Speaker 1: Fellow conspiracy realist. Thanks for tuning in. You can perhaps
Speaker 1: hear a bit of a laugh, a bit of levity
Speaker 1: in your faithful correspond its voice here, because back at
Speaker 1: twenty eighteen, we finally asked ourselves, why is Florida Man
Speaker 1: such a thing? You remember this because it was a
Speaker 1: huge It's still a huge deal in the US.
Speaker 2: Yeah, why is this the best subreddit that has ever
Speaker 2: been created?
Speaker 3: It was?
Speaker 2: Honestly back then. It was before I had, you know,
Speaker 2: an addiction to an Instagram feed that I love, by
Speaker 2: the way, still, but you know that every once in
Speaker 2: a while has some Florida Man in it. There was
Speaker 2: Florida Man on the news constantly.
Speaker 1: Yeah, and we're not talking Jeb Bush. We're talking about
Speaker 1: the headlines that do continue today, where it would seem
Speaker 1: like every every third or fourth day there was a
Speaker 1: headline that had a new crazy report about Florida Man.
Speaker 1: It was just Florida Man blank blank blankety blanks. Florida
Speaker 1: Man proclaims himself the second cousin of Jesus Christ while
Speaker 1: abducting alligator from a taco bell. You know what I mean.
Speaker 2: I would pay money to see that documentary.
Speaker 1: I would give you ten minutes to see how you
Speaker 1: see if it bangs at the top. But out of
Speaker 1: all the states of the Union, we're asking ourselves, why
Speaker 1: does it seem like one of them Florida is home
Speaker 1: to so many crazy shenanigans. Can we explain how that
Speaker 1: came about? Is there indeed a conspiracy afoot? And we
Speaker 1: don't get to say this every time, but I'm confident
Speaker 1: we found a pretty good answer.
Speaker 2: Yeah we did. Let's remember together.
Speaker 4: From UFOs to psychic powers and government conspiracies, history is
Speaker 4: riddled with unexplained events. You can turn back now or
Speaker 4: learn this stuff they don't want you to know.
Speaker 2: Hello, welcome back to the show. My name is Matt,
Speaker 2: my name is Noah.
Speaker 1: They call me Ben. We are joined by us always
Speaker 1: with our super producer Paul Mission control Decat most importantly,
Speaker 1: you are here that makes this stuff they don't want
Speaker 1: you to know. And luckily for us, this is a
Speaker 1: little bit of a more and we say lighthearted episode
Speaker 1: because after we recorded some fairly dark stuff recently some
Speaker 1: murder investigations call Texpose's, we decided that we would take
Speaker 1: a break. But answer is still a real question, what
Speaker 1: the f is up with Florida?
Speaker 2: There you go. That's the question. Why does it seem
Speaker 2: like all, at least most of the strangest thing in
Speaker 2: the United States occur in Florida.
Speaker 1: It's strange. And this is not in any way a
Speaker 1: hit piece on Florida, on America's most famous peninsula and panhandle.
Speaker 1: But it's true that here in the US, some parts
Speaker 1: of this country are more famous or infamous than others.
Speaker 1: And we had originally what the fuck is up with
Speaker 1: Florida as just a working title and in joke with us,
Speaker 1: But I think now we could just make it official, right, Yeah.
Speaker 3: But poor Paul's got to bleep it every time we
Speaker 3: say this is a family show.
Speaker 1: Well, we're only too deep so far, so hopefully it'll
Speaker 1: be all right. But you know, for another example, New
Speaker 1: York and California are probably the best known states on
Speaker 1: the international sphere, even if people only know them for
Speaker 1: a particular city like Los Angeles or New York City,
Speaker 1: or an industry like Hollywood or the Mob and Florida,
Speaker 1: located in the far southeast of the US, occupies this
Speaker 1: very unique space in our zeitgeist. It's an international destination,
Speaker 1: home to Disney World, wealth of other amusement parks. I
Speaker 1: can say some of the best times of my life
Speaker 1: have actually been in Florida. Really do tell nah.
Speaker 2: Okay, my grandparents lived in Clearwater, and I used to
Speaker 2: have just a heck of a time hanging out in
Speaker 2: their retirement community down there because they had a pool.
Speaker 2: It was wonderful. It was just grand times until I realized.
Speaker 3: Isn't there a Scientology center there?
Speaker 2: Until I realized that Clearwater was under a salt by Scientology,
Speaker 2: they were literally buying up land, I think a quarter
Speaker 2: of a quarter of a billion dollars worth of land
Speaker 2: that they owned.
Speaker 3: How did you experience this as a youth?
Speaker 2: Well, all I remember is that there was always construction
Speaker 2: on all of the highways every time I went down there,
Speaker 2: from a little little boy up until I was in
Speaker 2: my mid twenties.
Speaker 1: And you couldn't get into the pool until you did
Speaker 1: the e meter thing.
Speaker 2: Yeah, that was it.
Speaker 3: You're carrying around too many things?
