Welcome to Interesting If True, the podcast that can’t get away from ye-olde medical stories no matter how hard we try. It’s funny, but yeah… sorry all!

I'm your host this week, Aaron, and with me are:

I'm Jenn, and if you happened to watch Netflix's Witcher series, I learned something new about it this week. The cursed, prickly-faced knight who turned out to be Ciri’s father is not a creation of the Witcher Universe. He’s actually based on a Brother’s Grimm story called The Hedgehog Boy.

I'm Shea, and this week I learned that if you pick up and put your ear up to a live crab you can hear what it sounds like to be attacked by a crab.

Crazy Medical Nonsense of Yesteryear Quiz

* http://bit.ly/2IZhlYD

I’ve spent some time talking about woo-woo nonsense, laughing at the ridiculous claims modern woo’s make about the curative power of bleach in your butt, porous stones in your hoohaw, or ward off the evil autistic spirits of vaccination. But what about the time before modern medicine? What about when seemingly intelligent people were recommending bloodletting and porcupine fucking?.. Ok, I don’t know that the last one is real, but it’s easily the most erotic of acupuncture…

And so, I present the “Crazy Medical Nonsense of Yesteryear Quiz” - bonus points are available on each question if you correctly guess if the “treatment” is still recommended by nutjobs.

There are 14 questions that all draw from the same answer pool, pictured below. Pair the cure described with the ailment listed for a chance to win!

1. In 1530, the egotistical, loud-mouthed, Theophrastus Bombastus von Hohenheim, better known as Paracelsus, proposed that patients should be dosed with mercury salts to make them urinate and drool. Some of Paracelsus’ contemporaries recommended dosing a patient with mercury until the patient drools three pints of saliva—a sufficient volume to get rid of what common 16th-century disease?

Syphilis!

Paracelsus believed that syphilis was caused by invisible particles transmitted from one person to another—a good guess, given syphilis is caused by the microscopic bacteria Treponema pallidum—and that drooling copiously would flush the particles out of the patient. Even though mercury might kill syphilis bacteria in less-active infections, it might also kill the patient by causing ulcers, kidney failure, and brain damage.

Bonus: Nope, a quick google reveals that if it’s still used, the nutters are quiet about it. Most discussion of mercury in woo circles is about how it’s in vaccines and will give you autism.

2. Friar Agustín Dávila Padilla recorded in 1596 that an aging fellow cleric was ordered by doctors “to use a drink that in the Indies they call chocolate. It is a little bit of hot water in which they dissolve something like almonds that they call cacaos, and it is made with spices and sugar.” What were the doctors trying to cure with this delicious drink?

Kidney disease.

Dávila Padilla delicately relates that the cleric was suffering because “his urine was afflicted.”

Bonus: Despite “medical professionals” as far back as 1662 denying its efficacy chocolate is used to this day to treat things like: reducing cholesterol, raw coco for coughing, reduced natural insulin, lower blood pressure, antioxidants, preventing cancer, blood flow improvements, protecting skin from UV rays, preventing tooth decay, as a painkiller, and “good for your brain” … just about the only thing these woos and I can agree on is that chocolate can “improve moods”

3. The chocolate-loving friars wouldn’t have approved of their British contemporary John Gerard, a botanist who published The Herball or Generall Historie of Plantes in 1597. In his herbal,

Welcome to Interesting If True, the podcast you’re listening to.

I'm your host this week, Shea, and with me are: Aaron… Steve...

I'm Aaron, and this week I learned that bananas are actually berries, but beavers are not.

I'm Steve and it turns out that fruity pebbles are not, as I had been led to believe, a gay rock band.

Feeling blue for raspberries

Seeing, or rather not seeing, that I am completely color blind, I thought talking about color would make the most sense. Also with the way the world has been turning my thoughts turned to hypocrisy, and that's where this story was born.

With fake news and double talk rampant in the USA I decided to pick apart the most glaring problem facing us in the world today. What flavor is blue raspberry when real raspberries are red?

One of my favorite slushy flavors and a mainstay in most gas stops was first seen by Steve back in the olden days of 1970. Before gaining it's new unnatural color, ice pops we're the popular ice treat of the day, like otter pops. The popular flavors of the past we're very similar to flavors now, cherry, watermelon, strawberry, regular normal rasberry. Which you may have noticed, not me, that they are all various colors of red. Originally cherry and strawberry were different shades of red, watermelon was a pink shade and our original raspberry was a deep red wine color. All was well in the world of frozen treats and those with color vision could reliably figure out their flavor before tasting it.

