The Daily Zeitgeist - ThanksTrending 11/22: Biden "Ceasefire", Air Marshalls, Squid Game

Episode Date: November 22, 2023

In this edition of ThanksTrending, Jack and Miles discuss Joe Biden brokering a "ceasefire" in Gaza, the shortage of air marshalls on US flights (and why that might be a good thing), and the Squid Game reality show and it's "incompetencies of scale"!See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

I'm Jess Casavetto, executive producer of the hit Netflix documentary series Dancing for the Devil, the 7M TikTok cult. And I'm Clea Gray, former member of 7M Films and Shekinah Church. And we're the host of the new podcast, Forgive Me for I Have Followed. Together, we'll be diving even deeper into the unbelievable stories behind 7M Films and Shekinah Church. Listen to Forgive Me for I Have Followed on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. I'm Keri Champion, and this is Season 4 of Naked Sports. Up first, I explore the making of a rivalry.

Kaitlyn Clark versus Angel Reese. Every great player needs a foil. I know I'll go down in history. People are talking about women's basketball just because of one single game. Clark and Reese have changed the way we consume women's sports. Listen to the making of a rivalry Caitlin Clark versus Angel Reese

on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcast or wherever you get your podcasts. Presented by Elf Beauty, founding partner of iHeart Women's Sports. Hey, I'm Gianna Pradenti and I'm Jermaine Jackson-Gadson. We're the hosts of Let's Talk Offline from LinkedIn News and iHeart Podcasts. There's a lot to figure out when you're just starting your career.

That's where we come in. Think of us as your work besties you can turn to for advice. And if we don't know the answer, we bring in people who do, like negotiation expert Maury Tahiripour. If you start thinking about negotiations as just a conversation, then I think it sort of eases us a little bit. Listen to Let's Talk Offline on the iHeartRad the iheart radio app apple podcast or wherever you get your podcasts hello the internet and welcome to this episode of thanks trending uh mashed potatoes o'brien

and miles of gravy back together again slathered yeah slathered on one another um oh i am so i'm not i'm not joking i i um my grandfather used to he used to have a barbecue restaurant and he was smoked turkeys and like all the like when the raiders went to la they will all come to him to get a thanksgiving turkey like one of his smoked turkeys and he passed away a couple years ago but this year i i found a spot that was smoking turkeys and i got a smoked turkey in you know just to kind of commemorate you know bring the memory back of my grandfather but like at the spot they're like you can also buy they have like smoked turkey gravy because i wasn't just gonna make my own gravy i was like give me that i bought so much gravy that i'm gonna just just eat it. Smoked turkey gravy. Yeah. I might need that because I put together a shopping list and

the gravy we got looks kind of like military ration gravy. You know, pre-mixed. Yeah, so I'm excited though. I did wait in an hour at a Honey Baked Ham to pick up a ham yesterday. It took an hour? Yeah, it was an hour at a honey baked ham to pick up a ham yesterday.

Nice. It took an hour? Yeah, it was an hour, man. Wait, is it because... Glendale. Oh, yeah, that one. Yep. There's another one in the cut in Pasadena that's also like...

I mean, there's only a couple left anyway in LA. But yeah, anyway, here we are getting our arteries and everything ready for the turkey. The Turk. All right. Well, welcome back, by the way. You were out for a couple of days with family. How was it? I was with family.

I went to Disneyland with our nieces and the little baby uh and some in-laws and it i don't know why i it it's the most fucking crowded time it's i think it's quite literally the worst time to go i think when amanda was on from the keys to the kingdom podcast and i was like that's like the worst time to go right she's like yeah yeah fucking thanksgiving week you freak what do you mean you roll up and you're like is this the worst time and the people that did like even mickey mouse is like yeah no shit man holy shit man i'm like yo he has track marks on his arm here he's like it's fucking stressful boy i tell you my guts hurt buddy oh boy hey speaking of guts but yeah good good time victory light podcast called victory light everybody should be checking out kid maro yeah if you if you aren't

listening you should be yeah it's oh man they gotta his co-hosts are amazing too so for the people who miss bodega boys victory light is a welcome welcome treasure The art is back The art is back Alright Speaking of the art The art of the negotiation Joe Biden just single handedly Brought about a ceasefire Way to rebrand it

Wheeler dealer This is a humanitarian pause But now the language of ceasefire Is being very quickly adopted. The Biden ceasefire. Yeah, right. Oh, boy. Biden ceasefire.

