Pol and Pop (Politics/Pop Culture)

In this episode, Woody and I get all caught up on current events again.  We start with a little more on the eclipse (mainly to hear about Woody's experience), then we address Iran vs Israel, the Trump hush money payments trial, new extreme Abortion laws in Arizona and Florida, how it seems like neither Trump nor Biden could possibly win (and yet...), and House Speaker Mike Johnson possibly being on the way out after the Ukraine and Israel aid deal.This is the first part of a two-part conversation.

Sometimes, it's right in the middle of the day, and suddenly the moon gets right between you and the sun and it gets really dark out for a few minutes.  Likewise, we take a break from our usual series of politics and pop culture for this episode.I took a trip through Tennessee, Alabama, Mississippi, Arkansas, Missouri, Illinois, and Kansas, scheduling it all so that I could see the April 8th solar eclipse in totality in Missouri during the trip.  I got to get a "slice of life" for six new states (and got to stop by Illinois for a little while again too).  This podcast is basically my trip journal.  Were the new states like I expected them to be?  Did I stay on schedule?  Did the eclipse weather and traffic all cooperate?  And how was it all?  Listen and find out!

Special note: I'm re-releasing this on April 8th, which is the day that a full solar eclipse is occurring across much of the middle of the United States.  If all is going according to plan, I'm out in Missouri now so that I can watch it from the zone of totality!  It's also part of a trip where I'm visiting six states in that west-Tennessee general area, all for the first time.--In this episode, I start out by delving into how humans evolved tribalism, how our news media has become less objective and more biased over time, and how social media makes that even worse.Then I go into the psychology of Donald Trump, how the Republican Party progressed to the point of nominating someone like him, and how he gets people to believe whatever he wants them to believe.After that I look at confidence versus proof, the specific example of the 2020 Presidential election, and where things are heading from here.I dedicate this episode to Howard Boyer, my last surviving grandparent, who lived to a ripe old age of 98 1/2 and passed away the day before this episode went up.  Rest in peace, Pop Pop.

In this episode, I delve into the topic of High School education in the U.S., including more tape from my interview with Gary and Woody which I followed up on with further research.  Areas discussed include: ramifications (or the lack thereof) for bad behavior, racial disparities in suspension rates, diploma versus certificate tracks, bullying, and parents moving to better areas (with better schools)  than they may be able to reasonably afford.I also share some thoughts about how our society looks at college versus trade school and what types of practical things we should be teaching more of.And then I present my own theoretical solution to help incentivize kids to attend school and put enough effort in to avoid failing.  It might be a great solution or it might be a terrible one...  But the important thing is that I'm getting it out there so you can try to come up with a better one yourself.All this in about 29.5 minutes total, so we get to all the points and don't waste your time!

Even though politics has seemed relatively quiet recently, there's still a lot to discuss from the past two and a half months or so, in total.  So, in this episode, Woody and I tackle all of that-- both all the big things and all the small things-- and get up-to-date.

Happy Pi Day!  This seemed like a good occasion to get my latest episode edited by and put up on.Leap Day is a really big day for me.  So, not only did I make sure that one of my flashback episodes went up on that day, I also made a point to record this new episode on that day specifically, and go into my thoughts about it.  I trimmed out a lot, so hopefully it doesn't seem disjointed in parts towards the end.Kind of like Leap Day itself, this is a special, between-seasons extra episode.  I'm still working on getting recordings scheduled for the official start of season 2.  However that timetable ends up working out, in the meantime there are still more flashback episodes of Get 2 the Point on the way!