Speaker 1: Yeah, Your thetans were wild, man. It's It's true. There's
Speaker 1: a lot. That's a good segue too. There's a lot
Speaker 1: of strange stuff that happens in Florida. It truly is
Speaker 1: an international destination. Millions of tourists flocked to Florida each
Speaker 1: year to maybe visit family, to see the attractions and
Speaker 1: the beaches. In twenty seventeen, the most recent estimate available,
Speaker 1: we found an estimated one hundred and sixteen point five
Speaker 1: million people traveled just to Florida to hang out and
Speaker 1: last year. And that sounds like just an abstract large number,
Speaker 1: but for comparison, we've got what over three hundred million
Speaker 1: people living in the US now, So that's more than
Speaker 1: a third of the US population. And just in terms
Speaker 1: of raw.
Speaker 2: Numbers, if yeah, if they're all from the United States,
Speaker 2: they're not. Yeah, but you know, there's still a huge
Speaker 2: chunk of people living up in Florida.
Speaker 3: Yeah, but these is popping in for a Disney Vak
Speaker 3: or a little universal studio situation and staying at the
Speaker 3: many palatial resorts and hotels that there are there. But
Speaker 3: what of the people that just are there all the time?
Speaker 1: Ah, Yes, you're talking about the residents and the many
Speaker 1: of whom have retired to Florida from some other another state,
Speaker 1: New Jersey being the popular stereotype, like Mattie's father in law.
Speaker 2: Yeah, and yes, kind of Jersey and Jersey and he's
Speaker 2: he was from New Jersey.
Speaker 3: He's from elsewhere than Florida, though, yeah.
Speaker 1: Jersey, so here in the US. Residents of other states
Speaker 1: have some, let's just call them what they are, stereotypes
Speaker 1: about Florida, and it's not completely unfounded or unreasonable for
Speaker 1: people to have these stereotypes. Even those stereotypes are usually
Speaker 1: pretty destructive things. Often when you hear about Florida in
Speaker 1: the national news, it's associated with a tense political struggle,
Speaker 1: a natural disaster, or, oddly enough, a strange story about
Speaker 1: an individual in Florida committing some sort of ridiculous crime.
Speaker 1: Here's our first list of examples.
Speaker 2: Florida man attacks atm with hatchet after it refuses to
Speaker 2: take his check.
Speaker 1: Or Florida man denies drinking and driving and says he
Speaker 1: only swigged bourbon at stop signs.
Speaker 3: Or Florida man claims wife was kidnapped by holograms.
Speaker 1: Or Florida man steps tourists despite having no arms.
Speaker 3: Or drunk Florida man. That's a nice modifier because it's
Speaker 3: usually just implied. Drunk Florida man attempts to ride bike
Speaker 3: through Taco Bell drive through Comma, fights with police and
Speaker 3: his mugshot. He's just making a big old frownie face
Speaker 3: and has like a bruise in the middle of his
Speaker 3: forehead and kind of like joker asque green hair. He's
Speaker 3: wearing the orange jumpsuit. And just to reiterate, no Florida
Speaker 3: bashing here, this is a trope that is worth exploring,
Speaker 3: and we have to give these examples too.
Speaker 2: Yeah, Florida man launches chair at mailman because he had
Speaker 2: no mail for him.
Speaker 1: Yeah, it was a tense day. And you can read
Speaker 1: more and more of these examples. Spoiler alert will probably
Speaker 1: have some more that pop up. But this is the
Speaker 1: kind of news that people in other states see when
Speaker 1: they hear a story of the media about Florida. And
Speaker 1: since so many people living in other states hear about
Speaker 1: these stories on a semi frequent basis, it's understandable and
Speaker 1: completely not commendable that many people would form this prejudiced
Speaker 1: opinion of the Sunshine State. And that brings us to
Speaker 1: today's question, is there really more strange crime in Florida?
Speaker 1: How does it stack up to other states? What exactly
Speaker 1: gave this state such a weird reputation?
Speaker 2: Is there something going on in Florida that they don't
Speaker 2: want us to know?
Speaker 1: Yet oddly enough, it's complicated. We get to a question
Speaker 1: at the end there, but I guess we should start
Speaker 1: with the facts. Where did Florida come from?
Speaker 3: So Homo sapiens have been occupying the land mass what
Speaker 3: is Florida for at least twelve thousand years, and written
Speaker 3: records of this area started as far back as fifteen thirteen,
Speaker 3: when the Spanish explorer Juan Ponce de lay on a
Speaker 3: namesakea we know very well here in Atlanta. It's actually
Speaker 3: the street they were on, arrived and.
Speaker 2: When he arrived there were no other humans living there.
Speaker 2: That's not true, that's just when the like we said,
Speaker 2: that's when records begin.
Speaker 1: Well, did Ponce de Leon consider the inhabitants of Florida
Speaker 1: to be human? I mean he is a Spanish explorer
Speaker 1: at that time, he was a conquistador, right, it's correct.
Speaker 1: Fast forward to eighteen forty five, nice day, March third,
Speaker 1: Florida becomes the twenty seventh US state, and during the
Speaker 1: Civil War, unlike a lot of states in the South,
Speaker 1: it didn't suffer this massive amount of catastrophic destruction. You know,
Speaker 1: it didn't burn the way Atlanta burned. A lot of
Speaker 1: huge pivotal battles. Although there are some. Of course they're
Speaker 1: historically significant, it's not they didn't have a Gettysburg moment.
