Strange Country

Put on your blindfolds, fill a wine glass to the brim and get ready to listen to the blather of a 35,000-year-old Lemurian god/warrior named Ramtha. It is only possible through the body of JZ Knight, a former cable television saleswoman who channeled that old dude after placing a paper pyramid on her head in 1977. And she has made millions off of it. Strange Country cohosts Beth and Kelly discuss...

Long before influencers were telling us to shove garlic in all orifices to cure hot-dog fingers, a college student thought it would be interesting to write a computer program that would upload pics of her in her dorm room every 15 minutes. Little did she know she would attract half a million followers (87% masturbators) and possibly play a role in the total collapse of humanity. On this episode of...

How do you become the Most Hated Woman in America? Kelly and Beth have been trying for nine years, but we still have no trophy with those words. And maybe that's a good thing. Is it worth fighting for what's right and telling the truth if it means in the end you get murdered anyway? Learn about Madalyn Murray O'Hair who won that title according to Time Magazine, back in the era of Phil Donahue and...

America is known for multiple things: apple pie, Mr. T, and school massacres. But the worst massacre of all time is likely one you've never heard of before. Strange Country cohosts Beth and Kelly talk about the 1927 bombing of Bath Consolidated Schools that resulted in the deaths of 43 people, mainly children. Just your ever-so-often reminder that while it seems like things are extra terrible now,...

In 1982, seven people died after taking doses of Extra Strength Tylenol, leading to a full-blown and safety standards for over-the-counter meds. To this day, the murders remain unsolved. Strange Country cohosts Beth and Kelly discuss this 1982 mystery and its possible suspects while Beth mispronounces "business ethics" because that's not really a thing. Theme music: Big White Lie by  A Cast of Tho...

Hey dear Dash Hounds, we are back this week in a regular kind of way talking about a woman you probably have never heard of—unless you are a folk art phenom like Beth. Learn about a woman and artist whose life may have gone unnoticed except for her self-taught crayon portraits. They go for about $3K on Antiques Roadshow, which is so close to our going rate for Patreon. Inez Nathaniel-Walker's life...

It may seem the government's technique of denigrating the people they kill to make it appear that the killing was justified is a new fun thing in 2026, but we've been here before. It's likely you've never heard of Viola Liuzzo, the only white woman murdered during the Civil Rights Movement. Her name kept popping up on the social media accounts of historians after the murders of Renee Good and Alex...

"Ask again later" would have been a common response if you had asked your magic eight ball when Strange Country would have a new episode over the last weeks. But now "the outlook is good" because here are cohosts Beth and Kelly together again to talk about the time people spent tons of money to talk to barely trained psychics over the phone lured in by the infomercial featuring the self-proclaimed...

While he may have been called a demagogue and a counterfeit Mussolini, Huey Long had some darn tootin' good ideas—mainly taxing the rich into oblivion. Strange Country cohosts Beth and Kelly talk about Long's rise to populist power in the 1930s and the corruption in its wake, but also how much a 65% tax increase on the rich makes a whole lotta sense. Like Long said "We only propose that, when one...

In 1964, MIT researcher Joseph Weizenbaum created the first therapy chatbot ELIZA and realized soon after that it sucked and humanity was worse for it. Sixty years later, our new tech gods are like "sex porn bots for all!" Strange Country cohosts Beth and Kelly emulate the AI versions of themselves as they tell the tale of a computer scientist realizing Frankenstein's monster is a pile of generic...

Hey Dash Hounds! Remember when that famous person said the thing that the other famous person put on a coffee mug? "The only thing we learn from history is that we learn nothing from history?" Well it's true. And if you want another reminder, listen to Beth and Kelly this week as the Strange Country cohosts tell you about the time when Chinese women were wrongfully taken off the streets under The...

Tis Pumpkin Spice time and Strange Country has a spooky story to listen to as you drink a pumpkin spice-flavored whatever gets you through this America 2025. Co-hosts Beth and Kelly discuss the unsolved ax murders plaguing railroad towns in the early 1900s and how people trampled crime scenes for entertainment. Theme music: Big White Lie by  A Cast of Thousands Cite your sources: Dash, Mike. "The...

