The "Summer of Love" vis a vie 2020 didn't happen this time because.... USAID money was taken away.
They no longer have vast funding to disrupt the people they're stealing money from in order to subvert the will of the people -with money taken from those people. Despicable.
Oh the plan is still 'The Endless Summer of Love', but without a doubt Trump is making a huge amount of chess moves to counter it.
A large percentage of his executive orders are part of this game--also also getting the court decisions out of the way ahead of time.
The flag burning troll is not only to sucker people into burning flags, but to reset the whole idea that the government/society should ignore the 'small crimes' that go along with protesting.
This idea that we should not only allow, but encourage, the theft and destruction of a government flag because that action supports free speech really is nuts--and violent protest that topples governments depends on this philosophy and belief.
Closing down a bridge isn't a crime because I'm doing it for speech. Destroying property isn't a crime because I'm doing it in the name of speech. Anything in the name of speech can't be a crime.
It's fully nuts--but that's the speech being sold.
Sounds like they’re planning another application of Prof. Wilson’s “broken windows” theory, which worked so brilliantly for Rudy Giuliani in NYC in the 90’s.
That’s a BRILLIANT INSIGHT!!! Of course! It explains SO much about all the bizarre events in recent decades. It also offers an explanation for why DOGE went after USAID FIRST! There are people in the Trump Administration who, loke you, have a clear understanding and comprehension of what’s been going on, what the Dem-Left has been up to.
I gave a hillbilly elegy for the dreams of my father, but it was not my first rodeo in the village that it takes to find yourself becoming a noble vessel for a higher loyalty. Who knew that it would all be trashed by a hustler from Queens wielding something called the art of the deal!
Sorry for the delayed response. My mind and attention, what there is of them remaining, wander off more and more with each passing year. My apologies for being confused and responding so incoherently. I admit to confusion over the appellation of “populist”, in relation to your comment that I take refers to the President. I’ve never felt like I understood what a “populist” elected to office might liok like, but I am now convinced after 9 or 10 years of what’s been going on that 1. Yes, there is a DeepSateand 2. President is everything the DeepState is not. He doesn’t fit easily into the categories of D or R, or the categories of right or left. In that sense, he reminds me more of Ike, someone who could have run as either a Republican OR Democrat, at least a Democrat from a time before corporatism draped in the trappings of cultural Marxism became their raison d'être. I would say populist is the most fitting label to ascribe to him. It would also explain why Trump’s first term was so frustrating, because he farmed out its personnel decisions and operations to the GOP, that is, THE WASHINGTON DC GOP. I can tell you from experience that the group who most hated the people running the GOP were REPU, specifically grassroots conservative Republicans.
Yes, I live in South Dakota, which is a very red state--nonetheless the GOP is not very united. The RINO wing (as I call it) and the populist wing (as I call it) see many things very differently. I don't know if Trump was always a populist, but he certainly is now-- I think that was made clear when he selected Vance as his VP. Reportedly he made that decision within hours of the (barely) failed assassination attempt in Butler. I think Trump decided he wanted to be sure that a populist legacy would continue, no matter what.
A few years back, Stanford categorized the term 'human race" as a micro-aggression. I was so outraged that I wrote a sort of autobiography/manifesto called "Yes there is a human race!' The madness has to stop.
The more I think about this, the more confused I get. "Microaggression" seems to imply intent. "Slight" would cover intent, but a person might not consider their said microaggression to be a slight. Also, if you have to put an insult under a microscope to find it, is it really an insult? It's a mess. I'll file it under Left Wing Word Games and let Walt figure it out.
My Anti-Fascist Struggle for Ethical Cold Equity with a Higher Loyalty to the Democratic Deep State Promised Land of Rules Based Mortgage Fraud - by Letitia James.
Is there real hope that we have seen the last of.... transformative? re-imagine? collaborative ( the EU likes to pretend that if you are "collaborative" enough, you can dispense with such frills as actual voting); decolonize; public-private partnership (aka fascism); resilience; and "partner" as a verb?
Yes, as in the evolution of "global warming" to "climate change" to "resilience" and "sustainability". And the evolution of racial quotas to "affirmative action" to "diversity equity inclusion."
But you go to jail if you burn a rainbow flag, and a judge just said that it was racist to burn and israeli flag, so I guess it's just okay to make fun of the President. When he wants to stop the burning of the American Flag, it's just our country and all.
