Episode 57: Cucumber Monkeys

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The title of Episode 57: Cucumber Monkeys refers here not to long, green vegetable carvings of tiny primates, but to a condition I hope you will understand once you hear the content. Remember, when you do, that we have instincts shared by all the primates, no matter how "developed."

In this episode, I play Dan Baum, author of "Gun Guys: A Road Trip," as people heard him in C-Realm 356: "Gun Guy." You also hear then-candidate Obama commenting on some voters, and Frans de Waal, a primate researcher. I read in this episode excerpts from Baum's "Gun Guys: A Road Trip," Richard Wilkenson & Kate Pickett's "The Spirit Level," and Steven Johnson's "Future Perfect."

Bernie Sanders opens the show with help from KMFDM. Mistle Thrush provides the close.

Episode 56: Existential Dread From Our Grand Uncle

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In Episode 56: Existential Dread From Our Grand Uncle, I try my best to convey the denial I realized in the last episode, 55: Weaving Threads From Carved Chunks, the stripping of that denial, and the cold realization that there is currently approaching at way faster than I had realized a crisis in the making, at least for me, professionally. Or politically. Something has got to give, or … bad things.

I don't like bad things.

In this episode, I read some more from John Maynard Keynes' 1930 essay "Economic Possibilities for Our Grandchildren;" and from L33t Minion's comment to Episode 53. I mention a fact about how dangerous to children those cars are. The other fact is illustrated nicely by this graph:


We don't drive
as much as we used to.

I also played an excerpt from Costas Samaras as heard on Episode 171 of 99% Invisible; I'll link to the web site I discussed concerning Professor Samaras at the show notes as well. And I played a bit of KMO introducing our conversation, one that took place on C-Realm 489: Muscle Power and Microchips. Musically, I worked Jazzhar's "Starting Point" into the narrative. Bruce Livesy introduces the show with an observation about corporate power, backed, of course, by KMFDM.