Podcasts by Attack Ads! The Podcast
Attack Ads! questions the dominance of media supported mainly by the corrupting influence of commercial advertising sponsorship, and aims to raise both awareness and outrage at the limitations such a system produces.
Further podcasts by Jim
Podcast on the topic Gesellschaft und Kultur
All episodes
Enshittification from 2023-12-12T21:44:11
There's a new word out there, doing its part to describe an old type of theft. Rentiers are once again attempting to rake in money, today using technology to make that job easier. I describe t...
Listen
Critical Massholes from 2023-11-28T22:20:52
Right now, there are a few under-reported legal attempts being made to rein in the tech giants that today, well, monopolistically reign. Just like I did in my last, I'll cover yet another of th...
Listen
The Advertising Scorpion from 2023-11-07T20:50:48
Lawsuits are happening! And so many concern advertising and the future of some really big companies! It's time to get not just excited, but really excited, starting with this Episode 232: The ...
Listen
The Status Goldfish from 2023-10-24T22:10:27
In this final sharing of Will Storr's book, The Status Game, I give a glimpse into the tyranny of the cousins, people amongst us who seek to correct behavior in ways that should sound familiar. ...
Listen
Erasing Typographic Man from 2023-10-04T20:33:37
Have you ever read a very old book and wondered how the author could keep the argument flowing through the miles of print? I know I have. Today I explore the degradation of our modern attentio...
Listen
SSG Sing a Song of Derision! from 2023-09-14T20:07:58
Status is important to all of us. To maintain relative status for everyone, we need to keep those around us in check. Sometimes we must bring out the biggest means of checking behavior and, li...
Listen
The Advertising Nuisance from 2023-08-23T23:41:27
My hatred of advertising brought about my study of it. What I could never anticipate was the shared hatred that every now and again in history flares up and prompts so very many to complain, if ...
Listen
My Eight-Legged Monkey Dance from 2023-08-10T02:32:55
We brag about living in a "free" country. Private industry, however, has too often more freedom to suppress speech than we do to exercise it, at least on "their" platforms. I vaguely allude t...
Listen
The Games of Our Lives from 2023-07-25T19:59:12
Yes, we humans are obsessed with playing games. They’re harmless fun, giving winners some bragging rights; in that way they resemble the most important game we play, the Status Game. I discuss...
Listen
Categorization&Confirmation from 2023-07-11T17:30:12
For almost a decade now, I've shared intrusive surveillance crap with you done in the name of advertising and marketing. Worse, today I need to revisit that crap to show that it's now a probable...
Listen
Why We Can't Have Nice Things from 2023-06-27T18:02:18
It really is possible to improve our lives by adopting less onerous practices. Keeping us from this better life are obscene fortunes earned by those who provide more onerous practices. I discu...
Listen
Categorically Errory from 2023-06-14T23:37:22
I could do every episode sharing crud that attempts to score points against collective action… crud that spouts from mouths paid by people most likely to suffer should collective action occur. ...
Listen
The Counterintelligentsia Strikes Back! from 2023-05-23T20:47:52
I've described before how ideas originated in academia have caught society’s collective popular vision. How much of that content, though, was intended to benefit only the wealthy? I explore th...
Listen
The Most Important Invention Ever from 2023-05-09T23:40:09
Too few realize that answering the cocktail party question “what’s the best [something] ever?” requires taking into account how many on earth are affected by it. I attempt to answer this questi...
Listen
Books I've Quietly Read from 2023-04-25T17:31:46
Most of us can relate: if we do something too often, specific memories of doing that thing are often lost until something triggers us to remember. Well, I read a lot. Here are some titles I forg...
Listen
Snitches Get Riches from 2023-04-11T22:18:54
Once we learn about all the intrusive technologies foisted upon us just to stuff ads in our earholes and eyeballs, paranoia comes naturally. How much is enough? When does our paranoia match re...
Listen
"Not Totally Without Historical Significance" from 2023-03-28T21:03:16
We are taught from childhood to save, because a penny saved can lead to a penny earned. What happens, though, when others have investments that take every penny we have? I explore this in Epis...
Listen
Why (r>g) Matters from 2023-03-14T20:35:38
Who can we trust in the “sciences”? In this episode, I offer academic research—later discounted by evidence—for years considered sacrosanct simply because it protects a hidden agenda of politic...
Listen
Chopping At The Golem from 2023-02-28T22:30:19
I have to say, it's exciting to witness a change in political winds almost the moment it happens…especially when it concerns legality in the world of online advertising! I share this change in t...
Listen
The Dirt Road To Serfdom from 2023-02-15T19:14:45
We all like to eat. There are, sadly, very profitable reasons to keep the various processes dictating how the food we buy is created well hidden. Today I point out just some of the lowlights you...
