Hey, it's Megan Devine, host of Hereafter with me, Megan Devine, on the Amy Brown Podcast
Network.
There's a lot going on lately, which is a massive understatement.
It's a really human thing to hope that things get better even when you're not sure how
they possibly could.
Join me for conversations with interesting people about difficult things, with new episodes
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America loves its founding fathers, but that's a tough act to follow as a founding son.
I'm Bob Crawford.
Join me, Patrick Warburton, and Nick Offerman as we bring the sixth president to life.
Was there ever witnessed such a bare-faced corruption in any country before?
Let justice be done, though the heavens fall.
Listen to Founding Sun, a curiosity podcast on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or
wherever you get your podcasts.
Looking for a show where you don't have to look far to see yourself?
Welcome to the Professional Hunger Podcast.
I'm your host, Ebeneh.
And every Tuesday, I interview women of color from all walks of life.
And all of my guests are anonymous.
So you're here stories from survivors to spirituality and family secrets.
And let's not forget about the professionals out there, okay?
Listen to the Professional Hunger Podcast with Ebeneh, presented to you by the Black
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podcast.
Countdown with Keith Oberman is a production of iHeartRadio.
There is a crushing Clarence Thomas scandal that could put people in prison, and we don't
know if it was yesterday morning's Clarence Thomas scandal, featuring the private school
tuition, or it was yesterday evening's Clarence Thomas scandal, featuring Kellyanne Conjob.
And there is a Marilago Snitch close to Trump, who knows when the document boxes were moved,
and maybe whether the surveillance tapes were tampered with or the system glitched.
But we don't know if the glitch snitch is the same Trump informant identified by Axios
Newsweek and Rolling Stone on, get this, August 10th of last year, or if maybe this informant
is a different one, a second glitch snitch.
Once the Supreme Court scandals are most about what can be done not to Clarence the corrupt,
but merely to those around him, thank you, Dianne Feinstein.
Let's start with Trump, shall we?
Stitching it altogether, I think it looks like this.
After the Justice Department sent Trump the subpoena a year ago this month, for every classified
document he was still keeping at Marilago, Trump ordered that boxes of documents be moved
there.
Trump then rifled through the documents, kept the documents he wanted.
Trump told his lawyers to tell the feds that they had returned everything.
Trump told the guys who moved the boxes not to tell something about that process.
And now there seems to be reason to believe that Trump told key people in his organization,
not just at Marilago, but in the whole company.
He told them something about the security cameras and the videotape, and it may have
been edit or destroy it.
And doing that, ordering that, can get you 20 years for obstruction, Trump.
First, it was CNN with the scoop that special counsel Jack Smith has drilled down on the
surveillance footage.
Something is wrong with it.
Something is missing or something is edited or something is deleted or something didn't
work the way it was supposed to.
Nobody is saying exactly what it is.
There are no clear hints.
But apparently there are communications among Trump operatives about the video, about the
cameras, about the boxes, about moving the boxes, about what to do about all this crap.
And again, there are just big hints about this, but there is enough there, there that
people have invoked 18 US code 1519 and 18 US code 1519 is quote, destruction, alteration
or falsification of records in federal investigations and bankruptcy.
And that can get you 20 years.
And if it's destroying or altering videotape showing the crime, it will get you 20 years.
And guess what?
One of the criminal statutes cited by the government when it got the original search warrant for
Marilago was.
Yes.
18 US code 1519 destruction of records.
So that broke.
And then who shows up to testify to the Trump documents grand jury yesterday, but the two
biggest security guys in the Trump organization, Matt Calamari senior and Matt Calamari junior.
And I know Matt Calamari senior.
I've talked to him and Trump involves him when his organization has screwed up, but it's
going to fix it immediately.
It's promising you that or he involves Calamari senior when he wants to terrify somebody because
Matt Calamari looks like the actor Ron Perlman from beauty and the beast, only much, much
bigger and with absolutely no neck whatsoever than the voice so booming that if he calls
you as he did me, you can hear him before you answer the phone.
And last night, the New York Times said the special prosecutor's office has a snitch.
They quote obtained the confidential cooperation of a person who has worked for him at Marilago.
And it referred to a wave of new subpoenas and grand jury testimony, including subpoenas
to the software company that handles all the surveillance footage for the Trump organization,
which is presumably why Calamari father and Calamari son, the two servings of Calamari.
