Politicians get a bad rap, don’t they? Every mutterance and every action falls under intense scrutiny from the press and the public eye. If they make one wrong move, we’ll know about it–and keep talking about it for ages too.
Maybe that’s why politicians go to such great lengths to win the people over. Like when Governor Carey of New York volunteered to drink a glass of PCBs (Polychlorinated biphenyls - highly carcinogenic chemical compounds). This bold (and stupid) offer to ingest poison was his attempt at demonstrating that a state office building in Binghamton was safe after a transformer fire had filled the building with ultra-toxic man-made chemicals. Carey was all talk though–he didn’t actually drink the stuff, and the building remained closed for more than 13 years (America’s first indoor environmental disaster!). We’ll call that a failed demonstration of safety.
Another politician who was willing to ingest poison to quell public fears was President Obama. While visiting Flint, Michigan in response to the city's water crisis (the old lead-lined pipes were causing a few, shall we say, health and safety issues). After his speech, Obama had a coughing fit and asked for a glass of water. Lead-tainted Flint water that is. (Don’t worry, lead isn’t great, but for an adult at that scale, there’s not too much to worry about).
It seems that drinking a cup of toxic liquid is the go-to political move. Punjab State Chief Minister, Bhagwant Mann, downed a glass of polluted water from a holy river in 2022 on the heels of a campaign to clean water bodies. He was hospitalised for 2 days. Then there’s Colorado Governor John Hickenlooper who allegedly drank fracking fluid in a ritual-like manner around a table. Bit culty.
We all remember the mad cow disease scare in the 1990s. Although horrible for the cows and the farmers, being a cow disease, it was of no real concern to human health. But in May 1990, the same conditions showed up in a cat. It had crossed the species barrier and people were panicked. After an unsuccessful press release to assure the public of safety, British Minister of Agriculture, John Gummer, decided to take it one step further. He showcased the safety of British beef by publicly feeding his 4-year-old daughter a burger during a county show. (Don’t worry, everyone was fine).
But one little glass of toxic water or nibble of a burger isn’t the same as exposure to poison and disease day in and day out. That’s just a little stunt to conjure up some public confidence. To effectively demonstrate safety, you need to go all out. Really put your body on the line.
Like 42-year-old Thomas McIntyre who in 1931 decided to chew on a torpedo (a small firework type thing) to prove to a friend that it was a safe toy for his son. While McIntyre was fully committed to this demonstration of safety, it didn’t quite go as planned. He died at a hospital later that day of injuries received when the torpedo exploded and tore away part of his face. So… not a safe toy to play with?
Some demonstrations work in reverse. Like proving that you should never put fireworks in your mouth. Or never test the safety of a gun's catch mechanism on your head like Philadelphia engineer, Edward S Morrell (RIP).
Other demonstrations do a lot more public harm than good. In 1991, a cholera epidemic broke out in South America, particularly in Peru, and the fishing industry was worried that people weren’t buying fish to eat their delicious ceviche. President Alberto K. Fujimori decided to take matters into his own hands and went on television eating ceviche along with his wife and his ministers of fisheries and agriculture.
At least one minister got sick after the dinner, spending a week in a military hospital. But much more concerningly, within days of the televised ceviche consumption, hospital admissions for cholera soared. Eventually, 119,000 people were hospitalised and 2906 died. Raw fish wasn’t a great idea Mr President.
While you could argue that demonstrations like these showcase leadership and a willingness to share risks with the public, they could also just be downright reckless and stupid.
SOURCES:
• Communications and Politics, in The Public Health Crisis Survival Guide: Leadership and Management in Trying Times by Joshua M Sharfstein
• Ex-N.Y. Gov. Hugh Carey dies at 92, Politico
• Food Irradiation by the CDC
• Trove
• The cholera epidemic in Latin America, Tidsskr Nor Laegeforen
• What became of Cordelia Gummer, the Mad Cow girl?, Daily Express
• Vets dismiss fears of 'mad cat' disease, New Scientist
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[00:00:00] Will: Killed by biting torpedo.
[00:00:01] Rod: Who gets the opportunity?
[00:00:02] Will: I know, right?!
[00:00:04] Rod: As a sailor. All right, come on seaman! I want you all to stand around the edge of this knob and bite it.
[00:00:10] Will: Thomas McIntyre, 1931. 42 years old. Placed a torpedo, small firework type thing. Placed a torpedo in his mouth last night and chewed on it to prove to a friend that it was a safe toy for the latter's son.
[00:00:23] Mr. McIntyre died at hospital today of injuries received when the torpedo exploded and tore away part of his face. As a result Jacob Wrenchler, 35 a shopkeeper, was arrested with his wife Jeanette charged with unlawful sale of fireworks. I'm like no
[00:00:39] Rod: they Didn't say this was food Didn't say how do you use this? Put it in your fucking mouth and chew.
[00:00:43] Will: You can't be sued.
[00:00:46] Rod: How is that my fault? Cars, choking hazard, don't try to swallow, you don't blame the car manufacturer. No, wrongful arrest.
[00:01:02] Will: So she was four years old at the time, and dad was in a bit of trouble at work.
[00:01:06] Rod: This is a horrifying start, already horrifying.
[00:01:09] Will: Okay, this is in May 1990, was the British Minister of Agriculture. And I don't know if you know much about British agriculture in 1990.
[00:01:18] Rod: Look, I do, but I'm curious to see what you know.
