Sump Pumps, Oscar Bait), Zachary Sielaff, Question Cathy, and all Patreon supporters, subscribers, and listeners.
Kassia St. Clair, author of the 2017 best-seller The Secret Lives of Color and the Sunday Times Book of the Year follow-up The Golden Thread: How Fabric Changed History (2019) joins me to talk about her new book, Race to the Future: The Adventure that Accelerated the 20th Century. It's the story of the utterly bonkers 1907 auto race from Peking to Paris, which didn't let things like the fact that roads and gas stations didn't exist stop some adventurous competitors from trying it. All 8000 miles of it.
The widescreen artwork accompanying this episode is Kassia's map of Russia, laden with thread and post-it notes, which she references during our chat.
Please support Mass for Shut-ins, an independent and ad-free podcast, via Patreon. Contact me on Bluesky at edburmila.bsky.social.
Thanks: Kassia St. Clair, the bands that contribute music (IfIHadAHiFi, The Sump Pumps, Oscar Bait), Zachary Sielaff, Question Cathy, and all Patreon supporters, subscribers, and listeners.
In 1972 a middling team from the Scottish Premier League played four exhibition matches in Nigeria and distinguished itself so profoundly with its pitiful play (and boorish attitude) that its name became a synonym for stupidity. Grousing about how much your host country sucks while losing 4-1 to a team of amateurs called "Stationery Stores FC" leaves a pretty profound impression, I guess.
The comedian through whom I became aware of this fantastic story is Nabil Abdulrashid.
These podcasts are ad-free and self-produced; I value your support on Patreon at https://www.patreon.com/ginandtacos.
Question Kyle and Question Jennie join me as we discuss the 18th century fad of using the emerging understanding of the phenomenon of electricity to entertain. Men who considered themselves worldly natural philosophers and amateur scientists found it relatively easy to blow the minds of party guests by demonstrating some basic concepts that we're too jaded to appreciate today. Nowhere was this made clearer than with the Flying Boy stunt, aka the Hanging Boy. A child or small adult was suspended from the ceiling with non-conductive silk ropes. Then, electricity would be introduced into the lad's feet and guests would amuse themselves by making objects stick to him or watching him discharge tiny bolts of lightning to metal wires.
We lament the death of planning live entertainment for social events and consider the possibility that the time is right to bring back the Flying Boy.
Perhaps you've heard of Operation Gladio, the infamous post-World War II NATO program to train "stay-behind" agents to fight guerilla-style against a future hypothetical Soviet invasion of Western Europe. Believe it or not, the United States Air Force, briefly in partnership with the FBI, devised exactly such a program it carried out in Alaska between 1951 and 1958. This went beyond the planning stage - it was actually implemented. At least 89 civilians in Alaska were paid, trained, armed, and prepared to do...something...if the USSR charged across the Bering Strait and occupied what at the time was a US Territory.
Here is the exhaustive five-part FBI tell-all on the now-declassified project.
These podcasts are ad-free and self-produced; I value your support on Patreon at https://www.patreon.com/ginandtacos.
Dr. Laine Nooney (NYU) joins me to discuss the early days of personal computing - particularly how people figured out what to do with home computers after they became convinced that they needed one - in their 2023 book The Apple II Age: How the Computer Became Personal. If you were alive in the pre-internet era, this book is both a great trip down memory lane and a new way to think about the usual hagiographic "Great Man" retellings of the early years of the industry. If you're a bit younger, you'll get great insight into just how not obvious it was what in the hell we would do with computers at home, even though it seemed like everyone wanted one.
Please support Mass for Shut-ins, an independent and ad-free podcast, via Patreon. Contact me via twitter (@edburmila), at least for now. I am on Bluesky at edburmila.bsky.social as well.
Thanks: Dr. Laine Nooney, the bands that contribute music (IfIHadAHiFi, The Sump Pumps, Oscar Bait), Zachary Sielaff, Question Cathy, and all Patreon supporters, subscribers, and listeners.
Professor and author Nicholas Dagen Bloom joins me to discuss his new book The Great American Transit Disaster: Austerity, Autocentric Planning, and White Flight (University of Chicago Press). You know transit is a mess in the United States but take my word for it: after reading this book you will understand how and why in a brand new way. If you think you already know the story, you don't!
Question Cathy is traveling the world, so Question Kyle and Question Jennie pinch-hit for her in a truly stellar Mailbag. Half of the Mailbag is included in this episode, and then the rest is available as bonus content on patreon, because capitalism.
Please support Mass for Shut-ins, an independent and ad-free podcast, via Patreon. Contact me via twitter (@edburmila), at least for now. I am on Bluesky at edburmila.bsky.social as well.
Thanks: Nicholas Dagen Bloom, QK & QJ, the bands that contribute music (IfIHadAHiFi, The Sump Pumps, Oscar Bait), Zachary Sielaff, Question Cathy, and all Patreon supporters, subscribers, and listeners.
Continuing a topic we broached on a recent bonus episode on Patreon, Questions Kyle and Jennie join me as we sort through the wonderful if baffling world of school assemblies submitted by listeners and readers. You have to hear some of this stuff to believe it, but suffice it to say America's educational system is very concerned about abstinence and marijuana.
Please support Mass for Shut-ins, an independent and ad-free podcast, via Patreon. Contact me via twitter (@edburmila), at least for now. I am on Bluesky at edburmila.bsky.social as well.
Thanks: the bands that contribute music (IfIHadAHiFi, The Sump Pumps, Oscar Bait), Zachary Sielaff, Question Cathy, and all Patreon supporters, subscribers, and listeners.
Question Cathy returns for a long overdue dip into the mailbag. We hit a range of topics including: how the recent Supreme Court ruling will affect college admissions, 90s cultural fads, the mind-bending heat affecting much of the planet this summer, what the DeSantis campaign's flop tells us about the war on "wokeness," and how some state-level Democratic parties have gotten so much done with razor-thin majorities. Plus I drop the least obscure hints yet about my forthcoming book and we reveal the most appealing presidential candidate for a post-Biden Democratic Party.
Cathy mispronounces "Patreon" creatively and I recognize mid-recording that Bath & Body Works and Bed, Bath, and Beyond are two different things.
Please support Mass for Shut-ins, an independent and ad-free podcast, via Patreon. Contact me via twitter (@edburmila), at least for now. I am on Bluesky at edburmila.bsky.social as well.
Thanks: the bands that contribute music (IfIHadAHiFi, The Sump Pumps, Oscar Bait), Zachary Sielaff, Question Cathy, and all Patreon supporters, subscribers, and listeners.
Artist and author Brian Brown joins me to discuss his new book The He-Man Effect: How American Toy Makers Sold You Your Childhood. We talk about our memories of toy advertising and cartoons from the Eighties and the political and regulatory changes that opened the floodgates to marketing at children. Inhumanoids, M.A.S.K., SilverHawks, and Sectaurs are just a few of the D-list intellectual properties of the era that we recall with accuracy I can only describe as alarming. Brian's earlier books on Andre the Giant, Vladimir Putin, and the criminalization of marijuana are all worth your time too.
Please support Mass for Shut-ins, an independent and ad-free podcast, via Patreon. Contact me via twitter (@edburmila), at least for now. I am on Bluesky at edburmila.bsky.social as well.
Thanks: Brian Brown, the bands that contribute music (IfIHadAHiFi, The Sump Pumps, Oscar Bait), Zachary Sielaff, Question Cathy, and all Patreon supporters, subscribers, and listeners.
Question Kyle and Question Jennie join me to discuss one of the most poorly thought-out, pretentious stunts in the history of pop culture, wherein an early UK techno-electronica duo churn out a novelty song, one hit single, and a book about how to write a novelty song before topping it all off by burning one million pounds, one £50 bill at a time. It's the kind of anti-capitalist, Art School edginess that blew your mind at 20 and I sincerely hope does not blow your mind as a functional adult.
After scoring a gimmick hit about Dr. Who called "Doctorin' the Tardis" in 1988 as The Timelords, the duo rebranded themselves as KLF to release the minor Nineties hit single "3am Eternal." Somehow that was enough for them to amass £1,000,000, which in 1994 they fed into a roaring fire in a video called "The K Foundation Burn a Million Quid." If you ever wondered what kind of face a person makes as they are actively ruining their own lives on camera, check it out.
Please support Mass for Shut-ins, an independent and ad-free podcast, via Patreon. Contact me via twitter (@edburmila).
Thanks: Kyle and Jennie, the bands that contribute music (IfIHadAHiFi, The Sump Pumps, Oscar Bait), Zachary Sielaff, Question Cathy, and all Patreon supporters, subscribers, and listeners.