Sorry.
That's presumably why they were called to testify.
The Times also reports that this line by prosecutors pivots on what has been bubbling beneath
the surface for months that Trump's fact totem, his quote, valet, unquote, Walt Nauta, quote,
failed to provide them with a full and accurate account of his role in any movement of boxes
containing the classified documents.
In other words, they think this Walt Nauta lied or was told to lie by Trump.
Little else is known about what prosecutors might have learned from the witness or when
the witness first began to provide information to the prosecutors.
The Times adds, which brings us back to last August 10th when Axios wrote quote, Trump
World is a buzz with speculation about which close aides or aid has flipped and provided
additional sensitive information to the FBI about what former President Trump was keeping
at Marilago and former NBC investigative reporter Bill Aiken wrote in Newsweek that the FBI search
of Marilago was quote, based largely on information from an FBI confidential human source.
One who was able to identify what classified documents Trump was still hiding and even
the location of those documents and the Wall Street Journal reported quote, someone familiar
with the stored papers told investigators there may be still more classified documents
at the private club after the National Archives retrieved 15 boxes earlier in the year.
Justice Department officials had doubts that the Trump team was being truthful regarding
what material remained at his property.
And finally, Rolling Stone amped up the paranoia and mind you, this is all in the same day
last year by quoting the source close to Trump as saying quote, he has asked me and others,
do you think our phones are tapped and has wondered aloud if there were any Republicans
visiting his clubs who could be wearing a wire.
So how many snitches are there and how long have they been snitching and which of them
had 18 US code 1519 read out aloud to them and how many of them are worried about 20
years in prison and how sweet is it that even at this late date we have the prospect of
Trump maybe ordering somebody to alter the tapes like Richard Nixon sitting there listening
to the Oval Office tape from June 20th, 1972 and hitting play and record again and again
and again to erase apart that he didn't want anybody to hear in the next thing.
You knew there was the infamous 18 and a half minute gap and now maybe there's a Trump
gap only we don't know how long it is.
You should excuse the expression.
To wrap up the Trump thing, there is also the Eugene Carroll rape and defamation suit
and Trump basically convicting himself on his taped deposition which was played to the
court by confirming that the access Hollywood tape is his code of ethics and by saying
Eugene Carroll wasn't his type.
Parenthesis to rape but his wives were his type and then they showed him a photo of Eugene
Carroll and he mistook her for his second wife Marilyn Maples who he had just said was his
type.
Then came Trump's sudden announcement that he was going to come back from Scotland so
he could confront Carroll and then his attorney Joey Tax said, oh no he isn't and then the
judge said okay you have until Sunday to show up or shut up Trump.
And of course there was the verdict in the trial of five of Trump's Hitler youth and
Ricque, Tario and the Proud Boys.
Four out of five of them convicted of sedition, literally of seditious conspiracy to prevent
the peaceful transfer of power and the fifth of them being convicted of obstructing congressional
proceedings and at some point one of these homunculi has got to be thinking hmm maybe
I should tell them who told me to do this before I go to jail for 20 years and we all
know who is at the top of that chain of command too.
And as to the FBI provocateurs and the secret conspiracy crap and oh it's really on the
videotape and baked Alaska this and the shaman that the impeccable Scott McFarland of CBS
News pointed out that all this means the Justice Department has secured a partial or
full conviction in each trial of a January 6 defendant that it has taken to the jury.
So now to the judges, one in particular Clarence the corrupt and with him Dick the docile.
As one wonders if Harlan Crow just keeps a template of sophistry filled nonsense denials
opened on his laptop you also have to assume that Senate Judiciary Chair Dick Durban has
a stack of pre-printed quotes about how after this the 739th supremely corrupt court ethics
scandal this week we must have a rigid new code of conduct for the justices and Chief
Justice Roberts would you please do it for us because Senator Feinstein may or may not
still be on this planet so we can't get a subpoena issued let alone any legislation.
