#502 - The Second Battle of Batya (w/ Batya Ungar-Sargon)

The Fifth Column

#News #Comedy #Kmele Foster Freethink #Matt Welch Reason #Michael Moynihan Vice #New York

30:55

A secret field that summons lightning. A massive spiral that disappears into a salt lake. A celestial observatory carved into a volcano. Meet the wild—and sometimes explosive—world of land art, where artists craft masterpieces with dynamite and bulldozers. In our Season 2 premiere, guest Dylan Thuras, cofounder of Atlas Obscura, takes us off road and into the minds of the artists who literally reshaped parts of the Southwest. These works aren’t meant to be easy to reach—or to explain—but they just might change how you see the world. Land art you’ll visit in this episode: - Double Negative and City by Michael Heizer (Garden Valley, Nevada) - Spiral Jetty by Robert Smithson (Great Salt Lake, Utah) - Sun Tunnels by Nancy Holt (Great Basin Desert, Utah) - Lightning Field by Walter De Maria (Catron County, New Mexico) - Roden Crater by James Turrell (Painted Desert, Arizona) Via Podcast is a production of AAA Mountain West Group.…

21 days ago 2:05:14

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Errr….This one gets pretty heated. But we’re all still friends! We think. And Moynihan is now sober and his blood sugar is back to normal, so there’s that too. Either way, hats off to Batya for braving another episode with three people who disagree with her on pretty much everything. We talk Tariffs, Trump, lawfare, Ukraine, and everything in between.

This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit www.wethefifth.com/subscribe

540 episodes

The Fifth Column

#502 - The Second Battle of Batya (w/ Batya Ungar-Sargon)

The Fifth Column

140 subscribers

published 21 days ago

MP3•Episode home

This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit www.wethefifth.com/subscribe

540 episodes

#News #Comedy #Kmele Foster Freethink #Matt Welch Reason #Michael Moynihan Vice #New York

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The Fifth Column

1
#505 - A Saudi Summit. A Delaware Freakoff. 1:38:02

5 hours ago1:38:02

1:38:02

* Jack London and hobo Oakland * The lovely government of Qatar * Trump in Saudi * A carnival of corruption * Chasing heroes… * The end of the “introventionalists” * But do they *fear* him? * The new Chomskyites * Declining freedom… * Trump’s fat, rich friend who wants price controls * The triumph of gesture politics * Black Leo This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit www.wethefifth.com/subscribe…

The Fifth Column

1
UNLOCKED: David Zweig, on How Media and Public Health Failed Our Kids 1:13:00

1 day ago1:13:00

1:13:00

You demanded, we complied. Last month in this space, I interviewed science/technology/Covid journalist David Zweig about his great new book, An Abundance of Caution : American Schools, the Virus, and a Story of Bad Decisions . It was a bracing conversation, filled with damning media/elite criticism, blue-state horrors, and F-bombs galore. Then a funny thing happened: Dozens of you wonderful paying subscribers said Mr. Welch, tear down this paywall, so we can share this with our normie friends! And so I have. A good time to mash the subscribe button! Now it’s your turn, o demanding listeners (and even non-demanding freeloaders) – let’s hook some new normies into your favorite podcast, and maybe persuade some of you fence-sitters about the primo content you’ve been missing out on. As Pope Bob from Chicago has taught us, the more people subscribe , the more special treats for everybody. Amen. Without further ado, the original text for the episode. *** On May 11, 2020, as I was navigating personal collapse (“it’s been a really shitty two months,” I said on an interesting-to-listen-to-now Special Dispatch #20 ), my two daughters were wrestling unhappily with Zoom school, and all three of us lads were in the process of buying Covid cars, I came across a Wired article that landed like a Cher-style open-handed slap across the face: “ The Case for Reopening Schools : Lots of other countries have decided that it's time to take this step. Why is the US holding back?” The piece, by David Zweig , was very contrary to the U.S. news coverage at the time, chock full o’ studies and data points and hyperlinks, and opened like this: Schools are reopening in countries around the world in response to a substantial body of evidence that children are largely unaffected by Covid-19 and minimally contagious when they get infected. Experts and policymakers abroad also acknowledge that school closures perpetuate a long list of known harms to children. Yet, oddly, the US is following a divergent path. Along with other real-world evidence trickling in from around the globe, Zweig’s essay (plus a June 24 follow-up ), was part of my four-month journey from close-the-schools alarmist to open-the-schools monster , the latter condition from which I would spend more of my journalistic energy over the ensuing few years than I care to remember . Zweig, also a New York City parent of two schoolkids at the outbreak of Covid, is determined never to forget. His book An Abundance of Caution : American Schools, the Virus, and a Story of Bad Decisions , is more than mere rage-calorie score-settling, however. At heart, he tells me in this occasionally fiery conversation, it’s about how we make decisions under crisis, and how our country operates under duress. What he both discovers and explicates, in fascinating detours through Evidence-Based Medicine and the philosophy of science, is that two institutions in particular let us down: Public health elites, and the media. “This is an extraordinarily compelling story about evidence being ignored and dismissed,” he says. “They ignored empirical evidence that was right in front of their fucking face.” Trust me, you’ll want to get to the last 15 minutes here, where Zweig describes how this process transformed his politics. It was “this revelatory moment,” he says: “Oh my God, I was a complete arrogant asshole.” Few others are spared. Some links: * Excerpt in The Atlantic , “ The Disaster of School Closures Should Have Been Foreseen ” * Excerpt in The Free Press , “ How Covid Lies Destroyed Kids’ Lives ” * Zweig’s Substack, Silent Lunch * NPR, “ What Parents Can Learn From Child Care Centers That Stayed Open During Lockdowns ,” June 24, 2020 * The New York Times , “ How 132 Epidemiologists Are Deciding When to Send Their Children to School ,” June 12, 2020 This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit www.wethefifth.com/subscribe…