Special note: Daylight Saving Time in 2024 starts on March 10th... so I'm re-releasing this on March 9th.  Don't forget to set your clocks!--In this episode, I address the terrible plan to switch the U.S. to permanent Daylight Saving Time.  I start out our journey by covering how humanity laid out the whole system of time that we use today, piece by piece over the span of several centuries.  Then I get into why the heck anyone wanted to get a law passed to change the clocks in the first place.  I take you through all the crazy shenanigans of clock-changing throughout the 20th century.  And then I give you all the latest dirt about how the heck the U.S. Senate "unanimously" passed permanent DST when you'd think someone there would've had enough sense to object.Then I get into a whole bunch of different reasons why permanent DST is so bad, and why having DST at all really isn't that great.  (I'm sure you'll find at least one in there that really hits home for you.)  And I wrap up with  some steps we should definitely push our lawmakers to take... and some that should, at least, be considered.Lest this sound like it must be longer than your standard book on tape, worry not-- you're in and out in just over 21 minutes.  And it gets more and more fun and entertaining as you go.https://savestandardtime.com/ 

In case I don't have a new episode to schedule for the day instead, I'm at least putting this up-- Happy Leap Day!--In this episode, I explain how representation of citizens works in the U.S. Government, how redistricting follows the census, what gerrymandering is, where it came from, why it's so bad in general, where things stand currently, and how things are only likely to get worse from here.  And I discuss what we can do from here to hopefully make things better instead.  All that in under 25 minutes... so we're not wasting any time here!Here's a link to a picture of the original gerrymandered district:https://www.semanticscholar.org/paper/A-Two-Hundred-Year-Statistical-History-of-the-Ansolabehere-Palmer/55136e3e5db308cca4a5611001d65cb89510227f/figure/1

Special note: I'm re-releasing this episode on 2/23/24, which is two years to the day after it was recorded.--I sit down with politics enthusiasts and amateur experts Gary and Woody to ask them about the problems at the core of U.S. politics right now.  This helps me make sure we stay right on track, only addressing the most central, most important issues and not wasting anyone's time.  (On that note, this is only about 44% of our whole recording, coming in under 34 minutes-- you didn't need all those stutters and tangents!)  Plus you get to hear some nice, friendly conversation this time, rather than just me!

After making our predictions for the year ahead, Woody and I just continued our conversation and saw where it took us... which was all over the place from an abstract view of what happens after we die to just political commentary in general.This marks fifty episodes, not counting flashbacks... and a nice, general, deeper conversation to boot.  What better way to wrap up season 1 of Pol and Pop?  I'll be re-releasing a whole bunch of Get 2 the Point episodes in the coming weeks, while I take a break before starting in on season 2.

Will machines ever come to life and take over the world?  Here are the important basic facts behind what "you" are, ensoulment into a body, how computers work, how artificial intelligence works, and how it all ties together.  No wasting time here-- I cover everything you need to know about all of that in under 21 minutes.  Heck, I even throw  in a fun thought experiment about The Flash!  Who's the fastest man alive _now_, Barry Allen?!!

In this episode, Woody and I take a little while just before the end of 2023 to make some predictions about the events of 2024... politics, celebrities, sports, and who knows what else?  And then we segue into some deep philosophical discussion about souls and the nature of evil... no biggie, right?

Pol and Pop will be back with more episodes soon.  In the meantime, I've decided to use the available upload time for the current month to start re-releasing my eight episode limited series podcast from 2022, Get 2 the Point.  I'll be spreading these flashback episodes out over time along with new content.----General intro to the podcast, and how the U.S. Supreme Court just changed everything.

In mid-October, Woody and I recorded a three part Politics episode.  The first two parts were discussions about hypotheticals, like if JFK or RFK hadn't been killed.  We wrapped up the evening with a discussion of the news of the day.  As it worked out, the Birthday Words of Wisdom episode was almost exactly the right length to fill up the rest of my allotted upload time for the month, so I went ahead and put that up instead.On the Pop Culture side, in late September John, Joe, and I recorded an episode about Chained Echoes.  Given some limitations with how much time you could record and access per month with Zencastr at the time, I had us wrap up a first recording a little before we got to the two hour mark, and then we switched over to a new recording for the rest (about 25 more minutes).  Well, as it turned out, Joe's audio for the second part got corrupted and lost.  Since, technically, I had promised a part two of the Chained Echoes discussion, and since I was up for an editing challenge, I used John's and my audio from part 2 and rebuilt most of the conversation cohesively from that.  That said, we really weren't talking about Chained Echoes any more by then... instead, we discussed John Wick, The Batman, A Haunting in Venice, theater experiences, some time travel movies, the book The Man Who Folded Himself, the then upcoming Loki season 2, and TV shows that last for perhaps too many seasons.