You know the latest pro publica story by now it's been out more than 24 hours that Harlan
Crow paid for the private school tuition of Clarence the corrupts grand nephew whom
he was raising as a son and the Harlan Crow excuse was so obvious that at least 100 Twitter
writers beat him to it that crew has always been concerned with at risk children then there
was the clear and convincing defense by Mark Palletta who was one of the other guys in
that giant painting showing Clarence the corrupt at the Harlan Crow private city in the Adirondack
Mountains and he said that Thomas never had to disclose this tuition because the law about
dependent children does not say grand nephew in it. Most entertaining of all was the confession
on behalf of the Thomas's by some nitwit from the national review that Harlan Crow did
not pay the tuition he paid the first year of tuition at two separate institutions oh
well that's all right then. Then last night came the latest Ginny Thomas scandal and of
course we know from conservatives that that has nothing to do with Clarence the corrupt
because he's not his wife his wife is his wife duh but this one does invoke one of America's
worst human beings. Washington Post reporting the real life version of the fictional character
that the Republicans call George Soros that would be Leonard Leo the man who basically
built the Federalist Society Leonard Leo had Kellyanne Conway bill quote another 25k to
the judicial education project which Leo advises and give that another 25k to Ginny Thomas oh
and remember Kellyanne to leave her name off the paperwork. This was the same year that
the judicial educational project had filed a brief to the supremely corrupt court on the
Shelby County Beholder Voting Rights case. So let's go. subpoena Crow subpoena Leonard
Leo or Leo Leonard or Leo Leo or whatever his name is subpoena Kellyanne and oh right no
Diane Feinstein no subpoenas shrug emoji yet there are things to do here Brian Boytler
pointed out Harlan Crow paid tens of thousands of dollars for the tuition of Clarence world's
greatest great uncle kind of dad Thomas is great nephew. How did Harlan Crow handle that
on his taxes made them expenses gifts gifts to Clarence Thomas is it a gift to the kid
there is a Senate finance committee and it has a working Democratic majority and it has
an actual all business senator named Ron Leiden and it has the right to get tax returns and
it could bring Harlan Crow into testify and for that matter could bring in Clarence Thomas
and Ginny Thomas and Kellyanne Conway and Leonard Leo and find out if they reported any of the
money that wound up going from these fascist financiers to a Supreme Court justice and
his bonkers ex cult member wife and you know what bring the kid into Mark Martin the great
grand whatever he is let's see how he handled the gift on his taxes swear him in I'll repeat
what I always say this is not a game Clarence Thomas alone could corruptly decide by himself
who is sworn in as president on January 20 2025 he is utterly corrupt irredeemably compromised
he is a bespectacled whore and a criminal and if Senate judiciary can't act and if Senate
finance won't act get the goddamn justice department in here somebody committed fraud
against some part of the government in at least one of these two stories just from yesterday
and whoever that was needs to go to prison for it or be threatened with going to prison
for it unless they give up Clarence Thomas this is not a game
still ahead on this edition of countdown this weekend just like on every other May 6th since
the year 1954 newspapers and the sites and maybe even some TV will be filled with stories
of the anniversary of that day May 6th 1954 and you may even see film of Roger banister
breaking the four minute mile barrier the first man ever to do that except he wasn't the first
man ever to do that all evidence points to it being done 200 years earlier maybe 2000
years earlier it is without doubt the greatest undeserved record or accomplishment in sports
history and quite a goddamn interesting story that's next this is countdown
on a election in Poland and I'm Marisol Patton your favorite Miami house wise and now the
host of the new podcast I vote for avoid get ready because we are bringing the heat as
we dish on hot topics celeb gossip and more I'm so excited to you know bring our personal
phone gossip the with and doing for what 23 years yes we've been chiming on though for
23 years and it's so much fun and we hope that you guys are tuning in with us and are
ready to laugh you see to some a bit of a little bit of spanglish because this is who
we are this is what we do here and by the end of you listening and tuning in with us you'll
be able to say I both are bored and so your cockies run dry we just can't wait for you
guys to tune in the and share all the cheap air with us listen to I vote for a word as
part of the Michael Duda podcast network available on the iHeartRadio app Apple podcast
or wherever you get your podcasts are you a history buff do you provide historical
teaks while enjoying the dinner theater at medieval times then we have a new podcast for
you half hour history secrets of the medieval world from the fall of Rome to the black plague
this show has it all and even some things you might not know about there are three popes
there's the black death the superpowers of England and France are fighting a war I might
coscarelli and I'll be guiding you through the middle ages with dr. Christopher belita
over the course of this podcast Chris will be reframing what you thought you knew about
the medieval era it's not all jousting and tournaments and turkey legs but nothing beats