David Roth (@david_j_roth) of Defector (@DefectorMedia) joins me to talk about one of the most memorable ad campaigns in the history of sports and pop culture, Reebok's $30,000,000 1992 "Dan vs. Dave" commercials that briefly turned two decathletes into household names and was supposed to culminate with one of them being crowned the world's greatest athlete at the Barcelona Olympics. Along the way we remember plenty of guys and dig deeper into the way pop culture references from early adolescence tend to have great staying power and an inflated sense of importance.
Please support Mass for Shut-ins, an independent and ad-free podcast, via Patreon. Contact me via twitter (@edburmila).
Thanks: David Roth, the bands that contribute music (IfIHadAHiFi, The Sump Pumps, Oscar Bait), Zachary Sielaff, Question Cathy, and all Patreon supporters, subscribers, and listeners.
Question Kyle joins me for musings on concept albums as I fondly recall the 1999 gimmick-compilation "Short Music for Short People" from the pop-punk mavens at Fat Wreck Chords. The idea: 101 bands, 101 songs, each one 30 seconds long. The royalty of the genre all contributed - Blink-182, NOFX, The Offspring, everyone you remember from the late Clinton years. An impressive, if not especially listenable, idea for an album.
The podcast opens with a brief sample of "Ketchup Soup" by the Teen Idols, their contribution to this album. To purchase the album, please visit the Fat Wreck website for a digital download or other format.
Bonus: 29 minutes in I start singing "Uptown Girl."
These podcasts are ad-free and self-produced; I value your support on Patreon at https://www.patreon.com/ginandtacos.
Motivated by the Chinese balloon story that recently if briefly dominated the news, Kelsey Atherton (@AthertonKD) joins me to talk about PROJECT GENETRIX (1956), a Pentagon scheme to float almost 600 balloons over remote parts of the USSR and China. Turns out balloons are not well-suited to espionage duty for reasons that should be obvious to anyone over the age of ten.
We also talk plenty about the recent balloon incident, the link between GENETRIX and the phenomenon of UFO sightings, and about how a crashed GENETRIX balloon is indirectly responsible for mankind's first photos of the dark side of the moon.
Check out Kelsey's substack, Wars of Future Past, and his recent contribution to Slate on the China incident.
Please support Mass for Shut-ins, an independent and ad-free podcast, via Patreon. Contact me via twitter (@edburmila).
Thanks: Kelsey, the bands that contribute music (IfIHadAHiFi, The Sump Pumps, Oscar Bait), Zachary Sielaff, Question Cathy, and all Patreon supporters, subscribers, and listeners.
At the height of the Cold War, the looming existential dread of human extinction in a nuclear holocaust was punctuated by a three-way battle for the Grand Ballroom of New York City's famous Waldorf-Astoria Hotel fought by Nikita Khrushchev, the US State Department, and the American Dental Association. You'll never guess who won.
These podcasts are ad-free and self-produced; I value your support on Patreon at https://www.patreon.com/ginandtacos.
The book referenced in this episode is available wherever you like to buy books.
Labor journalist and author Max Alvarez (@maximillian_alv) takes a break from hosting the essential podcast Working People (@WorkingPod) and reporting for Real News Network to talk about the recent labor issues on America's freight railroads. Also joining us is Matt Weaver, a maintenance of way crew member based in Toledo working for freight giant CSX. He’s active with BMWED-IBT 2624, a Teamsters-affiliated union for whom he has recently been chosen to serve as legislative director for his state. He has worked on the railroad since 1994.
If you're interested in learning more or finding out what you can do to help, Matt asks that you visit the Railroad Workers United online or locally.
Max's recent book The Work of Living: Working People Talk about Their Lives and the Year the World Broke is also highly recommended. Be sure to check it out.
Please support Mass for Shut-ins, an independent and ad-free podcast, via Patreon. Contact me via twitter (@edburmila).
Thanks: Matt and Maximillian, the bands that contribute music (IfIHadAHiFi, The Sump Pumps, Oscar Bait), Zachary Sielaff, Question Cathy, and all Patreon supporters, subscribers, and listeners.
Dr. Erin Thompson (@ArtCrimeProf), the Art Crime Professor, joins me to talk about her book Smashing Statues: The Rise and Fall of America's Public Monuments. We cover the illusory permanence of monuments, the politics of taking them up (and down), and the fate of removed monuments sitting in storage right now, waiting for a more reactionary political climate to re-erect them.
Question Cathy joins me for the mailbag, where we discuss the Denver Broncos, Starbucks workers' organizing efforts, the scourge of paywalled scholarly research, and the ultimate fate of Twitter.
Please support Mass for Shut-ins, an independent and ad-free podcast, via Patreon. Contact me via twitter (@edburmila).
Thanks: Dr. Thompson, the bands that contribute music (IfIHadAHiFi, The Sump Pumps, Oscar Bait), Zachary Sielaff, Question Cathy, and all Patreon supporters, subscribers, and listeners.
In which I stoop to being my own guest on my own podcast to talk about my book, which is available from wherever you prefer to get books in Ebook, Hardcover, and Audiobook formats.
If you listen to this podcast you're almost certainly aware by now that I have a book, and in fact you may be sick of hearing about it. Nonetheless, here's a little teaser if you're still on the fence about checking it out.
Two vagabonds with great luck and big balls perpetrate a hoax that made them extremely rich and hoodwinked some of the finest, most respectable citizens of early Gilded Age America. In our modern era of boring electronic fraud, the romance of walking into a bank with a bag of dirty diamonds you claim you pulled out of a hidden mine is hard to match.
These podcasts are ad-free and self-produced; I value your support on Patreon at https://www.patreon.com/ginandtacos.
Two vagabonds with great luck and big balls perpetrate a hoax that made them extremely rich and hoodwinked some of the finest, most respectable citizens of early Gilded Age America. In our modern era of boring electronic fraud, the romance of walking into a bank with a bag of dirty diamonds you claim you pulled out of a hidden mine is hard to match.
These podcasts are ad-free and self-produced; I value your support on Patreon at https://www.patreon.com/ginandtacos.
Dr. Olufemi Taiwo (@OlufemiOTaiwo) joins us with his new book Elite Capture: How the Powerful Took Over Identity Politics (And Everything Else). We talk about the future of organizing and activism and what those of us without power should be doing to avoid falling into the traps more powerful actors set for us. I also do my best to embarrass him by recalling an incident from ~2005, when he and I first met in a classroom at Indiana University.
Please support Mass for Shut-ins, an independent and ad-free podcast, via Patreon. Contact me via twitter (@edburmila).
Thanks: Dr. Taiwo, the bands that contribute music (Waxeater, IfIHadAHiFi, The Sump Pumps, Oscar Bait), Zachary Sielaff, Question Cathy, and all Patreon supporters, subscribers, and listeners.
This is a quick teaser to let non-Patreon subscribers know that you missed the last Minicast, which I uploaded two weeks ago on Patreon.
I won't be putting all Minicasts behind the paywall, but this one was a special treat for subscribers. If you want to listen and can spare $1, join at
https://www.patreon.com/ginandtacos
The resplendent radio voice of Ryan Cooper joins me to talk about his new book, How Are You Going to Pay For That? Smart Answers to the Dumbest Question in Politics. You might be familiar with his writing from his tenure at The Week, or from his cohosting duties on the Left Anchor podcast. He currently is the managing editor of the American Prospect. We talk the social welfare state, unemployment, why workers being able to quit lousy jobs drives so many people crazy, and Spuds MacKenzie, Reagan-era America's horny drunken dog-id. Please support Mass for Shut-ins, an independent and ad-free podcast, via Patreon. Contact me via twitter (@edburmila).
Thanks: Ryan Cooper, the bands that contribute music (Waxeater, IfIHadAHiFi, The Sump Pumps, Oscar Bait), Zachary Sielaff, Question Cathy, and all Patreon supporters, subscribers, and listeners.
In 1989 Kraft held a promotional sweepstakes (grand prize: a new minivan) with game pieces in packages of Kraft Singles and due to a series of errors, every single one was a winner. By the time they caught the mistake, over 10,000 people had already "won" $17,000+ minivans.
Kraft is based in the Chicagoland area, so the heavy local coverage this fiasco received in Summer '89 led 10 year-old me to believe this was the biggest news story of the century. Of course in reality, nobody really noticed or remembered. Wasn't local news great like that? Micro-sensations nobody outside of your area knew about? I miss it.
I value your support on Patreon.
The Glass-Steagall banking bill was one of the most important progressive reforms of the 20th Century. It's gone now, but as often happens with members of Congress, Glass and Steagall have been almost entirely forgotten. Glass's story offers some very interesting insights into how the ideological range of American politics has narrowed. Because Glass and Steagall, the Great Reformers, were actually interested in preventing reform.
I value your support on Patreon.