The Fifth Column

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Members Only #250 - What’s the Frequency, Papist? 18:30

3 days ago18:30

18:30

This is a free preview of a paid episode. To hear more, visit www.wethefifth.com * The Bill Bixby of East Egg * Figure it out, people * Solitude: City vs. Country (not a reference to the Jonathan Richman song , btw) * Allemansrätten and who makes the most money in your postal code * Jawohl CHEF! * Banning internships will help the poor * “Worse than Watergate” and the Ballad of G. Gordon Liddy * How does one start restoring a car * The brilliance of our mod……

The Fifth Column

1
#504 - N-Bombs and Real Bombs 1:55:42

7 days ago1:55:42

1:55:42

UPDATE: The initial version of this episode was missing two audio clips, both of them featuring exceptionally stupid people saying exceptionally stupid things. To be honest, you were be better off not hearing either of them. But the episode has been corrected, the punishing stupidity included, and now you’re worse off… * Notes from a live event (going live later today ) * Fifdom represents * Spotify exposes! * RIP Swampy * India, Pakistan, and the American retreat * Ending power, hard and soft * Marjorie Taylor Chomsky * Israeli endgame * Portnoy’s NYT complaint * Piers Springer and the forbidden word * Don’t give money to meth head Nazis who yell at babies This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit www.wethefifth.com/subscribe…

The Fifth Column

1
Members Only #259 - Tariffed into Chastity 17:48

10 days ago17:48

17:48

This is a free preview of a paid episode. To hear more, visit www.wethefifth.com * Tickets for tomorrow’s Moynihan-moderated debate at the Village Underground can be purchased here ! And subscribe to the Moynihan Report YouTube channel ! * Winnipeg land acknowledgements * Prison competition * Tariffs for erotic French movies * Traitorous Hollywood not paying enough to make movies * A listener wants to talk about Steph Curry * Rare books * Lying on the fact……

The Fifth Column

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#503 - Mea Minima Culpa 2:10:56

13 days ago2:10:56

2:10:56

They’re all back. And they recorded a very fun, very long one…during the day…to minimize drunken regrets. So many topics are covered—the Koch brother, the last episode, bad interviewers, bad manners, the strange new media, the strange new Ukraine strategy, exit Walz, etc—that we might as well dispense with the usual bullet points and just get right into it…Enjoy! This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit www.wethefifth.com/subscribe…

The Fifth Column

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Members Only #258 - We Don't Talk About Fight Club (Mostly) 18:23

14 days ago18:23

18:23

This is a free preview of a paid episode. To hear more, visit www.wethefifth.com Moynihan couldn’t make it (we don’t know where he is, but if you see a shirtless man yelling at a parking meter in lower Manhattan, please let us know). In his absence, Kmele and Welch cover a wide swath: alien oceans and scientific hype cycles, the collapse of local journalism, the rise of YouTube basketball nerds, and why Luka Dončić is the people’s MVP. They also wade into darker waters—federal crackdowns on campus speech, student visa censorship, and the increasingly authoritarian posture of Trump 2.0. Plus: reader mail, a reluctant defense of David Hogg, a rant about scams and AI voice fraud, and a minor audio glitch that might actually be evidence of extraterrestrial life.…

The Fifth Column

6 weeks ago20:23