322- The First Straw

<p>A straw is a simple thing. It’s a tube, a conveyance mechanism for liquid. The defining characteristic of the straw is the emptiness inside it. This is the stuff of tragedy, and America.</p> <p>The invention of American industrialism, the creation of urban life, changing gender relations, public-health reform, suburbia and its hamburger-loving teens, better living through plastics, and the financialization of the economy: The straw was there for all these things—rolled out of extrusion machines, dispensed, pushed through lids, bent, dropped into the abyss.</p> <p><a href="https://99percentinvisible.org/?p=26572&amp;post_type=episode" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">The First Straw</a></p>