Latest / Stuff You Should Know / Farmer's Almanac: Literature to Poop To

Transcript

Farmer's Almanac: Literature to Poop To · Stuff You Should Know

• 0:01
  Speaker 1: Welcome to Stuff you should know, a production of iHeartRadio.
• 0:11
  Speaker 2: Howdy and welcome to the podcast. I'm Josh Clark, and
• 0:14
  Speaker 2: there's Charles W. Chuck Bryant and Jerry's here too, and
• 0:18
  Speaker 2: we're just some homey folksy types ready to spin a
• 0:21
  Speaker 2: good yarn for you about the old farmer's almond.
• 0:26
  Speaker 3: That's right. You know why I commissioned this one, why, Chuck?
• 0:30
  Speaker 2: Why?
• 0:30
  Speaker 3: Because I thought it would be fun to put a
• 0:35
  Speaker 3: old farmer's almanac in the outhouse at my camp.
• 0:39
  Speaker 2: Okay, wait, first, you have an outhouse.
• 0:42
  Speaker 3: I have an outthouse.
• 0:43
  Speaker 2: Is it just a pit like a latrine with a
• 0:45
  Speaker 2: log over it.
• 0:46
  Speaker 3: No, it's a composting toilet okay, with a little solar
• 0:50
  Speaker 3: panel outside that runs a fan.
• 0:52
  Speaker 2: Okay, and there's the fan.
• 0:54
  Speaker 3: Do the fan moves air through to provide aerobic interaction.
• 1:01
  Speaker 3: Next the uh with the with the with the poop
• 1:06
  Speaker 3: and the composting pete.
• 1:09
  Speaker 2: I just made a compost t like that, but I
• 1:13
  Speaker 2: used to submerged little fountain pump to create the air movement. Yeah,
• 1:19
  Speaker 2: pretty neat.
• 1:20
  Speaker 3: It is neat. So yeah, I got a composting toilet.
• 1:22
  Speaker 2: It's good.
• 1:23
  Speaker 3: It helps. Uh, I don't use it. I use it
• 1:26
  Speaker 3: to go poopy if I'm there for more than a
• 1:28
  Speaker 3: couple of days.
• 1:28
  Speaker 2: Uh huh.
• 1:29
  Speaker 3: But largely I put it there so, you know, some
• 1:33
  Speaker 3: of some of the ladies in my life and and friends,
• 1:36
  Speaker 3: wives and things, I don't like to squad in the woods.
• 1:39
  Speaker 3: Some of them don't mind, sure, But I put that
• 1:41
  Speaker 3: there so everyone would want to go camping at the
• 1:44
  Speaker 3: camp and be like, yeah, you got a composting toilet.
• 1:46
  Speaker 3: I feel good about.
• 1:47
  Speaker 2: Using it, right, I can. I can see the conversation
• 1:50
  Speaker 2: between the couple and the kitchen back in Atlanta, like, well, no,
• 1:53
  Speaker 2: he's got a composting toilet. Well, now i'm you know
• 1:57
  Speaker 2: you can count me in.
• 1:59
  Speaker 3: Well, and now I gotta He's got a composting toilet
• 2:01
  Speaker 3: and an old farmer's almanac in that outhouse because I
• 2:04
  Speaker 3: thought it would just be sort of a fun thing,
• 2:06
  Speaker 3: because I knew from growing up as a kid that
• 2:09
  Speaker 3: an old in the South, that an old farmer's almanac
• 2:13
  Speaker 3: was quite a common thing to find in a bathroom
• 2:15
  Speaker 3: or an outhouse to read while you're there on the john.
• 2:19
  Speaker 3: So I have one there from a couple of years ago.
• 2:22
  Speaker 3: I need to get a new one. It should change
• 2:24
  Speaker 3: it every year. You know. It's sort of the whole
• 2:26
  Speaker 3: point of an ominac. And so I thought I was
• 2:32
  Speaker 3: reading it the other day when I was up there
• 2:33
  Speaker 3: cutting your grass, and I was like, I really don't
• 2:34
  Speaker 3: even know the history of these things, and so let's
• 2:37
  Speaker 3: find out.
• 2:37
  Speaker 2: So did you read them when you were a kid too?
• 2:40
  Speaker 3: I mean a little bit here and there. It's not
• 2:43
  Speaker 3: very interesting for a kid. Sure, I could see that,
• 2:46
  Speaker 3: But my grandmother, Bryant, my dad's mom, was a backyard
• 2:52
  Speaker 3: farmer her whole life, and you know, she was one
• 2:55
  Speaker 3: of these people that put a lot of stock in
• 2:57
  Speaker 3: the Farmer's Almanac, and so it was just something I
• 3:00
  Speaker 3: knew about in my life as a kid. Probably didn't
• 3:03
  Speaker 3: read it a ton, though.
• 3:04
  Speaker 2: I was never exposed to it, I knew it existed.
• 3:07
  Speaker 3: You were from the north, yeah, I was Midwest, but
• 3:10
  Speaker 3: to Georgia, Ohio was the north. Yeah.
• 3:12
  Speaker 2: Still, but there was corn corn everywhere around where I lived,
• 3:16
  Speaker 2: So it is a little surprising. But the biggest surprise
• 3:20
  Speaker 2: that I received since we started researching this is that
• 3:24
  Speaker 2: you me apparently used to read the Farmer's Almanac when
• 3:26
  Speaker 2: she was a little kid.
• 3:28
  Speaker 3: Nothing you ever tell me about Umi will surprise me.
• 3:31
  Speaker 3: It's true. You just never know.
• 3:33
  Speaker 2: No, you really don't. It's great for those of you
• 3:35
  Speaker 2: who've never met you mean, you wouldn't consider her a
• 3:37
  Speaker 2: farmer's almanac type.
• 3:40
  Speaker 3: That's pretty safe to say.
• 3:41
  Speaker 2: Yeah so I was. I thought that was neat. She's
• 3:43
  Speaker 2: very well rounded. But I, in like chia pet fashion,
• 3:48
  Speaker 2: went on and ordered this time myself a Farmer's Almanac.
• 3:51
  Speaker 2: I was going to order you one, and I was like,
• 3:53
  Speaker 2: I'll bet he's already got one on him.
• 3:54
  Speaker 3: Oh look at you. Very smart. Also, I've made a
• 3:57
  Speaker 3: joke about you're from the North as it out. As
• 4:00
  Speaker 3: we'll see, the Old Farmer's Almanac came from New England originally. Yeah,
• 4:04
  Speaker 3: so I was, you know, people from the north. There's plenty
• 4:06
  Speaker 3: of farming that went on all over the country.
• 4:09
  Speaker 2: By god, they even cover the weather forecast for the year.
• 4:12
  Speaker 3: In California exactly. They don't discriminate, all right, So big
• 4:18
  Speaker 3: thanks to Dave Ruse who helped us out with this one.
• 4:22
  Speaker 3: We're going to talk mostly about the Old Farmer's Almanac,
• 4:24
  Speaker 3: but we will talk a little bit about its rival,
• 4:27
  Speaker 3: the Farmer's Almanac. But we're talking about the Old Farmers
• 4:30
  Speaker 3: Almanac the one that's looked the same since its inception,
• 4:35
  Speaker 3: with that yellow cover, the four seasons. It's very Did
• 4:41
  Speaker 3: you get yours in the mail yet? No?
• 4:43
  Speaker 2: I pre ordered it. I won't arrive until August thirtieth.
• 4:46
  Speaker 3: Oh, this is for next year. Yes, it's very smart.
• 4:51
  Speaker 3: Or do you hear in advance?
• 4:53
  Speaker 2: Well, I mean what am I going to do? Be like, well,
• 4:56
  Speaker 2: what happened two weeks ago getting this year's you know?
• 4:59
  Speaker 2: I mean, like why that.
• 5:00
  Speaker 3: You could one from August to December? You could surely
• 5:03
  Speaker 3: gain some insight.
• 5:03
  Speaker 2: Now, I don't like to waste money. I'd rather just wait.
• 5:07
  Speaker 3: Yeah, but it's been the same. We'll talk a little
• 5:10
  Speaker 3: bit more about the cover and its presentation and all that.
• 5:13
  Speaker 3: But it's very iconic looking if you've ever seen one.
• 5:17
  Speaker 3: It's been around since seventeen ninety two. That's amazing, which
• 5:21
  Speaker 3: means it's the oldest continuously published periodical in North America.
