Speaker 1: All Zone media.
Speaker 2: Hi, everybody. Margaret Kiljoy here recording on a bad microphone
Speaker 2: because I'm on tour, but I feel like I need
Speaker 2: to interrupt your regularly scheduled podcast to talk about something
Speaker 2: that's happening right now as many people are awhere. Hurricane
Speaker 2: Helene hit western North Carolina as well as southern Apalachia
Speaker 2: and Florida very badly over well. I guess last week
Speaker 2: if you're listening to this when it comes out and
Speaker 2: people need your help. And one of the mutual aid
Speaker 2: organizations that is doing an incredible amount of work that
Speaker 2: I can personally vouch for is mutual Aid Disaster Relief.
Speaker 2: Mutual Aid Disaster Relief is a network of people who
Speaker 2: are locally embedded and know the area and are very
Speaker 2: good at what they do. They are a grassroots organization
Speaker 2: that get supplies and people and money to where they
Speaker 2: need to go. I would encourage you to search out
Speaker 2: Mutual Aid Disaster Relief on various social media to find
Speaker 2: more information about how you can donate money, gear, or
Speaker 2: potentially your skills and time if that is something that
Speaker 2: you're interested in. However, it is important to know that
Speaker 2: despite the importance of grassroots and DIY disaster preparedness. It
Speaker 2: is still substantially better to work with existing grassroots and
Speaker 2: DIY organizations because there's a lot that you need to
Speaker 2: know before you can go into a disaster zone and
Speaker 2: help people instead of wind up being someone who needs
Speaker 2: to be helped. And so I would highly encourage people
Speaker 2: to get involved, possibly by donating or by whatever is necessary.
Speaker 2: Thank you so much. Hello, and welcome to Cool People
Speaker 2: Did Cool Stuff? Your podcast? That's it. I'm your host,
Speaker 2: Margaret Kiljoy and my guest is Katie Stole. Hi Katie,
Speaker 2: how are you?
Speaker 1: Hello?
Speaker 3: I'm doing well. I'm doing great. I'm excited for part two.
Speaker 4: Yeah.
Speaker 2: Now, I'm like I always after I do the real dark,
Speaker 2: long ones that are still about cool people doing cool stuff.
Speaker 2: But I still sometimes I'm like, I just I mean,
Speaker 2: obviously dark things are happening in this but and now
Speaker 2: I feel like a jerk being like this lighthearted thing
Speaker 2: where thousands of people have died.
Speaker 3: So I don't know, right, I get you. But to
Speaker 3: bring it back to where we were last week, it
Speaker 3: is hopeful, It is inspiring, and it brings comfort because
Speaker 3: we know that bad stuff is.
Speaker 5: Going to continue to happen.
Speaker 3: We see it happen all the time, especially with climate change,
Speaker 3: with our.
Speaker 5: Wild politics.
Speaker 3: But the fact that the one through line is that
Speaker 3: people support each other and show up in times of need.
Speaker 3: I think at the end of the day, that's the
Speaker 3: scariest part. It's like the unknown what's going to happen.
Speaker 3: But if you can count on the fact that there
Speaker 3: will be people, that there will be options, then that
Speaker 3: it is. It's comforting for me. It is.
Speaker 2: You ever heard a shepherd's tone, I feel like we
Speaker 2: should splice this in so no matter how long you
Speaker 2: listen to that sound, it'll keep going up.
Speaker 3: Wow, that's intense.
Speaker 5: That's cool.
Speaker 2: Yeah. They actually use it a lot in movies and
Speaker 2: things like that. And you can also design them to
Speaker 2: go down as well. The idea of it is you
Speaker 2: can make something always sound like it's getting higher or
Speaker 2: lower by having their multiple tones are playing at once,
Speaker 2: and they're all going up and then down. Their sine
Speaker 2: waves they go up and down, up and down, up
Speaker 2: and down, right, but you put the volume emphasis on
Speaker 2: the ones as they're rising. In this kind of complicated way,
Speaker 2: your ear will always hear the one that is rising,
Speaker 2: or always hear the one that is lowering. Okay, that
Speaker 2: happens to us with the world. I think things are
Speaker 2: always getting worse, things are always getting better. Yeah, and
Speaker 2: it depends on where you put the emphasis. Now, there
Speaker 2: is still real worse and better. Right, There's obviously things
Speaker 2: that are worse, you know. World War two is a
Speaker 2: worse time overall to be alive than almost anything that's
Speaker 2: happened in human history. But then there's lots of other
Speaker 2: stuff that's really bad too, right. I think about this
Speaker 2: a lot. I think about how what we choose to
Speaker 2: focus on literally changes as things get both better and
Speaker 2: worse what we choose to focus on. But I don't
Speaker 2: advocate us therefore being like only focus on the positive.
Speaker 2: That's nonsense, right, because there's all this horrible stuff that's
Speaker 2: happening that needs fighting. But we can be aware of
Speaker 2: the bad stuff while still not losing track of the
Speaker 2: stuff that's fighting it. Yeah, that's my hypothesis with my
Speaker 2: strange metaphor.
Speaker 5: Absolutely no, that totally works.
Speaker 2: So the story that we're going to talk about today,
Speaker 2: I want to think our producer Sophie, who I hadn't
Speaker 2: introduced yet. Hi, Hi Sophie.
Speaker 1: Hi.
Speaker 2: Sophie is the one who brought the story to my attention.
Speaker 3: Good job, Sophie in advance.
Speaker 1: Thanks.
Speaker 2: He also to do the rest of the credits because
Speaker 2: I forgot our audio engineers Rory Hi Rory Hi, Ri
Speaker 2: Hi Rory, and our theme music was written for us
Speaker 2: by unwoman. And then the sort of credit I think
Speaker 2: for sort of bringing this story to more people's attention
Speaker 2: right now is the TikToker Kalia Please, who made a
Speaker 2: short video about this story and got people talking about it.
Speaker 2: And that's the chain of events that led to you
Speaker 2: hearing it here. Maybe you've already heard it elsewhere, but
Speaker 2: I'm going to tell you probably a bunch about it
Speaker 2: that you haven't heard. Who knows here we.
Speaker 1: Go, Yeah, I have several friends that grew up in Portland.
Speaker 1: They had no idea.
Speaker 2: Yeah, So we're gonna tell a story about mutual aid,
Speaker 2: about how the city of Portland broke its own rules
Speaker 2: to get seventy water workers and essential equipment to New
Speaker 2: Orleans during Katrina. It's also though a story of the
Speaker 2: bravery of the Sewerage and water Board of New Orleans.
