WEBVTT 1 00:00:00.240 --> 00:00:05.080 On the occasion of your New Year's celebration. My fellow Americans, and I 2 00:00:05.200 --> 00:00:12.320 extend our very best wishes well the prosperity and well being of the government and 3 00:00:12.359 --> 00:00:16.359 the people of Vietnam. This is Ronald Reagan, President of the United States. 4 00:00:17.079 --> 00:00:20.280 I'm speaking to you, the peoples of the Soviet Union, on the 5 00:00:20.320 --> 00:00:24.280 occasion of the New Year. I know that in the Soviet Union, as 6 00:00:24.320 --> 00:00:28.440 it is all around the world, this is a season of hope and expectation. 7 00:00:29.480 --> 00:00:36.799 Slow him, good them, slove him, ShaSS him. Years from 8 00:00:36.880 --> 00:00:40.399 now they'll be talking about it. They'll be talking about this great, great 9 00:00:40.479 --> 00:00:44.359 thing that we did. Welcome everybody, Happy New Year. It's the Ricciy 10 00:00:44.399 --> 00:00:47.439 Podcast, number six hundred and seventy two. I'm James Linlax here in Minneapolis, 11 00:00:47.439 --> 00:00:51.119 where it's bright and it's cold, and we're looking forward to a new 12 00:00:51.200 --> 00:00:55.880 year. I don't know why, because there's just no point to New Year's 13 00:00:56.119 --> 00:01:00.880 is there. We all know that nothing changes, nothing changes except the rent 14 00:01:00.960 --> 00:01:03.319 is due. Really, I mean, the whole idea of New Year, 15 00:01:03.480 --> 00:01:08.920 New me is ridiculous. You come up with some resolutions and things you're going 16 00:01:10.000 --> 00:01:12.200 to do, and we all know that they founder on the rocks of February, 17 00:01:12.200 --> 00:01:15.519 if not earlier. I actually find it easier to make little, tiny 18 00:01:15.599 --> 00:01:19.840 changes and resolutions that I know that I will be able to fulfill. I 19 00:01:19.239 --> 00:01:26.840 vow to have a small chocolate mint covered pretzel every day after lunch. I 20 00:01:26.840 --> 00:01:29.760 think I can do that. I vow, actually, this is my New 21 00:01:29.840 --> 00:01:33.959 Year's resolution every day, thanks to the miracles of ample music, to listen 22 00:01:34.040 --> 00:01:37.560 to one new artist that I've never heard before from start to finish and not 23 00:01:37.680 --> 00:01:41.079 give up after fifteen twenty seconds because it's auto tuned and thumping or the rest 24 00:01:41.079 --> 00:01:45.159 of it. But really, actually to try to learn something new musically every 25 00:01:45.239 --> 00:01:48.040 day. It's not hard. It's the things that make you get up and 26 00:01:48.120 --> 00:01:51.680 go someplace and do something like workout or quote something that you love that you 27 00:01:51.680 --> 00:01:53.519 don't want to do. That's the stuff that never works. So I don't 28 00:01:53.519 --> 00:01:57.159 know why we put ourselves to this. Well, we do because it's January, 29 00:01:57.280 --> 00:02:01.879 right, and January is the start of everything new. January, as 30 00:02:01.879 --> 00:02:07.120 we all know, is named after right Janus Roman, god of doors. 31 00:02:08.479 --> 00:02:10.680 First learned about him when I was a kid. I first of all, 32 00:02:10.719 --> 00:02:14.360 I was freaked out by him because he had a he had two faces, 33 00:02:14.360 --> 00:02:16.800 he had one, you know, normal forward facing face, and then one 34 00:02:16.800 --> 00:02:20.479 in the back. I thought, how does that work exactly? How do 35 00:02:20.520 --> 00:02:25.280 you manage all that sensory input? Why would you want if you have a 36 00:02:25.319 --> 00:02:31.680 cold, does the back nose run at the same time as the front allergies? 37 00:02:31.680 --> 00:02:35.159 You've got four eyes that are going to be driving you nuts. And 38 00:02:35.520 --> 00:02:38.960 how roman is it really to have a god of doors? I mean, 39 00:02:38.960 --> 00:02:43.479 these these guys you understand after a while the appeal of monotheism, because when 40 00:02:43.520 --> 00:02:46.639 you have God's cluttering up absolutely everything. The God of you know, the 41 00:02:46.680 --> 00:02:49.400 God of desks, the God of chairs, the gods of pens, the 42 00:02:49.400 --> 00:02:53.120 gods of dog everything. Everybody's got a dog. You figure, you know, 43 00:02:53.199 --> 00:02:54.560 something comes along and says, no, there's just one. It's going 44 00:02:54.639 --> 00:02:58.639 to simplify thing. It's you. I'm going to bundle it all into one. 45 00:02:59.639 --> 00:03:01.199 But then, of course human nature being what it is, that gets 46 00:03:01.199 --> 00:03:05.080 complicated as well, with saints and what they're in charge of them. I 47 00:03:05.120 --> 00:03:07.719 put three people in a room with one thing, and at the end of 48 00:03:07.759 --> 00:03:08.759 the day, two of them are get to a gang up against the other 49 00:03:08.800 --> 00:03:13.759 as to what the one thing means. Anyway, I was wrong as a 50 00:03:13.840 --> 00:03:16.439 kid and just thinking that Janie had to do with doors. No, he 51 00:03:16.479 --> 00:03:20.479 had a lot more to do with that. He was the god of beginnings 52 00:03:20.560 --> 00:03:25.479 and as such was regarded by many in those days and Lord the complexity of 53 00:03:27.960 --> 00:03:31.680 Roman deities and their stories, he was the first. He was the number 54 00:03:31.759 --> 00:03:35.360 one guy. He started everything out. So when you started the day, 55 00:03:35.360 --> 00:03:38.240 he prayed to Janice. When you started a new business enterprise, you played 56 00:03:38.280 --> 00:03:39.560 prayed to Janney. When you pray to a god, you prayed to Janis, 57 00:03:39.639 --> 00:03:44.360 just because the beginning of everything. And if you go back and look 58 00:03:44.520 --> 00:03:46.439 on your Wikipedia, you will find that he was also related to the god 59 00:03:46.479 --> 00:03:52.039 of portals, because they had a different god for portals as for doors. 60 00:03:52.759 --> 00:03:54.319 Okay, I don't know why they needed that. I don't know if they 61 00:03:54.360 --> 00:03:58.599 had to do some reconciliation sessions there where they divide it up. Okay, 62 00:03:58.680 --> 00:04:03.039 you're gonna have harbors, he's gonna have doors, You're gonna have warehouse openings, 63 00:04:03.039 --> 00:04:09.199 he's gonna have like business doors and the rest of it. But you 64 00:04:09.199 --> 00:04:14.240 know, when you study the whole story of Janis, it turns out that 65 00:04:14.319 --> 00:04:18.759 he ravaged some nymph and in the process made her a goddess and she's now 66 00:04:18.759 --> 00:04:27.839 regarded in their view as the goddess of hinges, the goddess of hinges. 