Journos

A stream-of-consciousness news podcast exploring the big, little, and unexpected stories that shape our absurd world.

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Episodes

Wednesday Jan 05, 2022

On the Twelfth and Final Day of the 12 Days of JOURNOS, Brandon and Stephen reluctantly cover the story about the reality TV star who sells her own farts. Sigh. Not surprisingly, said farts are also available as NFTs. Double sigh. 
All this gets them thinking about the need to invest in the collective brainpower of humanity, which has apparently dropped to an all time low. It’s time to “buy the dip” and prevent any future “fartrepreneurs” from poisoning the well of civilization any further. 
How? The folks over at The Brookings Institute have an idea: The White House Brain Capital Council. It’s a somewhat radical idea that may or may not be driven by a desire to improve plebeian productivity. But if the skyrocketing price of a human fart in a jar is any indication, it might be worth a shot. 

Tuesday Jan 04, 2022

On the Eleventh Day of JOURNOS, we got ourselves a Special Guest: Elizabeth Holmes, fresh from her conviction on four of 11 charges (the ones related to rich folks, not the ones related to regular folks).
Brandon & Stephen walk through the rise and fall of Theranos, while newly minted Friend-of-Show Elizabeth looks on the bright side, including croquet with "Mad Dog" Mattis, joining a very exclusive crime club with Martha Stewart, and selling NFTs of herself making ... noises.
All this NFT talk gets us thinking about the strange world of tech investment. What's really the difference between a fortune built on made-up innovation that was supposed to be real and made-up innovation that's just ... made up.
From blood tests to mutant apes, it's a great talk with the one-of-a-kind Elizabeth Holmes about how the aura of value leads to success, or bubbles, or possibly just prison time.
You too can own a part of this episode, simply by listening.
Special thanks to the nonfungible Janet Varney for her backchannel connex to Lizzie.
JOURNOS is produced by Heather "Eagle Ears" Wilson.
Music: "Waking Up (Remix)" by Steve Combs

Monday Jan 03, 2022

On the Tenth Day of JOURNOS, we’re talkin’ turkey about tech stocks, big bucks, and the jobs of tomorrow. You may have heard that Apple just received the first $3 trillion valuation in history. But you’ve certainly never seen anyone count to a trillion. Why? Would take too long, obv. Nevertheless, in an effort to demystify this astronomical price tag, Stephen walks us through a few somewhat more tangible examples to help us wrap our brains around the company’s mind-boggling market cap.  Brandon then brings us down to earth with a run down of the most sought-after jobs needed in our mid- and post-pandemic world and Stephen reminds us that the billionaire class got richer (and larger) during said pandemic. Finally, the duo try their hand at predicting the next person to rise to their 10-digit ranks.

Sunday Jan 02, 2022

On the Ninth Day of JOURNOS, we remind ourselves that the year 2022 was first popularized in 1973 by the film Soylent Green. That vision of the future of cuisine gets Brandon & Stephen talking about other plans for how and what to feed people that isn't made of people.
Turns out one option is ... soylent, the food-replacement drink with the recommended daily allowance of misplaced irony.
But for reals, the near-future of food is wild: vertical farming, urban shrimp, upcycled coffee, plus algae, kelp, more kelp, heme, and, of course, insects ... so many insects. If the taste freaks you out, there's music that can make it sweeter.
The future wouldn't be complete without robots, of course: robots at the airport and robots loose on the streets, all designed to replace humans delivering our food. 
Wrapping up this smorgasbord of weird ideas, Stephen throws his own futurist dining concept into the ... trough.
Good eatin'!

Saturday Jan 01, 2022

On the Eighth Day of JOURNOS, we unpack Brandon's first conspiracy: the secret marketing machinations that produce the Color of the Year. This year, a hitch: most of the colors were basically the same riff on greenish-gray. With this crack in the facade, Stephen & Brandon discuss the terrible power of the true palette-masters over at the Pantone Color Institute, which exercises considerable sway over the design and marketing choices of all sorts of brands.
Pantone's Color of the Year? A sick purp called "Very Peri!" Pantone's choice, as well as all those near-identical green-grays, was inspired this year by the psychological effects of a single ongoing event: the pandemic. The colors are meant to soothe and to inspire creativity (and per Brandon, to continue to exercise control over our built reality).
All this talk of the pandemic and mood got us thinking about a New York Times piece on the "boring pandemic" and the "mood of 2021." So we decide to kick off the year by announcing our own JOURNOS Color of 2022. 
Listen and learn, but don't doubt: It's the perfect shade for your tinfoil hat. 

