Podcast Roundup February 2022

There aren't a ton of podcast episodes I want to draw your attention to this month, but here's what I've got.

Normal Gossip is a relatively new podcast in which Kelsey McKinney tells a gossipy story from a friend of a friend to a guest on her podcast. It's sort of a defense of gossip (when Sam Sanders was a guest, he goes so far as to claim it's essential to maintaining the fabric of society), but it's really just a series of interesting, juicy bits of drama that are happening to people so far removed from me that I don't feel bad about these sometimes intimate looks into strangers' lives. I find each episode to be an enjoyable little nugget. Huge thumbs up. As of right now, there are only seven episodes, so it's easy to listen to all of it!

I've written about Too Scary; Didn't Watch before, so this won't come as a surprise to you that when they have a great guest who is clearly a fan of the podcast, a fan of the movie they are recapping, and seems legitimately NICE, I'm going to recommend that particular episode in any possible forum that I can. The Shaun of the Dead episode with Jack Quaid is just that episode. His love for the movie was so endearing and it was clear that he was having so much fun. It was just a really fun listen and if you are looking for someplace to get started listening to this podcast, this would be an excellent place to dive in.

The podcast Do No Harm was absolutely fascinating. It's a short-run podcast (six episodes, with a seventh that was about the reporting process and was completely unnecessary) about children being taken away by protective services when they probably shouldn't have been taken away. It's such an interesting conundrum because while we definitely want CPS to be proactive in cases of abuse, there's also a compelling reason to keep families together and we don't want CPS to be too proactive. It's a classic Type I/Type II error tradeoff and the podcast has fascinating parent interviews and a relatively even-handed approach to the questions being asked. Fascinating. 

There you have it. If you're looking for new listening, that's what I have to offer you.