Matthew Comments

Beans, beans, the magical fruit; The more you eat, the more you toot. The more you toot, the better you feel, So eat some beans for every meal! I remember this lyric from my childhood. I remember chanting it with other kids, and how we cracked up about anything related to farts. My kids are in the same age range now. I’m not sure they know the rhyme. But they know how hilarious farts are. Most of what I knew about beans came from that lyric. It’s like an anti-bean advertisement memorized my millions of kids. It’s been a nightmare for the bean industry. These little bits of culture frame our perceptions, and framing matters. Years ago I read Mindless Eating , by Brian Wansink. He describes a number of fascinating studies showing the impact of perception on eating. One of my favorite had to do with wine. Wansink and his team presented people with red wine at a wine and cheese party. Half of the people got the ‘real’ thing, a California wine. The other half received the exact sam

Let’s begin with a story: Your school is electing a Homecoming King & Queen. Your homeroom teacher says, “It’s time to vote for Homecoming King and Queen. Each of you gets to cast one ballot. Just remember, after you cast your ballot, it will count for about ¼ of a vote.” “Whaaaah?” you protest. “Silly student,” your homeroom teacher responds, “You don’t understand politics. The Senior class is split into four homerooms. This one has 100 students. The other three homerooms only have 25 students each. So to be fair, your ballot only counts ¼. Otherwise this homeroom would have too much say!” Your teacher’s explanation is comforting. “Of course,” you say, “I am happy with my ¼ of a vote.” This is an allegory for our electoral college. A voter in Texas has ¼ the Electoral College value as a voter in Wyoming. Neat, huh? Wyoming: 178K votes = 1 electoral college vote Texas: 715K votes = 1 electoral college vote Within the boundaries of this nation, coinci

In 2017 I read Timothy Snyder’s Black Earth . It changed the way I think about the Holocaust, and I think holds some important lessons. I first heard Snyder discuss his book on Milwaukee Public Television through a program called “On the Issues”. I ordered the book the next day. You can view that program here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ldYn-kbou7U . I can recommend any of his online talks, but one of his most straightforward is here, beginning at the 5:30 mark [ https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fxyHV90ESIY ]. He makes his case better than I could hope to. I’m compelled to share some reflections. The historical information and some of the political analysis are Snyder’s. Most of what I knew about the Holocaust was true. But much of it was partial truth. Partial truth can lead us to false conclusions. Anti-Semitism varied from fierce anti-Semitism in some Nazi-controlled countries to less anti-Semitic in others. Another thing that varied widely was the level of state destru

1-3 asterisks rates if episodes are ‘timeless’, ie *** means you could start from their first ever episode and it would still be relevant I disable auto-download, so I only download episodes I'm interested in Tiers are based on combination of quality and personal preference Tier 1 Revisionist History *** The Memory Palace*** Radiolab (various topics)** 99% Invisible (design in life)** Tier 2 FiveThirtyEight Elections (from the FiveThirtyEight web site team) Nutrition facts with Dr. Greger (cheesy but very science-based)** The Phil Vischer Podcast (Christian podcast… format change in January 2018 might bump it to Tier 3) Presidential (has one episode about each American President)*** Constitutional (episodes for Bill of Rights and Amendment topics)*** Stratfor Talks (foreign affairs)* Planet Money (NPR, topic economics) Hidden Brain (NPR, psychology)* Code Switch (NPR, about race) Tier 3 1A (NPR, one news story of the day) Science Friday