the real stories behind popes fighting with kings the code of chivalry and the origins
of King Arthur listen to half hour history secrets of the medieval world on the iHeart
radio app Apple podcasts or wherever you get your podcasts are you ready for a second season
of the super secret bestie club podcast my name is curly and I'm Maya oh my goodness let's
say a little prayer before we start this this is gonna be the best podcast episode you
ever done my freaking life that's right season two season two baby super super super super
super super super bestie club bestie club this is a best friends club and you can definitely
sit with us each week we'll talk about relationships heartbreaks and of course our favorite L word
love and horoscopes and astrology according to our point of view of course we're not over
goals but we know what toxic Virgo when we see one I'm pointing to curly whoo listen to
the super secret bestie club as part of the micro to the podcast network available on
the iHeart radio app Apple podcast or wherever you get your podcasts
this is countdown with Keith old women still ahead on countdown the damnedest sports
story I've ever reported the track and field milestone of the 20th century maybe of all
time the breaking of the four minute mile barrier and it's pretty much all a fraud next
first in each edition of countdown we feature a dog in need you can help every dog has its
day to New York and it's a crisis again at the pound here half a dozen dogs could be
killed tomorrow and the most criminal of these executions would be that of a pity puppy named
venom he's like 12 months old nice they named him venom despite the name his family dumped
him even though he is good with kids he's house trained he's affectionate he likes being
groomed he likes people he's playful with other dogs he will let you rub his cheek on his face
one of my Maltese's will not let you rub his cheek on his face and they will kill him because
the pound is too crowded and nobody has ever thought to make it a bigger pound instead venom
needs our pledges to defray the cost of a rescue to save his life and get him a real home look
for venom story on my twitter feeds retweet it please I thank you and venom thanks you
this is sports center wait check that not anymore this is countdown with Keith
all for men in sports this weekend is the anniversary of one of the most famous events in sports
history one of the most famous events in 20th century world history and everything you know
about it is wrong starting at four minutes after six o'clock on the evening of Thursday
May 6th 1954 continuing until the day he died on March 3rd 2018 not one day not one day went
by without somebody congratulating Roger banister on being the first human to run a mile in four
minutes or less the man who broke the four minute mile barrier we cannot now comprehend what a big
deal this really was Neil Armstrong times Charles Lindbergh plus George Washington maybe the next
day the New York Times published 10 different stories about Roger banister breaking the four
minute mile barrier plus an editorial an editorial on the editorial page that asked if anybody in world
history would ever do it again Roger Gilbert banister began the times on the front page ran a mile in
three minutes 59.4 seconds tonight to reach one of man's hitherto unattainable goals there's just one
problem not only was Roger banister probably not the first man to run a mile in less than four
minutes but there is also a lot of evidence that that record was broken in May of 1770
by a guy who sold fruits and vegetables from a push cart on the streets of London a guy named
Parrot
69 years later and this is still the most famous run in the history of the world
May 6th 1954 on an ordinary spring evening at the ifley road track at Oxford University in England
even as an unfavorable wind worked against him Roger banister ran through the tape in 359.4
and ran directly into not just sports history but human history the four-minute mile the first
human ever to run that far that fast like the first man on the moon no matter how much farther
we go but glory is his indefinitely forever always eternal immortal Neil Armstrong but in shorts
or there had already been a four-minute mile run in 1770 and banister has no more claim to
immortality than do you or I and this is really a story about bureaucracy supporting bureaucracy
and what the experts call recency bias and a lot of racism and the story should be about a guy who
used to sell fruits and vegetables on the streets of London and who ran in his spare time for money
in the decade before the American Revolution and his name was Parrot as in look matey I know a dead
parrot when I see one and I'm looking at one right now we begin in the pages of a British book
dated from 1794 which seems to be for you back to the future fans a kind of graze sports almanac
the 1794 tome bears an amazingly modern title the sports magazine and its chronology of top sports
events of recent years past includes for the year 1770 this quote 1770 May 9th James Parrot a
costermonger costermonger sold fruits and vegetables from a push cart on the street James Parrot a
costermonger ran the length of old street vis from the charterhouse wall in Goswell street
to shortage church gates which is a measured mile in four minutes 15 guineas to five were
bedded he did not run the ground in four minutes and a half so that's it I am besmirching the
immortality of st Roger banister and everything you will see in the newspapers about him over the
weekend because of 51 words about some guy racing against an 18th century watch in the year 1770
