This week, a banana sold at auction for $6.2 million dollars. Well, not quite… it’s actually a piece of conceptual art and it’s WAY more than just a banana. There’s also some duct tape.
In response to this most bananas of auctions, the Unexpected Elements team are going bananas for bananas!
We investigate the science of slipping on a banana-skin. Is it just ‘cartoon physics’ or are they actually a slip-hazard?
And did you know your breakfast banana might be… radioactive?
Also, can Romanian ethical hackers succeed where the police have failed? We look at the computer sleuths tackling real life missing persons cases.
We find the answer to why toads have evolved such dangerous skins, and yet more bananas, as we look at the pros and cons of the Ethiopian False Banana. Why hasn’t this hardy plant conquered the world?
Presenter: Marnie Chesterton, with Andrada Fiscutean and Christine Yohannes
Producers: Emily Knight, Alice Lipscombe-Southwell and William Hornbrook
Sound engineer: Searle Whittney
On today’s episode of Getting Hammered, we dive into Elizabeth Warren’s reaction to the shocking murder of United Healthcare’s CEO, Christopher Wray’s pledge to resign, and the bizarre drone sightings over New Jersey. Don’t miss it!
OA1099 - Superstar Gavel Gavel contributor Liz Skeen joins to answer all of your questions about the arrest of Luigi Mangione and the charges he will soon be facing for his alleged shooting of United Healthcare CEO Brian Thompson in the courthouse where she serves as a public defender. Also: Biden’s record-breaking day of clemency.
By the 1970s, World War II had all but disappeared from US popular culture. But beginning in the mid-eighties it reemerged with a vengeance, and for nearly fifteen years World War II was ubiquitous across US popular and political culture. In Reinventing World War II: Popular Memory in the Rise of the Ethnonationalist State (Penn State University Press, 2024), Dr. Barbara A. Biesecker explores the prestige and rhetorical power of the “Good War,” revealing how it was retooled to restore a new kind of social equilibrium to the United States.
Biesecker analyzes prominent cases of World War II remembrance, including the canceled exhibit of the Enola Gay at the National Air and Space Museum in 1995 and its replacement, Steven Spielberg’s Saving Private Ryan, Tom Brokaw’s The Greatest Generation, and the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum. Situating these popular memory texts within the culture and history wars of the day and the broader framework of US political and economic life, Dr. Biesecker argues that, with the notable exception of the Holocaust Memorial Museum, these reinventions of the Good War worked rhetorically to restore a strong sense of national identity and belonging fitted to the neoliberal nationalist agenda.
By tracing the links between the popular retooling of World War II and the national state fantasy, and by putting the lessons of Foucault, Derrida, Lacan, and their successors to work for a rhetorical-political analysis of the present, Dr. Biesecker not only explains the emergence and strength of the MAGA movement but also calls attention to the power of public memory to shape and contest ethnonational identity today.
This interview was conducted by Dr. Miranda Melcher whose new book focuses on post-conflict military integration, understanding treaty negotiation and implementation in civil war contexts, with qualitative analysis of the Angolan and Mozambican civil wars.
The earliest forms of democracy go back over 2000 years to Ancient Greece. While this early system did have voting, not everyone could vote.
In fact, most people couldn’t vote.
Voting was limited to free men and then only property-holding men.
The expansion of voting rights to women took centuries, but by the 19th century, a movement was taking place in many countries that eventually led to the widespread extension of the franchise to women in the 20th.
Learn more about women’s suffrage and how women got the right to vote on this episode of Everything Everywhere Daily.
Go to quince.com/daily for 365-day returns, plus free shipping on your order!
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The murder of UnitedHealthcare CEO Brian Thompson has sparked a massive reaction online that’s veered into support for the alleged shooter, with an outpouring of sympathy on social media. This week we also saw a jury acquit Daniel Penny, a Marine veteran who killed a man named Jordan Neely using a chokehold on a New York Subway train. The verdict prompted a similar outpouring of support for Penny on the right. Suffice it to say, it was a big week for vigilantism. Atlantic staff writer Ali Breland explains what it all says about our political discourse.
Later in the show, California Attorney General Rob Bonta joins us to discuss how the state is ‘Trump-proofing’ its progressive laws.
And in headlines: President-elect Donald Trump is Time magazine’s ‘Person of the Year,’ President Biden made history by commuting the prison sentences of nearly 1500 people and pardoning another 39, and the federal government says don’t worry about all of those drone sightings over New Jersey.
We're telling you about the largest single-day act of clemency in modern American history and why President Biden's allies say it's not enough.
Also, millions of Americans are getting below-freezing temperatures, even as far south as Texas and Florida.
Plus, new research shows some cancers may be overtreated; recent action could pave the way for a reality star union, and get ready for the brightest meteor shower of the year.
Those stories and even more news to know in about 10 minutes!
Join us every Mon-Fri for more daily news roundups!
America's corporate titans seem pretty happy about Donald Trump's election—even pitching in to his inaugural bash—and it's no big mystery why: he's promising yet again to slash their taxes. Meanwhile, in his TIME Person of the Year interview, Trump admits that he may not be able lower grocery prices after all. Oh, well! Jon and Dan dive into all the latest, including FBI Director Christopher Wray's resignation, Biden’s historic pardons, Nancy Mace's latest theatrics, and why Democrats are suddenly cozying up to Elon Musk.
For a closed-captioned version of this episode, click here. For a transcript of this episode, please email transcripts@crooked.com and include the name of the podcast.