That all changed in the early 70's when the FDA banned E123 and FD&C Red No. 2, for those of you not in the world of cheap food dyes, this was the deep red wine dye used to color raspberry pops. Also known as Amaranth, the dye could provoke severe reactions, and was deemed a possible carcinogen. The future looked bleak for our burgundy berries.

Due to new technology in food science during the time, new sources of food dye and color we're popping up all over the market. A cheap blue coloring was sitting in the warehouses while cooks and creatives tried to figure out what would look good blue, not very many things are blue in nature and thus a bit off-putting to a public unaware of its flavor.

Well the ice pop Barron's of the day had an idea, they had a colorless pop and a new color… After some really creative thinking from the PR and marketing department they found the Rubus leucodermis, known as the whitebark raspberry or to some savvy botanists out there, the blue raspberry.

Image on your phone now. After some careful research/asking my wife, I have come to the conclusion that those still aren't blue, maybe a dark purple but definitely not the brilliant blue swirling at the corner store. Brilliant blue, coincidentally, is the color of the dye used, FD&C Blue No. 1. So before the age of information fact checking the color of a blue raspberry was a bit harder to check and children around the world we're happy to have their favorite flavor back, even if it meant you looked like you had a roll in the hay with Papa Smurf.

I’m Sweet Enough Already

Sugar! Delightful little granules of goodness. The only white crystal I like to sprinkle on things more is MSG.d

But is it vegan? Or even vegetarian really?

The answer for most people is “yes, of course, I’m no major general but that’s not an animal it’s a mineral!” and for the most part, they’re right. A few listeners probably said “nope, bone char” and… they are also, for the most part, right.

It’s a good bet the second group of hypothetical respondents I turned into an introductory segway are, or are at least dinner-party-our-wives-arraigned-without-telling-us-until-it-was-too-late-to-back-out friends with,

Welcome to Interesting If True, where we actually trust doctors and scientists, despite the stories we cover.

I'm your host this week, Jenn, and with me are (introduce each host and their blurb)

I'm Aaron, and this week I learned that birds are the most medically… applicable… animal. Like, they’re great when… applied 0_o

I’m Steve and I’m learning as I age that I should not have spent the last 10 years primarily on my ass. Now when I do pretty much anything I spend the next couple of days recovering.

* https://anesthesiology.pubs.asahq.org/article.aspx?articleid=1918086

* https://www.blackresearchcentral.com/articles/the-black-history-of-anesthesiology

* https://www.aamc.org/news-insights/how-we-fail-black-patients-pain

Pain ain’t funny

Time for some medical facts in history! REE Ree ree...As we previously covered in episode 10 (Guns, Germs & Garfield), it was well into the 19th century surger that was a really terrible undertaking. I covered the yuckiness that was surgical work before the germ theory of disease was understood, so now let’s talk about what happened to help the experience be a little better than a last resort of unbearable agony, where the best you could hope for pain was a swig of whiskey and a swift surgeon hand.

Let’s travel back in time to mid-1800s. In those days, itinerant performers roamed the countryside as entertainers (since streaming services were literal streams at the time and people were so bored they had a dozen children). In addition to horrifying puppet shows and probably doing terrible things to farm animals, one ‘comedy’ routine involved demonstrating the silly side effects of nitrous oxide (laughing gas).

As humans are wont to do, upon seeing the performers having a fun time completely out of their heads, the audience members wanted in on some of that action, too. This brings us to 1842, in the surely bustling metropolis of Jefferson, GA (nah, it was a rural dirty hovel). This is the home of pharmacist and physician Crawford Long.

Now, Jefferson, Georgia was having itself some ether parties, since apparently cow tipping had yet to be invented. When being invited to one of these said parties, Dr. Long was asked pretty, pretty please by his buddies if he could find a way to whip up some extra nitrous oxide, him being the cool pharmacist friend and all. But Dr. Long was all, ‘nah, bro, I know THE STUFF.’ and instead introduced the party to sulfuric ether, a “compound he himself had found suitably diverting”.

Party at Crawford’s!