Friday Dec 31, 2021

On the Seventh Day of JOURNOS, fish rain down from the heavens into Texarkana, Texas. A Biblical tale rendered unto the news by a blessed waterspout, and a fitting end to a year of nature's oddities. 
As the fishy heavens open up, we open an umbrella and do some updates to our episode on space, sea, and desert. Even though I reported on the issues with solar-energy development in the Mojave Desert, the Biden administration still opened up more desert land to those panel-lovin' freaks. The news covered the politics of the Joes Biden and Manchin, and Build Back Better, but didn't say much about the desert tortoises.
From there, straight into space, where China is all mad at Elon about his doggone satellites getting in the way of all the other junk & stuff up there. Elon's response? Space is, like, big, y'all.
Then we come back to Earth and plunge deep beneath the ocean so Stephen can get off on his precious nodules again. The New Yorker MUST have picked up on our last story, 'cause it followed up with its own take on the tale of polymetallic nodules on the ocean floor which are basically beautiful Easter eggs full of iPhone materials, apparently.
Is there anything down there other than stuff we might like? And will Nature put up with us poking around the Earth's nethers? Those are the questions of the year, and what we'll keep on thinking about into 2022, which based on current omens of fish and other afflictions will be ... eventful.
Auld Lang Syne-ing off! (Until Day Eight.)

Thursday Dec 30, 2021

On the Sixth Day of JOURNOS, we first look back on a ninja attack on American soil. Well, not really — but a guy in Kern County did dress up as one in September to ambush a special forces unit under a cloak of darkness.
But speaking of vulnerabilities, how about that Colonial pipeline shitshow back in May? Among other things, it brought to light the burgeoning industry of Ransomware as a Service (RaaS), where organized crime starts to look a lot more like Salesforce than the Gambino Family. 
While the threat of ninja attack is nothing to be worried about in the grand scheme of things, the notion of a forever cyberwar certainly is. Problem is, we’re just too used to fearing The Bomb.  

Wednesday Dec 29, 2021

On the Fifth Day of JOURNOS, we sprint, dive, and slalom into the 2020 Summer Olympic Games, held in summer of 2021. We glory at the spectacle of so many controversies, from bribery and shameful resignations to a stadium sourced from endangered rainforests and the traditional procession of vomiting Australians that ends every Olympiad.
We linger voyeuristically at that other tradition: how Olympians are going to screw each other. This time around, it was complicated by cardboard no-sex beds, a utopian vision of corrugated-cardboard idealism from the 1960s that like everything these days was infected by disinformation.
The event we really gathered for, though? The conversation about athletes' mental health this year, from Simone Biles to Naomi Osaka. Brandon & Stephen wonder whether the pandemic contributed to these struggles, and maybe made it more okay to talk about them. (Certainly, more sports figures are.)
With all of us dealing with a two-year anxiety marathon, the athletes who take a pass on competition for their own good may end up being the really inspirational story of this 2020(+1) Olympiad.
Your sex-box or mine?
 

Tuesday Dec 28, 2021

On the Fourth Day of Journos we check in on a Denver Area bear that, back in July, got a bucket stuck on its head. The incident made national news, and it wasn’t the only such story involving a rascally Ursus and a bucket that the media picked up in 2021. Needless to say, the bear/bucket saga was far from the most pressing issue that day. 
That’s right, we’re taking a look at clickbait and why we can’t stop falling for it. Stephen looks into the psychology of it all, while Brandon pulls a few choice headlines for comparison. But what’s wrong with stupid news every once in a while? Is click bait the cure for media-informed depression? Maybe, maybe not.
One thing’s for sure — you won’t believe what happens next …

Monday Dec 27, 2021

On the Third Day of JOURNOS, Brandon tells the story of three women who met over the social medium of a cheating boyfriend, bought an old school bus, and went on a road trip across the US, scattering feel-good news stories across this great nation and then creating their own content like a bunch of Johnny Appleseeds of the Influencer Economy.
Beating back our cynicism, we ask whether this is an earnest voyage of discovery, or just a good opportunity to generate some Intellectual Property, addressing thorny questions of how it's any different than travel writing of yore and whether the jorts industry is behind it all. 
Then we shift gears and coast downhill into a discussion of how a generation is incentivized to broadcast their lives, one clip and NFT at a time, in hopes of monetizing its way to some new micro-celebrity middle class. Brandon wonders if we're any different, and Stephen smashes the subscribe button.
Everybody in the water hole!
 

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