[00:01:20] Will: Yeah, there was a bit, there was a bit of thing going on where the cows, they were mad about how they're being treated. And also about mad cow disease. The cows had been getting gradually madder over the 1980s, but no one really paid a lot of attention because they were like, okay, don't eat the mad ones. And eat the good ones.
[00:01:38] Rod: My family motto, don't eat the mad ones.
[00:01:40] Will: It's a good one. May, 1990 something happened. A cat got it and everyone had been thinking, oh, it's fine. It's just a cow thing. And then suddenly it crosses the species barrier.
[00:01:49] Rod: did it really, a cat? It was a cat.
[00:01:50] Will: It was a cat. And people like, oh, so it crossed the species barrier and mad cow disease, basically, it's not great. You know, they would lose muscle control. They get weird gait. They get changes in behavior, a lot of licking, a lot of weird, repetitive behaviors and then they died like a horrible, gross death
[00:02:08] Rod: slow, Discomfortable, gross, shaky.
[00:02:12] Will: And then autopsies show that their brain has turned to Swiss cheese.
[00:02:15] Rod: Fuck me. That's horrible.
[00:02:16] Will: So anyway, May, 1990 and a cat's got it and people are like, Oh fuck. Oh fuck.
[00:02:22] Rod: So they stopped eating cats in Britain from that point forward.
[00:02:24] Will: Yeah, they did. They did. Anyway, as minister of agriculture John Gummer is thinking okay. We've got to assure people that British beef is safe. Obviously that would be your priority
[00:02:35] Rod: not keeping people safe
[00:02:37] Will: or making British beef safe. But anyway, so they put out some press releases, they didn't work. People were still panicked.
[00:02:43] Rod: Did a press release not calm everyone's fears?
[00:02:45] Will: No. So John Gummer said, we have to put our bodies on the line. We have to step up and we have to
[00:02:53] Rod: throw ourselves between people and cows.
[00:02:55] Will: We do. We do. So John Gummer took his daughter Cordelia, she was four at the time, to a county show.
[00:03:03] Rod: What a strangely posh and un posh name. Cordelia?
[00:03:06] Will: You get the name that you get. I guess what it is John Gummer, he's a conservative party politician. He is looking for ways to climb up that class ladder, not go down the, anyway. John said, you know what? I'll buy some burgers, some beef burgers, made from British beef. Now, it's unclear whether journalists goaded him and said, you know what, Minister? You should eat the beef! Eat the beef!
[00:03:27] Rod: Eat your burger, you bastard!
[00:03:28] Will: Eat the beef! I don't know if they were goading him or he was like, I need to do this. He made a weird choice and he bought two burgers and gave one to his daughter
[00:03:38] Rod: he gave one to his daughter.
[00:03:39] Will: She had the excellent, very healthy skepticism that some four year olds have and should be preserved throughout the rest of her life. She took one hesitant nibble and then turned away disdainfully. Piss off daddy. Dad chomped it down. It's absolutely delicious, exclaims her dad taking a bite.
[00:03:58] Rod: Yeah, because mad cow disease doesn't have a flavor. No one's arguing that it would taste bad. We're saying in 20 years.
[00:04:07] Will: Yeah. Now just a, not a spoiler, but an update Cordelia is fine or as fine as anyone else who ate British beef in the 1980s or nineties, it still may come for us.
[00:04:20] Rod: How's Mr. Gummer?
[00:04:21] Will: He's fine too. But I did want to know, what is the reason, the history, the underpinning of people putting their bodies on the line to demonstrate that something is safe?
[00:04:40] Welcome to the Wholesome Show.
[00:04:42] Rod: The podcast that gobbles the whole burger for science. We are Burglar Gobblers for Science.
[00:04:47] Will: I'm will Grant.
[00:04:48] Rod: I'm Rod Gobble Lamberts.
[00:04:50] Will: So look, I just wanted to know, what's the history here of people putting their bodies on the line?
[00:04:55] Rod: I'm not going to lie, I bloody love this idea. I love it. Because people are fucking stupid. And when people get a belief in their noggins, I mean other people obviously because I'm completely sane, rational and an educated man. They will do the dumbest shit in the world. You'll do anything to prove that you're right. People would rather die being proven that they're right than live.
[00:05:14] Will: Oh, I got a couple of stories. I got a couple of stories about that.
[00:05:20] Rod: So what do you got? What do you got? What do you got? What have I done?
[00:05:23] Will: I'll give you categories first, there's people that have eaten things to show they're safe. There's people that have drunk things to show that they're safe. People that have gone places to show they're safe. Obviously this is the boring one. People have taken stuff into their arm to show that they're safe. And there's also a long history of product safety. And you know, some have gone well, some have gone not well.
[00:05:45] Rod: We're beer fans. Can you give me a drinking one?
[00:05:47] Will: A drinking one. Okay. Well, all right. I couldn't even find how far back I could go on this because I'll just to give you my method here. I did a search in a whole bunch of newspaper archives with the phrase to demonstrate it was safe.
[00:06:01] Rod: Oh good search
[00:06:01] Will: and we can find those all over the place. So, so I'll start with some innocuous drinking.
[00:06:06] Rod: What a great motto for like a sporting team or an institution. To demonstrate it was safe. You know, there's a great British house somewhere and that's their motto.
[00:06:15] Will: But I guarantee you, after and before the phrase to demonstrate it was safe in all of these.