Speaker 2: Like I started off just looking at the Portland Angle,
Speaker 2: and I loved the Portland Angle, And I'm still going
Speaker 2: to go with that. But then I was like, learning
Speaker 2: more about the sewerage and water board of New Orleans,
Speaker 2: and they are fucking heroes. Yeah, they are the first
Speaker 2: responders who get no credit. Never seen anyone fly a
Speaker 2: thin sewerage and waterboard line flag off the back of
Speaker 2: their pickup truck, although forty percent of cops do fly
Speaker 2: that flag. If you want more information about that, just
Speaker 2: google forty percent of cops. Okay, yeah, okay, anyway, if
Speaker 2: anyone wants to know what joke that is, just google
Speaker 2: forty percent of cops.
Speaker 3: Yeah, go for it.
Speaker 2: Anyway. The waterboard, the good waterboard.
Speaker 1: The good waterboard.
Speaker 4: There we go.
Speaker 2: Yeah. I kept wanting to call them the water borders
Speaker 2: in this, and then I'm like, I probably can't, but
Speaker 2: maybe I will anyway. The city of New Orleans has
Speaker 2: always had water issues. It is shaped like a bowl,
Speaker 2: it is right in a place that hurricanes like to go,
Speaker 2: and most dangerous of all, it's poor and predominantly black.
Speaker 2: So the infrastructure has been criminally underfunded since forever. During
Speaker 2: the seventies, eighties, and nineties, there were record floods all
Speaker 2: of the time, and the city desperately needed to update
Speaker 2: its pumping stations and shit. They developed this whole big
Speaker 2: plan in the federal government was supposed to pay for
Speaker 2: about seventy five percent of the improvements, and then they
Speaker 2: kind of and the infrastructure was underfunded. And then Hurricane
Speaker 2: Katrina hit in two thousand and five. At the time
Speaker 2: that that hit, the Sewerage and Water Board of New
Speaker 2: Orleans had twelve hundred employees and seven hundred vehicles, but
Speaker 2: five hundred of those vehicles were destroyed by the storm.
Speaker 2: Pretty much immediately. A skeleton crew of three hundred employees
Speaker 2: stayed for the storm, staffing various pumping stations and shit.
Speaker 2: And then while they were doing that, the crisis of
Speaker 2: a lifetime hit. The levees broke. Eighty percent of the
Speaker 2: city was suddenly underwater, and as we talked about in
Speaker 2: a common Ground episode, you saw some white folks from
Speaker 2: richer neighborhoods forming militias and going through the streets and
Speaker 2: killing black people, while black people, with the help of
Speaker 2: some white people, wound up in armed standoffs to save
Speaker 2: people's lives. People came out of the woodwork to help
Speaker 2: one another. The national media, though, speaking of this elite
Speaker 2: panic stuff, they panicked and they talked about like rape
Speaker 2: and murder, gangs in the Superdome where people were hiding
Speaker 2: from the storm. This was entirely a fabrication. The New
Speaker 2: York Times, the paper that lost all of its credibility
Speaker 2: over and over again, but you know whatever, we still
Speaker 2: read it. Sometimes. They said that the city was quote
Speaker 2: a snake pit of anarchy, death, looting, raping, and marauding thugs.
Speaker 5: Unbelievable.
Speaker 2: Yeah, this is completely a lie. Like the Superdome thing
Speaker 2: was just like entirely a fabrication. It's just all rumors,
Speaker 2: you know. Yeah, except for the white supremacist gangs defending property.
Speaker 2: Those are the only people doing any of the things
Speaker 2: that they were talking about. But that's not what New
Speaker 2: York Times was talking about.
Speaker 3: Especially in contrast to what we know about what was
Speaker 3: going on, which is just the most horrific tragic. Yeah,
Speaker 3: loss of life, loss of property, people panicked, scared.
Speaker 2: Yeah, no, absolutely, And then the looting overall was organized
Speaker 2: groups getting together to get things that people couldn't get,
Speaker 2: you know.
Speaker 3: Yeah, there's always that the idea, is it looting or
Speaker 3: were people desperate to survive?
Speaker 2: Yeah? Come on, and frankly, I would be in a
Speaker 2: bad position to be mad at someone who was also
Speaker 2: like and while I'm mad at I'm getting a TV
Speaker 2: because I've been for my entire fucking life. But whatever.
Speaker 2: But that's not what we actually.
Speaker 3: Saw by and large there, right.
Speaker 2: But the Waterboard they had three hundred people, and they
Speaker 2: were trying to do the work that took twelve hundred
Speaker 2: people when the city wasn't in crisis. Yeah, and I
Speaker 2: spent an awful lot of time this week reading their
Speaker 2: reports about the whole thing, and I'm going to read
Speaker 2: to you a bit about it. First of all, when
Speaker 2: Katrina hit, this made eighty percent of the Waterboard homeless.
Speaker 2: Their homes were destroyed by the storms. Yeah, they had
Speaker 2: three hundredployees at first, while about fifty others returned within
Speaker 2: a few days. By the end of the sort of crisis,
Speaker 2: only about five hundred out of twelve hundred employees returned.
Speaker 2: So they're working with like skeleton crew.
Speaker 3: Yeah.
Speaker 2: They set up a home base in the Algiers Wastewater
Speaker 2: Treatment Center, which is right across the river from the
Speaker 2: rest of New Orleans. It's actually the same neighborhood that
Speaker 2: Common Ground was set up in, because this is this
Speaker 2: was the neighborhood that wasn't underwater. The wastewater treatment center
Speaker 2: there was the only functioning station in the city, and
Speaker 2: it provided most of the water for relief efforts and
Speaker 2: firefighting and all of that. So they have to maintain
Speaker 2: it right and keep water, which is classically the only
Speaker 2: thing we need more than that is air you know, yeah,
Speaker 2: I mean love, No, I actually need air water flow.
Speaker 2: It probably has air water food. No air water love food,
Speaker 2: that's probably yeah. Yeah.
Speaker 5: And our order of needs, hierarchy of needs.
Speaker 2: Yeah. And so they provided all of the water for
Speaker 2: firefighting and all that shit, and they worked NonStop throughout
Speaker 2: the city. Best as I can tell, they were like
Speaker 2: only sleeping when they realized it was the best way
Speaker 2: to help was to like get the fuck to sleep
Speaker 2: for a couple hours.
Speaker 3: You know, be rested. Yeah.
Speaker 2: They lived in these disaster relief tents that get called yurts,
Speaker 2: and they set up their offices under pavilions, and they
Speaker 2: had no way of knowing if they would ever be
Speaker 2: paid for this work. Years later, FEMA was still fucking
Speaker 2: the contractors over that they like worked with Wow. And
Speaker 2: so I'm not actually sure whether the issue was resolved
Speaker 2: or not, because what happens is the press release eighteen
Speaker 2: months after Katrina is like a condemnation of FEMA, and
Speaker 2: then their later reports are less confrontational. They're like implying
Speaker 2: FEMA still owes the money, but kind of trying to
Speaker 2: softball it a little bit, and he's like corporate speak.