The point is that no one should be jailed for burning a rainbow flag, or be penalized for burning an Israeli flag (unless it belonged to someone else). Burning the American flag is protected free speech, and Trump is wrong on this.
It's one part trolling people into burning the american flag, and nine parts correctly reasserting the idea that speech is not a blank check to commit crimes.
Today, protest is the excuse given to destroy someone else's property or shut down a bridge.
Somehow protesting against an unjust law by violating that law and then doing the time--became violate any and every law in the name of "protest" and then we will drop the charges.
That is not sustainable belief for a society.
But that's a great belief for people who want to overthrow governments.
Trump's executive order is not anti free speech at all--but it is a re-calibration of the idea that free speech and protest is a blank check to break any law without consequence.
I get what you’re saying, but I remember Trump saying something early in his term about making flag burning illegal. This seems like a lame attempt to placate him, and the optics are horrible.
Yeah Trump has been ranting about this for years, and unlike his anti solar/wind crap which he obviously does just because it is such ridiculously easy chum for the republican faithful, he actually believes this flag shit. Hell, Trump was all ready to sell an electric future to the world for the fifteen minutes that Musk could stay on his meds.
I'm an anti-partisan who thinks all group identity is intellectual and moral suicide.
I am also an introvert who has no interest at all in wasting any social energy defending anyone I don't know personally. And even then I'm only defending a small percentage of the people I do know personally.
I just don't see ideas through the metaphor of other people--because it wastes social energy for no gain.
Optics for who? Who is being defended and protected here? I don't care about optics. Especially protecting the optics of the unnamed.
People who want to use free speech as a moral and legal excuse for violence and destruction should not be defended as proponents of free speech.
I don't play the game where I have to preface everything I say about Trump with a disclaimer about his sins--and if you need that kind of tribute you are going to have to look somewhere else.
With that said, I have zero problem dragging Trump long and hard if that makes my ideas more palatable to consider :)
Pick a topic and let's bitch about Trump. He doesn't make it hard.
I am with Trump on his anti solar/wind turbine attitudes, in that they should not be forced on anyone, and we need to make sure we have a reliable power grid that does not rely too heavily on alternative sources.
I regularly criticize Trump, but if he expects to get anything accomplished during his second term, he will need the help of Congress — and the votes won’t be there if he continues doing dumb things like failing to call Israel out, keeping the Ukraine war going, keeping wars all over the planet going (despite the fact that he’s campaigning for the Nobel Peace Prize), focusing on crimes in Chicago, NYC, and Baltimore, instead of fixing the economy, and stomping on my first amendment rights on behalf of Israel — or flag burnings that “incite” riots. Trump’s team needs to realize that many of those who voted for him do not worship him, and do not approach every dumb thing he does with the attitude that “We have to trust Trump’s plan! He’s playing 5-D chess!” No, he’s messing up, and we should all call him out.
He tries to narrowly limit, but yeah. Of course, in lots of places lighting fires without a permit is a public nuisance, and chargeable as such, without reference to what's being burned. And I would not burn any nation's flag, because I think it is rude. However, rudeness cannot of itself be made into a criminal offense.
Yes, just like all other free speech, it is a good thing- if people keep these feelings to themselves, then we will never know they feel this way. If I were arguing this to the president, I would say let them burn the flags, it will be that much easier to know who the jerks are.
A: push an issue that should have been pushed so that a discussion happens where NO flag is "sacred" and
B: This will deliver thousands of hours of footage of flag burning Democrats that can then be used in campaign ads showing them as "the people who hate America".
Watch how this plays out. Trump is always angling at making the Democrat Party shoot themselves in the foot and look like utter assholes.
Why burn a plastic American Flag that's labeled from Vietnam but is made in China, using gasoline imported from Saudi Arabia that will only cause an ecological disaster here at home?
A cinematic twenty minute animation of a burning American Flag is only $1.
Hear the flames rise as you watch the flames rise. (it's much more impressive than this text would imply)
Prices so low why not watch the world burn?
We have every flag, book, religious text, country--even upload a picture of your ex.
Add Calvin peeing on your an American Flag before it burns for only fifty cents. Add Fifty Cent peeing on Calvin for only a buck.
I was listening to this in the car just now so haven't finished. I think what is troubling me is whether or not some symbols might be important enough to have protections or prohibitions. Are there some symbols meaningful enough to symbolize/incite violence? Walter mentioned that burning a cross on someone else's lawn is a crime. Should that extend, or not, to hanging a noose from a tree, or burning a cross, in one's own front yard during a mostly peaceful protest down the street? What about an American flag set fire by a mob raging against law enforcement? Or against a war, or legal policy, whether just or unjust?