Guest: Steve Mang, college professor and amateur ultra-long-distance runner, joins us to talk about CC Pyle's Bunion Derbies, the informal name of two LA-to-NYC footraces held in 1928 and 1929. Amateur runners, some lacking basic equipment or running experience, ran an average of 50 miles per day for at least 84 consecutive days. Steve gives non-runners like me some insight into the, let's call them "challenges" the human body experiences under those conditions.
For the cocktail of the month we RUN with the theme: the London Marathon
QC joins us for the mailbag.
Please support Mass for Shut-ins, an independent and ad-free podcast, via Patreon. Contact me via Facebook, Twitter (@edburmila), or the venerable website Gin and Tacos.
Thanks: Steve Mang, the bands that contribute music (Waxeater, IfIHadAHiFi, The Sump Pumps, Oscar Bait), Zachary Sielaff, Question Cathy, and all Patreon supporters, subscribers, and listeners.
Alexander Fleming's discovery of penicillin in 1928 had little immediate impact on the world because it took over 15 years to crack the secret of how to mass-produce the it. Until that happened, penicillin existed more as an idea than as a medical intervention. The code to producing it in big batches was finally cracked in, of all places, Peoria, Illinois thanks to the timely intervention of a cantaloupe.
I value your support on Patreon.
Will the US mint a trillion-dollar coin? Probably not, but in 2001 the tiny island nation (I know, I know) of Vanuatu created $300 million overnight by quadrupling its sovereign debt using as its stated collateral a 182-pound ruby that may or may not actually have existed.
I value your support on Patreon.
In 1975 a right-wing loon purchased 300 acres of swampland outside Cape Canaveral with the dream of building a theme park recreating the experience of a US Special Forces barracks in a rural Vietnamese hamlet at the height of the war. Visitors could take turns firing a machine gun at real Vietnamese refugees play-acting as Viet Cong, while replica thatched huts dispensed souvenirs and snacks. Oh, and there were punji stakes. Real punji stakes. And a lot of barbed wire.
I value your support on Patreon.
After a player died from being hit by a pitch in 1920, Major League Baseball banned the "spitball." But it allowed 17 players whose careers were determined to be dependent on it to continue throwing it. A century later, baseball is still dealing with what it now calls the "foreign substances" issue.
The physics and history of baseball's dirtiest pitch, plus a guy named Urban Shocker.
I value your support on Patreon.
In the late Sixties through the Seventies, John Brisker was widely known as the meanest, toughest man in professional basketball. After winning ABA titles in Pittsburgh and punching his way through a few tumultuous seasons with the Supersonics of the NBA, John Brisker visited Africa, came back to the US, told his friends he was off to Africa again, and disappeared without a trace. Theories of what happened to him abound. The most widely accepted involves Idi Amin.
I value your support on Patreon.
Guest: Jen Howard (@JenHoward) author of Clutter: an Untidy History on Belt Publishing. Her book looks at the social, economic, and political causes of our addiction to Stuff, and our talk ranges from Marie Kondo to the Container Store to the Montgomery Ward Outlet. Why do we have all this crap and what is the right thing to do about it? It's not as simple as "throw everything out."
The cocktail of the month isn't a cocktail, it's a short dive into Triple Sec (not literally).
A truncated mailbag without Question Cathy will be followed shortly on Patreon (because capitalism) with a full mailbag.
Please support Mass for Shut-ins, an independent and ad-free podcast, via Patreon. Contact me via Facebook, Twitter (@edburmila), or the venerable website Gin and Tacos.
Thanks: Jen Howard, the bands that contribute music (Waxeater, IfIHadAHiFi, The Sump Pumps, Oscar Bait), Zachary Sielaff, Question Cathy, and all Patreon supporters, subscribers, and listeners.
What if I told you that right now you can get a new car very nearly for free? Sounds like a scam, right? Well thanks to Hydrogen Fuel Cells, the Technology of the Future of 2002, you can. With some caveats.
Crazy, right? Now what if I also told you this isn't the first time Americans have had the opportunity to get a brand new car for free? That part of the story takes to a place called ... Kragujevac.
I value your support on Patreon.
Agatha Christie's two most popular characters - Poirot and Marple - can only exist and make sense in a universe in which the police simply cannot solve crimes. If they could, why would they need a weird Belgian private detective or a random old lady to do it for them?
To understand why this was so plausible to Christie and to her contemporary readers, the story of Christie's own "disappearance" in 1926 emphasizes just how inept the police really were in her day. Even being given the answer didn't help them solve this big mystery.
I value your support on Patreon.
Guest: David Parsons (@davidlparsons) from the excellent history podcast Nostalgia Trap joins me to discuss Gerald Ford's disastrous rollout of a nationwide vaccination program in 1976 to combat a swine flu pandemic that didn't materialize. Vaccine recipients developed Guillain-Barre Syndrome, which is sometimes fatal, at a rate 8.8 times higher than the unvaccinated, making this event the foundation of the modern American anti-vax movement. But a closer look reveals that those numbers may not be what they seem, and certainly not what anti-vaxxers use them to mean.
Despite our interest in this poorly-remembered historical event, neither David nor your host endorse any vaccine-related conspiracies, and encourage you to do as we are doing: getting the COVID vaccine at the earliest opportunity.
The cocktail of the month is the Typhoid Mary. Has history been unkind to her? Yes, but it turns out she really was kind of a dick.
Question Cathy returns with the mailbag, where we cover the 9th Amendment, Biden's first month, and Wegman's.
Please support Mass for Shut-ins, an independent and ad-free podcast, via Patreon. Contact me via Facebook, Twitter (@edburmila), or the venerable website Gin and Tacos.
Thanks: David Parsons, the bands that contribute music (Waxeater, IfIHadAHiFi, The Sump Pumps, Oscar Bait), Zachary Sielaff, Question Cathy, and all Patreon supporters, subscribers, and listeners.
In 1996 a loutish young Briton got drunk and, on a lark, asked a tiny island nation if he could be their poet laureate. Mind you, the nation has no poet laureate and doesn't really do European-style poetry at all. That's ok, he doesn't know how to write poetry anyway.
So the government of Kiribati said yes, and then, his bluff called, the young man said yes, and then hilarity ensued.
Inspired by America's recent fascination with former National Youth Poet Laureate Amanda Gorman, who is also the only poet I know by name right now.
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Guest: Mike Konczal (@rortybomb) returns with his new book, Freedom from the Market. We take a look at all the great things government used to (or could) do a pretty good job of providing for Americans but no longer does because we've turned them over to The Free Market, which isn't well-suited to provide them at all. It's a great blueprint for a better world, and we talk about where the political will to do it might come from.
A full unedited version of my chat with Mike is available on Patreon, because capitalism.
Please support Mass for Shut-ins, an independent and ad-free podcast, via Patreon. Contact me via Facebook, Twitter (@edburmila), or the venerable website Gin and Tacos.
Thanks: Mike Konczal, the bands that contribute music (Waxeater, IfIHadAHiFi, The Sump Pumps, Oscar Bait), Zachary Sielaff, Question Cathy, and all Patreon supporters, subscribers, and listeners.
"A Visit from St. Nicholas" standardized many parts of the Santa Claus story, but one key element of the story bridged a gap between Protestants and Catholics - as well as opening the door for the cultural, secular embrace of Christmas in the U.S.
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I never promised you a Rose Garden, but I can give you a short primer on the how, what, and why of pardons before delving into the murky waters of what Trump does and does not have the power to do for himself and his felonious hangers-on.
Can he pardon himself? Can he pardon people for crimes they haven't even been charged with yet? Why does the pardon power exist at all? 10 minutes of your time will answer all.
I value your support on Patreon.
Question Cathy joins me for the post-election tradition of an all-mailbag episode devoted to listener-submitted questions. A partial list of topics covered here: Electoral College reform, rogue state legislatures, the census / redistricting, Trumpian antics, and more. We also dress the dog, and accidentally do a Ritz Crackers product placement.
Please support Mass for Shut-ins, an independent and ad-free podcast, via Patreon. Contact me via Facebook, Twitter (@edburmila), or the venerable website Gin and Tacos.
Thanks: Tom Sexton and all the Trillbillies, the bands that contribute music (Waxeater, IfIHadAHiFi, The Sump Pumps, Oscar Bait), Zachary Sielaff, Question Cathy, and all Patreon supporters, subscribers, and listeners.
Question Cathy joins me for the post-election tradition of an all-mailbag episode devoted to listener-submitted questions. A partial list of topics covered here: Electoral College reform, rogue state legislatures, the census / redistricting, Trumpian antics, and more. We also dress the dog, and accidentally do a Ritz Crackers product placement.