Anyway, it was soon pretty clear that hopped up on ether, the partygoers giggled and stumbled and slammed into furniture, themselves and the floor, but surprisingly, felt no pain. Once he sobered up, Dr. Long began to ponder on the implications of that.

Well, next ether happy hour (or March 30, 1842)) Dr. Long decides to put his buzzed hypothesis to the test. One particular fun time party guy, James Venable, had a tumor on his neck and what do you know? Dr. Long had James sniff some ether and excised that tumor with no apparent pain.

Eureka!

Fun Americana roadside attraction side note: The town of Jefferson, GA has a museum and mural dedicated to Doc and the Tumor. Per roadsideamerica.com and Jeff:

I passed through town before the museum opened, but the anesthesia mural is visible from the street. The mural is excellent - a combination of bright colors, dramatic expressions, and a grotesque cyst.

[Jeff,

Welcome to Interesting If True, the podcast that’s interesting, if not pigeon-friendly. I'm your host this week, Aaron, and with me are:

I'm Shea, and this week I learned that triscuits are the perfect snack if you have ever wanted to eat wicker furniture.

I'm Steve, and I’ve spent the previous 10 days reliving my bachelor days, except that now, I had to take care of two dogs and two cats who really missed my wife and daughter. Feeding them 5 times a day helps. That way they’re always glad to see me.

I'm Jenn, and this week I discovered the perfect example of irony: Eliot Ness, leader of the Untouchables and figurehead fighter for the Prohibition, died relatively young (at 54) and destitute due to...wait for it...complications from alcoholism.

And with that delightful look back at ye-olde things that could kill you miserably… lets dive into a story… if you were a patron. But if you’re not don't worry, we only reference it once and you can always get in on the joke at https://www.patreon.com/iit for only a buck!

‘Tis Time For Another Rousing Round Of Medieval Medical Mediocrity!

* BBC Coverage

* Source Material from Casebooks

* Selected Quotes from CNet Article - Probably the best read btw ;)

* Medicine and Magic in Elizabethan London: Simon Forman : Astrologer

* Wiki

Today's story comes from the prolific notes of a 17th century "healer," which was, until recently, untranslated.

To mark a decade of the University of Cambridge's Casebook Project - a project to revive old manuscripts - scholars translated the notes of Simon Forman and Richard Napier from shitty-doctor-handwriting-ese to legible English.

"The project opens a wormhole into the grubby and enigmatic world of 17th-century medicine, magic and the occult." ~ Professor Lauren Kassell of Cambridge's History and Philosophy of Science Department.

And so, without further ado, I give you...

Tawdry Tales of Terrible Triage

(age age age age!)

First, dear panel — which is how I shall henceforth refer to you, because fuck it — should you find yourself suffering from malaise circa 1590, what footwear would best ease your weathered, dilapidated, 16-year-old husk of a body?

That's correct: Pigeons.

Image of Simon Forman. He was an ugly, ugly man

It was suggested that patients put the bodies of dead pigeons against their own: "a pigon slitt & applyed to the sole of each foote" for health.

Though today's animal-conscious woo's settle for onions in their socks but nothing beats a little squab-squish eh?

Simon Forman

Back to our tail. Simon Forman, a man already so learned that he needed Oxford not... or he couldn’t hack it even in the "maybe pigeons are shoes" era,either way, he dropped out of Oxford.

Choosing to travel for his indefinite spring break, he found himself enjoying London's famous nightlife. Coupettes (a Champagne Pina Colada Google says people in London stereotypically drink), Spotted Dick, and of course Yersinia pestis,

Welcome to Interesting If True, the podcast that totally promises to be as good and important as that popular show you listen to—except not really.

I'm your host this week, Aaron, and with me are Jim and Shea!

I'm Shea, and this week I learned a fun new game to play with your spouse during quarantine, it's called "Why are you doing it that way?" There are no winners…

I'm Big Gay Jim, and this week I learned that the same policy that bans the Confederate Flag on military bases will also prohibit the rainbow flag, so...two steps forward, and one step back?

The Formosian.

Nope, not a new show on Sci-Fi, though I'm sure it'd be at the Formomo-st front of their line up. Eh? eh?! Yeah, I'm funny.

No, Formosa was what the ye-oldie western world called Taiwan. How ye-oldie? Well our story might begin in 1679... ish, and probably southern France... ish, with the birth of someone not named George Pslamanazar.