Bidenomics. I mean, I think, yeah, what the agreement is for between four and six days of less bombing, like there's still going to be military operations run. Do you know the full details? But I do know that they have basically said we are like the second it's over, we're right back to it. So there will be time for a hostage swap, 50 Israelis for 150 Palestinians.

Some of them, you know, children that are in prison, wrap your head around that one. Why are these, why are they jailing Palestinian children? And then, you know, there's just the

aid is supposed to get in there but this is such a small like there's like the bare minimum right now given what the situation is and i can't like again we say this all the time that shit just looks more and more grim every time i see any kind of any footage uh coming out of gaza yeah at the same time like this is a step it is something oh yeah i mean this is better than nothing for sure yes for sure um and you know amen was saying like you should follow this story but not necessarily through the western media but through like the israeli media and uh they are describing it as an agreement brokered by qatar between israel and hamas um which that's not the story i'm being told by it was all joe biden oh you mean the guy who said yes he's fired ain't not possible

right who was saying that outlaw i mean that's like the weird thing when like his rhetoric so outwardly was like no that shit ain't happening and like i'm pardon me i'm like is that just like state craft because you need to have netanyahu think that you're like there but you're obviously back channeling all this other stuff um but at the same time like the rhetoric that was needed from the president united states was much more forceful than that. Yeah. And the problem with Netanyahu, like getting Netanyahu to do something is not being nice to him. It's like that he thinks America will do whatever he asks them to. But regardless, it does feel like it's being covered in U.S. media as Biden was feeling pressure from the bad polling and he was applying

pressure on Israel, like more pressure than he would have otherwise been. So, I mean, in that respect, I don't know, it's like somewhat hopeful that like gives me some hope that like things are working the way they're supposed to in one very specific respect and we don't know how long the ceasefire is going to last or how um effective it's going to be but it's definitely something so yeah i wanted to pass it along it's yeah and it's also just odd to like and then see like democrats be like oh this is needed now like this good thank you joe biden like two weeks ago you were like yo let let him cook yeah so asking for this was being described as uh yeah an anti-semitic attack yes so interesting but again this is why this is a if any you can

only describe this as a humanitarian pause that's it because the the the military operations will resume um and so i mean that's why this is a first step but you'd hope like that this is part of lasting pressure and i know people around the world are like just begging their governments imploring them to get behind an actual ceasefire to like get something figured out because this is not how this is not how this is not what people want to keep witnessing and i'm sure for people who live in like you know countries that supply arms to israel don't want to feel like they are a party to that yeah um all right well thanksgiving travel uh which is seeing record numbers this year is unsafe due to a shortage of air marshals,

which I had always assumed, like there was some evidence for like that air marshals were like helping in some way, like behind the scenes or I don't know, because it's just like, right. You just hear about it and you assume like, well,

that seems like a good idea to, I don't know, have somebody there in case shit goes down. And an interview with the director of the Air Marshal National Council went on Fox News to complain that Thanksgiving was in jeopardy because so many air marshals have been deployed to the southern border to help with ushering in illegal immigrants. to the southern border to help with ushering in illegal immigrants uh they're actually helping distribute water to people um which is a basic human right um hold on let's just check that yep okay yep water water that should be a basic human right yep yep yep yep but they're ushering them in like the the rmb singer okay but it it was, so it's just interesting like this idea that we're short-staffed with

our air marshals has caused some people to be like, well, let's take a look at this program. It was started in the 60s with like a small number of agents assigned to flights that were deemed to be high risk of hijacking. I'm sure it was those were not deemed to be high risk of hijacking. I'm sure

those were not deemed to be high risk of hijacking for racist reasons at all. I'm like, yeah, who? The 60s in the United States? And they're like, hmm. And then they massively expanded it after 9-11 to thousands of covert agents traveling with cover stories

both domestically and internationally. A time when the nation collectively lost their fucking mind and you know with islamophobia among many other things um so people are understandably critical of the you know sky cop idea thank you sky cop just every time when my plane lands safely, I just put my hands up and I say, thank you, SkyCop. Yeah, thank you, SkyCop.

