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A few years ago, we all started hearing about how gas ranges, which have been popular in our country for at least a century and are favored by professional chefs, were dangerous to our health and should be replaced by electric or induction cooktops. That revelation begs a couple of obvious questions about how such an unsafe appliance became so ubiquitous in the first place, and why we’re only hearing about its dangers now. Mark and Joe recount how natural gas became the go-to power source in our kitchens, how Big Gas suppressed safety concerns in a way that would make Big Tobacco proud, and what we can do to mitigate the perils of cooking with gas. (Recorded November 7, 2025.)

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Back in its early days, this podcast explored the cultural and economic juggernaut that is Christmas. Time now to take a gander at Halloween. It’s unique among American holidays in that it’s neither religious nor patriotic nor sentimental, yet it’s hugely and increasingly popular for kids and grown-ups alike. How did that come to be? Attention, trick-or-treaters—Joe and Mark leave this sweet offering for you: a tale about how Halloween’s centuries-long metamorphosis from pagan festival to secular holiday embodies America’s boundless power to assimilate seemingly contradictory cultural traditions and make them its own. (Recorded October 24, 2025.)

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Overshadowed by all the anti-immigrant rhetoric afflicting our country today are wonderful stories of non-human immigration, such as the ones about how certain foods made their way from the New World to the Old World. Take potatoes and tomatoes, for example. They’re staples of Irish and Italian cuisine, respectively, but neither was native to those countries—both originated in the Americas. Mark and Joe tell the story of how these two hardy pioneers with humble roots in Mesoamerica came to dominate European cuisine. Like that of modern-day human migrants, their road to acceptance was a bumpy one full of fear, suspicion, and misinformation with some tasty twists and turns along the way. (Recorded October 3, 2025.)

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Based on recent proclamations from the MAGA government and the zealotry that some of its partisans have for the American flag, you’d never guess that flag worship was really not a thing in the United States for a very long time. Most Americans in the first half of the 19th century had little to no knowledge of the Stars and Stripes; that is, until the Civil War changed everything. Joe and Mark discuss Old Glory’s journey from military banner to object of near-religious veneration and how that history informs the flag-related controversies we see today.

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You may have noticed that there are a lot of very old people clinging to positions of authority, from our current president (79 years old) to our former president (82 when he left office) to other leaders in politics, business, and culture. Why won’t these folks leave the stage and let their younger colleagues step into power? Is this state of affairs good or bad for our society? Mark and Joe trace the history of gerontocracy, its role in feeding the alienation of younger generations, and what we might do to mitigate its deleterious effects. (Recorded August 29, 2025.)

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In The Social Contract, the philosopher Jean-Jacques Rousseau suggested that democracy was feasible only in smaller polities where the citizens have shared common interests. What might Rousseau have to say about the current-day United States, with its sprawling national government and a citizenry that can’t even agree on basic facts? Joe and Mark revisit their college classrooms to discuss Rousseau’s concept of the general will, whether it’s achievable in a large country, or whether local politics provides its only true expression. (Recorded August 15, 2025.)

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When visiting a few cemeteries recently, Joe was struck by how clean and well-maintained but desolately empty they were. That prompted him to ask Mark about the economic viability of cemeteries and whether they were becoming relics of a bygone age as increasing numbers of people opted for cremation. Mark and Joe discuss the history of cemeteries and prospects for the mortuary industry. Turns out it isn’t just whistling past the graveyard to think that our repositories for death can be repurposed to serve modern life. (Recorded August 1, 2025.)

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Water seems to many of us like an unlimited resource, what with oceans covering 71% of the Earth’s surface. But less than 3% of the world’s water is fresh, and nearly a third of that is groundwater, found deep beneath the surface in aquifers between soil and rock. Many of the world’s aquifers are drying up as we over-pump them for irrigation, drinking water, and industrial uses. Does the depletion of groundwater pose an existential threat to humanity? Joe and Mark slosh around in the many uses (and abuses) of groundwater, which aquifers are under strain, why we’ve allowed that to happen, and what we can do to replenish them. (Recorded July 17, 2025).