{"podcast":{"title":"Garden of Thought","slug":"garden-of-thought-3714659","podcast_index_feed_id":3714659,"rss_url":"https://www.spreaker.com/show/4863095/episodes/feed","website_url":"https://www.spreaker.com/podcast/garden-of-thought--4863095","image_url":"https://d3wo5wojvuv7l.cloudfront.net/t_rss_itunes_square_1400/images.spreaker.com/original/3134fbfbed776f560b49645841127799.jpg","author":"Jeff Lippman","episode_count":507,"summary":"Hey there, welcome to the Garden of Thought! It's a place where we plant seeds of curiosity and see what sprouts. We'll be exploring all sorts of fascinating topics with your host, Jeff Lippman: the news, pop culture, those weird creatures you hear about, old myths, alien stories, human history, and, yeah, maybe even a little wrestling. Come along for the ride, because every great story has to start somewhere.","last_synced_at":"2026-06-07T16:17:03.036551+00:00","page_url":"https://stenobird.com/podcast/garden-of-thought-3714659"},"episode":{"title":"Garden of Thought E.355 The IRGC and He","slug":"garden-of-thought-e-355-the-irgc-and-he","published_at":"2026-02-19T12:56:06+00:00","page_url":"https://stenobird.com/podcast/garden-of-thought-3714659/garden-of-thought-e-355-the-irgc-and-he","show_page_url":"https://stenobird.com/podcast/garden-of-thought-3714659","url":"https://www.spreaker.com/episode/garden-of-thought-e-355-the-irgc-and-he--70030449","audio_url":"https://dts.podtrac.com/redirect.mp3/api.spreaker.com/download/episode/70030449/irgc.mp3","summary":"I never thought a former member of Iran's Republican Guard would reach out to me. But here we are. How does a guy born in Italy, moved to New York then Califormia, end up in Iran, placed on a nofly list, get his passport seized, and ends up in the IRGC? All before age 18? Meet Sherman. He's also half Jewish on his father's side. Oh. He barely spoke Farsi. What could go wrong? 2 years of military brig living, secret police interrogations, and overseen by a religious magistrate. Yet, he ultimately got out..only to have to return again. A story so odd, you have to hear it for yourself. Luckily you can. Just hit play. And yes, we do address the current protests in Iran and the expected state of play regarding regime change.","meta_description":"I never thought a former member of Iran's Republican Guard would reach out to me. But here we are. How does a guy born in Italy, moved to New York then Ca…","key_points":[],"chapters":[],"topics":[],"duration_seconds":5047,"processing_state":"not_requested","actions":[{"name":"request_transcript","method":"POST","url":"https://stenobird.com/v1/public/podcasts/garden-of-thought-3714659/episodes/garden-of-thought-e-355-the-irgc-and-he/transcription-requests","description":"Idempotently request low-priority transcript generation for this episode."},{"name":"read_markdown","method":"GET","url":"https://stenobird.com/podcast/garden-of-thought-3714659/garden-of-thought-e-355-the-irgc-and-he.md","description":"Read the agent-friendly Markdown representation of this episode resource."}]}}