Speaker 2: You know, I'm going to quote from the eighteenth month
Speaker 2: later report because I love a good salty report. And
Speaker 2: so this is a government agency being like, you know,
Speaker 2: FEMA's not doing their fucking job. Quote, FEMA isn't posing
Speaker 2: a national flood Insurance charge on all work perform totally
Speaker 2: to date twenty million dollars. This situation leaves the Sewerage
Speaker 2: and water Board short of funds to pay contractors for
Speaker 2: work already performed. Later in the report, they say quote
Speaker 2: FEMA's lack of action and bureaucratic malaise leaves the Sewerage
Speaker 2: and water Board with thirty three of sixty six East
Speaker 2: Bank sewer pumping stations operating on temporary and unreliable pumps.
Speaker 2: And then the report ends, it must be realized that
Speaker 2: if there is no water, no sewer, and no drainage,
Speaker 2: there is no New Orleans. It must be further realized
Speaker 2: by all that if the present FEMA response to our
Speaker 2: ongoing crisis is not immediately heightened and sustained, we will
Speaker 2: very soon find ourselves in a city with no potable
Speaker 2: drinking water or wastewater services.
Speaker 3: Wow, that is salty.
Speaker 2: This is eighteen months later. Yeah, good for them.
Speaker 3: That's absurd and unacceptable. Yeah, obviously.
Speaker 2: And so when the flood hits, everyone is working non stop,
Speaker 2: much like we're working NonStop to get you the best
Speaker 2: deals ever on your ads.
Speaker 3: It's all I can think about.
Speaker 2: Here they go and we're back.
Speaker 5: Those were some ads, all right.
Speaker 2: I know they sure advertised. That is one thing I
Speaker 2: can say about them. Love, unless you have cooler Zon media,
Speaker 2: in which case the only ad you hear is me
Speaker 2: making the ad for a product you already have.
Speaker 3: Cooler Zon media.
Speaker 2: Experts around the country were telling the water board that
Speaker 2: it would take them months to dewater the city. They
Speaker 2: did it in eleven days. So basically, they did the impossible.
Speaker 2: This is like a very like I know, I keep
Speaker 2: saying I watch a lot of like Star Trek and
Speaker 2: things like that, but I do. And you know, you
Speaker 2: have that scene where they're like, we gotta repair the ship.
Speaker 2: We're all gonna die, it's going to take us three weeks,
Speaker 2: and they're like, okay, well we did it in three
Speaker 2: days by climbing into dangerous particle water whatever. You know.
Speaker 2: That's what these people did.
Speaker 5: They actually did it.
Speaker 3: Yeah.
Speaker 2: Yeah. A lot of employees were literally stranded in their
Speaker 2: various pumping and treatment stations when the storm hit, and
Speaker 2: they were kept working despite having no escape. Wow. To
Speaker 2: quote a report from the Waterboard, quote, operators of two
Speaker 2: pumping stations on the Industrial Canal clung to the rafters
Speaker 2: for days with no food or water until teams of
Speaker 2: employees in the coast Guard could reach them. In a
Speaker 2: lot of cases, the coast Guard never reached them. Basically, hay,
Speaker 2: were on our own. Call went out to all the employees,
Speaker 2: and so waterboard employees, the water boarders, if you will,
Speaker 2: went out in their personal boats to rescue their fellow workers. Yeah.
Speaker 2: One of the stories I'm going to quote from the
Speaker 2: winter two thousand and six edition of The Tulanian, which
Speaker 2: is the magazine from Tulane University, and as talking about
Speaker 2: a waterboard worker named Gerald Tilton who'd worked at the
Speaker 2: Waterboard for twenty four years when this happened, about repairing
Speaker 2: a pump. At the very start of the flood, quote,
Speaker 2: water came over the flood wall surrounding the station. It
Speaker 2: filled the pits in the station, and the water kept
Speaker 2: rising and came within about a foot of the third
Speaker 2: level of the pumping station, which is raised about fifteen
Speaker 2: feet high. At the back of the pumping station, Tilton
Speaker 2: and three pump operators walked in ankle deep high water.
Speaker 2: Fearing that they might be electrocuted if the water rose higher.
Speaker 2: They dismantled the motor and blades of a big ventilation
Speaker 2: fan to make a potential escape hatch, but seeing a
Speaker 2: vortex of swirling water beneath the pumping station, they realized
Speaker 2: it would be impossible to escape the building.
Speaker 5: That's terrifying.
Speaker 2: Yeah, they're just in a literal succeed or die straight
Speaker 2: out of fucking star trek. Yeah, these are the conditions
Speaker 2: that they're working in. They look out and they see
Speaker 2: the city as flooding, that the levees of broken in
Speaker 2: without pumps running. They realize everything's going to be fucked,
Speaker 2: so their work is essential. While they're there, they get
Speaker 2: the call saying that they're on their own, that Coastguard
Speaker 2: was not coming, that National Guard was not coming. So
Speaker 2: they quote swam through floodwater to the generator building, not
Speaker 2: swim out to go get somewhere safe. They quote swam
Speaker 2: through the floodwater to the generator building next to pumping
Speaker 2: station nineteen, hoping to start the generator necessary for the
Speaker 2: pumps to work two feet down in the dirty, foul
Speaker 2: smelling water where valves essential to the pumping operation that
Speaker 2: had to be opened. So Tilton and another man dove in.
Speaker 3: They got so heroic they got what.
Speaker 2: Yeah, they got the pump fixed, but they still had
Speaker 2: to wait for the levee to be repaired to get
Speaker 2: to draining the city. But they like did their piece
Speaker 2: of it, you know. Yeh, fixing the levee isn't enough.
Speaker 2: You also have to fix the pumps. Yeah, But then
Speaker 2: New Orleans wasn't completely on their own obviously, as we've
Speaker 2: talked about with other you know, in terms of the
Speaker 2: people of New Orleans, all these relief organizations and like
Speaker 2: Common Ground and you know, and also formal organizations are
Speaker 2: showing up to try and help, and some are helping
Speaker 2: someone getting in the way. But in terms of fixing
Speaker 2: the water, you need specialists. Right. Three other cities helped
Speaker 2: out the city of Lafayette, Louisiana, about two hours away,
Speaker 2: since some cruise since their facilities were still working, they
Speaker 2: ran the bacteriological samples in its lab. Wow. Okay, Little Rock, Arkansas,
Speaker 2: the town that no one ever thinks of unless they're
Speaker 2: thinking about. I think Bill clinks from there.
Speaker 3: Yeah.