Ask Cab. All SkyCops are back. You got Ask Cab. But it costs as much as $1 billion a year to the taxpayers. And they have looked into what it's preventing. And you know cops of all sorts will bend we'll find the statistics to be like this is we're saving fucking lives out here

they will they will lay out 36 in cash next to a weed pipe and a bag of cocaine and be like yeah look at check out this fucking bust we just did yeah so uh and in the in the way of evidence that sky cops are working we've got not shit uh that really like haven't stopped anything and you know they've existed for decades now at the level at post 9-11 levels haven't faced a real terror threat during an actual flight and far more air marshals have actually been arrested than terrorists i'm sorry so a 2016 pro publica report thank god for pro publica by the way they're just like the only people out here like issuing foia requests foia mob yeah um but they revealed that air marshals were themselves arrested 148 times from November 2002 to February 2012 for crimes ranging from aiding a human trafficking ring to attempted murder.

It's like minor stuff. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Easy, easy, easy. Yeah. Look, this is a marshal business. Also charged with more than 5,000 cases of misconduct during that period uh one air marshal used his badge to smuggle drugs past airport security another used his to lure a young child to his hotel room uh and yeah yeah because you have a group of people who are ready i can't

imagine the mindset of someone who's like, oh, what do I do? I basically have that thing on me and I get on a plane and I keep a loaded gun on. Yeah, like all the power. And apparently, like the mental health is like not great. Like the, you know, they describe the agency's culture is described as mind-numbing and toxic. Air marshals are reportedly plagued by depression, have experienced psychotic episodes, and the program has suffered a rash of suicides. According to one union's 2018 letter, the agency experiences three to five suicides a year of active duty or recently retired air marshals, which is a lot. Yeah. of active duty or recently retired air marshals which is a lot yeah um yeah i think i then this is like a thing too where like they're randomly scattered so it's like there there ain't enough

of them for flights i mean we've talked about this before where it's like there's not enough of them for the number of flights to really be able to guarantee that nothing is going to go down it's just more like it's like putting up like a fake surveillance camera yeah it's like plastic and people like oh i don't know that thing might be on i don't know so just the the fear of it's just more like it's like putting up like a fake surveillance camera yeah it's like plastic and people like oh i don't know that thing might be on i don't know so just the the fear of that it might be your flight i think is the only thing i guess preventing things but also it is again to your point have has there been anything where they've actually had to go into action doesn't seem like it yeah like they don't even get the you know how like pilots and uh people

like flight attendants are famously like hot famously hot but also famously like not great sleep schedules and are constantly having to be protected from horrible sleep things like they don't even air air marshals don't even have those protections. So these people who have guns on our flights and are struggling with mental health issues are being treated like absolute shit by the companies, by the organizations that are in charge of making sure that they actually are there to do a job that they allegedly have to do. Right. Just seeing how long on an international leg that they have to be up for 19 hours of

continuous wakefulness is the physiological equivalent of being legally impaired by alcohol, and 24 hours is the equivalent of legal intoxication. Okay, but their gun works. Their gun works. Their gun works. gun works yeah unfortunately their gun works in some cases because uh there's more than 200 cases of air marshals misusing firearms or misbehaving with guns between 2005 and 2017 um including more than 70 incidents of lost misplaced or stolen weapons and one time uh an air marshal left his gun in the uh airplane bathroom at least one time someone's like yeah you come out like i think someone left this there's a handgun it's a toilet um and also misbehaving what is this righteous gemstones with a haven like what because you like to do a little like gun twirling exactly like what what counts as misbehaving hey kid hey hey kid this thing the guy in the play lifting his shirt up like look look

