Hello the Internet, and welcome to this episode of News Speratu, because we talked about the news, but mostly no Sparatu. My name is Jack and I'm thrilled to be joined by today's special guest.
Co host, Kaitlyn Dorante. Katie Durany.
That's one of my my father, Jimmy Duranty.
Jimmy Duranty, he was very old.
And our son, Kevin Durant, the son that I saw. I forgot that I said that Jimmy Duranty was my father. We have a kid together.
Oh my god, that's horrible.
Are falling apart?
Well, we're breaking news on this one, all right, Caitlin, thank you so much for joining us. This is the episode where we tell people what is trending right now on Wednesday afternoon. We'll start with like a good one because there's not a lot of them to go around.
Congestion pricing is working. We talked at the time that it was being rolled out that it felt like something out of like another era or like another country, Like a small progressive policy that is like kind of common sense is meant to positively affect people's lives, like it is done on behalf of people instead of corporations.
And this is happening in America.
In America, in New York City, which is part of a big one. Yeah, that's one of the big that's one of the big ones. I think I gotta double check my Wikipedia, but I think New York City one of the big ones. It's a great city. You could open up a business and then planes could fly into the towers. That's that's also wow any given day. That's what Eric Adams said about New York City, the city that he is the mayor of, about why it's a good city. You know, you never know what's going to happen,
big plot twist. You know, you're just celebrating your business that open and then nine to eleven. Anyways, this is a piece of policy that you know, progressive politicians were fighting for for a long time, where basically they were going to charge people fifteen dollars. They you know, via negotiation, it got pushed down to nine dollars. The idea is to dissuade people from driving their cars into New York City,
a thing that they do repeatedly for some reason. Even though I can't think of a worse hell, I've done it a couple of times in my life. It is a fucking nightmare.
The scariest experience I've ever had driving in Manhattan.
Yeah yeah.
I pulled out of a car rental place in Manhattan, like my first time ever driving in Manhattan. I had to rent a car and like go somewhere outside of the city. Pulled out in like the thirties, and somebody immediately laid on their horn and like screamed by me at fifty miles per hour, giving me a finger, Like wow, I was like second one.
They're like fuck you. I was like all right.
Anyways, you know, it's not only a policy that is designed to positively impact people's lives in a way that like could potentially be seen as like damaging to commerce and corporations who sell cars at the very least, but pushing back against cars and car culture, which is simply not done in these United States. Simply not Yes, so of course tons of freak outs. We covered them last
week when this was being rolled out. There's a guy who is basically like democracy is dead because I can't drive nine blocks to work, and like the defector like looked into the drive that he was talking about, and it's like the most beautiful. It takes as long to walk the distance, and it's like a beautiful walk through Central Park And he's.
Like, oh, does one like parking costs a bazilion do? Like why would you we? New York is one of the few cities in the US that is actually set up where you can get around without a car.
Yeah, so we're just like tar brand gun brand, Like we just like we don't we want it. We don't care about the consequences. But anyway, like I guess there are some consequences, like nine dollars that do impact people's decisions. Because despite the freak out, the law went into effect and the results were kind of immediate and like startling, Like you just there's all sorts of videos of people being like this is Manhattan, like on Thursday afternoon, and
it's like it's just quiet. Like the areas that were under congestion pricing saw a massive drop off in traffic. The city quieted the buses, like all now it makes sense to take the bus, which was kind of part of the idea. Along cabs became a functional thing for Miles and I were in New York. We had to like get to a meeting quickly, and we took a cab and it took forty five minutes to go like three blocks.
It was bonker, you know, it was so wild.
It was like, all right, well we should be getting out to walk. Anyways, there are stats that are saying the number of cars entering those parts of the cities that are under congestion pricing have fallen by anywhere between seven point five and eighteen point five percent, which is like kind of right in line with like what their goal was. So, yeah, New York will become more livable because they got this one piece of legislation through.
I thought it already cost like eight dollars if you wanted to drive into.
Their bowls specific to like various tunnels and stuff. But this is like an additional more expensive thing for just like being there, and they like just take a picture of your license plate and then send you the bill.
So I don't know, maybe people are just like freaked out by it, and only for now they're just avoiding it, at which case, like maybe it gets crowded again and then people start using it again, but then they start paying a bunch of money that is going to go towards improving the public transit.
So I was going to ask what they're using these nine dollars.
Yeah, it's all of public transit. Okay, that's nice. It's nice, like all around, like a very simple idea that like might be on the list of like one hundred ideas that would make this city better, and like ninety nine of them. Of course they're immediately shot down by like the fucking Commerce Department or whatever.
But they got one through.
They got their one through, So congratulations to New York.
Obviously.
