The Wonderful Conspiracy feat Yasha Levine & Rowan Wernham (E283)

I literally want to fucking scream

relevant

:( my ex boyfriend was working on a big negotiation bw the municipal governments of central CA, Monsanto, etc., and bigger counties / kern county to more fairly distribute water but he died of Glioblastoma. But that was just cancer, not a “hit”. But I am still single bc I’m not over it. Sorry to be such a downer. Anyway everything this podcast says is true, but there was an amazing team of people led by a guy who almost did something very little to start changing it.

I just watched Interstellar today before listening to this! Kept thinking about it while hearing that this was happening, and the movie gives a really strong depiction of what could happen - I think between that movie and this ep I have a more more clear sense of what we could be facing. Great reporting!

Want to like these guys, but I’m very hung up on their off hand assertion that The King of California is a sympathetic portrayal of JG Bosewell. I have no idea how you could read the book and get that impression.

I grew up overseas and my dad used to bring back pistachios from Turkey ...big, fresh, green, meaty bois. I bought this CA brand once in my adult life and my reaction was "what are these? ..dried out rodent turds? cause they're not good." Maybe I got a bad batch but even the ones from the bulk bins were better.

Oh no, I actually have a connection to this in a way. My family owns some pistachio trees in central CA (although not at ALL on the scale of the Wonderful Company, and we are not billionaire farmers). I can speak to this water issue from an inside perspective and our efforts to move away from water hungry crops altogether. I think in a decade growing trees that require multiple acre feet of water per year simply won't be an option. You can see felled trees all over the central valley where people can no longer afford to water them. These water hungry crops + the amount of water all of the livestock in the area requires...it just isn't tenable.

Just curious… Besides me, is there anyone here who checks Wikipedia’s main page on a regular basis? Asking b/c (prior to this podcast episode coming out) they recently featured pistachios as the image of the day. (Which, as a fan of QAA, kinda made me wonder… 🤣)

Stop saying pistachio like “gestapo”

Why is he saying pist-ah-chios.

Stephen Colbert is a sellout douchbag?? What the fudge???

If anybody needs another reason why not to eat pistachios (especially if you’re vegan, vegetarian, or just have an aversion to bugs), google “navel orangeworm pistachios.” After several bad experiences with Wonderful pistachio products, I can tell you they don’t do nearly enough quality control. 🐛

I'm starting to wonder if pistachios are even good for me 🤔

Such an important topic, and I am so happy you are covering it. I have to admit that I spent the first 20 mins so distracted by the confusion of Rowan's accent that I struggled. But now I know he is Kiwi j can relax a little, however his accent is still so melded with other accents that I now want to know his story (just a long time in America?!?!)

Glad these absolute ghouls are being exposed.

Great episode as usual! Wonderful guests, riveting topic.

I’m so glad I never fell for that stupid ass pistachio marketing. I don’t even know for sure if I’ve ever had a pistachio

I am not sure the connection but I have a grandfather who is friends with them. The Resnicks. And my grandmother and I have to stomach it like once a year.

You know what happens to nosey people, Jake? They lose their noses!

Alt title: It's A Wondeful Strife

Coming from a struggling working class family with half being London cockney sorts and some years of homelessness, hearing the first paragraph Julian read from that article set all my flight-or-fight defensives neck hackles on edge, the pretentious peacocking of indulgent privilege were like nails on chalkboard lol.

Brilliant episode, gonna be sharing to people who need to hear it. Jake seriously needs to watch more movies though. I'll watch them with him myself if I damn well have to!

I lived in a small central valley town for years. IMO The area is as close to Planet Harkonnen as you can come by on Earth. Great pod episode guys!

So, I’m not from the west coast but it took me a solid 10 minutes to get that they aren’t calling this awful company “wonderful” 🤦‍♀️

The Dollop on the Resnicks (Ep. 356) is a great accompaniment to this 👌

Yoooooo I'm stoked. Happy new episode day

Forget it Jake, it's Chinatown

Nah it’s not Friday everywhere mate is Saturday where I am woo hoo and I’m packin a cone for QAA yeah gonna be a nice sesh

It's friday again!

Been following Yasha since exiledonline. So glad to see you all hook up for an ep

Can’t wait to listen. Fuck the resnicks and fuck Fiji water

Notification gang 💯

I always knew Big Tractor was out to get me.

First :p