Explain It to Me

the use of “like” injected into our vocabulary came from the girl movies & shows of the 80’s ( valley girls)

In general this isn’t the best Vox podcast, but it’s fine. The “interviews” feel more like tee-ball practice rather than critical dialogues aiming at getting to the heart of an issue or topic. For example: I’m a bit annoyed by the “Zoo” episode. Oddly there was no real discussion of the value of zoos for small children. Are zoos worthwhile for 20-something? As the guest argued, probably not. However, are they valuable for introducing children to conservation and animal advocacy? I’d argue that the guest evaded this question by noting that surveys of zoo-goers show no meaningful change in their attitudes toward conservation before and after their visit. Did a lot of 4 year olds fill out these surveys? Both the guest and the interviewer dismissed the value of having children see real animals and build empathy toward other creatures (not something they can really do by watching “nature documentaries” as the guest suggests). Unless I’m mistaken, this is the point of the listener Dave’s story about having a deeply meaningful interaction with another non-human primate at the zoo. This interaction helped him form a lifelong attitude toward animal welfare and advocacy. Of course this is a complicated issue, but the efforts to steelman the affirmative position were half-hearted and lazy at best, leading to a pretty unconvincing discussion of the topic. Anyhow, maybe the producers of this show should take some notes from the consistently excellent “Grey Area” or the erstwhile Ezra Klein show. That said, I’ll still subscribe and listen to all of the Vox content.

I don't know about this one... it took a really long time to meander to the notion of calling the restaurant for pick up and then another 40 minutes to avoid shaming the laziness of if all. Then to top it off to end with the suggestion of tipping even more. It's a pretty privileged discussion when just boycotting the apps to support local businesses is the most obvious solution.

The Weeds was a great show. Matt, Sarah, Ezra, Jane, were all great. Since then it’s been downhill and now it’s hit bottom. No longer worth listening.