67 00:04:28.759 --> 00:04:30.639 It's not the most it's not the biggest job you can have, I suppose 68 00:04:30.920 --> 00:04:35.759 in the pantheon. And if you're a guy who fixes doors for a living, 69 00:04:35.800 --> 00:04:40.920 I imagine that you probably would be burning some salt and some you know, 70 00:04:40.959 --> 00:04:44.120 some spelt to her every day before you went to work. But really 71 00:04:44.680 --> 00:04:48.439 so, yes, Janie got a doors, but of so much more and 72 00:04:48.759 --> 00:04:51.160 less. We think, however, that it's kind of silly. They have 73 00:04:51.160 --> 00:04:54.199 a got of doors. They had a god of hinges and a god of 74 00:04:54.279 --> 00:04:57.439 knobs too, and that just sounds like something that you should just say as 75 00:04:57.480 --> 00:05:00.839 an epithet when you're disappointed in something, Oh, God, lot of knobs. 76 00:05:00.759 --> 00:05:02.600 Well, there was a person who had to sit by the door, 77 00:05:02.600 --> 00:05:09.319 of course, like me right now, who is there between the thing from 78 00:05:09.399 --> 00:05:14.079 which you come and the thing into which you go being the next year, 79 00:05:14.560 --> 00:05:18.800 And that person was named after the god of doors and beginnings, Janice, 80 00:05:19.079 --> 00:05:23.720 And from that we get Janitor. So in a way, when we say 81 00:05:23.759 --> 00:05:27.680 a janitor and we see the people around the building doing what they do to 82 00:05:27.720 --> 00:05:30.519 clean things, it's actually part of an old and noble tradition, and for 83 00:05:30.639 --> 00:05:34.439 all we know, the janitors for two thousand years have been part of a 84 00:05:34.519 --> 00:05:41.720 secret society actually that knows all, sees all, and actually keeps everything working. 85 00:05:42.120 --> 00:05:44.360 I know, without them, nothing gets picked up and thrown away. 86 00:05:44.439 --> 00:05:48.079 So thank your janitor today, That's all I'm saying. It being the beginning 87 00:05:48.079 --> 00:05:49.879 of the year or the end of the new, dependent at the end of 88 00:05:49.920 --> 00:05:53.439 the old, depending on when you're listening to it, I'll bet you wondering. 89 00:05:55.399 --> 00:05:58.560 I hope there's a roundup of this year, because I really would like 90 00:05:58.639 --> 00:06:03.720 to revisit all the awful things that happened and confirm my priors and revel in 91 00:06:03.759 --> 00:06:09.360 all the things that went awry and weep and moan and rent garments and the 92 00:06:09.360 --> 00:06:12.360 rest of it. I'm really not in the mood for that. You can 93 00:06:12.399 --> 00:06:16.199 find it elsewhere, but I find year end summations to be hideous, to 94 00:06:16.240 --> 00:06:19.360 be honest. Oh, we have lots of actualities as to what I as 95 00:06:19.399 --> 00:06:21.240 to what happened, and we might get to those. But there are two 96 00:06:21.279 --> 00:06:25.759 things that I want to do. One of them is I posted on Ricochet. 97 00:06:25.839 --> 00:06:28.720 You know ricochet dot com. If you're listening and you're not a member, 98 00:06:28.879 --> 00:06:31.000 you should be. I mean, really, I'm trying to shame you 99 00:06:31.040 --> 00:06:35.560 into it for all these years now. No shame is not the word. 100 00:06:35.720 --> 00:06:42.319 No cajole. Welcome you. Extend a hand to pull you through the portal 101 00:06:42.319 --> 00:06:45.600 of Janice to the place where you've been looking for the Internet for a long 102 00:06:45.639 --> 00:06:50.000 time, the home of sane civil mostly center right conversation. So I posted 103 00:06:50.040 --> 00:06:54.800 on Ricochet and the member feed, which can't go to unless you remember some 104 00:06:54.959 --> 00:06:58.600 questions to see if anybody has any questions of me about anything. I'm going 105 00:06:58.639 --> 00:07:00.759 to try that. I also thought, rather than looking back at the year 106 00:07:00.839 --> 00:07:11.279 here, it might be instructive to go back to nineteen twenty four, nineteen 107 00:07:11.439 --> 00:07:14.920 thirty four and briefly look at what January first looked like at the front page 108 00:07:14.959 --> 00:07:17.800 of the paper. What were they concerned about? Well, for example, 109 00:07:17.920 --> 00:07:20.560 let's take a look a nineteen twenty four. I just happen to have it 110 00:07:20.680 --> 00:07:25.360 right here in front of me, thanks to newspapers, dot com, big 111 00:07:25.399 --> 00:07:30.160 headline. And I do this to remind you that whatever we think is the 112 00:07:30.199 --> 00:07:32.800 most important thing going on in the last year. They were thinking that then, 113 00:07:33.079 --> 00:07:38.879 were they right? Were they wrong? Was it actually affect human history 114 00:07:38.920 --> 00:07:42.040 in the years to come. Well. January first, nineteen twenty four, 115 00:07:42.079 --> 00:07:48.120 the Minneapolis Journal. Big headline top above the fold hole page Obertagon halts war 116 00:07:48.360 --> 00:07:54.800 on rebels. Delay is ordered, a waiting arrival of arms from US. 117 00:07:55.399 --> 00:07:58.600 Now Obergon is probably forgotten. I had no idea how to look them up. 118 00:07:58.639 --> 00:08:01.040 It has to do with the Mexican rebel so we were supplying arms to 119 00:08:01.079 --> 00:08:05.560 them. We were involved in our border state. We were having troubles with 120 00:08:05.720 --> 00:08:11.279 Mexico one hundred years ago. It was a stunning surprise. Below that another 121 00:08:11.319 --> 00:08:16.560 headline, bits of wreckage from dix Muede identified. Now, what I love 122 00:08:16.600 --> 00:08:22.079 about these old papers is that when first the story of Dix Muede was broached, 123 00:08:22.680 --> 00:08:26.319 they had to explain what it was. But after a few days of 124 00:08:26.360 --> 00:08:30.639 newspapers, of course everybody knows what dix Mute is. And in this case, 125 00:08:30.839 --> 00:08:35.600 Dick s Muede was a Zeppelin and as such, as you might imagine, 126 00:08:35.879 --> 00:08:43.399 came to a not entirely felicitous conclusion. Zeppelin airship built for the Imperial 127 00:08:43.399 --> 00:08:46.600 German Navy, unfinished at the end of First World War. Reading this off 128 00:08:46.639 --> 00:08:50.559 the top of my head, obviously no Wikipedia. It exploded in mid air 129 00:08:50.720 --> 00:08:54.519 on the twenty first of December twenty nineteen twenty three, off the coast of 130 00:08:54.559 --> 00:08:58.159 Sicily, killing all fifty two people of forty two crew and ten passengers. 