New Podcast Thing: Ear Hustle

Reading the comments section of anything on the internet is usually a bad idea, but it's an especially bad idea when it comes to comments on videos or articles that explore the topic of criminal justice reform. Thoughtful and deeply personal discussions of the potential for criminals to learn from their own mistakes and endeavor to become better people if society could give them more of a chance are dismissed out of hand with glib remarks like "man enough to do the crime, man enough to do the time." There are other countries with criminal justice systems that invest more into rehabilitating their prisoners, and as it turns out, their crime rates are lower than our own. In order for people to push for reforms along those lines here, however, they need to be willing to actually treat prisoners like human beings.

It's in this context that I find Ear Hustle's straightforward focus on day-to-day life while incarcerated to be so refreshing and (hopefully) impactful. A collaboration between an artist that does volunteer work at prisons and inmates at San Quentin state prison, Ear Hustle eschews abstract discussions and allows prisoners to tell their own stories. What's it like to try to find and keep a pet in prison? How do divides between different racial groups affect how one can take a shower? What's it like to reenter "normal" prison life after being stuck in solitary confinement for years? Despite the often heavy subject matter, there are plenty of lighter moments as well - I was particularly amused by a story about one inmate who rolled "penis towels" for someone as a birthday present. Above all else, though, this podcast's value lies in sharing a perspective that is almost never taken into consideration. 

New Podcast Thing: The Sean Hannity Show

"It sounds like selective moral outrage on some of their parts." - Sean Hannity

As more and more victims step forward with allegations of their own, it's becoming increasingly clear that Harvey Weinstein is a terrible person who leveraged his position of power in Hollywood to get away with sexual harassment and sexual assault for decades. Many people more eloquent than I have written about the particulars of the Weinstein story and its broader implications, so I'll just say this: no one should excuse, tolerate, or enable reprehensible behavior like Weinstein's, and people (especially men) need to proactively speak up and take action whenever they see behavior like this taking place.

Sean Hannity is outraged at Harvey Weinstein, as he should be. Sean Hannity is also outraged with... Hillary Clinton. She received donations from Weinstein in the past, and she didn't immediately put out a statement about Weinstein, so... sure, she probably could have been quicker to publicly condemn him, I guess. Sean Hannity is also outraged at "the left" for "being hypocrites" about all of this. How dare people on the left condemn conservatives for this kind of behavior when they do it too. Who are they to bring up the allegations that Trump committed sexual assault, or even the recorded audio of him bragging about it? Don't you remember what the Clintons did??? And so on.

Look, I should lay my cards out on the table here. Metaphorically speaking, at least. There's no actual cards or table here. Anyways, I'm a liberal-ish guy who thinks that Trump is a terrible president and that Hannity is a sycophantic, opportunistic asshole, so there was no way for me to listen to this show in an unbiased way. But I was curious to see how Hannity would go after a deserving target like Weinstein. What would his angle be?

My somewhat obvious takeaway is that Hannity's angle on this ended up being his only angle: the left is bad and the Clintons are bad and they're all hypocrites. Okay, whatever. I can't say that I thought that he was going to be interested in a broader conversation about endemic misogyny. Part of why I do this whole "trying new things" thing is to broaden my perspective and become a more well-rounded person, but this was a waste of time.

New Podcast Thing: Blabbermouth

As someone that is already subscribed to around a dozen political podcasts, I figured, hey, why not try to squeeze in some more? The Stranger is home to sex advice columnist Dan Savage, and on his highly entertaining podcast Savage Lovecast, he'll frequently start things off with self-described "political rants." They tend to be concise, cathartic, preach-to-the-choir moments that resonate with those that already share his political opinions and probably cause those that don't to roll their eyes. Falling into the first camp most of the time, I was interested to see what a podcast with him that's more focused on politics would be like.

