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Joan Didion and How Hollywood Shaped American Politics Mar 28, 2025

Show notes

Joan Didion famously chronicled California’s culture and mythology in works like “Slouching Towards Bethlehem” and “The White Album.” And it’s Didion’s relationship with Hollywood in particular that New York Times film critic Alissa Wilkinson explores in “We Tell Ourselves Stories,” her new analysis of the California writer. “The movies,” Wilkinson writes, “shaped us — shaped her — to believe life would follow a genre and an arc, with rising action, climax and resolution. It would make narrative sense. The reality is quite different.” We talk to Wilkinson about how Didion saw an American political landscape that was molding itself after the movies — and came to value story over substance.

Guest:

Alissa Wilkinson, movie critic, New York Times

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How to Get Your Kids Cooking Mar 28, 2025

Show notes

Cooking is a basic survival skill and yet many kids reach adulthood without knowing how to prepare even a simple meal. Meanwhile, other Bay Area kids are producing professional-level dishes on shows like “Kids Baking Championship” and “Chopped Junior.” So how can children get started in the kitchen? Seasoned instructors suggest kicking off with essential skills such as chopping – and, yes kids can use knives without injuring themselves – and learning to read recipes. We’ll talk with culinary teachers, young chefs and you about the best ways to teach kids to cook.

Guests:

Neelam Patil, chef, educator and CEO, Bliss Belly Kitchen; science teacher at Berkeley Unified School District and founder of Green Pocket Forests

founder and CEO, Culinary Artistas

Aria Karayil, sixth grader at Diablo Vista Middle School and recent contestant on "Kids Baking Championship"

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Fallout from Leaked Signal Chat Intensifies Mar 27, 2025

Show notes

We take a deep look at the fallout from what national security experts are calling one of the most extraordinary intelligence lapses in U.S. history. On Monday Atlantic editor-in-chief Jeffrey Goldberg reported that he’d been mistakenly included on an unsecured group chat with senior national security officials as they disclosed plans to attack Yemen. The Atlantic published more of the exchange on Wednesday, while the Trump administration downplayed the blunder and top intelligence officials testified before the House lawmakers. We discuss the national security implications with reporters Eric Schmitt and Garrett Graff.

Guests:

Eric Schmitt, senior national security correspondent, New York Times

Garrett Graff, journalist and historian

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Oakland Mayoral Hopeful Loren Taylor on Why Local Experience Matters Mar 27, 2025

Show notes

In a special election on April 15, Oakland voters will choose a candidate to finish the term of recalled mayor Sheng Thao. In the first of our interviews with the two frontrunners in the race, former Oakland councilmember Loren Taylor joins us to share his vision for the city and take your questions. He says he’s the only candidate in the race with the local government expertise needed to turn the city’s economic and crime problems around. But he’s facing a tough challenger in former Congresswoman Barbara Lee.

Guests:

Loren Taylor, mayoral candidate, Oakland; served on Oakland City Council from 2019-2023

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How MAGA Took Over Congress with NYT’s Annie Karni and Luke Broadwater Mar 26, 2025

Show notes

How did MAGA come to control Congress? It’s the story New York Times reporters Annie Karni and Luke Broadwater chart in a new book exposing what they call the unparalleled dysfunction of the 118th congress, where Republicans ground federal legislation to a standstill and pushed moderates out, to the point that “the moments Congress worked felt like brief interruptions of a long fall down a rabbit hole.” We talk to Karni and Broadwater about how MAGA extremism became mainstream in Congress, along with the latest political news. Their book is “Mad House: How Donald Trump, MAGA Mean Girls, a Former Used Car Salesman, a Florida Nepo Baby, and a Man with Rats in His Walls Broke Congress.”

Guests:

Annie Karni, congressional correspondent, New York Times; co-author, "Mad House"

Luke Broadwater, White House reporter, New York Times; previous congressional correspondent, The Times; co author,"Mad House"

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Americans are Obsessed with Working Hard. What is it Getting Us? Mar 26, 2025

Show notes

We’ve heard the Thomas Edison quote over and over: “Genius is one percent inspiration and ninety-nine percent perspiration.” But how often does the American ideal that we can achieve anything with hard work, actually pan out? In his new book, “99% Perspiration: A New Working History of the American Way of Life” journalist Adam Chandler challenges our myths of meritocracy and self-reliance. As Americans put in grueling work and punishing hours, we’re also experiencing rising levels of income inequality and wages that don’t keep up with cost of living. Chandler joins us to talk about how the nature of work in America is deteriorating and where we can go from here.

Guests:

Adam Chandler, author, his books include "99% Perspiration: A New Working History of the American Way of Life" out now, and "Drive-Thru Dreams: A Journey Through the Heart of America’s Fast-Food Kingdom"; journalist; former staff writer, The Atlantic; recurring guest, The History Channel’s "The Food That Built America."

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How 20 Years of YouTube Has Shaped Us Mar 25, 2025

Show notes

YouTube is the site for step-by-step how-to guides, unboxing and reaction videos, and children’s songs that get stuck in your head. It has also fundamentally changed how we produce and consume online content. As YouTube marks its 20th anniversary, we look at the cultural impact of the platform and how it evolved from a simple video-sharing site to the most visited website after Google’s own homepage. How do you use YouTube?

Guests:

Victor Xie, video creator, his YouTube channel is "Did You Eat Yet?"

Mark Bergen, reporter, Bloomberg News; author of "Like, Comment, Subscribe: Inside YouTube's Chaotic Rise to World Domination"

Johnny Cole Dickson, video creator and host, his YouTube channel is "No Lab Coat Required"

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A History of Brainwashing and its Use Today Mar 25, 2025

Show notes

In her new book, “The Instability of Truth: Brainwashing, Mind Control, and Hyperpersuasion,” Harvard historian of science Rebecca Lemov examines the many ways our minds can be controlled against our wills. Lemov chronicles the use of brainwashing techniques on a range of people from U.S. soldiers who were imprisoned in Korea in the 1950s – some of whom refused to come home after the conflict ended – to members of back-to-land cults that proliferated in the Bay Area in the 1960s. She joins us to talk about how brainwashing is used, the troubling implications, and how anyone can fall victim to mind control, even you.

Guests:

Rebecca Lemov, professor of the history of science, Harvard University

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Canadians to Trump: We Are Not Having It Mar 24, 2025

Show notes

President Trump’s unprovoked tariffs on Canadian goods, his threats to make the sovereign nation a 51st state, his belittling of Canada’s leaders: it’s all making Canadians just a bit miffed. Or as Vox’s Canada-based correspondent Zack Beauchamp puts it, “out-of-this-world angry about what the United States is doing to them.” We’ll talk about the unraveling of relations with our once closest ally, and how everyday Canadians and their government are responding.

Guests:

Zack Beauchamp, senior correspondent, Vox; author, "The Reactionary Spirit"

Vjosa Isai, reporter based in Toronto, New York Times

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Ed Yong on the Pandemic’s Legacy on Science Research and Reporting Mar 24, 2025

Show notes

During the pandemic, former Atlantic writer Ed Yong became a trusted source for news about COVID and its impact. In 2021 he won a Pulitzer Prize for that work, which often was about “the massive gulf between what you want the world to be and what you see happening around you.” As part of our series looking at the legacy of the pandemic five years on, we talk to Yong about how COVID changed our relationship with health news, reporting and research.

Guests:

Ed Yong, science journalist and author, "An Immense World: How Animal Senses Reveal the Hidden Realms Around Us." Yong won the 2021 Pulitzer prize for his writing in the Atlantic about the Covid-19 pandemic.

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