look look don't fuck with me don't fuck with me you better stop fucking crying yeah okay you are annoying everyone around you can't get touched just so you know because i will wet your whole shit right now oh my god sir you're misbehaving uh so yeah the these are the people that we need to be uh worried about flying because they're not on the case according to uh fox news i'm right this made me feel a lot safer about flying when uh they're down doing some like much needed like soul refreshing work yeah like giving people yeah please is like no they're giving they're saving people's lives and helping people who are in need yeah well also like clearly like an interest group mentor represent that you represent that occupation and then just regurgitate

xenophobic nonsense. Yeah. What are you going to do? Hopefully rest. I know it's busy out there. I saw footage from the fucking airports on the Wednesday before Thanksgiving. It looks a fucking nightmare. Good luck out there. Stay safe.

If you're listening to us from a flight, man, thanks for bringing us with you on this one yeah stay frosty though they might have a drunk air marshal on board that you may need your head on a swivel out there um all right we'll be right back i'm jess casaveto executive producer of the hit Netflix documentary series, Dancing for the Devil, the 7M TikTok cult. And I'm Clea Gray, former member of 7M Films and Shekinah Church. And we're the host of the new podcast, Forgive Me For I Have Followed.

Together, we'll be diving even deeper into the unbelievable stories behind 7M Films and LA-based Shekinah Church, an alleged cult that has impacted members for over two decades. Jessica and I will delve into the hidden truths between high-control groups and interview dancers, church members, and others whose lives and careers have been impacted, just like mine. Through powerful, in-depth interviews

with former members and new, chilling firsthand accounts, the series will illuminate untold and extremely necessary perspectives. Forgive Me For I Have Followed will be more than an exploration. It's a vital revelation aimed at ensuring these types of abuses never happen again. Listen to Forgive Me For I Have Followed on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Hey, I'm Gianna Pradente. And I'm Jemay Jackson-Gadsden. We're the hosts of Let's Talk Offline, a new podcast from LinkedIn News and iHeart Podcasts. When you're just starting

out in your career, you have a lot of questions like, how do I speak up when I'm feeling overwhelmed? Or can I negotiate a higher salary if this is my first real job? Girl, yes. Each week, we answer your unfiltered work questions. Think of us as your work besties you can turn to for advice. And if we don't know the answer, we bring in experts who do, like resume specialist Morgan Saner. The only difference between the person who doesn't get the job and the person who gets the job is usually who applies.

Yeah, I think a lot about that quote. What is it, like you miss 100% of the shots you never take? Yeah, rejection is scary, but it's better than you rejecting yourself. Together, we'll share what it really takes to thrive in the early years of your career without sacrificing your sanity or sleep. Listen to Let's Talk Offline on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. I'm Keri Champion, and this is season four of Naked Sports, where we live at the intersection of sports and culture. Up first, I explore the making of a rivalry, Kaitlyn Clark versus Angel Reese.

I know I'll go down in history. People are talking about women's basketball just because of one single game. Every great player needs a foil. I ain't really near them boys. I just come here to play basketball every single day, and that's what I focus on. From college to the pros, Clark and Reese have changed the way we consume women's sports. Angel Reese is a joy to watch. She is unapologetically black.

I love her. What exactly ignited this fire? Why has it been so good for the game? And can the fanfare surrounding these two supernovas be sustained? This game is only going to get better because the talent is getting better. This new season will cover all things

sports and culture. Listen to Naked Sports on the Black Effect Podcast Network, iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. The Black Effect Podcast Network is sponsored by diet coke and we're back we're back and squid game the reality show some thanksgiving viewing for hannah smiles i don't know i was always curious like who's producing this thing it seems like it's kind of missing the point of the show which was mainly i would say like a capitalist critique

where every single character was put up against a wall by the you know strictures of capital and um and then forced to like put their lives on the line and almost die or die in many cases. Or actually die, yeah, literally die, yeah. For the entertainment of billionaires. So it seemed like a pretty straightforward message. And in this one, they're like, wouldn't you like to be those rich billionaires

who get to watch people die and struggle for your entertainment. Yeah, and you can masturbate with a mask on all while it's happening. I mean, that is always an option that's available to you. Yeah, in your own home. Yes, thank you. So the producers gave an interview to The Hollywood Reporter with the dropping of Squid Game, and they were asked about that.