131 00:09:00.039 --> 00:09:03.519 As Wikipedia, this is one of the first great airship disasters, preceded by 132 00:09:03.559 --> 00:09:07.799 the crash of the British R thirty eight and the US airship Roma, and 133 00:09:07.919 --> 00:09:11.600 followed by the destruction of the Shenando in twenty five, the British R one 134 00:09:11.639 --> 00:09:15.919 oh one in nineteen thirty forty eight dead, and the Akron in nineteen thirty 135 00:09:15.919 --> 00:09:20.039 three seventy three dead, and the Hindenburg in thirty seven twenty thirty six dead. 136 00:09:20.360 --> 00:09:22.919 So does the dix Mewed matter to us one hundred years later today, 137 00:09:24.320 --> 00:09:26.559 Probably so, in that it was part of a pattern of these things going 138 00:09:26.639 --> 00:09:33.320 up kaboom that led to the lack to the diminished interest, shall we say, 139 00:09:33.399 --> 00:09:37.919 in flying around in a great ball of a gas. So that's that. 140 00:09:37.919 --> 00:09:39.679 That was nineteen twenty four. They were also, of course worried about 141 00:09:39.720 --> 00:09:45.039 the weather there. The mercury had dropped to sixteen below in Minneapolis, which 142 00:09:45.080 --> 00:09:50.000 is not surprising entirely, and it was a sedate reveling because you couldn't drink 143 00:09:50.039 --> 00:09:56.320 so much anymore. Oh and let's see, Yes, a furnace had exploded 144 00:09:56.360 --> 00:10:01.240 and twenty five families were shivering somewhere in Minneapolis in front page news, So 145 00:10:01.279 --> 00:10:05.480 that's twenty four. Part of it is I think the newspapers, well, 146 00:10:05.559 --> 00:10:09.279 it has to do with the newspaper you read. That was the sedate journal 147 00:10:09.360 --> 00:10:16.039 for the respectable people. The Star probably reported about a whole bunch of people 148 00:10:16.039 --> 00:10:18.639 who doing nasty things. Well in nineteen thirty four, I'm looking at it 149 00:10:18.679 --> 00:10:22.799 right now, nineteen thirty four January first, that would be ninety years ago. 150 00:10:22.840 --> 00:10:26.279 What's the big headline at the top, thirty five hurt in eighty six 151 00:10:26.440 --> 00:10:35.759 crashes. Thirty five people here in thirty five crashes or in eighty six crashes. 152 00:10:35.039 --> 00:10:39.919 Now that was the toll for the year. It wasn't like eighty six 153 00:10:39.960 --> 00:10:43.159 people that wreck their car that night. But below that was a big deal 154 00:10:43.200 --> 00:10:46.320 about the conference rum bill. What the conference rum bill is? Oh, 155 00:10:46.320 --> 00:10:50.720 it's just rum about letting people drink more. Because it's thirty four, that's 156 00:10:50.720 --> 00:10:54.840 pretty much it. The whole front page is car crashes, it's cold and 157 00:10:54.879 --> 00:10:58.919 you can drink pretty soon. Something here, Oh, Chicago murders were up 158 00:11:00.159 --> 00:11:03.879 ten percent over the course of the year, and Octave Thanet, novelist was 159 00:11:03.960 --> 00:11:11.000 ill. Here's one of yours, your moments of realizing that all fad famous 160 00:11:11.039 --> 00:11:16.159 fleeting Octave Thanet. Do you have any idea who that was? Pen name 161 00:11:16.200 --> 00:11:18.320 of a woman who was very popular and wrote an awful lot of novels and 162 00:11:18.440 --> 00:11:22.440 was well known, and obviously so by the fact he's on the front page. 163 00:11:22.080 --> 00:11:26.600 But she had the diabetes and she would kick off about a week after 164 00:11:26.639 --> 00:11:30.399 that. Octave Thanet never heard of her before, used to be a household 165 00:11:30.480 --> 00:11:33.480 name. Take note, writers, that's what happens to us all nineteen forty 166 00:11:33.480 --> 00:11:41.519 four. As you can well imagine, well, uh yeah, headline Nancy 167 00:11:41.360 --> 00:11:48.399 Escape bridge destroyed by Italian coast leap frog raid, Yanks take more hills, 168 00:11:48.639 --> 00:11:52.919 eighth gaining All this meant something very specific to people in nineteen thirty four. 169 00:11:52.919 --> 00:11:56.240 They would know where the eighth was and what the They would know what the 170 00:11:56.240 --> 00:11:58.960 eighth was and where they were and what they were doing. Russ drive, 171 00:11:58.080 --> 00:12:03.720 perils Nazi river Army. That's a headline, Russ drive, perils, Nazi 172 00:12:03.960 --> 00:12:09.559 river Army. A couple of the Oh russ spoil. Nazi New Year party 173 00:12:09.720 --> 00:12:13.559 was below that, so you get the feeling that the russ Our allies, 174 00:12:13.600 --> 00:12:16.519 of course good old Uncle Joe, are on the move and the Nazis are 175 00:12:16.600 --> 00:12:20.720 on the back foot. Other than that, it's pretty Oh yes, little 176 00:12:20.720 --> 00:12:24.320 tiny story down here at the bottom of the paper. Twenty nine bombers lost 177 00:12:24.320 --> 00:12:30.919 in raid, twenty nine US bombers lost in a raid. Front page, 178 00:12:30.960 --> 00:12:35.720 but below the fold. You're used to that nowadays, Well you can well 179 00:12:35.720 --> 00:12:39.279 imagine. Come nineteen fifty four. Well, hey, it's a swinging happy 180 00:12:39.320 --> 00:12:46.240 time, is right. Everybody's enjoying hula hoops and rock and roll and everything's 181 00:12:46.279 --> 00:12:52.519 great and McDonald's and shakes and tail fins and and happy time. Minneapolis Star 182 00:12:52.720 --> 00:12:58.240 January first, nineteen fifty four lead headlines parents of seven shot after New Year 183 00:12:58.320 --> 00:13:03.279 party in city right below that in big type as well. Two killed by 184 00:13:03.360 --> 00:13:11.240 hit run cars. Hello that blast outdoor fell's gunman. So that was that 185 00:13:11.720 --> 00:13:16.000 parents shot, two killed, and somebody shot a gun out the door and 186 00:13:16.120 --> 00:13:22.440 killed somebody who was moving around. Good times. But a small story about 187 00:13:22.440 --> 00:13:26.559 a GI who changes his mind and quits the Red Pow an American war prisoner, 188 00:13:26.559 --> 00:13:31.120 A guy who defected. Claude Bachelor of Kerna, Texas, decided he 189 00:13:31.159 --> 00:13:37.120 was to go over to the other side to the Norks, and turns out 190 00:13:37.159 --> 00:13:39.360 he didn't like it very much, and thereafter he came back with his hat 191 00:13:39.399 --> 00:13:43.000 in his hand and was jailed. Later got out and went to work as 192 00:13:43.000 --> 00:13:48.240 an accountant. Died about twenty years later. So fifty four is pretty violent. 