On today's podcast, I provide the first of my impressions on a weeklong trip to Israel and what it feels like to be in a country at war—even during this strange period when the rocket fire has stopped and the hostages are being dribbled out by Hamas. The podcast crew joins me in wondering how stiff the spines of Joe Biden and the Israelis can and will remain as Hamas continues to play the hostage card. Give a listen.
If you just looked at a map and saw a sea of blue, you might think that the water is just sitting there, but it's not.
The oceans are constantly moving, and it isn’t just waves and tides that move. There are enormous rivers of water flowing through the oceans, near the surface, and near the seafloor, which influence the Earth’s climate and its weather patterns.
Learn more about ocean currents and how they affect the planet on this episode of Everything Everywhere Daily.
The Five Sorrowful Mysteries of Andy Africa by Stephen Buoro is one of our favorite books of 2023. It focuses on a 15-year-old boy, Andy Aziza, who lives in Kontagora and uses the framework of superheroes and villains to grapple with the systemic issues in his home country of Nigeria and the African continent as a whole. In today's episode, Buoro speaks with NPR's Camila Domonoske about his protagonist's difficult feelings about his identity and country of origin, and how he balances the darkness of postcolonial violence with light-hearted, teenage issues like high school crushes.
As Biden successfully secures a temporary ceasefire in Gaza, Congress attempts to pass an aid package for Israel, Ukraine and Taiwan. But Republicans say they won’t pass anything unless Democrats agree to new demands related to US-Mexico border security. Meanwhile, Nikki Haley and Ron DeSantis are spending super PAC money going after each other in Iowa and New Hampshire. While their biggest competition, Donald Trump, says he is once again set on repealing Obamacare. And finally, George Santos rips into his congressional colleagues ahead of his possible expulsion from the chamber.
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.
TrueAnon’s Brace Belden returns to the show as the crew continues discussing the war in Palestine. We look at Israel’s military shortcomings, the IDF’s penile obsession, the domestic propaganda war, and some measures Biden could take we might actually support. We also touch on Gavin Newsom’s vetoing of an anti-Caste based discrimination law, and a Ron DeSantis aide who apparently willed himself to death.
Catch Will at the New Bedford Whaling Museum’s 2024 Moby-Dick Marathon: https://www.whalingmuseum.org/program/moby-dick-marathon-2024/
And keep an eye on TrueAnon’s feed for an upcoming announcement that will “end politics as we know it”.
Amanda Holmes reads Donald Hall’s “Ox Cart Man.” Read Hall’s essays “Remains” and “One Road” on our website. 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.
Today we ask whether the daily release of Israeli hostages threatens to obscure the main point: Israel must defeat Hamas. And with fighting paused, how much pressure will the world put on Israel to abandon this aim? Give a listen.
As Hollywood was warming up for a summer of labor strikes a few months ago, Vanity Fair's Maureen Ryan came out with a new book, Burn It Down, that exposed a lot of the abuses many writers, actors and crew members were coming forth about. When the book first published, Ryan spoke with NPR's Eric Deggans about how the set of Lost became a centerpiece of her research, and how her own experience speaking out about assault at the hands of a TV executive shaped her ability to report highly sensitive stories.
Last year, Illinois voters handed breathtaking new powers to collective bargaining agreements for government employees. Mailee Smith of the Illinois Policy Institute evaluates the status.
