Carolina Snowflakes Podcast

This week on the Carolina Snowflakes Podcast we take a look at the history and legends surrounding the evangelical acts of taking up serpents and drinking poison, in our episode titled “Bible Belt Holdin’ Up My Pants”.  What would compel someone to hold snakes and drink poison and have they lost their minds? Possibly. Snake handling is for sure an unusual practice and mostly illegal. Mostly. Believe it or not, it’s still happening within small congregations around the south and deep in Appalachia, where it first began. 

We feel that to fully understand these practices it’s best to start with the definition of tradition. We look at what constitutes a tradition and how it differs from laws, practices and norms. Although used interchangeably, these terms are in fact, different from one another. At what point does a practice become harmful and how can a harmful practice be changed or improved upon without upheaval of the tradition it supports?

We do our best to answer this question by sharing stories of our own experiences of evangelical church-goings and how they affected our opinions today. We also tell a fascinating true story of Haywood County, North Carolina Sheriff, Jack Arrington, being bitten by a poisonous snake while trying to arrest a Holy Roller Appalachian preacher named Charles Prince. Prince believed the righteous would be protected from harm so he sure as heck wasn’t going to be taken down easily.

Given the dangerous nature of snake handling and drinking strychnine, we didn’t attempt to perform either act ourselves, but we did watch an interview with a Pentecostal preacher from West Virginia who does both of these things. He explains his rationale for supporting the practices and how it’s an integral part of his faith. We highly recommend you watch this interview too and we talk a bit about the YouTube channel where the interview can be found: Soft White Underbelly. It’s a great channel created by a photo journalist named Mark Laita. Laita has spent the last 3 years interviewing people who live on the fringes of society. Pimps, prostitutes, drug addicts, KKK members, and more recently, people living deep in the heart of Appalachia. Check his channel out.

Lastly, since we’re on the topic of religion in the south we discuss life in the Bible Belt and the interesting competition between southern cities to be deemed the official “Buckle” of the big ol belt. There are a handful of cities who make a strong case for being the official “Buckle” of the Bible Belt, including our very own Greenville, South Carolina. Did you know everyone wants to be the buckle?

Listen today to hear all this and more!

Beware the haunted Carolinas!

In this week’s episode the Snowflakes share incredible stories of a few local legendary ghosts, ghouls and unexplained mysteries of our beautiful Carolinas.

From the mystifying Brown Mountain Lights dancing across a North Carolina ridge top in an area rich in Cherokee lore, to the ghost of a South Carolina confederate soldier named Manse Jolly who turned into a vengeful serial killer before his death, to the Lizardman of Scape Ore Swamp in Bishopville, SC---we tell tales that’ll make the hair on the back of your neck stand tall. Are these entities real? More real than not, we say.

Tune in to hear these haunting stories from the Carolinas as we also discuss our own mysterious experiences with the unknown and perhaps, supernatural.

Do you believe in ghosts?    

What the heck is a Qanon and what does it have to do with Mamaw sharing posts on Facebook about saving children? What if we told you that Qanon doesn’t give a flying flip about saving children and that the real objective of the founders of this bizarre movement is much more sinister?

Devout followers of Qanon possess a variety of strange and almost comical beliefs. We say “almost comical” because although it seems hysterical to think someone actually believes our POTUS is secretly fighting forces of darkness in order to save babies from red-shoe-wearing, Wayfair-shopping vampire Democrats, in truth, it’s alarming because these beliefs have weaseled their way into mainstream social media and into the homes of suburban housewives. You know, people who actually vote.

What began as a conspiracy theory puzzle-solving game hosted within the depths of the dumpster fire known as 4Chan has been marketed and re-branded to appeal to a much wider audience across social media platforms such as Facebook. Thus why your Mamaw insists we must save our children.

What’s most interesting about the Qanon movement is the convergence of so many different types of followers under one umbrella. From anti-vaxxer moms to diehard religious zealots to sweet old ladies who like to knit mittens, Qanon has gained ground among all types of people and it’s having real-world consequences.

You may think you don’t know anyone caught up in this movement, but we’re willing to bet you do.  In this week’s episode we examine the who, the how and the why of the movement known as Qanon.

Who started this mess and how did it get this far?   

Reference:

Chris Hayes – Why is this happening? Podcast Episode “FAQanon with Brandy Zadrozny and Ben Collins”

Reply All – Podcast Episode #166 “Country of Liars”

Have you ever done something you regret? Something so unbecoming and inexcusable you hide your face in shame. This may explain why our faces are cartoons. That’s right. We did it. We watched Fox News; or as we now call it, Faux News. What better way to squash regret than by airing out the dirty laundry and telling what you did? In this week’s episode your favorite snowflakes cut loose and reminisce on our year-and-a-half saga as regular Fox News viewers. For 18 months Megyn Kelly was a household name and the Fox & Friends Morning Show kept us regular company. Did we subscribe to their rhetoric and twisted narratives? No, not at all. But we sure found it entertaining to watch and boy do we have stories to share. Join us as we discuss the hysterical highs and the dastardly lows of our time viewing the conservative news network. We discuss such topics as: Why does Fox News talk about anything but news? And why does it have such a grip on so many people? Is there any hope for those who have been sucked in by the vitriol and fear-mongering tactics? Maybe? Maybe not. Most importantly, you’ll laugh out loud as we share our opinions on former regular visitors to the channel such as Sarah Sanders, Steve Bannon and Sean Spicer. Bonus: special guest appearance from Hillary’s missing emails. This is one episode you don’t want to miss so sit back and take a listen because we watched Faux News.