Speaker 1: You know, the Union controlled coastal towns and forts. The
Speaker 1: interior was controlled by Confederates. Somehow they all, you know,
Speaker 1: managed to avoid the complete devastation that happened in other states.
Speaker 2: So let's get into the geography of good old Florida.
Speaker 2: It's mostly known for it's peninsula of a thing that
Speaker 2: juts out down there heading towards the Caribbean, but the
Speaker 2: state actually contains several different distinct ecosystems and also cultures.
Speaker 2: There was a there was a whole article that was
Speaker 2: put out about the different the five what is it,
Speaker 2: five to ten states that exist within Florida, which is
Speaker 2: not real, but it's kind of just groupings of people
Speaker 2: who've moved to the state. But the land is divided
Speaker 2: into four main regions. You've got the Gulf Coast that's
Speaker 2: where the Atlantic Ocean kind of goes up in there,
Speaker 2: into the into the peninsula. You've got the coastal plain
Speaker 2: means the upland that's the hilly area towards the north
Speaker 2: and northwest, getting up towards our own Georgia. And then
Speaker 2: you've got the swampy Everglades that's in the far south
Speaker 2: and in the Florida Keys. That's where it's very difficult
Speaker 2: to get buildings to stay in too workright and not.
Speaker 3: Flood, and it's a popular destination for hiding bodies.
Speaker 1: And gators love it. In terms of human population density,
Speaker 1: at least, Florida has a surface area of about one
Speaker 1: hundred and seventy thousand over square kilometers almost sixty six
Speaker 1: thousand square miles. Based on the estimates, that works out
Speaker 1: to about three hundred and fifty three point four people
Speaker 1: per square mile or one hundred and thirty six point
Speaker 1: four per square kilometer, and this makes Florida the eighth
Speaker 1: most densely populated state in the Union. It's also surprisingly
Speaker 1: this surprised me. It's also the third most populous state.
Speaker 1: The only bigger ones are California and Texas.
Speaker 2: That is very surprising in my opinion, especially because of
Speaker 2: all of that land that's out there, especially in the
Speaker 2: Everglades and some of those areas where you just look
Speaker 2: out if you're driving on ninety five, I think it
Speaker 2: is you just see nothing for miles and miles and miles, and.
Speaker 1: It guess to be fair, we'd have to point out
Speaker 1: that that average could be misleading because a ton of
Speaker 1: people will live in the urban areas in the Miami
Speaker 1: Dade metropolis or in Orlando, you know. So our current
Speaker 1: estimate for the population in twenty eighteen is twenty one
Speaker 1: point three one million people, and that is based off
Speaker 1: an estimate carried out in twenty fifteen by the Census Bureau,
Speaker 1: and the growth rate was one of the fastest in
Speaker 1: the country. It was number four out of all the
Speaker 1: other states. So if we think about this, that means
Speaker 1: most people outside of the American South picture Florida to
Speaker 1: be way less crowded than it is, and the opposite
Speaker 1: is the case. It is incredibly crowded, incredibly dense, and
Speaker 1: most importantly, incredibly diverse.
Speaker 3: That's right. Florida is a is a pretty unusual mix
Speaker 3: of cultures of transplants, like we're talking about the top
Speaker 3: of the show from other states and other countries. So
Speaker 3: it's pretty hard to find a central defining characteristic of
Speaker 3: the state's culture like as a whole. But that's kind
Speaker 3: of what makes it interesting too. I mean, there's a
Speaker 3: like you know, there's an incredible art scene, like in Miami,
Speaker 3: for example, with like I think it's called art basil
Speaker 3: is that how he pronounced it or basal that? So
Speaker 3: what's going on right now? It's a big art conference
Speaker 3: where artists from all over the world convene in Miami.
Speaker 3: And there's that aspect of it. There's an incredible you know,
Speaker 3: Latin American population in Cuban population, and different kinds of
Speaker 3: food and music and just about you know, anything you
Speaker 3: can imagine. It's very, very, very diverse.
Speaker 2: Oh, Miami, an entire metropolis built on cocaine.
Speaker 1: I read I read some really strange thing about Miami.
Speaker 1: When researching this, someone said this neatest thing about Miami
Speaker 1: was how close it is to America. It took me
Speaker 1: a second. I couldn't figure out where they were going
Speaker 1: because I'm not myself too familiar with Miami. I haven't
Speaker 1: been there since I was a child. I would imagine
Speaker 1: you guys are more familiar with it.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I've been there numerous times with my in laws.
Speaker 2: They love it. I love it. I love hanging out
Speaker 2: there with them. And again, the food and the culture
Speaker 2: are definitely one of the biggest drawing points I think
Speaker 2: to that city for some reason.
Speaker 1: When I was a child a long long time ago,
Speaker 1: I thought everybody in Miami was tall. And I think
Speaker 1: it's just because when I went there, I was, you know,
Speaker 1: maybe two and a half to three feet high, so
Speaker 1: I just thought it was a land of giants. I
Speaker 1: have no idea is that true. Are people taller in Miami?
