Episode 139: Thai Cave Rescue, Breastfeeding, and Fleece Vests

In this episode, Neil, Natalia, and Niki discuss the children rescued from a Thai cave, the Trump administration’s approach to breastfeeding policy, and the fleece vests that have become a staple uniform of the finance industry.

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Here are some links and references mentioned during this week’s show:

• A Thai boys’ soccer team was rescued from a flooded cave as the world watched. Niki referred to comedian Stephen Colbert linking the rescue to the Trump administration’s family separation policy. She also commented on the longstanding media fascination with stories of being trapped underground; Natalia commented on how the trope shows up in literature, such as Edgar Allan Poe’s 1846 story, “The Cask of Amontillado,” and Neil mentioned it as a theme of the Netflix show, “Unbreakable Kimmy Schmidt,” a program we discussed on Episode 30.
• The Trump administration shocked many when it moved to weaken an international breastfeeding resolution. Natalia recommended Suzanne Barston’s book Bottled Up: How the Way We Feed Babies Has Come to Define Motherhood, and It Shouldn’t, historian Jessica Martucci’s Back to the Breast: Natural Motherhood and Breastfeeding in America, and her own article at the Society for U.S. Intellectual History Blog.
• The Instagram parody account @midtownuniform has brought attention to a new sartorial staple of the Wall Street set: the fleece vest. Natalia cited this Wall Street Journal article on the finance-industry fashion of the show Billions.

In our regular closing feature, What’s Making History:

• Natalia recommended Dan Nosowitz’s Atlas Obscura article, “Why Are There Palm Trees in Los Angeles?”
• Neil discussed the origins of 911 telephone service and its racist misuses which he wrote about for the Huffington Post.
• Niki spoke about Joe Heim’s Washington Post article, “Sacred Ground: Now Reclaimed: A Charlottesville Story.”