Episode 123: Tripping Your Way Out of Trauma
Send us Fan Mail Psychoactive substances have been ingested by human beings for millennia. But for a few decades at the end of the 20th century, many were banned in the U.S. as part of a cultural back...
6 Dec 20251h 5min
Episode 122: Why Gas Stoves Stink
Send us Fan Mail A few years ago, we all started hearing about how gas ranges, which have been popular in our country for at least a century and are favored by professional chefs, were dangerous to ou...
9 Nov 202551min
Episode 121: Halloween: A Singularly American Stew
Send us Fan Mail Back in its early days, this podcast explored the cultural and economic juggernaut that is Christmas. Time now to take a gander at Halloween. It’s unique among American holidays in th...
27 Okt 202558min
Episode 120: Potatoes and Tomatoes: Hardy Migrants
Send us Fan Mail Overshadowed by all the anti-immigrant rhetoric afflicting our country today are wonderful stories of non-human immigration, such as the ones about how certain foods made their way fr...
4 Okt 202536min
Episode 119: Flag Fetish
Send us Fan Mail Based on recent proclamations from the MAGA government and the zealotry that some of its partisans have for the American flag, you’d never guess that flag worship was really not a thi...
14 Sep 202553min
Episode 118: The Pros and Cons of Gerontocracy
Send us Fan Mail You may have noticed that there are a lot of very old people clinging to positions of authority, from our current president (79 years old) to our former president (82 when he left off...
31 Aug 202542min
Episode 117: What Rousseau Might Say About the USA
Send us Fan Mail In The Social Contract, the philosopher Jean-Jacques Rousseau suggested that democracy was feasible only in smaller polities where the citizens have shared common interests. What migh...
18 Aug 202545min
Episode 116: The Cemetery Industry is Not Dead Yet
Send us Fan Mail When visiting a few cemeteries recently, Joe was struck by how clean and well-maintained but desolately empty they were. That prompted him to ask Mark about the economic viability of ...
4 Aug 202534min