Speaker 2: I went to a pretty good puncture there once. Really Okay, Yeah,
Speaker 2: I was kind of jealous because everyone's rent was like
Speaker 2: two hundred dollars for a house, because it's like this,
Speaker 2: this is a while ago. But also it was a
Speaker 2: real cheap place to live.
Speaker 5: I bet it's still cheap. Yeah, maybe not that cheap.
Speaker 2: Yeah, it's probably up to six hundred dollars for I
Speaker 2: don't know whatever. Maybe it's awful and gentrifying. Who knows,
Speaker 2: I don't. But Little Rock, Arkansas is about seven hours away,
Speaker 2: and they sent some staff and equipment and trucks. Both
Speaker 2: of those cities are fanked. In every post Katrina report,
Speaker 2: the water board is put out, or at least the
Speaker 2: three to four that I read. But one city above
Speaker 2: all earned the love of New Orleans and their water board,
Speaker 2: the city of Portland, Oregon. And now you ever heard
Speaker 2: of Portland, Oregon?
Speaker 1: I have.
Speaker 5: I actually heard about it at the end of the
Speaker 5: last episode that we did on this topic.
Speaker 2: Oh right, Well, most people know about portlanduse of Portland, Maine,
Speaker 2: or they all know about Portland, Arkansas, Portland, Colorado, Portland, Connecticut, Portland, Georgia, Portland, Indiana, Portland, Kansas, Portland, Kentucky, Portland, Michigan,
Speaker 2: New Portland, Maine, Portland, Missouri, Portland, New York, Portland, North Dakota, Portland, Ohio, Portland, Pennsylvania, Portland, Tennessee,
Speaker 2: or Portland, Texas. But it turns out there's a city
Speaker 2: in Oregon named Portland too.
Speaker 5: Jesus Christ, that's wild.
Speaker 3: I can guarantee you I didn't know about any of
Speaker 3: those other Portlands. So unoriginal.
Speaker 2: Good Lord, Okay, but at least Portland, Oregon is a
Speaker 2: port What the fuck is Portland, Kansas doing.
Speaker 3: Dreaming of ports It's not the land of ports I'll
Speaker 3: tell you that.
Speaker 1: No.
Speaker 2: The first time I moved to Portland, I was like nineteen,
Speaker 2: and I like climbed up the hill in Forest Park
Speaker 2: and I like looked out and there was like another city.
Speaker 2: It's probably Tigered or some shit. I don't know, but
Speaker 2: we were like but we left Portland, but there's another city,
Speaker 2: and so we decided it was land Port and it
Speaker 2: was the inversion of Portland. There you go. That's funny.
Speaker 2: And maybe Tigered is the inversion of Portland. I'm not sure.
Speaker 1: Landport is a cooler name than Tigered because nobody can
Speaker 1: pronounce Tiger correct. There's so many arguments about how that
Speaker 1: town is the name of that town. Pronunciation on that.
Speaker 2: I haven't heard it, and I'm afraid of the other pronunciations.
Speaker 1: They say seven different ways on the news here.
Speaker 2: I believe you, yeah that.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I won't make you say them.
Speaker 1: Thank you, thank you, Katy.
Speaker 2: So even before New Orleans put out a call for help,
Speaker 2: the Water Bureau of Portland started putting together a plan
Speaker 2: to help, and the plan was that we're going to
Speaker 2: send thirty five engineers and other specialists to live and
Speaker 2: work in New Orleans and help their waterboard, plus send
Speaker 2: as much equipment as they could. And as soon as
Speaker 2: New Orleans was like yes, please, can people help, they
Speaker 2: were en route and they did this illegally, as was
Speaker 2: proven in court later.
Speaker 4: And it's funny they had to go to court later.
Speaker 4: Oh yeah, yeah, yeah, how dare you do that good thing. Yep,
Speaker 4: that's what happened. They did it with approval from the
Speaker 4: city government, but the city government was found in court
Speaker 4: to have broken its rules about money spending in order
Speaker 4: to do this. And I think they knew that they
Speaker 4: were breaking all the rules when they went in and
Speaker 4: they were like, Yeah, we just got to do this.
Speaker 2: We don't care, we'll figure it out later. Yeah, people
Speaker 2: are dying. All of the people who went seventy people
Speaker 2: in total, and two teams of thirty five were volunteers,
Speaker 2: and nearly all of them were union. It seems to
Speaker 2: have happened by basically the unions in the city being like,
Speaker 2: all right, you want to break all the rules and
Speaker 2: get this done. Yeah, I'll break all the rules and
Speaker 2: get it done. You know, they broke you union rules
Speaker 2: and city rules both.
Speaker 1: M hmm.
Speaker 3: Good for them.
Speaker 2: Portland City Commissioner Randy Leonard said during the sendoff of
Speaker 2: the first volunteers, quote, we're violating about one hundred provisions
Speaker 2: from each of their contracts, and we couldn't do it
Speaker 2: without our union brothers and sisters.
Speaker 3: Yeah.
Speaker 2: The first team included sixteen members of the American Federation
Speaker 2: of State County Municipal Employees Local one to eighty nine,
Speaker 2: two members of the Electrical Workers Local forty eight, two
Speaker 2: members of Operating Engineers Local seven oh one, and three
Speaker 2: members of the City of Portland Professional Employees Association. I
Speaker 2: don't have the numbers for the second team. The first
Speaker 2: team gets all the glory. That's when the photos in,
Speaker 2: you know, like, but but there were two teams, yep, totally,
Speaker 2: that's what's important. Yeah, the equipment was sent on October third,
Speaker 2: and on October eighth, people flew there. And now this
Speaker 2: is not right away like, this is the like slow
Speaker 2: grinding gears of bureaucracy to make things happen for belief,
Speaker 2: which still matters, right Like, it was not too little,
Speaker 2: too late. It was a still in time, very useful thing.
Speaker 2: But Katrina hid in the end of August. Red tape
Speaker 2: slowed them down, but it didn't stop them. And when
Speaker 2: they showed up, they stayed in those same tents at
Speaker 2: the command center at the wastewater Treatment Plant Algiers and
Speaker 2: they worked twelve hour shifts and a second group replaced
Speaker 2: them on November sixth, thirty days later. They did the
Speaker 2: same skilled labor that the water boarders were doing. They
Speaker 2: fixed things. They completed three hundred and seventy seven work
Speaker 2: orders in the sixty days they were there. They rebuilt
Speaker 2: pumps and motors and fixing vehicles, and they also what
Speaker 2: all of the formal relief groups had to do. They
Speaker 2: spent a lot of their time going around and documenting
Speaker 2: things so that FEMA would ostensibly pay for repairs. And
Speaker 2: then the thing about having, you know, sent a whole
Speaker 2: bunch of its workers to New Orleans is that it
Speaker 2: wasn't just the people who went to New Orleans who
Speaker 2: had to work hard as a result, because everyone who
Speaker 2: stayed had to do that much more work. Michael str
Speaker 2: the now former director of the Water Bureau, told Portland
Speaker 2: dot gov, which is the official blog of the city,
Speaker 2: I wonder if all the other Portlands are mad about that.