After sampling the three most recent episodes, my partially informed hot take on Blabbermouth is... that it is mostly a bunch of hot takes. With episode titles like "What the Hell Is Wrong with Donald Trump, and How Is It He's Getting Worse," this podcast fills up much of its running time by having the exasperated hosts react angrily to the latest headlines by calling Donald Trump stupid, a liar, a bigot, etc., and then musing on what Democrats should be doing regarding messaging and protest tactics. Because they all agree with each other most of the time, there isn't much for them to debate, and they're also not in the business of doing the sort of policy deep dives that can be found on podcasts like The Weeds. One discussion regarding changes that were made to the LGBTQ flag in Philadelphia did stand out for being more nuanced than others.

More than anything else, Blabbermouth reminds me of the sorts of quick, casual political conversations that I'll have with like-minded friends at bars. They're usually fun, we'll hurl invectives at the politicians that we hate (because hey, they're the worst), but our minds are already made up on most things and we're probably not going to learn a lot.

New Podcast Thing: Politics & Polls

Do you know what the problem with most political polling podcasts is? They aren't dry enough. Having had my fill of the jocular crew and their occasional obscure sports references over at 538 yesterday, I fished around for other podcasts that aim to suck the punditry and fun out of our current election cycle with cold statistical analysis. Many people recommended Politics & Polls with Julian Zelizer and Sam Wang.

On his endearingly dated website, Wang leverages his background in biophysics and neuroscience to do math-y things and aggregate public polling data. Wang's model is significantly more bullish on a Clinton victory than, say, Nate Silver's, contributing to his popularity among left-leaning individuals. I was curious to give this podcast a listen to learn more about the differences in his methodology that would lead him to this conclusion, because I'm a fucking nerd.

Instead, the two episodes that I listened to turned out to be engaging miniature history lessons with guests that only sometimes veered into polling minutia. On "Gender & Politics," Zelizer and Wang interview Rebecca Traister (author of All the Single Ladies), and she provided an insightful overview of how gender issues and even significant milestones in women's history can be overlooked or poorly covered. One example of this: after Hillary Clinton became the first woman to win a state's presidential party for a major party in 2008, almost no mainstream media outlets picked that up as the main takeaway (with many instead focusing on whether or not it helped that she cried beforehand). In another episode, the recent history of the religious right's role in politics was given a nuanced look, including divisions among different groups as to what actually constitutes a religious political agenda.

If I were to recommend this podcast to any type of person in particular, I guess it would be great for... people who are obsessed with politics, but are also completely burned out by this election, but also continue to have an appetite for more coverage from different perspectives? I can't be the only one.

New Podcast Thing: The Big Podcast With Shaq

With my endless knowledge about all things sports and that thing where I listen to podcasts sometimes, I knew that I was well qualified to evaluate the merits of The BIG Podcast with Shaq. It's also worth highlighting just how badly this country needed me to render this service. Shaquille O'Neal is a very obscure figure that few are familiar with, a figure cloaked in shadows, a figure that requires a particularly keen eye to truly comprehend, so I...

Okay, I'll stop now. This podcast's premise is "Shaq says funny things and sort of addresses current events" and it rarely strays from that. For the most part, it made for a goofy, breezy listen.

Although two generic radio-host-type dudes were along for the ride in the episode that I sampled, this was clearly the Shaq show. Some segments involved the other guys playing old YouTube videos just to see Shaq's reaction. Some segments involved taking relationship questions from the audience in order to draw out Shaq's sage advice. Ross Perot was discussed for a surprisingly lengthy amount of time. Oh, and after one of the host made a snarky aside about Shaq sounding like Confucius, Shaq asserted that he should be addressed as "Shaq-fucius."

Shaq is simply funny and unpredictable to listen to. This is due less to his adroit sense of comedic timing and more due to his apparent lack of any filter. On a show that is mandated to bleep out swear words, he was casually dropping "fucks," often several of them in a row. He also went on multiple tangents about his own career in basketball, including some specific stories about his fights with previous team management figures that made me wonder if he was even supposed to bring them up. While his co-hosts read off some ad copy for Wix.com in a perfunctory way, Shaq noted that the site was as stunning as his co-host's booty. 

The only stretch that felt dull was a brief interview with Mark Cuban that rendered Shaq incapable of saying much beyond "you're awesome, Mark Cuban." But hey, Shaq certainly came across as sincere in his admiration, and it was endearing to hear him repeatedly bring up that he had wanted to play on Cuban's team. For something that I will probably never feel the need to revisit, good times were had.