• 5:26
  Speaker 2: Yeah, and I looked it up. That's the oldest published
• 5:30
  Speaker 2: anything that's been continuously printed in North America. Is the
• 5:34
  Speaker 2: Hartford Kurant or sorted as the Connecticut Kuran in seventeen
• 5:37
  Speaker 2: sixty four, not too much sooner than the farmer's almanac.
• 5:41
  Speaker 2: But then if you look for the world, the Swiss
• 5:44
  Speaker 2: have us beat by a mile. Yeah, they have a
• 5:48
  Speaker 2: what's called The Post and Domestic Times, the post ach
• 5:51
  Speaker 2: inrich tid Niningar Okay, And again that means the Post
• 5:58
  Speaker 2: and Domestic Times, which has been printed tinuously since sixteen
• 6:01
  Speaker 2: forty five. Amazing, But still that's nothing to sneeze at
• 6:05
  Speaker 2: seventeen ninety two. And they never missed an addition.
• 6:08
  Speaker 3: Pretty good, Yeah, yeah, totally. And these these books, basically,
• 6:12
  Speaker 3: I mean those sort of an almanac craze at one point,
• 6:16
  Speaker 3: lots of small family farms all over the country. Yeah,
• 6:19
  Speaker 3: pre industrialization, there were hundreds of farmers almanacs all over
• 6:24
  Speaker 3: the place, a lot of regional ones, even local ones.
• 6:28
  Speaker 3: And what you would find in them if you were like, well, guys,
• 6:30
  Speaker 3: what the heck is a farmer's almanac?
• 6:32
  Speaker 2: Good? Good, walk back.
• 6:34
  Speaker 3: What it is is there are books that will say
• 6:36
  Speaker 3: things like, here's when you should plant things, here's some
• 6:41
  Speaker 3: tips on cattle. Very importantly, here are astronomical charts. This
• 6:47
  Speaker 3: is when the sun is going to rise and set
• 6:49
  Speaker 3: in the spring and throughout the year. These are the
• 6:52
  Speaker 3: phases of the moon. Here are some recipes. Maybe here's
• 6:56
  Speaker 3: some jokes, here's some poetry. So they would mix in
• 6:59
  Speaker 3: some folksy fun stuff and entertaining stuff along with sort
• 7:04
  Speaker 3: of boots to the ground advice tips and raw data
• 7:07
  Speaker 3: for farming.
• 7:08
  Speaker 2: Yeah, but the big draw is the long range weather forecasts,
• 7:12
  Speaker 2: like they essentially forecast the weather generally for the entire
• 7:17
  Speaker 2: United States and Canada a year in advance. Yeah, we'll
• 7:21
  Speaker 2: talk about that, and they say that they're eighty percent accurate,
• 7:24
  Speaker 2: which is mind boggling. It's it's almost unbelievable.
• 7:28
  Speaker 3: Yeah, And it's things like I remember my grandmother referring
• 7:32
  Speaker 3: to it for her crops later in the year to
• 7:35
  Speaker 3: see like how rainy is it going to be this fall,
• 7:38
  Speaker 3: how rainy will it be six months from now exactly?
• 7:41
  Speaker 3: And people put a lot of stock in it, and
• 7:43
  Speaker 3: some people still do even Yeah.
• 7:45
  Speaker 2: So it's an unusual and unique combination of folksy folk
• 7:52
  Speaker 2: wisdom and folklore. Even things like if you want to
• 7:57
  Speaker 2: have turnips in the winter and there's no such thing
• 7:59
  Speaker 2: as refrigeration, keep them in packed in sawdust during the
• 8:02
  Speaker 2: summer or whatever. Stuff like that. It's useful. But then
• 8:05
  Speaker 2: there's also like astrology, like horoscopes and that kind of thing.
• 8:10
  Speaker 2: But then and then it's alongside like actual legitimate astronomical
• 8:13
  Speaker 2: data that is accurate. So it's a weird combination of
• 8:17
  Speaker 2: really stuff. And apparently it grew out of the medieval era,
• 8:22
  Speaker 2: and the word almanac itself seems to have been invented
• 8:25
  Speaker 2: by medieval French astronomers in the thirteenth century. Although they
• 8:29
  Speaker 2: said that it was an Arabic word almanach and that
• 8:33
  Speaker 2: meant calendar of the heavens, and apparently these astronomers just
• 8:37
  Speaker 2: totally made that up.
• 8:38
  Speaker 3: Yeah, it was, yeah, like you said, invented by the French.
• 8:42
  Speaker 3: These medieval almanacs were they were just handwritten, this before
• 8:46
  Speaker 3: the printing press, and they did some similar things though
• 8:49
  Speaker 3: they talked about like celestial bodies and moon phases and
• 8:54
  Speaker 3: stuff like that. Eventually, when the printing press comes along,
• 8:58
  Speaker 3: they were some of the first things to be printed. Like,
• 9:00
  Speaker 3: people lived their lives by these a lot of times,
• 9:03
  Speaker 3: so they were some of the most popular early books
• 9:07
  Speaker 3: and periodicals that existed in the world.
• 9:10
  Speaker 2: Essentially, Yeah, because of their popularity and because even back
• 9:14
  Speaker 2: then they were just kind of bizarre creatures their own thing.
• 9:18
  Speaker 2: They were also widely satirized too. As early as fifteen
• 9:23
  Speaker 2: thirty two, there was a French satirist named Rabelai who
• 9:26
  Speaker 2: created a parody almanac and he prognosticated stuff that's quite
• 9:33
  Speaker 2: obvious as a way to just kind of mock what
• 9:36
  Speaker 2: almanacs do. But he started a trend that lasted for
• 9:39
  Speaker 2: hundreds of years. And the most famous parody almanac was
• 9:43
  Speaker 2: Poor Richard's Almanac, which was published by Benjamin Franklin from
• 9:46
  Speaker 2: seventeen thirty two to fifty eight. And What's neat is
• 9:50
  Speaker 2: Even though it was a parody and they made stuff
• 9:52
  Speaker 2: up and it was funny and a satire of almanacs,
• 9:56
  Speaker 2: it also contained like actual helpful, useful information.
• 10:00
  Speaker 3: Too, Yeah, it did. He wrote under the pseudonym Richard Saunders.
• 10:05
  Speaker 3: And it's famous for a lot of things, one of which,
• 10:08
  Speaker 3: like you said, it was around for what twenty something years,
• 10:12
  Speaker 3: twenty five, twenty six.
• 10:13
  Speaker 2: Years, I'm guessing like thirty something.
• 10:16
  Speaker 3: Yeah, but it was like the best selling for that long.
• 10:20
  Speaker 3: But it was very famous now for these a lot
• 10:23
  Speaker 3: of turns of phrase that Franklin invented a s. Saunders,
• 10:26
  Speaker 3: such as we still use today. Hase makes waste as
• 10:30
  Speaker 3: one fish and visitors smell after three days. And of
• 10:35
  Speaker 3: course the old standard early to bed, early to rise
• 10:39
  Speaker 3: makes a man healthy, wealthy, and wise.
• 10:41
  Speaker 2: Very nice.
• 10:41
  Speaker 3: All came from Poor Richard's Almanac.
• 10:43
  Speaker 2: Yeah, from the noodle of Ben Franklin himself, because he
• 10:46
  Speaker 2: wrote it and published it.
• 10:47
  Speaker 3: That's right.
• 10:48
  Speaker 2: What a renaissance dude he was.
• 10:50
  Speaker 3: He really was. We've kind of danced around Franklin here
• 10:53
  Speaker 3: and there. I wonder not that if we could ever
• 10:58
  Speaker 3: he's annoying podcasting sprites. I wonder if we should ever
• 11:03
  Speaker 3: just dive in and just cover him in earnest.
• 11:06
  Speaker 2: I think we totally should.
• 11:07
  Speaker 3: You probably should, or at the very least that kite
• 11:10
  Speaker 3: and the key. I feel like we have.
• 11:13
  Speaker 2: Talked about that before. Yeah, I can't remember which episode,
• 11:16
  Speaker 2: but I think we're like, that's not it didn't happen. Yeah,
• 11:20
  Speaker 2: but his Poor Richard's Almanac, everything Franklin touched basically turned
• 11:24
  Speaker 2: to gold. He was just good at everything. And his
• 11:28
  Speaker 2: his parody almanac, which was apparently inspired by a European
• 11:33
  Speaker 2: almanac called Poor Robins, he kicked off like that almanac
• 11:39
  Speaker 2: craze that you talked about in I think the late
• 11:42
  Speaker 2: eighteenth century, which is when Robert Bailey Thomas came along
• 11:46
  Speaker 2: and said, I'm getting in on this almanac stuff myself
• 11:48
  Speaker 2: because I find them thoroughly fascinating.
