Endless Thread - Snacktime: War and Crows

Episode Date: February 25, 2021

We're cooking up a new season of Endless Thread as we speak, dear listeners. But in the meantime, we realized we could probably all use a snack to hold us over. In this episode, we hear about a Redditor who created a fake press pass and found himself in a war zone, and another who accidentally assembled an army of crows. 

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Produced by the I-Lap at WBUR, Boston. Emery. Ben. Snackety, snackety, snack-knack-knacks. Snickety-knack-dudah. Snack-a-knack-dudah. knackalack and ding-dong we can do this all day

have you guys figured out that this is a snack time yet I think maybe you might have an inkling that we're just hopping into your feed to say hey it's almost spring I can hear birds this morning I've seen a fly recently it's still a tricky time for a lot of us but we miss you and we want to say hello we're here, we're alive, we appreciate you, we hope you're doing well, and we have a couple

stories to hopefully help brighten your day. Do you want to go first? Sure, I can try and go first. I'll admit that like in real time, I'm trying to chase the information about this story because it's being kind of like deleted off of Reddit as it's being told. And I should also say, that we are so lucky to have a group of listeners that email us on a regular basis with story ideas. Oh, yes. And this comes to us from, I don't want to necessarily, I don't know. I mean, he did sign his email, so I think it's okay for me to say his name is Matthew. And he sent us this note this week and said,

This thread, if true, sounds like an interesting story for an episode. So this was posted to old school cool by this user. It says, circa 1992, I decided to see what war was truly like. At 21, I made a fake press pass for a fake newspaper and pretended to be a real journalist. I was too dumb to understand the risks and too convincing to be denied

the UN put me on an aid flight out of Zagreb into the besieged Sarajevo. So it's hard to describe here what this, a little bit, what this is, because it is this post that keeps getting deleted off of this subreddit old school cool, in part because the story that this user lays out is very harrowing. And as other users have pointed out, not cool. It's kind of the opposite of cool in many ways. Yeah. So this guy, he basically makes a fake ID.

And he posted, originally he posted the picture of his fake ID. And yes, this picture seems to show a very goofy-looking 20-something college kid with long brown hair pretending to be a journalist in this fake press. pass. And he goes into this war zone in Sarajevo. He falls in with actual professional journalists who are doing the extremely important and extremely difficult work of war reporting. And this guy, I mean, it's weird to call this an internship, but he ends up basically tagging along with some of these journalists, according to the story, specifically one named

John Downing, who was the head of photography at a newspaper called the Daily Express in London. Okay. This is a pretty like four-letter word-laced story overall, and it's many, many parts so far. I think it's eight parts. I will just say this photographer that he falls in with is at first completely kind of bold over and also infuriated that this 21-year-old kid has basically like taken a spot on a plane on an aid flight into a war zone

and is kind of like dorking around in Sarajevo during an actual armed conflict. Does he know that he's not, Legit? Does the photographer know? So there's this part, part five of this story. I'm skipping to part five. Okay. Involves this kid coming into contact with this photographer. The photographer kind of realizing he's not legit. The kid sort of telling the photographer he's not legit. And this photographer,

John Downing, sort of being like really infuriated by the kid, but also kind of impressed that the kid has snuck his way into this war zone. So I'll just read a piece. of this post. So John is pacing in a bit of a circle in the hallway. This is in a hotel where a lot of the journalists are staying, trying to figure shit out. The girl who translates for us is really cute, of course. This is what a 21-year-old college kid would say. So I'm doing this, how you doing stuff?

Because I'm dumb. And John stops and looks me up and down again and says, I know serious journalists who have been in this business a long time and they can't find their way into Sarajevo right now, and here some university kid from the States turns up. I honestly couldn't tell if John was talking to me or the translator to the walls or himself, and then John makes me a deal that would literally change the entire trajectory of my life. The deal is pretty simple, John says. Quote, I will let you go anywhere I go. You'll stay right by my side and on one condition.

I was all freak in ears. Whatever he was about to say was going to be, answered with a strong effing affirmative from me. John could have said that the one condition was that I had to stand on my head and fart quarters and I would have asked if he would break a 20. It did not matter the next words that were about to leave his mouth. Quote, on one condition, John continued, you do exactly what I say at all times and you don't do anything stupid to get us killed. I agreed.