Listen
The Libertarian Delusion from 2023-01-31T23:34:34
Everybody likes to suggest changes that will fix problems found in everyday life. What we don't often have, though, is a clear idea of whether those utopian changes will—or won’t—work. I present...
Listen
Medium unCoolers from 2023-01-17T21:31:56
Advertisers scheme ways to spread filth; but low-margin retailers can't stop these intrusions without angering shareholders. This creates a creeping tendency toward abominations in stores. I giv...
Listen
The Audience Commodity from 2023-01-05T01:41:13
Advertisers want to know you because pitches to receptive audiences sell product. But before surveillance technology existed, how did they do that? To help, there’s an obscure but key theory to ...
Listen
Get Thee To The Moil! from 2022-12-20T14:24:46
Everything seems chaotic today, what with supply chain disruptions, staffing shortfalls, and this wave of union activity, all panicking employers. What could be the reason? How about math? I exp...
Listen
Back To Basics from 2022-12-07T01:42:07
Parody goes beyond laughter: it can help all of us see silliness in what we never questioned; help us see our naked marching monarch. I explore ideas I've had, along with terms others have coine...
Listen
Prehistory, Lost&Found from 2022-11-24T01:34:01
Question: Why is the largest river in South America called the Amazon? I recently re-read some important source material, and got some surprises on that and other important topics I hope you'll ...
Listen
Partners In A Symbiotic Dance from 2022-11-09T01:02:20
At this rate, we humans face a hot climate blanketing the planet with the over two centuries of fuel exhaust we have already dug up and burned. There are solutions out there. I share a dirty, me...
Listen
Peddling the Nitrogen Cycle from 2022-10-25T20:54:02
What do you think: will we as a species starve to death, or merely roast? Trying to thread that policy needle is proving a challenge, one that (for me, at least) needs to be itself challenged. H...
Listen
Take Two, Phase One from 2022-10-12T17:37:57
Is your phone listening to what you say when you aren't using it to actually make calls? That's what it seems everyone is wondering; but how to find out if it is? I ponder one possible answer to...
Listen
Good News For News? from 2022-09-28T05:58:52
Extra! Extra! Read all about (maybe) good news for newspapers! Hey, a guy can dream, right? Best of all, this might be the very thing that ends our scourge of disinformation! I look into this po...
Listen
All That You Can Be from 2022-09-13T17:48:54
What each of us shall find in our future, sadly, too often depends not upon good planning, smarts, and gumption, but rather on who happen to be your mom and dad. Thus it's hardly a meritocracy t...
Listen
Our Howie Holidays… of Work from 2022-08-30T16:35:21
Let's remember Howie's 1958 holiday, the one that turned out to be “I Must Work More!” In this Episode 204, Our Howie Holidays… of Work, I explore just some of the forces that try to convince us...
Listen
Unquieting Hearts For Profit. from 2022-08-16T22:35:42
We last left the six-hour workers at the Kellogg's factory when the war ended in 1946. What new challenges to their shorter work shift will confront them next? That is the question for this Epis...
Listen
Right In The Heartballs from 2022-08-04T23:07:17
We humans are hyper-social critters. For that reason, it can be difficult for us to discover which of our ideas social pressures unknowingly impose upon us. Changing our minds can thus require a...
Listen
After Long Silence from 2022-07-19T21:04:59
After over eight years of doing this show, I still maintain the best source for show topics comes directly from listener feedback. I have listeners and commenters Pim and Dode to thank for this ...
Listen
Shees Reminded Me of Science from 2022-05-31T18:43:09
Time to review my first experiment conducted to try to determine if my phone listens to me… when it should not. To see if I manscaped well or if I nicked the berries, check out Episode 200: Shee...
Listen
Ultima Ratio Plebium from 2022-05-17T19:27:16
I will maintain as long as I am able to speak that we must learn from history, if only to avoid making mistakes already made… well, making them again… and again… and…. I look back to the Crash o...
Listen
We Are Not So Smart from 2022-05-03T20:21:51
We humans bear complex mental mechanisms, which are often general enough for experiments to tease out some rules that govern our behavior. Knowing how these rules can manipulate us helps us real...
Listen
The Rabbits and the Work-Hogs from 2022-04-19T19:14:53
Workplaces are social dynamos. Quite often—and often by design—how we are paid and scheduled interferes in what people really want from their work. This is the long-existing division I discuss i...
Listen
The REALLY Big Necessity from 2022-04-05T22:21:19
History has shown again and again that an incomplete or just mistaken understanding of how the world really works leads to most of the problems we suffer. To change our world, we must first chan...
