Pfizer begin trials of its Omicron vaccine. US troops on higher alert. Tom Brady hints at retirement. CBS News Correspondent Steve Kathan has today's World News Roundup.
It’s Jay and Tammy this week, talking trash about Andy.
Plus:
* Pandemic alcoholism and human bonds: We read and discuss an essay in Jezebel, “I Got Sober in the Pandemic. It Saved My Life.” What has this tragic time clarified and obscured? What’s the off-ramp?
* Does a day-trader’s lunch budget say anything about inflation? People were mad about this New York Times story, but the Big Mac Index remains durable (Tammy gets the description about half-right). The tech stock market (read: Peloton, Netflix, Amazon) seems less durable.
* The Supreme Court will hear the Harvard / University of North Carolina case on affirmative action, with Asian American plaintiffs front and center. We assess the history of race and class in admissions and consider the wedge that is Asian America.
In November 1943, the Big Three leaders of the allied powers in world war II, Winston Churchill, Franklin Roosevelt, and Joesph Stalin, were scheduled to meet in person for the first time in Tehran, Iran.
When the Germans got wind of this, Hitler figured this would be a great opportunity to just kill all of his enemies at once.
Learn more about Operation Long Jump and Hitler’s plot to kill all of the allied leaders in one fell swoop, on this episode of Everything Everywhere Daily.
Vladimir Putin inches closer to a war in Ukraine that could have global repercussions, White House Press Secretary Jen Psaki talks about the Biden Administration’s new strategy for 2022, and Jon, Jon, and Tommy assess their level of concern over the latest headlines about creeping authoritarianism in a new segment called Democracy Doomscroll.
Pod Save America is vaxxed, boosted, and headed back on the road! Join Jon, Jon, Tommy and Dan on the road for Pod Save America (A)live And On Tour. Get tickets & learn more: crooked.com/events.
Listener presales: January 25 at 10 am local time through January 27 (code CROOKED)
Author of the wildly popular and, at times, controversial A Little Life, Hanya Yanagihara, is out with a new novel. To Paradise is an epic – in three parts – sprawling over 700 pages and 200 years about a make-believe New York City. Yanagihara was mostly through writing her story, which features pandemics prominently, when COVID-19 first hit in early 2020. But Yanagihara told NPR's Scott Simon that she was able to keep her story and her fears about the pandemic in reality separate.
Amanda Holmes reads Edna St. Vincent Millay ’s poem “Sometimes, Oh, Often, Indeed.” Have a suggestion for a poem by a (dead) writer? Email us: podcast@theamericanscholar.org. If we select your entry, you’ll win a copy of a poetry collection edited by David Lehman.
This episode was produced by Stephanie Bastek and features the song “Canvasback” by Chad Crouch.
Our roundtable of experts debate the possibility of intervention in the Russia/Ukraine tensions and come to the conclusion a global nuclear exchange would probably suck, at least for the Podcast Industry. We then take a look at a trio of pieces examining the national crisis in hiring and firing. Does Nobody Want to Work Anymore or is it just that Work Sucks, I Know? We get to the bottom of how you’ll probably end up a serf (but without the benefits) regardless.
On the Gist, America may be poised for revolution. Or not. We're certainly obsessed with talking about it.
In the interview, Mike speaks with Stephen Marche, author of The Next Civil War: Dispatches from the American Future. Marche sets the chances of a civil war at 67%. Mike challenges him by asking why this moment is so different from dozens of inflection points since the actual Civil War.
In the Spiel, a commitment to keeping the Gist a place free of catastrophizing, while not minimizing the number of very real problems we face.
This year has given schools no respite in responding to a global pandemic. It's unlikely that school choice reforms will top 2021, but this year could be another big year for educational freedom. Neal McCluskey comments.