Strange Country Ep. 290: Ed Gein
Strange Country
It’s the spooky season, and this episode is a doozy and an oozy, as in the oozing of decomposing bodies. Ed Gein, the inspiration behind characters Norman Bates, Leatherface and Buffalo Bill, is the topic of today’s Strange Country. Cohosts Beth and Kelly have an especially important PSA before you press play: Don’t eat while listening. Theme music: Big White Lie by . Cite your sources: Bloom, John. “They Came. They Sawed. – Texas Monthly.” Texas Monthly, November 2004, https://www.texasmonthly.com/arts-entertainment/they-came-they-sawed/. Accessed 11 October 2024. ...
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Strange Country Ep. 289: Night of Terror
Strange Country
Hey Dashhounds, it's our favorite month for creepy tales at Strange Country! October brings warmish temperatures at night, hot sunny days, hurricanes with power that you have never seen before, and the uncomfortable feeling of politics gone wrong--rarely landing with a woman in charge. Today Beth and Kelly bring you the story of the Night of Terror. Enjoy! Theme music: Big White Lie by . Cite your sources, dude: Deuel, Nathan. “Book Prize winner Stephanie Jones-Rogers on women slave owners.” Los Angeles Times, 17 April 2020,...
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Strange Country Ep. 288: Talking Dolphins
Strange Country
The mid-20th century was heady times full of LSD, and a NASA flush with cash, which is how we get to today’s story about a scientist trying to get dolphins to speak English. Strange Country co-hosts Beth and Kelly talk about Dr. John C. Lilly, inventor of the sensory deprivation tank and dolphin whisperer, whose plans for dolphin communication veered off in a strange direction when one volunteer started giving Peter the dolphin a helping hand, if you catch our meaning. Theme music: Big White Lie by . Cite your sources: GRECO, JOANN, and Benjamin Franklin. “The Psychonaut You Never...
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Strange Country Ep. 287: Free Town Project
Strange Country
New Hampshire seemed like the perfect state to start a libertarian utopia. No sales or income tax, aversion to governmental interference and the motto “Live free or die.” But for residents of Grafton, it soon became un-BEAR-able. Do you see what I did there because I don’t. Join Strange Country cohosts Beth and Kelly as they share this remarkable tale of libertarian hijinks from the book A Libertarian Walks into a Bear by Matthew Hongoltz-Hetling. Theme music: Big White Lie by . Cite your sources: Austin, Elizabeth. “Libertarians Took Control of This Small Town. It...
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Strange Country Ep. 286: Hidden History of White Southern Women and Those They Enslaved
Strange Country
Things are changing in ‘Merica, we can feel it. Join Beth and Kelly today as we tell the tale of white women in the south who played a very major role in the trading of enslaved people during the 18th and 19th centuries. It is a story that has only recently been uncovered and exposed thanks to the research work of Stephanie Jones-Rogers and her book They Were Her Property. Now after years of historians painting pictures of the delicate flowers known as white Southern Belles married to men who owned enslaved people, do we learn that the women—these wives—were some of the worst, most evil...
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Strange Country Ep. 285: Project 2025, Part 2
Strange Country
In today’s episode Strange Country cohosts Beth and Kelly slog through the remaining 4,567,324 pages of Project 2025, a manifesto to turn America into Dante’s 8th circle of hell. If you don’t want to face this, the basic gist is anything good and just is gone and is replaced by bad. Theme music: Big White Lie by . So many citations, so little time: Borosage, Robert L. “Why Trump's Second Victory Would Be Worse.” The Nation, 4 June 2024, https://www.thenation.com/article/society/project-2025-trump-heritage-foundation-maga/. Accessed 13 June 2024. Dans, Paul, and Steven Groves,...
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Strange Country Ep. 284: Project 2025, Part 1
Strange Country
Project 2025 is a 920-page bloated opus about taking our fragile democracy and turning into Christian Nationalist nightmare if Trump gets back into the oval office. And Beth read it!! Well, skimmed some portions because oh my god was this bureaucratic gibberish. But that’s the point; onslaught us with so much information, we’re too numb to fight back. Listen to part one on Strange Country where Beth and Kelly detail how the Project 2025 authors, an assortment of Garbage Pail kids, pin all of society’s ills on “wokeness,” abortion, and gay people having rights. The plan is to get rid...
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Strange Country Ep. 283: Play Time
Strange Country
Hey Dash Hounds, you clever playful listeners. Why do we play? Are we even allowed to play as adults without judgment. Not if Beth is around. In this episode, Kelly and Beth discuss the science of play—specifically animal play. Of course we have watched our cats indulge in “playful” ankle biting, but other animals also incorporate play in their daily lives. But why? Listen and find out. Thank you always for listening; it’s an act of love. Theme music: Big White Lie by . Works cited, dude: Wikipedia,...
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Strange Country Ep. 282: John Leonard Orr
Strange Country
What should you not do if you commit crimes? Write a book where the main character is someone just like you doing the very crimes you are doing. John Leonard Orr, fire captain and arson investigator, wrote a book about a serial arsonist in LA County while he was being that very serial arsonist. Strange Country cohosts Beth and Kelly talk about the strange crime of arson in today’s weekly/bimonthly podcast. Thanks for sticking with us! Theme music: Big White Lie by . Cite your sources: Antholis, Kary. “A Convicted Fireman-Arsonist and Me: The Facts As I Knew Them.” Crime Story, 24...
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Strange Country Ep. 281: Quest for Immortality
Strange Country
Charles Lindbergh wasn’t only known for that flight, his weird reverence for Nazis and being the public face of America First, he was also interested in literal immortality. In the 1930s, he collaborated with Dr. Alexis Carrel to devise ways to regenerate organs so people could possibly live forever, but not just any people. It’s the 1930s and these two white guys are mainly interested in elongating the lives of other white western dudes. Join Strange Country cohosts Beth and Kelly as they share another Lindbergh story and discuss whether they would want to live forever. Theme music: Big...
info_outlineHenry Darger is one of the most profitable outsider artists out there. Unfortunately he didn’t reap the benefit of that while he was alive, spending much of it in abject poverty. He was compelled to make and write art during the time he was not working as a janitor or dishwasher. His artwork dealt with themes of child abuse and violence, subjects very familiar with Darger when he was put in an asylum at the age of 12. Strange Country cohost Beth with special pinch (or pitch) hitter Terry discuss this artist and why work gets recognition after they’re gone.
Theme music: Big White Lie by A Cast of Thousands.
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