Please support Mass for Shut-ins, an independent and ad-free podcast, via Patreon. Contact me via Facebook, Twitter (@edburmila), or the venerable website Gin and Tacos.
Thanks: Tom Sexton and all the Trillbillies, the bands that contribute music (Waxeater, IfIHadAHiFi, The Sump Pumps, Oscar Bait), Zachary Sielaff, Question Cathy, and all Patreon supporters, subscribers, and listeners.
At the peak of the Great Depression, one nation sent its athletes to the 1932 Olympics on a coffee freighter with instructions to barter and beg their way to Los Angeles. Even though coffee was a worthless commodity in 1932.
Fuel? Canal tolls? Immigration fees? Money for food and lodging? No, they didn't have any of that. What they did have was coffee - AND THE HUMAN SPIRIT. This is their story.
Bonus: a Hungarian water polo referee is senselessly beaten.
I value your support on Patreon.
In 1973 a low-ranking US Air Force officer training to work in a Minuteman missile silo asks, "How do I know that the launch order I receive comes from a president who is sane?"
Good question, Harold Hering! The Air Force had no good answer, and Hering's career came to a screeching halt.
I take a deep dive into what exactly presidents can and can't do with nuclear weapons and why I, in a rare moment of optimism, ultimately believe an unbalanced Trump could not start firing off nukes in a fit of anger. 18 minutes on a topic I could talk about forever, but decided to do only the interesting parts.
I value your support on Patreon.
As the GOP is set to lock in a conservative supermajority on the Supreme Court, court-packing is re-entering the political conversation. This is the story of the original "court packing scheme" attempted by FDR in 1937 after several key components of the New Deal had been struck down by the highest court. Believe it or not, it all began not with a landmark decision but with a mundane piece of legislation designed to save money by reducing pensions.
Unlike most minicasts, this is topical (to the release date, anyway).
Minicasts are short stories for fans of quick, to-the-point podcasts and as a nice change of pace from the longer full episodes of Mass for Shut-ins.
I value your support on Patreon.
Guest: Thomas Gokey of The Debt Collective (@StrikeDebt) joins me to talk about their new book Can't Pay Won't Pay, coming out in September from Haymarket Books. We talk about the ways that people can take on debt collectively to give themselves power - and choices - they don't have as individuals. And Thomas pulps a bunch of money and tries to sell it.
The story is a coda to the Greek Debt Crisis of 2008-?? starring the Clintons' son-in-law. We all learn a valuable lesson about how differently the well-born experience debt from the rest of us who have to live in fear of it.
The cocktail of the month is the Money Maker. It's probably good there isn't a cocktail with a debt-themed name.
Question Cathy returns with the mailbag.
Please support Mass for Shut-ins, an independent and ad-free podcast, via Patreon. Contact me via Facebook, Twitter (@edburmila), or the venerable website Gin and Tacos.
Thanks: the Debt Collective, the bands that contribute music (Waxeater, IfIHadAHiFi, The Sump Pumps, Oscar Bait), Zachary Sielaff, Question Cathy, and all Patreon supporters, subscribers, and listeners.
Albania emerged from one-party rule under Enver Hoxha as the poorest and most backward Eastern European state. Hoxha bequeathed Albanians 700,000 concrete pillbox forts and a complete lack of familiarity with even the basics of a cash economy.
Inexperienced in the ways of capitalism, Albanians didn't realize 100% monthly interest on a bank deposit is a red flag. So in 1996 the entire country fell into a mania for investments that turned out to be pyramid schemes. When I say the whole country I mean 2/3 of the GDP of Albania. 95%+ of all adults invested everything, then sold their homes and farms to invest more.
Minicasts are short stories for fans of quick, to-the-point podcasts and as a nice change of pace from the longer full episodes of Mass for Shut-ins.
I value your support on Patreon.
Guest: Tom Sexton (@TomSexton) of The Trillbilly Workers Party (@thetrillbillies) joins me to talk about the Amy McGrath - Charles Booker primary race in Kentucky, the uncharismatic void that is Chuck Schumer, and the video Ted Turner made for the end of the world.
The "cocktail" of the month returns with the gin radler, which is not really a cocktail but needs to be a part of any good hot weather self-care routine.
Question Cathy returns with the mailbag.
Please support Mass for Shut-ins, an independent and ad-free podcast, via Patreon. Contact me via Facebook, Twitter (@edburmila), or the venerable website Gin and Tacos.
Thanks: Tom Sexton and all the Trillbillies, the bands that contribute music (Waxeater, IfIHadAHiFi, The Sump Pumps, Oscar Bait), Zachary Sielaff, Question Cathy, and all Patreon supporters, subscribers, and listeners.
In 1918 Emmanuel Haldeman-Julius and his wife Marcet, editors of a moribund socialist newspaper, pursued their populist vision to bring education to the working classes in the form of cheap, widely available, high quality reading material. The result was the Little Blue Books that took the US by storm in the 1920s, a series of almost 2000 titles on a grab-bag of topics, everything from classic literature, academic debates, philosophy, religion, and how-to. For $1 a person could get Dante, Clarence Darrow on atheism, W.E.B. duBois on race relations, socialist theory, factual information about STDs and Birth Control, "How to play Stud Poker," and "Best Lawyer Jokes of 1928." In an information-starved age, Haldeman-Julius's pocket-sized 5 cent booklets were a smash, with over half a BILLION printed and sold.
Little Blue Books educated and entertained millions of people with information and literature they would not otherwise have had easy access to. This, as the kids say, was praxis.
Minicasts are short stories for fans of quick, to-the-point podcasts and as a nice change of pace from the longer full episodes of Mass for Shut-ins. Get full episodes on Stitcher, Apple Music, Spotify, and more.
I value your support on Patreon.
Guest: Financial policy guru Mike Konczal (@rortybomb) explains what should be happening in response to the economic crisis, what is happening, and why those two are different. We cover unemployment, policy coming out of Congress, what decision-makers just aren't getting about this crisis, and how we both had childhood vacations in Florida that turned out to be nightmares.
Question Cathy returns with the mailbag.
Please support Mass for Shut-ins, an independent and ad-free podcast, via Patreon. Contact me via Facebook, Twitter (@edburmila), or the venerable website Gin and Tacos.
Thanks: Mike Konczal, all the bands that contribute music (Waxeater, IfIHadAHiFi, The Sump Pumps, Oscar Bait), Zachary Sielaff, Question Cathy, and all Patreon supporters, subscribers, and listeners.
Between 1850 and 1900 it was all the rage for rich, roguish Americans to form private armies to invade and conquer countries in Latin America and the Caribbean. These men were called "Filibusteros" and the most prolific was William Walker, who led invasions of three different countries in an effort to add new slave-holding territories to the U.S. and alter the balance of power toward the South.
This minicast references two previous episodes, the linguistic history of "Filibuster" and how the Nicaragua Canal became the Panama Canal.
Minicasts are short stories for fans of quick, to-the-point podcasts and as a nice change of pace from the longer full episodes of Mass for Shut-ins. Get full episodes on Stitcher, Apple Music, Spotify, and more.
I value your support on Patreon.
A pair of artists use a large market research survey to find out what people say they like least in music and, with their neuroscientist friend, set out to create the worst possible song. Featuring an opera soprano rapping about Wittgenstein, and a chorus of children singing about Yom Kippur at Walmart.
Did they succeed in making the worst song? Let's put it this way: It isn't good.
The full song is available here. Check out the series of paintings "Most / Least Wanted" by Komar & Melamid.
Minicasts are short stories for fans of quick, to-the-point podcasts and as a nice change of pace from the longer full episodes of Mass for Shut-ins. Get full episodes on Stitcher, Apple Music, Spotify, and more.
I value your support on Patreon.
In 1982 an eccentric, paranoid coal baron from Frog Level, VA wanted to buy a remote island to get away from Communists, taxes, and Freudian psychoanalysts. He chooses one of the Pitcairn Islands (of Mutiny on the Bounty fame) and proceeds to try to buy it from the UK, of which it is a colony.
And here's the thing: they almost said yes. They wanted to say yes.
A real-life version of Boss Hogg came THIS CLOSE to building a mansion on a remote island where he could spend the rest of his life watching cowboy movies without being bothered by Communists.
One of my favorite stories, with a little something for everyone.
Please support Mass for Shut-ins, an independent and ad-free podcast, via Patreon. Contact me via Facebook, Twitter (@edburmila), or the venerable website Gin and Tacos.
Story: Three Men in a Can - Voskhod 1. The USSR beats the USA to the feat of sending a three-person crew into space by pointing at its one-man spacecraft and telling three guys "Get in there." A story (with a happy ending!) about claustrophobia as we are all starting to feel a bit cooped up from sheltering in place.