Oh, how do you navigate the anti-capitalist message of the show like or how do you integrate it yeah and they while they acknowledge that is one strand of squid game they also added that the capitalist critique was really a very small part of the original squid game you're fucking kidding me i yeah yes there is one element of the original show that people have latched on to that people have latched on to that like you know you critics latch on to and keep like talking up that they think it's being not served by a reality show but i would say it's a very small part of the original squid game. Um, that's actually a quote Jack just read.

Yeah, that is a legitimate quote from one of the producers. Uh, so I was like, who, so is, are these like the original producers of the show? Also like how,

how did that work? How did they get the right? Um, the, the producer's name is Tim Harcourt all right um and i have a picture of him in the doc here yeah and he is white yeah as white as the name tim harcourt would suggest and his like t-shirt with blazer t with blaze sorry sorry sir yeah but what he did is he like a like a korean media is like is he involved in korean media no he's just like a reality show producer he made a

naked attraction the all nude dating show oh perfect perfect perfect perfect perfect so he's kind of who i go to for my uh understanding of like what various works of art are saying culturally and like which of the messages are important and which can just be discarded for the purposes of entertainment. There's also the allegations about the filming conditions of the show. Greenlight Games was reportedly shot in a freezing airport hangar that led to some people having to be treated by medics due to the extreme cold. Don't say like hypothermia that's going to give it a bad. It was just really chilly in there. Yeah. One of the players on the show was quoted as saying, All the torment and trauma we experienced wasn't due to the game or the rigor of the game it was the

incompetencies of scale they bit off more than they could chew the incompetencies of scale that just needs to be the name of a fucking book yeah dude i'm reading that shit let's go competencies of scale oh wow scathing and i'm sure the produce like that guy's just a hater because he got hit by paintballs in the red light green ball green light game yes uh basically so whatever they do for that we we heard from another one of the producers steven lambert who uh let me guess you can you can picture him he's the other guy except balder um yeah he looks like his like he's like an eagle's uncle and if that makes sense like as a human then i'm i don't know he has he's very uh avian but uh that producer pointed out that because of the huge cash prize it wasn't going to be a walk in the park

it's like yeah we're gonna try and freeze you to death there's a lot of money online okay but yeah as as was pointed out by one of the contestants we were not getting vibes that this was an intentional attempt to freeze us to death it was that they are fucking reality show producers who are just like i don't know man we got gotta stretch this money let's put it in this giant freezing warehouse and not heat it um so yeah just due to the colossal incompetence of the uh of the

production man it's also just really interesting too that there's like even like this like darker social media thing like that apparently people were saying there were allegations that like influencers from like tiktok or instagram were like like it was rigged to favor them yeah that they rigged it for so yeah they gave they gave every contestant like mics right and you know because it's a reality show there's yeah like hundreds of contestants. And then as people were getting eliminated,

they were like, never felt like they turned my mic on or that my mic even like had wiring in it. But like the people who lasted in the game did have actual mics. So it felt like, okay, they went into this and weirdly all the people who had large social media followings were the ones who lasted and everybody else they're they're just

it's be they're they're it's a parody of itself yeah you know like in the way that they're like favoring people who could potentially offer more of a benefit financially to this show. Yeah. The ones that make it so fucking grim. Well, this is why like you can't really do this show unless you're going to have the courage of your convictions and kill the contest. Exactly. Yeah. Because otherwise the contestants are going to see like the sleight of hand and all the like kind of bullshit that you're putting into it you know complain if you're

fucking six feet you know that's right so it's an old reality tv adage i think that they say but yeah i mean it makes sense because like for like reality television as someone who has watched a mind-blowing amount and as like i worked in in and around production of reality shows it's it's truly like people playing with an ant farm and except you have people in there and you know what else can we do to fucking make some weird shit happen on camera without any consideration for their personal lives or who they are but and here we are so it's just wild i still gotta see it it sounds so bad that i gotta love a disaster the incompetency of scale it's uh squid game the reality show colon the

incompetencies of scale it's also just wild like the more we learn about like netflix and you know how uh like one of their greatest works of art like one of the greatest works of art that they were responsible for is squig game like that i you know i don't think that's controversial right like that show was fucking awesome like yeah i mean it was so it was such a yeah i think especially because it had this despite it being like a you know from the english-speaking world a foreign show yeah it just hit the fucking nail directly on its head for what everyone...