• 11:51
  Speaker 3: I think that's a great place for a break. Okay,
• 11:54
  Speaker 3: we'll come back if you agree and talk about who
• 11:57
  Speaker 3: Robert Bailey Thomas was right after this.
• 12:24
  Speaker 1: Learn and stuff with Joshua John stuff Fushion.
• 12:33
  Speaker 3: All right, So Robert Bailey Thomas is an entrepreneur. Almanacs
• 12:38
  Speaker 3: are all the craze. He's, like you said, he wanted
• 12:41
  Speaker 3: to get in on this action. He was a dude
• 12:43
  Speaker 3: from Massachusetts who was a farm guy, but a farm
• 12:48
  Speaker 3: guy raised by educated parents, an educated farming family who
• 12:52
  Speaker 3: very much valued reading. They had a very big library,
• 12:55
  Speaker 3: and he would just you know, he was quite taken
• 12:58
  Speaker 3: with almanacs and astronomy and science journals and kind of
• 13:04
  Speaker 3: all sort of makes sense that he would one day
• 13:06
  Speaker 3: want to do an almanac when you look at his upbringing.
• 13:09
  Speaker 2: Yeah, and it's pretty remarkable that his parents had a
• 13:11
  Speaker 2: library in their house. But they were educated farmers and
• 13:15
  Speaker 2: they made sure that their kid was educated as well.
• 13:18
  Speaker 2: Before he became an almanac publisher, he was a school teacher,
• 13:21
  Speaker 2: a bookbinder, and he said nope, I'm gonna do this
• 13:24
  Speaker 2: almanac thing. I've been putting it off long enough. By God,
• 13:27
  Speaker 2: I'm going to chase my dream. And he did so.
• 13:29
  Speaker 2: He went to Boston. He went and studied at Osgood
• 13:34
  Speaker 2: Carlton's School of Mathematics in Boston, which today it does like,
• 13:41
  Speaker 2: if you're taking classes from Osgood Carlton School of Mathematics today,
• 13:45
  Speaker 2: you should un enroll and ask for your money back.
• 13:48
  Speaker 3: Boy, I hope it's not still around.
• 13:50
  Speaker 2: I hope not too, because that was a pretty harsh insult.
• 13:53
  Speaker 2: But at the time, I mean, it was a legitimate school.
• 13:56
  Speaker 2: It just had a silly name. And that's where Robert
• 13:59
  Speaker 2: Thomas went to go figure out how to create these
• 14:02
  Speaker 2: astronomical charts that he was going to publish in his almanac.
• 14:05
  Speaker 3: Yeah, so, like all the things are there. His parents
• 14:08
  Speaker 3: are farmers, he was into science. He worked as a
• 14:11
  Speaker 3: bookbinder and a teacher. He took these math classes like
• 14:16
  Speaker 3: it is all sort of coalescing into a pretty obvious
• 14:20
  Speaker 3: thing to do. And that year in seventeen ninety three,
• 14:24
  Speaker 3: or I guess the year before. For the year seventeen
• 14:26
  Speaker 3: ninety three, he put out because people like I don't
• 14:30
  Speaker 3: know Josh Clark like to buy things a little early. Yea,
• 14:34
  Speaker 3: you know, by this year's calendar in July.
• 14:38
  Speaker 2: What a waste exactly you buy next year's calendar in July.
• 14:42
  Speaker 3: My mom might do that when I was a kid
• 14:45
  Speaker 3: because they were on sale.
• 14:46
  Speaker 2: I have price calendar.
• 14:48
  Speaker 3: I'm not saying that that's the way forward for all humanity.
• 14:51
  Speaker 2: That's hilarious. I'd be an idiot not to buy this.
• 14:55
  Speaker 3: I think I got my I got a calendar every year,
• 14:58
  Speaker 3: and I think I always got it on my birthday
• 15:00
  Speaker 3: in March. For an hilarious it's pretty funny.
• 15:04
  Speaker 2: I am. I got a calendar in the mail from
• 15:06
  Speaker 2: being a member of the Autumn Society, and I was like,
• 15:09
  Speaker 2: what the hell am I going to do with this?
• 15:12
  Speaker 2: Like an actual legitimate calendar these days is like it's
• 15:17
  Speaker 2: just not handy, Like it just doesn't have a place
• 15:20
  Speaker 2: in the world. So I have to figure out what
• 15:22
  Speaker 2: to do with it.
• 15:23
  Speaker 3: I disagree. Is it a daily calendar.
• 15:25
  Speaker 2: No, it's a calendar monthly thing, like what you got
• 15:28
  Speaker 2: for your birthday?
• 15:30
  Speaker 3: My friend, we still get calendars, Emily. I wish I
• 15:33
  Speaker 3: could remember the the artists, but these very beautiful month calendars,
• 15:40
  Speaker 3: these artists draws these very beautiful pictures, and sure it
• 15:43
  Speaker 3: hangs on the wall, and I find a great deal
• 15:46
  Speaker 3: of value in a month at a glance without getting
• 15:50
  Speaker 3: out my phone and all the distractions that come with that.
• 15:52
  Speaker 2: I feel like I'm a big enough person to admit
• 15:55
  Speaker 2: when I'm wrong.
• 15:56
  Speaker 3: Hey, no, not everything works for everyone.
• 15:58
  Speaker 2: So no, I was trying who pointing calendars and you
• 16:01
  Speaker 2: change my mind. I'm going to put it up somewhere
• 16:03
  Speaker 2: because you're right. And I knew that just seeing the
• 16:05
  Speaker 2: little pretty birds every month is great. I was going
• 16:09
  Speaker 2: to do something with it, but I was still just astonished.
• 16:12
  Speaker 2: I haven't seen an actual calendar for a very long time.
• 16:16
  Speaker 3: No, I'm with you. I'm with you, all right. So
• 16:19
  Speaker 3: where are we? He finished his mathematics and in seventeen
• 16:22
  Speaker 3: ninety three put out the first edition, which was called
• 16:25
  Speaker 3: The Farmer's Almanac. And we'll talk about the word old,
• 16:28
  Speaker 3: coming and going as it comes and goes.
• 16:32
  Speaker 2: So he apparently in the first cover he said that
• 16:37
  Speaker 2: the Farmer's Almanac, containing besides the large number of astronomical
• 16:41
  Speaker 2: calculations and farmer's calendar for every month of the year,
• 16:45
  Speaker 2: has great a variety of new, useful and entertaining matter,
• 16:48
  Speaker 2: which is not the best sentence ever, but it really
• 16:51
  Speaker 2: gets across. It's just jam packed with stuff, and he
• 16:54
  Speaker 2: fitted all into a forty six page book, which is
• 16:58
  Speaker 2: much slimmer than the ones you get to today from
• 17:00
  Speaker 2: what I understand.
• 17:02
  Speaker 3: Yeah, and that that uh, what do you call that
• 17:05
  Speaker 3: a slogan?
• 17:06
  Speaker 2: I guess, I guess I'm.
• 17:09
  Speaker 3: Still on the cover.
• 17:11
  Speaker 2: It is it still?
• 17:12
  Speaker 3: Yeah? Yeah, well, oh yeah, you'll see very soon. It's
• 17:16
  Speaker 3: been on there for two hundred and thirty straight years,
• 17:19
  Speaker 3: as well as pictures of uh, I guess, portraits of
• 17:23
  Speaker 3: Ben Franklin on one side, yeah, and Robert Thomas on
• 17:27
  Speaker 3: the other.
• 17:27
  Speaker 2: Why am I thinking of Rico Tubbs every time we
• 17:31
  Speaker 2: say Robert Bailey Thomas's name? What was his name? I
• 17:33
  Speaker 2: know it is three names? And there was a.
• 17:35
  Speaker 3: Toss and I think Thomas, Oh you mean the.
• 17:39
  Speaker 2: Actor, Yeah, Rico Tubbs from Miami Vice.
• 17:42
  Speaker 3: Yeah, I thought, uh, what's his what's his real name?
• 17:46
  Speaker 3: Don Johnson? And yeah him, Remember what happened to that guy?
• 17:51
  Speaker 3: Is he around? Oh?