New Podcast Thing: The Axe Files with David Axelrod

Ah man, Axe... why'd you have to lose the 'stache? You really rocked that shit.

Having served as the Chief Strategist for Barack Obama's two presidential campaigns and as Senior Advisor to the President during Obama's first term, one could say that David Axelrod knows his way around the world of politics. He also has a lot of connections to high-profile individuals. In The Axe Files, his recently launched podcast, Axelrod has already managed to arrange a lengthy interview with Mitt Romney, and to my own disbelief, the two of them appear to be pretty friendly with each other (if not friends).

Being able to bring in big names on a podcast like this comes at a cost. Compared to the nitty-gritty policy discussions found on, say, The Weeds, interviews with politicians who have a public image to maintain are bound to be a little superficial by comparison. Romney, for example, is clearly not going to say anything  negative about the Mormon Church. This lead to a somewhat awkward and protracted exchange when Axelrod began to recount the more progressive side of George Romney. After Axelrod mentioned that the elder Romney had championed equality and civil rights in a way that was ahead of the church, Mitt Romney responded with what was essentially "nah, the Church was right all along as well." Well okay then!

Similarly, their discussion about how to approach the issue of inequality felt flat. Axelrod stated that the wealthy should be able to contribute more to help provide the middle and lower classes with additional tools and opportunities to advance in society while Romney spoke at length about the importance of creating a business-friendly environment to create additional jobs. They clearly disagreed with each other on the effectiveness of each approach, but neither person pushed the other very far with counterpoints or examples.

The best parts of this interview, unsurprisingly, came about from the non-political topics. It's evident that Romney cares deeply for his family, and his retelling of the moment where he and Ann found out that she had been diagnosed with multiple sclerosis was moving. Axelrod and Romney are also acutely aware of the exhaustion that's inherent to modern presidential races, including the lifestyle of endless hopping from hotel to hotel while on the campaign trail. It just goes to show you that politicians are people, my friend. Okay yes, that joke was lazy and unfunny, but so is the title for this podcast, so it seems fitting.

New Podcast Thing: The Weeds

As a political science nerd, I often find myself lamenting the fact that most political podcasts aren't nerdy enough. Often times, they focus on the major headlines of the week, charismatic and well-known politicians, and other stories that capture the public's imagination... boooooooring. I want statistics and abstract policy discussions, damnit!

Ezra Klein and his friends over at Vox must have heard my feckless complaining, as this podcast is just the sort of thing that I've been looking for. For my first foray into The Weeds, I selected their second episode, which focuses on the potential effects of adopting single-payer healthcare and stricter gun control legislation in the United States. Largely ignoring discussions about the feasibility of passing such things with the current Congress, they focused on the costs, benefits, and logistics of implementing these sets of policies.

This episode was full of fascinating little tidbits that made me mutter "hrm, good point" out loud to no one in particular while listening. Take, for example, their perspective on the "public health care systems have longer waiting periods" argument. On the one hand, it's factually true that waiting periods in some countries with single-payer health care systems are longer for various procedures. On the other hand, when you consider that many people in the United States can never receive certain procedures (due to an inability to afford them), statistics like average waiting periods have to be considered in a different light.

Similarly, this episode made me consider that switching over to a single-payer system could be a complicated thing to roll out in the short term, even if the long-term benefits would make it worthwhile. Cutting down the percentage of our GDP that we spend on health care would have a real impact on the healthcare industry that will be disruptive to large swathes of the economy, so cost-saving measures would likely have to be introduced gradually. I'm telling you people, this sort of conversation is way rad.

One area where there is room for improvement: there wasn't much actual debate taking place in either topic. Everyone seems to agree with each other on just about everything, with counterpoints only being brought up occasionally by someone attempting to play devil's advocate. There are plenty of complex issues with a multitude of plausible positions that one could take that fall outside of the standard partisan nonsense. When those issues come up, it'd be fun to listen to something that's a little more contentious.

I'm definitely subscribing this one.