193 00:13:48.559 --> 00:13:52.480 Fifty four is looking violent. Let's look at nineteen sixty four. What 194 00:13:52.480 --> 00:13:56.799 would your presumption of nineteen sixty four January first be? Well, as it 195 00:13:56.879 --> 00:14:01.320 turns out, it's all local news. Astrian requests court to transfer trial to 196 00:14:01.399 --> 00:14:05.440 Duluth. Big trial. Nobody cares what it's about now, But there's a 197 00:14:05.440 --> 00:14:09.240 little story down at the bottom. Two US officers are wounded by viat cong 198 00:14:09.919 --> 00:14:16.600 and that, of course is going to absolutely consume everything. Perhaps the story 199 00:14:16.600 --> 00:14:22.000 of most lasting significance is one little tucked away in the front page. Biologists 200 00:14:22.120 --> 00:14:26.519 joint hunt for life on Mars. Their tools, of course, were not 201 00:14:26.519 --> 00:14:30.600 as sophisticated as the ones that we have today, but they were trying, 202 00:14:30.639 --> 00:14:33.480 they were looking. It's entirely possible at night that twenty twenty four will be 203 00:14:33.519 --> 00:14:37.480 a pivotal year in the search for life on Mars, or the attempt to 204 00:14:37.519 --> 00:14:43.519 put life on Mars, that life be us if elon Musk's rockets all work 205 00:14:43.799 --> 00:14:48.759 and his desire to get us there gathers esteem. Nineteen seventy four, which 206 00:14:48.799 --> 00:14:52.720 of course is a horrible year, area shivers in record colds. The major 207 00:14:52.799 --> 00:14:58.679 headline Mayor quits gas prices up US to permit heating oil gas to rise. 208 00:14:58.759 --> 00:15:05.039 One sent a nation for additional nations to raise crude oil prices. British began 209 00:15:05.159 --> 00:15:11.080 three day week to save energy. The temperatures were twenty below in Minneapolis and 210 00:15:11.120 --> 00:15:16.200 the and the price of everything was going up. So, yeah, nineteen 211 00:15:16.240 --> 00:15:20.480 seventy four, we're pretty much sure that we weren't going to have any gas 212 00:15:20.480 --> 00:15:22.759 in the future. It was all going to run out about four or five 213 00:15:22.840 --> 00:15:26.720 years. Of course, the idea that the prices would go up and that 214 00:15:26.759 --> 00:15:28.120 would spur more exploration than the rest of it. No, we were all 215 00:15:28.200 --> 00:15:33.840 very much concerned about alternative forms of energy, and we weren't coming up with 216 00:15:33.879 --> 00:15:35.440 any synth fuels. That was big, I remember that. But we were 217 00:15:35.440 --> 00:15:39.279 all going to get used to not being able to drive very much in those 218 00:15:39.360 --> 00:15:45.440 days were over. We were, of course wrong. And I can't really 219 00:15:45.480 --> 00:15:50.240 think of any era other than the early seventies in which so many erroneous beliefs 220 00:15:50.440 --> 00:15:56.600 were adopted by so many. It seemed to be that was a starting point 221 00:15:56.840 --> 00:16:02.559 for people thinking incorrectly or in correct decisions, because when you look at you 222 00:16:02.600 --> 00:16:04.679 know, you look at nineteen forty four, well, what were they doing. 223 00:16:04.720 --> 00:16:07.919 They were fighting the Nazis, that's generally what you want to do. 224 00:16:08.000 --> 00:16:11.639 You look at nineteen thirty four, and they were getting rid of the ridiculous 225 00:16:11.639 --> 00:16:17.039 criminal enabling prohibition and saying it is a civilized thing to enjoy a glass of 226 00:16:17.039 --> 00:16:19.159 whiskey. And well, my view, that's pretty much the way to go 227 00:16:19.200 --> 00:16:22.320 to. And in nineteen twenty four in the paper I didn't note this, 228 00:16:22.399 --> 00:16:26.120 there was a note from Calvin Coolidge at the top, telling everybody in America 229 00:16:26.159 --> 00:16:30.000 that we are a good, strong, prosperous nation. We should believe, 230 00:16:30.000 --> 00:16:33.279 we believe in ourselves, and we believe in the future. And that's and 231 00:16:33.320 --> 00:16:37.639 that's a good way to go. But in seventy four everything seems to be 232 00:16:37.720 --> 00:16:41.919 just falling apart here. So look at at nineteen eighty four. Now you 233 00:16:41.960 --> 00:16:45.039 would think, of course, eighty four America's back Morning in America and the 234 00:16:45.080 --> 00:16:47.399 rest of it. But you have no idea if you weren't there at the 235 00:16:47.440 --> 00:16:51.519 time. Excuse me, Helmut, there was my cough button. It used 236 00:16:51.519 --> 00:16:52.679 to be in a radio station. He used to have a cough button. 237 00:16:53.639 --> 00:17:00.559 You have no idea how much the newspapers in nineteen eighty four were general preaching 238 00:17:00.600 --> 00:17:06.519 doom and misery, that everything, everything was bad because of that Ronnie raygun 239 00:17:06.559 --> 00:17:10.960 guy right well, nineteen eighty four, Minneapolis Star Tribune, January First, 240 00:17:10.960 --> 00:17:15.200 it was a Sunday military takes over in Nigeria. No bloodshed reported in fifth 241 00:17:15.279 --> 00:17:22.640 coups since nineteen sixty. And you remember that military coups in Africa seemed to 242 00:17:22.640 --> 00:17:26.200 be the sort of thing that would populate your paper about once every four or 243 00:17:26.240 --> 00:17:29.400 five months or so. Nobody paid any attention to them, and nobody cared 244 00:17:30.240 --> 00:17:37.559 mondale calls for removing marines from Lebanon without forty five days. This is what 245 00:17:37.880 --> 00:17:41.359 Walter Mondale would say, force without purpose is weakness, not toughness. The 246 00:17:41.440 --> 00:17:48.319 vulnerability of our marine's undermines not preserves our credibility. Well, we don't know 247 00:17:48.319 --> 00:17:53.559 where that went. Let's see Navy flyer tells Jackson. Oh, the Syrians 248 00:17:53.599 --> 00:17:59.119 are treating him well, says navy flyer who was talking to Jesse Jackson. 249 00:17:59.440 --> 00:18:03.000 The flyer had been nabbed by the Syrians, and Jesse Jackson, who in 250 00:18:03.000 --> 00:18:06.880 those days was a frequent intermediary element, had gone to speak to him. 251 00:18:07.319 --> 00:18:11.039 And then my favorite headline of all, which you probably can repeat in any 252 00:18:11.079 --> 00:18:15.799 newspaper for any place, at any time, for whatever reason, I quote, 253 00:18:17.319 --> 00:18:23.440 growing reports may indicate growing problem. Let me run that one by again. 