202 - The Anarchist Cookbook

This episode ended up being much more personal to me than I had expected or hoped. It's strange, the man who had inspired me as a pre-teen rebel ended up becoming an inspiration for me as a twenty-something reluctant adult. Obviously, these inspirations were for far different reasons, but it's a bit interesting how the story panned out. Everyone seems to get one window for other to look into them. Gene Wilder will never be seen as a great novelist, even if he trumped Shakespeare. Daryl Hannah will never be primarily known as the founder of the Sustainable Biodiesel  Alliance, even though it may be a far nobler act than playing an android. And sadly, I doubt William Powell will ever be known as a truly caring educator, as he was during the majority of his life.

Of course, those close to him will know the true Bill Powell, unlike me or any other people that have not met this low-key author. However, just from reading his great shame, The Anarchist Cookbook, I can tell that this man has always been curious and eager to disseminate knowledge. Yea, lots of it was bullshit. Yea, the rest of it was dangerous. It made people listen, though. I could only imagine what it would take to get dozens of people writing to the director of the CIA about your little, profitable act of rebellion without getting thrown in prison immediately. This 19 year old became a lord of the underground. He was THE fucking punk. But it meant nothing to him shortly after.

We wish our little podcast could open the window from the other side of William Powell, but we can only slightly crack it. I wish he could be our mascot. A person who realizes that, rather than inciting negative emotion by flirting with violent practices, teaching someone why people become so violent may have better results. This man who fed multiple generations of rebellion actively worked to be his own cycle-breaker. And he did it in the places that needed it most. The areas that may be more prone to exploitation an indoctrination of children. He knew that a child's mind, once solidified, is incredibly difficult to reshape. So he began shaping them reasonably, and training others how to shape. 

Our thoughts go out to Ochan Powell and the rest of William's family and friends. We hope you wouldn't have hated this episode, Bill.

-Ryan

109 - Remedies: How Carrots Won the War

Greetings, listenerland!

This episode really gets to the heart and soul of the podcast. Almost every episode that we have done is rooted in some sort of remedies or old wives’ tale. When it came time to hash out what we were going to cover it was really exciting to see the podcast, in a sense, come full circle.

That was until we started to research these topics on hand. Apparently people took these rumors, myths, and misconceptions for face value and just ran with it. Thanks a lot science.

We assumed that things like lemon juice dying hair, ginger being used for motion sickness, and tomato juice neutralizing skunk smell would be easy to cover with no problem. We could not have been more wrong.

Finding the origins of these remedies also proved as a daunting task. They have been passed along orally from various sources that we almost needed carbon dating to find any mention of them as we scoured high and low. This was also coupled with the science itself was frustrating so it kind of became a moot point. We found some mentions sporadically but nothing concrete enough to present their evolution.

The one topic I was very glad that we covered was the chicken pox for oatmeal. That was the lone subject that I could vouch for personally. It was a home remedy I used when I was a kid when I caught the chicken pox virus. I can confirm that it did work and the younger me could not be happier.

Even though the research was heavier and more involved than previous episodes, we really enjoyed dismantling these remedies and approaching them as subjectively as possible. It’s hard not to be skeptic approaching these from a science oriented perspective, but we were pleasantly surprised with the end result. We hoped you learned something from this episode because we most certainly did. If nothing else, we hope to be educational and informative. Thanks a lot for listening.

-Jos