Escape - Leiningen vs the Ants (national broadcast)
Oct 10, 2026 · 30 min · 10 segments
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- SuitabilityLimitedBiasNot politicalAudience≈75 followers
Oct 10, 2026 · 30 min · 10 segments
[dramatic music] I first met Leiningen while performing my duty as district commissioner.
As my boat neared his plantation landing, I saw him upon the riverbank regarding me with mild interest, a great hulk of a man with bristling gray hair, bulky nose, and pale eyes.
His entire appearance somehow suggested an aging and shabby eagle.
He escorted me to the terrace and had a drink brought.
I came quickly to the point of my visit and issued my warning.
Leiningen puffed placidly at a huge cigar and listened as I told him, "Unless they alter their course, and there's no reason why they should, they'll reach your plantation in two days at the latest."
Uh-huh.
Well, it was decent of you paddling all this way just to give me the tip.
Tip?
Commissioner, even a herd of crocodiles couldn't drive me from this plantation of mine.
But these aren't creatures you can fight.
They're, they're an elemental force, a gigantic catastrophe 10 miles long, two miles wide, ants, nothing but ants, and each one as big as your thumb, and each of them a fiend from hell.
Unless you clear out at once, there'll be nothing left of you but a skeleton picked as clean as your own plantation'll be.
I'm not getting out.
But you can't fight the-
Yes, I can.
I've got the best weapon there is, Commissioner: intelligence.
But can't I make you understand the hideous-
I think it is you who do not understand.
In the three years I've been here, I've met and defeated more than one catastrophe: flood, drought, a plague, events which caused many of my neighbors to flee for their lives.
No, Commissioner, all my life I have lived with one creed: the human brain needs only to become fully aware of its powers to conquer even the elements.
Leiningen, your obstinacy is endangering not only your own life but the lives of your workers and their families.
You don't know these ants.
I tell you, you don't know these ants.
[dramatic music] But Leiningen merely sat there puffing at his cigar and regarding me with a smug grin, and I knew it was hopeless.
[dramatic music] I first met Leiningen while performing my duty as district commissioner.
As my boat neared his plantation landing, I saw him upon the riverbank regarding me with mild interest, a great hulk of a man with bristling gray hair, bulky nose, and pale eyes.
His entire appearance somehow suggested an aging and shabby eagle.
He escorted me to the terrace and had a drink brought.
I came quickly to the point of my visit and issued my warning.
Leiningen puffed placidly at a huge cigar and listened as I told him, "Unless they alter their course, and there's no reason why they should, they'll reach your plantation in two days at the latest."
Uh-huh.
Well, it was decent of you paddling all this way just to give me the tip.
Tip?
Commissioner, even a herd of crocodiles couldn't drive me from this plantation of mine.
But these aren't creatures you can fight.
They're, they're an elemental force, a gigantic catastrophe 10 miles long, two miles wide, ants, nothing but ants, and each one as big as your thumb, and each of them a fiend from hell.
Unless you clear out at once, there'll be nothing left of you but a skeleton picked as clean as your own plantation'll be.
I'm not getting out.
But you can't fight the-
Yes, I can.
I've got the best weapon there is, Commissioner: intelligence.
But can't I make you understand the hideous-
I think it is you who do not understand.
In the three years I've been here, I've met and defeated more than one catastrophe: flood, drought, a plague, events which caused many of my neighbors to flee for their lives.
No, Commissioner, all my life I have lived with one creed: the human brain needs only to become fully aware of its powers to conquer even the elements.
Leiningen, your obstinacy is endangering not only your own life but the lives of your workers and their families.
You don't know these ants.
I tell you, you don't know these ants.
[dramatic music] But Leiningen merely sat there puffing at his cigar and regarding me with a smug grin, and I knew it was hopeless.
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