Nerd Farmer Podcast

In preparation for the upcoming Academy Awards on March 16, this is our annual Oscars conversation. We ranked the ten Best Picture nominees and some films we wish would have been nominated.

Chase is a film critic based in Washington State. Andrew is the show’s favorite sports journalist and cinephile, currently doing time in Alabama. Both are three-time guests and now members of the Smoking Jacket Club, the not real society of three time guests.

Going Further & Related Episodes

• Halley’s Cancer Journey
• Previewing the 2025 Oscars – Chase Hutchinson and Andrew Hammond – 236
• The Movies of 2024 – Chase Hutchinson, Film Critic – #223

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This is a special episode, a conversation with Hope, about the situation here in Abu Dhabi and the broader Middle East thanks to the US war on Iran.

Here are the headlines from the discussion:

• First, we are safe and well
• The UAE emergency management authorities and air defenses have been amazing
• We intend to depart the region Friday, heading to SE Asia
• The US State Department is failing US citizens in the region 
• This US war of choice is foolish and is of zero benefit to the American people

Going Further & Related Episodes

• Another American War of Choice
• American teacher stuck in Abu Dhabi amid Iran conflict: “There are no flights”

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Tom Rademacher is a prior Minnesota State teacher of the Year, author, and parent to a really rad kid. Recently his family made the decision for the safety of their family to move to Spain. 

This is a conversation about what led him to leave and what’s happening in his native and beloved Minnesota. 

Going Further & Related Episodes

• A Letter from Minnesota 
• Erin in the Morning
• Tom’s Webpage
• The State of Teaching, Burnout, and His Latest Book, Raising Ollie – Tom Rademacher – #158

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I had the chance to sit down with Douglas Sackman, a history professor at the University of Puget Sound, for a conversation that feels especially timely.

Professor Sackman joined me to talk about the Gilded Age — that turbulent period of rapid industrialization, staggering wealth inequality, labor unrest, and political corruption that reshaped the US in the late 19th century. It’s a chapter of American history often reduced to robber barons and railroads, but as we discuss, it’s also a story about workers organizing, democracy straining, and ordinary people pushing back against concentrated power.

As we look around today  at our tech oligarchs, monopolistic  consolidation,, and battles over the meaning of democracy, it’s hard not to hear echoes of that era.

Going Further & Related Episodes

• Professor Sackman – Faculty Page
• Orange Empire: California and the Fruits of Eden by Professor Sackman
• Careless People – NF Reads Bookclub
• Halley’s Cancer Journey Newsletter

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Ramadan began this week. Somewhere around 2 billion Muslims around the world will be engaging in a day time fast for the next month. Living in the Gulf, Ramadan contorts my life in so many ways. Our work day is shortened, life slows way down, and there’s time with friends and chosen family. Ramadan has become my favorite religious holiday, even though I’m not a Muslim.

This Best Of episode is a conversation from 2022 with my colleague, Amy Daraiseh. Amy is a  special education teacher from Chicago and all around great human being.

Cast of Characters

• Amy – Twitter
• Muslims Around the World Are Fasting: A Ramadan Reflection – Jasmine El Shear – #216

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In December, I came across a post on the r/Tacoma subreddit that stopped me in my tracks. It was titled “Black Deported Veterans film screening” and invited people to a screening of the documentary, Bring Them Home.

As a veteran, it immediately caught my attention. I also noticed the screening was being held at my alma mater, The Evergreen State College’s Tacoma Campus. Although I wasn’t in a position to attend in person, I reached out to the organizers.

The short version is this: the U.S. military regularly recruits people with green cards into service, but often fails to help them navigate the naturalization process during and especially after their service. Instead, many are discarded after and often subjected to deportation. Unsurprisingly—given the reality of systemic racism—this happens at much higher rates to Black veterans.

This is that conversation.

James L. Smith is a journalist and the co-founder of BDVA (Black Deported Veterans of America).

Rob Young is a musician behind the song Excuse My Accent and the producer of the award-winning film Bring Them Home. Rob and James have collaborated to continue advocacy and uplift the issue.

Going Further & Related Episodes

• Black Deported Veterans of America – Website

• Bring Them Home

• Excuse My Accent.

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State Senator Marko Liias represents Washington’s 21st Legislative District in North Puget Sound, which includes parts of Edmonds, Everett, Lynnwood, and Mukilteo.

He currently chairs the State Senate’s Transportation Committee and previously served on the House Education Committee, where he and Nate first crossed paths.

Senator Liias joined us to discuss the legislative session that began on January 12. He offered a clear overview of the state’s fiscal outlook and outlined his priorities for the Transportation Committee.

Going Further & Related Episodes

• Senator Liias’ Webpage
• Email Senator Liias
• Senator Liias on Bluesky

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Professor Nick Brody teaches Communications at the University of Puget Sound. His research focuses on digital communication, cyber bullying, and the social implications of technology. 

He joined us to talk about the concept of Morally Motivated Online Mobs, which are bands of internet users driven by moral grievance and political polarization. We discussed the role of the internet in connecting and activating these people and how online mobs are warping our political discourse and information environment.

Going Further & Related Episodes

Logic Amen widely targeted by conservative commentators

Attacks on Philanthropy and Not-for-Profits – Cole Leiter, Americans Against Government Censorship – #254

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Leiter joined us to discuss the growing pressure nonprofits are facing amid escalating threats and enforcement signals from the federal government.

We talked about how bluster from the Department of Justice can shape philanthropic behavior long before any formal action takes place, and how those shifts ripple outward to affect the services nonprofits are able to provide in their communities. A big takeaway from this conversation: a war on not-for-profits is a war on the communities they serve.

Leiter is the Executive Director of Americans Against Government Censorship and a political strategist with more than a decade of experience in government, nonprofit leadership, and political campaigns.

Going Further & Related Episodes

• Americans Against Government Censorship
• Text of NSPM7 
• Donate to Catholic Community Services who runs food programs for seniors at the People’s Center

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Guardian correspondent Jason Wilson joined us to discuss his reporting on Elon Musk’s new Grokipedia. 

The service, an online encyclopedia and purported rival to Wikipedia, serves up white nationalist talking points, pseudoscientific racial theories, and sanitized profiles of extremist figures. The encyclopedia’s articles are written by Musk’s Grok AI, which has its own problems with racism and pseudoscience.

Later in the episode, Wilson described how a new “transparency” feature on Musk’s Zombie Twitter (X) inadvertently exposed that many prominent “MAGA” and “America First” accounts had been run from abroad, including accounts operated from Russia, India, and Nigeria. 

Going Further & Related Episodes

• White nationalist talking points and racial pseudoscience: welcome to Elon Musk’s Grokipedia – The Guardian
• Grok’s Elon Musk worship is getting weird – The Verge

• Portland’s Right Wing Hate Problem — Jason Wilson, the Guardian – Nerd Farmer, episode #74

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