254 00:18:23.759 --> 00:18:30.400 Growing reports may indicate growing problem. Now it has to do with sexual 255 00:18:30.440 --> 00:18:36.440 abuse of children. But that's kind of an evergreen, as we used to 256 00:18:36.480 --> 00:18:42.039 say, Come nineteen ninety four, we're sort of getting into the common era, 257 00:18:42.119 --> 00:18:47.240 aren't we. Nineteen ninety four seems to be part of the world in 258 00:18:47.279 --> 00:18:52.359 which we inhabit right now. South African leaders plead for calm because there was 259 00:18:52.400 --> 00:18:56.119 a shooting spree in joe Burg, and then there's something about a local gambling 260 00:18:56.720 --> 00:19:02.039 racetrack and that's about it for international lose. Everything else is local because the 261 00:19:02.079 --> 00:19:06.079 paper had realized we don't need a reprint the New York Times. We can 262 00:19:06.079 --> 00:19:10.400 tell you what's going on here. So ninety four, if I remember correctly, 263 00:19:10.880 --> 00:19:14.400 it's pretty good. We didn't think so at the time. No, 264 00:19:14.519 --> 00:19:19.680 we were under the boot of Clinton. We were worried about Jack Puts knocking 265 00:19:19.720 --> 00:19:23.680 on our doors on behalf of the irs, which is not an unreasonable thing 266 00:19:23.720 --> 00:19:29.279 to believe. But we were going through this whole strange we're beginning perhaps the 267 00:19:29.319 --> 00:19:32.720 whole strange nineties paranoia, a bit that you saw in the X Files and 268 00:19:32.839 --> 00:19:36.440 Art Bell and all the rest of it. Y two K and this feeling 269 00:19:36.519 --> 00:19:40.200 that something was coming, and it was. It just wasn't anything that we 270 00:19:40.200 --> 00:19:45.480 were expecting at all. The old Black Swan, or rather two of them 271 00:19:45.599 --> 00:19:48.960 appearing in the skies of New York, which means we go to two thousand 272 00:19:48.000 --> 00:19:49.920 and four, which is the last year I'm going to do here, and 273 00:19:49.960 --> 00:19:57.200 the headline is Americans Party under Orange Alert, which is something that may not 274 00:19:57.279 --> 00:20:00.240 mean anything to anybody in the future, but at the time it did. 275 00:20:02.119 --> 00:20:06.599 This was three years on and the main headline on New Year's Eve was still 276 00:20:06.720 --> 00:20:11.200 something of the sort of we could be bonded, and we're looking around and 277 00:20:11.240 --> 00:20:18.039 we're nervous about it. But no, nothing happened. Year after year would 278 00:20:18.039 --> 00:20:25.559 go by and nothing would happen. And we would become accustomed to nothing happened, 279 00:20:25.960 --> 00:20:29.160 nothing happening. I don't know about you, though, I don't see 280 00:20:29.200 --> 00:20:33.079 any of these gatherings to this day without thinking something might happen. Why wouldn't 281 00:20:33.119 --> 00:20:38.279 it. While we may have cleared the decks of some of the bad actors 282 00:20:38.319 --> 00:20:44.359 back in the day, they seem to reassemble and cohere and redouble their efforts 283 00:20:44.720 --> 00:20:49.039 to do something about us. Statan Magnus right, also a big prediction here 284 00:20:49.039 --> 00:20:52.240 in the headlines of that paper, Warren politics will co star in the news 285 00:20:52.279 --> 00:20:56.440 of two thousand and four to come. You think, I think it's possible, 286 00:20:56.960 --> 00:21:00.440 and I think the same thing will go here. We will be discussing 287 00:21:02.119 --> 00:21:07.440 the two wars ongoing in twenty twenty four. We will be discussing politics, 288 00:21:07.440 --> 00:21:11.079 which will seem like an absolute, complete and total mess, which it will 289 00:21:11.119 --> 00:21:15.680 be and often does, because it's only from the distance of time when passion's 290 00:21:15.720 --> 00:21:19.440 cool and the winners and the victor's right the histories that we tend to think 291 00:21:19.440 --> 00:21:26.440 that everything else moved smoothly. It doesn't. Although the machinations underfoot this year 292 00:21:26.480 --> 00:21:33.400 seem particularly egregious, wouldn't you say, But that's for a two twenty four 293 00:21:33.480 --> 00:21:41.640 podcast with misters May rob Long and Peter Robinson. I had asked on the 294 00:21:41.920 --> 00:21:45.319 Bricochet page whether or not anybody had any questions for me, and I think 295 00:21:45.359 --> 00:21:49.920 if they, let's check here and see what they said, and see if 296 00:21:49.920 --> 00:21:56.200 there's anybody who did the wrong page. See if anybody who does. You 297 00:21:56.240 --> 00:21:57.519 know, this is the point usually where I go to a spot but we're 298 00:21:57.559 --> 00:22:03.240 giving you a little break. We're going spotlets this week. I could probably 299 00:22:03.279 --> 00:22:07.519 from memory give you a bowl and branch for free. I could probably from 300 00:22:07.519 --> 00:22:11.319 memory tell you about all the wonderful sponsors we've had in the past that have 301 00:22:11.359 --> 00:22:14.039 made it Ricochet possible. But the thing is, it's really people like you 302 00:22:14.480 --> 00:22:18.799 who make Ricochet possible, who commit to every month pooning up a small amount 303 00:22:18.839 --> 00:22:21.240 of money to say, yes, I want this thing to go, and 304 00:22:21.279 --> 00:22:22.680 I want to be able to contribute. I want to be able to comment. 305 00:22:22.799 --> 00:22:26.440 That's the great thing. There's some science that I love, and I 306 00:22:26.480 --> 00:22:30.839 go down into the discus in man, I tell you you just have an 307 00:22:30.839 --> 00:22:36.000 image of an awful lot of really unhappy people who just love to do nothing 308 00:22:36.000 --> 00:22:41.119 more then sidle into the room and issue a conspicuous piece of flatulence and then 309 00:22:41.200 --> 00:22:48.559 wander out as though some great witticism has been undeployed. And it's the thing 310 00:22:48.559 --> 00:22:57.119 I like about Ricochet is that I am constantly abraided by other people's mulish disinclination 311 00:22:57.240 --> 00:23:03.039 to agree with me or what I have my head. So civil conversations with 312 00:23:03.079 --> 00:23:07.000 people that you've had civil conversations with for a long time and who think differently 313 00:23:07.039 --> 00:23:11.200 about things is a big plus as opposed to just marinating in the bath of 314 00:23:11.279 --> 00:23:15.440 everybody agreeing with everybody else. Oh, there are fourteen comments on this, 315 00:23:17.640 --> 00:23:19.680 let's see. Well. Don Tilman, who smells his name backwards, says, 316 00:23:19.759 --> 00:23:23.119 this is an opportunity for a record of the greatest number of segues in 317 00:23:23.160 --> 00:23:26.640 a podcast. I don't think I've had one. Why because I haven't had 318 00:23:26.680 --> 00:23:33.039 to go to an ad and b because I haven't had the steel bar in 319 00:23:33.119 --> 00:23:37.839 the spokes of Rob Long and his ability to derail any segment that I wanted 320 00:23:37.839 --> 00:23:41.400 to do. Jenna Stocker, who by the way, is also writing for 321 00:23:41.559 --> 00:23:49.400 American Center of American Experiment around here and is an absolutely