China’s Counterfeit Cities
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February 23, 2020
China has a reputation for producing counterfeit technology, fashion, and Starbucks. Then there’s fake Paris.
844,000 Feet Under the Sea
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February 8, 2020
A brief history of the Dutch pastime of telling the ocean to fuck off.
Catalonia’s Coprophilic Christmas
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December 22, 2019
The Spanish autonomous region of Catalonia does Christmas differently. In Sweden’s Burning Christmas Goat, one of my holiday podcasts last year, I talked about their tradition of Tio de Nadal/Caga Tio, the shitting log. Brief recap for those of you who definitely listened: Families decorate a log for the holidays, feed it nuts (tree food) …
Our Democracy is Dumb
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November 23, 2019
Democracy is important. The ancient Greeks knew that. Everyone else forgot it for a couple thousand years, and then America remembered. Suffering beneath the widespread paw of the British tea-and-taxes machine, a spunky bunch of would-be American patriots found common ground in vanquishing the evil empire and building atop its ashes a democratic nation. Similar …
An American Franksgiving
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November 16, 2019
The Time FDR moved Thanksgiving for fun and profit
The Weight Loss Benefits of an All-Brain Diet
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October 29, 2019
The apocalypse is here for North American cervids. It arrived no fewer than five decades ago and its progress has been… slow. Make no mistake, the zombie deer are here. As their range extends throughout North America, it’s become increasingly likely that you’ve heard something about them. It’s 2019, though, and evidence of impending doom …
Continue reading “The Weight Loss Benefits of an All-Brain Diet”
The Case for a Bigger House
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October 25, 2019
The United States House of Representatives is a cornerstone of the American Democratic system, a piece of living history, and a real shitshow.
A Brief History of “In God We Trust”
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July 26, 2019
South Dakota’s getting ornery again. A new Rushmore State law mandates the display of the United States motto, “In God We Trust” in every one of the state’s 697 public schools. Displaying the motto is required by law, but, schools are allowed to get fun creative with the new rule, which gives school principals the …
Minnesota’s Flag is Bad. Let’s Change it.
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July 23, 2019
Minnesota’s state flag is bad. It’s simultaneously unremarkable and cluttered, ridiculously complex and altogether unrecognizable. It’s an unwanted china plate on a blue tablecloth, a design well-known to all the flagbois out there as the “seal on a bedsheet”, a design schema shared by 25 state flags all proudly flown by no one. Above all, …
Continue reading “Minnesota’s Flag is Bad. Let’s Change it.”
A Tale of Two States
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July 3, 2019
On November 2nd, 1889, Benjamin Harrison, ranked #30 in C-SPAN’s ranking of US Presidents, probably sneered as he drove a knife into the heart of Dakota Territory, dividing it forever along an East-West meridian. When he signed the documents formally creating two new states, the President famously (and cutely) shuffled them, preventing onlookers from knowing …