Strange Country

Project Acoustic Kitty is not the name of a 1990s band, but a CIA surveillance program involving cats as spies. . . until CIA researchers realized that they were working with cats and cats never do what humans want. Strange Country co-hosts Beth and Kelly talk about this failed experiment and wonder if hermit crabs would have been the better choice. And if you feel your pet is watching you...it is. For the C.I.A.

Theme music: Resting Place by A Cast of Thousands

Cite your sources!

Bruel, Nick. Bad Kitty Takes the Test. Square Fish, an Imprint of Macmillian Publishing Group, LLC, 2018.

Eschner, Kat. "The CIA Experimented On Animals in the 1960s Too. Just Ask 'Acoustic Kitty'." Smithsonian.com, Smithsonian Institution, 8 Aug. 2017, www.smithsonianmag.com/smart-news/cia-experimented-animals-1960s-too-just-ask-acoustic-kitty-180964313/.

King, Bart. The Big Book of Spy Stuff. G. Smith, 2011.

LaFrance, Adrienne. "That Time the CIA Bugged a Cat to Spy on the Soviets." The Atlantic, 24 June 2015, www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/2015/06/acoustic-kitty-technological-history-of-american-espionage/396728/.

Scoccia, Tom. "Tinker, Tailor, Soldier. . . Illusionist?" Boston Globe, 1 Nov. 2009, archive.boston.com/bostonglobe/ideas/articles/2009/11/01/when_the_cia_tried_its_hand_at_magic/.

Soniak, Matt. "The CIA Plan to Use Cats as Spies (and the Taxi That Ruined It)." Mental Floss, 21 May 2011, mentalfloss.com/article/27790/cia-plan-use-cats-spies-and-taxi-ruined-it.

Vanderbilt, Tom. "The CIA's Most Highly-Trained Spies Weren't Even Human." Smithsonian.com, Smithsonian Institution, 1 Oct. 2013, www.smithsonianmag.com/history/the-cias-most-highly-trained-spies-werent-even-human-20149/.

Wallace, Robert, et al. Spycraft: The Secret History of the CIA's Spytechs, From Communism to Al-Qaeda. Bantam, 2010.

Waxman, Olivia B. "That Time the CIA Tried to Train Cats to Be Spies." Time, 26 July 2017, time.com/4868642/cia-anniversary-national-security-act-cats/.

Strange Country digs deep into the muck and mire and humbuggery that was the Cardiff Giant. Co-hosts Beth and Kelly discuss how people were hoodwinked by the 10-foot tall petrified naked dude and perhaps why people like to be fooled. And did we mention the statue was naked?

Theme music: Resting Place by A Cast of Thousands

Cite Your Sources:

Andrews, Evan. The Cardiff Giant Fools the Nation 145 Years Ago. History.com, October 16, 2014.

Bhattacharjee, Yudhijit. Why We Lie. National Geographic, March 2017.

Gypsum- Wikipedia!!!

Luther, Roger. Treasures in the Tier, Giants in the Industry. http://nyslandmarks.com/treasures/12jul.htm, accessed April 2018.

In September 1906, the Bronx Zoo unveiled its latest exhibit--a Congolese man named Ota Benga. His cage was right next to the orangutans in the monkey house. This was the brain child of the "civilized" people who proclaimed to be great masters of science, but in reality showed the darkest sides of themselves. Listen to Strange Country Episode 37 as it explores this sad, sordid tale.

Cite your sources (it makes you look smart):

"African Pygmy's Fate Is Still Undecided." The New York Times, 18 Sept. 1906, pp. 9–9, www.nytimes.com/1906/09/18/archives/african-pygmys-fate-is-still-undecided-director-hornaday-of-the.html.