[00:06:19] Rod: I ate my own cousin to demonstrate it was
[00:06:23] Will: no, okay. Okay. President Obama in 2016, so this is the end phase of his presidency and not that he's saying, okay, I can go out with a bang here, but there was a crisis in Flint, Michigan where they realized that the pipes that were bringing water into the houses in the town were lead lined and we're bringing lead into the people who were drinking the water.
[00:06:45] Rod: 2016 they went, hang on a minute, lead plumbing bad.
[00:06:50] Will: Well, it's underground.
[00:06:51] Rod: I think it was the romans.
[00:06:53] Will: I know, you know, and that's the thing. So they put the plumbing in obviously early 20th century or something like that. And they went, what materials have we got? Okay. We've got
[00:07:01] Rod: we'd ask dad, but his brain's fucked.
[00:07:04] Will: We've got arsenic, asbestos pipes. Could we do some, I don't know.
[00:07:08] Rod: Jesus fuck. 2016 lead. Okay, carry on.
[00:07:11] Will: Anyway, the problem at the time was that the lead was actually stable and I think there had been something that was making the lead less stable, a change in the water conditions or something like that.
[00:07:20] Rod: Weren't they the same place that had, they'd turn on the tap and some of it would burn?
[00:07:23] Will: Yeah, I don't know about that. I don't know. It's possible. It's possible. But it was, I think possibly something like that. Obama. And he came to say to the people in Flint, Michigan I am confident that Flint will come back.
[00:07:36] I will not rest. And I'm going to make sure that the leaders at every level of government don't rest until every drop of water that flows into your homes is safe to drink and safe to cook and safe to bathe in because it's a basic part of the responsibilities of government in the U. S. Fair enough.
[00:07:48] Rod: So that he proved just by bathing in it?
[00:07:49] Will: Well, he had a coughing fit and he's like, Oh, can someone pass me some water? And everyone's like, Oh, here's some water. It's some Flint, Michigan water. And it'd been filtered. And so he had a drink
[00:08:01] Rod: of filtered water. He's a brave man
[00:08:03] Will: here's the thing of a glass full of filtered water once, From a town.
[00:08:08] Rod: No, no American hero. That's why he got the medal of honor for stuff that is brave.
[00:08:13] Will: The governor at the time said he's pledging to drink Flint's water for 30 days. And here's the thing. It's like, okay there's two things going on. One, if you're an adult and you are not pregnant, lead is not a terrible problem. It's not great. It's not great. Not saying it's great, but the bigger problems are for kids. Obama is not a kid. Governor's not a kid or pregnant women
[00:08:33] Rod: and it's cumulative, right? Yeah. It's really gotta build up.
[00:08:35] Will: So one glass of slightly leady water, 30 days of slightly leady water. It's not the same as living in a house the whole time. So there's a few of these examples of people saying, I'm going to drink the water that are a little bit bullshit. There's a couple of others in the water category though. So there's a similar one. Do you remember the train crash in East Palestine? Like it was like a train full of all of the toxic chemicals, like this was 2023. It's like, if you put all of the toxic chemicals into a train and then smashed it into a town
[00:09:08] Rod: but that's good because if you put them all in one place, you know where they are.
[00:09:12] Will: And you don't want to be near them.
[00:09:14] Rod: Trains are safe
[00:09:14] Will: but there's this beautiful video of the governor of Ohio, Mike DeWine a representative, Bill Johnson of Ohio. I'm the head of the environmental protection agency. They're in someone's house in East Palestine and they're all getting a glass full of the water and you can see there's this gingerness about them drinking the water. And now these are different chemicals to lead. So these are potentially, I think there were dioxins.
[00:09:35] Rod: No, no, no. How much do you want your job when you go Listen, you love being a politician. You love being in charge. You want to get voted in again, drink this shit tin of poison.
[00:09:42] Will: And if you put it in a calculation, you will die 10 years earlier, but you get to stay governor for eight years longer.
[00:09:49] Rod: My answer is infinity percent no,
[00:09:52] Will: you are different to a politician. You are definitely different.
[00:09:55] Rod: Look, I knew a guy in college. Big muscles, like phenomenal. Like he looked like a mini Schwarzenegger when he was 17. We're like, dude, his name was very Russian. It was like, dude, you're amazing. And I said, do you take the juice? You know, the Roids and he goes, yeah. I said, aren't you worried that it'll collapse all your internal organs by the time you're not much older? And he goes, yeah, but you know, so I'll be dead by 40, whatever until then. And I thought, 40 seems old now when you're 17, but I bet very quickly, I don't know what happened to him, but he was happy with that for him it was 20 years hence, he's like, yeah, that's fine. Whatever. It'll be great now.
[00:10:29] Will: Yeah. Look, maybe the water was safe in East Palestine. you know, this was the environmental protection agency guy. It wasn't just politicians. So. You know, if I'm the environmental protection agency guy, I'm like, I actually want to do the science here. My job is not getting voted in.
[00:10:42] And I'm not here to carry water for some idiot politician. Maybe filtered, maybe it was okay. But I did like the gingerness that it was like, I got two other drinking ones.
[00:10:54] Rod: Let's keep drinking.
[00:10:54] Will: I'll just read the headline. Indian politician gets water from polluted holy river to impress supporters.
[00:10:59] Rod: He's drinking the Ganges?
[00:11:00] Will: No. It wasn't the Ganges. And it depends where you go to the Ganges. Like the Ganges is a long river.