• 17:52
  Speaker 2: I'm sure he's around. He got super rich off of
• 17:54
  Speaker 2: Miami Vice and said, so long, suckers, I'm going to
• 17:57
  Speaker 2: become a Farmer and he subscribed to the Farmer's Almond Neck.
• 18:01
  Speaker 3: Yeah, like you said, forty six pages, and it had
• 18:03
  Speaker 3: all the things you would expect. It had all those
• 18:05
  Speaker 3: sunrises and sunsets and moon phases. It had all the advice,
• 18:11
  Speaker 3: It had home remedies for you know, little ailments and
• 18:17
  Speaker 3: things like that. This was just coming off of the
• 18:21
  Speaker 3: snake oil sort of period, or maybe it was still
• 18:24
  Speaker 3: right in the middle of it actually, Yeah.
• 18:25
  Speaker 2: I think that lasted well into the nineteenth and even
• 18:28
  Speaker 2: early twentieth century.
• 18:30
  Speaker 3: Yeah, so all this kind of stuff was very popular,
• 18:32
  Speaker 3: and he put it in print gardening advice, all the
• 18:35
  Speaker 3: poetry and the little jokes, and he had math puzzles
• 18:39
  Speaker 3: and things like because he was a math guy from
• 18:41
  Speaker 3: that amazing college that he went to, and he apparently
• 18:46
  Speaker 3: was a good writer. And that's why it became because,
• 18:49
  Speaker 3: like we said, there were hundreds of ALMANACX, and this
• 18:51
  Speaker 3: one became the most popular because he was good at
• 18:54
  Speaker 3: doing it. For the time. He was sort of a
• 18:57
  Speaker 3: witty and clever guy, and people like it just liked
• 18:59
  Speaker 3: his writing.
• 19:00
  Speaker 2: Yeah, that's that's really important. That he wasn't like this innovative,
• 19:04
  Speaker 2: amazing like he didn't invent the whole thing. He I mean,
• 19:08
  Speaker 2: he came along centuries after the first one started being published,
• 19:11
  Speaker 2: but he was just that interesting that his publication has
• 19:14
  Speaker 2: been around two hundred and thirty years. That's pretty remarkable
• 19:19
  Speaker 2: if you really stop and think about it. That's how
• 19:21
  Speaker 2: That's how much of a nerve that guy touched. And
• 19:24
  Speaker 2: that list of stuff that you talked about, that's essentially
• 19:27
  Speaker 2: exactly what you're gonna find today. And I went and
• 19:31
  Speaker 2: looked up some of the math problems. I'm like, oh,
• 19:33
  Speaker 2: I'll bet I can do that. Sure, there was now
• 19:36
  Speaker 2: now mathematician I found from the nineteen seventy four edition. Huh,
• 19:42
  Speaker 2: And it was it has three circles and they're separate
• 19:44
  Speaker 2: from one another, okay, And the question is how many
• 19:47
  Speaker 2: circles can you draw that touch all three circles in
• 19:51
  Speaker 2: just one point? And I'm like, well, you can draw
• 19:54
  Speaker 2: one in the center of them, he can draw one
• 19:56
  Speaker 2: on the outside, so two. And I went and flipped
• 19:58
  Speaker 2: forward to see what the answer was, and the answer
• 20:01
  Speaker 2: was seven. And I still have no idea and I
• 20:05
  Speaker 2: probably never will how how you could possibly draw seven
• 20:09
  Speaker 2: circles that fulfilled that criteria? And I'm just sticking with two.
• 20:13
  Speaker 2: I think it's a misprint.
• 20:15
  Speaker 3: No, someone didn't show you though.
• 20:17
  Speaker 2: No, it just said seven. That was it, and then
• 20:20
  Speaker 2: it moved on to the next thing.
• 20:21
  Speaker 3: Really annoying. Someone will send in an answer, so we
• 20:24
  Speaker 3: have plenty of math help.
• 20:26
  Speaker 2: I don't want to know a different answer the answers too.
• 20:29
  Speaker 3: Oh all right, okay. So one example, you know we
• 20:34
  Speaker 3: talked about people liking his writing and him being a
• 20:36
  Speaker 3: little more creative than maybe your average almanac at the time,
• 20:40
  Speaker 3: was he did one on cider making, but instead of
• 20:43
  Speaker 3: just leaving instructions and a recipe, he made it more
• 20:47
  Speaker 3: of a story about he and a farmer with some
• 20:50
  Speaker 3: witticisms and jokes and stuff. Kind of like maybe he
• 20:53
  Speaker 3: started that recipe trend of having the scroll for ten
• 20:56
  Speaker 3: pages before you get to the recipe.
• 20:58
  Speaker 2: Thank god for that jump to recipe.
• 21:01
  Speaker 3: Amen.
• 21:02
  Speaker 2: But that cider making thing, that's a good example of
• 21:04
  Speaker 2: what you'd find. That was for like the month of October.
• 21:07
  Speaker 2: So each month would have you know, some information or
• 21:11
  Speaker 2: some suggestions on what you should do around the farm
• 21:15
  Speaker 2: that month, and it's making cider is what you would
• 21:17
  Speaker 2: do in October. And then on the opposite page, I
• 21:20
  Speaker 2: love this. I hope they still use it so I
• 21:23
  Speaker 2: can get it my twenty twenty four edition. But it
• 21:26
  Speaker 2: would say at the top of the month, October half
• 21:29
  Speaker 2: thirty one days, And for some reason, it just makes
• 21:32
  Speaker 2: it seem so ominous. Yeah, you know, like something bad's
• 21:35
  Speaker 2: gonna happen in October because they said it half thirty
• 21:38
  Speaker 2: one days.
• 21:39
  Speaker 3: Yeah. I love that. Yeah, I hope it does have
• 21:42
  Speaker 3: thirty one days. You know, it would be ominous if
• 21:45
  Speaker 3: it said October half twenty eight days.
• 21:47
  Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, yeah, the almanac would know.
• 21:51
  Speaker 3: Thomas himself did fifty three editions of The Farmer's Almanac
• 21:55
  Speaker 3: before he died in eighteen forty six. He apparently died editing,
• 22:01
  Speaker 3: as the story goes, for the next edition that was
• 22:04
  Speaker 3: ready to be shipped to your house, and that that's
• 22:09
  Speaker 3: the story of the Old Farmer's Almanac. But what about
• 22:12
  Speaker 3: the old.
• 22:13
  Speaker 2: Oh well, the old part actually came all the way
• 22:16
  Speaker 2: back in eighteen thirty two, when Phillip Seymour Hoffman was
• 22:22
  Speaker 2: still editing the Almanac. He changed the name to the
• 22:26
  Speaker 2: Old Farmer's Almanac because it had been around for thirty
• 22:29
  Speaker 2: five years already and it had enough competition that he
• 22:33
  Speaker 2: wanted to be like, hey, don't forget this is the
• 22:35
  Speaker 2: original Farmer's Almanac, but instead he used Old.
• 22:38
  Speaker 3: Yeah. I'm trying to find the Phillip Symore Hoffman joke,
• 22:41
  Speaker 3: but I don't get it.
• 22:42
  Speaker 2: Robert Bailey Thomas.
• 22:44
  Speaker 3: Okay, just three names. You're gonna call him John Wayne
• 22:48
  Speaker 3: gace Enox Well, no.
• 22:49
  Speaker 2: No, I called him Phillip Seymore Hoffman because the Rico
• 22:52
  Speaker 2: Tubbs has Philip, and I think Philip Michael Thomas. Michael Thomas,
• 22:57
  Speaker 2: Yes it is, it's Philip Michael Thomas. If we didn't
• 23:00
  Speaker 2: look it up either, did we?
• 23:01
  Speaker 3: We did it. I didn't look it up, but he said, phill.
• 23:03
  Speaker 2: Up there, Yeah, we did it, Chuck. We just connected
• 23:06
  Speaker 2: brain waves.
• 23:07
  Speaker 3: I know. I feel like we should just stop, sure,
• 23:10
  Speaker 3: I mean retire. Okay, so you talked about Old, right
• 23:16
  Speaker 3: you finished that part.
• 23:18
  Speaker 2: Yeah, he was distinguishing his publication from the competition.
• 23:23
  Speaker 3: That's right. And Richard. I'm sorry, John Jinks. I want
• 23:26
  Speaker 3: to call him Richard for some reason, probably because of
• 23:30
  Speaker 3: Richard's Almanac. Thomas died. John Jenks was the guy who
• 23:34
  Speaker 3: changed it to Old and that cover art started because
• 23:39
  Speaker 3: of Jinks in eighteen fifty one. And that's the same
• 23:42
  Speaker 3: cover that they still used today that I was talking about.