New Podcast Thing: Intersection

Intersection takes its title literally. Each episode is an exercise in intersectionality that brings together multiple experts from a variety of disciplines and backgrounds to discuss a single topic. Each conversation has a formal feeling to it, with each guest receiving multiple opportunities to speak at length without interruption; this differs slightly from the well-known cable news discussion format where everyone behaves like a jackass.

For my first episode, I selected "Are You Man Enough for Some Football?" Jamil Smith, along with a group of guests that includes a former NFL player, sports journalists and an academic that focuses on masculinity, dived right into the negative consequences of the strong masculinity that's inherent to the culture surrounding the sport. Despite including some self-professed football fanatics, this group was actually fairly scathing in their assessment, highlighting high profile cases of violence against women by players, homophobic behavior among many players and a sense of male bravado that encourages players to take excessive punishment without asking for help.

After vividly describing the what of masculinity's negative effects, the group posited that the why behind its prominence in football's broader culture is directly tied to the marginal presence of women in that space. With all of the players and most of the coaches for college teams and NFL teams being male, women are largely left out, creating an environment where men behaving terribly can sometimes be swept under the rug as "boys being boys." The inherently violent nature of the game itself also shoulders some of the blame. Wade Davis, the ex-player in the group, believes that the NFL will never be able to take enough precautions to fully eliminate the risk of serious injury without throwing out fundamental aspects of the game.

Everyone in this podcast knew what they were talking about, treated each other with respect, and made some salient points. I don't have any substantive criticism to levy at what I listened to, other than to note that it came across as slightly... sterile? This sort of conversation is far preferable to the aforementioned cable news model, but it did lack a certain kind of spark. As an example of what I'm talking about, About Race (which Smith recently appeared on as a guest) is a podcast that tackles similarly weighty topics with a little more passion. Intersection's rotating panel format may make it difficult for that kind of chemistry to develop. The overall purpose of this podcast is admirable, however, and I'll likely check in with it again from time to time.

New Podcast Thing: Behind Enemy Lines

It's time to get out of my comfort zone. No more milquetoast, middle-of-the-road reporting from BBC News. No more listening in on conversations with people that I already tend to agree with on most things. Let's get real.

While I was going through my usual, half-assed research routine for things that I'm unfamiliar with, "Behind Enemy Lines Radio" is one of the first conservative podcasts that surfaced. Conservative talk radio is widely recognized as an influential force in the the modern media landscape, but the most popular podcasts centered around current events and politics tend to be left leaning. Listening to archives of Rush Limbaugh or another well known radio host sounded dull, so here we are.

Behind Enemy Lines has a charmingly loose and gritty vibe compared to what I'm used to. Their most recent episode, recorded shortly after the most recent Republican presidential debate, largely consisted drunken cross talk between the hosts of this show, hosts of other shows, and members of the Brooklyn Young Republicans. Commercial breaks included plugs for sketchy sounding vitamin supplements instead of standard podcast affair like Audible and Squarespace. To my personal delight, they also took the "Behind Enemy Lines" motif very seriously, frequently referring to New York as the "People's Republic of New York" and playing some rebellious heavy metal music in the opening.

Beyond the general trappings of the show, I was genuinely curious to see how this group of staunch Republicans views the current crop of Republican presidential candidates. Unsurprisingly, Jeb Bush was derided as being a "liberal" and a "RINO," and the relatively moderate (albeit still quite conservative in absolute terms) John Kasich received plenty of scorn as well. Ted Cruz appeared to be the consensus favorite, which makes some sense, given his Tea Party bona fides.

In most cases, however, their opinions were actually quite in line with the "mainstream" perspective. To take Donald Trump as an example, most of the participants in this podcast portrayed him as a charismatic figure that is severely lacking in terms of concrete policy proposals. Along with some gratuitous speculation as to whether or not she is a "MILF," several of the discussants brought up Carly Fiorina as the person most likely to get a bump in the polls following her strong debate performance. There was even a short period of time where I almost forgot about the discussants' political leanings, until one of the guests asked if it would be okay for him to refer to CNN's staff as "liberal d-bags."

I will say that listening to this made me question some of the ways that I choose to casually talk about politics with people that I know. Perhaps all of my sick Mike Huckabee burns aren't actually all that insightful or witty, particularly to anyone who happens to disagree with me... Nah, that can't be. Everything that I say is the best. Go me!