and the story wasn't even published until 24 years later seriously seriously there is nothing else to
say about James Parrot that snippet from that book is all that researchers have ever found or found
out about James Parrot no obituary no nothing no four minute mile no confirmation he ever existed
besides which as every modern sports fan will tell you the athletes of today are they the great
greater greatest of all time goats if the record book says nobody ran a four minute mile until
1954 of course the record books are right since 1770 humans have evolved health has evolved training
has evolved why in 1770 you couldn't even accurately measure a mile let alone measure exactly four
minutes actually agricultural chains designed to resolve who owned what property and where
international borders were had been introduced in 1620 and have proved to be at worst only off by
around two fifths of an inch over a mile and if you're saying agricultural chains you don't use
agricultural chains in sports let me ask you this what do they use in national football games to
check whether or not it's a first down okay we're giving them the accuracy of the agricultural
chains we still use today in our pro sports you could measure several blocks of London in 1770 and say
from way back there to right over here in front of the church that is exactly a mile governor
but how would you time it four minutes exactly what did they use a really good sundial
no that thing called a chronometer the chronometer was perfected by 1761 you may know the chronometer as
a Swiss watch or as you might also know it a Rolex so this parrot runs a mile or maybe he runs a mile
plus two fifths of an inch and he is timed by several guys with Rolexes and they all have the
same score he did it in exactly four minutes if you're still not convinced if you're still googling
Roger Bannister's descendants so they can sue this idiot oleman in his podcast let me emphasize
the part that convinced me that a man named parrot did run a four-minute mile two months and four days
after the Boston massacre unleashed the events that would culminate in the American Revolution
permit me to reread that last sentence about James parrot's run from graze sports almanac
i'm sorry from the sporting magazine of 1794 quote 15 guineas to five were bedded he did not run the
ground in four minutes and a half this guy parrot bet on himself and got three to one odds
and the five guineas wagered here that would be worth about fifty five hundred dollars in today's
money meaning this was no 18th century roger bannister hoping to break a record for queen and country
this was a guy who did this for money for the equivalent in winnings of about 17 000 dollars
at least as much as his annual income might have been selling fruits and vegetables from a cart and
the way it's phrased in that magazine we don't know if more than one bet of 15 guineas to five was
placed he might have won 34 000 dollars or 51 000 or 510 000 dollars because this was for money
the loser or losers who bet he could not finish the race in four and a half minutes had to be
satisfied that he had done it in less than four and a half in this case in four as we know from our
own times losers now like to claim they didn't lose and will go to any length to convince others
they did not lose but James parrot got his money which means that the loser or losers believed
James parrot really raced a mile and did it in four minutes i'm sold antiquated books and four
minute miles run 183 years before the first four minute mile and costramongers and agricultural
change they may come and go and maybe trustworthy or untrustworthy but money is money and James parrot
was given the equivalent of his annual salary at least once because somebody who thought he could
not do it agreed yeah i was wrong he really really really really did just run the mile in four minutes
now of course the whole account in the book could be wrong i'm old enough that i was actually on the
air doing sports cast on the radio network of united press international on april 21st 1980
when rosy ruis quote one unquote the boston marathon then it turned out two people had seen
rosy ruis burst out of the crowd of spectators on commonwealth avenue and start running alongside
the men runners and then it turned out that while she was supposedly completing the 1979 new york
marathon she had struck up a conversation with a freelance photographer on the subway and the two
of them went to the finish line together and rosy ruis then told officials she had just finished
the race and rosy ruis was a total fraud in two different marathons maybe the 1774 minute mile of
james parrot was just inaccurate maybe it was just an inside joke or a misheard rumor or a typo
or he took the subway with rosy ruis or it was a joke by whoever wrote the book i've told you the
story before about the 1912 st louis brown second baseman named proctor and nobody could find anything
about him and then it turned out proctor was the western union operator who used to make up all
the official scorecards after each game and one day he decided he always wanted to be a major
league ballplayer so he put himself in the scorecard maybe james parrot was the author of this the
sports magazine or his four-minute miles and money python jokes go now that's what i call a dead parrot
so if it's a mistake if it's a typo if it's a hype job if it's rosy ruis if it's lu proctor roger
banister is safe now he's not because there was also a runner named powell and powell in 1787 said
he could run a mile in four minutes and he wasn't messing around he bet a thousand guineas that he