"Bushman Shares a Cage with Bronx Park Apes: Some Laugh Over His Antics, but Many Are Not Pleased. ." The New York Times, 9 Sept. 1906, pp. 17–17, timesmachine.nytimes.com/timesmachine/1906/09/09/101796670.html?action=click&contentCollection=Archives&module=ArticleEndCTA®ion=ArchiveBody&pgtype=article&pageNumber=17.

"The Hidden Holocaust." The Guardian, 12 May 1999, www.theguardian.com/theguardian/1999/may/13/features11.g22.

Keller, Mitch. "The Scandal at the Zoo." The New York Times, 6 Aug. 2006, www.nytimes.com/2006/08/06/nyregion/thecity/06zoo.html.

"King Leopold II of Belgium Takes the Congo | History Channel on Foxtel." History Channel, 9 June 2017, www.historychannel.com.au/articles/king-leopold-ii-of-belgium-takes-the-congo/.

"Man and Monkey Show Disapproved by Clergy." The New York Times, 10 Sept. 1906, pp. 1–2, www.nytimes.com/1906/09/10/archives/man-and-monkey-show-disapproved-by-clergy-the-rev-dr-macarthur.html.

Newkirk, Pamela. "The Man Who Was Caged in Zoo." The Guardian, 3 June 2015, www.theguardian.com/world/2015/jun/03/the-man-who-was-caged-in-a-zoo.

Newkirk, Pamela. Spectacle: the Astonishing Life of Ota Benga. Amistad, an Imprint of HarperCollinsPublishers, 2016.

"Ota Benga, Pygmy, Tired of America." The New York Times, 16 July 1916, p. 12, www.nytimes.com/1916/07/16/archives/ota-benga-pygmy-tired-of-america-the-strange-little-african-finally.html.

Parkinson, Justin. "The Significance of Sarah Baartman." BBC News, 7 Jan. 2016, www.bbc.com/news/magazine-35240987.

"Send Him Back to the Woods." The New York Times, 11 Sept. 1906, www.nytimes.com/1906/09/11/archives/topics-of-the-times.html.

Is Morgellons disease real or is it one of those women diseases caused by our wandering uteri? Strange Country co-hosts Beth and Kelly look into this alleged condition and the many ways women are dismissed by the medical community.

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Cite Your Sources:

"Borrelia Burgdorferi." Bay Area Lyme Foundation, www.bayarealyme.org/about-lyme/what-causes-lyme-disease/borrelia-burgdorferi/.

Brown, Frederick M. "The Bizarre Backstory of Joni Mitchell's Chronic Illness." The Cut, 3 Apr. 2015, www.thecut.com/2015/04/joni-mitchells-bizarre-medical-mystery.html.

Cara, Ed. "Morgellons Skin Disease Isn't Real Doctors Say, But Its Sufferers Haven't Gone Away." Newsweek, 4 Aug. 2016, www.newsweek.com/2016/08/12/morgellons-skin-disease-485638.html.

Dusenbery, Maya. Doing Harm: the Truth about How Bad Medicine and Lazy Science Leave Women Dismissed, Misdiagnosed, and Sick. HarperOne, 2018.

Engelhardt, Katie. NBCNews.com, NBCUniversal News Group, www.nbcnews.com/leftfield/video/does-lyme-disease-cause-morgellons-1097342531585.

Harlan, Chico. "Mom Fights for Answers on What's Wrong with Her Son." Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, 23 July 2006, www.post-gazette.com/local/2006/07/23/Mom-fights-for-answers-on-what-s-wrong-with-her-son/stories/200607230221.

"History of Lyme Disease." Bay Area Lyme Foundation, www.bayarealyme.org/about-lyme/history-lyme-disease/.

Levy, Sara Gaynes. "Another Reason We Need More Female Doctors: Their Patients Live Longer." Glamour, 20 Dec. 2016, www.glamour.com/story/study-finds-patients-with-female-doctors-live-longer.

McFadden, Cynthia. "Nightline." Morgellons' Mystery, ABC, 16 Jan. 2008, www.youtube.com/watch?v=pOjgOJ6csPU.