It,s hard to establish law around symbols, which by definition are slippery, more emotion-laden than rational. Like porn and community standards - no matter how hard I look, I can't find any community standards these days. So the best, simplest, course is to let it all ride free - symbols, pictures, words, public behavior? Everything short of a violent crime against one's literal person or legal property?
Has there ever been a civilized society without symbols of good and evil, god and the devil?
The suit against OpenAI for encouraging and instructing a teenager's suicide is an interesting 1A case - who is ultimately responsible for electronic harm? Anyone? A secular society has a lot to answer for. These are interesting times.
Thanks for your very interesting comment. i,d only add that words are symbols too, and laws are often ambiguous. The court interprets the laws, and interpretations change. I'd agree that it is troublesome.
But then, human nature is troublesome. Law is man's attempt to curb himself - an ideal attempt itself, a stab at some kind of imperfect heaven on earth.
It is said that the mind and body meet in the loins, but they also meet in our words.
We need words to be literal for the part of the world where 1/4 is a cure and 1/2 is funeral, but long after instinct, fear and rationality is collapsed on the ground--narrative is actually increasing pace--and those damn crazy eyes.
Narrative is how we keep running.
We need words to be descriptive agents of physical reality.
We also need words to be morality, and a pace runner, and those crazy eyes. The height that compels ascension.
Courage isn't jumping on a hand grenade, courage is a reason to jump on a hand grenade.
The truth, and the courage of those crazy eyes--are both superpowers.
And despite my sincere belief that it is vital to know the difference between using words for truth and using words for narrative--one of our other superpowers is that we constantly confuse the two. We take obvious metaphor literally and we take the obviously literal as metaphor--and somehow we use that confusion to advance Science, Art and God.
And we can rationally dive into narrative and then escape the same way.
And that ability to dress in either cape or geek glasses depending on what the task requires is another superpower.
Clark Kent and Superman are the same person. The word made flesh and the flesh made word.
And yet, The Fall requires The Climb...and those crazy eyes.
It Takes the Audacity of Becoming a Higher Village for 107 Seconds in the Room Where My Life Happened, by the Ghostwriters Guild of America. Coming soon en masse to a Goodwill near you.
Matt & Walter rejoice that Trump has given them a chance to lambast him, thus falsifying the hambrained petards that they are pro-Trump, rather than that they are simply in favor of sanity wherever they can find it.
Absolutely Love you guys - you’re now my favorite listen and I look forward to Monday and Friday topics. Time flies with such smart takes on current events, drawing from human history and recognizing old patterns that are always in play. Your topics flow intuitively, your humor is witty, and laughter contagious. I’m entertained AND inspired - today’s theme is “to be in the control group” - which says so much!
Regarding your discussion on political books, I used to work for the Maricopa County Library District, one of the largest in the country. I worked at a large regional library, and we always wound up with dozens of extra political books. I don't know whether the selectors were simply incompetent, or were being pressured from above, but dozens of copies of EVERY title (whether penned by a Democrat or a Republican) wound up being stacked above the shelves in the back, cataloged as "In Storage," until they were withdrawn, and donated to our Friends of the Library group. The 3 to 5 copies put into circulation just weren't all that popular.
I think politics is a niche interest, like horses or baking. When I lived in DC, it was the only subject of interest, while elsewhere it is barely mentioned.
The "Summer of Love" vis a vie 2020 didn't happen this time because.... USAID money was taken away.
They no longer have vast funding to disrupt the people they're stealing money from in order to subvert the will of the people -with money taken from those people. Despicable.
Oh the plan is still 'The Endless Summer of Love', but without a doubt Trump is making a huge amount of chess moves to counter it.
A large percentage of his executive orders are part of this game--also also getting the court decisions out of the way ahead of time.
The flag burning troll is not only to sucker people into burning flags, but to reset the whole idea that the government/society should ignore the 'small crimes' that go along with protesting.
This idea that we should not only allow, but encourage, the theft and destruction of a government flag because that action supports free speech really is nuts--and violent protest that topples governments depends on this philosophy and belief.
Closing down a bridge isn't a crime because I'm doing it for speech. Destroying property isn't a crime because I'm doing it in the name of speech. Anything in the name of speech can't be a crime.
It's fully nuts--but that's the speech being sold.
Sounds like they’re planning another application of Prof. Wilson’s “broken windows” theory, which worked so brilliantly for Rudy Giuliani in NYC in the 90’s.
