Mississippi has been withholding federal funds to repair its capital city's water problems. Majority black Jackson, Mississippi, has been at the mercy of the majority white state legislature for decades, which acts as overseer of the city's finances. Climate change has brought severe weather to the state - flood conditions and freezing weather over…

Kenny returns! In this multi-part unscripted episode, Kenny and I butcher some of our favorite conspiracy theories: the ones we love, the ones we loathe, the ones we secretly want to be true, and the ones we believe. Don your tinfoil hats, power up the Google, and prepare to yell at your listening devices as we dive into the world of government lie…

Kenny returns! In this multi-part unscripted episode, Kenny and I butcher some of our favorite conspiracy theories: the ones we love, the ones we loathe, the ones we secretly want to be true, and the ones we believe. Don your tinfoil hats, power up the Google, and prepare to yell at your listening devices as we dive into the world of government lie…

Who's ready to get weird? Like...uncomfortably weird. In the final episode of The Apostate Peter Ruckman we get into the pettiness of bible believers and the biblical evidence of aliens, UFOs, alien-government conspiracies, lizard people, and how Ruckmanism is but one example of religious fascism that has crept upon us for over half a century. Supe…

Wouldn't it be neat if you could justify all your prejudices by interpreting the Bible however you wanted and then saying that it's the inerrant word of God? If you're Dr. Peter S. Ruckman, that Bible is the King James Version, aka A.V. 1611, and your interpretation will come to be known as Ruckmanism. The souls you save, should they cling to your …

Wouldn't it be neat if you could justify all your prejudices by interpreting the Bible however you wanted and then saying that it's the inerrant word of God? If you're Dr. Peter S. Ruckman, that Bible is the King James Version, aka A.V. 1611, and your interpretation will come to be known as Ruckmanism. The souls you save, should they cling to your …

Wouldn't it be neat if you could justify all your prejudices by interpreting the Bible however you wanted and then saying that it's the inerrant word of God? If you're Dr. Peter S. Ruckman, that Bible is the King James Version, aka A.V. 1611, and your interpretation will come to be known as Ruckmanism. The souls you save, should they cling to your …

In Part 2: Divine Fascism we dive into the historical context of the Religious Right and how evangelical Christians became so emboldened as to propose legislation explicitly pushing their own batshit crazy beliefs upon the entire nation. We're discussing the Moral Majority, the Heritage Foundation, the John Birch Society, and the anti-semitic/anti-…

House Bill 874 is possibly the most batshit crazy document I've ever read - and I've read "Your Best Life Now" by Joel Osteen. House Bill 874 was introduced in 2022 to impose a national year of humiliation, fasting, and prayer, meant to deliver our wayward nation from sin and back into the loving arms of a Christian god. Lifelong friend and invento…

From RachelCorrieFoundation.org, a reading of Rachel Corrie's emails to friends and family during her time volunteering with the International Solidarity Movement in Rafah. Rachel Corrie was an American college student and activist who spent winter quarter in Gaza sleeping next to water wells and protecting homes from IOF destruction. Her emails ar…

To celebrate the holiday season - whatever and however you're celebrating - we're celebrating the life of Rachel Corrie, the 23 year-old American college student who was killed by Israeli Occupation Forces in 2003 while protecting a Palestinian home from being demolished. Rachel Corrie was born an activist, a true champion of the underdog. I am mov…

UFTP took the shitshow on the road over the November holiday break, sitting down with my brother David and our mother in North Carolina to get more history on the man we knew as our father. Spoiler: he was always a giant piece of shit. From being a non-dancing, gaslighting, child abusing Church-of-Christ piece of shit to a one-upping, narcissistic,…

Me and ol' Trademark keep pulling the thread on mental health. I go further into my personal history - the 5 year anniversary of sobriety and life itself and how I crawled out of the deepest, darkest pit of my life. Why is the psychiatric hospital the best place ever? Are psychiatric medications worth the cost and the hassle? Can you get the therap…

Remember during the Covid lockdowns when we were all practicing self-care because life as we knew it was changing permanently and in real-time and felt like an out of control nightmare? That's what mental health crises feel like, except there is no pandemic and the nightmare is all in your head. It's a nightmare that festers and grows out of contro…

In the final episode of Beefcake Dysmorphia we discuss the communal acceptance of certain aesthetic trends: what we do because our friends do it. From botox, collagen, and steroids to plastic surgery, what will we do to our bodies to keep looking young and desirable? We also discuss some of the beefiest bods in Hollywood: Zac Efron, Michael Keaton,…

In this episode Ashe and I discuss our personal experiences with body image, the impact of social media and pop culture on how we view ourselves, the how and why of steroid use among gay men - the pros, the cons, the arbitrary side effects - and the popularity of cosmetic surgeries among increasingly younger men and women. In this episode: body dys…

Ashe and I are back to discuss the Stonewall Riots (but briefly), the muscle magazines of the 1950s and 60s, Hal Fisher in the 1970s, how HIV/AIDS transformed physical culture in the 80s, Hulk Hogan, monkey pox, and steroid use. Beefcake Dysmorphia is a multi-episode series on body dysmorphia disorder in the gay community. I'm grateful to my lifelo…