Listen
I Miss Magazines from 2022-03-22T20:36:08
After seeing some of the best magazines I've ever read go quite extinct, some have wondered if the lack of advertising killed them. I would ask, rather, if magazines can afford to advertise at a...
Listen
Something Old, Something New from 2022-03-08T22:43:58
Lately, it seems, how long we owners of tech can use our things has been shrinking, as ever-more monopolistic powers extend toward a product totalitarianism that favors newness over usefulness. ...
Listen
KSD Lazy, Do Nothing Idlers from 2022-02-22T21:48:01
Have you ever thought how weird it is that experts in labor—issuing pronouncements about how long shifts should be—never work those job shifts themselves? It's another argument supporting the ti...
Listen
The Right To Be Lazy from 2022-02-08T22:21:37
Everyone seems aware of the appalling working conditions afflicting the poor in the 18th century; fewer seem aware, though, of what rationale drove employers to such torture. I dip into a book f...
Listen
An Apology For Idlers from 2022-01-31T05:37:14
Today’s society values industry and work, specifically hard and grueling work. This has happened before. We should look to the 1877, where good advice was given in an essay, the title of which I...
Listen
How To Do Nothing from 2022-01-11T22:48:40
With all the bad news in which we wallow, it's natural to feel the need to do something. Sadly, that is just what the people who got that news to you would like you to do. Better instead to foll...
Listen
Bonus Episode: FDR's 1938 Message to Congress on Curbing Monopolies from 2021-12-29T02:02:11
Every now and again, I discover a quote I deem relevant enough to share. Less often, I’m moved enough to share most of the original source. In this Bonus Episode, I read from one of those rare f...
Listen
Memento Mori, Motherfacer from 2021-12-15T20:50:25
Context is everything. Sadly, context is often lost in the transition to digital communications. We need to remember that, especially when the context is not happy, cheery, with nary a care in t...
Listen
The Hyporeality Vortex from 2021-11-30T01:06:22
Of course, not all we learn in commercial media can be trusted. It's always good to remember, though, how tenacious some efforts at mis- and disinformation become, swirling to form something des...
Listen
Sharing A Little Mulled Whine from 2021-11-16T04:41:02
I'm sometimes embarrassed to admit that I might produce this show even without an audience; it's therapeutic. It's good to know people do listen, and often share their provocative thoughts, whic...
Listen
MFA An Internal Scarcity of Contentment from 2021-11-02T01:56:20
Jerry Mander's 1978 book still packs rhetorical punch, enough that reviewing the notes I took on it lead me to realize a cause, perhaps, of today’s extreme political sectarianism. I'll dive into...
Listen
WTN Destabilizing Our Collective Understanding from 2021-10-13T00:34:49
I’m worried. To me, America may be suffering enough social anger—technically called "political sectarianism"—to lead to upcoming upheaval, perhaps in the near future. I'll discuss this in today'...
Listen
His Tomorrow Is Our Today from 2021-10-01T02:23:54
Henry Ford wrote in 1926, “The machine is a symbol of man's mastery of his environment.” He also wrote other things of “public service” and the “wage motive” you should hear. I'll share these co...
Listen
¡D'Liv'rin' In Vivo, Boca! from 2021-09-15T01:15:37
We all have preferences for products, habits that sometimes last most of our lives. We should, though, be aware of what product makers can do to get us hooked… before we’re even born. With apolo...
Listen
KSD The Fight To Guide The Plodders from 2021-09-01T02:04:31
I've shown how the Kellogg's six-hour day became just one form of work sharing during the Great Depression. I haven't shown you yet why this schedule option was all but abandoned. Consider the t...
Listen
KSD Kellogg, Brown, and Roots from 2021-08-17T20:17:31
Under standard business practice, any company action needs to be cleared by its owner and manager. Therefore, when a company does a thing, look to those people. I look at Kellogg's ultimate auth...
Listen
KSD The Calvinistic Worship of Toil from 2021-08-03T20:30:27
Something fascinating happened 90 years ago; but today, almost no one knows about it. Knowing it was amazing requires, though, knowing what happened… before. I try to correct that historical los...
Listen
How To Blow A Bubble from 2021-07-21T06:15:46
Not knowing how a system works, one seeks answers when that system fails. Sadly, if the sought answers are wrong, one may extrapolate between similar systems, perhaps disastrously. I share my ma...
Listen
Knowing the Trick from 2021-06-22T21:30:50
Time to update you with some new, and some merely clarifying information on topics I have already covered. Why? There's magic in advertising, dark magic; but the more you know about it, the less...
Listen
WTN …and Disgust from 2021-06-08T20:56:59
People often seem stupid. Sometimes, though, they simply don't have better choices. Their reactions are guided by innate morality, even if others vehemently deny what the people are collectively...