[00:11:06] Rod: The place in the Ganges I wouldn't drink directly from it is from where it begins to where it ends.
[00:11:10] Will: No, where it begins is beautiful. Like not that I've been there. I've seen the photos.
[00:11:13] Rod: Do you drink from rivers here directly? Just asking questions.
[00:11:18] Will: Look it wasn't Madaganga. It was the Kalibine river
[00:11:21] Rod: goddess of death and destruction.
[00:11:22] Will: Well, do you know what it might be? Yeah, we are in Kali's Yuga. So we all live to her dictates. Anyway, he was the new chief minister of Punjab during the time. And he went and had a nice drink from the river. He fell ill with a severe stomach ache at his residence in Chandigarh, had to be airlifted to Delhi, Chandigarh is a legit city. There was hospitals. He has to go to a special hospital.
[00:11:45] Rod: Of course he does. Were they saying that River had anything to do with that or it was a coincidence? And he had some Armenian food.
[00:11:52] Will: I think maybe it was bonus. River yes. But also you get extra. I got one more, I got one more drinking one.
[00:11:58] Now this, unfortunately, I'm thinking about a typology of these types of people, this one is a statement, not a doing it for the cameras. Those other three, we can see people drinking it on the cameras. This is a guy saying, yeah, I did it. Democratic governor of Colorado. I wouldn't make up something like this. Governor of Colorado John Hickenlooper. This was back in 2013.
[00:12:18] Rod: God, it's a good name.
[00:12:19] Will: We sat around a table, almost ritual like, and drank fracking fluid provided by Halliburton.
[00:12:27] Rod: Wow. There's a lot going on in that small sentence.
[00:12:29] Will: Yeah. They all sat around a table. Now this was in secret and
[00:12:33] Rod: provided by a weapons manufacturer.
[00:12:37] Will: And here's the extra, the ingredients of fracking fluid are secret.
[00:12:41] Rod: No, they're not secret. Water and poison. It's not complicated. Take water, add horrible, and oil.
[00:12:48] Will: I think Halliburton's point was, no, a fracking fluid is fine. It's legit. You know, we're not telling you what it's in it, but it won't hurt you. And so here you go, governor of Colorado, you can just drink some.
[00:13:00] Rod: Ritual style. So they're wearing hoods, but they're naked underneath and they're spanking each other's bare buttocks as part of the ritual.
[00:13:06] Will: I don't know. I don't know. But fracking fluid. But that's a weird thing to admit, like to go.
[00:13:13] Rod: No, there must've been a reason, like more fracking good. Cause if you can drink it, it can't harm the environment.
[00:13:17] Will: I think the point is, yeah. The point they're trying to argue is fracking fluid is so benign, it's just an expanding fluid or something like that. I don't know. Maybe it's just glory water or something like that.
[00:13:27] Rod: Yeah. But let's be clear. It's not the fluids that people are upset about with fracking. Mm . . It might be, hang on, fracking
[00:13:37] Will: The idea of getting the governor to drink a glass of it, and when the ingredients are secret here, have a drink of my secret fluid,
[00:13:46] Rod: and you're like, don't worry. Halliburton are providing it. was that Cheney? It was Cheney the big Halliburton guy? Yep. That's the dude I'm gonna trust for things that I'm gonna consume. Jesus Christ, that's gold.
[00:13:59] Will: All right. All right. So those are my drinking ones. Oh, listener, I just wanted to remind you. my search here was as much as I could do, but please send in more examples because I am sure there are some glorious examples going back further in history.
[00:14:11] Rod: If you want to, we'll do 20 episodes on this ping us on the YouTube below where you're looking or cheers@wholesomeshow.Com. We'd be very interested to hear what you got.
[00:14:19] Will: I got one more drinking one actually, and it's not a drinking one. It's the governor of New York. There was a fire in a state government building in 1981, a transformer in the building burnt down. Like electrical transformers. They're full of like bad, gross, horrible chemicals.
[00:14:35] Rod: Oh yeah. And when they burn, they're even better. The gases are fabulous.
[00:14:41] Will: And this accident was considered the country, america's first indoor environmental disaster.
[00:14:47] Rod: Wait, what year? Eighties?
[00:14:48] Will: Yeah. 81.
[00:14:49] Rod: Oh, hang on. I got a technical term. Bullshit.
[00:14:52] Will: I know. Whether it's true or not, the idea of something so bad that it's an indoor environmental disaster. So anyway, anyway, Governor Kerry volunteered today to drink a glass of PCBs. Now, PCBs are like the worst chemicals.
[00:15:06] Rod: Yeah, they're not good.
[00:15:07] Will: Like polychlorinated biphenyls dioxins and things like that. They are just bad. Really bad. And he just said I could drink a glass of PCBs. But he never did. So I did like that as a claims. And that's another class of people saying I would do this and it kind of undermines your claim if you never do
[00:15:22] Rod: I would, I just can't cause I got a doctor's appointment and this stuff, I can only get it now.
[00:15:27] Will: I would demonstrate it was safe, but yeah, I have to go for my haircut. All right, that's all my drinking ones.
[00:15:32] Rod: I want to know a bit more about place because place interests me. Convince me to go to a place where really all you're thinking is I'm going to be murdered the moment I step foot in it.
[00:15:41] Will: Yeah, no, I got one on that. New York, 1967. Police commissioner Howard R Leary said yesterday, I don't feel it's unsafe to walk in Midtown area, despite all the recent muggings.