Wow, pretty astute. And probably true.
That’s a BRILLIANT INSIGHT!!! Of course! It explains SO much about all the bizarre events in recent decades. It also offers an explanation for why DOGE went after USAID FIRST! There are people in the Trump Administration who, loke you, have a clear understanding and comprehension of what’s been going on, what the Dem-Left has been up to.
I gave a hillbilly elegy for the dreams of my father, but it was not my first rodeo in the village that it takes to find yourself becoming a noble vessel for a higher loyalty. Who knew that it would all be trashed by a hustler from Queens wielding something called the art of the deal!
nice!
Thanks, Nathan!
“Patrician?” Maybe. But “popuist?” Don’t kid yourself… …or us.
??? Please explain?
I am a wholehearted populist!
Sorry for the delayed response. My mind and attention, what there is of them remaining, wander off more and more with each passing year. My apologies for being confused and responding so incoherently. I admit to confusion over the appellation of “populist”, in relation to your comment that I take refers to the President. I’ve never felt like I understood what a “populist” elected to office might liok like, but I am now convinced after 9 or 10 years of what’s been going on that 1. Yes, there is a DeepSateand 2. President is everything the DeepState is not. He doesn’t fit easily into the categories of D or R, or the categories of right or left. In that sense, he reminds me more of Ike, someone who could have run as either a Republican OR Democrat, at least a Democrat from a time before corporatism draped in the trappings of cultural Marxism became their raison d'être. I would say populist is the most fitting label to ascribe to him. It would also explain why Trump’s first term was so frustrating, because he farmed out its personnel decisions and operations to the GOP, that is, THE WASHINGTON DC GOP. I can tell you from experience that the group who most hated the people running the GOP were REPU, specifically grassroots conservative Republicans.
Yes, I live in South Dakota, which is a very red state--nonetheless the GOP is not very united. The RINO wing (as I call it) and the populist wing (as I call it) see many things very differently. I don't know if Trump was always a populist, but he certainly is now-- I think that was made clear when he selected Vance as his VP. Reportedly he made that decision within hours of the (barely) failed assassination attempt in Butler. I think Trump decided he wanted to be sure that a populist legacy would continue, no matter what.
Did we miss the beginning of this recording? Seemed to start abruptly. I missed my “I’m Matt Taibbi, and I’m Walter Kirn.” My world is off kilter now!
Mine too!
I agree with Walt that most of the words lack synonyms, but I think "slight" and "faux pas" pretty much capture "microaggression."
A few years back, Stanford categorized the term 'human race" as a micro-aggression. I was so outraged that I wrote a sort of autobiography/manifesto called "Yes there is a human race!' The madness has to stop.
I like the direct word "insult"
Personally I think “insult” is too brutal for microaggression which seems more like being hit with a potato chip.
The more I think about this, the more confused I get. "Microaggression" seems to imply intent. "Slight" would cover intent, but a person might not consider their said microaggression to be a slight. Also, if you have to put an insult under a microscope to find it, is it really an insult? It's a mess. I'll file it under Left Wing Word Games and let Walt figure it out.
My Anti-Fascist Struggle for Ethical Cold Equity with a Higher Loyalty to the Democratic Deep State Promised Land of Rules Based Mortgage Fraud - by Letitia James.
It takes a village to achieve the higher calling of becoming filled with the audacity of hope in the room where it happened in 107 days?
Is there real hope that we have seen the last of.... transformative? re-imagine? collaborative ( the EU likes to pretend that if you are "collaborative" enough, you can dispense with such frills as actual voting); decolonize; public-private partnership (aka fascism); resilience; and "partner" as a verb?
I doubt it; they'll just come up with new terms.
They can't help themselves.
Yes, as in the evolution of "global warming" to "climate change" to "resilience" and "sustainability". And the evolution of racial quotas to "affirmative action" to "diversity equity inclusion."
It's not that they can't help themselves so much as it's necessary for their survival as a sub-species.
Ha ha! Love it!
Finally - someone knows a fascist when s/he sees one!
Yep, and quite a few of those fascists meet at Davos twice a year, lol!
But you go to jail if you burn a rainbow flag, and a judge just said that it was racist to burn and israeli flag, so I guess it's just okay to make fun of the President. When he wants to stop the burning of the American Flag, it's just our country and all.
The point is that no one should be jailed for burning a rainbow flag, or be penalized for burning an Israeli flag (unless it belonged to someone else). Burning the American flag is protected free speech, and Trump is wrong on this.