Not-George, whose real name is lost to time, is generally presumed to have been born to Catholic parents and grew to attend a Jesuit academy where he learned that Japan existed became fluent in Latin thanks to his "uncommon genius for languages".

Quotes from Not-George primarily come from his memoirs, which you would think would include his name, but don't. Where one might find a memorial moniker there are only asterisks. Because by the end of his life, his name didn't matter to anyone, least of all himself.

Unfortunately, he didn't have an uncommon genius for... knowing Irish stuff. Being a Jesuit at the time was not ideal, so to travel safely he would tell people he was an Irish Catholic pilgrim journeying to Rome, this also frequently meant free meals, a place to sleep, and maybe gifts of coin or beer.

Basically, it was as good as traveling got before Uber. Sadly, he would often meet Irish travelers—or just people who knew literally anything at all about Ireland—and his lack of ability to speak or sound Irish, or know Irish things caused him to quickly be discovered as a fraud. He bounced around some, staying anywhere that would accept him until his easily-to-discredit-even-before-Google lies caused him to be run out of town. He tried to pretend to be Japanese for a while, but he had the same problems of... not knowing anything about Japan.

It was the early 18-century when our story begins in earnest. In 1702, which began on a Sunday and saw the printing of London's first non-English news paper, the founding of the Delaware colony, and the East India Company settling on what is now Con Son Island in southern Vietnam. As much as I know you love my year facts, they actually matter today. See, thanks to the East India Trading Co., colonization, and a handful of wars, travel to Asiatic locations and consumption of Asian culture was all the rage in England. Especially when it made English culture look good by comparison because of... you know... Imperialism.

And that, friends, is why George Psalmanazar was welcomed with open arms to all the finest dinner parties.

You see, George was a native of the island of Formosa. Not... France, Formosa. And despite his fair skin color, blue eyes, and Dutch accent, he was, like totally and for surezies, Formosan.

And not just Formosan, but of their upper class don't'cha know!

So George just... appeared... one day in Holland claiming to be a Formosan official. While his ruse was likely terrible he met the right person. Sensing that there was a buck to be made Scottish clergyman William Innes accepted George's story, baptized him, and set out to introduce him to the Bishop of London. For Innes it was bragging rights to have converted someone from so far away. For George it was about being the toast of London. Which this very much made him.

Welcome to Interesting If True,

The podcast my wife begrudgingly listens to in order to support my hobbies.

I'm your host this week, Shea, and with me are Aaron, and Jenn!

I'm Aaron, and this week I learned that cats are the primary predators of modern dinosaurs.

I'm Jenn, and this week I learned that when actor Michael Clark Duncan (Green Mile, Armageddon) died he had nearly a dozen pets, including a cat named Dribbles.

Strings and Things

Today’s episode comes to us from the back of the junk drawer. There are things around us every day that often get shoved into the junk drawer of life so today I’m organizing and unpacking facts about wires and cords. Maybe next week I can find some cool stuff about halfway used pens or old chapsticks.

Largest Loopholes

How big do you think the largest loophole is?

It's hard to imagine anything huge being hidden in cities all over the world, but look up and you might just see the huge loophole over your heads. Winding its way 18 miles around Manhattan is a thin translucent wire stretched above the skyline, hardly noticed, is an eurvin.

An eurvin or eurv plural, is a symbolic wall that allows Jews to, essentially break some of their laws on Shabbat. Shabbat is the Jewish Sabbath and goes from sundown Friday night to sundown Saturday night. In the simplest of explanations, Shabbat symbolises the seventh day of creation when God rests. During this observation members are told to refrain from working and rest, and when I say no work I mean no work, no turning lights on, no cooking, no lighting fires, even no carrying things outside of the home, this includes pushing a stroller or carrying your keys.

Under Jewish law on Shabbat, it is forbidden to carry anything—regardless of its weight, size or purpose—from a "private" domain into a "public" one or vice versa, or more than four cubits (approximately 6 feet) within a public domain. Private and public do not refer to ownership, rather to the nature of the area. An enclosed area is considered a private domain, whereas an open area is considered public for the purposes of these laws.

It became obvious even in ancient times, that on Shabbat, as on other days, there are certain things people wish to carry. People also want to get together with their friends after synagogue and take things with them—including their babies. They want to get together to learn, to socialize and to be a community.