could do it one point one million dollars in today's money and not only that but he ran on a famous
english running track near hampton court and five days before christmas of 1787 he ran a time trial
so that the gamblers could all come over and see what shape he was in and whether they should
bet for him or bet against him and he did it in the time trial in four minutes and three seconds
and when powell said the betters could see what shape he was in he really meant it he was dedicated
to his cause five days before christmas and this guy ran a mile naked all that was in the papers
what happened in the actual race we don't know that nobody has ever found that newspaper
nobody's ever found an account of the race only the time trial so we have to go under the
assumption that powell never did better than 403 but once again roger banisters four minute mile
has withstood the test of time uh kind of uh no actually it hasn't there's also another guy
named weller weller was famous enough as a professional runner of the time that when he said he could
run a mile on the bandbury road in oxford the newspapers of the day all showed up to preview
it to talk about his two brothers who are also professional runners and to cover his attempt
on october 10th 1796 and there it is in the papers weller of oxford runs a mile in three minutes
58 seconds not only 158 years before roger banister but a second and a half faster than roger banister
so here's the thing if somebody really ran a mile in 359 or 358 at the time of the american
revolution wouldn't that stand out as such an impossible performance then such an anomaly
so startling that it would be viewed in the same way we would view news coming up on
monday that somebody now had just run the mile in three minutes flat i mean if somebody ran the
mile in three minutes flat we would check to see if the guy was a space alien or a time traveler
wouldn't they have been amazed on october 10th 1796 disbelieving on what they had heard
not at all and that's the second half of the story of the day roger banister did not break the
four-minute barrier research and computers and simulations show that people in the 1780s were
consistently running the mile in four minutes and 18 seconds four minutes and 20 seconds four
minutes and 15 seconds if the info about weller is right three minutes and 58 seconds
all the time these numbers were being put up by all kinds of runners so a four-minute mile would
have been great but not out of context not in 1796 and then you have to ask if it happened
where are all those records who were all those four minute 18 guys and four minute three second
guys and 358 guys what happened to the records well see that's another scandal those 18th century
records were erased in the 19th century because richer slower people in the 19th century wanted to say
they held the records they erased the record book that part of the story and the additional
sad truth that much of the claims about roger banister are really really racist next
Ola I'm Alexia Napola and I'm Marisol Patton your favorite Miami housewives and now the host of the
new podcast I go forward get ready because we are bringing the heat as we dish on hot topics
celeb gossip and more I'm so excited to you know bring our personal phone gossip that we've been
doing for what 23 years yes we've been chiming on though for 23 years and it's so much fun and we
hope that you guys are tuning in with us and are ready to laugh you see to some a
brand new little bit of spanglish because this is who we are this is what we do here
and by the end of you listening and tuning in with us you'll be able to say
I bought five more and so your cockies run dry we just can't wait for you guys to tune in
yeah and share all the chamber with us listen to I bought five more as part of the Michael
Duda podcast network available on the iHeartRadio app Apple podcast or wherever you get your podcasts
are you a history buff do you provide historical teaks while enjoying the dinner theater at medieval
times then we have a new podcast for you half hour history secrets of the medieval world from
the fall of Rome to the black plague this show has it all and even some things you might not know
about there are three popes there's the black death the superpowers of England and France are
fighting a war i'm mike caskarelli and i'll be guiding you through the middle ages with dr
christopher belita over the course of this podcast chris will be reframing what you thought you knew
about the medieval era it's not all jousting and tournaments and turkey legs but nothing beats the
real stories behind popes fighting with kings the code of chivalry and the origins of king arthur
listen to half hour history secrets of the medieval world on the iHeartRadio app apple podcasts or
wherever you get your podcasts are you ready for a second season of the super secret bestie club
podcast my name is curly and i'm mia oh my goodness let's say a little prayer before we start this
this is going to be the best podcast episode we've ever done in our freaking lives that's right
season two season two baby super secret bestie club super super super super bestie club
this is a best friends club and you can definitely sit with us each week we'll talk about relationships
heartbreaks and of course our favorite elward love and horoscopes and astrology according to our
point of view of course we're not our goals but we know what toxic Virgo when we see one i'm
pointing to karly whoo listens to the super secret bestie club as part of the microtura podcast