It's Strange Country, bitch. Yes, we're back. Has anything happened? Likely no. In today's episode cohosts Beth and Kelly tackle the conservatorship saga of pop icon Britney Spears and how gross people were to her much of her life. Theme music: Big White Lie by  A Cast of Thousands Cite your sources: Aswad, Jem. "Britney Spears: Full Court Transcript Against Conservatorship." Variety, 23 June 2021...

We all know that women and men are monoliths, right? Women like shoes and the government controlling their bodies; men like muscled-up NFTs of Donald Trump and bench-pressing bitcoin. But what if people aren't on this straight black-and-white binary? Candy Darling, born James Slattery, defied societal expectations and chose to live her life as a superstar along the lines of her favorite actor Kim...

What do you do when you need a little pick-me-up? Exercise? Drink some coffee? Laugh uproariously at Strange Country cohosts Beth and Kelly? For some, like politicians and celebs that didn't cut it so instead they went to Dr. Max Jacobson to get a concoction of vitamins, monkey gonads and amphetamines injected into their necks and arms. Jacobson, known as Dr. Feelgood, had the ability to cure any...

Dear Dashhounds, have you lost the ability to handle all the things? Enough that you are thinking about bringing back the streaking fad of the 70s? Before you get all hot and bothered and start taking off your clothes in front of strangers, listen to this Strange Country episode #300 about where streaking in 'Merica originated. If you thought it was something free and fun, you are a little right,...

Charlotte Osborne Mason was one of the biggest benefactors of the Harlem Renaissance but her patronage came with a cost. While she gave noted luminaries Langston Hughes and Zora Neale Hurston monthly stipends to make art, she wanted a say in what the art would be in order to realize her vision: a flaming bridge to connect America to Africa. Strange Country cohosts Beth and Kelly talk about this st...

We love our trials of the century here at Strange Country and this one is a doozy. It's likely one you've never heard of: Rhinelander v Rhinelander. See a young aristocrat married a domestic worker and everyone went all "heavens to betsy" about it, but what made it bring out the worst in people was that the working class bride was biracial. This was in 1924 before the country accepted interracial...

Does it make you feel better to know that America has always been populated by horrible people determined to ostracize others and destroy our democratic principles? Probably not. But it's true. The ghouls we see today are repeating the things that ghouls of the past once said. Today's episode of Strange Country, cohosts Beth and Kelly talk about ghoulish Elizabeth Dilling, a self-proclaimed sahm w...

With the on-again, off-again tariffs and total economic sh*tstorm, one wonders why anyone ever thought Donald Trump had any economic sense. That's because Mark Burnett transformed the six-time bankruptcy declaring tabloid star into a successful businessman character on the "reality" show The Apprentice. On today's episode of Strange Country, cohosts Beth and Kelly talk about the ultimate deception...

Hey Readers! Alice Duer Miller was a women of her time and ours! Who was she? Why don't you know? Because she is a woman, and that's a dangerous word these days. Theme music: Big White Lie by  A Cast of Thousands Cite Your Sources Dude "Alice Duer Miller." Poetry Foundation, https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poets/alice-duer-miller#tab-related. Dresner, Zita. "Heterodite Humor: Alice Duer Miller an...

This is a true story. Of two strange podcasters picked to podcast in an attic about a strange country. Find out what happens when Beth and Kelly stop being polite and start getting real about The Real World, the reality show that created the blueprint for all other reality shows. Theme music: Big White Lie by  A Cast of Thousands Cite your sources:  Arthur, Kate. "Looking Back At "The Real World:...

Smile, you're listening to a podcast about Candid Camera. Created by Allen Funt, Candid Camera was America's first prank reality show. A case could be made that this show is responsible for the reality television trend that led to a con man being packaged as a "successful businessman" and is now pranking America as prez. Strange Country cohosts Beth and Kelly talk about this pioneering show whilst...

Well Dash Hounds, if you are still out there listening and tuning in, we are thankful. Listening is an act of love. Love brings joy, and joy is a form of resistance. So sit back this week and learn how Kelly and Beth are getting through the hard times naturally. Of course with everything that seems good, be cautious. Nature is such a healer until it isn't. And it's just you and your houseplant who...

Since we heard America was "being made great again" or something, we decided it was time for Strange Country to return. This time, cohosts Beth and Kelly tackle the story of David Starr Jordan, noted ichthyologist and first president of Stanford University, who definitely was a eugenicst but not certain a murderer. He did cover up Jane Stanford's murder by poison so there's that. That's not good,...