Behind the Scenes Minis: Money, Power and Staying Positive

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Speaker 1: Welcome to Stuff you missed in History Class, a production of iHeartRadio, Hello and Happy Friday. I'm Holly Fry and I'm Tracy V. Wilson. We talked about campaign finance this week. Yeah, so, Holly, what what led you to do this where you don't remember? Curious? Okay, it seems like a hundred years ago and the tunnel was a tight crawl and miserable. When when you told me that was what you were working on. I was like getting ready to go visit family. So I just like I had a I was not thinking, but I was like, what, wonder what prompted that? Because it's such a specific I'm sure it was a discussion with my husband or one of my friends where it was like why do they need money all the time? You know, like we've all had that discussion when it's like one more email and I'm going to throw my phone across the room. And then it was like, well, because they do need money, surely there are rules. I know there are rules. How did that happen? That's you know how all shows start, right, I know there must be a reason for that. Let's look it up. And then I was like, oh, that'll be neat and I actually got really into the swart Wild scandal because that was pretty fun. That part of it is fun because it's long ago and not quite as directly impactful on our day to day lives. Yeah, and it is one of those things think I was saying at the end of part two, like it's I find all of this very depressing because it really is like, if you have power and money, you will continue to have power in money, and if you don't, well, you're in trouble and you better hustle, which is not a great message to live with in your heart. But I still think it's important to understand that that's how it works and what's been happening and how we got here, and hopefully, you know, it will make people at least understand that when I do remember a discussion that happened a while back, but I whatever, our most recent conversation that really led to this episode was of like that question of okay, but wait, why did they say if I don't raise X amount of money, then I'm out of the race, Like what is why is that a rule? And it's not so much a rule as like a recognition that like you can't compete if you're below a certain threshold. I mean, I guess I think it is rule, but I don't know. I haven't looked that part up. Yeah, you know, it makes it really disheartening, I know, for people who maybe want to support candidates that are not, you know, from money. I mean most of our political candidates, not always, but a lot of them still come from families with money, as someone in Massachusetts right right, But there, I mean, there are instances where people who are not that are managing to run campaigns and get elected. But there's still bias there that's inherent of like money equals power. I mean that horrible quote of like two things are important money and I don't remember the other thing. Like it's still kind of true. Not fun to think about it, you know, but important because if you understand the system, then you are more equipped to understand your place in it and how you might be able to change it. Yeah, that's why PSA for the day. I feel like I would rather talk about kiddies and raccoons and ravens anymore, but I'm becoming crazy woman who just wants to stare at the animals on my deck and ignore the real world. But that's not very good way to live either. Yeah, I mean, I don't know. I don't know. Would I nominate one of my ravens to political office. Maybe they're fun, they understand group dynamics, they seem to work out their problem. That's a rich fantasy life that we should not indulge too much, but it's fun to think about once in a while. Yeah. I also, you know, oninformed populace is gonna make better voting choices anyway, So that's at least the theory. The more you like, that's been the theory going back, it doesn't always work. This gets into something we've talked about so much, right, media literacy and understanding where your information is coming from and what sources are are trustworthy and what sources are biased. And that gets trickier and trickier as we go on, and it continues, I think, to get trickier and trickier. You know, a lot of what is going on in current events in entertainment, with the strikes that are going on, much of that is because there are efforts to replace humans with AI creations, which sounds good on paper to someone who wants to save money, I'm sure, but like that also is going to make it harder and harder to discern the trustworthiness of your news sources. We've talked about some uses of AI in our Unearthed episodes that to me feel like good and appropriate uses of AI, like with an Indigenous Communities permission, sending a drone into a cave and having AI help spot artwork in that cave, yes, and then having a human being then work with those results like that, like we're protecting the cave, We're protecting the artwork that's in there. We're probably spotting stuff that would not have been spotted with just a human being on their own trying to either go into that cave potentially damaging it or like looking at photos Like that makes sense to me. Yeah, But having chat GBT write the new articles for your website not great, not a fan, not great. And I recognize that, like in the ongoing strikes with the Writer's Guild and SAG after it, that's related to you know, fictional stuff, but like this is creeping into things like new sources and whatnot. So I didn't want people to think I misunderstood, right, But they are related because this is a trend that's going on in all media, both creative and theoretically information, yeah, which sometimes gets real creative. I'm going to ask you a question completely unrelated to all of this. Okay, great, I have literally I have found myself being like, do I have depression right now? Or am I just living in a world where I know things that I don't like? What has been making you the happiest in the last week? Oh? So I I went to visit my parents. Yes, and I feel like I have a pretty good relationship with my parents, but a number of things are stressful, and so I wanted something to read while I was there that would not be a stressful read. Yeah, and the book that I got was called Legends and Lattes. Legends and Lattes is a book about an orc who