The big news of today is that it appears there is a ceasefire deal between Israel and Palestine, a ceasefire between Israel and Hamas following mediation with a face approach that we'll have Hamas releasing some hostages in exchange for Israel releasing what the mainstream media calls Palestinian prisoners but are just also you know, hostages being held by Israel, and then the rest of the hostages will be released in exchange for more prisoners and the complete withdrawal of
Israeli forces from Gaza. But just on the way out, with a ceasefire imminent, Israel decided to go on a rampage while they still could, and targeted a residential block in what was described as one of the bloodiest and most difficult nights for the Gaza Strip. And there's no shortage of those. They killed sixty two Palestinian citizens and injured two hundred and fifty three more in the twenty four hours leading up to the seasfire news.
Yeah. Plus, I mean, as people have pointed out, there's absolutely no guarantee and it's actually probably unlikely that Israel will actually obey the ceasefire if this deal does go through, which different officials in the government of the imaginary State of Israel are trying to block. So there's that. And even if it does go through, Israel has a history of not obeying a ceasefire and still dropping bombs and
inflicting violence against Palestinians. So we'll see. And as so many people are pointing out, ceasefire is like the first step. There's so much to do beyond this and the siege and the occupation. Basically there's many steps beyond this. Yeah, I think a lot of people will be like, oh, ceasefire, Well, we can be right, but now there's much to do from this point on. This is only the beginning.
Yeah, this is trying to get back to a you know situation where Israel was still you know, had snipers targeting citizens for just peacefully protesting by the border. So yeah, it's obviously you know that there are some aspects of it to feel like they could be good news, but definitely just keeping an eye on it for sure.
Proceed with caution, proceed with oh.
Yeah, that's right.
Oh and there's also just some pulling that suggests that, like you Gove, for instance, like some of the mainstream polling places are surveying some of the people who stayed home and didn't vote for a Harris that had voted for Biden and being like, what what was that all about? And the number one most common reason that they gave
was because she wouldn't break with Biden on Gaza. So just like for all the people who are like that's crazy, even suggest that she might break with Biden on Gaza doesn't seem like it seems like, yeah, it seems like a one of those straightforward, common sense things that would have made people be like, oh cool. So maybe like that is a leader who has a sense of humanity at a time when everything's in crisis, that might be something we need all right, let's take a quick break.
We'll be right back, and we're back, and Severance is coming back.
Kitlyn. Did you ever watch Severns.
I only saw the pilot and then I was like, I'm I'm busy. I have movies to watch. Why would I be watching television when there's so movies. I said bitterly.
Yeah, Hey, you know, I liked this movie. I just wish it took three weeks to watch. Yeah, no, thanks, guys, I actually really liked.
But it seems like a good show. It is like one of the rare.
I think it's one of my favorite streamers of the past. I don't know how many years, but it was cool. It's definitely like a mystery box thing that I've yet to see one of these. Land you know, lost your mileage, Mayberry.
I'm lost.
But I didn't think it ended particularly well.
Well, that's ridiculous. It ended perfectly.
Are you a being lost head?
Not really.
I did see the whole series back in the mid to late two thousands. No, I think that it ended poorly. But I really liked the time travel season when they like go back to the seventies and Hurley's trying to write the screenplay to Star Wars before George Lucas can.
That's amazing. That is wild that that is something that happens and.
Lost that is a plot point of Lost.
Yes, that's great. So seventh good show. They have season two coming up. And the reason we know that because there's like this just seems to be a thing that happens with streaming is like they'll do a good season one and then it's like hard to know when the next season is happening because it just blends in with all the other seasons of the new seasons and new shows, and uh, you know, how to find the one that is like good out of the thousands that are bad.
There's too much content, too much content, but they did so. Apple's strategy around their streaming content to this point has seemed to be largely they thought they were supposed to like keep it a secret. It seems like when they had a good show.
They were like, don't shut up much to anyone.
Kill any one.
But this time they were like, what if we did something where like people actually kind of found out about the show, And so they did a publicity stunt where they had a group of actors working inside a glass cubicle in Grand Central Station, which you're thinking, how many people walk past that cubicle twelve thirteen.
Well, now that New York City has instated this, you know, congestion.
Congestion pricing, those numbers probably skyrocketed to like forty people at least walked by dozens. But then there's also and I don't know if you've heard about this because this is your first trending episode, but there's also this thing called social media, where like people, so they have cameras on them, and they took cameras that people then looked at on the social media and so then it went viral.
The thing that was.
Really wild about it was at some point those workers got switched out for the actual cast of the show, and you got to just watch Adam Scott and Britt Lauer and Zach Cherry sitting there working at their little cubicles right there in front of you, like it was like a little person zoo. And people seem to really enjoy that, which again everybody a little bit surprised since Apple is famous for quote under mark it shows.
Yeah, well, they're too busy stealing resources from the congo, So I guess that's what they're doing instead.
They only Apple is only five people and they have a very busy to do list. Yeah.
I do miss publicity stunts like this to promote entertainment of some kind. I like my favorite example is the Blair Witch Project.
Yeah.
Were they websites.
Where they murdered three people?
Yeah, I don't remember.
The website was the web they put the website up being and like people were like way.
