Over the last few years, Leyna Bloom has been the first in many categories. In 2017, she became the first trans woman of color to grace the pages of Vogue India. In 2019, she became one of the first trans women to walk Paris Fashion Week. And most recently, she broke barriers again as the first trans cover model for Sports Illustrated’s swimsuit issue.
On this crossover episode with our sister podcast “Asian Enough,” Bloom talks about her ties to ballroom, her Black and Filipina identity and reuniting with her mom after decades apart.
The ruling party got a pasting at the polls, owing in part to a reeling economy. We ask what the opposition’s gains mean for the country. The practice of assisted dying is being enshrined in law the world over; we examine the ethical dimensions of its spread. And why electric vehicles failed to keep their market dominance a century ago.
One of the best-performing stocks of 2021… is Build-A-Bear. Spotify just acquired an audiobook platform because the app wants you listening to 8-hours of Moby Dick. And we’re updating you on the Evergrande real estate disaster because a “global explosion” may become a “controlled implosion.”
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Professor Lisa Eskow joins the podcast to discuss some Justices’ willingness to engage in ecclesiastical whack-a-mole in Ramirez v. Collier. There are also birthday wishes, Big Bird (and other birds), kale shops, and more!
Get tickets for STRICT SCRUTINY LIVE – The Bad Decisions Tour 2025!
Believe it or not, one of the most valuable elements on the Periodic Table was also the first one that was discovered by humans. Since then it has held a prominent spot in almost every culture on Earth. We use it to signify first place, we use it as a metaphor for important rules, and for thousands of years, it was the basis of money. It was even the obsession of James Bond’s greatest villain.
The Nobel prize-winning author Mario Vargas Llosa’s latest novel revolves around the lies, schemes and vested interests that infected the development of Latin America. In Harsh Times (translated by Adrian Nathan West) a CIA-supported military coup topples the government of Guatemala, but the idea that the country was a Soviet satellite is shown up as manipulated fiction. Llosa tells Tom Sutcliffe about the murky tales of Cold War conspiracies that dominated at the time, and their legacy today.
Natalia Sobrevilla Perea is Professor of Latin American History at the University of Kent and looks at the impact of the Cold War proxy battles on countries like Peru, Bolivia, Guatemala and El Salvador. She highlights the power of the drug barons and the current Peruvian government’s war on corruption. Her research focuses on how historical events have set the stage for contemporary debates about how Andean nations should be governed and how to define citizenship.
But what of the land before outside interference? Peru: a journey in time is the latest exhibition at the British Museum and showcases the civilisations and societies that rose and fell in the remarkable landscapes of the Andes mountains. On display will be objects from the early culture of Chavin in 1200 BC to the Incas in the 16th century. The co-curator Jago Cooper says the ancient Peruvian societies had their unique approaches to economy, gender, power and beliefs, and they thrived against the odds up until the Inca conquest by the Spanish.
(Image: Funerary mask - Peru, Moche, AD 100–800. Museo de Arte de Lima. Donated by James Reid.)
Why do so many Cambodian small landholders live in fear? How did the issuance of official land titles contribute to growing indebtedness in rural areas? Why did the government send thousands of university students to the countryside to help with the land titling process? And why did international donors eventually become so disllusioned?
In this podcast, Alice Beban, senior lecturer in development sociology at Massey University, discusses her new book Unwritten Rule: State Building Through Land Reform in Cambodia(Cornell 2021) with Duncan McCargo, Director of the Nordic Institute of Asian Studies at the University of Copenhagen. Unwritten Rule draws on eighteen months of ethnographic fieldwork to paint a disturbing picture of how an ambitious land reform project, generously funded by leading donors, largely failed to deliver the benefits it promised.
In 2012, Cambodia—an epicenter of violent land grabbing—announced a bold new initiative to develop land redistribution efforts inside agribusiness concessions. Alice Beban's Unwritten Rule focuses on this land reform to understand the larger nature of democracy in Cambodia. Beban contends that the national land-titling program, the so-called leopard skin land reform, was first and foremost a political campaign orchestrated by the world's longest-serving prime minister, Hun Sen. The reform aimed to secure the loyalty of rural voters, produce "modern" farmers, and wrest control over land distribution from local officials. Through ambiguous legal directives and unwritten rules guiding the allocation of land, the government fostered uncertainty and fear within local communities. Unwritten Rule gives pause both to celebratory claims that land reform will enable land tenure security, and to critical claims that land reform will enmesh rural people more tightly in state bureaucracies and create a fiscally legible landscape. Instead, Beban argues that the extension of formal property rights strengthened the very patronage-based politics that Western development agencies hope to subvert.
If you liked this podcast, you may also enjoy two other podcasts, hosted by Duncan McCargo on related topics, here and here.
Duncan McCargo is an eclectic, internationalist political scientist and literature buff: his day job is directing the Nordic Institute of Asian Studies at the University of Copenhagen. Learn more here, here, here, and here.
Have we reached the so-called "new normal" people keep talking about? And if so, what does that mean for you? Andy reunites with former guest host Dr. Bob Wachter who has started to let his guard down in terms of risk tolerance. They discuss why Bob feels like the time is right for that, how to think about the things that can scare us back into a more vigilant state, and Bob's thoughts for what COVID looks like long-term. This is a nuanced conversation on a complex topic that will help you navigate this uncertain time. Plus, Andy’s mom joins at the start to offer up some show ideas.
Keep up with Andy on Twitter @ASlavitt and Instagram @andyslavitt.
Follow Bob @Bob_Wachter on Twitter.
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