I will do exactly what you say at all times, and I will not do anything to get us killed. I wanted John to know that I'd heard him loud and clear, so he sort of repeats the deal back to him. As I grew in my own right as a war photographer, I came to realize just how big a risk John took on that summer day. It can be hard enough trying to keep yourself alive, and while you can trust other seasoned war correspondents you know

to take someone under your wing in the middle of a war zone, was young, dumb, green, and who has a propensity to let his imagination run away was an enormous risk. I never understand completely why John took me under his wing. But John seemed to have taken this kid he met in some other war zone, and the kid ended up getting himself killed when he went out on his own one day without John, and John didn't want that to happen to me. I think John carried some guilt over that happening. And when he met me, he felt like it was partially his response. to keep me safe. As I finished up, swearing up and down to John that I'd get no one killed, he said, you got some real balls, kid. The truth was, I was just too stupid to know how serious

things were and we're going to get. This is what I think in almost every action movie, Ben, I have to say, you know, when one character kind of stumbles into the other along their journey, and instead of just being like, no, you are a hazard to me, you're going to slow me down, you're going to endanger us both, they just take them along for the ride. And I can't say, I fully understand it, although I guess this man is trying to write a wrong within himself, this photographer. Well, I also think like, and again, we don't, you know, we don't really know the truth of this story. We don't know this user. We're just kind of like describing this thing that we see on the internet, right? But I will say that this user has posted a lot of other photos that

appear to be original content. So he's posted photos of Rwanda, refugees in Rwanda, and a few other places that are, you know, that have been, you know, war zones, essentially. So he seems to be a legit, like war photographer. And I think what this story, the full story, that I encourage you all to go and read, because it is interesting. I think what it's, what jumps out to me about it is that as much as we hate to admit it, so much of what we do in our professional lives is faking it until you make it, right? It's sort of being like, I can do that. And most of the time, most of the time, it's kind of like low-stakes stuff or it feels low-stakes, right? You're sort of like, yeah, like your boss is like, hey, can you do this thing? Do you know how to use this software?

Do you know, like, and you're like, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, totally, totally, totally. And then you kind of, you kind of BS your way into actually knowing what you're doing. Yeah. And I think that if anything, as like irresponsible as this guy clearly was and as like dicey as the ethics of this story maybe are when you think about him taking up space on a plane that is flying aid into a war zone, right? It did clearly, it seems to have changed the trajectory of his life. And, you know, it basically was the beginning of his professional career. And so I guess what is resonating with me about this story right now is that we're in this moment where we're all stuck at home, like eating peanut butter and jelly sandwiches. And just like we have like the most, my life is so boring right now.

And like I gobbled this story up because it's like, wow, like, remember like. Field reporting. Yeah. Remember like going out into the world. and like taking risks that weren't like, oh God, like, did I put enough hand sanitizer on? Like, do you remember that? Yeah. And so, like, this kind of, like, you know, made me yearn for a less boring dystopia.

We'll put a link in the show notes and on our website, wbUR.org.org slash endless thread, so that you can read more of this story as it sort of gets erased off of Reddit because the mods are modding. Yeah. Hurry up. Yeah. Get in there. Okay. Well, when we come back, Ben, I have a story about a murder.

But it's going to be okay. Okay. I'll trust you. At Radio Lab, we love nothing more than nerding out about science, neuroscience, chemistry. But we do also like to get into other kinds of stories. Stories about policing or politics. Country music. Hockey.

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Discover how the magic is made at WBUR.org.org slash creative studio. Ben, did you watch Schitt's Creek? Oh, man. I'm one of those bailed after the first few episodes, and I know it's good. And have fun, everybody. I understand.

It's a great show, but I was too. It took a while to get on board. But I will say, Catherine O'Hara, who plays Moira Rose, she's a former soap actress, soap opera actress, who just, she steals the show. It's worth watching. Maybe I'll send you some highlights, Ben, to get you on board. All right. One of those highlights is her coming out of,

acting retirement to star in a campy horror film called The Crows Have Eyes 3, The Crowening. Having seen one of those early movies that the Hills Have Eyes, which was terrifying, I appreciate this. So she plays an ornithologist who either becomes a crow or maybe she always was a crow. I'm not really sure. This wind up is wild. I'm interested in where this is going. I'm going to play you a little teaser of the trailer for The Crows Have Eyes Three, The Crowening.

There was a time when the crows were our friends. I would best be returning to the lab, Nathaniel. It's getting dark, dark. But it's the middle of the afternoon. It must be a solar eclipse. That's not an eclipse, Nathaniel. Those are birds. Okay.

It's getting dark. That's pretty good. So I bring this up because my story today is a crowening of a sort. Okay, a crowening, great. I get the murder reference now. Okay. Yeah. So it was brought to my attention by Jen Miller, who writes the New York Times weekly running newsletter.