I'm writer and freelancer Joe Love, and this is my podcast where I bring you the freelance articles I pitched but couldn't sell. One editor said my pitch on child trash pickers in Kenya was “too depressing for a children’s magazine.” That article was titled "Unfuck the Poor" and in retrospect that’s probably too aggressive for Highlights. I cover e…

Is the person in the mirror worthy of love? In this episode series I discuss body dysmorphia in the gay community with one of my oldest friends, Ashe! We can trace the modern phenomenon of body dysmorphia down to modern advertising and three groundbreaking revelations about the consumer. If you want to keep the customer clamoring for more, just app…

In the final episode, Jessi and I discuss the aftermath of disclosing our family's darkest secret. Does closure exist? Do we have to forgive the people who hurt us the most? What does life look like when the abuse stops and the abuser is locked up? --- Send in a voice message: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/uftp/message…

We've established that my father is an asshole, but Jessi is about to explain what makes him a monster. Trigger Warning: This episode contains graphic descriptions of sexual abuse of a child. --- Send in a voice message: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/uftp/message

My sister Jessi and I reflect on two lifetimes of an abusive, narcissistic man who pretended to be our father. We have wildly different stories with a common thread: we'd both be better off if this man was dead. Trigger Warning: This episode has graphic descriptions of child physical and sexual abuse. --- Send in a voice message: https://podcasters…

In the 2nd episode of 'Ok, but is it racist,' Kenny and discuss how Trump revealed the ugly truth about our neighbors, why mundane things now feel racist, black cowboys, and how to make pizza. We cancel cable news and explore the whitewashed history of the American West - plus a pizza sauce recipe! --- Send in a voice message: https://podcasters.sp…

In this week's episode I sit down with my friend and colleague of 5 years, Kenny, to discuss The Talk, Trump's impact on race relations, and what it means to call someone a racist. We talk about raising kids and how we were raised in the south, construction, police interactions, and Trump's long history of not-so-subtle racism. --- Send in a voice …

The thrill ride of global plastic imperialism comes to a not-so-satisfying conclusion. We discuss Kenya's Dandora landfill, ChemCycling, plastic found in the most remote places on earth, and the history of inflatable sex dolls. What does Nazi Germany have to do with inflatable sex dolls? Turns out, well - something? --- Send in a voice message: htt…

The world is drowning in plastic waste and I have no solutions. It's hopeless. To cope, I bring in a childhood friend, Corey, whose in-depth knowledge of literally everything helps talk me off the ledge of hopelessness. Can you recycle plastic? Should you? Long story short, it isn't and you shouldn't. Long sold as a recoverable and, at times, envir…

We revisit the most popular UFTP topic to date: abortion. Ahead of midterm elections, we're zeroing in on the importance of reproductive health here in the US. In this episode, we take an extensive - but not exhaustive - deep-dive into how abortion went from a Republican-praised fundamental right of individual freedom to a vilified and criminalized…

Detained and arrested for wholly unclear reasons - was it tight pants or an improperly placed headscarf? - Zhina (Mahsa) Amini died from injuries received from Iran's morality police two days after being taken to the hospital. In the wake of Amini's death, Iran's youth - predominantly Gen Z and younger - have staged protests against the morality po…

Trigger Warning: This episode contains clips of interviews with Andrew Tate - themes of sexism, misogyny, transphobia, homophobia, and economic exploitation. In August of 2022, Andrew Tate was deplatformed - YouTube, Instagram, Facebook, TikTok, and Twitter have banned him from their sites, citing misogynistic content. The 21st Century's new Alpha …

Do Conservatives really care about children? No. No, they do not. From fake outrage over drag queens and distracting narratives on immigration, the conservative stance on abortion stumbles to incomprehensible lows and logical failures when confronted with the Ohio case of a pregnant 10 year-old rape victim. In this episode, I interview my 11 year-o…

We're wrapping up our coverage on the war in Ukraine. The civilian death toll continues to climb, and the international community has completely failed in preventing civilian casualties. Expect periodic updates, but for the sake of our mental health we must move on. --- Send in a voice message: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/uftp/message…

As Russian troops left Kyiv and its surrounding villages, they left behind evidence of war crimes and brutality. The Bucha massacre and the systematic rape of women and children by Russian soldiers will leave a legacy of trauma for future generations of Ukrainians. For rape victims who have become pregnant and then fled Ukraine, access to abortion …

For this episode, we interviewed a volunteer at Helping to Leave, Yury, a Russian expat who now spends 20 hours a day gathering information to help coordinate evacuation routes for Ukrainian citizens. Yury hasn't lived in Russia for 15 years, but still has friends and family there. His only goal at the moment is to help as many people survive as po…

We left off wondering what the hell Russia thinks it doing poking around in Ukraine's business. Was the inner chaos during the Maidan Revolution somehow Russia's concern? No. It was just a handy story that Putin likes to tell people. Putin has also made clear that Ukraine doesn't exist. In the battle of Western/Russian propaganda, the story that ne…

