Uncomfortable Conversations with Josh Szeps

Anthony Bourdain was Josh's hero. Laurie Woolever was, as Bourdain called her, his "lieutenant".

A writer and culinary graduate, Laurie had worked for another gigantic cooking celebrity, Mario Batali, before he was brought down for alleged sexual harrassment.

She spent almost ten years as Bourdain's right-hand-gal. The two of them wrote two books together, one of which they were halfway through when Bourdain died by suicide in 2018. Laurie posthumously published "Bourdain: The Definitive Oral Biography".

Josh asks Laurie about her life with Bourdain, his struggles, her addiction, his death, and whether his romanticism and hedonism brought him down. Laurie's new memoir is called "Care and Feeding".

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Do males and females differ in what we want out of life? In what jobs we want to do? In how much we want to look after babies, or run a tech start-up, or sweep the living room, or be a CEO? Or are biological preferences just an excuse to justify inequality?

Cordelia Fine is a feminist academic who studies scientific explanations of sex differences and workplace inequality. Her books on gender have won prizes at the Royal Society, been recommended by the Sunday Times, and cited as among the Top Ten books on women of the past thirty years.

Professor Fine has a psychology degree from Oxford, a Master of Philosophy from Cambridge, and a PhD in Psychology from University College London. She's now a professor of the History & Philosophy of Science at Melbourne University. Her latest book is "Patriarchy, Inc."

Josh and Cordelia debate biology, culture, sexism, masculinity, transgenderism, the patriarchy, and what gender equality should look like in the 21st century.

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If you want to see what's wrong with not being offensive, watch Snow White.

The new Disney re-make is so committed to not offending anyone that it’s a social-justice jumble. Snow White isn’t white as snow; her love interest isn’t a prince; the dwarves aren’t “dwarves”; but there IS a dwarf in a non-dwarf role; Snow White doesn’t need a man; the man doesn’t “stalk” her; she’s a bad-ass independent gal; the word “dwarf” isn’t mentioned. It’s a mess.

As Australian politicians introduce sweeping hate-speech laws, Josh argues that Snow White gives us a glimpse of the dystopian cultural wasteland that awaits us if we try never to offend.

Hey, it may be a long bow. But Szeps is committed to drawing it. Enjoy.

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Even if you're not Australian, you want to listen to this conversation with one of the nation's most iconic statesmen.

Bob Carr is a former foreign minister of Australia (i.e. the secretary of state) and, before that, the longest-continuously-serving Premier of NSW, Australia's most populous state. He's an intellectual powerhouse, an icolonoclast, a champion debater, a student of American history, of geopolitics and of diplomacy.

For the first portion of this conversation, he and Josh discuss Australian issues - nuclear submarines, his tenure as state leader. But the second half is a delightful rumination on power, Trump, the liberal world order, China, success, legacy, and grief.

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What are Trump and Putin cooking up for Ukraine? Can the Europeans sideline it? What options does Ukraine still have on the table? And does any of this really matter to non-Europeans any more?

This week, the ceasefire talks that President Trump boasted he'd wrap up in 24 hours fell apart, again. Russia says it wants an end to the war, if Ukraine effectively surrenders. Trump now admits Putin might be "dragging his feet".

Misha Zelinsky lived in Ukraine for the first year of the war, reporting from the conflict. A Fulbright Scholar and national security expert, he has the honour of being personally sanctioned by the Putin regime.

Misha and Josh assess where the conflict currently stands, what Ukraine's options are now, and whether it still matters to the rest of us.

His recent book is "The Sun Will Rise", a fictional story inspired by his time in Ukraine.

In this conversation, we reference:

• Josh's conversation with the former President of Estonia, Toomas Hendrik Ilves, here.
• Josh's conversation with Wall Street Journal reporter Marcus Walker on Ukraine here.

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Angus Taylor is the Shadow Treasurer of Australia and a key figure of the Opposition, the centre-right Liberal Party.

A former cabinet minister, businessman and Rhodes scholar, he's often discussed as a future prime minister. Opinion polls put his party's return to power in the May election as a 50/50 bet.

Josh sat down with the Shadow Treasurer to discuss innovation, productivity, nuclear power, and how annoying it is to do your taxes.

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How should moderate, secular Jews feel about Israel? How brutalising must Israel’s Gaza policy be before more Jews denounce it? Is Israel a well-intentioned country hijacked by right-wing leaders from its true purpose of peace? Or is it intrinsically committed to destroying Palestinians? Was a Jewish ethno-state a mistake from the start? Or is Israel an island of democracy in a sea of Islamist dysfunction?

 

No group debates these questions more vehemently than Jews themselves. After the October 7th Hamas attack, one book in particular shot up the bestseller list in the West. "The Palestine Laboratory" detailed how the technologies which Israel developed to control Palestinian populations have been exported for ugly purposes to regimes all the world. The book won Australia's most prestigious journalism award, a Walkley.

 

Its author, Antony Lowenstein, is an anti-Zionist Jew. He lived in East Jerusalem from 2016 to 2020 and has been published in The Guardian, The New York Review of Books, and The New York Times.

 

Josh felt it's time to invite Antony back for another argument, as Jews are wont to have, about the state of the Jewish state.

 

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John McWhorter is arguably the world’s most famous linguist. A professor at Columbia University and a columnist for the New York Times, he alternately enrages the right and the left as an anti-Trump, anti-woke, Black academic.

John and Josh sat down in Sydney to discuss gay slang, the Trumpist right, Black provocateurs and “serving c***t”.

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When Trump floated the idea of the U.S. acquiring Greenland, some called it a random brain fart. But there is a real conversation among security experts about control of the Arctic in the 21st century. As climate change opens up new avenues for shipping, spying, mining, submarining and warfare, the far North Atlantic matters more and more.

Sherri Goodman was the Pentagon's chief environmental officer in the Clinton Administration. Her specific expertise is in the polar regions, Russian nuclear subs, climate chaos, and Arctic security. She's a Senior Fellow with the Polar Institute and the Environmental Change and Security Program with the Woodrow Wilson International Center, and her latest book is "Threat Multiplier: Climate, Military Leadership and the Fight for Global Security".

Josh picks her brain about the threats and opportunities of climate change… and why Greenland does, in fact, matter.

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Last week, Arab leaders gathered in Egypt for a Palestine Summit. The 22-nation Arab League emerged with a re-energised Arab Peace Initiative to solve the Israel-Palestinian Conflict once and for all. Australia's largest and most trusted news organisation, the ABC, covered the event in an article entitled "This Plan Would End the Israel-Palestinian Conflict, But Israel Doesn't Like It". Josh has thoughts.

This is a recording of an episode of Szeps Live, a weekly Substack Video Livestream. Most episodes will not be released in this feed. To watch or listen to Szeps Live (either live or delayed), subscribe for free to our Substack mailing list here.

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