[00:15:52] Rod: Was this just before his obituary?
[00:15:54] Will: No. He's like, in recent weeks the commissioner has walked in the Midtown area several times. Noting the commissioner has made frequent walks in many sections of the city. The commissioner often gets out of his car to observe areas close at hand. So He's saying there's a lot of muggings going on there. And he's like, I walked down that street and I saw no muggings and I didn't get mugged so you're fine.
[00:16:16] Rod: And what were you wearing, sir? I was not wearing a bulletproof vest that says I'm the chief of police, nor was I carrying 17 guns, a Kevlar helmet on my head. Getting out of a car that says the police
[00:16:28] Will: like the police commissioner walking somewhere. You're not demonstrating it safe for let's say little old lady
[00:16:34] Rod: be a 17 year old woman and do it.
[00:16:36] Will: Exactly. Exactly. You're very different from this thing so claiming that you're safe
[00:16:40] Rod: it's the classic political position too. Oh, I don't believe, or I don't think that's true. And that's the end of the argument. Not a good argument.
[00:16:47] Will: So this is the interesting thing. I'm just thinking about these typologies that there are these demonstrations of safety that are legit. Like you're actually showing something that one isn't. Here's a different sort of demonstration of safety that is not legit. The men of armored task force razor 1955 rode out a terrific atomic explosion at close range this morning. Then they demonstrated how to fight with atomic weapons.
[00:17:10] Rod: As in both sides have them, or you actually having a fight with an atomic weapon?
[00:17:14] Will: Hang on this is America. This is not a both sides thing. This is like, we have atomic weapons. 460 crewmen of the tanks and armored personnel carriers were the first men to remain above ground near a nuclear explosion. Many of their tanks were within 3, 200 yards of the blast.
[00:17:30] Rod: Which is about 9 meters.
[00:17:32] Will: Well, it's 3 kilometers. 3 kilometers of the blast. You can't see it because it's old time fifties photo here, but these tanks and the blast, they are inside. Most of the troops were youngsters with no combat experience but on the whole, they handled the situation as if it were just another conventional exercise. To this reporter in a patent M 48 tank, it was like being at the center of the explosion itself. Though virtually sealed up, the tank was suddenly flooded with the most intense white light. The interior seems with choking dust, and it seemed as if the tank itself was ripping apart, but the 48 ton monster merely rocked a bit and in a few minutes was ready for action.
[00:18:06] Rod: Yeah. So here's the thing. I know this is your line, but this is mine. Here's the thing. You write out the initial burst. Well done. Did they interview them? I don't know. Three months later? And then, and we go 12 months later, Oh what do you mean they're all dead. That's fucking classic though. Look, we're fine. It's fine. We have fine instantly. So that's the lead paint. I mean, the lead drinking water. So I had a glass of lead water and I'm not brain damaged.
[00:18:33] Will: I think, and there's a little bit of, Oh, we'll put some young people's lives.
[00:18:37] Rod: Yeah. Well, whatever. Cause we haven't trained him for that long so we don't lose a lot of money on it.
[00:18:41] Will: I get a couple of other places, two more nuke ones. This is just the tiny one. Do you remember all of the, there was a lot of fighting in Australia in the mid nineties about French atomic tests. He's now Senator Gaston Flosse back in France
[00:18:53] Rod: God, is there a more French name? Gaston Flosse
[00:18:55] Will: he was president of French Polynesia for 20 years, and he used to go swimming as much as possible in the lagoon to demonstrate it was safe.
[00:19:05] Rod: And he died of acute radiation?
[00:19:08] Will: He probably actually did legitimately show that it was safe. Cause I think the radiation from underground testing probably actually didn't get there.
[00:19:14] Rod: It wasn't all underground. I've seen Godzilla. They actually did one above.
[00:19:17] Will: But again, this is one of those things where he's demonstrating that he's willing to take the risk. And I think scientifically, now I'm not confirmed on this. I think it actually probably was a low radiation situation, but you can't show that in I got out of the pool and now I'm fine. It takes time.
[00:19:33] Rod: All my teeth are still in my head after one lap.
[00:19:36] Will: Similarly, after the Three Mile Island reactor, there was a big show, song and dance of Jimmy Carter, the president at the time, visiting the reactor site.
[00:19:44] Rod: Sure, but I mean, Three Mile Island, one engineer spilled his coffee and burnt his lap.
[00:19:48] Will: I think it was a bit more than that. It was a meltdown.
[00:19:51] Rod: Minor meltdown.
[00:19:51] Will: Meltdown. Jimmy Carter came and visited. And a lot of people felt that if the president is coming here and bringing his wife, Things must be all right.
[00:19:59] Rod: Now in hindsight, they both live to 900.
[00:20:01] Will: They did. So, so they probably were.
[00:20:03] Rod: Nuclear reactor meltdowns are good for longevity.
[00:20:06] Will: So I think that might've been, I mean, maybe it was scientifically legit and he wanted to help with that. And I think he, he might've done that. I've got a couple more place based ones.
[00:20:13] Another swimming one. This is the beaches in Durban, end of 2022 were closed due to a sewage contamination. Once they were declared safe the Durban mayor. Mxolisi Kaunda swam at one of the beaches after refusing, like he said, no, I'm not swimming there. And then we clean it up. So no problem. It's safe. Yeah. And then he went for a swim. So there, there is that sort of demonstration and I think that's probably legit.
