Mini-Stories: Volume 19

It’s that time again—mini-stories are back! Get ready for a whirlwind tour of short, surprising, and fascinating tales. This week we have punny highway signs, a PAC funded by exercise, the explosive history behind the Nobel Prize, and some long toes. Let’s get into it!

Slow Down, Get There Late with Chris Berube

In the past few years, American drivers have been greeted by puns, jokes and groaners while driving on the highway. In Pennsylvania, motorists on the 4th of July were implored not to “Drive Star Spangled Hammered,” while those in Mississippi were told there are “four I’s” in the state’s name, but two should be focused on the road. In Massachusetts, drivers were asked in the local vernacular to “Use Ya Blinkah,” as those in New Jersey got the boss-erific message to “Slow down,” as “this ain’t Thunder Road.”

The funny highway safety sign has become an American institution, inspiring memes and contests by state highway authorities, asking local residents to write in with their favorite ideas. Many safety administrators believe the funny signs help people remember to stay alert and safe on the road. “Think about the Super Bowl and you watch the ads during the Super Bowl, which ads are you most likely talking about Monday morning? You’re talking about the ones that made you laugh or the ones that made you have an emotional reaction,” says Matt Bruning, who works at the Ohio Department of Transportation (or ODOT).

Bruning says his department meets four times a year to discuss new signage, and has a writer’s room of department employees to come up with new ones. “Sometimes I’ll bring a couple dozen ideas and 30% of them don’t fly. And sometimes you bring just a handful of them and they all go,” he says. Bruning’s department often leans on seasonal references (“Turkey says buckle buckle”) for inspiration, and will sometimes borrow from other traffic authorities across the country. “What’s a good idea in Colorado is probably a good idea in Ohio, too,” Bruning says. “I don’t remember which state it was, maybe Utah, that did camp in the mountains, not the left lane. And of course we were like, that’s brilliant!” While Ohio lacks mountain ranges, Bruning and his team adapted the joke for their own signage a few years ago. “We did camp in Ohio state parks, not the left lane.”

Recently, the Federal Highway Administration made headlines for their proposed crackdown on humorous messaging, proposing “Unbuckled seatbelts = Fine + Points” as an alternative. While early reporting suggested the FHWA was banning funny highway signs, an agency rep later clarified their advice on the matter was just a guideline. “A lot of us states that do these messages get a little far out in trying to be too funny,” says Bruning. “We were missing the mark and we needed somebody to kind of reel us back in, which is fine.” However, Bruning doesn’t see the funny highway sign going away anytime soon. “It doesn’t cost the taxpayers anything extra, and I certainly don’t think it makes [highway safety] worse. So if it makes it better for even a handful of people, then I think it’s worth that effort.”

Jane Fonda’s Side Hustle with Vivian Le

The actress Jane Fonda has been a progressive activist for literally decades, and in the late 1970s and early 1980s, she funded that work with none other than… the Jane Fonda Workout Tapes.

In the 1970s, Fonda met a fellow anti-war activist named Tom Hayden. Hayden and Fonda eventually got married and together they realized that they needed to influence politics from within the system. So in the mid-ish 1970s they founded a political action committee called the Campaign for Economic Democracy. The CED aimed to elect progressive candidates in California, but funding was a challenge.

Fonda, inspired by Lyndon LaRouche, a controversial politician who funded his activities through his businesses, decided to turn her fitness interest into a money-making venture. After breaking her foot in 1978, Fonda became passionate about low-impact exercise and eventually released Jane Fonda’s Workout Book, which became a bestseller for two years. She later launched workout tapes, which sold over 17 million copies, providing significant funding for the CED.

The CED supported causes like labor rights, solar power, and women’s rights, but one of its biggest successes was passing rent control laws in Santa Monica—still in effect today. So, if you live in a rent-controlled apartment in Santa Monica, you can thank Fonda and her workout tapes for making it possible.

The Nobel Peace Prize with Steven Johnson

Earlier this year, Roman talked to author Steven Johnson about his new book The Infernal Machine. Johnson told the story of Alfred Nobel and the invention of dynamite, and how it gave way to the anarchist movement in New York City. One of the stories we didn’t have time to get to in the episode however, was the obituary and case of mistaken identity that led to the creation of the Nobel peace prize.

My Big Short Greek Feet with Joe Rosenberg

A few months ago, 99PI producer Joe Rosenberg was walking in his apartment barefoot, when his roommate blurted out, “Oh my God, what is wrong with your feet?” His roommate then pointed out that his big toe was shorter than his second toe, and that this was not normal. But before this moment, it had never once occurred to Joe to think about the lengths of people’s big toes relative to their other toes, much less his own. So Joe looked into it, and it turned out his foot was a special shape, known as a “Greek Foot.”It’s not exactly clear how many people have Greek feet—one study says perhaps 5% of people worldwide—but it pops up more readily in certain populations. 30% of the Nidoma in Nigeria have it. Possibly a majority of people with Einu ancestry in Northern Japan have it as well. And, of course, the Greek foot appears on a substantial minority of Greek women and a slim majority of Greek men.

In fact, the special shape got its name because it was prized by the ancient Greeks as the platonically ideal form of the human foot. As a result, it showed up in Greek writing and art depicting the ideal human body. And thanks to the lasting influence of Greek culture, the Greek foot was maintained as an aesthetic standard through much of western artistic history, appearing in some of the most iconic and celebrated art of all time, including the Botticelli’s Birth of Venus,  Leonardo de Vinci’s Vitruvian Man, Michelangelo’s David, and – in what is quite possibly the largest rendering of Greek foot ever made – the Statue of Liberty.

And that’s not all, because it turns out that Roman Mars himself has Greek feet as well. Joe, it turned out, was in great company all along.