Speaker 2: They are? Yeah, it's rough. It's anywhere between three to
Speaker 2: seven inches you're gonna get as soon as you arrived
Speaker 2: to Miami, and that increases over time, like whether or
Speaker 2: not you actually are living in like certain counties within
Speaker 2: the city.
Speaker 1: That makes sense. It's like I thought I was thought
Speaker 1: when people say they're big in Japan. I thought it
Speaker 1: was some sort of like metaphor comparison. But you know,
Speaker 1: I from what I hear, when you go, you do
Speaker 1: turn into a giant.
Speaker 2: It does. Okay, that's obviously completely false the thing we're
Speaker 2: joking about. But I do wonder if there's something to
Speaker 2: driving through that flat land that is Florida for so
Speaker 2: long then you finally arrive at this huge city that
Speaker 2: has giant, towering buildings. I wonder if there's some kind
Speaker 2: of perception thing that can occur there where things feel bigger.
Speaker 3: The Florida effect. Yeah, oh oh yeah, yeah, that's a
Speaker 3: thing I just made up.
Speaker 1: I think the Florida effect is an excellent name. What
Speaker 1: do you think it describes?
Speaker 2: Nola?
Speaker 1: Is it what Matt articulated?
Speaker 3: It could be part of it. It could be this
Speaker 3: whole ball of Florida wax that we're talking about today.
Speaker 1: And included in that ball of Florida wax is the
Speaker 1: kind of the elephant in the room or the mouse
Speaker 1: in the tower. Right, How does Florida stack up when
Speaker 1: it comes to crime, especially since we read so much
Speaker 1: about crime and these news stories they constantly come out.
Speaker 1: We'll tell you after a word from our sponsor.
Speaker 2: Well, no matter what you've heard, this is important. Despite
Speaker 2: all those crazy news stories you heard, and even the
Speaker 2: one that you didn't hear me say about the guy
Speaker 2: who buried a dude in concrete to steal his magic
Speaker 2: the gathering collection, which was valued ad over one hundred
Speaker 2: thousand dollars. By the way, Florida is by no means
Speaker 2: the most violent state within our great Union.
Speaker 3: Well the beauty too of these stories, they're not all violent,
Speaker 3: They're all just kind of crazy.
Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, Yeah, the Karthi, for instance, who stole a vehicle,
Speaker 1: saw there was a baby in it and then turned
Speaker 1: around to safely drop the baby off with someone, and
Speaker 1: then stole the car. I feel like that's oddly and Dearie.
Speaker 2: Yeah, agreed. Or even the guy who was at McDonald's
Speaker 2: who was masturbating in the parking lot and he claimed
Speaker 2: that his privacy, his privacy was being invaded.
Speaker 1: Yeah, he also said he lived in his car. I
Speaker 1: believe despite all these stories here, Florida is, as you said, Matt,
Speaker 1: not the most violent state. Depending on the study you read,
Speaker 1: the most violent state will often be cited as Louisiana,
Speaker 1: with Vermont being cited as one of the safest. But
Speaker 1: there's still crime in Florida. Florida is usually depending on
Speaker 1: how it's measured, it usually ranks fifth in terms of
Speaker 1: crime five hundred and forty one violent crimes reported per
Speaker 1: one hundred thousand people. That's a lot, right, Yeah. And
Speaker 1: also it ranks number five in terms of robbery, aggravated assault,
Speaker 1: and property crime. But while it may not have the
Speaker 1: most crime out of any state, it genuinely does seem
Speaker 1: to have some of the weirdest crime. You know, what
Speaker 1: can we just stop and do some more examples? Yes,
Speaker 1: all right, what do we got?
Speaker 3: I have a good one. Let's see. Florida man caught
Speaker 3: with stolen power poles strapped suv in wake of Hurricane Irma.
Speaker 1: That's weird.
Speaker 3: I don't understand.
Speaker 1: So. Florida man disguises himself in bull costume as he
Speaker 1: tries to burn down former lover's house with pasta sauce.
Speaker 2: Florida man attempts to smoke crack in an ICU, almost
Speaker 2: burns down hospital.
Speaker 3: Florida man high on meth climbs onto stranger's roof to howl.
Speaker 1: Florida man arrested in local park for practicing karate on swans.
Speaker 2: Florida man sets apartment complex on fire after manager told
Speaker 2: him to stop masturbating in front of windows.
Speaker 3: Are yours are very masturb I feel like you found
Speaker 3: a Florida man Rex liquor shop blames caterpillar from Alice
Speaker 3: in Wonderland. He said that a hookah smoking caterpillar told
Speaker 3: him to do it, so it is really more references
Speaker 3: the song White Rabbit by Yeah Jefferson Airplane.
Speaker 1: There, that's a good point. He needed to work on it.
Speaker 3: He was probably on acid.
Speaker 2: He might have been.