New Podcast Thing: Foreign Policy Podcast

Alright, the time for funnin' around with fantasy football and Friends is over. Let's talk genocide!

Although people tend to exaggerate the degree to which today's political culture is polarized, it is true that individuals with stronger ideological views have a larger impact on public discourse than those who describe themselves as "moderates."  Relatively stronger ideological splits also push people into different media bubbles, including inclinations to interact with mostly like-minded people on social media. It's not hard at all to get into a new consumption rut by relying on a small handful of sources that just happen to reinforce your preexisting conceptions of the world.

And hey, I'm not above sliding into ruts. It's certainly entertaining to sneer at politicians that I already dislike by skimming vacuous Politico articles in order to get into self-righteous huffs about random nutty quotes. Mike Huckabee's done it again, everyone! What a nut! It takes actual effort to seek out new voices and more challenging topics, and fortunately enough, this website provided the arbitrary push that I needed to freshen up my podcast feed.

Foreign Policy, a longstanding news publication that features long-form essays from many different contributors, recently launched a podcast feed. Of the two episodes that I listened to, a discussion about how society reacts to instances of genocide stuck with me the most. Joshua Oppenheimer, director of The Act of Killing and The Look of Silence, and David Rieff, an author and policy analyst, make the uncomfortable argument that it's worth empathizing with the those that participate in these sorts of atrocities to better understand why they happen in the first place.

It's easy to frame heinous acts as simple good vs. evil morality plays, enabling us to take some amount of (often false) solace in the assumption that there must already be substantial forces pushing back against any given wicked regime. Similarly, people in western societies tend to think that nothing similar to the Indonesian purges in the 60's could ever happen to them. What is it, then, that drives otherwise normal people to become complicit in these acts? We all have the capacity to deceive ourselves and tell ourselves stories in order to justify our own actions, even when they're wrong.

Oppenheimer stated that he wasn't interested in showing his documentaries to people in order to make them feel bad about something that takes place in a country that they know very little about and may not even be interested in. Instead, he wants people to use them as opportunities to reflect on themselves and what is happening in their own countries. This isn't as fun as sending links out to all of my friends about the latest asinine thing that rolled out of Mike Huckabee's mouth, but it's certainly more important.

New Podcast Thing: Everything's Coming Up Podcast!

While listening to my first episode of Everything's Coming Up Podcast! (Episode 14: A Star is Burns), I often wondered how impenetrable this sort of conversation must be for someone that hasn't already committed every classic-era episode of The Simpsons to memory. Roughly a third of this episode consisted of co-hosts Allie Goertz and Julia Prescott, as well as their guest, Jonah Ray, giggling and verbally tripping over each other in a race to share their favorite quotes and scenes from A Star is Burns. Any coherent line of conversation that was beginning to form would be ground to a halt by someone slipping in a "That's the joke" or "Boo-urns," causing everyone to burst out laughing.

And you know what? For a show that so many people continue to revere to this day, it's understandable that an episode-by-episode discussion podcast could go off the rails like this. I had a constant grin on my face while listening, as it immediately reminded me of all of the times where my friends and I have essentially played rambling games of Simpsons quote-tag. This episode felt like less of a conversation and more of a communal celebration at times, and hey, there's nothing wrong with that.

Jonah Ray, who described himself as a fan of The Critic, did bring up some interesting points about the relatively heavy presence of topical references and jabs at the film industry in this episode of The Simpsons reflected the types of jokes that were prominent on The Critic. The idea of creating a crossover episode like this was not universally loved by the creative staff, but the two different shows and comedic styles ultimately meshed together fairly seamlessly.

Even though I enjoyed my time with this podcast, I'm honestly not sure who I would recommend it to. For people with only a passing familiarity with The Simpsons, you can safely skip this. For anyone that has watched the show as obsessively as I have, you may find yourself fecklessly mumbling corrections when one of the discussants ever-so-slightly misquotes one of the many one-liners that you cherish. Everyone involved in recording this sounded like they were having a blast, though, and their enthusiasm is contagious.