"Morgellons Disease: Managing a Mysterious Skin Condition." Mayo Clinic, Mayo Foundation for Medical Education and Research, 1 Apr. 2015, www.mayoclinic.org/morgellons-disease/art-20044996.

"The Morgellons Mystery." Psychology Today, Sussex Publishers, 9 June 2016, www.psychologytoday.com/us/articles/200703/the-morgellons-mystery.

Nedelman, Michael. "For Decades, Women Had Heart Attacks in Silence." CNN, 14 Feb. 2017, www.cnn.com/2017/02/10/health/women-heart-attack-research/index.html.

Nelson, Jeff. "Joni Mitchell Says Battle with Rare Morgellons Disease Makes Her Feel Like She's Being 'Eaten Alive'." People, 12 Oct. 2017, people.com/music/joni-mitchell-morgellons-syndrome-mysterious-disease-eaten-alive/.

Schopen, Fay. " The Healthcare Gender Bias: Do Men Get Better Medical Treatment?" The Guardian, 20 Nov. 2017, www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/2017/nov/20/healthcare-gender-bias-women-pain.

Storr, Will. "Morgellons: A Hidden Epidemic or Mass Hysteria?" The Guardian, 6 May 2011, www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/2011/may/07/morgellons-mysterious-illness.

Thorpe, JR. "Women Who Defied Gender Roles Were Once Imprisoned In Asylums." Bustle, Bustle, 20 Mar. 2018, www.bustle.com/p/women-who-defied-gender-roles-were-once-imprisoned-in-asylums-55320

What Is Morgellons? | The CEHF, www.thecehf.org/what-is-morgellons.html.

Women's Health Research: Problems, Pitfalls, and Promise. Institute Of Medicine, 2010, www.nap.edu/resource/12908/Womens-Health-Research-2010-Report-Brief.pdf.

Breakout your switchblades and grab a fire extinguisher, it's time for ghost stories from Wells College. Strange Country co-hosts Beth and Kelly share some creepy tales from the once all-women's college in picturesque Aurora, NY, compiled by Wells College librarians no less!

Radium was beautiful to Marie Curie even though it killed her, and radium made the teens and young women employed at United States Radium Corp. shine in the night. They put their radium coated paintbrushes in their mouths like they'd been trained, and ingested the deadly substance. Strange Country Co-hosts Beth and Kelly talk about the ramifications, the workers' struggle and their plans to open a different type of food truck in ep. 34.

Theme music: Resting Place by A Cast of Thousands

Cite Your Sources:

"All Radium Plants in Federal Inquiry." The New York Times, 21 June 1925, pp. 18–18, www.nytimes.com/1925/06/21/archives/all-radium-plants-in-federal-inquiry-labor-department-starts-search.html.

"Begin Wide Inquiry into Radium Deaths." The New York Times, 20 June 1925, timesmachine.nytimes.com/timesmachine/1925/06/20/101669830.html?pageNumber=1.

Blum, Deborah. "The Radium Girls." Wired, Conde Nast, 3 June 2017, www.wired.com/2011/03/the-radium-girls/.

The Case of the Living Dead Women - The Radium Dial Case in the newspapers - The Case of the Living Dead Women - The Radium Dial Case in the newspapers, www.lgrossman.com/pics/radium/index.html.

Fergusson, Maggie. "The Radium Girls - still glowing in their coffins." The Spectator, 8 May 2017, www.spectator.co.uk/2016/06/the-radium-girls-still-glowing-in-their-coffins/.

Hersher, Rebecca. "Mae Keane, One Of The Last 'Radium Girls,' Dies At 107." NPR, NPR, 28 Dec. 2014, www.npr.org/2014/12/28/373510029/saved-by-a-bad-taste-one-of-the-last-radium-girls-dies-at-107.

Kang, Lydia, and Nate Pedersen. Quackery: a brief history of the worst ways to cure everything. Workman Publishing, 2017.

