From Soup Choices To Selfhood: How We Lost Local News And Found Ourselves Scrolling

What if a date-stamped “leak” claimed gravity would shut off for seven seconds—and millions believed it? We walk through the viral rumor, why NASA’s explanation is straightforward, and how fake authority (project names, budgets, rigid timestamps) tricks our brains into trusting nonsense. The real story isn’t just physics; it’s how the feed rewards spectacle while our skepticism gets softer.

From there, we pivot to a scene you can’t unsee: a man stuck headfirst in an anti-vandal recycling bin, legs pointing skyward as firefighters dismantle the frame to pull him free. It’s ridiculous and revealing. Design meant to prevent damage can also ensnare people in unpredictable ways, and it says something honest about trust in public spaces. We laugh, then look closer at what our cities try to prevent—and what they enable.

Comfort food takes the mic next with a practical debate: chicken soup or tomato soup. We break down calories, protein, sodium, and the big swing factors—cream, broth, and labels. The simplest strategy wins: cook more, read the fine print, aim for low sodium, add vegetables and lean protein, and let lycopene-rich tomatoes and classic chicken stock work for you. Nutrition isn’t a myth to debunk; it’s a set of choices we can actually control.

All of that opens a larger worry: the hollowing of local news. Newspapers dim, local beats vanish, and national outlets loop viral clips instead of funding reporters who know our streets. When the town square moves to timelines, we lose meeting times, voting records, and the small facts that let neighbors act together. We talk about stepping back from the content churn—ending projects, keeping the writing that still feels true—and ask a question worth sitting with: who are we without the scroll? If attention is our vote, where are we casting it?

If this resonates, follow the show, share it with a friend, and leave a quick review. Tell us your take: chicken or tomato—and what hobby still feels like you?

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Thanks for listening! 

Liberty Line each week on Sunday, look for topics on my X file @americanistblog and submit your 1-3 audio opinions to anamericanistblog@gmail.com and you'll be featured on the podcast. 

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Chapters

• 0:00 Weekend Recap And Setup
• 1:51 Gravity Hoax Fact-Checked
• 4:29 Legs Stuck In Anti-Vandal Bin
• 8:34 Chicken Vs Tomato: What’s Healthier
• 11:54 The Slow Death Of Local News