gives up fighting to open a coffee shop. I love this, Yeah, and like, there there is a stressful thing that does happen, but the it's everything is is it plays out in such like a kind found family, community building kind of way. But yeah, it was. It was a very good choice of reading material to read in my you know, while on a visit to see my parents. There are lots of beautiful description of coffee. Yeah, I don't really want to spoil It's hard to spoil anything about this book. It's literally about an orc who starts a coffee shop and like the process of creating the coffee shop menu and all of that. But along the way there is an invention of biscotti, essentially, end of chocolate croissants. Yeah, as someone who spent a lot, a lot, a lot of my twenties and early thirties in coffee shops, I had a big affinity for this book and pre ordered the second one as soon as I was which is you know, obviously no, I don't know if it's gonna be about the same care but said in the same world by the same person. I pre ordered the next one after that. So how about you? What's what's making you happy? You know? The thing that always helps my brain and I find myself doing it without any conscious decision, and then I go, oh, oh, I've been doing this for too long is always creative things, and often it is designing fabric prints nice, which you know, is just like a good way to make order out of chaos for me, I feel like, especially if you know, like I want these components in a fabric print my fate. I have been doing this for a very long time. As a hobby. My favorite thing on Earth is to come up with somewhat ridiculous but hopefully joyous floral prints that have Star Wars elements too. Yeah, that's great. I have a lot of clothes that are that, Yes, and I'll have them printed and made into things. And I have accidentally, I had not been doing it for a couple months just because I've been too busy, and it's like I can't set aside time to you know, I mean at that point, like when you're working in photoshop, there's a lot of meticulous stuff. Here's a great place where AI has become helpful, right, programs like Photoshop now and even on your phone, depending on what phone you have, but I think most of them do this now. Like the ability to isolate an item from a background has gone from painstakingly erasing the outline of it and trying not to miss any details and then separating it that way to now just saying, select the object from this picture and it's not one hundred percent, but I'd put it in the eighty five to ninety territory. Yeah, which makes that kind of thing a lot faster, because then you're doing less of the meticulous part. It's kind of like your Misonplas for art, like you just you can have all your pieces ready super fast and then you can just play making actual art, which is really really fun. Yeah. And I like clothes and fabrics, so I like to pass them what they will be as I am goofing around with them. Yeah, this conversation has reminded me a bit of a podcast that I used to listen to all the time. And the only reason that I stopped was I just I stopped having so much podcast listening time. And that was pop Culture Happy Hour from it. Yeah. I don't know if they're still doing this, but for as long as I was listening to it, they ended their episodes with what's making you happy? And they would kind of go around, go around the room, and they would each say what was making them happy that week, which was you know, always brighten my day a little bit, need it that? And Agnes our deck raccoon, Yeah, has brought her five babies to visit many times. Oh and I, as a caveat to anyone listening, like, we didn't ask the raccoons to come to the deck. We started putting out food for birds and they started showing up and eating, and we noticed Agnes was pregnant or I think appear to obviously being a nursing mom when she first showed up, and since she has come to think our deck is a safe place, we do not want them to think we're safe, right right, You want them to retain there, you are not habituating, No, gonna put them at risk when they think humans are okay, and also rabies and also rabies and also like you know, just they're a wild animal. They're not meant to be my pet. As much as I would love to pick them up and hug and kiss them, No, so keep them scared. But we do on occasion. This is another thing we do only and frequently because you don't want them to also lose their ability to hunt and forage for themselves. But once in a while we'll put out a couple of boiled eggs on the deck, and we don't usually seem to have good luck catching whoever gets it. It's either them. There's a possum that comes to There is a very little possum that's been coming that I call Jeremy for no reason, who I think is the baby of our regular visitor blossom the possum listen. I have become the real world Linda Belcher when it comes to the raccoons and possums in the neighborhood. But we had not seen them finding the eggs until the other night, and it was the cutest thing I have ever seen. That sounds I am imagining what it would look like, and it sounds very adorable. I will send you video as I tried to hold the camera up to the glass, but not in a way that showed me I could capture it. And they wouldn't be like, oh, it's fine if she's standing there, because I don't, like I said, I don't. I want them to stay feral, right, they're cute as pie. My instinct is to be el myrid duff and want to scoop them up and kiss them. Not good for them or us. So anyway, raccoons or maybe me, raccoons and fabric find joy where you can. If you are about to have a weekend that includes time off, I hope you find all the joy, regardless of what that is that brings it to you, as long as you're not hurting anybody else. If you don't have time off, I still hope that you find some little moments of joy, whether that is feeding animals or reading a book. This book sounds very good, Tracy Lot. I am not really into fantasy stuff, and I'm like, but that sounds good. So we'll see what happens. Yeah, I hope you find something that delights you and whether that tickles your brain or just kind of lets you relax, any of the above is great. We all need more of it all the time. In my opinion, we will be right back here tomorrow with a classic episode, and then on Monday there'll be another brand new one. 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