Listen
WTN …and Betrayal… from 2021-05-25T21:46:53
Having only two viable presidential candidates to choose often leaves voters confused, especially when it later becomes clear that lately the two parties are not very different at all… when judg...
Listen
Negotiation, and… from 2021-05-11T19:46:02
Unions are more than just meetings and yelling at each other. I think. It sure seems that way. No, union activity in the workplace is a show of strength for one purpose only: to note the importa...
Listen
Car(Un)Jacked! from 2021-04-27T23:34:18
Those who make our cars today have figured out ways to make our behavior pay. Shoshana Zuboff gave us this lesson in her book; but I may have stumbled on a perfect example at work. I'll fill you...
Listen
Our Influencing Machines and Their Masters. from 2021-04-20T20:35:35
Time to dive once again into Jerry Mander's 1978 book, this time selecting just a couple of his reasons to eliminate television. These are reflected in the title of Episode 173: Our Influencing ...
Listen
Flirting With Disaster from 2021-04-06T20:16:13
Ads are not yet everywhere. That's good. That doesn't mean, though, that there aren't people plotting to capture attention in a new space, one that cannot be blotted out. Those idiots tempt fate...
Listen
Testing Our Glob of Assumptions from 2021-03-23T18:58:11
Too many of us lately seem to assume that the negative forces guiding brains are… a thing. (Well, that’s my assumption.) As a general rule, maybe we all just need to heed the advice found in the...
Listen
That Great Gray Slurry from 2021-03-09T21:46:50
Sometimes companies manage to get really big; but what is too big? When they regard their benefit to society as less important than their profit model, we should consider their future, even if t...
Listen
Eliminate (Well, De-emphasize) the Negative from 2021-02-23T20:16
What happened to that forgotten way of looking at the world? It seems by changing the language through repetition, nuance was transformed into a more easily challenged binary… and quashed. Hence...
Listen
Accentuate the Positive from 2021-02-09T20:32:03
Every now and again, I find myself stumbling upon a forgotten way of looking at the world, one so useful—and in hindsight obvious—that I have to wonder what happened to it. That's the first half...
Listen
Talk Blocked, or This Does Not Agar Well from 2021-01-20T02:42:14
Something has increasingly come between us; mediated our learning; butted in and substituted actual conversation for what we access on our devices. Sadly… who pays the piper calls the tune. Henc...
Listen
Dreaming of an Off-White Xmas from 2020-12-22T19:57:42
For the sixth year now, I present some holiday cheer (well, more accurately, "cheer" as defined by me, a sick snickering cynical bastard). Enjoy my completely off-color, in-no-way safe for child...
Listen
Something On Which You Can Depend from 2020-11-24T20:07:09
Knowing the cost of what advertisers spend to get your attention is not the full story. For that, you really need to appreciate the value that attention is worth to those that hire those ad men....
Listen
The Sheer Amount of Space in Our Day from 2020-11-11T02:26:51
Have you ever considered how much is spent befouling our attentions with ads? In other words, how much do people pay to get your attention? I'll examine an article that attempt...
Listen
WTN The Ad-Fueled Dumpster Fire from 2020-10-28T00:06
When the news chooses to focus on everything politically except at an entire movement drastically changing the world, they fail everyone. Our news becomes nothing but the title of this Episode 1...
Listen
WTN Aphoristic Dissonance from 2020-10-14T01:39:02
We all use language to codify and structure the reality around us. We have to be careful, though, not to hide within unexamined aphorisms internal impossibilities that mask from us what is reall...
Listen
Three Necessary Tiers of Freedom from 2020-09-30T02:59:04
In the last episode, I bitched about not finding my show in a portal search; but what might happen next? Things could get so much worse for podcasters who refuse to bow to ad pressures, as I exp...
Listen
Now You Find Me…. from 2020-09-16T00:48:04
It sometimes takes an event well beyond my ability to "fix" before an idea worth indulging motivates me to create an episode. Imperious corporate impediments to increasing my show’s listenership...
Listen
From a Crawl to a Walk from 2020-09-02T20:40:03
In this Episode 158: From a Crawl to a Walk, I share a discovery that is more than simply monumental and epic in its own right, it's oxymoronic: a Walkable Crawlspace.
Listen
Without the Slightest Belch from 2020-08-12T01:11:05
In Jerry Mander's first of his Four Arguments, I look at what he feels happens to us when the doors of perception are all but closed to nature; through our unnatural media, autocracy rushes in t...
Listen
Our Unbroken Economy from 2020-07-29T04:31:18
For reasons too few truly understand, in our “economy,” too few citizens are invested profitably: in the position of holding assets that increase wealth simply by dint of ownership. I free-form ...