• 23:44
  Speaker 2: Yeah, apparently Thomas changes to he's the one who introduced
• 23:48
  Speaker 2: old stopped. He took it away three years later, and
• 23:51
  Speaker 2: then his successor said, now we're going to go back
• 23:53
  Speaker 2: to the old Farmer's Almanac.
• 23:54
  Speaker 3: Yeah that was Jinks.
• 23:55
  Speaker 2: Yeah, mister Jenks, I think we just got.
• 23:57
  Speaker 3: Really confusing then. But hopefully people figure it out.
• 23:59
  Speaker 2: Yeah. Eventually, it just keep listening to what we said
• 24:02
  Speaker 2: over and over and you'll eventually discern the truth.
• 24:05
  Speaker 3: All right, So we should talk a little bit though
• 24:07
  Speaker 3: about the other Farmer's Almanac, because I'm sure when you
• 24:11
  Speaker 3: went online, unless you just typed in old, if you
• 24:14
  Speaker 3: just type in Farmer's Almanac, you're gonna see probably both
• 24:19
  Speaker 3: the Old Farmer's Almanac and the yellow and then just
• 24:21
  Speaker 3: the Farmer's Almanac and is sort of orange e and
• 24:25
  Speaker 3: it looks more modern than the other one.
• 24:29
  Speaker 2: Yeah, I guess more modern is a relative term. They
• 24:33
  Speaker 2: both look pretty old timing to me.
• 24:35
  Speaker 3: Yeah, that's true. I think the other one looks older though.
• 24:38
  Speaker 2: Okay, but it was founded in eighteen eighteen, so it's
• 24:41
  Speaker 2: pretty old itself. But because the original Farmer's Almanac, the
• 24:45
  Speaker 2: Old Farmer's Almanac was from seventeen ninety two. They just
• 24:49
  Speaker 2: have to acquiesce and say, yes, we're just the Farmer's Almanac.
• 24:52
  Speaker 2: But there's a I think she doesn't edit anymore. Janis Stillman.
• 24:57
  Speaker 2: She was the first woman editor of the Old Farmer's Almonds,
• 25:00
  Speaker 2: and she was editing as recently as a few years ago,
• 25:03
  Speaker 2: if she isn't still And she said that there's one
• 25:07
  Speaker 2: other publication, a Farmer's Almanac, that seems to the kind
• 25:11
  Speaker 2: word is emulate everything we do. And this is like
• 25:15
  Speaker 2: she's saying this in like twenty eighteen or nineteen. These
• 25:19
  Speaker 2: publications have been like rivals of one another for centuries now,
• 25:23
  Speaker 2: and they still throw shade at one another every chance
• 25:25
  Speaker 2: they get.
• 25:27
  Speaker 3: Yeah, yeah, I mean they're the two big ones. And
• 25:30
  Speaker 3: I think the Old Farmer's Almanac outsells the regular right.
• 25:34
  Speaker 2: Yeah, but I don't think it's necessarily by too much.
• 25:37
  Speaker 2: I think they both sell a pretty decent amount.
• 25:39
  Speaker 3: They both sell millions, still.
• 25:41
  Speaker 2: Millions, maybe even billions, No, just okay.
• 25:47
  Speaker 3: One of the big discs, though, and I think I
• 25:49
  Speaker 3: even remember this growing up, is that you could buy
• 25:53
  Speaker 3: an Old Farmer's Almanac in a store if you went
• 25:57
  Speaker 3: to get to a bank or maybe to get your insurance,
• 26:02
  Speaker 3: like to an actual insurance agent and an office.
• 26:04
  Speaker 2: Who was also a part time farmer.
• 26:07
  Speaker 3: Perhaps then you might get a farmer's almanac branded by
• 26:13
  Speaker 3: that business, because that is what they did. That was
• 26:16
  Speaker 3: their strategy is, let's not sell this thing to retail stores.
• 26:20
  Speaker 3: Let's sell it to businesses. Let them put their stamp
• 26:23
  Speaker 3: on the front of it and give them out instead
• 26:25
  Speaker 3: of a toaster.
• 26:26
  Speaker 2: They still do that, and only since nineteen ninety four
• 26:30
  Speaker 2: or five edition they started selling them in retail stores.
• 26:35
  Speaker 2: But they also still offer it as like a branding
• 26:38
  Speaker 2: thing for banks, the kind of banks that like John
• 26:41
  Speaker 2: Wisdom Robbed in Wisdom, that Emilia Westevez movie, that's where
• 26:46
  Speaker 2: you would get like a bank branded Farmer's almost Wow.
• 26:50
  Speaker 3: Uh yeah, sure, like a ha seed bank.
• 26:52
  Speaker 2: Sure I wouldn't call it that, but.
• 26:56
  Speaker 3: We should have a stuff you should know branded Farmer's
• 27:00
  Speaker 3: Almanac and send those out. That'd be pretty fun awesome.
• 27:04
  Speaker 3: I wonder how much that costs there.
• 27:05
  Speaker 2: It's not much. I can't remember it was. I came
• 27:09
  Speaker 2: up in Google search and I was like, that's reasonable.
• 27:12
  Speaker 2: It wasn't much at all. I think twenty five dollars
• 27:15
  Speaker 2: or something for one hundred of them or something crazy.
• 27:19
  Speaker 3: Did you get the phillim Michael Thomas Brandon Farmers Amena. Yeah,
• 27:24
  Speaker 3: so the regular farmers Almanac, the one that's newer, that's
• 27:29
  Speaker 3: in scare quotes. A guy named Ray Geiger ran that
• 27:34
  Speaker 3: for about sixty years and he was a big marketing
• 27:38
  Speaker 3: whiz and he used to refer to himself as the
• 27:41
  Speaker 3: most interviewed man in America. And he may be right.
• 27:44
  Speaker 3: He apparently was interviewed more than eighteen thousand times in
• 27:48
  Speaker 3: his career, and he seemed to really really enjoy sitting
• 27:51
  Speaker 3: down and talking about the Farmer's Almanac and himself.
• 27:55
  Speaker 2: Yeah. And one of the other things he did too, Chuck, was,
• 27:58
  Speaker 2: in addition to giving interviews, to just drum up business
• 28:01
  Speaker 2: for the Farmer's Almanac or keep it interested. And this
• 28:03
  Speaker 2: is like he's working from nineteen thirty four to nineteen
• 28:06
  Speaker 2: ninety four. That is a tough period to remain at
• 28:10
  Speaker 2: the helm of a Farmer's Almanac and keep people interested
• 28:13
  Speaker 2: in it as the world is changing like it is.
• 28:16
  Speaker 2: And that's what he dedicated himself too. And one of
• 28:18
  Speaker 2: the other things he would do in addition to interviews.
• 28:21
  Speaker 2: Is create like national campaigns to do something that was
• 28:25
  Speaker 2: kind of Farmer's Almanaki and to get people talking about
• 28:29
  Speaker 2: things that was Farmer's Almonaki and the Farmer's Almanac itself.
• 28:34
  Speaker 3: Yeah, I mean this is a guy who went from
• 28:36
  Speaker 3: the Lindy hop to grunge. Yeah for sure, isn't that crazy? Yeah?
• 28:41
  Speaker 2: It is crazy?
• 28:41
  Speaker 3: And those campaigns, and I think a lot of this
• 28:44
  Speaker 3: was to get attention. I'm not sure how many of
• 28:47
  Speaker 3: them he really really wanted to get accomplished, or maybe
• 28:50
  Speaker 3: he wanted them accomplished and it was a pr thing,
• 28:53
  Speaker 3: but it seemed to get attention I think was maybe
• 28:56
  Speaker 3: the point. But like, hey, let's move Thanksgiving to October.
• 28:59
  Speaker 2: Sure more in line with Canada.
• 29:02
  Speaker 3: Forget paper dollars, let's use coins, stuff like that.
• 29:05
  Speaker 2: The one that I can get behind, by golly is
• 29:08
  Speaker 2: the extending daylight savings time year round.
• 29:11
  Speaker 3: I wish her.
• 29:13
  Speaker 2: They talk about every year and I don't know what
• 29:16
  Speaker 2: who's dragging their heels on this. It drives me nuts
• 29:20
  Speaker 2: every year. Twice a year I go totally bonkers because
• 29:24
  Speaker 2: of the daylight saving time coming or going. It just stinks,
• 29:27
  Speaker 2: you know, So I really wish he would have been successful.