Speaker 1: There's one. There's one I found that I can't remember
Speaker 1: the circumstances behind, but we can just describe it in
Speaker 1: the headline. There was a guy who was found on
Speaker 1: the roof of some store and he was covered with tar,
Speaker 1: and people asked him what he was doing up there,
Speaker 1: and originally he said that he was lost and from
Speaker 1: out of town, and then he said he was an
Speaker 1: AC technician, and he noticed the AC was malfunctioning, so
Speaker 1: he decided to do the neighborly thing and fix it.
Speaker 1: I think he just did drugs and ended up on
Speaker 1: the roof of a building.
Speaker 2: He had got covered in tar somehow, And I hope
Speaker 2: he's okay.
Speaker 1: So these headlines are like solid gold. If you have
Speaker 1: a slow news day, right, these will get your clicks,
Speaker 1: oh for sure. So what gives you know? Is this
Speaker 1: unfair stereotype? Is there something in the water? Why do
Speaker 1: people seem to participate in so many any crazy shenanigans
Speaker 1: in America's most infamous peninsula. It turns out we have
Speaker 1: an answer. Here's where it gets crazy.
Speaker 3: Yeah, So it turns out that this law really is
Speaker 3: somewhat to blame for this phenomenon. Every American state has
Speaker 3: some kind of sunshine law, and that's a term for
Speaker 3: legislation regulations or constitutional amendments that guarantee public access to
Speaker 3: government affairs, like sort of an open book policy.
Speaker 2: Right, or how open is your book?
Speaker 3: Exactly? How open is your book? Is it a reading
Speaker 3: rainbow or is it more of a.
Speaker 2: I don't know, Ben, You're better at this than me, malefice,
Speaker 2: malific caro.
Speaker 3: There you go, nice, very very well done, Matt.
Speaker 2: Yeah.
Speaker 3: So, but while these laws require most government meetings to
Speaker 3: be open door and most documents to be open book,
Speaker 3: allowing public scrutiny, many of them are a little bit limited, right.
Speaker 2: Or redactive, or I have some kind of conditions on
Speaker 2: them to where not every single one is going to
Speaker 2: be fully available in all of its form.
Speaker 1: Yeah. So, theoretically, in a given state you might have
Speaker 1: something similar to this Transparency Act or Freedom of Information
Speaker 1: Act kind of thing, So you can technically get access
Speaker 1: to police records, but actually getting them in practice can
Speaker 1: take a long time, or you can get shut down
Speaker 1: by red tape. But in Florida, on the other hand,
Speaker 1: there is a deep, deep, deep, centuries long dedication to
Speaker 1: hardcore transparency norms. It starts way back in nineteen oh nine,
Speaker 1: Chapter one hundred and nineteen of the Florida Statutes, the
Speaker 1: Public Records Law, and it kept being strengthened in following years.
Speaker 1: In nineteen sixty seven they passed the government in the
Speaker 1: Sunshine Law popularly known as the Sunshine Law now, and
Speaker 1: then they continue to strengthen it after that. So this
Speaker 1: law has been kind of untouchable regardless of who is
Speaker 1: in office. And it's pretty extreme. If you are a
Speaker 1: public official, every meeting, aside from a few exemptions, has
Speaker 1: to be an open meeting, which is why, like politicians
Speaker 1: will get married and they'll have to have a journalist
Speaker 1: at their wedding. That happened at least once and today.
Speaker 1: The Sunshine Law regarding open government can be found in
Speaker 1: Chapter two eighty six of the Florida Statutes if you're
Speaker 1: looking for some really juicy reading. They establish this basic
Speaker 1: right of access to most meetings of boards, commissions, other
Speaker 1: governing bodies of state and local government agencies or authorities.
Speaker 1: And this means that it is incredibly easy to learn
Speaker 1: about the inner workings of this state's government, especially arrest records.
Speaker 2: Yeah, and that's a big deal because if you're a
Speaker 2: journalist and you're looking for a story just to include
Speaker 2: or to have as a part of your paper or
Speaker 2: your podcast or whatever, having access or at least easier
Speaker 2: access to some of these arrest records and stories going
Speaker 2: through the courts or whoever is being charged with what
Speaker 2: right now actively that gives you this huge wealth of
Speaker 2: just stuff to write about. I mean, that's a big
Speaker 2: that's a big deal to me at least, it's like
Speaker 2: the blodder stories, you know.
Speaker 3: Yeah, no, it's true. And at the same time, like
Speaker 3: I've been to Florida. I've hung out in Florida, and
Speaker 3: Florida has a really interesting dichotomy where like we were
Speaker 3: talking about that diversity that it has that extends to
Speaker 3: like you know how there's certain parts of Georgia that
Speaker 3: kind of have reputation for like a certain type of
Speaker 3: individual that might be a little more prone to drunken
Speaker 3: behavior or unhinged things, you know, or myth or myth
Speaker 3: there you go, or you know, just too much drinking too.
Speaker 3: You know that Florida has that too, and it also
Speaker 3: has the big cities it has. It's very diverse in
Speaker 3: that way, and I think that and the fact that
Speaker 3: you've got these open book policies where they have better
Speaker 3: access to it. It doesn't necessarily mean they're more crimes
Speaker 3: that are nuts, but it certainly has no shortage of
Speaker 3: Bonker's crimes. But you know what, neither does Georgia. We
Speaker 3: don't get access to the information as readily as they
Speaker 3: do in Florida, apparently, right.