Kind of like a Twitter friend of the pod. She is a Twitter friend of the pod. Yeah. So I had been reading her running newsletter for a long time. Me too, because I run all the time. before finding out that she listened to the show. So it was this nice, like, starstruck moment for me where I was like, I like what you do. And she was like, I like what you do. So it was just, it was, yeah, it was great. And she flagged this story for me on Twitter. I think it was a retweet of a

retweet of a tweet, something like that. But it originally comes from the legal advice community on Reddit. So this was posted a couple months ago by a user crane. It's like crane, but with two N. So maybe that's not how you pronounce it. Okay. The post title is, I accidentally created an army of crow bodyguards. Am I liable if my murder attempts murder?

Here's what I don't believe about that line, accidentally. Well, no, I believe it was an accident. accident. But let's unpack this a little bit. So this person says they're in their 20s. They're living in Portland, Oregon. They said a couple months ago, I was watching a nature program on our local station about crows. And the program mentioned that if you feed and befriend them, crows will bring you small gifts, like a little pair of mittens or something. Okay. So this person decided, okay, I'm going to make some crows my friend. But they say, my plan worked a little too well, and the resident five crows in my neighborhood

have turned into an army 15 strong. At first, my neighbors didn't mind and enjoyed it. They're mostly elderly, and they thought the fact that I had crows following me around whenever I go outside was funny. Lately, dun dun, the crows have started defending me. My neighbor came over for a socially distanced chat, me on my porch, her in my yard, and the crows started dive bombing her. They would not stop until she left my yard. Oh my God. So the question is, am I liable if these crows injure someone since I fed them? I obviously can't control the crows. I would rather them not attack my neighbors. But since I technically created this nuisance, could I be financially on the hook for any injuries? Okay. Listen, you don't need an expert to say no to that

question, but okay. That's true. That's true. Of course not. She can't. control the crows? No. And the accidental part is that, yes, you know, this person fed them, but was not expecting them to become bodyguards in this way. Right. Right. So there's a really, a really delightful update to this story. Okay. I'm in. So this update came just four days ago for when we're taping this. So just earlier this week, they say, So to make a long story short, I called our local Audubon Society, which, for the record, if you're thinking, you out there are thinking about feeding crows, you should call your local Audubon Society because apparently it's illegal in some places to feed crows.

So just no to bene. Okay, so they didn't think feeding the crows was bad. This is the Audubon Society saying this, and suggested that the neighbors also start feeding them. so they essentially became better socialized. First, Ben, I looked this up because I was like, I didn't think that you were, I mean, I get putting a little bit of food out for birds. Like my dad calls the birds his pets, for example. Okay.

So I know that that's pretty harmless. But I was like, really, the Audubon Society suggested everybody feed the crows? But I looked this up, Ben, you want to guess what crow's favorite foods are? Mmm. They'll eat anything. I'm going to say those little pretzel bites with peanut butter in the middle. And also those like corkscrew shaped kind of Frito-ish chip things. You know what I'm talking about?

They're like spicy Frito-ish. Yeah. I don't know what they're called, but I do know what you're talking about. That's pretty good. So they'll eat pretty much anything. They will, but they do have some favorite foods that humans feed them. That includes eggs. unsalted peanuts, dog or cat food, and chicken.

Oh, gross. This is such a gross. That's a gross combination of things. You eat all those things. I don't eat dog food and cat food. What are you talking about? What is this, District 9? Get out of here.

There's one more delightful thing here. So this person says, the plan worked, and the crows are now a beloved part of the community, there have been no recent dive bombings. But, most amazingly, they write, the crows may have legitimately saved my neighbor. Our city had a pretty big ice and snow event recently. Like I said in my last post, most of my neighbors are older. One of my neighbors was walking down his steep driveway, slipped, and couldn't get back up. The crows started going ballistic and were making more noise than we had ever heard. A different neighbor went outside to see what was up and found the gentleman in his driveway.

Wow. The neighbor's mostly okay, just some serious bruises. Needless to say, the crows have been getting some high-value food since then. Nice. All right. It turned out. Yeah. No murder from the murder, the opposite of murder.

BRB, got to go illegally feed some crows. Or illegally, you know. They did say that if you give them high-value food, you have to be careful because they will start demanding it. Right. And crows, did you know that crows can keep grudges, Ben? Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah. Okay.

So, I didn't know that. In fact, where I got this crow information, it's worldbirds.org. And the article was, how to befriend crows, step by step guide. How to befriend crows. Step one, don't cross them because they hold grudges. All right. This is a good story. I dig it.

Yeah. As spring is springing, you know, appreciate the birds in your neighborhood. They just might save your life. Oh, my God. We can hope. All right. Well, that's it. For this impromptu snack time, just pop in, say hi, see how you're doing.

Sort of a thing. Yeah. Hope you guys are well. Hugs through the radio. Hugs through the podcast app. The radio. Hugs through the radio, everyone. Hugs through the radio, kids.

Wash your teeth. We'll see you on the internet. Be good in the meantime. Stay cool forever.