• 29:31
  Speaker 2: But he was successful with one campaign apparently. I don't
• 29:34
  Speaker 2: know what decade it was, but the USPS was planning
• 29:37
  Speaker 2: on replacing on postmarks the place name or town or
• 29:43
  Speaker 2: in state whatever with a code and numerical code. And
• 29:46
  Speaker 2: he started this campaign to say, no, no, let's keep the
• 29:49
  Speaker 2: place names. It's way more interesting than a numerical code.
• 29:54
  Speaker 2: And the USPS listened. So that's why there's still place
• 29:57
  Speaker 2: names on postmarks. Oh okay, you know when you get
• 30:01
  Speaker 2: it stamped at the post office that says you know, Atlanta,
• 30:05
  Speaker 2: Georgia or something that shows where it was sent from. Yeah,
• 30:08
  Speaker 2: they were gonna replace it with you know, three two
• 30:11
  Speaker 2: nine or something like that. And this is like robot talk,
• 30:15
  Speaker 2: you know, and he saved the day. Who needs that robots?
• 30:20
  Speaker 3: All right, we're gonna take another break. We're gonna talk
• 30:23
  Speaker 3: about more lore and finally get to the bottom of
• 30:25
  Speaker 3: whether or not those weather predictions are really right.
• 30:52
  Speaker 1: Learn and stuff with Joshua John stuff you shine up.
• 31:01
  Speaker 2: So one thing I did not realize, Chuck, is that
• 31:05
  Speaker 2: there's actual lore surrounding almanacs, which makes sense in retrospect.
• 31:09
  Speaker 2: We're talking about a couple hundred years plus of editions
• 31:14
  Speaker 2: of two different Almanacs, so of course they're going to
• 31:16
  Speaker 2: have played a role in something other than their own publications,
• 31:20
  Speaker 2: and they did a few times over. One of the
• 31:23
  Speaker 2: things that does have to do with their actual, like
• 31:26
  Speaker 2: the actual physical Almanac, is that there's a hole in
• 31:31
  Speaker 2: the top left corner of both of them, and both
• 31:34
  Speaker 2: Almanacs claimed to have been the originator of that. And
• 31:37
  Speaker 2: the reason that both Almanacs say they created this hole
• 31:41
  Speaker 2: is because they found out their customers were doing the
• 31:43
  Speaker 2: same thing. They were nailing a nail, hammering a nail
• 31:47
  Speaker 2: through the almanac when it arrived, pulled the nail out
• 31:50
  Speaker 2: and put a piece of strength through it so they
• 31:52
  Speaker 2: could hang it from a hook wherever they wanted to
• 31:54
  Speaker 2: keep it handy.
• 31:55
  Speaker 3: Pretty cool. They both have the same story. Like you said,
• 31:58
  Speaker 3: that's the one thing that I after reading this, I
• 32:01
  Speaker 3: have mine in my outhouse, just sitting in the magazine
• 32:04
  Speaker 3: wreck that, my goodness screwed into the wall, and I'm
• 32:07
  Speaker 3: gonna change that. Next time I go up there, I'm gonna,
• 32:09
  Speaker 3: you know, put a nail on the wall and a
• 32:11
  Speaker 3: string through that thing so we can hang it up.
• 32:13
  Speaker 2: That's apparently how it's done.
• 32:15
  Speaker 3: That's how are you gonna do that?
• 32:17
  Speaker 2: Yeah, I'm gonna hang it right next to my bird calendar.
• 32:19
  Speaker 3: Right, you gotta go back in time. So they both
• 32:26
  Speaker 3: said they came up with that. But the apparently the
• 32:29
  Speaker 3: one distinction is the regular Farmer's Almanac is the one
• 32:33
  Speaker 3: that they sort of claimed that you could hang it
• 32:35
  Speaker 3: up in the outhouse specifically so you could use it
• 32:38
  Speaker 3: as a reference or to wipe your butt.
• 32:41
  Speaker 2: So both of them said, well, we started drilling this,
• 32:44
  Speaker 2: you know, beforehand, drilling the hole in beforehand, so it
• 32:46
  Speaker 2: arrives pre drilled. Whoever started it will probably never know.
• 32:52
  Speaker 2: And that's just a really good example of Farmer's Almanac
• 32:55
  Speaker 2: and Old Farmer's Almanac rivalry, Like they both have the
• 32:59
  Speaker 2: audacities say nope, it was us, and here's the identical story.
• 33:02
  Speaker 2: The other one is telling of why we started doing it.
• 33:04
  Speaker 3: Yeah, totally.
• 33:06
  Speaker 2: There's another. There's a trial that Abraham Lincoln was a
• 33:09
  Speaker 2: part of called the Almanac Trial, where almanacs played an
• 33:13
  Speaker 2: outsize role in it too.
• 33:14
  Speaker 3: Yeah, this is kind of fun. Lincoln was defending a
• 33:19
  Speaker 3: friend of his son who was accused of murder. Didn't
• 33:23
  Speaker 3: do a lot of these criminal trials, but since it
• 33:24
  Speaker 3: was a pal, he was like, sure, I'll step up.
• 33:27
  Speaker 3: And in the trial there was this very Brady bunchy
• 33:30
  Speaker 3: kind of thing that happened. He did not throw his
• 33:33
  Speaker 3: briefcase on the floor.
• 33:35
  Speaker 2: Man. That was a good episode.
• 33:36
  Speaker 3: That was a good episode if you've never seen The
• 33:40
  Speaker 3: Brady Bunch, it's a great trial scene where mister Brady
• 33:45
  Speaker 3: there was I think the guy suing or something, I
• 33:48
  Speaker 3: had a neck brace on.
• 33:49
  Speaker 2: Said he had whiplash from being rear ended by right.
• 33:53
  Speaker 3: That's right, that's what it was, and no one believed
• 33:55
  Speaker 3: the guy. And during the middle of the court scene,
• 33:59
  Speaker 3: mister Brady throw his briefcase on the floor and it
• 34:01
  Speaker 3: lands with a thud, and the man twists his neck,
• 34:04
  Speaker 3: which he would not be able to do had he
• 34:06
  Speaker 3: had a stiff neck.
• 34:07
  Speaker 2: They jerked over to look to see what that sound was.
• 34:11
  Speaker 2: Mike Brady stood up and shook his fists and screamed
• 34:14
  Speaker 2: this primal scream. It was one of the most bizarre
• 34:17
  Speaker 2: moments in TV history.
• 34:19
  Speaker 3: It was really great. But Lincoln did something similar when
• 34:24
  Speaker 3: the I believe the prosecution said I saw the defendant
• 34:29
  Speaker 3: beating a victim over the head at eleven PM. Lincoln
• 34:32
  Speaker 3: said well, how did you know it was him? At
• 34:34
  Speaker 3: eleven pm? And the witness said the moon was high
• 34:37
  Speaker 3: and bright in the sky, and Lincoln said aha, and
• 34:40
  Speaker 3: through his figure into a briefcase by holding up a
• 34:43
  Speaker 3: farmer's almanac and pointing out that no, no, no, we
• 34:47
  Speaker 3: can actually see that the moon was not bright and
• 34:50
  Speaker 3: high in the sky on that night. And Lincoln won
• 34:53
  Speaker 3: that case. And both almanacs say, yeah, that was us.
• 34:57
  Speaker 3: Apparently it was neither.
• 34:59
  Speaker 2: Yeah, there was a The foreman of the jury said
• 35:01
  Speaker 2: it was a Jane's Almanac, spelled like Thomas Jane. Yeah,
• 35:06
  Speaker 2: exactly who knew he was going to make an appearance
• 35:09
  Speaker 2: in this episode?
• 35:10
  Speaker 3: Me or the Brady Bunch. This is all over the map.
• 35:12
  Speaker 3: That was Miami vice.
• 35:14
  Speaker 2: I read a little kind of brief on the Almanac trial,
• 35:17
  Speaker 2: and apparently Lincoln's almost said host his client and I
• 35:27
  Speaker 2: am not in top form today. I'll tell you that
• 35:29
  Speaker 2: his client was just guilty a sin. Apparently one of
• 35:32
  Speaker 2: his own defense witnesses said, you can put me on
• 35:36
  Speaker 2: the stand, but you want to be careful what questions
• 35:38
  Speaker 2: you asked me, because you're not going to want to know.