Speaker 1: Yeah, and there's one of the dead giveaways you'll notice.
Speaker 1: So the same well intentioned laws that passed are the
Speaker 1: same reason that a Florida residence mugshot might appear online
Speaker 1: merely days after those arrests. Make it incredibly easy to
Speaker 1: write about these stories. And here's the red flag you'll see.
Speaker 1: If you're reading a weird Florida or a Florida man's story,
Speaker 1: it will almost always include the phrase according to the
Speaker 1: arrest report or something like that. And there's a journalist
Speaker 1: named Kyle Munzen Reader who wrote wrote a great look
Speaker 1: at this for the Miami Herald. He put it this way.
Speaker 1: As journalists, he said, all we have to do in
Speaker 1: most cases is call the police department and ask for
Speaker 1: an arrest report, and the cops are required to give
Speaker 1: it to us. Nowadays, a lot of cops just email
Speaker 1: the reports, and some of them will post arrest records
Speaker 1: online of their own volition. Some of the more dedicated
Speaker 1: Florida news reporters go through batches and batches of these
Speaker 1: reports at a time. And he said, you know, you,
Speaker 1: once you have the report, you pretty much have everything
Speaker 1: you need to write a story. You just have to
Speaker 1: be mindful that it's the police officer's version of events.
Speaker 1: And Kyle had a good example about this, which I
Speaker 1: thought was hilarious.
Speaker 2: He says, say a journalist somewhere gets a tip that
Speaker 2: a man in a dog costume was caught making love
Speaker 2: to a Hello Kitty doll in a mall bathroom here
Speaker 2: in Florida, we would just call the police and say
Speaker 2: something like heard there was an arrest at the mall yesterday,
Speaker 2: Can we get the report? And I would add a
Speaker 2: little wink wink in there.
Speaker 3: Right.
Speaker 1: For journalists in a lot of other states, again, it's
Speaker 1: not that easy. They might not be able to get
Speaker 1: the report at all, or they might have to wait
Speaker 1: for a certain amount of time before police release it.
Speaker 3: Well, Georgia does have a thing called the jail report
Speaker 3: that you can get like a gas station and they're very,
Speaker 3: very picky. You're not allowed to pick them up or
Speaker 3: read them unless you buy them, because otherwise, you know,
Speaker 3: what's the point. So yeah, they typically only they'll have
Speaker 3: mugshots and the actual thing the person was arrested for,
Speaker 3: but not usually the juicy details like what would be
Speaker 3: in the arrest report. So that must be directly because
Speaker 3: of the differences in the sunshine laws.
Speaker 1: I think that's a good point. And there's something else
Speaker 1: here about the sunshine law that's pretty interesting. Florida, like
Speaker 1: some other unnamed US states, is home to a lot
Speaker 1: of corruption. You just have to look back at our
Speaker 1: earlier episode on the founding of Disney World to see
Speaker 1: the way that Disney essentially became its own local government.
Speaker 2: Right.
Speaker 1: Scientology famous for having its fingers in a lot of
Speaker 1: political pies. So maybe this open governance law is so
Speaker 1: extreme because they want to have some sort of oversight
Speaker 1: on those strange, murky connections between so called private entities
Speaker 1: and then governments that have been infiltrated or compromised, which
Speaker 1: I know sounds so very cold war, but again, just
Speaker 1: listen to the Disney episode, because that's what happened.
Speaker 2: Yeah, absolutely, I have to say it was weird going
Speaker 2: to Disney after doing that episode. Oh yeah, all I
Speaker 2: was thinking about was how this land was acquired, what
Speaker 2: the town was actually like, where I truly was rather
Speaker 2: than just being near Kissing Me or something.
Speaker 1: The Reedy Creek Improvement District. Yeah, but still Disney World's
Speaker 1: great man. I have fond memories of it, the whole thing. So,
Speaker 1: as you said earlier, in no, A lot of states
Speaker 1: have something like this law, but most are nowhere near
Speaker 1: on the level of Florida's. So be very careful. Now
Speaker 1: that we've walked through that, we can address this question.
Speaker 1: Is Florida any worse than other states? Or is it
Speaker 1: just easier for the public to know about crimes and
Speaker 1: bizarre events? Will answer that after a word from ours sponsor.
Speaker 2: We're back. Well, I think we're gonna have to give
Speaker 2: this one the old patented partially true?
Speaker 1: Can we get a sound effect of that?
Speaker 3: Who patented that? It's somewhat yes, Snopes?
Speaker 2: I think it was probably Snops.
Speaker 1: Yeah, they can't own the phrase partially true?
Speaker 3: Who knows partially own it? Brahamps?
Speaker 1: What we have to go with something way less, way
Speaker 1: less sexy, like somewhat accurate?
Speaker 3: There you go, that's a glass half full situation.
Speaker 1: Oh yeah, that's true.