Speaker 3: They might be, They really might be.
Speaker 2: Maybe they all share it. Maybe there's like a like
Speaker 2: Portland Arkansas has like, you know, a little page on there.
Speaker 2: I don't think it does.
Speaker 5: It's like Portland dot go click your.
Speaker 2: State, Yeah, totally, which Portland. Michael Sturr said, it was
Speaker 2: more than just the people who went down to New Orleans.
Speaker 2: In some ways, that was almost the easy part. Then
Speaker 2: there were the people back here. We were short the
Speaker 2: number of crews usually had to do our daily business,
Speaker 2: and everyone picked like basically, it's like everyone had to
Speaker 2: pick up the load. Yeah, and I think that that
Speaker 2: part matters too. In the end, Moltnomah County Circuit Court
Speaker 2: Judge Stephen Bouchong ruled that the Portland taxpayers shouldn't have
Speaker 2: had to pay the two million it cost, and it
Speaker 2: should have come from general funds instead. FEMA eventually reimburses
Speaker 2: the city for one point eight million of this, Butuchong
Speaker 2: has since been elected to the Oregon Supreme Court, where
Speaker 2: he currently serves, and I can find nothing about his politics.
Speaker 2: He carefully is not saying that.
Speaker 3: Two million dollars. I know that that's a lot of money,
Speaker 3: but for a city, and yeah, the size of this catastrophe,
Speaker 3: that's like nothing.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I'm looking at the Portland City budget annual right now. Yeah,
Speaker 2: eight point two billion dollars.
Speaker 1: Is and and how much of that goes to the cops?
Speaker 3: I know, right, yeah, two million, that's like pennies for
Speaker 3: each citizen.
Speaker 2: But okay, yeah, and in the end, I think that
Speaker 2: it was two hundred thousand dollars that wasn't reimbursed by
Speaker 2: FEMA in the end.
Speaker 3: That's okay whatever.
Speaker 2: Yeah, have you seen that like TikToker, I don't know
Speaker 2: what thing was originally on, where the guy is like, oh,
Speaker 2: who wants their tax money to pay for these Tongu
Speaker 2: group people? I do. That's what I want.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I do. That's literally what I would like it
Speaker 3: it's spent on. I would like it spent on things
Speaker 3: like this, please, that's what it should be spent for.
Speaker 2: Yeah.
Speaker 3: Also just not for not them, but just the cost
Speaker 3: of like having some sort of hearing trial or taking
Speaker 3: people out of work for the day. But you just
Speaker 3: wasting our time and our money. Yeah, fucks anyway.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I'm willing to bet if you ask, if you
Speaker 2: just like did a little quick direct pull of the
Speaker 2: people living in Portland. Are you proud of your city
Speaker 2: or are you mad that four dollars out of your
Speaker 2: paycheck went to this? Like, Yeah, the easiest four dollars
Speaker 2: I've ever spent in my life is to feel good
Speaker 2: about the city I live in.
Speaker 5: Best money I've ever spent.
Speaker 3: Yeah, yeah, for sure.
Speaker 2: There's not a lot of positive Portland stories in the news,
Speaker 2: my guy, Yeah wild Okay, Katrina was in essence a
Speaker 2: wake up call for disaster relief for groups big and small,
Speaker 2: bureaucratic and day. But what really is a wake up
Speaker 2: call is deals. Oh thank god, Yeah, they just get
Speaker 2: me out of bed in the morning. These deals, I know,
Speaker 2: I know, what do you do? You could have been
Speaker 2: buying long swords.
Speaker 3: I could have been maybe I still have time.
Speaker 2: Yeah, a good arming sword, which is distinct from a
Speaker 2: long sword by certain people's pedantic views. You know, if
Speaker 2: you want to spend a lot of your time on
Speaker 2: YouTube watching people talking about medieval weaponry, that's up to you.
Speaker 2: But you don't have to do it, because we've done
Speaker 2: all of that work for you, and that's why we
Speaker 2: advertise only the finest medieval weapons. If what we advertise
Speaker 2: doesn't sound like a medieval weapon, it's actually code for
Speaker 2: a medieval weapon. So whatever you buy from these following sponsors,
Speaker 2: including sports betting, it'll somehow come to you in sword form.
Speaker 2: I don't promise. I'm lying. Here's ads and we're back.
Speaker 3: Well that was fun, but I am dying to hear
Speaker 3: how this results.
Speaker 2: I don't know. I mean it did more or less. Okay,
Speaker 2: so actually some really amazing things come out of it.
Speaker 2: With Katrina, it was a wake up call for disaster
Speaker 2: relief right and small. That's what I already read in
Speaker 2: my script, and here I am reading it again and
Speaker 2: figure out what I was trying to say, and to
Speaker 2: common Ground in New Orleans was a major inspiration for
Speaker 2: matter mutual aid disaster relief. The group I was talking
Speaker 2: about last time, as for the various water boards. Because
Speaker 2: of Katrina as well as nine to eleven and some flooding.
Speaker 2: In two thousand and seven, they formed worn Water Slash
Speaker 2: Wastewater Agency Response Network. Their goal basically, they're doing the
Speaker 2: same thing. They're creating these national networks. To quote their
Speaker 2: press release from two thousand and seven, their goal is
Speaker 2: to quote encourage local utilities in every state to establish
Speaker 2: intrastate mutual aid and assistance agreements between both drinking water
Speaker 2: and wastewater utilities. It basically exists to streamline the red
Speaker 2: tape that was slowing everything down. They are like looking
Speaker 2: at the failures of bureaucratic stuff and trying to figure
Speaker 2: out how to get around it. And it allows them
Speaker 2: all to quote sign a single agreement covering issues such
Speaker 2: as indemification, workers' compensation and reimbursement, and it quote allows
Speaker 2: for utilities to share equipment, personnel, and other resources required
Speaker 2: to respond effectively to any crisis. WARN helps utilities reduce
Speaker 2: the typical response gap end quote.
Speaker 3: That's rad. I know, I should talk to my My
Speaker 3: brother works for the water department. Yeah, in his city,
Speaker 3: his town, not saying where.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I should talk to him about Portland, Colorado, Portland,
Speaker 2: color We all live in Portland.
Speaker 3: We all live in Portland somewhere. Yeah, one way or another,
Speaker 3: we all live in Portland.