They were basically like, yeah, this this is a documentary that's coming out, and those people really died, right, and everyone believed it because no one had There was no like yeah internet etiquette back then really because it was ninety nine and people didn't really know how to fact check on the Internet, and they like, you know, you were able to withhold a lot more information back then.
Like documentary coming out Blair Witch Project, and then everyone.
Was like, oh my god, that this is real and those people really died. And it was so effective at marketing the movie that it made like a bazillion times it's budget back I know.
It was also just well done. That movie.
It's to me still one of the scariest movies ever made.
That final shot with the guy where he's standing in the corner really fucked me up. I still remember where I was and how I felt, and it was worn now. It was very scary, very scared hand I was sitting in.
My writer JM. Mcknab pointed out that this is similar to a stunt done by Office Space when that movie was coming out in ninety whatever that year was ninety eight, where they hired a guy to work inside a glass cubicle in Times Square to promote that movie, and then a billboard had his email and phone numbers so Bo could contact him for advice and nobody knowed nobody did.
Because email www dot office guide dot com. That's not an email address, that's true. Remind me, I love That's another thing I love about. You know, movies from this era is like if you go back and watch the first Mission Impossible movie, it's like the email address is something like ethan dot com or something.
Yeah, yeah, yeah email.
Yeah, they don't even have that at someone in there anything.
Yeah.
Yeah.
It's great when they do a search on the web and it's always zero results until they like find the right name.
Mm hmmmm.
It's like, no, that would just be a million results of something that you had to then look through anyways. Don't even get me started, Caitlin on the story these movie internets. I swear to god, God, it things sucks the movie Internet, all right. And finally, Lack and Riley Act is advancing in the Senate. It is a bill that would make it so that any immigrant accused of
a crime would face like basically mandatory federal detention. So it's basically going to be a tool to engage in mass deportation at a statewide level, like the Trump administration's policy of just you know, trying to deport anybody. But the reality is that it like creates for every immigrant in the country, like every citizen has like near absolute power over them because all the citizen has to do
is accuse them of a crime and they go to jail. Like, this is not it's not saying that they face mandatory sensing if they're convicted of a crime.
It's if they are arrested for a crime.
Oh my gosh, so that they're not entitled to you know, a fair trile anything like that.
It's just none of it. They go to jail for being accused. So yeah, it's like robbing people completely of due process. It's like hard to even really get your mind around how bad it would be. But yeah, to quote the La Times, it would require immigration agents to take into custody people who have been arrested for burglary, theft, larcena, or shoplifting, and would override the current discretion afforded to federal officials to prioritize the detention of people with violent
criminal records. It's just if you are an immigrant, you go to federal prison, federal jail, you're put into custody. It's just like understanding like how abusers work, and like how abusive America can be in general, Like giving this much power to anyone over any other person is just going to.
Be going to.
This is fascism.
Yeah, fascist, that's straight up, like no punch is pulled, no, Like this is just fascism. You can just claim somebody shoplifted something and there they go horrible.
Yeah, it's bad.
Pete haig Seth, who everyone was like, WHOA Trump fucked up.
Nominating that guy. Uh.
Now the word I'm seeing about his Senate hearing is unscathed. He made it through unscathed. So just an update on a previous story where I was like, I don't know if it's gonna be Everyone's like, this guy's about to get fucked up on a national stage.
He yeah, was not.
He weathered the grilling to emerge largely unscathed, the guy who was cartoon alcoholic. Yeah.
I mean, what do you expect for, you know, someone with power and privilege and money. Of course they.
That's what happened.
Yep, that's that's how it works.
Yeah.
Well, Kaitlyn durn say, what a pleasure having you?
Uh? Where can people find you? Follow you?
All that good stuff?
First of all, pleasures allmine. Second of all, you can follow me on Instagram. I guess I don't know. I don't even care anymore. Uh, you can come to upcoming Bechdel Cast shows. The details for those are on link tree slash Bechdel Cast. Uh. And then you can also listen to that podcast if you must, have you must, if you must, and then, uh, yeah, I don't know what else. I teach screenwriting classes sometimes. There's information about
that on my website Kaitlin Durante dot com. Although right now I just started a new semester at Caitlin University.
So Kalen University spin off of Santa University. No, not a spinoff from Santa University. This is actual university where you can take this.
Yeah, this is an accredited, edited Ivy League school, so.
The hell why not?
So yeah, come and get your masters, coming, get a PhD. That's a higher degree than I even have. I don't know how it works, but that's how it works at Caitlyn University. Anyway, you can, Yeah, check out all that stuff of mine. What can people follow you?
Oh? At who gives a shit? We will link off to miles as families go fund me actually and they redirect to a spreadsheet. So so many people donated and you know, supported them that they're now suggesting some other families that you can give to, which is really nice. So go go check that out. We will link off to that in the footnotes in the episode description of this and that is going to do it for today. We're back tomorrow with the whole last episode of the show.
Until then, be kind to each other, be kind to yourselves, get your vaccines, get your flu shots, don't do nothing of it about white supremacy, and we will archielda I mhm