Speaker 2: Looks like we're gonna go with our patented somewhat accurate.
Speaker 1: And one gun shot.
Speaker 3: Yeah, but like a like a like a racing start pistol.
Speaker 1: Yeah, that's good.
Speaker 3: That's not scary gunshot.
Speaker 1: That's a compromise. Yeah. Florida's open gun governance laws do
Speaker 1: make it very very easy to report the weirdest arrest
Speaker 1: on record, and the fact remains that there is a
Speaker 1: higher than average crime rate in Florida. It's a combination
Speaker 1: of wildly different cultures, so stranger things are bound to occur,
Speaker 1: things that might not occur in a place that is
Speaker 1: less crowded or has different reporting rules.
Speaker 3: It feels like there is a little bit more of
Speaker 3: possibly a free spirit and like kind of a stick
Speaker 3: it to the man kind of attitude, possibly when people
Speaker 3: live by the water and they're not absurdly bougie rich people.
Speaker 1: I see what you're saying. Yeah, more self reliance.
Speaker 3: Or self reliant, the kind of beach bum LIFs for
Speaker 3: me kind of attitude, you know.
Speaker 1: And then maybe that applies Inland with sort of a
Speaker 1: country boy can survive vibe.
Speaker 3: Also true. Again, I think It all goes back to
Speaker 3: the diversity we're talking about, and that is a diversity
Speaker 3: of culture and of socioeconomic stratum.
Speaker 2: Yeah.
Speaker 1: Yeah, there's a lot of inequality in this stage as well.
Speaker 1: And this situation, all these factors combined to create a
Speaker 1: feedback loop because once journalists from around the country learned
Speaker 1: how easy it was to fill a void in the
Speaker 1: news cycle with a charming, hilarious, often a schadenfreud rife
Speaker 1: anecdote about Florida, it became an easy go to move.
Speaker 1: That doesn't mean that insane things don't happen in Idaho.
Speaker 1: That doesn't mean that parts of Atlanta are entirely bonkers,
Speaker 1: and you know, we weekly escapades of pandemonium don't occur.
Speaker 1: It just means that it's way easier to tell the
Speaker 1: Florida versions of those stories.
Speaker 3: What do you call that, like an echo chamber situation? Right?
Speaker 3: Oh yeah, yeah, here's a question, then, Ben, what does
Speaker 3: it take in a state with tighter sunshine laws to
Speaker 3: generate a headline like that, Like it has to be
Speaker 3: just like out in the public eye where it's witnessed
Speaker 3: by a lot of people, and then you know, it's
Speaker 3: not exclusively reported on based on arrest reports. It was
Speaker 3: such a giant debacle that people saw and journalists actually
Speaker 3: have to interview people at the scene.
Speaker 2: Mm hmm. Yeah. I was gonna say, as you, as
Speaker 2: you find more details with any of these that we
Speaker 2: late that we ran off earlier, there's probably even more
Speaker 2: context to a lot of this, and it might even
Speaker 2: make a little more sense than it seems just with
Speaker 2: the headline and with the basic description. After more, you know,
Speaker 2: a better picture of it emerges.
Speaker 1: Yeah, and these people haven't had their day in court
Speaker 1: yet either. When a lot of the stuff is reported,
Speaker 1: it's just the arrest. Like as reported by a local
Speaker 1: news station, a Florida man was rescued from a vending machine.
Speaker 1: Authorities would not comment on the circumstances of how the
Speaker 1: man became stuck in the vending machine or how they
Speaker 1: rescued him. There was no word on the extent of
Speaker 1: his injuries. Action News called the business where the incident happened.
Speaker 1: A person Alpha Packaging, picked up the phone and hung
Speaker 1: up without providing additional information. So there's a lot of
Speaker 1: context missing in that one, you know. And that's that's
Speaker 1: a really good point you make, Matt. There's a wealth
Speaker 1: of very important contexts. It's usually cut out because we
Speaker 1: just want to read these I'll say, amazing headlines.
Speaker 3: Well, I was about to say before you accuse us
Speaker 3: of only doing this episode because we wanted to rattle
Speaker 3: off some of these headlines, I'm here to tell you
Speaker 3: that's probably exactly why we did it.
Speaker 1: I love it. Yeah, I went in this hoping for headlines,
Speaker 1: and we want to hear some of your favorite Florida headlines. Also,
Speaker 1: if you are from Florida, we want to hear your
Speaker 1: opinion on the sunshine law? Is it overall a good thing?
Speaker 1: With this one unintended consequence? You know, we have solved
Speaker 1: the mystery. Florida does get an unfair rap, and it
Speaker 1: gets it largely due to this legislation. What about people
Speaker 1: who don't live in Florida? Do you want your state,
Speaker 1: local community, or your country to enact a similar law?
Speaker 1: Why or why not? I mean a lot of countries
Speaker 1: have the draconian opposite of this, like in Belarus and
Speaker 1: a lot of Eurasian countries. You are not really allowed
Speaker 1: to even talk about the government.
Speaker 2: Hmmm, I don't want that.
Speaker 1: So is there a goldilock zone? Is this too far?
Speaker 3: There must be there must be.