In this two part episode, John Comberiate and I discuss the latest from the Marvel Cinematic Universe: Loki Season 2 and The Marvels.Part 2 focuses completely on The Marvels.  Were you not particularly impressed by it?  Are you concerned about how things are going in the MCU at this point?  Well, you're not alone.  We try to address all of the problems here, both within scenes of the movie and just in general.Full spoilers for The Marvels.

In this two part episode, John Comberiate and I discuss the latest from the Marvel Cinematic Universe: Loki Season 2 and The Marvels.Part 1 here mostly focuses on Loki Season 2... though there are some points in time throughout where we end up discussing some of The Marvels as well.  I blame it on the time-slipping.Full spoilers for Loki Season 2 and for The Marvels as well.Note: Tried something a little different this time-- Zencastr no longer allows up to two hours per month of recording/accessing your recordings with a free plan, so we recorded this over Discord instead.  So, if things sound a little different than they did with past Pop Culture episodes with multiple participants, that's why.

Since Woody's birthday fell on a Thursday this year, we figured it was a great opportunity to do something special about him.  So I interviewed him!We started off the episode with some quick thoughts on current politics, because that's just what we do, and then got going on the big questions.  Why do you believe what you believe, politically?  Why is there something instead of nothing?  Why do bad things happen to good people?  What were your favorite sports teams growing up?  And why do you enjoy trivia so much?And I put a couple of fun outtakes at the end as well.

In the second of three episodes recorded together in one evening, Woody and I discuss some hypothetical situations where a very small difference in events leads to a very large difference in outcomes.Here we discuss how things would have played out if Martin Luther King Jr. hadn't been assassinated, and how things would have played out if Robert F. Kennedy hadn't been assassinated.  Things change drastically with major ripple effects lasting 50 years.  (President Gary Hart???)  We use our historical knowledge and big picture perspectives to assess how all the pieces very well could have come together in the face of a _very_ different reality.This part wraps up the hypotheticals for that evening-- part three will be a quick (roughly 20 minute) run-through of current events and our takes on them.This episode is going up on November 9th, which is Woody's birthday!  So, shoutouts to him for that.

In the first of three episodes recorded together in one evening, Woody and I discuss some hypothetical situations where a very small difference in events leads to a very large difference in outcomes.Here we start off with discussing how things would have played out if Archduke Ferdinand had not been assassinated... thus completely averting World War I.  (Surprise-- things might have ended up far worse in the long run!)  Then we delve into how the ensuing Presidential elections and economic swings would have played out if JFK had not been assassinated... and/or if his brother RFK had not been assassinated.  Do Nixon, Ford, Carter, Reagan, and/or the first Bush still end up ever becoming President?  And, if so, when, and how does it go for them?

In this episode, I discuss the excellent modern 90's-style RPG Chained Echoes with John Comberiate.  Joe Comberiate was a bit busy with one of his kids when we were starting, so he joins us roughly halfway through.There are mild spoilers for Chained Echoes starting at the 49 minute mark.  I avoided major spoilers by either silencing or trimming out those parts.  So, there are some parts where it'll go quiet for a few words or so.  These parts are all between just before the 1 hour 23 minute mark and about the 1 hour 32 minute mark.The discussion actually branches out into a lot of other areas, mostly tied in with other RPGs and with videogames more in general.  We got into the John Wick series a bit at the end, and this episode left off there.  We recorded a little more that extended from there, which I'll hopefully put up in a bonus episode sometime in the near future.