Fireside Breakdowns

Every November, teachers break out vocabulary sheets to teach us all about words like “cornucopia” and “harvest” and “pilgrim” while children cut out black, construction paper hats and attach construction paper buckles to construction paper shoes. Refrigerators across the United States find themselves festooned by flocks of mutant, five-finger turkeys. But what if we told you that the holiday we all celebrate as "Thanksgiving" is more the outcome of a game of historical telephone than it is a representation of any actual event?  This week, we're trying to figure out just where we get our annual excuse to wear sweatpants to a family event. And, we're talking about why it's so harmful to First Nations people for us to keep perpetuating the myth we call The First Thanksgiving. ™ © ® 

If you’d like to get in touch…

You can leave us a review at: https://ratethispodcast.com/fireside

Or you can drop us a note from our Contact page!

You can find all of our sources in our Show Notes.

And, if you’d like to help us reach our goal of hiring a professional editor, you can check out our Patreon Page! Patrons get priority topic requests, behind the scenes content, and more!

It’s the third Monday in November, which means this is our second episode as part of Native American Heritage Month! This week, we’re bringing you an in-depth breakdown of the whole situation concerning the protests at Standing Rock Reservation over the Dakota Access Pipeline, the significance of the land (to both parties) and where things stand right now. To really understand the controversy behind the protests at Standing Rock and the fight over the Dakota Access Pipeline, we have to understand the history of mistrust and negligence that marks the relationship between our First Nations people and the United States government.  Because this isn’t just a philosophical struggle over the potential impact of a long-distance crude oil pipeline - this situation brings to the forefront the centuries old efforts of Native Americans to have their sovereign rights respected and to see the treaties they made with the United States honored. 

There is discussion of violence - in the context of battles and massacres that occurred historically, and in the context of contemporary protests. Some of that includes violence against women and children. If that makes you uncomfortable, here are the time stamps to miss:

13:09 - Beginning of Sand Creek Massacre Discussion (mostly context)

It finally happened. Our 59 episode streak has ended. Deep in our hearts we knew we couldn't keep this up forever. Eventually, our perfect record would break.  Well, friends, this is the week. 

Some unanticipated personal stuff... well, it hit us like a freight train and we just weren't in the right space to give the next episode our best. At the end of every episode, we encourage you all to take care of each other - and this week, we had to take our own advice. 

We hope you all have a chance to rest and relax this week, that you treat yourself with the same kindness you offer to others, and that you have the opportunity to share love and laughter with those you care about.  We'll be back with you next week. 

We’re bringing you another From The Headlines episode today, but this week’s headline isn’t as controversial as what is or isn’t making into the latest spending bill, or even what President Biden’s doing in Rome. What caught our attention this week is the nomination of Charles Sams III - or, as his friends call him, Chuck - for Director of the National Parks Service. Sams would be the first Native American person to hold this position in its 105 year history, and we figured that would be a great story to kick off Native American Heritage Month! 

Then, when we started digging into it a bit more, we discovered that we knew almost nothing about the history of the Parks Service, and why it would be incredibly significant to have a Native American leader at the helm. Us, discovering there’s more to a topic than we thought??  What’s new, right? But man - this ones a doozy.

If you’d like to get in touch…

You can leave us a review at: https://ratethispodcast.com/fireside

Or you can drop us a note from our Contact page!

You can find all of our sources in our Show Notes.

And, if you’d like to help us reach our goal of hiring a professional editor, you can check out our Patreon Page! Patrons get priority topic requests, behind the scenes content, and more!

Did you know that October is ADHD Awareness Month? You do now!

This week, we want to talk a little bit about ADHD, what it is, and what the realities of living with it actually are.  You’ve heard of it many times. We mention it just about every other episode, since we both have been diagnosed with it. And, honestly, it rears its head with us when we’re writing every episode. It’s why we end up digressing from our intended topic  and why we’re often doing a last minute research push right before we record. Chances are, you know and love someone who's got it, so we hope this sheds a little extra light on what it means to be neurodivergent. 