Read the actual text of the executive order.
https://www.whitehouse.gov/presidential-actions/2025/08/prosecuting-burning-of-the-american-flag/
It's one part trolling people into burning the american flag, and nine parts correctly reasserting the idea that speech is not a blank check to commit crimes.
Today, protest is the excuse given to destroy someone else's property or shut down a bridge.
Somehow protesting against an unjust law by violating that law and then doing the time--became violate any and every law in the name of "protest" and then we will drop the charges.
That is not sustainable belief for a society.
But that's a great belief for people who want to overthrow governments.
Trump's executive order is not anti free speech at all--but it is a re-calibration of the idea that free speech and protest is a blank check to break any law without consequence.
I get what you’re saying, but I remember Trump saying something early in his term about making flag burning illegal. This seems like a lame attempt to placate him, and the optics are horrible.
Yeah Trump has been ranting about this for years, and unlike his anti solar/wind crap which he obviously does just because it is such ridiculously easy chum for the republican faithful, he actually believes this flag shit. Hell, Trump was all ready to sell an electric future to the world for the fifteen minutes that Musk could stay on his meds.
I'm an anti-partisan who thinks all group identity is intellectual and moral suicide.
I am also an introvert who has no interest at all in wasting any social energy defending anyone I don't know personally. And even then I'm only defending a small percentage of the people I do know personally.
I just don't see ideas through the metaphor of other people--because it wastes social energy for no gain.
Optics for who? Who is being defended and protected here? I don't care about optics. Especially protecting the optics of the unnamed.
People who want to use free speech as a moral and legal excuse for violence and destruction should not be defended as proponents of free speech.
I don't play the game where I have to preface everything I say about Trump with a disclaimer about his sins--and if you need that kind of tribute you are going to have to look somewhere else.
With that said, I have zero problem dragging Trump long and hard if that makes my ideas more palatable to consider :)
Pick a topic and let's bitch about Trump. He doesn't make it hard.
I am with Trump on his anti solar/wind turbine attitudes, in that they should not be forced on anyone, and we need to make sure we have a reliable power grid that does not rely too heavily on alternative sources.
I regularly criticize Trump, but if he expects to get anything accomplished during his second term, he will need the help of Congress — and the votes won’t be there if he continues doing dumb things like failing to call Israel out, keeping the Ukraine war going, keeping wars all over the planet going (despite the fact that he’s campaigning for the Nobel Peace Prize), focusing on crimes in Chicago, NYC, and Baltimore, instead of fixing the economy, and stomping on my first amendment rights on behalf of Israel — or flag burnings that “incite” riots. Trump’s team needs to realize that many of those who voted for him do not worship him, and do not approach every dumb thing he does with the attitude that “We have to trust Trump’s plan! He’s playing 5-D chess!” No, he’s messing up, and we should all call him out.
He tries to narrowly limit, but yeah. Of course, in lots of places lighting fires without a permit is a public nuisance, and chargeable as such, without reference to what's being burned. And I would not burn any nation's flag, because I think it is rude. However, rudeness cannot of itself be made into a criminal offense.
I agree. In this instance, Trump is wrong.
Yes, just like all other free speech, it is a good thing- if people keep these feelings to themselves, then we will never know they feel this way. If I were arguing this to the president, I would say let them burn the flags, it will be that much easier to know who the jerks are.
Flag burners are like bratty kids trying to get attention.
Why give it to them?
I swear this is just another way to
A: push an issue that should have been pushed so that a discussion happens where NO flag is "sacred" and
B: This will deliver thousands of hours of footage of flag burning Democrats that can then be used in campaign ads showing them as "the people who hate America".
Watch how this plays out. Trump is always angling at making the Democrat Party shoot themselves in the foot and look like utter assholes.
My suspicion is pols are having their campaigns buy out the first runs of the books then sending to donors
The giant fee to politicians for a book? It’s called money laundering.
It's called bribery.
Presenting the Flag Burning App.
Why burn a plastic American Flag that's labeled from Vietnam but is made in China, using gasoline imported from Saudi Arabia that will only cause an ecological disaster here at home?
A cinematic twenty minute animation of a burning American Flag is only $1.
Hear the flames rise as you watch the flames rise. (it's much more impressive than this text would imply)
Prices so low why not watch the world burn?
We have every flag, book, religious text, country--even upload a picture of your ex.