Listen
Dueling Fictions, Dueling Crises from 2020-07-14T22:13:40
We currently live through two plagues: one, CoVID-19; the other, vested interests pay not just to shove a plague of bad ideas at all of us, but also to keep good ideas as far away as possible. H...
Listen
Mander's Four Arguments: An Introduction from 2020-07-01T00:21:56
It should come as no surprise that, though influential and important, certain books suffer in reputation simply because they question more dominant media. I give an overview in such a book in th...
Listen
No News Is Still Bad News from 2020-06-17T21:19:04
I admit it: I tend to get distracted and wander off topic. Today, I get back to observing the collapse of journalism—and trying to prevent it—with some unhelpful help from public radio personali...
Listen
The Nuisance Economy from 2020-06-02T22:06:21
Once and a while, it's good to expend a little more effort in order to expend a bit less effort. It's complicated. Anyway, enjoy the result, a chat with Chad of the Hip Crime Vocab Blog in this ...
Listen
A Rare Opportunity to Reimagine from 2020-05-27T00:36:45
Never let a good crisis go unexploited, said someone, somewhere. It's good advice. It allows us to see what we've been missing, and maybe what we should keep missing. That's the idea in this Epi...
Listen
Ligers and Tigons and Joe from 2020-05-12T13:29:34
Don't you hate it when someone comes along and makes you realize that everything you've grown used to supporting is just as toxic as what you really despise? I confront the compromise and the da...
Listen
Watching the World Go To Health from 2020-04-29T01:46:05
You exercise, and for what? Today, the devices that help you work out work against you, reducing your fitness sweaty efforts into further fodder for surveillance profits. That's what I cover in ...
Listen
…and Bernie 2020 from 2020-04-16T00:10:22
What happens when a presidential candidate’s positions threaten not just the business of news, but also offend the sensibilities of those personalities who are paid so very well to present it? I...
Listen
Blankstorm '95, COVID-19, and… from 2020-04-01T01:26:36
You might only realize how interesting the times in which you live really are when it's hard to distinguish which is worse: the reality surrounding you; or the commercial reporting on that reali...
Listen
Hitler Was An Ad-Man from 2020-03-18T00:19:41
Perhaps if more people understood how insulting the tenets of advertising are, or how poorly ad-men regard their audience, more might avoid it, or consider restricting it legally. Consider the t...
Listen
Bonus Episode: Radio's Second Chance from 2020-03-04T02:39:29
Sometimes, rare books are rare not because they have no value, but because their value is perceived as topical only for a certain time. Sometimes, though, good ideas suggested for one time prove...
Listen
All Is Fare in Law and War from 2020-02-19T04:51:01
Some episode topics for this show are too obvious to even mention…until they affect me more grievously than a simple plea to get another credit card. I discuss that targeted, personal aspect of ...
Listen
WTN: The Thought Leader Three-Step from 2020-02-08T05:12:23
Whenever you step on a stage, it's important to remember your lines, even if the very act of memorizing and later reciting those words warps and dominates your thinking… off-stage. I explore thi...
Listen
Maybe They Do Care from 2020-01-22T20:08:21
A lack of any response from communicants can grow into frustration, over time building into a sense of utter hopelessness. By watching what they do, one can sometimes infer that someone might in...
Listen
2020 Hindsight from 2020-01-08T00:05:27
New year looks back should be done when conditions grant the best insights. What better sight is there than that described as 20/20? Hence, Episode 142: 2020 Hindsight.
Listen
Campaign Seasons Greetings, Now Chunky Style! from 2019-12-24T05:52:29
Sometimes, a company’s announcement causes not ripples but waves. Some laugh and grab their surfboards, while others panic and shout "Tsunami!" I look at one such policy change in this Episode 1...
Listen
As The Plots Thicken from 2019-12-04T01:07:25
Take just about any phenomenon, and with enough searching it's usually possible to discover the first instance… or at least the first really, really popular occurrence. Serial broadcast drama is...
Listen
WTN: Fail to the Chief from 2019-11-20T03:48:04
As we learn from George Orwell, the words we use limit what thoughts we can entertain. The Powell Movementeers spent millions over the decades to limit our political language, giving us what I h...
Listen
Digital Psychopathy from 2019-11-06T01:06:50
When machines can read your expressions as well as humans, we should worry, especially when such predators, be they human or machine, feel not the slightest tinge of remorse. Hence, Episode 138:...
Listen
Something Else In The Air from 2019-10-22T03:18:23
To understand the national anger at the first radio commercials, I find it helps to understand first and foremost that these ads came right into the home… like an intruder's pungent fart. Hence,...
Listen
Something Amazing In The Air from 2019-10-01T23:00:05
Technology sometimes makes history dramatically, changing the way its witnesses think of the future forever. Today, I focus on one such unveiling, and link it to the first days of radio, in this...