Given the design of many communities in the past, many neighborhoods or even cities were walled. As such, the whole area was regarded as "private," and carrying allowed. That, however, wasn’t always the case. And today, it is an obvious impracticality to build walls throughout portions of cities, crossing over or through streets and walkways, in order to place one's home and synagogue within the same "private" domain.

The Answer is the Eruv

The answer is a technical enclosure which surrounds both private and public domains and thus creates a large private domain in which carrying is permitted on Shabbat.

Or as I call it, the giant flying loophole!

Two Pennies for a Hangover

When I told you I was going to talk about wires today I doubt you would think about homeless shelters. Back in the late 19th early 20th Century the Salvation Army operated the first homeless shelter in London. Back in those days the poor and destitute didn't have anywhere to go and had to hunker in a corner or find outdoor shelter for warmth. The Salvation Army had a great idea to help those less fortunate and set up Coffin Houses. For four pennies, a homeless client could stay at a coffin house. He received food and shelter and, he was allowed to lie down flat on his back and sleep i...

Welcome to Interesting If True, the podcast that traps your interest by baiting with self-gratifying humor... wait...

Speaking of traps, I'm Aaron and I've checked mine and this week I caught a wild Yeti!

I'm Shea and this week I learned a great money saving tip; When you are at a fast food restaurant, ask for a water cup, now when no one is looking go outside and help yourself to some free mulch! My yard is starting to look pretty good.

I lured in an ever-illusive, Steve!

I'm Steve and I’m soon to re-learn what it's like to be a bachelor. Not-God help me.

And I've finally mastered by fab-call and spotted a be-speckled Jim!

Build A Better PodTrap

And with that, I'll start this week's show with a quote that's commonly accepted to be true,

"build a better mousetrap, and the world will beat a path to your door."

A phrase is attributed to Ralph Waldo Emerson in the late nineteenth century.

But it's actually a misquotation of the statement1

If a man has good corn or wood, or boards, or pigs, to sell, or can make better chairs or knives, crucibles or church organs, than anybody else, you will find a broad hard-beaten road to his house, though it be in the woods.

Which is... yee-oldie long and I totally get why we shorted that to the easier to understand platitude.

Because you're not a talentless hack! You're one of the nearly 5 thousand mega-geniuses who apply for a patent for a "better mouse trap" every year in America.

For those interested, the common mouse trap with it's too-easy-to-trip, spring and snare-trap murder-bar, was invented in Lititz (I'm going to pronounce this as "lit tits"), Pennsylvania—which sounds like a great place—by John Mast in 1899, which started on a Sunday, was the year Leibig's Extract of Meat Company invented the beef stock or bouillon cube, and marked the end of 400 years of Spanish rule over Cuba. So now you know that stuff about 1899.2 Enjoy.

All that said, John's mouse trap may be the most famous but it isn't the first—even of its type.

The spring-loaded bar mousetrap—the little bit of wood with a spring-loaded finger-breaker stapled to it—was created by William C. Hooker in 1894.

1894, of course, began on a Monday, saw the founding of the International Olympic Committee at the Sorbonne, and was the first year Coca-Cola sold in its iconic bottles.3 There, now you know that too. Ha!

The board-and-springbar mouse trap persists to this day as the mouse trap. It's in cartoons, it's cheap to make and sell, and it just works.

By breaking the mouses neck—usually instantly—the mouse issue is... resolved.

They come in standard mouse size, giant rat-size, and 6.02 meters. That last one being the largest working trap, built by Dietmar Weides in Germany4, because sometimes you need to trap-murder an elephant I guess.

But enough about what we already know. I'm here to talk about the "better mousetrap" if there is such a thing.

I do want to add here that "better", like beauty, is very much in the eye of the beholder... or... insane inventor—as the case is gonna be a couple of times.

I'll try to do this better/insane complement-sammich style and wrap humane traps around the... not... that... traps. Check your podcast player for chapter markers, I'll add sad faces to the murder-y chapters so you can skip'em if you like but let's be honest here, most people don't make the "wow look at this mouse trap" list by being super cool about stuff.

Welcome to Interesting If True, the show where we celebrate our Independence with gross medical procedures and murder.

