19 October 2015 – We started out simply this week with a big tip of the carrot to Whole Foods in thanks for their decision to no longer sell bunny in their freezer section. Rabbit Americans everywhere join me in collective relief. Will and I are both reading unusually good books this week. I’m reading the magical, Two Years, Eight Months and Twenty-Eight Nights Nights by Salman Rushdie. I’ll be the first to admit that I never managed to struggle to the end of The Satanic Verses but Rushdie’s new book is in the style of 1001 Nights and is truly a book that has transported me. Will is reading The Discovery of Middle Earth, by Graham Robb. Robb traces the history of the Celts using the results of recent archeology and research. He brings a potentially new slant to the history of a tribe with much greater reach than most realize.
After the break Will told us about some of the more recent revelations by Edward Snowden and the realization by British MPs that they too are the subject of surveillance despite the repeated statements by the government to the contrary. You will be pleased to know that a court ruled that the statements by the government were “political” and not really intended to be factual so everything is all okay. Or not.
I’ve been thinking about the lack of a Speaker and the so-called debt ceiling crisis upon which Republicans continue to insist despite the fact that it is a useless anachronism dating back to the gold standard. Is this the time for platinum coin seigniorage, aka “the trillion dollar coin?” Probably not but PCS sure would solve a lot of problems. I explain what it is and a bit about why it works. Later this week I will post, under our “Other Podcasts” tab an MMT podcast I did for The After Show during which I also covered PCS. There is a bit more detail in that podcast and I will include my notes as well in case you would like more information.
Our interview this week was with citizen journalist and blogger, Margaret Pless. While Margaret has been involved in covering Gamergate, we didn’t bother to dive down into the weeds of who said what, when or to whom. Personally, with rare, rare exceptions (The Room, for instance) I don’t play games and I’m not really interested in them. What DOES interest me are some of the more meta issues of which Gamergate is only one example. We talked to Margret about women in science and tech, about games in the larger context of society and in our extended “Extra Mad” segment Margaret got in to more detail about how to protect yourself on-line. Margaret is a terrific young talent and we think you will be as engaged by her as we were. – Carrots! Arliss
