Talk Cocktail

<p><em>China loses two oil partners to US action in Iran. Their response? Strategic patience. Are we watching restraint or preparation for what’s next?</em></p><p>There’s an old saying: When your enemy is digging himself a hole, the smart move is to hand them a bigger shovel. China appears to be doing exactly that — watching, waiting, keeping its powder dry while America commits massive military resources to the other side of the world.</p><p>On this week’s <a target="_blank" href="https://whowhatwhy.org/podcast/we-cut-off-chinas-oil-attacked-their-partners-they-wait/"><strong><em>WhoWhatWhy</em></strong></a><a target="_blank" href="https://whowhatwhy.org/podcast/we-cut-off-chinas-oil-attacked-their-partners-they-wait/"><strong> podcast</strong></a>, USC professor of international affairs <strong>David C. Kang</strong> returns to examine whether China’s restraint vindicates his contrarian thesis, or reveals something more calculated.</p> <br/><br/>Get full access to Talk Cocktail Podcast at <a href="https://jeffschechtman.substack.com/subscribe?utm_medium=podcast&#38;utm_campaign=CTA_4">jeffschechtman.substack.com/subscribe</a>

<p>On this recent TalkCocktial podcast I’m joined by Oxford political scientist <strong>Pepper Culpepper,</strong> who has spent a decade studying when corporate scandals force actual change—Dieselgate, Cambridge Analytica, Goldman Sachs—and when they just fade away. His book <strong><em>Billionaire Backlash</em></strong><strong> </strong>argues scandals briefly overwhelm corporate lobbying when they tap simmering public resentment. He pushes back hard on whether billionaire wealth reflects value creation for society or corruption, and whether making policy through outrage is democracy working or failing.</p> <br/><br/>Get full access to Talk Cocktail Podcast at <a href="https://jeffschechtman.substack.com/subscribe?utm_medium=podcast&#38;utm_campaign=CTA_4">jeffschechtman.substack.com/subscribe</a>

<p><strong>Chef Geoff Davis</strong> opened Burdell in Oakland to cook the soul food his grandmothers made — a distinct American cuisine rooted in migration and adaptation rather than Southern tradition. In 2024, Food & Wine <a target="_blank" href="https://www.foodandwine.com/2024-restaurant-of-the-year-burdell-8702727">named Burdell</a> the “Restaurant of the Year.” </p><p>On our recent <a target="_blank" href="https://www.californiasun.co/podcast/geoff-davis-on-soul-food-fair-pay-and-the-service-fee-that-sparked-a-firestorm/"><strong>California Sun podcast,</strong></a> he expalins how it was a 20% service fee at the bottom of Burdell’s receipts that recently started a<strong> </strong><a target="_blank" href="https://www.sfchronicle.com/food/restaurants/article/burdell-oakland-service-charge-controversy-21350089.php"><strong>national conversation</strong></a> about labor, class, and whether we’ve ever really reckoned with the racial <strong>history of tipping.</strong></p><p></p> <br/><br/>Get full access to Talk Cocktail Podcast at <a href="https://jeffschechtman.substack.com/subscribe?utm_medium=podcast&#38;utm_campaign=CTA_4">jeffschechtman.substack.com/subscribe</a>

<p>We imagine the internet as invisible—wireless, ethereal, everywhere and nowhere. The truth is far more precarious. Nearly 95% of global data moves through 900,000 miles of fiber optic cable lying unprotected on the ocean floor, controlled increasingly by four American tech giants. When Tonga's single cable was severed in 2022, ATMs went dark and the country vanished from the world. That was an accident. <strong>Samanth Subramanian</strong>, author of <a target="_blank" href="https://www.penguinrandomhouse.com/books/827503/the-web-beneath-the-waves-by-samanth-subramanian/"><strong>The Web Beneath the Waves,</strong></a> reveals that what comes next might not be.</p> <br/><br/>Get full access to Talk Cocktail Podcast at <a href="https://jeffschechtman.substack.com/subscribe?utm_medium=podcast&#38;utm_campaign=CTA_4">jeffschechtman.substack.com/subscribe</a>

<p></p><p><a target="_blank" href="https://whowhatwhy.org/author/jeff-schechtman/">Jeff Schechtman</a> 03/06/26</p><p><em>Iran didn’t ask for regime change. It asked for bread. How a protest movement got hijacked — and turned into a war nobody planned for.</em></p><p>And the man who saw all of this coming has been saying so, loudly and at personal cost, for 20 years.</p><p>My guest on this very recent <a target="_blank" href="https://whowhatwhy.org/podcast/the-iran-nobody-in-washington-wanted-to-listen-to/"><strong><em>WhoWhatWhy</em></strong></a><a target="_blank" href="https://whowhatwhy.org/podcast/the-iran-nobody-in-washington-wanted-to-listen-to/"><strong> podcast</strong></a> is <strong>Hooman Majd</strong>, the grandson of an ayatollah, the son of a diplomat who served the shah, a contributor to NBC News and <em>The New Yorker</em>, and the author of four books on modern Iran — most recently the memoir <em>Minister Without Portfolio</em>. He has spent his career as the voice in the room insisting that Iran is always more complicated than Washington wants to believe. He has never been more right, and the moment has never been more dangerous.</p> <br/><br/>Get full access to Talk Cocktail Podcast at <a href="https://jeffschechtman.substack.com/subscribe?utm_medium=podcast&#38;utm_campaign=CTA_4">jeffschechtman.substack.com/subscribe</a>