Guest: Dr. Samantha Montano, who holds a Ph.D. in emergency management, discusses the responses to COVID-19 in the US, while I fret about her heartrate getting too high from watching the White House botch this. She offers some really great insights about the nature of preparedness and...well, why we weren't prepared.
Cocktail of the month: Penicillin. Appropriate for a pandemic. YES, I know antibiotics do not work on a virus. It's thematic, in spirit.
Question Cathy returns with the mailbag.
Please support Mass for Shut-ins, an independent and ad-free podcast, via Patreon. Contact me via Facebook, Twitter (@edburmila), or the venerable website Gin and Tacos.
Thanks: Dr. Montano, all the bands that contribute music (Waxeater, IfIHadAHiFi, The Sump Pumps, Oscar Bait), Zachary Sielaff, Question Cathy, and all Patreon supporters, subscribers, and listeners.
The origin story of those flaming bottles we all know and love. Nothing says "Take that, The Man!" like the imagery of someone in a mask lobbing a Molotov. Today it's an anti-authoritarian gesture, but it started as (checks notes) a Finnish tank-killer. In one of the least-remembered conflicts of the 20th Century, the Soviet-Finnish Winter War of 1939.
Minicasts are short stories for fans of quick, to-the-point podcasts and as a nice change of pace from the longer full episodes of Mass for Shut-ins. Get full episodes on Stitcher, Apple Music, Spotify, and more.
Patreon.com/ginandtacos
Story: One of my favorite phenomena in demographic data...the harvesting effect. What I learned from a heat wave in Chicago in 1995, and how it applies to the current coronavirus outbreak. Mortality data can simultaneously be accurate and misleading.
Guest: Mike Pearl (@MikeLeePearl), author of the Vice column "How scared should I be?" and of the new book The Day it Finally Happens. We talk about existential threats to life on Earth like antibiotic resistance as well as more prosaic phenomena like crosswalks and whether Jurassic Park is scientifically accurate. Where Mike is involved, life finds a way.
Cocktail of the month: The Four Horsemen. Truly a drink for the apocalypse, as you stare down the planet-killer comet heading for Earth.
Question Cathy returns with the mailbag.
Please support Mass for Shut-ins, an independent and ad-free podcast, via Patreon. Contact me via Facebook, Twitter (@gin_and_tacos), or the venerable website Gin and Tacos.
Thanks: Mike Pearl, all the bands that contribute music (Waxeater, IfIHadAHiFi, The Sump Pumps, Oscar Bait), Zachary Sielaff, Question Cathy, and all Patreon supporters, subscribers, and listeners.
Guest: Adam Johnson (@adamjohnsonNYC) is the cohost of Citations Needed, an outstanding podcast on the media and political communication. He joins me to talk about the unfolding situation in Iran and how it rekindles some of the biggest problems with media coverage of the Iraq War run-up, like the exclusion of anti-war voices in "debates" that boil down to both sides agreeing that war is awesome and disagreeing on the details.
Question Cathy returns with the (live!) mailbag.
Please support Mass for Shut-ins, an independent and ad-free podcast, via Patreon. Contact me via Facebook, Twitter (@edburmila), or the venerable website Gin and Tacos.
Thanks: Adam Johnson (for doing this on short notice), all the bands that contribute music (Waxeater, IfIHadAHiFi, The Sump Pumps, Oscar Bait), Zachary Sielaff, Question Cathy, and all Patreon supporters, subscribers, and listeners.
The 2nd annual All-Mailbag Episode. Question Cathy and I tackle ranked-choice voting & instant runoff voting, whether the primaries are too nasty, how to put your time to the best use in the election, climate change, Brexit, and whether the hot dog counts as a sandwich (hint: it does, and I'm sorry).
Please support Mass for Shut-ins, an independent and ad-free podcast, via Patreon. Contact me via Facebook, Twitter (@edburmila), or the venerable website Gin and Tacos.
Thanks: QC, all the bands that contribute music (Waxeater, IfIHadAHiFi, The Sump Pumps, Oscar Bait), Zachary Sielaff, Question Cathy, and all Patreon supporters, subscribers, and listeners.
If you need more encouragement to listen to a story about the Lewis & Clark expedition shitting poisonous heavy metals all over the continent and how science has exploited that to generate useful historical data, I don't know what to tell you.
Minicasts are short stories for fans of quick, to-the-point podcasts and as a nice change of pace from the longer full episodes of Mass for Shut-ins. Get full episodes on Stitcher, Apple Music, Spotify, and more.
Patreon.com/ginandtacos
An underemployed draftsman named Harry Beck looked at the original London Underground map, realized it was crap, and set himself the task of creating a better one. By ignoring one of the cardinal rules of mapmaking he showed how to make transit maps better and easier to use.
Minicasts are short stories for fans of quick, to-the-point podcasts and as a nice change of pace from the longer full episodes of Mass for Shut-ins. Get full episodes on Stitcher, Apple Music, Spotify, and more.
In 1946, post-war Britain tries to solve four very different problems at once: a labor surplus of returning military, a shortage of key foods, the need to make colonies economically independent, and a dignified way to draw down the Empire. The scheme they came up with is ... incredible. That is to say, you will not find it credible.
Tanzania. 3 million acres of rock-hard clay soil. It just screams "Let's grow peanuts there!" doesn't it.
A tale of overconfidence, bureaucratic overkill, paternalist attitudes, man vs. nature miscalculations, and the unwavering belief that white Europeans with a lot of education could solve anything given an unlimited budget.
Four years, a billion pounds (!!!), and the project managed to use more peanuts than it grew. They made negative peanuts.
Please support Mass for Shut-ins, an independent and ad-free podcast, via Patreon. Contact me via Facebook, Twitter (@gin_and_tacos), or the venerable website Gin and Tacos.
Thanks: Seth Wilson, all the bands that contribute music (Waxeater, IfIHadAHiFi, The Sump Pumps, Oscar Bait), Zachary Sielaff, Question Cathy, and all Patreon supporters, subscribers, and listeners.
Walking around the countryside ("rambling") is very important to the British, and they don't take kindly to the idea that unoccupied land is off-limits to walkers.
The so-called Right to Roam, even on privately owned land, is the direct result of ... direct action. In 1932 a group of walking enthusiasts / Communists in Manchester engaged in mass civil disobedience by walking across the Duke of Devonshire's land at a spot called Kinder Scout. They won. 20 years later, that spot became the first UK national park (Peak District).
An inspiring story of collective action and the public good.
Minicasts are short stories for fans of quick, to-the-point podcasts and as a nice change of pace from the longer full episodes of Mass for Shut-ins. Get full episodes on Stitcher, Apple Music, Spotify, and more.
Story: Why does the President, and only the President, require natural born citizenship in the Constitution? If you think you know why, you're likely only half-correct. It has a lot to do with the way the document's authors understood the history of politics in monarchies.
Guest: Astra Taylor (@astradisastra) is a documentarian and author whose recent book, Democracy May Not Exist, But We'll Miss It When It's Gone, and film, What is Democracy?, have both received great critical acclaim. We talk about what democracy means, how people can carve out the time to think about such theoretical issues, and why I'm disappointed that she isn't a Frederick Wiseman fan.
Cocktail of the month: El Presidente, plus a look at blue curacao.
Question Cathy returns with the mailbag.
Please support Mass for Shut-ins, an independent and ad-free podcast, via Patreon. Contact me via Facebook, Twitter (@gin_and_tacos), or the venerable website Gin and Tacos.
Thanks: Astra Taylor, all the bands that contribute music (Waxeater, IfIHadAHiFi, The Sump Pumps, Oscar Bait), Zachary Sielaff, Question Cathy, and all Patreon supporters, subscribers, and listeners.
Flying was luxurious (and costly) before 1977. Then deregulation happened. Now flying is cheap and bad. Pioneering low-cost / no-frills airlines like People Express showed us the way.
In its short life (1981-1987) People Express introduced many lamentable aspects to U.S. air travel: paying to check bags, exchanging comfort for low prices, and going to Newark for some reason. And wait until you hear about their "innovative" ticketing procedure.
As Homer Simpson said, it introduced a generation of hicks to air travel. The hicks were all of us, it turns out. Because People Express failed, but today the whole industry operates on its business model.
Minicasts are short stories for fans of quick, to-the-point podcasts and as a nice change of pace from the longer full episodes of Mass for Shut-ins. Get full episodes on Stitcher, Apple Music, Spotify, and more.
A 90,000-seat stadium is built to host a single event, then torn down. And it was in, of all places, Toledo, Ohio.
In 1919 boxing was the king of the sports and entertainment world, and a match between two household names - Jack Dempsey and the little-remembered Jess Willard - was such a big event that its promoter could afford to build a stadium and use it like a Kleenex. In honor of the 100th anniversary of the fight, here's the whole improbable story. Enjoyment of sports is not required for this one.