Transcript

SPEAKER_00: 0:15

Well, hello and good morning. Wow. Hope you all had a great three day week and I had a great four and a half day weekend. We of course we took off and went to Tunica on Thursday afternoon of last week. Got back yesterday. Good times. We didn't come back any richer though. Normally we come back a little bit more in the green, in the black or whatever. Not this time, but we still had a good time. It was fun to get away. It had been since I think October, since we had been over there. Okay, and then a lot has happened. A lot has happened. I'm not going to talk about the main stuff in the news. Of course not. That's not what this podcast is about. We're about reading weird New York Post articles. So let me go over here to my X-File if I can find it. Good heavens. All right. To my ex-profile. Profile. I have three stories for you. One is about dietitians enter the chicken versus tomato soup debate. Then we have a man rescued after getting stuck in anti-vandal trash container with just his legs dangling out. And yes, there are photos. And then we have will gravity disappear from Earth on August 12th of this year. Well, let's see. Let's start with that one. New York Post, of course. Will gravity disappear from Earth on August 12th? NASA reveals truth behind bizarre conspiracy theory. I know some of y'all love conspiracy theory. Conspiracy theorists are being brought back down to Earth after NASA scientists debunked a wild claim that the space agency was hiding knowledge about an event that could result in millions of deaths and injuries. Goodness. Proponents of the Bazaar theory believed a leaked secret document had been leaked on November 2024, revealing NASA's project anchor to prepare Earth for an event so catastrophic that a reported 40 million people on Earth would die from in from the impact. Good heavens. The theory stated on August 12th of this year at exactly 1433 GMT or 933 Eastern Standard Time or 833 Central Time, Earth will lose gravity for seven seconds. Y'all, if you believe this, then I have some pro swampland property in Florida to sell you. Is this is this a if this is fake, why does it have a date, a project name, and a budget? asked one incredulous ex user. Well, you can still make up a fake thing and put a date on it and a name on it, hun. Just because you have a date and a name doesn't make it real. Oh, turns out that this is just another case of social media mischief, of course. As internet sleuths have found no trace of any linked document to or mention of Project Anchor. Meanwhile, NASA experts have pointed out that the theory itself demonstrates a fundamental misunderstanding of how gravity works. Hello. You can go finish reading that if you'd like. All right, let's see. Next up, let's talk about this man rescued after getting stuck in an anti-vandal trash container with just his legs dangling out. First of all, I did not know there was such a thing, an anti-vandal trash container. Is that where we are at in America? We need to build anti-vandal trash containers. What are people doing? What are people doing vandalizing trash containers? What are they doing with them? I don't understand this. Okay, let's see. What does this article say about it? Alrighty, here we go. Let me go back over here. Oh my gosh, I lost my place. Hold on. If you only knew what I was doing here, you would understand why this is so discombobulated. Alright, man rescued after getting stuck in anti-vandal trash container with just his legs dangling out. How many times did I already say that? I apologize. It's not easy being green. A man had to be rescued by firefighters after getting trapped inside an anti-vandal trash container in Mexico with bizarre photos showing just his legs dangling out. The hapless victim was spotted with his legs sticking out of the metal recycling container in Guadalajara on Friday. Guadalajara! Guadalajara. Alright. Um, yeah, and it has pictures of him. What was he doing? Was he trying to crawl up in there and get oh my gosh. Was he trying to crawl up in there and get warm or something? Oh my gosh, this picture is too freaking funny. It is hilarious. Oh, this is so funny. You gotta go look at the you gotta go look at the article just for the pictures. He later told cops he climbed in headfirst to try to get something he'd accidentally thrown away, only to be wedged in by the container. The container's anti-vandal system. I don't understand this. If people want to go through the trash, I guess let them go through the trash. I they don't want people going through the trash here. Pictures show rescuers partially dismantling the container's metal frame using special hydraulic equipment to lift it off the ground, allowing them to finally reach up from below and pull the trapped man to safety. Oh my gosh. Well, I guess it works. Antiv Trash containers. The victim was at risk of being crushed by the force of the metal unit's panel, but fortunately he was freed without any serious reported injuries. After a quick police interview, he was allowed to leave under his own steam. Oh my gosh, that's hilarious. Just go look at the article just for the pictures. You don't even you don't even have to open the article, it's right there on the on the X file. Okay. Soup. We have a soup question. This might be the question of the day. Maybe. I had another one, so after I get on with this, we might I may talk about the other thing. Dieticians enter the chicken versus tomato soup debate. Which is actually healthier? January is a national soup month. I did not know that. And for many Americans, that means reaching for familiar comfort foods like chicken soup or tomato soup. But which one is actually healthier? Hmm. Well that depends on a lot of a lot of factors, in my view. Is it homemade? Is it store-bought? Is it in a can? Hmm. I think uh if you do it by scratch from home, either one is going to be healthy healthier. The nutritional profile of a bowl or cup of soup can run across the spectrum from healthy to fatty and caloric. Uh Vandana Chef, a plant-based dietitian and diabetes expert who lives in California, said both soups can be comforting dishes. Their nutrition profiles, however, can vary widely based on ingredients and preparation. Duh, that's what I just said. I could be a dietitian. Choose versions with no added sugars, minimal saturated fat, and low sodium to keep them healthy when able. Enjoy homemade or minimally pre-processed options with fresh vegetables, lean protein, and other fiber-rich options. I just said that. Maybe not in those fancy words and explanation, but the gent always makes homemade tomato soup. And oh, it is so good. He can also make homemade chicken soup, too. He can make homemade anything. Chicken soup. Uh, so this dietitian, uh, Michelle Rothenstein, a New York-based cardiology dietician, said a standard serving size of chicken soup, about one cup, usually contains around 100 to 150 calories with about six to ten grams of protein and anywhere from 500 milligrams to more than 1500 milligrams of sodium. Let's go tomato soup. Let's see. Per one cup serving you get 70 to 150 calories, depending on whether it's broth-based or cream-based. Lycopene and vitamins A and C. Did I say lysopene or lycopene? I don't know. Which can help support eye health and immunity. Noting that sodium contains can range 400 to 900 milligrams. Well, there you go. If you want to go finish reading that, go ahead. But I think what I want to talk about is something else altogether. I did a short little blog post on my new blog, which I don't even know if I'm gonna keep it because I think it's dumb. That I have a second one now called Side Eye Media. Why did I even start that? I don't know. I need to put it back on an Americanist. I still have an Americanist, that's my main blog. I don't know why I started Side Eye Media. I don't know. I'm probably gonna get rid of it. But it's side eye media, it's just more for observant type observance type things, like observing things instead of talking about the news. I don't know. I I was gonna start it to maybe get other writers to get on board to contribute, but that's probably not gonna happen. I don't want to do that. I'll probably get rid of side eye media. Anyway, I was talking about how we've had a shift in America from a long time ago when social media and the internet came along. First it was the internet, then it was social media. Now what's dying news is the newspapers are dead, and now local news is dead. So how do you get your community notifications? How do you know who voted which way? How do you know who's running? Where do you get your information from? We don't have a sense of community anymore, and how we observe and how we get our how we consume information now is on X, is on social media, Instagram. Uh now, as far as national it's all national news. You have all your big cable news companies. You can stream CNN, MSN Now, MSNBC, MS Now, whatever they're calling themselves. You got Fox News, you got all these m-and here's the thing with the cable news. They are not reporting anything new. All they are doing is taking viral videos that Americans have recorded and just sharing it with uh everybody on their cable news network. That's really all they're doing. They're not doing any feet on the ground reporting anymore. Nobody does that anymore. And I don't know where I was going with this, but I was going somewhere with it. Somehow I got to thinking about remember that when the new year came about, 2026, I decided I was gonna try to back away from consuming so much news. Well, I haven't done it yet. I know I've read a book, that's good. I started my second book, this is good. I have, I guess, tried to get away from some of it. I'm gonna end my podcast soon, which will keep me from, you know, getting on the New York Post and looking at stupid crap. And um I'm probably gonna do away with my YouTube channel too, because that's that's just not me. I try it, I like it, you know, but it's just not me. I just and it's a lot of work. Um, so I just like to just blog. I just have my Americanist and blog for the Victor Girls. Anyway, what I was getting at is where have we have have we lost our identity as individuals? Like I wanted to ask the question of the day, other than do you like chicken soup or tomato soup? What would you consider? Do you have an identity? When you think of yourself, what is your identity? When I think of myself, I don't know what I think about. I'm a mom, I'm a wife. Is that my identity? I'm a woman, obviously. What I mean, what what are the things that you like to do? Hobbies, interests. I mean, have we turned into a massive blob of sloth where we just scroll on our phones and we don't have any individual thoughts or things that we're interested anymore? Does anybody have any hobbies? What do we do? What are we doing? What are we doing? Okay, I've gone, I've gone on long enough. I think I only have like 20 something more episodes to go. Less than 25. Maybe maybe tomorrow somewhere between between 20 and 25 more episodes before I end this podcast. So, anyway, that's what I have for you today. I hope you've enjoyed it. Thanks for listening. Bye.