Add Calvin peeing on your an American Flag before it burns for only fifty cents. Add Fifty Cent peeing on Calvin for only a buck.
Makes a Great Gift for Small Children!
I was listening to this in the car just now so haven't finished. I think what is troubling me is whether or not some symbols might be important enough to have protections or prohibitions. Are there some symbols meaningful enough to symbolize/incite violence? Walter mentioned that burning a cross on someone else's lawn is a crime. Should that extend, or not, to hanging a noose from a tree, or burning a cross, in one's own front yard during a mostly peaceful protest down the street? What about an American flag set fire by a mob raging against law enforcement? Or against a war, or legal policy, whether just or unjust?
It,s hard to establish law around symbols, which by definition are slippery, more emotion-laden than rational. Like porn and community standards - no matter how hard I look, I can't find any community standards these days. So the best, simplest, course is to let it all ride free - symbols, pictures, words, public behavior? Everything short of a violent crime against one's literal person or legal property?
Has there ever been a civilized society without symbols of good and evil, god and the devil?
The suit against OpenAI for encouraging and instructing a teenager's suicide is an interesting 1A case - who is ultimately responsible for electronic harm? Anyone? A secular society has a lot to answer for. These are interesting times.
Symbols are words too scared to say what they mean.
That is the essence of art as enticing clay--the audience uses this ambiguity and creates their own meaning and these symbols are elevated to godhood.
And it was good!
When we use these symbols in art they are close to god.
When when use these symbols in law only bad can come.
Law requires specificity. Symbols require ambiguity.
---
That OpenAD case is going to be interesting!
Thanks for your very interesting comment. i,d only add that words are symbols too, and laws are often ambiguous. The court interprets the laws, and interpretations change. I'd agree that it is troublesome.
But then, human nature is troublesome. Law is man's attempt to curb himself - an ideal attempt itself, a stab at some kind of imperfect heaven on earth.
Yes, Yes!
Words are symbols too. And it is so cool.
It is said that the mind and body meet in the loins, but they also meet in our words.
We need words to be literal for the part of the world where 1/4 is a cure and 1/2 is funeral, but long after instinct, fear and rationality is collapsed on the ground--narrative is actually increasing pace--and those damn crazy eyes.
Narrative is how we keep running.
We need words to be descriptive agents of physical reality.
We also need words to be morality, and a pace runner, and those crazy eyes. The height that compels ascension.
Courage isn't jumping on a hand grenade, courage is a reason to jump on a hand grenade.
The truth, and the courage of those crazy eyes--are both superpowers.
And despite my sincere belief that it is vital to know the difference between using words for truth and using words for narrative--one of our other superpowers is that we constantly confuse the two. We take obvious metaphor literally and we take the obviously literal as metaphor--and somehow we use that confusion to advance Science, Art and God.
And we can rationally dive into narrative and then escape the same way.
And that ability to dress in either cape or geek glasses depending on what the task requires is another superpower.
Clark Kent and Superman are the same person. The word made flesh and the flesh made word.
And yet, The Fall requires The Climb...and those crazy eyes.
How crazy is it that salvation lies in those crazy eyes?! God, I love narrative. Thanks for a great reply.
It Takes the Audacity of Becoming a Higher Village for 107 Seconds in the Room Where My Life Happened, by the Ghostwriters Guild of America. Coming soon en masse to a Goodwill near you.
Matt & Walter rejoice that Trump has given them a chance to lambast him, thus falsifying the hambrained petards that they are pro-Trump, rather than that they are simply in favor of sanity wherever they can find it.
Absolutely Love you guys - you’re now my favorite listen and I look forward to Monday and Friday topics. Time flies with such smart takes on current events, drawing from human history and recognizing old patterns that are always in play. Your topics flow intuitively, your humor is witty, and laughter contagious. I’m entertained AND inspired - today’s theme is “to be in the control group” - which says so much!
Thank you! :)
Regarding your discussion on political books, I used to work for the Maricopa County Library District, one of the largest in the country. I worked at a large regional library, and we always wound up with dozens of extra political books. I don't know whether the selectors were simply incompetent, or were being pressured from above, but dozens of copies of EVERY title (whether penned by a Democrat or a Republican) wound up being stacked above the shelves in the back, cataloged as "In Storage," until they were withdrawn, and donated to our Friends of the Library group. The 3 to 5 copies put into circulation just weren't all that popular.
I think politics is a niche interest, like horses or baking. When I lived in DC, it was the only subject of interest, while elsewhere it is barely mentioned.