[00:20:35] So I told you about the beef burger. I'll build up to this because first there was another beef burger when Mike Pence famously May, 2020. He and Ron DeSantis went to a Florida burger bar, Beth's burger bar, Tweet a cheeseburger with side of fries. Well, they're demonstrating it's safe to go and have a meal at the peak of COVID. The two politicians before sitting at an indoor table for their meal, mingled with customers who wanted to talk about basketball, not pandemics or politics. No one wore masks. And just to stress now, look, I know that there is still a debate about lockdowns and masks and all that, but I think masks were pretty legitimate at the time. Anyway, 1. 2 million people in the U S went on to die of COVID. Still more probably. 92 percent after mike Pence went and did this. So this was very much the beginning of the pandemic and Mike's like, all right, go out to a restaurant.
[00:21:21] Rod: But he went with the the brains trust Ron DeSantis. So like he had good reason to feel safe.
[00:21:26] Will: An oil spill in in Portland Harbor in Maine. And the people there were worried about what this was doing to the Maine lobster. People love the Maine lobster. So the governor sat down and ate a Maine lobster for breakfast, which sounds like a really nice breakfast. I read the article and it said not many people normally have lobster for breakfast. And I'm like, that's true but it would be delicious. So he had a lobster to show that it didn't taste too oily.
[00:21:47] Rod: Well, to show that it didn't taste too oily. As long as he could keep the eye contact in a straight face, anyone could do that.
[00:21:53] Will: Here's one that's benign. Not long after the nuclear army thing, 1957, the army in coming year, we'll start feeding irradiated foods to the troops to demonstrate the practicality of the new preservation process. So they're radiating strawberries and pork chops and things like that. And actually irradiating food is actually not the worst way of preserving it so that was a way of demonstrating.
[00:22:13] Rod: We still do that, right?
[00:22:14] Will: We do. I dunno how much we do it in Australia. It's still done, I think peppercorns, weirdly. 1991, for the first time in a hundred years, there was a really big cholera outbreak in South America.
[00:22:24] Rod: Cool. This is going well so far
[00:22:26] Will: particularly in Peru. You know, as we all know, cholera is spread by the poo and the poo, human food.
[00:22:32] Rod: The trick is if you're listening at home, if there's a cholera outbreak, stop sharing poo until it's passed. Then have at it.
[00:22:39] Will: Everyone was horrified about this, but in Peru, one of the national dishes and a particularly important one is ceviche. Delicious. Absolutely.
[00:22:46] Rod: Fucking yummy.
[00:22:46] Will: Absolutely delicious. But raw fish is not super great during cholera epidemic anyway, president Alberto Fujimori. There's a Japanese immigrant population.
[00:22:58] Rod: Yeah. I didn't realize.
[00:23:00] Will: And with his wife, Susanna and his ministers of fisheries and agriculture went on television to eat ceviche. And one minister got sick after the dinner so he spent a week in the military hospital, but there was a huge spike in hospital admissions in the days afterwards because people went back to eating and it was not safe. It was not safe.
[00:23:26] Rod: Yeah and I mean, you know, one of the founders of the place where we work, God rest his soul, et cetera, was a parasitologist. And because he was paranoid about parasites, he would never eat sushi or equivalent. And I have no problem with that. I fricking love sushi and the ceviche, et cetera, et cetera. But it's fair to say, these things are chock full of things that maybe aren't great for you or potentially are going to make it bad anyway. Then you add human poo. I mean, it's already, don't fuck with fish.
[00:23:52] Will: That probably led to actual deaths, I think. So 2, 900 people died during that outbreak. 119, 000 people were hospitalized, way more actually got cholera. It was huge for the time. And it was like, Oh, something weird had gone on. They hadn't had it in a hundred years. And then suddenly you've got it more and it wasn't caused by eating ceviche. But it was made worse in this moment. So there you go. There's one of the bad demonstrations. That's the one of the ones where you go, Oh, you shouldn't have done that. You actually made the situation worse.
[00:24:19] Rod: They could have known beforehand. Cause this is what I wonder about a lot of these, like. How much of it was willful ignorance? How much of it was actual ignorance?
[00:24:29] Will: So I guess, I guess one of the two things that you would recommend very much in a cholera outbreak is cook your food and you know, any sort of surface that can preserve the bacteria for cholera. Cook your food, clean your water, wash your hands, wash your bum. I think they could have known.
[00:24:45] Rod: Okay. So those are the ones that bother me more. Like if people are kind of, they get a bit exuberant or they get a bit, you know, jazzed up, that's fine. But if you kind of willfully weren't paying attention, then you make me mad.
[00:24:58] Will: So there's a couple of other types of people demonstrating. So clearly there's the vaccines, you know, we've been demonstrating people, presidents taking vaccines, prime ministers taking vaccines, and that's a clear part of it. You know, people have been doing that for ages.
[00:25:10] Rod: I've got no beef with that. Like, I mean, vaccines are a scary one or have been for some reason they still are, but they have been.
[00:25:15] Will: But I think it's one of the, one of the few really legitimate, cause you're actually doing exactly the same thing. You're not the police commissioner in New York that is like, I'm a different person or you're not Obama drinking one glass of water versus, you know, drinking day in, day out.
[00:25:28] Rod: You're actually the same as the people you're demonstrating.
[00:25:30] Will: Vaccinated, you're actually the same as the people. So there's a long history of that. But the other final category that I've got is product safety.