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, no, I mean, it's this is the first
Speaker 2: I had heard about WARN, because it's like, there's this
Speaker 2: thing that happens where like I do this, at least
Speaker 2: I don't know if other people do it. Where I
Speaker 2: see some of the DIY projects and then I see
Speaker 2: some of like the failures of the large scale projects,
Speaker 2: but I don't necessarily always see the wastewater worker who
Speaker 2: is hanging on by rafters and fixing pumps, you know,
Speaker 2: like the specialized person doing their professional job that is
Speaker 2: a working class job that exists to serve the people.
Speaker 3: Like well, and the truth is, I mean, and I
Speaker 3: mentioned my brother, but I don't even think about it
Speaker 3: that closely. But yeah, my brother's right now, going through
Speaker 3: a period, there's always somebody on call and stuff does
Speaker 3: go very bad, and training is significant because they're handling
Speaker 3: stuff that could kill us if wild water isn't treated properly,
Speaker 3: or if something goes wrong a busted pipe. There're as
Speaker 3: much as storms in There was a huge pothole and
Speaker 3: it busted up some pipes, and you know, I mean,
Speaker 3: they're always on call trying. It's a different kind of
Speaker 3: emergency response than I've ever thought about, just our water department.
Speaker 2: Yeah, we don't always notice the work that people are doing,
Speaker 2: and in some strange ways, because we don't see what
Speaker 2: they do, we don't notice climate change getting worse, at
Speaker 2: least not as obviously as we would otherwise, because there's
Speaker 2: all of these people getting this stuff done, making our
Speaker 2: infrastructure more resilient. I mean, obviously our resilient. Our infrastructure
Speaker 2: is also falling apart. Right, It's like both things are
Speaker 2: happening at once. It's that tone. It's the thing where
Speaker 2: things are always getting better and worse, and it's not
Speaker 2: just an illusion where like it's all samey, samey, but
Speaker 2: there are things that are people are trying to fix
Speaker 2: and make more resilient. Yeah, and ooh, this chapter is
Speaker 2: called conclusion. I never I usually subheadings, but I usually don't.
Speaker 2: Usually they're not as like conclusion. This one is my conclusion.
Speaker 2: In that voice up at top, I quoted a paper
Speaker 2: by Stanford's psychologist Jamil Zaki, and then they conclude that
Speaker 2: paper with for all the suffering they produce. Social behavior
Speaker 2: during and after disasters provides a counterpoint to the prevailing
Speaker 2: cynicism of our culture. Catastrophe compassion presents people with a
Speaker 2: view of ourselves that might surprise us, driven by otherishness
Speaker 2: rather than by selfishness during crucially important moments. One way
Speaker 2: to honor and extend this positive behavior is to not
Speaker 2: be surprised by it any longer, but instead to realize
Speaker 2: that pro sociality is common, and thus to expect and
Speaker 2: demand it from others and from ourselves. Okay, I've been
Speaker 2: watching the Internet terror part this like homesteader influencer couple recently,
Speaker 2: and they're really cringing, annoying, and I like don't mind
Speaker 2: the people tearing them apart because I think that they're posers. There.
Speaker 2: There's like white couple that uses hand tools and is like,
Speaker 2: oh the rusty saw. Yeah, yeah, totally mm hm. And
Speaker 2: it's like, you know, there's photos where a woman with
Speaker 2: brushed but not braided hair and clean clothes is like
Speaker 2: moving manure around. And it's like anyone who's working outside
Speaker 2: with long hair for long enough is braiding their fucking
Speaker 2: hair or like putting it up in some way.
Speaker 5: Getting it out of their face in some capacity.
Speaker 1: Yeah.
Speaker 2: And the guy's like hand sawing a log between sawhorses,
Speaker 2: which means it'll pinch the blade, and it sure doesn't
Speaker 2: seem like he knows what he's doing, but people have
Speaker 2: accused him of that. In the common this is like
Speaker 2: what I spend my time doing is watching people make funs.
Speaker 3: I saw a little bit of it, maybe because you are.
Speaker 3: I don't know if Yeah, it doesn't matter. I saw
Speaker 3: it briefly.
Speaker 2: Yeah, And I don't know. I don't know about these
Speaker 2: two people one way or the other. They seem like
Speaker 2: annoying and probably right wing based on their like, oh
Speaker 2: we The real thing to do is everyone has a homestead.
Speaker 2: They are selling a lie, whether they know it or not.
Speaker 2: Homesteading the way it's sold is a lie. It is
Speaker 2: a foundational lie in American culture. But forever and always
Speaker 2: the supposedly rugged frontiersman has a few exceptions, been supported
Speaker 2: by massive infrastructure that relies on those frontiersmen conquering territories
Speaker 2: from indigenous peoples. It is nearly impossible to grow all
Speaker 2: your own food as like a nuclear family. Anthropologically, whenever
Speaker 2: humans live in small self sustaining groups, they are bigger
Speaker 2: than husband, wife and children. There are a lot of
Speaker 2: extended families. There's like clan structures. There's all kinds of
Speaker 2: shit happening.
Speaker 3: Community, yeah, a commune sorts perhaps.
Speaker 2: Yeah, And they are generally trading with one another or
Speaker 2: building infrastructure together. I am an introvert and as hermit
Speaker 2: as it gets, I live me and my dog alone
Speaker 2: in the mountains, but I am not lying to myself.
Speaker 2: We rely on each other, and we rely on society.
Speaker 2: The sort of father of mutual aid as an academic
Speaker 2: topic of study is the regular friend of the pod
Speaker 2: of the anarchist and evolutionary biologist Peter Kropotkin. He was
Speaker 2: like a Russian prince who was like, I don't think
Speaker 2: this prince thing is for me. I think actually we
Speaker 2: should have a horizontal society of groups that help each other.
Speaker 2: And I'm an anthropologist and I'm basing all of this
Speaker 2: by watching all of these different groups. And his nineteen
Speaker 2: oh two book mutual Aid, A Factor and Evolution. It's
Speaker 2: a pretty literal title. It presents the idea that counter
Speaker 2: to what social Darwinists at the time we're saying, mutual
Speaker 2: aid is a factor in evolution. H He follows mutual
Speaker 2: aid throughout the animal kingdom and then anthropologically through a
Speaker 2: ton of different society and it's one of the foundational
Speaker 2: texts of the modern study of cooperation. It's like understanding
Speaker 2: how different species can have mutually beneficial relationships, right the
Speaker 2: like birds that clean the teeth or the alligators or whatever.
Speaker 1: The fuck.
Speaker 2: I don't know, it's been a while since read the
Speaker 2: science books that talk about this shit. And it's not
Speaker 2: that competition doesn't happen or doesn't matter, but it's that
Speaker 2: cooperation also matters. Like when you were talking about at
Speaker 2: the very top of all of this, about how, like
Speaker 2: many other things, we have this in it human desire
Speaker 2: to help each other, we also have in a human
Speaker 2: desire to hurt each other and.
