Aaron Tracy and Roald Dahl's Dangerous Double Life

The Gist

Peach Fish Productions

Daily News, News

4.5 • 3.7K Ratings

🗓️ 11 March 2026

⏱️ 44 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

Aaron Tracy joins to talk about The Secret World of Roald Dahl, his podcast about the children's author as war spy, improvised medical inventor, and world-class fabulist with a vicious streak. The conversation gets into Dahl's improbable second act as a children's writer, the darkness that made books like James and the Giant Peach and Charlie and the Chocolate Factory endure, and the harder question of how to reckon with his explicit anti-Semitism. Also, a look at why Ronald Reagan sold the Grenada invasion to the public in a way recent presidents have not matched, and why Americans can sometimes be rallied by a rationale as much as by the facts. Produced by Corey Wara Video and Social Media by Geoff Craig Do you have questions or comments, or just want to say hello? Email us at ⁠⁠⁠⁠thegist@mikepesca.com For full Pesca content and updates, check out our website at https://www.mikepesca.com/⁠ For ad-free content or to become a Pesca Plus subscriber, check out ⁠⁠⁠⁠https://subscribe.mikepesca.com/ For Mike's daily takes on Substack, subscribe to The Gist List https://mikepesca.substack.com/ Follow us on Social Media:⁠⁠⁠⁠ YouTube https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC4_bh0wHgk2YfpKf4rg40_g⁠⁠⁠⁠ Instagram https://www.instagram.com/pescagist/ X https://x.com/pescami TikTok https://www.tiktok.com/@pescagist To advertise on the show, contact ⁠⁠⁠⁠ad-sales@libsyn.com⁠⁠⁠⁠ or visit ⁠⁠⁠⁠https://advertising.libsyn.com/TheGist

Transcript

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0:00.0	It's Wednesday, March 11th, 2026 from Peachfish Productions. It's The Gist. I'm Mike Peska.
0:09.5	I was reading about support for the war and how it went from pretty low to much, much higher.
0:14.6	Oh no, not this war, not the war in Iran. That is still unpopular. As aptly described in a New York
0:20.7	Times piece, unlike past U.S.
0:23.1	conflicts, Iran attack is opposed by most Americans. But there, down the list of past U.S.
0:30.4	conflicts was Grenada, which in 1983 was said to enjoy only 53% public approval.
0:38.3	I don't remember it being that close to being unpopular,
0:41.1	but I did some more research.
0:42.3	And it turns out other polls at the time had it below 50%
0:46.3	in terms of popularity.
0:48.3	The US intervention in removing the increasingly pro-Cuban government
0:52.3	of the small Caribbean nation.
0:55.0	But then, two days after the U.S. invaded, Ronald Reagan went on TV and actually laid out
1:01.0	a rationale to the American people.
1:04.0	The world has changed.
1:06.0	Today, our national security can be threatened in faraway places.
1:10.0	It's up to all of us, to be
1:12.4	aware of the strategic importance of such places and to be able to identify them. Sam Rayburn
1:19.7	once said that freedom is not something a nation can work for once and win forever. He said
1:26.3	it's like an insurance policy.
1:28.3	Its premiums must be kept up to date.
1:30.3	In order to keep it, we have to keep working for it and sacrificing for it just as long as we live.
	...

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