[00:25:38] Rod: Oh, yeah. And must be hilarious.
[00:25:40] Will: So not many politicians here. well, there was one after the millennium bug, I found like the transportation secretary in the Philippines took a flight in and out to show that it was safe to fly at an airplane. On January one. They're like, plane didn't fall outta the sky.
[00:25:53] Rod: Do you remember that time, right? Like people were genuinely. Even in very safe places like ours, people were genuinely wigging out.
[00:26:01] Will: And I think that probably helps people who go, okay, safe enough. There was another like similar sort of thing, like, michael Bloomberg after not the current war in Israel, Palestine, but one like 2013 to demonstrate that it was safe to go into and out of Tel Aviv then he took a flight to Tel Aviv to show that it was safe
[00:26:17] Rod: imagine that, a multi gajillionaire being safe going somewhere. It's amazing. But I remember that with like Y2K, I remember being at a friend's house at the beach, 1999, The only thing we did, we all went to the ATMs and we got a few hundred bucks out.
[00:26:30] Will: Did you really?
[00:26:31] Rod: That was at one concession. And then a buddy of mine and I, we sat there with the TV on waiting to see Y2K click over around the world.
[00:26:38] Will: I did not care. I was like, whatever. There was a nice other one. So after some 2019 terrorist attacks in Sri Lanka, two thirds of the Maldivian parliament Took a holiday in Sri Lanka, which is a weird amount of the parliament to all go on holiday at the same time to demonstrate that it's safe.
[00:26:54] Rod: Are you prepared to go on holiday to demonstrate a nice place to safe? Yes, I am.
[00:26:59] Will: But okay. There's a bunch of other products. And weirdly like the 1930s, it's all planes and cars doing weird stuff. You know, here's a plane that can land itself in 1931. And so to demonstrate the pilot, puts his hands out of the, like it's a biplane, like an old school, you know, you can put your hands out and it lands itself.
[00:27:17] Rod: AKA if you stop touching things, it will fall out of the sky. Is that landing?
[00:27:20] Will: I think so. It had weird wings that could set a landing angle and then you set them and you just forget and it was a bouncy landing
[00:27:28] Rod: to be fair though. Like the actual mechanics of flying, not that complicated. the aerodynamic stuff is not that complicated.
[00:27:34] Will: I think though you probably need to adjust a little bit, but I do like seeing this guy with his hands out. There was another one, 1933 German lands plane blind using radio. So this was just a demonstration you could land.
[00:27:45] Rod: Did he actually blind himself? He didn't stab his eyes out or anything?
[00:27:47] Will: Yeah. Cause I think he was allowed to see his instruments. Another demonstration, you can land without wings.
[00:27:53] Rod: What? Well, again, what do we mean by land? Hit the ground? Walk away.
[00:27:58] Will: Another demonstration to show that it's okay to be 3000 feet above central park because someone just turned his engine off there and just glided. I don't know, I don't know, but this was a nice one in car safety. It was a demonstration of a, like an auto brake system or something like that in 1938. And they had to shoot the front tire of a car with a shotgun while it's traveling at 60 miles an hour. And it's got this auto brake system, which obviously that was a problem.
[00:28:25] Rod: I feel like blowing the tire out is kind of breaking. Is that the gist of it though? Like we're doing 60 miles an hour, blow a wheel out, watch the auto brakes cut in.
[00:28:38] Will: Yeah. I think that was it. Or it steered itself or it's something like they had weird problems back in the thirties. They were different to our problems. 1961. A Philadelphia engineer was demonstrating the safety on a gun.
[00:28:52] Rod: This starts well, no, let me prove it. I'm going to tuck it in the mouth of my child.
[00:28:57] Will: So here's the question, you know, spoiler. He did not survive.
[00:29:03] Rod: This is the safety catch.
[00:29:04] Will: Yeah. Electrical engineer bought a new automatic gun designed with a safety catch. He wanted to show the safety catch was all legit. Christmas, 1961 wishing everyone a merry Christmas announced the shells could not explode while the device was attached. Place the gun to his head.
[00:29:19] Rod: Merry Christmas. Oh, honestly, for it to be real. That's beautiful.
[00:29:25] Will: But it's a demonstration of safety.
[00:29:26] Rod: Yeah. Don't do it this way.
[00:29:27] Will: No, but it's a good demonstration because it's not safe.
[00:29:33] Rod: They call it safety. They get rid of the difficult bit in the title. It's actual function. Not so much.
[00:29:37] Will: I got one last one that I did like, and I read the headline and I'm like, what the fuck? Killed by biting torpedo.
[00:29:46] Rod: Who gets the opportunity? As a sailor. All right, seaman, I want you all to stand around the edge of this knob and bite it.
[00:29:52] Will: It was not a torpedo that we think of. It was a smaller torpedo. Thomas McIntyre, 1931. 42 years old. Intense dad energy. Placed a torpedo, and here I think it means like a, it's a Firework. Small firework type thing. Placed a torpedo in his mouth last night and chewed on it to prove to a friend, Albert Manning, That it was a safe toy for the latter's son.
[00:30:19] Mr McIntyre died at hospital today of injuries received when the torpedo exploded and tore away part of his face. As a result, Jacob Wrenchler, 35, a shopkeeper, was arrested with his wife Jeanette Charged with unlawful sale of fireworks. I'm like, no
[00:30:33] Rod: they Didn't say there were food! how to use this, put it in your fucking mouth and chew! How is that my fault? Cars, choking hazard, don't try to swallow. You don't blame the car manufacturer.