Speaker 3: Shit, right, absolutely, but like we can pick you know, yeah,
Speaker 3: that's part of evolving and culture and growth is understanding
Speaker 3: where some of our instincts come from. That's a benefit
Speaker 3: of where we live at this point in time. But
Speaker 3: in general, I mean, we're hardwired to survive, but we're
Speaker 3: also hardwired for community. And at the end of the day,
Speaker 3: we've never not relied on each other, right to some degree,
Speaker 3: depending on how big your community is, but that is
Speaker 3: how we have arrived where we are today. Yeah, the
Speaker 3: evolution of society and culture.
Speaker 2: Yeah, no, it's it's interesting because it's like it it
Speaker 2: turns out the argument is that it's not survival of
Speaker 2: the fittest at each other's throats. Sometimes it's survival of
Speaker 2: the fittest communities, and the fittest communities are communities that
Speaker 2: are cooperative and so like, it's kind of interesting. Actually,
Speaker 2: one of the first times I read about all this
Speaker 2: stuff was I like, I'll probably talked about this on
Speaker 2: the show before, but it's like lives in my head
Speaker 2: a lot, you know. I found this article talking about
Speaker 2: like scientists. It was like a science journal talking about
Speaker 2: like why are there gay animals? Right? And I'm reading
Speaker 2: this random science article and they're like evolutionary biologist Peter
Speaker 2: Krapacken writing about this thing, and I'm like, oh, my god,
Speaker 2: my guy, he's in the science and uh that like
Speaker 2: the gay animals and like the animal kingdom, I'm talking
Speaker 2: about humans here. I mean humans are animals too, but
Speaker 2: like the gay animals will like the gay couple birds
Speaker 2: will adopt to the fucking birds that are orphans and
Speaker 2: shit or like, yeah, animals that have lost their mate
Speaker 2: and aren't find you know, like they still find like
Speaker 2: love and companionship with each other. Yeah, and so like
Speaker 2: even though they can't reproduce sexually, some of them can,
Speaker 2: some can't, whatever, mostly they can't, they are still providing
Speaker 2: that species to be more survivable. So it is literally
Speaker 2: part of evolution that some of us are gay.
Speaker 3: Oh that's beautiful too. All of this is beautiful.
Speaker 2: Yeah, thanks, and so the end of that book, Peter
Speaker 2: Kapokin writes, in the practice of mutual aid, which we
Speaker 2: can retrace to the earliest beginnings of evolution, we thus
Speaker 2: find the positive and undoubted origin of our ethical conceptions,
Speaker 2: and we can affirm that in the ethical progress of man,
Speaker 2: mutual support, not mutual struggle, has the leading part in
Speaker 2: its wide extension. Even at the present time. We also
Speaker 2: see the guarantee of a still loftier evolution of the
Speaker 2: human race.
Speaker 3: Yeah, love that.
Speaker 2: Yeah. So taking care of ourselves in each other, it's
Speaker 2: what we evolve to do. We're good at it, we
Speaker 2: should do it, and.
Speaker 3: That's how you grow too. I mean, there's so many
Speaker 3: thoughts swimming around in my brain about this tangential but like, oh,
Speaker 3: I might not have so much in common with that
Speaker 3: person up the street, but we're going to come together
Speaker 3: in this situation and learn and be on the same team.
Speaker 3: And there's a humanizing element from that, And yeah, I think, yeah.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I mean it's hard because, right, some people, some
Speaker 2: of your neighbors might be like fucking Nazis, Yeah, right, exactly,
Speaker 2: And there might be people who are trying to kill you.
Speaker 2: But by and large, there's people I disagree with about
Speaker 2: pretty major stuff that I do not want to see
Speaker 2: starved to death, that do not want to see me
Speaker 2: starve to death, right, like right, Yeah, And even the Nazis,
Speaker 2: I want them to just stop being Nazis, you know,
Speaker 2: I want them.
Speaker 5: To stop being Nazi.
Speaker 3: I'm not wishing physical harm on them unless it's I
Speaker 3: guess very well deserved here, But I'm not gonna cry
Speaker 3: myself to sleep. But I'm not out here wishing the
Speaker 3: worst for anybody or a traumatic experience. I'm gonna try
Speaker 3: to help. There was this conversation and I remember in
Speaker 3: college this debate about altruism. You know what, I don't
Speaker 3: need to go down that path, Okay, but well it
Speaker 3: just does altruism exist? If like, if you're is there
Speaker 3: any can you is there an altruistic act? And I
Speaker 3: kind of took up and I'm not sure if I
Speaker 3: stand by this, but that there isn't. But it doesn't matter.
Speaker 3: You can use that word because at the end of
Speaker 3: the day, for example, your friend hopping in that plane
Speaker 3: that you referenced a very scary choice. A lot of people,
Speaker 3: you probably wouldn't fault somebody for not wanting to do it. However,
Speaker 3: I bet your friend, and it meant so much like
Speaker 3: I don't know how I would live with myself if
Speaker 3: I had the opportunity to help somebody and I didn't, right,
Speaker 3: And so maybe there's something selfish in that, But at
Speaker 3: the end of the day, I don't think it's selfish.
Speaker 3: It's just recognizing that what I want is the best
Speaker 3: for people.
Speaker 5: Anyway.
Speaker 3: This is a tangent, but I have been it's been
Speaker 3: floating in my head a bit.
Speaker 2: This is such an important tangent because we get presented
Speaker 2: all the time, right, does altruism exist? Right? You can
Speaker 2: find the selfish reason. You know, I want to be
Speaker 2: the kind of person who does not let fear prevent
Speaker 2: me from doing what I believe is right. So therefore,
Speaker 2: if I get in that plane, which I didn't, but
Speaker 2: like you know, I wasn't an option I presented to myself.
Speaker 2: It was somewhere else in the country. I don't remember
Speaker 2: where I was. But like, if I had gotten into
Speaker 2: that plane, I would feel good about myself later. I mean,
Speaker 2: at a time i'd be like, what the fuck am
Speaker 2: I doing? What's wrong with like terrified? But yeah, yeah,
Speaker 2: and so I would be proud, So I would get
Speaker 2: something out of it. Right. But the argument that we
Speaker 2: get presented with all the time by society and the
Speaker 2: Cold War, this awful is the community versus the individual.