fantastic writer, just 322 00:23:49.519 --> 00:23:56.160 great. I wanted to start writing nineteen forties mystery novels too, said if 323 00:23:56.200 --> 00:23:59.079 you had a chat with the young James Lillax about your life since childhood and 324 00:23:59.119 --> 00:24:03.240 which you're up to now, what would he be most surprised to hear that 325 00:24:03.319 --> 00:24:07.759 it all worked out, that it all actually happened. I mean, that's 326 00:24:07.799 --> 00:24:11.079 the thing. I became what I wanted to become. I went where I 327 00:24:11.079 --> 00:24:15.319 wanted to go, and I did what I wanted to do. I was 328 00:24:15.319 --> 00:24:19.400 a kid in Many in Fargo reading the Minneapolis Star Tribune newspaper. I had 329 00:24:19.400 --> 00:24:22.279 to go to the library to get it. It was the missive from the 330 00:24:22.279 --> 00:24:26.039 big city. It was the it. It told me what was going on 331 00:24:26.119 --> 00:24:30.920 in the big town, to which I'd only been a couple of times once 332 00:24:30.519 --> 00:24:36.079 as a small boy. When we paid an extraordinary visit, absolutely magical, 333 00:24:36.680 --> 00:24:38.319 really, I stated at Howard Johnson, I'd never seen one of these things 334 00:24:38.319 --> 00:24:42.200 before. Orange roof with a little turquoise top, I'm thirty, how many 335 00:24:42.200 --> 00:24:48.000 flavors of ice cream? It was just that futuristic lobby building, that that 336 00:24:48.000 --> 00:24:49.759 that that you drove that dad went into to get the keys. I mean, 337 00:24:49.799 --> 00:24:53.200 I'd never seen anything. Then we went to Southdale and an enclosed mall, 338 00:24:53.279 --> 00:24:56.759 the likes of which, of course did not exist in Fargo. There 339 00:24:56.799 --> 00:25:00.359 were birds indoors in cages too, story cages in the winter, singing. 340 00:25:02.839 --> 00:25:06.079 Ah. It was great. I loved it. I wanted to go there, 341 00:25:06.079 --> 00:25:08.920 and every visit I paid to Minneapolis next, I only only reinforced that. 342 00:25:10.920 --> 00:25:14.000 And what I wanted to do was to write, and I wanted to 343 00:25:14.039 --> 00:25:17.960 be in newspapers. I wanted to write for the Minneapolis start So I wanted 344 00:25:17.960 --> 00:25:22.079 to be a columnist for the Minneapolis Startribune when I was growing up. And 345 00:25:22.119 --> 00:25:26.400 I am. And that's I don't know what more to say about that except 346 00:25:26.480 --> 00:25:29.640 whew, what a relief. It all worked out. Am I disappointed that 347 00:25:29.680 --> 00:25:34.039 I wasn't challenged or didn't have bigger ideas. What if I decided that I 348 00:25:34.039 --> 00:25:37.759 wanted to be a columnist for the New Yorker. Well, I don't want 349 00:25:37.799 --> 00:25:41.960 to be one of those. I'm happy here where I have an audience that 350 00:25:42.079 --> 00:25:45.599 surrounds me and has surrounded me since the early eighties when I started writing in 351 00:25:45.599 --> 00:25:48.799 the college papers. So that might be it. I might be surprised to 352 00:25:48.880 --> 00:25:53.680 learn that it worked out completely. Thank you. Jenna john Stanley writes, 353 00:25:53.880 --> 00:25:57.359 The Vikings used to play in the Minnesota cold, but now the Vikings play 354 00:25:57.400 --> 00:26:02.319 indoors. Is the movie Doors linked to a lack of Super Bowl appearances? 355 00:26:04.000 --> 00:26:07.519 No, No, I don't think so. I think it's something else. 356 00:26:08.000 --> 00:26:14.359 I think it's a curse. It's the curse that hangs over us. There's 357 00:26:14.359 --> 00:26:18.680 something deep in the marrow of the Vikings fan that is unable to be happy, 358 00:26:18.039 --> 00:26:21.960 that knows that at the end of it, at the end of it, 359 00:26:22.359 --> 00:26:29.200 we'll ever get there. Never. It never happened. It's supposed to 360 00:26:29.240 --> 00:26:33.960 happen. This year, it was supposed to happen. Kurt was great, 361 00:26:36.200 --> 00:26:38.359 JJ is supposed to have after a last year where her Ja was supposed to 362 00:26:38.559 --> 00:26:41.519 but we lost fourth straight and then you know, went through four quarterbacks. 363 00:26:41.519 --> 00:26:45.839 So now second John continues. Is the willingness of the fans to suffer outdoor 364 00:26:45.839 --> 00:26:51.720 in the cold a link to post season victories? It could be, you 365 00:26:51.799 --> 00:26:53.559 know, you look back at the old shots of the Vikings playing in the 366 00:26:53.920 --> 00:26:57.680 snow, and the snow gathering on the eyebrows and the caps of the people 367 00:26:57.720 --> 00:27:02.519 in the stand still cheering, and you think there are heartier people than we 368 00:27:02.599 --> 00:27:07.319 are for God's sakes. A. Yes, perhaps so. B they're drunk 369 00:27:07.359 --> 00:27:11.920 though pretty much short that everybody had a nip of some snowshoe grog or peppermint 370 00:27:11.920 --> 00:27:15.920 schnaps, some fine Phillips products in a flask that kept them warm. But 371 00:27:17.000 --> 00:27:22.160 yeah, that's the way football is meant to be played, bruisingly endured in 372 00:27:22.200 --> 00:27:25.160 the outdoor elements. But on the other hand, I've been inside the new 373 00:27:25.160 --> 00:27:29.640 stadium and it's absolutely gorgeous. And I've been there when it's cold outside and 374 00:27:29.680 --> 00:27:33.599 I'm happy to be warm inside. So yes, I'm a member of that 375 00:27:33.079 --> 00:27:42.319 debased, debauched, defeat, indolent, sybaritic crowd that can no longer endure 376 00:27:42.359 --> 00:27:48.200 the way things used to be. Wisconsin con Wi Coon said, you work 377 00:27:48.240 --> 00:27:51.480 for the Star Tribune, are you? And there are some other noteworthy and 378 00:27:51.960 --> 00:27:55.759 otherwhile not worthy, There are still at least local papers still in existence. 