Rights for women and girls have regressed by decades; the economy is cratering. Yet, for many rural Afghans, things are actually better than they were before America scarpered. Silicon Valley types once righteously spurned the military-industrial establishment—now they’re queuing up to fund defence startups. And the surprising truth about the most famous scene in “Bambi”, which is turning 80.
This week the boys are joined by Kenny DeForest (@kennydeforest, Late Night with Seth Meyers, Late Late Show) to talk about the gruff yet poetic songs of Tyler Childers. Specifically, we focus on "All Your'n," one of his catchiest tunes (and with a very psychedelic video). We also talk Childers' incredible ability to capture struggle, debauchery, and love through his poetic lyrics, and how he made a protest album with almost no words sung.
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Wanna hear more Tyler Childers but don't know where to start? Try these songs, recommended by Kenny, Danny, and Tyler:
Imagine waking up to the smell of freshly baked bread. Doesn’t it make your mouth water? Now imagine the smell of a fish market on a warm day… still feeling hungry? CrowdScience listener Thanh from Vietnam is intrigued by the effects of smell on our appetite, and wants to know whether certain aromas can make us feel more full than others. Never averse to a food-based challenge, presenter Anand Jagatia takes us on a journey from the nose to the brain, where we find out what exactly happens when we get a whiff of various foods. He discovers how the digestive system prepares for a meal and the extent to which our stomach has a say in whether or not we want to eat, based on how appetizing the smells are around us. Anand also explores our cultural differences. In some parts of the world a stinky Limburger cheese is considered a delicacy, while in other places it could make people lose their lunch. We’ll find out why some of us get triggered in different ways than others.
Tech stocks are down, so Venture Capitalists are jumping into your underwear. Charter Communications is a case study in Cable TV’s strategy: For every Grandkid lost to cord-cutting, squeeze more from Grandma. And Rivian’s electric trucks lost nearly $2B in just 3 months, but its real problem is a certain mineral in Indonesia.
$RIVN $TSLA $VSCO $CHTR
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We'll tell you what evidence the FBI's raid at Mar-a-Lago found and what could come next.
Also, what a new report says about last-minute decisions when the U.S. pulled out of Afghanistan.
Plus, why monkeypox could be getting a new name, which is the first state to offer all kids free meals in schools, and signs of 'Seinfeld' on the golf course? We'll explain.
It is not terribly controversial to say that castration fear is one of the key conceptual engines driving the psychoanalytic project overall. Whether one thinks of it manifesting as a looming, retributive threat for incestuous longings or as a struggle to face one’s shortcomings, contending with what we are at risk of losing or what has already gone missing animates both the field and the consulting room. Imagine the profession if it didn’t contend with this subject: without castration we would have neither Oedipal conflict nor a theory of repression. As such, it is noteworthy to consider the paucity of writing about circumcision in psychoanalysis, especially when you remember that circumcision and castration both involve cutting male genitalia. And before you protest that a penis is not a testicle, it should not come as a surprise that in the unconscious the bits and bobs of male genitalia might not be represented as separately as they are in medical discourse—in the unconscious sometimes a penis is a scrotal sac and sometimes the balls include the dick.
Jordan Osserman’s Circumcision on the Couch: The Cultural, Psychological, and Gendered Dimensions of the World's Oldest Surgery (Bloomsbury, 2022), approaches the subject of penile cutting née circumcision from myriad angles. It represents the pining of contemporary “intactivists” in search of lost foreskins and lost chances as both poignant if not also politically pregnant with neoliberal meaning. It fleshes out the pondering of St. Paul (of “love thy neighbor as thyself’ fame) on the importance of the unimportance of circumcision. It illuminates the ways in which what appears to be a fear of childhood sexuality run amok also belies a prurient interest in it. The discussion of 19th century American medicine’s invention of reflex theory, which employed circumcision to cure boys’ perceived ailments, investigates a mode of thinking that will be familiar to readers of feminist medical history of the same period. The removal of the foreskin and the removal of the uterus share a close, perhaps twinned, relationship.
Osserman has written a book that invites the reader to see circumcision as a rite, experience, discourse and practice that offers itself up to unabashedly efflorescent and ambivalent readings. Is a penis without a foreskin more masculine because it lacks a flowery covering— think of tulip petals or better yet pansies strewn on the roadside? Or is a penis without a foreskin a tad castrated, having been bloodied, (and a tad envious—sorry Alice Cooper but not only women bleed) and so ultimately feminized? We are encouraged to wonder what might keep this practice—the world’s oldest surgery—in seemingly perpetual, if at times contested, circulation? What are the unconscious roots of the wish to cut penises anyway?
I found myself a little surprised at how little I or others I know have given thought to the beautifully irrational reasons that underlie a surgical practice (performed the world over and without any singular religious allegiance as it ends up) laden with meaning and yet not medically necessary. What has given it such staying power? What unconscious conflicts might circumcision sate, if not actually resolve? In trying to answer these questions, I find myself asking if there is any relationship between circumcision and Freud’s idea that the repudiation of femininity functions as a kind of bedrock? What is bedrock is challenging to crack open (intellectually, philosophically) precisely because it is foundational. It is the ground upon which we stand. We fear fucking with it.
More than 5,000 children were torn from their parents at the Mexican border during Donald Trump’s presidency, and more than 150 children have yet to be reunited. Atlantic writer Caitlin Dickerson spent 18 months investigating how Trump’s zero tolerance approach became a reality, despite scores of top government officials who felt it was inhumane and logistically fraught. She speaks with Andy about how Congress’ failure to make substantial changes to immigration policy drove this to happen, and could allow it to happen again.
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Order Andy’s book, “Preventable: The Inside Story of How Leadership Failures, Politics, and Selfishness Doomed the U.S. Coronavirus Response”: https://us.macmillan.com/books/9781250770165
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