This week, we compare the paranoia over "fake news" to the pseudo-smart grandstanding of Vox dot com. We cover a few recent articles (linked below) that help us detail the shortcomings of Vox's "explaining the news" approach and unearth the ideology beneath its neutral surface. We talk the politics of belief, Ezra Klein's straight-A aesthetic, and Matt Yglesias' boring burrito drivel. We also struggle to name-drop de Certeau, and then lay bare why Hillary was deemed "more electable."

Nathan J. Robinson, "Explaining It All to You" & "The Necessity of Credibility"

https://www.currentaffairs.org/2016/11/explaining-it-all

https://www.currentaffairs.org/2016/12/the-necessity-of-credibility

David V. Johnson, "Explanation for What?"

http://thebaffler.com/salvos/explanation-for-what-johnson

Ezra Klein, "How Politics Makes Us Stupid"

http://www.vox.com/2014/4/6/5556462/brain-dead-how-politics-makes-us-stupid

On this episode, we decide to take a step back and reflect rather than get caught up in the political rat race of the moment. We chose Stephen Marche's recent article in the LARB, "The Obama Years," as a way to look at the recent past and figure out how we ended up like this. The article's recurring themes -- like images, eating & shitting, jumping through hoops, and sameness -- help us tackle what it's been like to live these past eight years. For example: Why are we obsessed with finding the best new food truck? Why are sewage treatment plants finding gold in our shits? How did every city end up with a "unique," quaint, hip coffee shop?

We also discuss politics more explicitly, when we ask why are there no new ideas. And we talk personally about graduating during the crash and realizing early that no amount of jumping through hoops would get us where we expected to be. We also laugh at ourselves, as we realize we are total Obama years cliches.

"The Obama Years" by Stephen Marche

https://lareviewofbooks.org/article/the-obama-years/

Bonus episode! The first segment was recorded the day of the election. We discuss the campaign and make predictions, which... weren't exactly right. Kind of close, though! We talk about the political terrain of Ohio and Texas in particular. Then, a week afterwards, we cover some of the awful attempts to explain what happened, and suggest what's important going forward.

cold pizza party returns! with a look at why Search Party is so perfect, but the Gilmore Girls reunion is just whatever.

We discuss the way Search Party induces paranoia, balances tonal shifts without throwing us off-kilter, and fits form to content in surprising ways. Also, we half-attack and half-heartedly-defend the Gilmore Girls reunion, including its long-awaited "final four words."

Stay tuned for reasons why Rory is secretly a villain, and why the economy of Stars' Hollow is a bizarre neoliberal fever dream.

This week, we talk Trump, a discussion we had hoped would never be necessary. Adam outlines a hypothesis for his rise, including Trump's secret strategy you probably haven't heard of. Then, Ljubica talks about his supporters and "the white working class": who are they, who hates them, and why? We discuss "white" as a politically & socially constructed category and the flexibility of whiteness.

This time on cold pizza party, we're re-running our first ever recording you probably missed, where we dig into UnReal, Lifetime's fake-reality TV drama. Brought to us by a former producer of The Bachelor, it's smart, well-written, and reveals some of the secrets of how that terrible sausage gets made. If you're doubting how good Lifetime Original prestige TV could truly be, you're missing out -- catch up w/ Unreal before season 2 airs on Monday, and listen to Ljubica & I gush about what exactly makes it so great

This week, Ljubica & Adam discuss exclusively Vanderpump Rules with an eye towards class and labor politics. There will be spoilers, which means you don't have to be familiar with the show to listen, as we ask and answer questions like, When is reality tv more compelling than scripted? How much money does Lisa Vanderpump extract from these struggling 20-somethings? And should we consider them workers or fame-whores?

Ljubica & Adam dispel Super Tuesday myths, berate Hillary Clinton's nonsense college plan, and finally hammer out what, exactly, neoliberalization means.

On this episode of the cold pizza party podcast, we discuss the death & legacy of Antonin Scalia and whether originalism is or isn't a total crock of shit. We'll talk about originalism in relation to musicology (why?), political pragmatism, and Henry Kissinger. After that, we compare Colony to The Shannara Chronicles, and we'll let you in on the secret best-ever Australian TV show you've never heard of.

This week, Adam and Ljubica discuss depictions of abortion on TV and their implications. Then we breakdown the Bernie data breach non-scandal by interviewing a real NGP VAN user, Ljubica! Finally, we talk about our big (and small) takeaways from the Democratic debate.