Reconcilable Differences 270: We Inflated Our Pants
Swimming naked in school and thinking about Lead.
Links and Show Notes:
In Follow-Up, listeners share their experiences with Swimming Naked in School. Won't someone please think of the pool filters? Merlin recalls that distant summer he attended swimming and trampoline camp—albeit in an admittedly non-nude context.
Next up, John does his level best to give updates on his finished room. Space is required for something called "blocking." Merlin confesses that he can't really identify where that beeping sound is coming from.
In the (free-to-you) member segment, things kick off with compliments to the author Stephen King along with some remarks on his earthy social media presence.
But the main topic? Lead (Pb)!
In particular, your hosts explore scientific speculation that the effects of lead on the psychopathology of their generation may be far greater than previously known.
Authentic anecdotes about aggressive childhood lead play are revealed.
(Recorded on Tuesday, September 16, 2025)
N.B. Your hosts thought this week's member segment was pretty good, so they decided to share it with everybody here for free. If you enjoy what you hear, please consider supporting the program at https://www.relay.fm/rd/join.
Credits
- Audio Editor: Jim Metzendorf
- Admin Assistance: Kerry Provenzano
- Music: Merlin Mann
- The Suits: Stephen Hackett, Myke Hurley
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“The judge like a great ponderous djinn stepped through the fire and the flames delivered him up as if he were in some way native to their element. He put his arms around Glanton. Someone snatched the old woman’s blindfold from her and she and the juggler were clouted away and when the company turned in to sleep and the low fire was roaring in the blast like a thing alive these four yet crouched at the edge of the firelight among their strange chattels and watched how the ragged flames fled down the wind as if sucked by some maelstrom out there in the void, some vortex in that waste apposite to which man’s transit and his reckonings alike lay abrogate. As if beyond will or fate he and his beasts and his trappings moved both in card and in substance under consignment to some third and other destiny.”
Words Cormac McCarthy Uses in His Novels [PDF]
"Each word is noted as to which book(s) it is included in as well as how many times it occurs in that book."
Contribution of childhood lead exposure to psychopathology in the US population over the past 75 years
“More than half of the current US population was exposed to adverse lead levels in childhood as a result of lead's past use in gasoline. […] Lead-associated mental health and personality differences were most pronounced for cohorts born from 1966 through 1986 (Generation X).”