Speaker 2: And the thing that I love about mutual aida factor
Speaker 2: in evolution is he's not saying, oh, being good is good,
Speaker 2: and anyone who doesn't sucks, and you know we should
Speaker 2: suffer for each other. Instead, he's saying, what is good
Speaker 2: for the individual is to be good for the community. Yes, yes,
Speaker 2: so we need to find where it's not two polar opposites,
Speaker 2: you know, And I just like deeply believe that, and
Speaker 2: like basically I do too. Yeah, I want to be
Speaker 2: part of a healthy community where people take care of me,
Speaker 2: and the cost of entry is to be a person
Speaker 2: who takes care of people. And then I feel good anyway,
Speaker 2: because like when I have like extra and I give
Speaker 2: it to someone, I am like, I probably got more
Speaker 2: out of that than they did. I'm like, I am
Speaker 2: the best person. I just came twenty bucks to that guy.
Speaker 2: I'm like a fucking here. They should make us. I'm
Speaker 2: a saint.
Speaker 3: Yeah, like but a statue up of me.
Speaker 2: Yeah, Like I'm floating all day.
Speaker 3: And the thing is, as if you follow the trajectory
Speaker 3: of this entire conversation of these two episodes, I extend
Speaker 3: that to times of non crisis as well. Yeah, that's
Speaker 3: my whole philosophy about society and communities. And you know,
Speaker 3: part of the thing that I love about being in
Speaker 3: a smaller community at the moment is that there's more effect.
Speaker 3: My individual actions have a bit more of an effect
Speaker 3: in here. But like I say this all the time
Speaker 3: when people talk about, you know, housing crisis or this
Speaker 3: that or the other, like different things. I'm like, well,
Speaker 3: whether you like it or not, this is all.
Speaker 5: Of our issue.
Speaker 2: Yeah, totally our.
Speaker 3: That's a selfish that's coming at it from a more
Speaker 3: selfish perspective, But it's like, we need to collectively approach
Speaker 3: this problem because if not, the downsides that are all
Speaker 3: of us. We just because you're like, that's not me,
Speaker 3: doesn't mean that that's not you know, in cert different
Speaker 3: hazards or things that can happen. Again the selfish way
Speaker 3: looking at it, but I believe fundamentally that healthy community,
Speaker 3: you know, where we don't ignore the problems, that the
Speaker 3: crises that people are going through, is better for all
Speaker 3: of us at the end of the day. Yeah, and
Speaker 3: just knowing that if something then happened to me that
Speaker 3: there are infrastructures or people places that I can't go
Speaker 3: out yeah for help anyway.
Speaker 2: No, And I even wonder whether the reason that we're
Speaker 2: seeing like Elon Musk pretending like he's ever going to
Speaker 2: go to Mars or Facebook robot man buying all of Hawaii, Zuckerberg,
Speaker 2: you know, is like they're trying to find a way
Speaker 2: to nimby climate change. They're trying to be like or
Speaker 2: they're trying to find a way to make it not
Speaker 2: their problem, right, because it is everyone's problem, and so
Speaker 2: they're like, well, how can I be safe in this?
Speaker 2: And then the answer is like you kind of can't.
Speaker 3: Absolutely no, They're going to build their bunkers, and they're
Speaker 3: different like things like advocate against policies because they're going
Speaker 3: to continue making as much money as possible, but shure
Speaker 3: up their own bunkers and their own backup plans.
Speaker 5: Yep, but that's going to only take you so far.
Speaker 2: But I love the like there was some report. I've
Speaker 2: only read the pop science version of this, but the
Speaker 2: you know, I read an article a long time ago
Speaker 2: that was talking about how when the super rich we're
Speaker 2: talking about all their bunkers. One of the meetings that
Speaker 2: they had at the convention was how the fuck are
Speaker 2: we going to get our security guards to keeping on
Speaker 2: our side when there's like no money in the world's over, Like,
Speaker 2: how do we make them still are subordinates? You know what?
Speaker 3: A good question and it seems so.
Speaker 2: Funny because the obvious answer is to make them your equals,
Speaker 2: and you're like, weird little bunker cult, you know, but
Speaker 2: they're like, oh, fuck, what are we gonna I mean,
Speaker 2: the answers, they're probably going to kidnap those people's children
Speaker 2: and shit, you know, I don't know because yeah, there's
Speaker 2: that other quote that I don't have source. That's like
Speaker 2: from like the nineteen hundreds or eighteen whatever, nineteenth century.
Speaker 2: That's like, oh, I can just hire one half of
Speaker 2: the working class to kill the other half. You know.
Speaker 5: Yeah, anyway, probably is where they bring I'm focusing on that.
Speaker 5: We've had a very hopeful conversation.
Speaker 2: Yes, I think, don't get hired just to kill the
Speaker 2: working class. That is the takeaway.
Speaker 5: That's a bad deal.
Speaker 2: Yeah, don't do that, and do use your specializations to
Speaker 2: help each other. And listen to even more news.
Speaker 3: Yeah, listen to even more news and some more news.
Speaker 3: We're available as a podcast or the YouTube show for
Speaker 3: both shows. Some people weren't thrilled that we started putting
Speaker 3: the video of our podcast up on YouTube.
Speaker 5: A lot of people were, yeah, it's weird.
Speaker 3: Look, if you prefer just audio, just go listen to it.
Speaker 3: It's still in your podcast feed. I love you very much.
Speaker 3: But he got both options now, and that's a good thing. Yeah,
Speaker 3: so yeah, you can watch or listen to both of
Speaker 3: those shows. And we are in the throes of election prep,
Speaker 3: so busy.
Speaker 2: And if you want my take on random stuff, I
Speaker 2: have a substack. It is Margaret Kildroyd at substack dot com.
Speaker 2: All of the posts that are like meaningful and about
Speaker 2: how I feel about election years and whatever. You can
Speaker 2: find that there for free. And if you want more
Speaker 2: of the like Margaret tells stories about hitchhiking or complains
Speaker 2: about her day than those are for the people who
Speaker 2: pay me. And that's Marta Kiljoyd at substock dot com.
Speaker 2: And also you should listen to the rest of cools
Speaker 2: on media because Selfie's nodding this genuinely really good because like, honestly,
Speaker 2: I'm glad that more shows got added because sometimes at
Speaker 2: the end of the week, I've listened to all of
Speaker 2: the cools on media that week, and I'm like, now.
Speaker 3: What, Who's going to keep me company today?
Speaker 2: I know, like, while I'm you know, working on the
Speaker 2: land that I live on, I was about to say
Speaker 2: burning cardboard, but I would never do that. I totally
Speaker 2: don't have a barrel in my front yard where I
Speaker 2: burn all my cardboard. I don't know about the ethics
Speaker 2: or laws around that, so I don't do that. But
Speaker 2: if I did, I'd be listening to coolson Media while
Speaker 2: I did it.
Speaker 3: Yeah, of course.
Speaker 2: Yeah. Anyway, don't burn things during fire season. Yeah, and
Speaker 2: put a great over your barrel and don't tell your neighbors. Yep. Absolutely,
Speaker 2: see you all next week.
Speaker 1: Cool People Who Did Cool Stuff is a production of
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