I'm your host this week, Jenn, and with me are (introduce each host and their blurb)

I'm Shea, and this week I learned that you pee on a jellyfish sting, not a jelly stain… Also, I learned I'm not allowed at Perkins anymore.

I'm Aaron, and this week I learned that boiling water is a great way to kill any bacteria in it… and make sure that the millions of tiny corpses you’re drinking are properly cooked.

I'm Steve, and today I saw something on Reddit that bears repeating by @francismmaxwell:

Let’s paint a picture. Say you’re Jewish, walking in Germany & see a statue of Hitler. You’re upset & want it torn down. Only for someone to say ‘how dare you? My ancestor was a nazi. This is my heritage’ Crazy right? Well, this is a reality for black people every day in America...

SCIENCE! in History-ree-ree-ree...

As I briefly mentioned earlier, I spent most of the weekend of the 4th camping with family on a lake. Now, camping with a bunch of dogs, children and no running water will definitely give a personal appreciation of the little things after a while. Little things like hand washing and antiseptics. (After watching my oldest nephew drag up a long-dead fish to camp and all the other kids played with it for a bit, never after appearing to wash their hands, I was ready for a bleach bath.)

So today I have decided on a tale that involves history, science, health, and (since it was just July 4th) the assassination of a US President.

* https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3468637/

* http://broughttolife.sciencemuseum.org.uk/broughttolife/people/josephlister

* https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/James_A._Garfield

* https://www.pbs.org/newshour/health/dirty-painful-death-president-james-garfield

To start off our story, let me introduce you to the Right Honourable Lord Joseph Lister, British surgeon, scientist, and lifelong fan of serious mutton-chops.

Born in Essex 1827, he was a brilliant and fastidious man. He was also drawn to medicine, surgery in particular, from an early age. Luckily for him, he had been born a white man, so that is what he did. In fact, he had quite an impressive career pretty much from the beginning. In 1846, he was present for the first surgery performed under anesthesia at 19. By the time he was 25, he had become a fellow at the Royal College of Surgeons in London.

His bright career trajectory (and surely his magnificent chops) led him to be suggested for employment to James Syme, Professor of Clinical Surgery in Edinburgh. The men hit it off so well that Lister quickly moved up the ranks from assistant to house surgeon to marrying Syme’s eldest daughter, Agnes. (Not to disparage the marriage; apparently they were very close and loving. She was bright and learned in her own right and he was happy to have her join him in his work as a lifelong lab partner… since being a woman that was the best she could hope for.)

By 1860 Lister had moved to Glasgow and had begun reading about Pasteur’s work on microorganisms. Now the idea of bacteria or at least teeny-tiny things that affected things in the real world like fermenting beer or causing food to rot was pretty much established in the scientific community by this time. Lister, however, took this idea to a new level. (Apparently it was acceptable at the time for microbes to affect inanimate objects,

Welcome to Interesting If True, the podcast where I make at least two men shut up and let me tell them a story.

I'm your host this week, Jenn, and with me are (introduce each host and their blurb)

I'm Shea, and this week I learned that barn owls were super excited when humans finally invented barns.

I'm Aaron, and this week I learned that most of us are constantly surrounded by ancient giants… but no one cares because trees are boring.

A Most Decided Humbug

* https://www.history.com/news/the-cardiff-giant-fools-the-nation-145-years-ago

* https://www.smithsonianmag.com/smart-news/cardiff-giant-was-just-big-hoax-180965274/

* https://www.atlasobscura.com/places/cardiff-giant

* https://www.livescience.com/55787-cardiff-giant.html

It’s time for another installment in WEIRD HISTORY...EEE...EEE...eee…

Setting: Random farmstead in late 1860’s upper New York state. Gideon Emmons and Henry Nichols are laborers, digging a well for the farm owner, William ‘Stub’ Newell. It’s October, 1869, and the workers are a bit confused about the well digging, because they actually had dug Stub a well a few years before that was still working as a well should, with water and stuff.

Stub directs the men to dig a fair piece away from the farm, near a tree, which makes digging a bit more difficult. Stub was not to be naysayed (“if there’re roots there, there’s water there”)and the men get work, with the invitation to ‘help themselves to some water from the other well’ if they wished.

It didn’t take very long before they hit a snag, and it wasn’t a root. About 3 feet down they uncover a huge stone foot, attached to a very big stone man. “I declare,” one of the men supposedly said.