network available on the iHeartRadio app apple podcast or wherever you get your podcasts
we know roger banister really did run a three-minute and 59 second mile on may 6 1954 in england
it was timed and announced to a waiting crowd by no less a figure than noris mcwarder who was
later the founder or co-founder of the Guinness book of world records and everybody who was there
saw history and was part of an impossible dream coming true and as i mentioned earlier the next
day the new york times actually had an editorial asking whether or not anybody would ever do it again
there is considerable evidence as i've laid out here that it was done before like 200 years before
but if you were still not convinced that no no matter what else it was roger banisters three
minute 59.4 second mile on may 6 1954 was not the first four-minute mile if james parrot and the
naked runner pal of hampton court and weller 1796 don't convince you there is also this
there is a sports historian named peter radford himself the bronze medalist in two sprints at the
1960 Olympics in rome and he brought the story of parrot and pal and weller to the forefront in
the british press nearly 20 years ago this man found them because he was looking for and finding
the records of more than 600 running races in the 18th and 19th century running against the clock
against each other usually for money was not only the most popular professional sport in britain at
that time it was also probably the first and with so many races and especially winning and losing
times recorded peter radford had data to work with when guys didn't run a four-minute mile how fast
did they run it how fast were these professionals going the average ones over other distances in say
1789 what was the range of times and his computer looked at all of these races 600 or so and all of
the times and all of the speeds and it spit out this conclusion factoring in the margin of error
radford wrote the best possible one mile time would be anywhere between four minutes 13 seconds
and exactly four minutes so no you cannot say james parrot ran the first four-minute mile in 1770
and weller ran the first sub four-minute mile in 1796 not with certainty but i think you can say
with certainty that somebody did it before the year 1800 and that when roger banister crashed
through the tape at oxford at 604 Greenwich meantime on the evening of thursday may 6 1954
in the track announcer noris mcwarder announced that roger banister's time in the mile was
and he gave it a desperately long pause by all accounts three minutes 59 and four tenth seconds
the moment that happened roger banister became at best the second man to run a mile in four minutes
or less but more likely he was like the 22nd or the 222nd so why why didn't anybody know this
why did roger banister live a life of unceasing undiminished and sorry undeserved fame
and that guy weller who may have run the race a second faster and 158 years earlier why don't we
even know weller's first name all sports are based on history records are made to be broken the
older the record the louder the break who screwed this up how did we lose weller in the nooks and
crannies of history we didn't lose him it wasn't an error it was deliberate
and that's where this gets to be a crime our historian and ex-alimpic runner mr radford quoted
another ancient book british rural sports by jh wall which was published in 1888 and in it
all the dozens of speed and distant events had two sets of records one for professionals
like parrot and pal and weller the ones who ran for money the ones on whom people bet the ones
who bet on themselves there was that set of records and then another set of records which was given
far more weight and far more importance for the amateurs by the early 20th century radford wrote
the professional records had been erased from these books expunged not forgotten removed
why because the professionals were far better than the amateurs no amateur held the record in
the mild was all professionals but the amateurs were in charge they were the british upper class
they raced not for money but for sport so the amateurs simply did what the upper class always
does in this situation they erased the records of all the professionals and oh by the way they also
erased all records set by women the british obsession with the superiority of the amateur over the
professional if you've ever seen the movie chariots of fire you already know exactly what i mean
it's spread throughout the world through the olympics it's why jim thorp lost all his gold
medals from the 1912 games why the greatest all-around athlete ever died in poverty because he had
once played minor league baseball to make some money in the summer and everybody knew about it
and nobody thought they'd hold it against it but then they held it against him he was a professional
so his records did not count like james parrot or fill in the blank here pal or i don't remember
his first name weller so the world record in the mild as of the year 1861 was credited to a man
an amateur named Matthew green Matthew green was the fastest man in human history four minutes and
46 seconds four minutes and 46 seconds in my 20s i might have come close to that number
by 1913 the international amateur athletics federation had taken over and it recognized a
runner from cornell not me a different runner from cornell as the all-time outdoor record holder in
the mild four minutes and 13 seconds john paul jones 143 years after james parrot the indoor
record in the mild was then held by a man named abel kiviat for 18 and two i met abel kiviat i
interviewed him when he was 90 i wish i had known about james parrot then i didn't abel and i talked