Moore, Kate. The radium girls: the dark story of Americas shining women. Sourcebooks, 2017.

"The Radium Girls." Medical Bag, 15 June 2016, www.medicalbag.com/profile-in-rare-diseases/the-radium-girls/article/472385/.

"They paid with their lives." THE GIRLS - theradiumgirls, www.theradiumgirls.com/the-girls/4593781028.

Zhang, Sarah. "A Century Later, the Factory that Poisoned the 'Radium Girls' Still a Superfund Site." The Atlantic, 15 Mar. 2017, www.theatlantic.com/notes/2017/03/radium-superfund-legacy/519408/.

Zhang, Sarah. "The Girls With Radioactive Bones." The Atlantic, 1 Mar. 2017, www.theatlantic.com/science/archive/2017/03/radium-girls-kate-moore/515685/.

Victoria Woodhull is probably best known as the first woman to run for president, but her life encompassed so much more at a time when ladies were told to do less. Strange Country co-hosts Beth and Kelly explore this unusual life as well as their shoddy memory, tonsil gas-lighting, and the swinger lifestyle.

Do you ever wish you could find the perfect rule book to guide your behavior as a young lady that happened to be in perfect alphabetical order? Well look no further than Charles Varle exceedingly long titled book mentioned in the podcast because it's way too long to type here. Strange Country co-hosts Beth and Kelly go through this list although many of the rules involve not talking so get ready for some awkward silences and weird stuff about holes.

Theme music: Resting Place by A Cast of Thousands

Sources cited:

Boydston, Jeanne. "Cult of True Womanhood." PBS, Public Broadcasting Service, www.pbs.org/stantonanthony/resources/index.html?body=culthood.html. Accessed 28 Aug. 2017.

"Charles Varlé plan of Philadelphia (1796) - Rare & Antique Maps." Boston Rare Maps, bostonraremaps.com/inventory/charles-varle-philadelphia-1796/. Accessed 19 Aug. 2017.

"Philadelphia, Varle, Charles P. 1802." Philadelphia. / Varle, Charles P. / 1802, www.davidrumsey.com/maps5482.html. Accessed 19 Aug. 2017.

Varle, Charles. Moral Encyclopaedia Or Varle's Self Instructor No. 3. New York, NY, M'Elrath & Bangs, 1831, books.google.com/books?id=-fMTAAAAIAAJ&pg=PP10&lpg=PP10&dq=charles varle&source=bl&ots=EiqOxeJ80F&sig=5DAE9eXOPCc4sfz4YMifEuq6zDA&hl=en&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwjavOHA6ePVAhVq4YMKHXV5AFs4ChDoAQg_MAc#v=onepage&q=charles%20varle&f=false. Accessed 25 Aug. 2017.

Weeks, Linton. "18 Rules Of Behavior For Young Ladies In 1831." NPR, NPR, 20 Nov. 2015, www.npr.org/sections/npr-history-dept/2015/11/20/456224571/18-rules-of-behavior-for-young-ladies-in-1831. Accessed 28 Aug. 2017.

You likely can easily name the assassin of Abraham Lincoln, but what about the guy who killed John Wilkes Booth? Strange Country Ep. 31 focuses on the strange, mercury-filled life of Boston Corbett, the hatter, who fired that fatal shot. Much credit to Scott Martelle's fascinating book, Madman and the Assassin.

Theme music: Resting Place by A Cast of Thousands

Cite your sources:

"Boston Corbett Hopelessly Insane." The New York Times, 6 Oct. 1887, www.nytimes.com/1887/10/06/archives/boston-corbett-hopelessly-insane.html.

"Boston Corbett – The Mad Hatter who Killed John Wilkes Booth." New England Historical Society, 2 Sept. 2016, www.newenglandhistoricalsociety.com/boston-corbett-mad-hatter-killed-john-wilkes-booth/.

