This is a free preview of a paid episode. To hear more, visit smokeempodcast.substack.com

2023 is off to a roaring start, as the Twitter vultures rip apart the carcass of podcaster Lex Fridman’s reading list of the classics. (On the Road? Biiig mistake.) We discuss the passing of TV pioneer Barbara Walters, whose gently probing style allowed her to act as a kind of collective consciousness. She merged soft celebrity and hard-hitting politics to become a fixture in the American home. (And we didn’t even mention “The View”!) Did you know Walters filmed a TV segment dressed as a Playboy bunny a year before Gloria Steinem’s famous expose? The woman had one hell of a career.

Vice assembled a genuinely diverse panel of nine women to discuss feminism, and oooh boy, it was fascinating. Arguments over abortion, trans women in sports, beauty privilege, #MeToo, the hour-long conversation was a real intersectional shit show. Is feminism dead? Maybe. Definitely. Certainly not. As Sarah says, “Feminism is an ongoing project that shape-shifts over time.” What’s cool about the panel is also what made it so contentious. These conversations are fraught, and no one agrees.

In the bonus: New Year’s resolution talk about food and writing, let’s not bring Darren to the party, possible book club reading list, and Sarah makes a weird but touching offer to Nancy should they ever get stranded in the Sierra Mountains.

Episode Notes:

“A Murder in Portland,” by Nancy Rommelmann (Washington Examiner Magazine)

“The Reality Portland Does Not Want to See: Everything modern Portland did led up to the horrific, predictable murder of Rachael Abraham,” by Nancy Rommelmann (Nancy’s Substack — go ahead and subscribe!)

I mean, the guy was just asking to be cancelled …

It’s all good!

“Barbara Walters, a First Among TV Newswomen, Is Dead at 93,” by Alessandra Stanley (New York Times)

“Cindy Adams remembers her friend Barbara Walters,” by Cindy Adams (NY Post)

“Monica, you have been described as a bimbo, a stalker, a seductress. Describe yourself.” Barbara Walters interviews Monica Lewinsky on 20/20:

Barbara Walters learns “the Bunny Dip”:

“Slow Burn podcast: The Clinton Impeachment”

“Why I Hope top Die at 75,” by Ezekiel J. Emanuel (Atlantic)

“Headlong: Missing Richard Simmons” podcast by Dan Taberski

“A Psychologist Explains Why Life is Easier For Attractive People,” by Romano Santos (Vice)

“'Ugly Ducklings' On How People Treated Them When They Got Hot,” by Amelia Tait (Vice)

“Anti & Pro Feminists Debate Abortion, Trans Rights, and #Metoo” | VICE Debates:

“I did want to acknowledge the violence brought to my trans and non white counterparts during this whole thing,” Mindie Lind’s Instagram

“The Problem With Intersectional Feminism,” by Helen Pluckrose (Areo)

You’ve been called a bimbo, a stalker, a seductress, but with one simple text field, you could become a paid subscriber.

Maternal Obesity and Childhood Cancer