Listen
Sweat the Petty Stuff from 2019-09-18T01:25:59
Most of us are today packing a small, flat tech rectangle, something that provides hours of staring opportunity. Is that gadget using its microphone to betray our secret desires? I'll dip into t...
Listen
The Opposite of Pride from 2019-09-03T04:22:38
Broadcasting ads hither and yon is bad enough. Today, though, advertisers can target their ads. What happens when those in the crosshairs are unable to resist? Who is to blame, then, for harm? I...
Listen
The End of the Myth from 2019-08-20T19:28:45
Sometimes, things I recently read about happen in real life, giving relevance to those books I keep diving into… and more evidence that my reading (and this show) is on the right track. I share ...
Listen
No, Alanis, It Really Isn't from 2019-08-06T17:03:33
Dictionaries are bound to have errors. What I found surprising is how many not just dictionaries but also others defined a pretty common word so egregiously wrong. So, I try to get that definiti...
Listen
The Keys to the Treasure from 2019-07-23T18:00:57
Online advertising is now an insufferable bastard. It forces regulators to verbally suck up to those they oversee, and journalists to participate in the crimes on which they report. I share this...
Listen
Vermin Feed on Forgotten Trash from 2019-06-27T01:36:33
If you camp, protect your food, for the woods are full of opportunists quite happy to swap their diet of bugs and berries for your candy and cold cuts. Sadly, we must do the same at home, as I e...
Listen
Mined The Gap from 2019-06-19T00:41:10
More forms our opinions than just what we read or hear. Habits, both social and not so much, might enlarge the chasm between us and others, a widening that may provide commercial interests an ex...
Listen
Mind The Gap from 2019-05-31T01:42:54
I know you're likely tired of my recent obsession with the term "stereotype;" but there is benefit to understanding that gap between our understanding of a thing and complexities inherent in the...
Listen
Brand, Demand, and Target! from 2019-05-22T00:59:26
Once the First World War removed the tarnished and tawdry reputation propaganda had with business, advertisers were able to expand their reach and hone their technique. I share three of their ne...
Listen
Self Evidence from 2019-04-30T23:21:01
To wrap this whole use of propaganda against the citizens that started in the Great War, I thought I'd share my personal journey both within and outside of the myths pounded into us through the ...
Listen
I Want You, Two from 2019-04-17T04:54:24
We're still at that turning point in history in this episode, this time when one country used the proven techniques of its ally to reverse a campaign promise and involve itself in a Great War. H...
Listen
I Want You from 2019-04-02T22:12:26
Today, I explore a turning point, the historic but still fairly recent time when an English-speaking country chose not to order its citizens into battle, but to convince them to do so. The main ...
Listen
The Fungus and Mould of The Obscenery from 2019-03-19T23:42:50
At the height of their popularity, patent medicine nostrum pushers engaged in so many extreme acts of outdoor commercial vandalism the era was termed The Age of Disfigurement. I describe it in t...
Listen
A Map Without Utopia from 2019-03-06T00:20:05
There's a lot wrong out there, but it's not enough to simply point it out and shout, at least for me. If you insist on wandering through Wrongville, you may never get to leave if you have only t...
Listen
Good For Whatever Ails You from 2019-02-20T00:46:05
Too many ads today owe their stylistic inspiration to old time pitches for patent medicines, empty exhortations promising far more than the elixirs they bottled could deliver. All that—and so mu...
Listen
Propaganda, An Introduction from 2019-02-06T00:26:53
Sometimes I find something that should be shared in its entirety. It helps when the author of that something is generous with the permission that makes sharing possible. Such is the case with th...
Listen
Call It What You Will from 2019-01-30T03:25:22
You can call it propaganda, or you can call it bias, or you can call it undo pressure from funding sources involved in the topic. I call this Episode 120: Call It What You Will.
Listen
My Filter Bubble of Vindication from 2019-01-09T01:17:07
Plunging blindly ahead without due regard is one way to do something. A New Year, though, provides a convenient calendrical pause, where one can look back and make sure goals have not been compl...
Listen
¡Feces Navidad! from 2018-12-25T19:44:14
In one part of the world, at least, the phrase "getting good shit for Xmas" is taken more literally than in others. For a fun look at this region, one intended as levity for what December 25th c...
Listen
Can You Hear Me Now? from 2018-12-19T05:19:53
It’s not coincidental that the most irritating advertising arose only after machines increased audiences. Broadcasting and amplification beyond the range of a single voice likewise allowed today...
Listen
Gates&Gatekeepers from 2018-12-04T06:13:04
The more I dive into media history, the more I find that surprises. For example, did you know there was at one time a chain of theaters that didn't charge for admission? It's a mulling topic for...