• 35:40
  Speaker 2: You're not going to want to hear what I have
• 35:42
  Speaker 2: to say, so he done exactly, so he knew that
• 35:46
  Speaker 2: that this guy was guilty, and he still defended him
• 35:49
  Speaker 2: and got him acquitted, which is not Lincoln ask But
• 35:52
  Speaker 2: apparently after he became president kind of made some moves
• 35:56
  Speaker 2: to get another guy who had been convicted as an
• 35:59
  Speaker 2: accomplished released from prison because he knew that it was
• 36:02
  Speaker 2: actually the guy who he had gotten acquitted. Oh well,
• 36:06
  Speaker 2: that's nice, it is, but it's some shady Lincoln stuff.
• 36:09
  Speaker 2: That's just it's not in his character, or at least
• 36:14
  Speaker 2: the character we understand. And the author of this post
• 36:17
  Speaker 2: on it said that they kind of chalked it up
• 36:19
  Speaker 2: to he was presented with one of those terrible moral
• 36:23
  Speaker 2: choices that you know sometimes come along in life, where
• 36:25
  Speaker 2: he had to choose between his own, you know, principles
• 36:29
  Speaker 2: and a friendship that he really cared about, and he
• 36:33
  Speaker 2: chose the friendship. So wow, people can excuse things anything
• 36:36
  Speaker 2: Lincoln did. We love him in the United States. For
• 36:39
  Speaker 2: those of you who live abroad.
• 36:43
  Speaker 3: Really quickly, you might like to know that Emily was
• 36:46
  Speaker 3: called to jury duty this week.
• 36:47
  Speaker 2: Oh yeah, how's it going.
• 36:49
  Speaker 3: Well, she was excused, but it was it was going
• 36:52
  Speaker 3: to be a murder trial. Wow, not crazy, and she
• 36:54
  Speaker 3: did not want to be on it, I can imagine.
• 36:57
  Speaker 3: And she was excused. But she went down to the
• 37:00
  Speaker 3: you know, the what's the vore? Is that what it?
• 37:03
  Speaker 2: Yes? Yeah, yeah, nice, she went.
• 37:05
  Speaker 3: Yeah, she went through that process and had never been
• 37:08
  Speaker 3: that far before, so it was fairly interesting.
• 37:10
  Speaker 2: Yeah. Does she know why she was excused?
• 37:14
  Speaker 3: She does, and I'll tell you later.
• 37:16
  Speaker 2: Okay, great, I can't wait to hear.
• 37:18
  Speaker 3: She didn't she didn't like make up stuff that made
• 37:21
  Speaker 3: her sound like a bad person or something like that,
• 37:23
  Speaker 3: which is a common thing.
• 37:24
  Speaker 2: Okay, okay, that's out of her character.
• 37:27
  Speaker 3: That's out of her character. All right. So let's get
• 37:30
  Speaker 3: to the bottom of this weather thing. The two farmers
• 37:35
  Speaker 3: Almanacs together, it seems like sell between ten and twelve
• 37:40
  Speaker 3: million copies a year.
• 37:41
  Speaker 2: Is that still wow?
• 37:42
  Speaker 3: Which is unbelievable. Yeah, three to five million for the
• 37:45
  Speaker 3: old and it said I think six or so for
• 37:48
  Speaker 3: the newer one. So I guess it's outpaced the old
• 37:51
  Speaker 3: Farmer's Almanac sadly. So one of the reasons people still
• 37:54
  Speaker 3: buy this and still depend on it is for these
• 37:56
  Speaker 3: long range weather forecasts, and they have long touted a
• 38:02
  Speaker 3: fifty or I'm sorry, an eighty percent eighty accuracy rate.
• 38:07
  Speaker 3: That's crazy, I think you said earlier. Eighteen different regions
• 38:10
  Speaker 3: in the US, six regions in Canada for the year
• 38:14
  Speaker 3: ahead of time, a year a full or in your case,
• 38:19
  Speaker 3: eighteen months ahead of time. And the old story was
• 38:23
  Speaker 3: is that the Old Farmer's Almanac had a secret formula
• 38:26
  Speaker 3: that Robert Thomas created himself locked in a black box
• 38:30
  Speaker 3: in the offices in Dublin, New Hampshire. Apparently editor Janis
• 38:34
  Speaker 3: Stillman that you referred to went to this box at
• 38:37
  Speaker 3: one point found a bunch of handwritten notes from Thomas
• 38:40
  Speaker 3: about the weather, but not a secret formula.
• 38:43
  Speaker 2: It's like a Heraldo moment.
• 38:45
  Speaker 3: And apparently Farmer's Almanac also says they have a secret formula.
• 38:49
  Speaker 3: It's everyone. They just keep copying one another.
• 38:51
  Speaker 2: I know, it's crazy. So finally, so the Farmer's Almanac,
• 38:55
  Speaker 2: the younger of the two, has a pseudonymous pseudonymic yes, pseudonymic, Yeah, exactly,
• 39:04
  Speaker 2: I was about I was porky pigan it yea. His
• 39:07
  Speaker 2: name is Caleb weather Be. And who knows who Caleb
• 39:09
  Speaker 2: Weatherby actually is or how many people have been Caleb
• 39:12
  Speaker 2: Weatherby over the years, but they say that Caleb Weatherby
• 39:15
  Speaker 2: has a secret formula that's used from their founder too,
• 39:20
  Speaker 2: So again exact same thing. But finally, in the last
• 39:25
  Speaker 2: fifty years, I guess the Old Farmer's Almanac said, we
• 39:28
  Speaker 2: actually use modern technology to make these forecasts too. One
• 39:33
  Speaker 2: of the things that they use that both seem to
• 39:36
  Speaker 2: use apparently that is not necessarily part of typical meteorology,
• 39:42
  Speaker 2: is sunspot activity. They take that into consideration when they're
• 39:47
  Speaker 2: making these projections, and it's not entirely clear how much
• 39:51
  Speaker 2: of an effect sunspot activity has on the weather, although
• 39:55
  Speaker 2: it's agreed upon that it probably has some effect, but
• 39:58
  Speaker 2: whether it has any effect or not. Both almanacs almost
• 40:01
  Speaker 2: are duty bound to include considerations of sunspot activity in
• 40:07
  Speaker 2: their weather forecast because that is what the readers want
• 40:10
  Speaker 2: from them.
• 40:10
  Speaker 3: I mean, that's kind of explains everything about why the
• 40:14
  Speaker 3: Farmer's Almanac is still around. They don't want it changed,
• 40:18
  Speaker 3: they want it to be what it is. There's a
• 40:21
  Speaker 3: guy named Tim Clark who wrote for about four decades
• 40:26
  Speaker 3: in the Farmer's Almanac, the Old Farmer's Almanac excuse me, yeah,
• 40:29
  Speaker 3: and did a lot of lectures and interviews about it.
• 40:32
  Speaker 3: Died a couple of years ago, and he very specifically
• 40:36
  Speaker 3: talks about the fact that like people want it to
• 40:39
  Speaker 3: be the same. People have been disappointed when they know
• 40:42
  Speaker 3: we use more modern ways to predict weather, and even
• 40:48
  Speaker 3: when we're not right, people want us to be right,
• 40:50
  Speaker 3: so they sort of either remember us as being right
• 40:53
  Speaker 3: or think we're right even when we're not right exactly,
• 40:56
  Speaker 3: which is kind of funny. But when you look at
• 40:58
  Speaker 3: what they're doing as far as an eighty percent success rate,
• 41:02
  Speaker 3: and we'll get to eat whether or not that's even true.
• 41:06
  Speaker 3: Is they They just do sort of a historical average,
• 41:11
  Speaker 3: like a peak at historical averages I think over thirty
• 41:15
  Speaker 3: years of rain they.
• 41:16
  Speaker 2: Called climate normals.
• 41:17
  Speaker 3: Yeah, temperature and precipitation basically, and then for each region,
• 41:22
  Speaker 3: for each season of the year, they're gonna say, all right,
• 41:25
  Speaker 3: is it going to rain a little more or less?
• 41:28
  Speaker 3: And is it going to be hotter and cooler than
• 41:30
  Speaker 3: it has been over that thirty year average.