Minicasts are short stories for fans of quick, to-the-point podcasts and as a nice change of pace from the longer full episodes of Mass for Shut-ins. Get full episodes on Stitcher, Apple Music, Spotify, and more.
Story: Today's new cars are crammed full of tech to compensate for unusually poor rear and blind spot visibility. They've also gotten much heavier since 2000 - and more dangerous to for pedestrians. All of these are unintended consequences of regulatory changes in the auto industry after the Firestone Tires / SUV rollover debacle of the late 90s. I tie all those threads together for you.
Guest: Amanda Litman (@amandalitman) co-founder of Run for Something. We talk about how people like you are running for (and winning) elected office, and why that's so important right now. I ask rhetorical questions like, why isn't the DNC throwing money at Run for Something (@runforsomething) to do the kind of local candidate recruitment it desperately needs. If you've thought about running, go take a look.
Cocktail of the month: Rum Runner
Question Cathy returns with the mailbag.
Note on terminology for the story: here's an illustration of A, B, and C pillars on a car.
Please support Mass for Shut-ins, an independent and ad-free podcast, via Patreon. Contact me via Facebook, Twitter (@gin_and_tacos), or the venerable website Gin and Tacos.
Thanks: Amanda Litman, all the bands that contribute music (Waxeater, IfIHadAHiFi, The Sump Pumps, Oscar Bait), Zachary Sielaff, Question Cathy, and all Patreon supporters, subscribers, and listeners.
After World War I, German utopian pacifist architect Herman Sörgel proposed a scheme to keep European nations busy (and not fighting wars!) for 100 years by damming the Strait of Gibraltar, the Dardanelles, and the Strait of Sicily. This would produce enormous amounts of hydroelectricity AND lower the Mediterranean Sea by over 600 feet. That would connect Africa and Europe into one supercontinent with thousands of square miles of new dry land. No more need to fight about territory, Herman believed.
Atlantropa was surprisingly popular and well-known during the Interwar period - and believe it or not, it is technically feasible. It would just be staggeringly expensive and, as Sörgel predicted, require decades of cooperative effort.
See what the Mediterranean might look like if Atlantropa were real.
Minicasts are short (approx. 5-8 min) stories for fans of quick, to-the-point podcasts and as a nice change of pace from the longer full episodes of Mass for Shut-ins.
Two police forces. Two sets of laws. Two postal systems. Two kinds of money. For 74 years the UK and France governed the island colony of the New Hebrides (since 1980, the independent nation of Vanuatu featured on Season 9 of Survivor) under a bizarre condominium arrangement. The islands were governed by the respective nations, with totally different laws and bureaucracies, on alternating days. And if you had a complaint, you appealed to...the king of Spain. Read that all again.
The New Hebrides flag was a flag of the UK and French flags. If your flag is the flags of two other countries, something is wrong.
How did this last for 74 years? The power of bureaucracy and indifference! Since independence the nation has faced some challenges we discuss here, but we're rooting for Vanuatu.
Please support Mass for Shut-ins, an independent and ad-free podcast, via Patreon. Contact me via Facebook, Twitter (@gin_and_tacos), or the venerable website Gin and Tacos.
Thanks: Seth Wilson, all the bands that contribute music (Waxeater, IfIHadAHiFi, The Sump Pumps, Oscar Bait), Zachary Sielaff, Question Cathy, and all Patreon supporters, subscribers, and listeners.
In a life-or-death situation, would you engage in cannibalism? What do people even taste like?
In 1931, journalist and author William Seabrook wrote a book in which he answers that question for you...which is both extremely kind of him (so you don't have to find out on your own) and really gross and weird.
One hint: People taste like another thing we shouldn't be eating.
Minicasts are short (approx. 5-8 min) stories for fans of quick, to-the-point podcasts and as a nice change of pace from the longer full episodes of Mass for Shut-ins.
Story: Diamond Jim Brady's Million Dollar Sauce. Famous gourmand and eccentric rich person of the Gilded Age goes to ludicrous lengths to steal the recipe for what is purported to be the world's most delicious sauce for Filet of Sole. How far would you go to satisfy a food craving? Spoiler alert - you wouldn't go as far as Diamond Jim.
Guest: Amanda Kolson Hurley, author of the new book Radical Suburbs. We talk about what makes some suburbs interesting and why most of them aren't. Fans of urban planning, architecture, and America's vast range of issues with affordable and sustainable housing will find Amanda and her book fascinating. Extended version of the interview available on Patreon.
Cocktail of the month: The Suburban
Question Cathy returns with a special Patreon-only mailbag.
Please support Mass for Shut-ins, an independent and ad-free podcast, via Patreon. Contact me via Facebook, Twitter (@gin_and_tacos), or the venerable website Gin and Tacos.
Thanks: Amanda Kolson Hurley, all the bands that contribute music (Waxeater, IfIHadAHiFi, The Sump Pumps, Oscar Bait), Zachary Sielaff, Question Cathy, and all Patreon supporters, subscribers, and listeners.
If you've ever wondered, "Is it possible to guarantee winning the lottery by buying one ticket for every possible combination of numbers?" this is the Minicast for you.
Does it work? Is it legal? Is it even POSSIBLE to do? You're about to find out.
Minicasts are short (approx. 5-8 min) stories for fans of quick, to-the-point podcasts and as a nice change of pace from the longer full episodes of Mass for Shut-ins.
Guest: Dr. Daniel Immerwahr, associate professor of history at Northwestern University and author of the new "How to Hide an Empire: the history of the greater United States." We talk about the many ways in which America has maintained (and still maintains) an empire through territorial occupation, a network of military bases fanned out across the globe, and domination of international standards. Tales of various Guano Islands Act (1856) possessions are told, and you don't want to miss them. Extended version of the interview available on Patreon.
Cocktail of the month: Suffering Bastard
Question Cathy returns with a special Patreon-only mailbag.
Please support Mass for Shut-ins, an independent and ad-free podcast, via Patreon. Contact me via Facebook, Twitter (@gin_and_tacos), or the venerable website Gin and Tacos.
Thanks: Dr. Immerwahr, all the bands that contribute music (Waxeater, IfIHadAHiFi, The Sump Pumps, Oscar Bait), Zachary Sielaff, Question Cathy, and all Patreon supporters, subscribers, and listeners.
Fish are served as fish. Chickens as chicken. Turkeys as turkey. But when it comes to other commonly consumed animals in the English-speaking world we use different words for the animal and the food. Cows, pigs, sheep, and deer become beef, pork, mutton, and venison.
Why? Well, it starts with the Norman conquest of England in 1066 and has to do with social class divisions between speakers of Old English and Anglo-Norman (the predecessor of modern French).
You'll never look at the meat department the same way again.
Minicasts are short (approx. 5 min) stories for fans of quick, to-the-point podcasts and as a nice change of pace from the longer full episodes of Mass for Shut-ins.
A young Long Island housewife named Penelope Ashe saw her debut novel, Naked Came the Stranger, go straight to the best-seller list despite the mystery surrounding its reclusive author, its racy content, and its little-known publisher.
It pushed the limits of what "obscenity" meant in 1969. But gratuitous sex scenes aside, Penelope Ashe had an even bigger secret...
Minicasts are short (approx. 5 min) stories for fans of quick, to-the-point podcasts and as a nice change of pace from the longer full episodes of Mass for Shut-ins.
Guest: Dr. Rebekah Tromble (Leiden University), professor of political communication, led a team chosen by Twitter to conduct research on overall "health" of conversation on the platform. As soon as the company announced its plan to sponsor research, right-wingers flipped out and began a campaign of threats and harassment aimed largely at Rebekah. Six months later, her life is (mostly) back to normal and the research is moving ahead as planned. This is a fascinating story about how becoming a target of a coordinated online harassment effort is so much worse and more overwhelming than we imagine.
Question Cathy returns with the mailbag.
Please support Mass for Shut-ins, an independent and ad-free podcast, via Patreon. Contact me via Facebook, Twitter (@gin_and_tacos), or the venerable website Gin and Tacos.
Thanks: Dr. Tromble, all the bands that contribute music (Waxeater, IfIHadAHiFi, The Sump Pumps, Oscar Bait), Zachary Sielaff, Question Cathy, and all Patreon supporters, subscribers, and listeners.
Story: Andrew Johnson gets incredibly drunk at his inauguration and makes a scene you'll have to hear about to believe. He calls out every member of the Cabinet by name (Wu-Tang style), makes up his own oath of office, and nearly drives his colleagues to weep from shame. And he owed it all to Civil War-era medicine's inability to treat serious illness except with Patent Medicines (i.e., alcohol, opium, or alcohol with opium)
Guest: Dr. Stephen Pettigrew, Senior Analyst on the NBC News decision team. He's one of the people who decides when races are "called" by the network on election night. He gives us a fascinating look behind that curtain, and there's some great insight about the challenges posed by alternative voting methods like mail-in ballots.