Listen
With This Pin I Stitch Some Dumb from 2018-11-20T04:37:25
Just when a good thing gets going, someone comes along to wreck it, merely because it doesn't make nearly as much money as it could. Like the witches in the Scottish Play, I show one such player...
Listen
Coffee and Water Everywhere from 2018-11-07T04:55:15
It's time to once again let my gums flap without a script to guide them. I've done that before; all I need is sufficient anger. Today I spread my outrage over growing class divisions in this Epi...
Listen
Drab Walls Dance… With Ads from 2018-10-23T03:36:34
I focus my attention once again on an inflection point, a moment in history when an improvement allowed someone to do something previously impossible. Today's technology is the color poster that...
Listen
Ragged Dick, Right Here from 2018-10-09T04:40:45
Ever since I started this podcastic obsession with advertising and its deleterious effects, there’s a question I can never not ask: Why was a certain book published? I ask it here in this conclu...
Listen
I've Got Your Ragged Dick from 2018-09-26T00:40:42
People for too long have described the poverty-to-power lives of business mucky-mucks as “Horatio Alger stories.” The trouble is, I'm willing to bet that precious few of these people have ever a...
Listen
Head Banging from 2018-09-11T04:32:04
Curious about how best the future should proceed money-wise, I consult someone far more expert than I in making podcasting pay, if only a little: KMO of the C-Realm and of the GEBB.IO web comic....
Listen
Day Breaks from 2018-08-14T16:00
Well, advertising haters, I think I've finally located the source of the scourge that plagues us: the man who invented the business plan that spawned almost wholly advertising-supported news! I'...
Listen
Pitching Wu from 2018-08-01T00:02:52
To understand advertising today, we have to avoid simplifications like who paid for what message, and move into the nuances regarding how those paid messages—and the media that took the message ...
Listen
Summer Vacation Homework from 2018-07-17T17:06:43
For reasons too mundane to explain, I've got a short episode this time, one with three pleas for listener participation. Give a listen. I think at least a few listeners might be interested in th...
Listen
Show Me The Incentives from 2018-07-03T22:55:19
A simple question too often sends my brain into overdrive. That's what happened here, when I confronted the ugly realities of how money warps elections, creating a hot mess that shares too many ...
Listen
Rave Review: The Hucksters from 2018-06-19T23:57:51
It turns out there are books and movies out there that cast a critical eye on advertising; but these entertainments are seldom if ever seen or heard today anywhere that relies on advertising dol...
Listen
The Boob's Halo&Halo's Boob from 2018-06-05T20:25:20
Ever wonder why "soap operas"—today's daytime serial dramas—are sponsored by a variety of products, not just soaps? It turns out that that wasn't always the case. In the past, one sponsor paid f...
Listen
The Mundane and The Sublime from 2018-05-23T04:56:20
Dualistic language is a problem for me, especially in this overly-polarized media where opinions are not held lightly but with as much force as can be mustered into the opinion blusterscape. By ...
Listen
So Good, So Far, Maybe, I Guess from 2018-05-08T20:51:55
While I'm wading through written material that will provide future grist for the yakking mill, what else to discuss? How about a brief recap of material already covered, along with asking how I'...
Listen
Mai FrootiToons Daybew from 2018-04-24T21:12:39
Ah, the celebratory nature of stuff that divides cleanly by ten! Time to reminisce, to look back, and to do new stuff as well, such as to join the lemming parade to FrootiToons! New logo: Check!...
Listen
The Headwaters of Bullshit River from 2018-04-11T04:04:36
When commercialism dominates our reference materials, what else can we expect other than the inability to discover facts hostile or critical of commercialism? I explore that problem in this epis...
Listen
So Many Layers of Fail from 2018-03-28T04:05:20
Sadly, in my last episode, I had to gloss over many details involving Zuckerberg's company that I would have loved to launch and rhetorically blast out of the sky. Consider this a follow-through...
Listen
Cranky Jack Hammers from 2018-02-28T03:45:33
People are entitled to their opinions. They are not entitled to spouting their opinions unchallenged when those opinions perhaps deliberately ignore crucial bits of history that, if better known...
Listen
Let Me Educate You from 2018-02-14T07:15:37
I confess: I sometimes screw up. We all do, after all. And, given our almost universal screw-upped-ability, it's probably best to not assume we are god's gift to the unlearned every time we drop...
Listen
A Zillion Ringy Dingies from 2018-01-24T04:08:23
Though it has long been a presence in our homes, the telephone has of late morphed into an infernal device that has driven many to simply do cut land lines altogether just to have peace and quiet r...