It's like brilliant trash, like beautiful garbage, like really well done, and then reached some really high highs that you wouldn't expect from a show that is about... That is basically the plot to The Running Man.

Right. Just deadly game show beautifully done you know and also like their biggest hit of all time i think right just like massive massive hit cut came out of nowhere for them and the way they respond to that is like continue to underpay the people who actually like made it and and then like skin it and turn it over to a fucking reality show producer like just i mean i say that and i just need to see how because man it sounds like everyone's like panning it oh so it's getting bad reviews i feel like if you just search it most people are like i don't know feels gross man right right right right yeah oh damn you hate to see it you really hate to see it well uh miles you'll check

it out and let us know how it how it holds up yeah yeah yeah what if you just come back and you're like guys i'm sorry guys fucking brilliant it's fucking amazing. It's fucking amazing. The Verge said, Squid Game, the challenge, is a morbid LARP trapped inside a reality TV show. Whoops. Blee, blee, blee, blee, blee, blee, blee, blee. Yeah. Rolling Stone, Netflix, Squid Game, reality show, was cruel and rigged. Squid Game, the challenge,

Player 299, Spencer Talks. So, yeah. A lot of people are... A lot of people got something to say. Yeah. Like Entertainment Weekly, which described it as having an eclectic cast and inventive updates to the original inventive updates to the original are they like the entertainment weekly is like what the local news is like to the police department or something exactly we're like oh we love it obviously it's so good and shout out to them please continue

to invite us to your press junket so we may have access to sell or clicks or whatever man they really just skinned the whole show though like i'm looking at the trailer and it is exactly the show wow i mean it's and it's also but like get you know you have to hand it to like these big studios massive media companies where they like they just go, oh, that thing's popular and completely miss the fucking point about why it's popular. Yeah. They're like, yep, show big. So put in the same name, even on a cartoon for babies and they're going to love it. Right.

Because the show was so big. Wait, what was it about? Capital. Well, that's just like your opinion, man. Yeah, exactly. All right. Well, those are the things that are trending on this Wednesday. We are off tomorrow and Friday for the holiday, off over the weekend,

and then back on Monday with a whole ass episode of the show telling you what trended, what you missed over this hopefully slow news weekend. We'll talk to y'all then. Have a great holiday weekend. Bye, everyone. Bye. I'm Jess Casavetto, executive producer of the hit Netflix documentary series, Dancing for the Devil, the 7M TikTok cult. And I'm Clea Gray, former member of 7M Films and Shekinah Church. And we're the host of the new podcast, Forgive Me for I Have Followed.

Together, we'll be diving even deeper into the unbelievable stories behind 7M Films and Shekinah Church. Listen to Forgive Me for I Have Followed on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. I'm Keri Champion, and this is season four of Naked Sports. Up first, I explore the making of a rivalry. Kaitlyn Clark versus Angel Reese.

Every great player needs a foil. I know I'll go down in history. People are talking about women's basketball just because of one single game. Clark and Reese have changed the way we consume women's sports. Listen to the making of a rivalry, Caitlin Clark versus Angel Reese on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Presented by Capital One, founding partner of iHeart Women's Sports. Hey, I'm Gianna Pradenti.

And I'm Jermaine Jackson-Gadsden. We're the hosts of Let's Talk Offline from LinkedIn News and iHeart Podcasts. There's a lot to figure out when you're just starting your career. That's where we come in. Think of us as your work besties you can turn to for advice. And if we don't know the answer, we bring in people who do, like negotiation expert Maury Tahiripour. If you start thinking about negotiations as just a conversation,

then I think it sort of eases us a little bit. Listen to Let's Talk Offline on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.