379 00:27:55.799 --> 00:28:00.319 But the model doesn't seem viable. Nothing new there. But are you seeing 380 00:28:00.319 --> 00:28:08.319 any viable replacements emerging? Uh? No, yes and no. What we're 381 00:28:08.319 --> 00:28:11.160 trying to do here at the newspaper, of course, is to transition to 382 00:28:11.920 --> 00:28:17.319 all digital. That's the future. Hate to say it, sorry Tree industry, 383 00:28:17.839 --> 00:28:21.319 Sorry delivery guys, I mean and sorry everybody who loves the newspaper, 384 00:28:21.480 --> 00:28:26.920 including me. But the move is to all digital. The problem, of 385 00:28:26.960 --> 00:28:32.599 course, is what's that word, I'm looking for money? The problem is 386 00:28:32.599 --> 00:28:37.039 getting people to exchange goods in exchange their money in exchange for our goods and 387 00:28:37.079 --> 00:28:41.640 services. Because I was on Reddit the other day and somebody had posted a 388 00:28:41.680 --> 00:28:44.400 story from the link from the Star Tribune, a very important story from the 389 00:28:44.400 --> 00:28:48.039 Star Tribune, a story that only we had if I believe correctly, that 390 00:28:48.119 --> 00:28:51.759 we had gone out and sent somebody. We paid somebody to go there and 391 00:28:51.880 --> 00:28:55.160 look and do and research and come back and write it. And then we 392 00:28:55.200 --> 00:28:59.480 had put that information on pieces of paper, handed them to a distribution system 393 00:28:59.480 --> 00:29:03.519 that put them all over town and also put them up online for something that 394 00:29:03.559 --> 00:29:08.279 we paid for. And the person said, you know all, I'm not 395 00:29:08.279 --> 00:29:15.319 going to pay to read that. I'm not going to pay for news. 396 00:29:15.880 --> 00:29:19.839 Okay, all right, I get that now. Somebody doesn't want to pay 397 00:29:19.880 --> 00:29:26.279 for something because they have a reason. A they don't like the bias, 398 00:29:26.559 --> 00:29:29.799 or they don't like what's being nobody's obligated to pay for anything, but if 399 00:29:29.839 --> 00:29:33.599 you would like local reporting, you generally have to pay somebody to go out 400 00:29:33.680 --> 00:29:37.960 and do it. The old days of relying on the blog of sphere. 401 00:29:37.079 --> 00:29:41.400 It's not going to happen. The BLOGI sphere is an adjunct. It's a 402 00:29:41.480 --> 00:29:44.680 necessary corrective. It's good. People do a lot. I mean people do. 403 00:29:44.839 --> 00:29:47.640 There are people who are who have their niche and they do it. 404 00:29:48.240 --> 00:29:51.119 I'm not sure they do it as much as they used to before, but 405 00:29:51.319 --> 00:29:56.839 generally, no, you have to pay, and so it is you got 406 00:29:56.839 --> 00:29:59.240 to hand over some money. Now who do you hand over the money to? 407 00:30:00.000 --> 00:30:02.680 In our case, we are a brand. We've been around, We've 408 00:30:02.720 --> 00:30:04.200 been doing this for one hundred and fifty years, and we have a track 409 00:30:04.279 --> 00:30:08.400 record, and we have the standards of objectivity. I know, I know 410 00:30:08.880 --> 00:30:14.480 what people say, but I know I know what goes on here, and 411 00:30:14.519 --> 00:30:17.720 I know what we believe, and I know what the ideas and the ideals 412 00:30:17.759 --> 00:30:22.559 are. So the model that emerges is going to be two or three competing 413 00:30:22.599 --> 00:30:26.559 online sources, which will eventually require either AU to pay or B somebody behind 414 00:30:26.559 --> 00:30:29.640 the scenes to pay for it, and you don't know who they are. 415 00:30:30.599 --> 00:30:33.880 So I like our model. I do. And there's more to it. 416 00:30:34.519 --> 00:30:37.359 And I mean, if you just have a I'll just shut up about it. 417 00:30:37.400 --> 00:30:41.880 Just that's it. Y Kon goes on to say, I get most 418 00:30:41.920 --> 00:30:44.839 of my local news from our local talk radio station. Their coverage is better 419 00:30:44.880 --> 00:30:47.960 than the local broadcast news and less biased than the local paper. Okay, 420 00:30:48.440 --> 00:30:49.799 I don't know where that is, but where do they get their news? 421 00:30:51.319 --> 00:30:53.160 Where does the talk radio place get their news? I mean in the old 422 00:30:53.240 --> 00:30:57.160 days. I remember when I worked for KSD KSDB a AM fifteen hundred. 423 00:30:57.480 --> 00:31:00.839 Our news department was run by John McDougall, who was an old TV guy, 424 00:31:02.440 --> 00:31:06.799 and Bruce Gordon also, And it's kind of a you know, a 425 00:31:06.880 --> 00:31:10.079 rip and read is what we You know the wire, you ripped the wire 426 00:31:10.119 --> 00:31:11.880 off, you read the wire. You didn't have any guy you did. 427 00:31:12.039 --> 00:31:15.079 We did ksdbting and a lot of guys going on the field for the AM 428 00:31:15.160 --> 00:31:19.839 version, right and not MINDI talk radio stations have guys who go out and 429 00:31:19.839 --> 00:31:25.160 report, so if they do great. He goes on to say, there's 430 00:31:25.160 --> 00:31:29.799 a need. But outside those dying papers and the patch whatever that's considered, 431 00:31:29.839 --> 00:31:32.400 do you see anything on the horizon. It seems like that there's another reason 432 00:31:32.440 --> 00:31:36.480 people are more focused on DC versus their local cities and states, as there 433 00:31:36.559 --> 00:31:40.000 just isn't the coverage of states. That's that's the problem. That's why you 434 00:31:40.039 --> 00:31:42.799 need local organizations devoted to covering your state, so pay for it, is 435 00:31:42.839 --> 00:31:48.559 all I'm saying. Stad. I had said that my promise to you is 436 00:31:48.599 --> 00:31:52.480 no tiresome, depressing recaps of the year, and Stad said, but quote 437 00:31:52.519 --> 00:31:59.319 tiresome and depressing unquote is you at your best? JK goes on to note, 438 00:31:59.319 --> 00:32:01.480 do you miss doing National Review cruises? And are there plans to start 439 00:32:01.519 --> 00:32:05.480 them up again? I know the NR Institute still has them. Do I 440 00:32:05.480 --> 00:32:15.279 miss doing the National Review cruises? I don't know. Yes, yes, 441 00:32:15.599 --> 00:32:19.839 I do very much so because I love going on cruises. Can't get my 442 00:32:19.880 --> 00:32:22.960 wife to go anymore because she thinks she doesn't want to fall overboard, although 443 00:32:22.960 --> 00:32:25.799 we might do some river cruise because I guess you can swim the shore. 444 00:32:27.519 --> 00:32:31.119 I loved them because I loved meeting everybody and talking late at night at the 445 00:32:31.319 --> 00:32:36.920 night Old Session or at the sessions at the Crow's Nest Bar. I love 446 00:32:37.000 --> 00:32:42.640 being in the Caribbean. I loved being part of the NR enterprise. I 447 00:32:42.839 --> 00:32:47.119 really did. It was great fun and I may do it again. The 448 00:32:46.720 --> 00:32:52.119 Institute is having them at Alaska, and problem is is that they need to 449 00:32:52.119 --> 00:32:55.160 get enough people. If they have enough people, they can bring on the 450 00:32:55.279 --> 00:33:04.079 second tier talents like myself. And as I said to them last when I 451 00:33:04.160 --> 00:33:07.000 was there, went out to the National Review Christmas party in New York, 452 00:33:07.079 --> 00:33:09.359 I said, you know, I do offer a full spectrum service package here. 453 00:33:12.240 --> 00:33:14.519 I'll talk a lot at dinner, I'll talk a lot. In the 454 00:33:14.559 --> 00:33:19.480 evening, I'll talk. I actually will engage people at breakfast or on the 455 00:33:19.519 --> 00:33:22.640 ship anywhere, not just at the meetings. Fans, are you know full 456 00:33:23.440 --> 00:33:28.799 customer service? I'm your customer service guy, and we'll see what happens. 