[00:30:42] Will: I 100%.
[00:30:43] Rod: No! No, wrongful arrest. I'm very angry on that dead man's behalf and his wife's.
[00:30:50] Will: So, people have been demonstrating things as safe for a long time. And look, there are some things where we can believe it. Like if you're taking on all of the risks at the same time, or if you're taking on the risk and you die, I think that's a good demonstration as well. Like don't try the safety catch
[00:31:06] Rod: but there are also things that don't need proving. Like don't eat fireworks is like, I don't need to prove that to me. I don't. This water is full of toxins. I don't need you to tell me it's okay to drink it.
[00:31:17] Will: I always think and it's a classic Darwin Awards story of some guy, like he's on the 90th floor of a high rise or something like that and he's like, you know these windows they cannot be knocked out, they cannot be knocked out.
[00:31:28] Rod: What happened?
[00:31:29] Will: I think he full on, he's down the hallway and he's charging this thing up. Out he goes with the window, and you can just go
[00:31:34] Rod: Did the window break his fall?
[00:31:35] Will: No, the window went straight through with him. Like, it's a pane of glass. And I just think, well, there is literally an instant where people in the room are going, well We were right, weren't we?
[00:31:47] Rod: See to me, that's the most horrifying of deaths because you've got a lot of time to think about it.
[00:31:51] Will: And you've got to go, I was fucking wrong. Oh, I was fucking wrong all the way down.
[00:31:54] Rod: How do I make this look cool? That's messed up.
[00:32:03] Will: You got any other topics you've been thinking about?
[00:32:05] Rod: I do have one. I do have one. Why do we look so different to ourselves in selfies and photographs versus when we look in the mirror? Like why is it so fucking different? Because I've done this before. You look at yourself in the mirror and you go, there you go, handsome.
[00:32:17] Will: Look at you. Look at you. Look at you.
[00:32:18] Rod: Teeth perfect, chin squared, and then someone takes a photo and you go, Who's that ugly old cunt?
[00:32:24] Will: I get it, that's a thing.
[00:32:25] Rod: What's going on there? And there is research on this, which I haven't read yet, but I might. Cause I'm very curious about that research.
[00:32:30] Will: I got a sad one. But I don't know if you're following history right now. We're recording what, in March 2024. And there's credible situations. We're not very far from the civil war in America. Like shit's getting real. And you know what, you know, I'm sorry, Americans love you. You're great. Well, actually what I'm going to say is, what is the shit that we're going to lose when America goes civil war and here's me worrying about my TV shows big time. Big time. I'm like, will we get season two of severance? Will we get season two of peacemaker?
[00:32:59] Rod: Yeah. Will we season two of house of dragons?
[00:33:01] Will: I really worry about all of them. Oh my God. Silo. I'm reading the books right now.
[00:33:07] Rod: They're much better if you read them, I watched the movie, but the books are much better.
[00:33:12] Will: I like silos, but this is the thing. I'm just like, I don't want you to have a civil war guys, but you're kind of getting close.
[00:33:18] Rod: Also, I really like a lot of your actual landscapes and countries.
[00:33:21] Will: No, they won't ruin that. I got one more. I got one more. I got one more. This is a nice study that was on the hyper vaccinated individual. So this guy has been vaccinated for COVID. I don't know for other things 117 times. And I want to know, listener, have you been vaccinated more or less than that?
[00:33:37] Rod: And we're talking only in a year or two, right? Like, this is not over, over his life.
[00:33:41] Will: Well, he can't have been vaccinated like, From 30 years ago. The COVID vaccine has only been around for three years and he's got 217 of them.
[00:33:49] Rod: I thought I was crazy. I'm happy to get one every six months, but 20 times a month?
[00:33:53] Will: Mailbag from you, listener. And remember like sending your comments, sending your questions, sending your critiques and topics like absolutely
[00:34:01] Rod: do it in the YouTube comments or cheers@wholesomeshow.Com.
[00:34:07] Will: Nice to see your opinions on when sex has taken place. I think I agree with most of you that it's about a genital on genital action. But the 18 percent of you that said eye contact seems very nice.
[00:34:20] Rod: Do you know the weird thing about that? The moment you said that I was looking right at you and I'm thinking, did we just get laid?
[00:34:24] Will: No, but is it all eye contact or is it the eye contact that is the eye contact?
[00:34:28] Rod: All eye contact or only eye contact?
[00:34:31] Will: I think they're saying you can have eye contact and anal sex is counts.
[00:34:35] Rod: Holy shit, that's flexible.
[00:34:38] Will: Obviously some sort of mirror type situation. But I think it's not every type of eye contact because that would be wrong.
[00:34:46] Rod: How did you hurt your neck? I was doing anal, but she insisted on eye contact to keep it intimate.
[00:34:53] Will: I just wanted to update on you know, we talked about phobias recently and one of them was feathers, and I was just reminded, because I looked recently through, you know, part of this the mad cow crisis, and there was a time, and I think people still are, feeding feathers to cattle. Now, it's not solid feathers.
[00:35:09] Rod: they churn them up, right?
[00:35:10] Will: Yeah, it's feather meal. But still, it's like feathers. What are you doing?
[00:35:15] Rod: Stop fucking with cows.
[00:35:16] Will: Stop it!
