Gaming the System

Sidedoor

Smithsonian Institution

Zoo, National Museum, Postal Museum, Smithsonian, Society & Culture, Art19, National Zoo, Tony Cohn, Natural History, Dc, Exhibits, Museum, American History, Exhibit, History Of The World, African American History And Culture, History, Washington, Air And Space, Pop Culture, The Smithsonian, Sidedoor, Science

4.6 • 2.3K Ratings

🗓️ 21 December 2016

⏱️ 23 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

Bending the rules: People sending their children through the U.S. Postal Service; a Sikh man in the early 1900s tries to use the Supreme Court's racist rulings to his benefit; and the little-known story behind the iconic folk song "Rock Island Line."

Transcript

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0:00.0	This is
0:06.0	Sideor, a podcast from the Smithsonian.
0:10.0	I'm Megan Dietry and my co-host Tony Cone is out on assignment this week so you guys are
0:16.4	stuck with just me.
0:19.6	Today I've got three stories about people finding clever ways around the rules.
0:24.0	Loopoles come in a bunch of shapes, from skimping on taxes to pirating music.
0:29.5	And people have gotten pretty inventive about finding the cracks in the system.
0:33.1	I'm going to kick it off by pulling up the U.S. Post Office's website and reading to you the remarkably
0:45.3	short list of things that you just cannot send in the mail.
0:50.3	Airbags, ammunition,
0:53.0	explosives, gasoline.
0:55.0	That's it.
0:56.0	Those are the only things you definitely cannot,
0:59.0	no matter who you are, send in the mail.
1:01.0	And the list for restricted items is a little bit longer.
1:06.0	Live animals, okay, and creamated remains. So human ashes can be mailed domestically if they are in a strong durable container and
1:17.0	they've got to be sent Priority Express mail.
1:21.5	But back in 1913 when they launched parcel post, and that just means you can send
1:26.1	packages through the mail, there weren't really any rules about what you couldn't send.
1:31.3	It was just too new.
1:32.3	For the first time people could send things
1:34.7	through the mail that were weighed more than four pounds. That's Nancy Pope, a
	...

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