Cocktail of the Month: Doctor Chase's Soothing Cordial. In the spirit (pun intended) of the Johnson story, I found the recipe for a Civil War era patent medicine. I'll give you one hint: the first ingredient is opium. Like, just a big piece of opium.
Question Cathy returns with the mailbag.
Please support Mass for Shut-ins, an independent and ad-free podcast, via Patreon. Contact me via Facebook, Twitter (@gin_and_tacos), or the venerable website Gin and Tacos. Brand new seriously kick-ass t-shirts are available. Buy one why don't ya.
Thanks: Dr. Pettigrew, all the bands that contribute music (Waxeater, IfIHadAHiFi, The Sump Pumps, Oscar Bait), Zachary Sielaff, Question Cathy, and all Patreon supporters, subscribers, and listeners.
Ms. Julia Chase, 53, of Hagerstown, MD took the White House public tour on April 3, 1956. She wandered away from her group and spent two hours creeping around the Executive Manson...starting fires. Five in total.
You won't believe what happened next (teaser).
Minicasts are short (approx. 5 min) stories for fans of quick, to-the-point podcasts and as a nice change of pace from the longer full episodes of Mass for Shut-ins.
Story: Shakespeare Comes to America - How was a minor American industrialist, Henry Clay Folger, able to buy up so much of Shakespeare that more of Ol' William's written output is now in Washington DC than in all of England? It's a tale of an agricultural depression and the decline of the British aristocracy. You know, Downton Abbey style. The Brits needed money. American robber barons had it. Suddenly, every piece of Europe's culture was for sale at the right price.
Guest: Leeman Kessler, an ordinary dude who ran for local office in his town of Gambier, OH and won. We talk about how other ordinary people, SUCH AS YOU, can run for local office. If you've ever thought about it, Leeman proves definitively that you have nothing to be afraid of. And if you think you're not up to the job, dismiss that nonsense right now. Tons of people WAY dumber than you hold local office. Learn more about Leeman, who also has a podcast, at his website. He does an HP Lovecraft impression (non-racist) and, for the second straight episode, drainage comes up.
Cocktail of the Month: Sloe Gin Fizz. What is sloe gin? Well. It's gin steeped with sloes. So. OK what's a sloe? Well you're about to find out.
Question Cathy is off and a special guest, Question Isaac (age 10) joins me for a modified version of the mailbag.
Support Mass for Shut-ins via Patreon. Contact me via Facebook, Twitter (@gin_and_tacos), or the venerable website Gin and Tacos. Brand new seriously kick-ass t-shirts are available. Buy one why don't ya.
Thanks: Leeman Kessler, Isaac Moore, all the bands that contribute music (Waxeater, IfIHadAHiFi, The Sump Pumps, Oscar Bait), Zachary Sielaff, Question Cathy, and all Patreon supporters, subscribers, and listeners.
During the Cold War, the Pentagon tried to come up with a non-military use for nuclear warheads to justify building even more of them. Project Plowshare was one of the results. Because detonating nukes underground to help mine natural gas is...a thing that could not go obviously and terribly wrong.
Yeah fracking is bad. But fracking could have been so much worse.
Minicasts are short (approx. 5 min) stories for fans of quick, to-the-point podcasts and as a nice change of pace from the longer full episodes of Mass for Shut-ins.
Question Cathy joins me for an entire episode of user submitted questions about the midterm election. Topics we cover include Beto-mania, the Democrats' challenge in retaking the Senate, alternative voting methods, and the risks of political hobbyism (and the best ways to get involved if you can).
Episode 012 (forthcoming) will return to the normal format shortly. If you're dying for a story, check out Episode 010 or the recent Minicasts.
Support Mass for Shut-ins via Patreon. Contact me via Facebook, Twitter (@gin_and_tacos), or the venerable website Gin and Tacos. Brand new seriously kick-ass t-shirts are available. Buy one why don't ya.
Thanks: all the bands that contribute music (Waxeater, IfIHadAHiFi, The Sump Pumps, Oscar Bait), Zachary Sielaff, Question Cathy, and all Patreon supporters, subscribers, and listeners.
Story: Ten Cent Beer Night - In 1974 the Cleveland Indians turned to the forbidden fruit of promo giveaways to cure their ailing attendance. Results are predictable, except the part where a guy was nearly killed with a gallon jug of Thunderbird. That surprised everyone. They played the Texas Rangers that night, but their real opponent was human nature.
Guests: This is a shortened episode (story only) because Question Cathy and I will be back with Episode 011 very shortly. It will be a special episode with nothing but your questions from the mailbag. Submit a question on patreon, Twitter, or Facebook.
Support Mass for Shut-ins via Patreon. Contact me via Facebook, Twitter (@gin_and_tacos), or the venerable website Gin and Tacos. Brand new seriously kick-ass t-shirts are available. Buy one why don't ya.
Thanks: All the bands that contribute music (Waxeater, IfIHadAHiFi, The Sump Pumps, Oscar Bait), Zachary Sielaff, Question Cathy, and all Patreon supporters, subscribers, and listeners.
Story: The Disappearing Prime Minister - Australia is a crazy place. It's huge, empty, and full of things that can kill you. And every once in a while one of their Prime Ministers will disappear without a trace. Not figuratively, either.
Guests: Mike Bridavsky, owner / engineer of Russian Recording, member of Memory Map, and LIL BUB's (@IAMLILBUB) human dude. Yes, the same BUB who became a darling to millions as a famous Internet Cat. Bub raises $100k annually, and over a half-million dollars total so far, for charities like Lil Bub's Big Fund for the ASPCA. BUB also delights fans and has lots of fun projects (including the pilot episode of a series Animal Planet canceled for being too weird) at lilbub.com
Cocktail of the Month: Genever. It's not a cocktail. It's an ancestor of gin that lurks in the shadows at well-stocked liquor stores, leading many a gin drinker to wonder what exactly it is. Take my hand. I will explain all.
Question Cathy returns with the mailbag.
Support Mass for Shut-ins via Patreon. Contact me via Facebook, Twitter (@gin_and_tacos), or the venerable website Gin and Tacos. Brand new seriously kick-ass t-shirts are available. Buy one why don't ya.
Thanks: Mike Bridavsky, Lil BUB, Liz Ladd, all the bands that contribute music (Waxeater, IfIHadAHiFi, The Sump Pumps, Oscar Bait), Zachary Sielaff, Question Cathy, and all Patreon supporters, subscribers, and listeners.
The President of the United States, a man who claims to possess unimaginable wealth, somehow cannot get a suit that fits him. Why? The reasons have more to do with his personality than you might think.
Minicasts are short (approx. 5 min) stories for fans of quick, to-the-point podcasts and as a nice change of pace from the longer full episodes of Mass for Shut-ins.
The filibuster has an interesting history in the U.S. Senate, but the term itself has an even more convoluted story. It involves, separately, both pirates AND mercenaries.
Minicasts are short (approx. 5 min) stories for fans of quick, to-the-point podcasts and as a nice change of pace from the longer full episodes of Mass for Shut-ins.
Story: Brother, have you seen my Vermeer? The crazy secret life of stolen art masterpieces. For more information on the Isabella Stewart Gardner heist covered in this podcast, check out Master Thieves by Steven Kurkjian. Or get a quick overview here.
Guests: Alyssa Bowen (@alyssaannbowen) UNC graduate student and anti-Silent Sam activist and Dr. Carolyn Holmes (@carolyneholmes) of Mississippi State University. For background on Silent Sam, here is a truncated history or follow Alyssa on Twitter. We recorded this interview the day before the statue was knocked down. I like to think we made it happen.
Cocktail of the Month: Negroni Blanc, in honor of the Maple Tree Inn recently destroyed by fire.
Question Cathy returns with the mailbag.
This episode contains a short clip of "Been Caught Stealing" by Jane's Addiction.
Support Mass for Shut-ins via Patreon. Contact me via Facebook, Twitter (@gin_and_tacos), or the venerable website Gin and Tacos. Brand new seriously kick-ass t-shirts are available. Buy one why don't ya.
Thanks: Dr. Carolyn Holmes, Alyssa Bowen, all the bands that contribute music (Waxeater, IfIHadAHiFi, The Sump Pumps, Oscar Bait), Zachary Sielaff, Question Cathy, and all Patreon supporters, subscribers, and listeners.
Most people under 50 only know Steve Allen, if at all, as the answer to the trivia question, "Who was the first host of the Tonight Show?" Those who remember his normie comedy stylings would hardly call him a genius. But I'm here to talk you through it.
