When Cindy Bi hired a surrogate to carry her baby, she neglected to tell her that she had health issues that could put her life in danger. It turns out, she's not required to do so by law. And when the pregnancy went wrong and the child was lost, as reported in Wired Magazine, it opened up a legal, ethical hellmouth. Jessa and Nico discuss the gig economy's takeover of the womb, why the surrogacy industry is powerful yet almost entirely unregulated, and the baby market.

Shownotes and references:

http://theculturewedeserve.substack.com

When a man is down on his luck, what is he to do? His fortune squandered, his estate mishandled, his love unfaithful, Barry Lyndon goes to war, and to prison, and to the gambling table, and to Prussia, and to Ireland. He schemes his way, hoping to get back into the good graces of the universe, trying to manifest that happy ending he's put on his vision board. Jessa and Joseph discuss whether Barry is just another manifestation girlie, how politically useful the British found the Irish famine, and other adventures in capitalism and colonialism.

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http://theculturewedeserve.substack.com

The dumbest culture war in history continues, as the Trump administration seeks to purify the national collection of knickknacks and souvenirs. And the liberals are falling for it, declaring that this is just like the time the Nazis burned books and called art degenerate. As the bitter war over wall text next to a Papier-mâché Statue of Liberty continues, Jessa and Nico discuss the "museums are not neutral" stance progressives had, why a rich kid with an MFA from Yale is not Otto Dix, and one of the architects of the contemporary culture war, Victoria Coates.

Shownotes and references:

http://theculturewedeserve.substack.com