• 41:33
  Speaker 2: Yeah, they don't. They don't go into like, on you know,
• 41:36
  Speaker 2: July twenty eighth, it's going to be you know, ninety
• 41:41
  Speaker 2: two degrees in the South. They don't do that. As
• 41:45
  Speaker 2: far as I know, I haven't gotten my first copy yet,
• 41:48
  Speaker 2: but from what I understand, they make these generalizations, not
• 41:51
  Speaker 2: actual forecasts. And so what they say is if it's
• 41:54
  Speaker 2: even if they say that it's going to be hotter
• 41:57
  Speaker 2: than normal, even if they say much hotter than normal,
• 42:00
  Speaker 2: if it's even a half a degree over that thirty
• 42:04
  Speaker 2: year climate normal average, they're like, we were correct. Count
• 42:08
  Speaker 2: it as.
• 42:08
  Speaker 3: Correct, and they are technically they are.
• 42:10
  Speaker 2: Technically, especially if you just take any qualifier out, like
• 42:13
  Speaker 2: much hotter and just go with hotter than average, they
• 42:16
  Speaker 2: are correct. And that's how they say that they hit
• 42:20
  Speaker 2: that eighty percent mark. The thing is is there've been studies.
• 42:24
  Speaker 2: Meteorologists love to take potshots at the farmer's almanacs, any
• 42:29
  Speaker 2: farmer's almanac, because they're like, it's impossible to predict the
• 42:32
  Speaker 2: weather a year out. Noah has ninety day forecasts, they're
• 42:37
  Speaker 2: sixty percent accurate. These guys are using every available technology
• 42:41
  Speaker 2: to create these forecasts, and they can only hit sixty
• 42:43
  Speaker 2: percent ninety days out. The meteorologists are like, nobody can
• 42:47
  Speaker 2: predict the weather anywhere accurately, especially for a whole season
• 42:51
  Speaker 2: in an entire region, a full year out. And so
• 42:54
  Speaker 2: people have done studies on just how accurate they are,
• 42:57
  Speaker 2: and they usually come up short of eighty percent.
• 43:00
  Speaker 3: Yeah, they always come up short of eighty and it
• 43:03
  Speaker 3: sort of ranges, I think by year. I think in
• 43:06
  Speaker 3: twenty twenty one twenty two, over that winter, those the
• 43:12
  Speaker 3: woman from the Golden Gate Weather Service named Jan Null
• 43:16
  Speaker 3: calculated this one out and she found for the winter
• 43:20
  Speaker 3: twenty one twenty two that for precipitation the almanac was
• 43:24
  Speaker 3: forty percent correct and for temperature only six percent correct.
• 43:29
  Speaker 2: Yeah, at the Old Farmer's Almanac offices they call her
• 43:33
  Speaker 2: Jan Noll. The nulla fire.
• 43:37
  Speaker 3: Fifty to fifty two percent is what they found. I
• 43:42
  Speaker 3: think generally the University of Illinois was behind that one.
• 43:47
  Speaker 3: So that's like it's sort of in flip a coin territory.
• 43:50
  Speaker 2: Yeah, and Tim Clark says people want them to be right,
• 43:54
  Speaker 2: that it's basically just confirmation bias, that you know, when
• 43:58
  Speaker 2: they're right, people remember it. When they're they forget, and
• 44:02
  Speaker 2: it's I can't speak for everybody. I mean people who
• 44:06
  Speaker 2: are like gardeners and like small farmers and stuff, they'll
• 44:09
  Speaker 2: buy the Farmer's Almanac and maybe plan when they're going
• 44:12
  Speaker 2: to start their garden or harvest crops based on those predictions.
• 44:16
  Speaker 2: But there's not like hard feelings at the farmer's almanac
• 44:19
  Speaker 2: if they get it wrong, because it means so much
• 44:22
  Speaker 2: more than that. It's like this last outpost, this last bastion,
• 44:26
  Speaker 2: holding down, like an agrarian past that just refuses to
• 44:30
  Speaker 2: give way because the almanacs are keeping it going. And
• 44:33
  Speaker 2: so it's almost to me the reason I ordered it
• 44:36
  Speaker 2: is it's like a respite from the modern world. Yeah,
• 44:39
  Speaker 2: and just kind of stepping through like this a wardrobe,
• 44:43
  Speaker 2: if you will, and entering a new world where there's
• 44:47
  Speaker 2: acorns everywhere and you can predict how bad the weather's
• 44:50
  Speaker 2: going to be by how many squirrels are gathering those
• 44:53
  Speaker 2: acorns on any given day in the fall. Just things
• 44:57
  Speaker 2: that like, it doesn't matter if they're scientific. It's draws
• 45:01
  Speaker 2: your attention to an important part of the world, which
• 45:04
  Speaker 2: is nature. It's still there and you it just makes
• 45:08
  Speaker 2: you focus your attention on it for a little while,
• 45:11
  Speaker 2: and it's it's that's great. That's all that's all it
• 45:13
  Speaker 2: needs to do to exist happily. As far as I'm concerned.
• 45:18
  Speaker 3: I agree. It's not like, oh, well, we have modern
• 45:21
  Speaker 3: technology now to work correctly predict weather, So we should
• 45:25
  Speaker 3: get rid of this long the longest standing periodical in
• 45:29
  Speaker 3: North America, right, and all that, you know, kind of
• 45:32
  Speaker 3: goofy folksy charm and jokes and poetry like I guess
• 45:37
  Speaker 3: they could say, well, like, yeah, do all that, but
• 45:39
  Speaker 3: don't do the weather. But I mean, who cares. Yeah,
• 45:42
  Speaker 3: no one's living or dying by this thing.
• 45:44
  Speaker 2: I mean, the very fact that we have that technology
• 45:46
  Speaker 2: means we should keep the Farmer's Almond out just as
• 45:50
  Speaker 2: a reminder of other ways to be in think too.
• 45:53
  Speaker 3: I agree, you don't know your past, you don't know
• 45:54
  Speaker 3: your future.
• 45:55
  Speaker 2: Man, well put chuck. You know who would love that
• 45:58
  Speaker 2: as a slogan on a T shirt, Philip Michael Thomas.
• 46:02
  Speaker 2: I agreed, Thank you, Chuck. If you want to know
• 46:08
  Speaker 2: more about the Farmer's Almanac, the Old Farmer's Almanac, any
• 46:11
  Speaker 2: almanac really, you can just go look online, ironically and
• 46:15
  Speaker 2: find them and order them and hang them up in
• 46:17
  Speaker 2: your outhouse and get all retro. And since I said outhouse,
• 46:21
  Speaker 2: that means it's time for a listener.
• 46:22
  Speaker 3: May I'm gonna call this Noam Chomsky Lives. Okay, Hey, guys,
• 46:30
  Speaker 3: love the show. It's one of those things that can
• 46:32
  Speaker 3: comfort me when times are tough. And thanks for all
• 46:34
  Speaker 3: you do. And I remember we weren't sure if Noam
• 46:38
  Speaker 3: Chomsky was alive or dead, and we don't like to
• 46:40
  Speaker 3: stop and look things up while we go.
• 46:42
  Speaker 2: No who wants to do that.
• 46:43
  Speaker 3: Nobody likes that. By the way, Chomsky is very much alive,
• 46:47
  Speaker 3: you guys. Yeah, he changed my view of the world
• 46:50
  Speaker 3: when I stumbled upon YouTube videos of his talks in
• 46:52
  Speaker 3: high school. He's incredibly well read, more so than any
• 46:55
  Speaker 3: other public intellectual I've heard of. And even if you're
• 46:59
  Speaker 3: not down with the whole and neck pro syndicalis thing nice. Wow,
• 47:06
  Speaker 3: it's worth reading at least one of his political books
• 47:08
  Speaker 3: to get a more thorough grasp of how the US
• 47:10
  Speaker 3: empire works. For instance, he was actually the first one
• 47:14
  Speaker 3: who taught me about our old buddy Edward Burnes and
• 47:16
  Speaker 3: his ilk and all the fun things that the CIA
• 47:19
  Speaker 3: has done abroad. And that's from Sam.
• 47:23
  Speaker 2: Thanks a lot, Sam much appreciated. Still alive.
• 47:26
  Speaker 3: Huh, still alive?
• 47:28
  Speaker 2: Did not know that? Well, if you want to let
• 47:31
  Speaker 2: us know that somebody's still alive, we want to hear
• 47:33
  Speaker 2: that kind of thing, especially if we thought they were dead.
• 47:37
  Speaker 2: You can send it to us via email like Sam
• 47:40
  Speaker 2: did to stuff podcasts at iHeartRadio dot com. Stuff you
• 47:47
  Speaker 2: Should Know is a production of iHeartRadio.
• 47:49
  Speaker 1: For more podcasts my heart Radio, visit the iHeartRadio app,
• 47:53
  Speaker 1: Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.