“Some old Indian has been buried here!”

In fact it was a 10ft tall giant, made of stone, lying in a weirdly contorted manner, but with a serene expression on his big ole face.

Despite looking like a first-timer’s practice sculpture, people were very bored in those days and word traveled quickly. After it was fully excavated people began to flock to the farm for a view. From history.com, the Syracuse Journal later wrote:

“Men left their work, women caught up their babies, and children in numbers, all hurried to the scene where the interest of that little community centered.”

Since Cardiff was already known for its fossil deposits, many surmised that the body was an ancient man that had been petrified by the waters of a nearby swamp. While early examinations appeared to confirm this theory, a Syracuse-based science lecturer later declared the giant was not a man, but rather a statue possibly carved by French Jesuits centuries earlier. As the speculation mounted, Stub Newell played the part of the humble farmer with aplomb. He even vowed to re-bury the giant and forget about it until his neighbors “convinced” him that the discovery might have some historical value.”

Yes, Stub made a spectacle of being reticent about housing the giant, but he pretty quickly had a big tent set up over the hole and began charging $0.25 per view.

In addition to thinking he may be a fossilized person, Biblical literalists were thrilled with the idea of real giants, proving that the verse in Genesis that references giants is real and true and good. (The verse that states “there were giants in the earth in those days.”)

With the numbers of thrill-seekers growing and the p...

Welcome to Interesting If True, the podcast that's interesting, if not always accurate, where I’m FINALLY available to take a turn telling tantalizing tales and I promise not to lie to you, unlike the others who would if they thought it’s funny…

I'm your host this week, Big Gay Jim, and with me are (introduce each host and their blurb)

I'm Steve and I'm good enough, I'm smart enough and gosh darn it, people … well, don’t really like me that much, but I’m fine with that.

I'm Aaron, and this week I learned that forging your birth certificate is a great way to look and feel 10 years younger… on paper.

I'm Jim, and this week I’m reminded of something I learned long ago: gay pride was not born of a need to celebrate being gay, but our right to exist without persecution. Instead of wondering why there isn’t a straight pride month or movement, be thankful you don’t need one.

June (and Pride) is Busting Out All Over

* https://www.advocate.com/news/2020/6/15/gay-and-trans-people-who-took-their-cases-supreme-court

* https://www.advocate.com/transgender/2019/10/01/aimee-stephens-fired-being-trans-decided-live-and-fight-back

* http://supremecourt.gov/opinions/19pdf/17-1618_hfci.pdf

 

In honor of Pride Month, I’d like to tell you a very recent tantalizing tale and `introduce you to three people I’ve never met.

Gerald Bostock was a child welfare services coordinator assigned to the Juvenile Court of Clayton County, Ga. He had worked there for a decade, where he directed an award-winning program that assigned volunteer advocates to neglected and abused children in the juvenile justice system. He had received good performance reviews. Gerald was also gay. He hadn’t been closeted at work, but in January 2013 he joined the Hotlanta Softball League, a gay-focused league in the Atlanta area. In June of that year, he was fired for “conduct unbecoming” a county official; the county said he had mismanaged funds, which he says is totally untrue.

Next, meet Aimee Stephens. She had worked six years as a funeral director for R.G. & G.R. Harris Funeral Homes in suburban Detroit. But she was struggling with the feeling she was living two lives: one as a man at work, one as a woman at home, and in other venues outside her workplace. It had become so stressful for Stephens that In November 2012, she was standing in her backyard pointing a gun at her chest. But she chose life and decided to come out to her employer. She was fired two weeks after handing her coming-out letter to her supervisor. They justified their actions saying that allowing Stephens to present as female at work would violate the corporate dress code and the owner’s belief that gender is God-given, fixed at birth, and immutable.

Next is Donald Zarda. He was a skydiving instructor for Altitude Express, a skydiving company in New York until he was dismissed in 2010, just days after telling a client he was gay. The company claimed he was fired for inappropriately touching a female client, not for being gay.

What do these three people have in common? They decided to fight back, and just made history, but I’ll let Supreme Court Justice Neil Gorsuch tell you more. You see, most everything we’re about to discuss comes directly from this week’s SCOTUS decision.

172 pages in the decision

* 37 pages of the majority opinion – 6-3 decision written by GORSUCH! (Trump appointee),