Speaker 2: I don't know. I kind of like this full transparency thing.
Speaker 2: I mean, how honestly, if we didn't have it, how
Speaker 2: would I ever learned about the Florida man that stole
Speaker 2: thirty six thousand pounds of Crisco? And what's he gonna
Speaker 2: do with all that Crisco?
Speaker 3: You might ask? I think I know that sex stuff.
Speaker 1: Oh, you're not connected to the Crisco underground anymore.
Speaker 2: I thought it was a food product, like, uh, you
Speaker 2: cook with it?
Speaker 3: Well, yeah, but I mean it's also you know, pure grease. Mmmm,
Speaker 3: maybe I know. No, no alligator wrestling done.
Speaker 1: Ah, Yeah, I don't know. I love those sorts of
Speaker 1: heist because remember that story in Canada about the huge
Speaker 1: maple syrup heist that happened a while back. Yeah, I
Speaker 1: still wonder. How do you fence that who has a
Speaker 1: Crisco guy who only moves weight, who has a maple
Speaker 1: syrup connection, who doesn't mess with anything under one hundred
Speaker 1: gallons of syrup?
Speaker 3: Know what I'm saying. You fence it directly to the
Speaker 3: underground alligator wrestling community, and they then need no one
Speaker 3: else ever sees it doesn't have to enter into circulation.
Speaker 3: They just keep it and they use it until they
Speaker 3: run out.
Speaker 1: So this guy is like the Kaiser So of Crisco.
Speaker 1: I am officially I am officially banning myself from comparing
Speaker 1: people to Kaiser. So I've been doing it for the
Speaker 1: past several episodes because like that, they're gone, yes, yeah, exactly,
Speaker 1: it's a great comparison to anyone.
Speaker 2: Uh well, I figured it out. Guys. He was taking
Speaker 2: the Crisco. He was going to go fence it at
Speaker 2: his buddy. He was his buddy. Unfortunately, though, was caught
Speaker 2: with a meth an active meth lab in his pants.
Speaker 1: Oh the one. They called it a one pot meth lab, right,
Speaker 1: that's true.
Speaker 3: That's true. Yes, like you can cook yourself one rock
Speaker 3: of meth. His meth coming rocks.
Speaker 1: I don't know the I don't know the outputs killed exactly,
Speaker 1: but they have.
Speaker 2: Yeah.
Speaker 1: This guy had apparently some baggy pants and a Mcguyverli
Speaker 1: like traveling meth lab.
Speaker 2: A guy from the Fooniac Springs.
Speaker 1: And this, I mean, we can laugh at this. We're
Speaker 1: not making fun of these people's lives. We are trying
Speaker 1: to point out the important and little known mechanism that's
Speaker 1: responsible for this. Frankly, unfair stereotype. We also, you know,
Speaker 1: as we said at the top, after our last few episodes,
Speaker 1: we wanted to do something a little more lighthearted. But
Speaker 1: there is one last crucial note we have to make
Speaker 1: here as we record this. Some parts of Florida are
Speaker 1: still devastated by Hurricane Michael. And you might not hear
Speaker 1: about this stuff in between all this the funny stories
Speaker 1: of someone you know dressing up in a weird costume
Speaker 1: or someone getting stuck in a vending machine. But there
Speaker 1: are still tense cities in areas of Florida where hundreds
Speaker 1: of people are currently living, and they are many of
Speaker 1: them are due to be disbanded, leaving the hurricane survivors
Speaker 1: with nowhere to go.
Speaker 3: So if you would like to donate to help Florida rebuild,
Speaker 3: or for that matter, help any number of communities that
Speaker 3: have been suffering from the short and long term effects
Speaker 3: of these kinds of national disasters, such as California with
Speaker 3: the fires Puerto Rico, you can visit charity navigator dot
Speaker 3: org and search for your cause of choice.
Speaker 1: Yeah, it's pretty neat. You'll see the various charities nonprofit
Speaker 1: organizations divided up by their areas of expertise along with
Speaker 1: more information about each one, so check it out. As
Speaker 1: we may have said on the show before, it's always
Speaker 1: important to remember that these sorts of stories don't stop
Speaker 1: just because the reporters stop reporting it.
Speaker 2: They continue on could agree more guys, all right, So
Speaker 2: if you want to write to us with anything crazy
Speaker 2: Florida stories, we'll read them. We've been, you know, as
Speaker 2: tragic as the things are that we just discussed, we've
Speaker 2: been cracking up this whole episode just reading the headlines
Speaker 2: and exploring the strangeness that humanity has to offer. And
Speaker 2: if you have any strangeness of humanity or otherwise send
Speaker 2: it our way. You can find us on Twitter or
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Speaker 2: that stuff, check out our Facebook group, which is Here's
Speaker 2: where it gets crazy. You can get on there and
Speaker 2: discuss all of these things and all the other topics
Speaker 2: that we've ever covered and things we haven't covered with
Speaker 2: all of our fellow conspiracy realists over there, wonderful human beings.
Speaker 2: And if you don't want to do any of that,
Speaker 2: and that's the end of this classic episode. If you
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