Corbett, Boston. "The Manner of Booth's Death Letter from Boston Corbett." The New York Times, 15 May 1865, www.nytimes.com/1865/05/15/archives/the-manner-of-booths-death-letter-from-boston-corbett.html.

Furgurson, Ernest B. "The Man Who Shot the Man Who Shot Lincoln." The American Scholar, 30 Jan. 2018, theamericanscholar.org/the-man-who-shot-the-man-who-shot-lincoln/#.WonLExPwZAZ.\

Greenspan, Jesse. "The Other Targets of Booth's Murder Conspiracy." History.com, A&E Television Networks, 15 Apr. 2015, www.history.com/news/the-other-targets-of-booths-murder-conspiracy.

Halvorsen, Richard. Dr Richard Halvorsen, www.drhalvorsen.co.uk/mad_hatter_mercury.html.

"He Killed Lincoln's Killer, Then Lived In A Hole, Concordia, Kansas." RoadsideAmerica.com, www.roadsideamerica.com/story/16178.

History.com Staff. "Abraham Lincoln's Assassination." History.com, A&E Television Networks, 2009, www.history.com/topics/abraham-lincoln-assassination.

History.com Staff. "Andersonville." History.com, A&E Television Networks, 2009, www.history.com/topics/american-civil-war/andersonville.

Jensen, Bill. "The Insane Story of the Guy Who Killed the Guy Who Killed Lincoln." Washingtonian, 21 Oct. 2016, www.washingtonian.com/2015/04/12/the-man-who-killed-john-wilkes-booth/.

Kang, Lydia, and Nate Pedersen. Quackery: a brief history of the worst ways to cure everything. Workman Publishing, 2017.

Mae, Janice Rachael Dr. "Mad Hatter Disease." HealthGuidance.org, www.healthguidance.org/entry/17695/1/Mad-Hatter-Disease.html.

Martelle, Scott. Madman and the assassin: the strange life of boston corbett, the man who killed john wilkes ... booth. Chicago Review, 2017.

Swanson, James L. "The Final Hours of John Wilkes Booth." Smithsonian.com, Smithsonian Institution, 8 Apr. 2015, www.smithsonianmag.com/history/final-hours-john-wilkes-booth-180954853/.

Wadja, Shirley. "Ending the Danbury Shakes: A Story of Workers Rights and Corporate Responsibility." ConnecticutHistoryorg, connecticuthistory.org/ending-the-danbury-shakes-a-story-of-workers-rights-and-corporate-responsibility/.

Centralia, Pa., a small mining town, caught on fire in 1962 and that fire smolders underground today and will continue to rage after we've left the Earth. Strange Country co-hosts Beth and Kelly talk about family, mining, a sense of place and government indifference in episode 30.

Theme music: Resting Place by A Cast of Thousands

Sources used:

http://files.dep.state.pa.us/Mining/Abandoned%20Mine%20Reclamation/AbandonedMinePortalFiles/Centralia/CentraliaFrequentlyAskedQuestions.pdf

http://www.thedaytheearthcavedin.com/index.html

https://www.amazon.com/Day-Earth-Caved-American-Tragedy/dp/0812971302

http://www.centraliapa.org/official-trailer-centralia-pennsylvanias-lost-town/

http://www.poconorecord.com/article/20141007/NEWS/141009663

http://www.centraliapa.org/video-news-report-centralia-pa-1983/

http://www.psupress.org/books/titles/978-0-271-03681-6.html

http://www.nytimes.com/1981/03/28/us/pennsylvania-town-lives-with-fire-that-won-t-stop.html?pagewanted=all

https://www.iup.edu/archives/coal/people-lives-stories/a-woman-s-day--work-and-anxiety/

http://www.cracked.com/personal-experiences-2537-i-live-in-centralia-pa-its-americas-creepiest-ghost-town.html

https://www.smithsonianmag.com/smart-news/story-real-canary-coal-mine-180961570/