Listen
Can Something Else Happen? from 2018-01-10T01:42:16
Lewis Powell, Jr. and his Memo allowed the wealthy to shake the country, resulting in today. Neither the movement nor the shaking has stopped. So, now that we know what happened, I ask: Can Somet...
Listen
Forget The Bathtub from 2017-12-27T03:45:56
Lots of folks are still mulling over the surprise result of our last presidential election, aren't there? As money muscles its way against people, their choices will matter less and less. How smal...
Listen
Refining Mining Into Tragic Magic from 2017-12-06T04:45:21
I am amazed at how people bend themselves into cognitive dissonance pretzels rather than admit that psychological pressures work on all of us. Maybe we should make ourselves aware of these effecti...
Listen
Triple Threat from 2017-11-15T06:52:59
Lewis Powell was a learned man of his times that eschewed, I suspect, the majority of what the boob tube offers. He therefore dismissed the telly. Why, though, merely watch and criticize what you...
Listen
Gamers Gonna Game from 2017-10-18T01:41:09
Podcasting is not an up-to-date pursuit. Some listeners arrive when the sound files are freshly minted; others years later. For that reason, it's best not to confuse later listeners with DailyExc...
Listen
One of the Most Dangerous Pleasures from 2017-10-04T01:00:24
I here take issue with an author who seems to ignore the Powell Movementeers in his reading of recent history.
Listen
ALL Commercial News is Fake! from 2017-09-20T01:28:02
We've heard all about this phenomenon, but what constitutes that so-called "fake news?" I here suggest that the answer can be found simply enough: wherever you find the sources that funds the news,...
Listen
Wedgies of Mass Distraction from 2017-09-04T16:35:39
There are complexities and nuances learned when you split wood for, oh, 40 years. Often, you've got to not only bring out the wedges, but know how to use them. Splitting wood has quite a bit in co...
Listen
The Unfairwaves from 2017-08-23T00:02:27
It's bad enough that most radio is so filled with commercial interruptions that I and others find it unlistenable. Thanks to a rule change, however, one has to watch out for more than just crap in...
Listen
Critical Mass Holes from 2017-08-09T00:49:28
Sometimes conventional wisdom consists of nothing more than reasonable assumptions explaining evidence that, without those assumptions, appears incongruous. When we avoid looking at those obscured...
Listen
Bonus Episode: The Wedge Strategy from 2017-07-26T00:45:05
There are, I believe, a few select documents that, if known, reveal possible reasons behind actions that might otherwise go unappreciated or even unnoticed. I shared the first in The Powell Memo. ...
Listen
To The Perpentious! from 2017-07-11T06:26:36
Our English language is a mashed mush of a stew with ingredients from so many different sources that it is a discipline to guess from where any given word might hail. I thought it would be neat to...
Listen
Rave Review: Lexicon from 2017-06-28T00:03:02
Recordings can be persuasive, sometimes in ways that give us goosebumps. Persuasive, sure·. But what if what we hear or see can work on our brains far more effectively than we know? I here share ...
Listen
Pulpits, Bully and Otherwise from 2017-06-14T04:50:18
We constantly hear that the left is in trouble. No wonder, since the voices most often heard on the “left” are those co-opted by quite un-left forces, who utter stammers of compromise to the force...
Listen
Textbook Examples from 2017-05-30T22:09:22
I have to remind myself that, when I start a task of reading and dissecting, I should read and dissect ALL of it, not just the parts I think would be interesting. Those boring parts can be interest...
Listen
Provocateurs from 2017-05-17T06:23:18
Lewis Powell said that higher education was too liberal, and that good people who believe in the enterprise system should be brought to campus to speak. I here suggest that inciting protest might b...
Listen
A Quickie After Courting from 2017-05-03T03:40:06
Sometimes, reality can bitch-slap us right upside our heads with its patented Clue-By-Four. Reality did that to me. This is a follow-up to my last episode, where I let other voices tell you how b...
Listen
Courting Disaster from 2017-04-19T02:24:36
Wealthy fund the foundations, which fuel the thinkers, who publish the bunkum, which redefines the debate, which helps defeat some legislation and introduce new. But who can remove those unprofita...
Listen
The Pros And Their Cons from 2017-04-05T02:04:14
So far, I've shared the fortunes amassed into foundations, and the gobbledygook, bunkum and distortions that bought. At what point, though, could we say with some degree of certainty that these in...
Listen
Lower Education from 2017-03-22T03:10:11
Lewis Powell, Jr. was adamant that his United States and its enterprise system, business culture, capitalism, call it what you will, was under assault. He was most explicit, though, about the prim...
Listen
Gobbledygook from 2017-02-21T03:05:17
I here rehash a book review I wrote years ago for my neighbor's magazine, and explore the history behind the word I chose to use to define it and others of that category.
Listen