about his roommate at the 1912 olympics jim thorp got to tell you that story sometime too
but boy abel kiviat and i could have had a conversation about amateurs versus professionals and whether
or not his record was actually a record anyway you can see where this is all going and we are
almost at our proverbial finish line not only did history forget the great athletes of the 18th
and 19th centuries like parrot and pal and weller who if they did not break the four-minute mile they
came damn close and did a lot better than my friend abel kiviat did or my cornell guy john paul jones
to say another of matthew green four minutes and 46 seconds what did you do stop for lunch
not only were the remarkable athletes like parrot and pal and weller forgotten they were buried
deliberately it makes the subject of the roger banister four-minute mile but everybody celebrates
with almost undiminished astonishment every year at this time it makes all this a little less trivial
and a little bit more nefarious and wrong and ugly and speaking of ugly and banister there is one
other component to this story in the 1990s having been the god of the four-minute mile for four decades
having been celebrated every day for breaking a record that was probably broken 183 years before
roger banister was asked about the new generation of runners those of african descent
on september 12 1995 sir roger banister explained quote it's certainly obvious when you see an all
black sprint final that there must be something rather special about their anatomy or physiology
which produces these outstanding successes and indeed there may be but we don't know quite what it is
some countries have the good fortune to have a high proportion of black sprinters and herdlers
end quote 19 years later banister was still driving right into the eugenics lane
sounding just enough like jimmy the greek snider to make you squirm i love watching people like
usane bolt banister said the west africans of course have an inbuilt advantage having been
transported as slaves to the west indies only the toughest endured they have astonishing muscle
composition with those fast fibers and superior genes
i will leave it to you and to his maker an assessment of how much of roger banister was
patronizing how much was him tried to rationalize how his time had been bettered by nearly 10 percent
and how much of it was just sheer racism but i will note that in what banister said is another
reason to believe that the idea that he was the first human to run a four-minute mile
is laugh out loud ridiculous what about all of the runners of color over the centuries
over the millennia in africa and south america and elsewhere on this globe
by banisters own disturbing logic certainly some of them must have beaten him to breaking the four-minute
tape no let me close with this i don't know for certain who ran the first four-minute mile or
when for all we know it was broken 2000 years ago and for that matter so was the present world record
of 343.13 might have been james parrot or powell or weller whose first names we don't know or
someone so lost to history that we don't know their first name or their last name or their country
we don't know who it was but no matter what you hear or see or read in this weekend ahead it sure
as hell was not roger banister which brings us lastly to mrs roger banister moira elva
jacobson banister daughter of a swedish economist
according to roger banister his wife didn't know a lick about sports let alone about running let
alone about him running for a time roger banister once said my wife thought i had run
four miles in one minute oh you know as i've been thinking about this and researching that story
you might as well go with that four miles in one minute no more ridiculous than thinking that
roger banister was the first man to run one mile in four minutes
bottom line roger banister did an impressive thing on may six 1954
he did not break any barriers nor set any records and why we celebrate this every year i do not know
i've done all the damage i can do here here the credits most of the music was arranged produced
and performed by brian ray and john philip chenale who are the countdown musical directors all
orchestration and keyboards by john philip chenale guitars bass and drums by brian ray produced by
tko brothers other Beethoven selections have been arranged and performed by no horns allowed
the sports music is the old rumin theme from espian 2 and who is written by mitch warren davis
courtesy of espian ink musical comments by nancy fouse the best baseball stadium organist ever
and our announcer today was roger banister i'd know there's jonathan banks from breaking pad
everything else is pretty much my fault except the stuff about banister that's
countdown for this the 850th day since donald trump's first attempted coup against the
democratically elected government of the united states do not forget to keep arresting him while
we still can the next scheduled countdown is monday till then i'm keith old rumin good morning good
afternoon good night and good luck
countdown with keith old rumin is a production of i heart radio for more
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looking for a show where you don't have to look far to see yourself welcome to the professional
hunger podcast i'm your host ebony and every tuesday i interview women of color from all walks
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and family secrets and let's not forget about the professionals out there okay listen to the
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