Author: Peach Fish Productions

This week, race was front and center at the confirmation hearing for Trump’s attorney general nominee, Jeff Sessions. Cory Booker and the head of the NAACP testified that Sessions’ history of alleged racist comments and his voting record suggested he could not fairly uphold the rights of all Americans. The Alabama senator fired back that he was not a racist and had fought to honor historical figures like Rosa Parks. The whole affair raised questions about how to discuss race, “whiteness,” and issues of identity politics in the Trump era. Marc Lamont Hill is a professor at Morehouse College, a frequent commentator on CNN, and a host for BET News. His new book is Nobody: Casualties of America’s War on the Vulnerable, From Ferguson to Flint and Beyond.

In the Spiel, Kellyanne Conway’s war on the media.

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LifeAfter. What happens to our digital lives when we’re gone? LifeAfter, a new series from GE Podcast Theater and Panoply, the creators of last year’s award-winning The Message, explores these very questions. Listen and download LifeAfter wherever you find your podcasts.

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Between the shady unverified intelligence dossier, Trump’s strange press conference, and the Rex Tillerson hearings, this has been a head-spinning 24 hours. We called up Slate’s War Stories correspondent Fred Kaplan to make sense of it all. Kaplan is most recently the author of Dark Territory: The Secret History of Cyber War. 

In the Spiel, an analysis of President Obama’s farewell and the meaning of activism. 

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If you’ve been reading the Onion the past eight years, you know that Vice President Joe Biden is a hair metal–loving party machine. He’s set up a fog machine at the State of the Union address. He’s regaled crowds with stories from his historic summer of ’87. And he’s been busted many, many times for his shady side hustles. Chad Nackers, head writer at the Onion, talks about how his site created a whole new character to satirize Obama’s tee-totaling vice-president, and the delicate balancing act of finding jokes that don’t normalize the next president.  For the Spiel, don’t worry, the Amazon Echo won’t turn on you, Space Odyssey–style. It’ll just order stuff you don’t want. 

Today’s sponsors:

Indochino, the company that’s reinventing men’s fashion. Go to Indochino.com to get any premium suit for just $389, plus free shipping, when you use promo code gist at checkout.

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Are millennials really less money-focused than their forebears were? Do the kings of finance obsess over money because society doesn’t give them another way to measure their success? How can we make ditch-digging meaningful work? On The Gist, behavioral economist and Wall Street Journal columnistDan Ariely weighs in; think of him as the Dear Abby for the smartphone set. Ariely is the author of Payoff: The Hidden Logic That Shapes Our Motivations.  For the Spiel, surely the glitz and glamour of the Golden Globes will stop Trump! Right?   

Today’s sponsors:

ZipRecruiter. Post your job listing to all the top job sites with a single click. Try it for free by going to ZipRecruiter.com/gist.

And by Lifeafter. What happens to our digital lives when we’re gone? LifeAfter, a new series from GE Podcast Theater and Panoply, the creators of last year’s award-winning The Message, explores these very questions. Listen and download LifeAfter wherever you find your podcasts. 

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The National Institutes of Health used to have blanket advice for parents: Don’t give peanuts or peanut products to children under the age of 4. The result? Between 2003 and 2014, it seems likely more Americas were killed by bad advice about peanuts than by acts of terrorism. Why did it take so long to change these guidelines? Marion Nestle says we know very little about the science of food allergies. She’s the author of Food Politics.  In the Spiel, explaining hacking in a way even Donald Trump would understand.    Sponsors:  What happens to our digital lives when we’re gone? LifeAfter, a new series from General Electric Podcast Theater and Panoply, the creators of last year’s award-winning The Message, explores these very questions. Listen and download LifeAfter wherever you find your podcasts.

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New Yorker writer Maria Konnikova returns for another round of everyone’s favorite game, “Is That Bulls--t?” Konnikova takes on a long-held theory about hair growth: The more often you shave, the faster it grows back. Konnikova’s most recent book is The Confidence Game.  In the Spiel, the Megyn Kelly backlash begins.    Sponsors:  ZipRecruiter. Post your job listing to all the top job sites with a single click. Try it for free by going to ZipRecruiter.com/gist.

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Mara Wilson became iconic in the 1990s, but she hasn’t appeared in a film since the year 2000. In her memoir Where Am I Now? Wilson explores the joys and difficulties of her life after child stardom. Mara’s book was recently named one of the best of 2016 by NPR.

Sponsors:

Betterment, the largest automated investing service. Get up to six months of investing FREE when you go to Betterment.com/gist.

What happens to our digital lives when we’re gone? LifeAfter, a new series from GE Podcast Theater and Panoply, the creators of last year’s award-winning The Message, explores these very questions. Listen and download LifeAfter wherever you find your podcasts.

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Ralph Nader’s second work of fiction, Animal Envy, imagines a world where animals can talk to people and start demanding rights. Nader says the fable is meant to prompt deeper thinking about our relationship with nature. “We need to talk about what-if, because if we don’t, we can’t kick in our idealism and imagine real possibilities,” says the 82-year-old author and advocate. Nader also weighs in with his thoughts on the Trump presidency, and how to win a political argument.

In the Spiel, Donald Trump’s rockin’ New Year’s Eve.  

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Bob Boilen, creator and host of NPR’s All Songs Considered and Tiny Desk Concerts, built his book around something he learned in his nearly 30 years of covering music: Artists are tired of talking about their own work, but ask them about what inspires them, and they’ll light up. Boilen’s book of interviews is the epically titled Your Song Changed My Life: From Jimmy Page to St. Vincent, Smokey Robinson to Hozier, Thirty-Five Beloved Artists on Their Journey and the Music That Inspired It.

For the Spiel, a defense of 2016. 

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When comedian Laurie Kilmartin found out her father had advanced lung cancer, she processed it the best way she could: by tweeting jokes about her father’s decline. The real-time mourning gave rise to Kilmartin’s stand-up special, “45 Jokes About My Dead Dad,” available on Seeso. Kilmartin is a writer for Conan on TBS and author of Sh*tty Mom: The Parenting Guide for the Rest of Us. 

In the Spiel, noting the death of Debbie Reynolds and the prospects of a two-state solution. 

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