Mass for Shut-ins Minicasts are ~5 minute stories to tide you over between full episodes, unless of course you don't like long podcasts. In that case, these are the perfect length for you.
Support Mass for Shut-ins on Patreon (patreon.com/ginandtacos) or find Ed on Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram as Gin and Tacos.
Story: THE MAN WHO SAVED THE WHALES - The true story of Abraham Gesner, the obscure Canadian geologist whose big discovery in 1846 made whaling unprofitable just as most whale species were on the brink of extinction.
Guest: Dr. Ari Kohen, professor of political theory at University of Nebraska - Lincoln, curator of TrumpWatch, co-founder of the Hero Roundtable, and author of Untangling Heroism. We talk about civility and maintaining one's sanity while trying to create a daily record of the Trump years.
Cocktail of the Month: the Americano. It's not a gin cocktail, but it's...gin adjacent. I expect angry feedback.
Will Alexander joins us to share his delightful recipe for sourdough bread.
Question Cathy returns for the mailbag.
This episode contains short clips of "Kerosene" by Big Black and "Flying Whales" by Gojira. You'll understand why that was necessary when you listen.
Support Mass for Shut-ins via Patreon. Contact me via Facebook, Twitter (@gin_and_tacos), or the venerable website Gin and Tacos. Brand new seriously kick-ass t-shirts are available. Buy one why don't ya.
Thanks: Ari Kohen and Will Alexander, all the bands that contribute music (Waxeater, IfIHadAHiFi, The Sump Pumps, Oscar Bait), Zachary Sielaff, Question Cathy, and all Patreon supporters, subscribers, and listeners.
A brief look at the ORIGINAL Mass for Shut-ins - not this podcast, but the 1962-1992 public service broadcast on WGN-TV out of Chicago.
I have discovered that the reference was not nearly as recognizable as I thought at first, so consider this an explainer if you've been curious what this seemingly random phrase means.
Mass for Shut-ins Minicasts are ~5 minute stories to tide you over between full episodes, unless of course you don't like long podcasts. In that case, these are the perfect length for you.
Support Mass for Shut-ins on Patreon (patreon.com/ginandtacos) or find Ed on Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram as Gin and Tacos.
Story: THE RED SQUARE PILOT - The true story of Mathias Rust, the German teen who took his tiny Cessna 172 and invaded the Soviet Union with it. Late Cold War hijinks. May have very slightly hastened the fall of the USSR.
Guest: Dr. Lisa Wade, author of best-selling textbook "Gender" and the popular press book "American Hookup" about the sex lives of college students. She founded the excellent blog Sociological Images and can be found @lisawade.
Cocktail of the Month: Bee's Knees. It turns out that when your gin was made in someone's barn you had to put a LOT of sugar and citrus in it to make it drinkable.
Topic: Stealth Voter Suppression. It's not all Voter ID laws - there are shadier, more low-key forms of voter suppression that YOU can do something about. Yes, you.
Support Mass for Shut-ins via Patreon. Contact me via Facebook, Twitter (@gin_and_tacos), or the venerable website Gin and Tacos. Brand new seriously kick-ass t-shirts are available. Buy one why don't ya.
Thanks: Dr. Timothy Rich, all the bands that contribute music (Waxeater, IfIHadAHiFi, The Sump Pumps, Oscar Bait), Zachary Sielaff, Question Cathy, and all Patreon supporters, subscribers, and listeners.
The terrifying tones of the Emergency Broadcast / Alert System are a lot more interesting than you think. And since you think they're not interesting at all, I have a very low bar to clear.
Minicasts will be in the area of 5 minutes, posted between episodes and without many bells and whistles (intro, music, etc) which is time consuming for me production-wise. They will be short, hopefully interesting, and unadorned. Just a quick story I feel like sharing.
These won't be posted on a regular schedule, but rather whenever the opportunity and mood strike me. Maybe monthly, maybe more?
Story: THE STAMP THAT MAILED A CANAL - How a 10-centavo Nicaraguan postage stamp turned the Nicaragua Canal into the Panama Canal in 1902. The tale combines all of your favorites: Gilded Age corrupt-af US congressional politics, comic-tragic Frenchmen, the Suez Canal, and hydrological engineering!
Guest: Dr. Timothy Rich, who studies the Korean Peninsula as well as Taiwan and...Nigerian email scams? We discuss the recent developments in ROK-DPRK peace talks, Kim's fears and logic, and how Tim got the entire lyrics to "Sexy Back" published in an academic journal. Follow him on Twitter @timothysrich
Cocktail of the Month: St. Christopher, the patron saint of gettin' you drunk this summer. Requires Aperol or equivalent, so add that to your shopping list to play along with this fun, easy recipe for a not-too-sweet summer drink. You get to mash cucumbers.
Episode contains a snippet, not licensed in any way, of the song "Panama" for educational and review purposes only.
Support Mass for Shut-ins via Patreon. Contact me via Facebook, Twitter (@gin_and_tacos), or the venerable website Gin and Tacos. Brand new seriously kick-ass t-shirts are available. Buy one why don't ya.
Thanks: Dr. Timothy Rich, all the bands that contribute music (Waxeater, IfIHadAHiFi, The Sump Pumps, Oscar Bait), Zachary Sielaff, Question Cathy, and all Patreon supporters, subscribers, and listeners.
Story: THE ROGUE TYPESETTER who terrorized Victorian London. The mystery of the Harcourt Interpolation. Easily the most exciting moment in the history of type compositing.
Guest: SSgt. Katie Schmid, US Army (@SchmidCathrine), plaintiff challenging the Trump transgender military ban. Read more about Katie's story here.
Topic: Duverger's Law and the American two-party system. Why does Germany's parliament have eight parties while we only get two parties that everyone seems to hate anyway? It has a lot to do with two thorny rules about how we elect our representatives...
Cocktail of the Month: Gin Gimlet, the first drink I ever ordered in a bar. Hear that delightful tale of 20 year old teetotaling me trying to order a drink in a sticky-floored college bar. Under pressure, I folded.
Support Mass for Shut-ins via Patreon. Contact me via Facebook, Twitter (@gin_and_tacos), or the venerable website Gin and Tacos.
Thanks: SSgt. Katie Schmid, all the bands that contribute music (Waxeater, IfIHadAHiFi, The Sump Pumps, Oscar Bait), Zachary Sielaff, Question Cathy, and all Patreon supporters, subscribers, and listeners.
Story: DEATH BY UMBRELLA: The Georgi Markov story. A tale of intrigue and covert operations from the late Cold War that John Le Carre couldn't have scripted any better.
Guest: Mike Konczal (@rortybomb), Fellow at the Roosevelt Institute and contributor to Vox, The Nation, Dissent, and other fine publications. Mike and I discuss the art of punditry, appearing on TV without pants, the myth of a democratized economy, and stock buybacks. We also do Professor Brothers voices.
Performance by ANDREW BENTLEY. See below for information on Andrew's upcoming live performances in Chicago.
Topic: Why we're living in the Golden Age of Gerrymandering. Hint: It's not just because Republicans are assholes. But it's definitely partly because Republicans are assholes.
Cocktail of the Month: Lime Rickey (aka Gin Rickey, but we'll get into the complicated nomenclature soon enough)
Support Mass for Shut-ins via Patreon. Contact me via Facebook, Twitter (@gin_and_tacos), or the venerable website Gin and Tacos.
Thanks: Mike Konczal, the bands that contribute music (Waxeater, IfIHadAHiFi, The Sump Pumps, Oscar Bait), Zachary Sielaff, Question Cathy, and all Patreon supporters, subscribers, and listeners.
Hear more of Andrew Bentley on 3/31 at the American Writer's Museum as part of International Tom Hanks Day, at Write Club Chicago on 4/17, and on 4/7 at C2E2 in a musical comedy on the Cards Against Humanity stage.
Guest: 12-time Jeopardy! Champion Seth Wilson
Topic: How you, yes YOU, can boost voter turnout
Story: How to have a picnic in the Korean DMZ (and why it's at the 38th Parallel)
Cocktail of the Month: 24th Street Spritz
Support Mass for Shut-ins via Patreon.
Thanks: Seth Wilson, the bands that contribute music (Waxeater, IfIHadAHiFi, The Sump Pumps, Oscar Bait), Zachary Sielaff, #PostcardsToVoters, and all Patreon supporters, subscribers, and listeners.
Episode 001
Topic: A history of impeachment and why it matters now
Story: US Postal Service Missile Mail
Cocktail: Corpse Reviver #2
Performance: Author Andrew Bentley reads "Erosion!"
Guest: Helen Clarkson, CEO of The Climate Group, joins us to discuss the future of the planet, China, and why the British refuse to put ice in their beverages.