We came across some hot takes on Twitter disparaging Ukraine, its government, and its people. Unsurprising. We took a break from regular reporting to think about how Russia's unprovoked war against Ukraine is understood in the West. Do we understand it? Do we provide the Ukrainian people any justice by trying to view this war through a geopolitical…

War In Ukraine: Update for March 22, 2022. 27 Days of War. Of the 3.5 million refugees who have left Ukraine, 1.5 million of them are children. UNICEF has issued a warning that these children are at high risk for abduction and trafficking. The last reporters in the destroyed city of Mariupol have fled. Mstyslav Chernov and Evginiy Maloletka, who ha…

March 21, 2022. 26 days of war. Today was a hard day in Ukraine. Protesters in Kherson were shot by Russian troops. A holocaust survivor was killed in Kharkiv. Lviv, once a safe haven, faces a new reality of air raid sirens and bombings. Today in Vilnius, Lithuania, activist and politician Sviatlana Tsihanouskaya - the democratically elected presid…

March 20, 2022. Last week, we met with Russian activist and public historian Sophia Shirogorova to tell us how Russia came to its final form - an authoritarian state hellbent on wrecking former Soviet republics. We discuss the rise of Putin from Yeltsin's blessing to the brutal crackdowns of the 2011-2013 protests, to the annexation of Crimea, to t…

March 18, 2022. 23 days of war. 1,300 Ukrainians are still stuck in the Mariupol Drama Theater, an unknown number are stuck in the shelter of Mariupol's Neptune Pool, where mostly pregnant women and women with children were sheltered. Mariupol is basically destroyed. 80% of its residential buildings are now uninhabitable. Russia does not stop shell…

March 16, 2022. 21 Days of War. If you want to see how Putin's war will play out, you have only to look at Russia's past. When Russia backed the Syrian military in 2011, we saw cluster bombs, thermobaric weapons, chemical weapons, and Putin's penchant for victim blaming. That the war in Syria devolved into utter chaos only played into Putin's hands…

March 13, 2022, 18 days of war. We take a step back and get you caught up on where we are in Ukraine - what cities have fallen to Russian forces, what exactly is an oblast, and what is Russia trying to accomplish? This episode is also about the international press - namely, those journalists inside Ukraine who risk their lives to bring us firsthand…

Daily update on the war in Ukraine, March 12, 2022. Calls for a No-Fly Zone intensify as Russian shelling escalates. The UN has released a new report putting the total number of Ukrainian refugees at 2.5+ million, with over 12 million Ukrainians stuck in the hardest hit areas. 400,000 Meriupol residents have been trapped in the city without food, w…

March 9, 2022 - Updates on the war in Ukraine. Mariupol is devolving into a humanitarian nightmare. A maternity and children's ward at a Mariupol hospital was struck by Russian artillery - destroying it and injuring 17. Intense shelling has reportedly killed 1,170 in Mariupol, with images emerging of a mass grave. Civilians, residential areas, and …

Ukraine and the United States are inextricably linked in terms of national security. Whether the US gave Ukraine "assurances" or "guarantees" as part of the denuclearization deal, the US owes Ukraine a strong hand in its fight against Russia. That could be in the form of planes and weapons, or it could be in the form of brokering peace. There's a t…

7 March 2022. Vinnytsia International Airport is destroyed by Russian bombs - exactly as Zelinskyy warned. The International Red Cross reports an evacuation route made by Russians was littered with mines. Russia offers clear passage to all fleeing Ukrainians...as long as they flee to Russia or Belarus, which has been aiding Russia's war effort. As …

6 March 2022. Ukraine's Day of Forgiveness. Maybe one day there will be forgiveness, but not today. Somehow, Ukrainians have managed to break our cynicism. They show us hope in tragedy, humor in despair. They show us Hell and limitless bravery. This episode celebrates you, Ukraine, as you weather the worst of what this world offers. Slava Ukraini, …

5 March 2022 - The war in Ukraine is 10 days long. A YouTube video from a Ukrainian television broadcast appears to show an interview with three Russian POWs. They are battered, remorseful, they speak plainly and openly. It might be real. It might go viral. In the Fog of War, the truth is hard to verify. Updates on Odessa, Kharkiv, and Kyiv. We loo…

Updates on the ongoing war in Ukraine for March 4, 2022. The first reports of rape by Russian soldiers have made it to the news. Rape is a war crime. --- Send in a voice message: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/uftp/message

Reporting on the 8th day of Russia's invasion of Ukraine, March 3, 2022. Kherson has officially fallen to Russia. Mariupol is surrounded by land and sea forces. One million refugees have fled Ukraine for neighboring countries. And Putin has a Nazi problem. Ukraine's Azov Battalion is a white-nationalist regiment that has been folded into Ukraine's …

UFTP has put together an update on the war in Ukraine as of March 2, 2022 - Updates on Kharkiv, Kyiv, Mariupol, and Kherson. We debunk Russia's claim of "De-Nazification" and dig deep into Putin's obsession with NATO. Is the US to blame for the whole thing? We broadly cover misinformation and the history leading up to Russia's invasion of Ukraine. …