If you’d like to get in touch…

You can leave us a review at: https://ratethispodcast.com/fireside

Or you can drop us a note from our Contact page!

You can find all of our sources in our Show Notes.

And, if you’d like to help us reach our goal of hiring a professional editor, you can check out our Patreon Page! Patrons get priority topic requests, behind the scenes content, and more!

This week is another From the Headlines episode! We’re talking about the recent whistleblower testimony from former Facebook employee Frances Haugen, “The Algorithm” (how Facebook and other platforms determine which content you see), and what it means to practice good data hygiene. With a special guest appearance by everyone’s favorite topic: bias.

If you’d like to get in touch…

You can leave us a review at: https://ratethispodcast.com/fireside

Or you can drop us a note from our Contact page!

You can find all of our sources in our Show Notes.

And, if you’d like to help us reach our goal of hiring a professional editor, you can check out our Patreon Page! Patrons get priority topic requests, behind the scenes content, and more!

If you’re listening to this episode on release day, we’d like to wish you a happy Indigenous People’s Day! We’re taking this week to talk about this new, but also not new, holiday - what it is, why it’s important, and why it (like so many other things these days) is the cause of such a ruckus.

So, put on your comfy clothes and get a warm drink (or keep driving to work or whatever you’re doing when you listen) and allow us to dive into some history. It’s been a minute since we’ve had a nice, historical episode.

If you’d like to get in touch…

You can leave us a review at: https://ratethispodcast.com/fireside

Or you can drop us a note from our Contact page!

You can find all of our sources in our Show Notes.

And, if you’d like to help us reach our goal of hiring a professional editor, you can check out our Patreon Page! We are so excited to welcome our newest patron Erica F.!

Sensitive Content Warning: Gabby Petito discussion from 24:45 to 47:15.

Here we are again with another late night, smooth jazz recording to bring you a ripped from the headlines, kinda from the hip, discussion session.  This time we’re taking some headline news and asking the question, “Is it racist?” We cover the racist origins of some common phrases, Missing White Woman Syndrome, and the Great Replacement, and we try to determine whether or not it’s accurate to attribute racial bias, animus, or insensitivity to them.

As a reminder, these episodes are pretty top level. Sometimes we cover more than one topic, we don’t have super detailed show notes, and often we heavily paraphrase our sources.  The goal is to make sure we’re covering timely topics as well as those we have time to dig down into. But, as usual, you'll find everything we pulled from in our shownotes. 

If you’d like to get in touch…

You can leave us a review at: https://ratethispodcast.com/fireside

Or you can drop us a note from our Contact page!

And, if you’d like to help us reach our goal of hiring a professional editor, you can check out our Patreon Page! We are so excited to welcome our newest patron Erica F.!

You know how some topics seem unnecessarily… polarized? Like, conversation about them just ends up with someone ranting about how the other political party is to blame for all the world’s problems? The price of gas is one of those topics. So this week, we decided to try to put those rants to rest with a breakdown of why gas prices are what they are, and a look at whether or not the rise and fall of prices can be blamed on (or credited to) one political party or the other. We also spend a few minutes talking about what your wallet can expect from prices at the pump in the near future.

If you’d like to get in touch…

You can leave us a review at: https://ratethispodcast.com/fireside

Or you can drop us a note from our Contact page!

As usual, if you want to check our sources you can do that in our Shownotes!

And, if you’d like to help us reach our goal of hiring a professional editor, you can check out our Patreon Page! We are so excited to welcome our newest patron Erica F.!

This week, we’re covering the sexiest of all topics… Infrastructure!

Spend Bill Gates’ Money: https://neal.fun/spend/

You can leave us a review at: https://ratethispodcast.com/fireside

Or you can drop us a note from our Contact page!

As usual, if you want to check our sources you can do that in our Shownotes!

And, if you’d like to help us reach our goal of hiring a professional editor, you can check out our Patreon Page! We are so excited to welcome our newest patron Erica F.!