457 00:33:29.200 --> 00:33:31.720 Full sized Tabby, well, thanks for asking stad send him a letter, 458 00:33:31.759 --> 00:33:36.279 tell him you want me. Full Sized Tabby says, I would enjoy hearing 459 00:33:36.279 --> 00:33:39.559 some of your most memorable or interesting surprising experiences covering the State Fair over so 460 00:33:39.640 --> 00:33:45.599 many years. Huh, that's interesting, State Fair. I hadn't thought of 461 00:33:45.599 --> 00:33:52.559 that in a while. Mostly it's these Quotitian moments that don't really add up 462 00:33:52.599 --> 00:33:57.680 to anything except for a deep and abiding love of the entire enterprise. I 463 00:33:57.680 --> 00:34:02.079 mean, I was never there when anything big and was I I don't think 464 00:34:02.119 --> 00:34:07.679 so. I wasn't there when the bull escaped and ran through the crowd and 465 00:34:07.920 --> 00:34:15.360 killed itself by dashing its head into a fire stanchion, you know, fire 466 00:34:15.400 --> 00:34:22.920 plug bang. No, I heard about it happened later. I have done 467 00:34:23.000 --> 00:34:27.760 dozens of shows where I stand on this little stage in the broiling sun with 468 00:34:27.880 --> 00:34:30.880 a neon huge yardstick, trying to get the audience to pay attention to me. 469 00:34:31.920 --> 00:34:36.199 Those all blend into one. I mean, I'll have a guest who 470 00:34:36.239 --> 00:34:38.280 will talk about eating crickets, and well, you know, I'll eat some 471 00:34:38.280 --> 00:34:42.480 cricket peanut butter, and another guests will come by with the flight of local 472 00:34:42.480 --> 00:34:44.880 beers and I'll drink those in the sun and then fall on my head. 473 00:34:45.639 --> 00:34:51.840 All I remember about the fair is just its existence and then its non existence. 474 00:34:51.920 --> 00:34:53.880 The fact that I usually show up the day before, when everything is 475 00:34:54.480 --> 00:35:00.159 just getting set up and all the grass is green and they're starting working the 476 00:35:00.159 --> 00:35:05.480 friars, and the smells of everything is just absolutely just wonderful. It's waiting 477 00:35:05.519 --> 00:35:07.639 to happen. It's fresh and it's new, and you know, the sprinklers 478 00:35:07.679 --> 00:35:13.760 are making the are on the flowers. They're glistening in the morning light. 479 00:35:13.760 --> 00:35:15.960 It's just but it's not the fair because there's not a lot of people there. 480 00:35:16.239 --> 00:35:20.360 There's not a lot of people walking around with stupid t shirts and uh 481 00:35:20.760 --> 00:35:24.639 and uh and expressions of expectation of small children and old people and being it's 482 00:35:24.679 --> 00:35:29.079 not the fair without the people. And so when I show up and plunge 483 00:35:29.119 --> 00:35:30.599 into it, it's just what it was last year and the year before and 484 00:35:30.599 --> 00:35:37.280 the year before. And even though it's changed somehow, that place is gone. 485 00:35:37.480 --> 00:35:39.800 That place is a new sign, that's new, it's still just the 486 00:35:39.880 --> 00:35:43.920 fair. And it goes back maybe to what I was saying before about that 487 00:35:43.960 --> 00:35:46.039 trip to Minneapolis, because now that I think about it, at first trip 488 00:35:46.119 --> 00:35:49.440 to Minneapolis, when I said the birds were in the cage and the winter 489 00:35:49.559 --> 00:35:53.000 inside, that wasn't true. Couldn't have been, because it was fair time. 490 00:35:53.159 --> 00:35:58.000 We went to the fair. We went to see the Twins out at 491 00:35:58.000 --> 00:36:00.559 met Stadium, but we went to the fair as well. And as a 492 00:36:00.679 --> 00:36:04.800 very small child, I stood there and looked up at this gopher in a 493 00:36:04.800 --> 00:36:08.360 turquoise in white sort of you know, music man suit, with a straw 494 00:36:08.480 --> 00:36:13.599 boator and his cane, and I associated him with a state fair, which 495 00:36:13.639 --> 00:36:15.480 I was just in love with too, because I'd never seen anything of its 496 00:36:15.519 --> 00:36:21.039 magnitude. I'd never seen anything with so much noise and joy and the fargo 497 00:36:21.159 --> 00:36:23.840 Fair. The North Dakota State Fair happened about two blocks from my house, 498 00:36:24.199 --> 00:36:29.119 and it was smaller as you can well imagine. And at night I used 499 00:36:29.119 --> 00:36:31.960 to sit there on my steps and far go and hear the fair, the 500 00:36:32.000 --> 00:36:36.360 distant sound of it, and the screams and maybe the chuffing of machinery and 501 00:36:36.440 --> 00:36:38.360 the rest of it, and I would swear the days after the fair was 502 00:36:38.400 --> 00:36:42.119 over in the summer, I could still hear it. So I always loved 503 00:36:42.159 --> 00:36:45.719 the fair, And to walk into the one in Minnesota was just was just 504 00:36:45.760 --> 00:36:50.719 the world. It was just the world as it should be, with its 505 00:36:51.039 --> 00:36:54.159 wonderful fried foods and corn dogs, and it's malts, and it's spin art. 506 00:36:54.239 --> 00:37:00.320 We would make spin art, which were involved taking these little things and 507 00:37:00.320 --> 00:37:06.440 putting them on a spinning piece of spinning canvas, and the fumes were so 508 00:37:06.639 --> 00:37:10.280 carcinogenic that it's a miracle anybody for my generation made a past fifty. So 509 00:37:10.360 --> 00:37:13.719 I love the state fair and full sized tabby notes. One of the delights 510 00:37:13.760 --> 00:37:15.239 for me of state fairs that they draw such a variety of people. And 511 00:37:15.239 --> 00:37:19.519 that's absolutely true. Here's everybody. You don't seeing the course of a day, 512 00:37:19.719 --> 00:37:22.480 course of a week, course of a month. This is Minnesota. 513 00:37:22.679 --> 00:37:25.159 These who are, this is what we are. Whatever you think about your 514 00:37:25.199 --> 00:37:30.599 group, No, Steve C. How do you manage your time? You 515 00:37:30.679 --> 00:37:34.960 come across as very productive and yet appear to wander off into tangents a good 516 00:37:34.960 --> 00:37:39.599 deal of to me? What digressions? Well, since I have absolutely no 517 00:37:39.800 --> 00:37:44.599 set things to do over the course of a day, I have long ago 518 00:37:45.320 --> 00:37:51.079 set my own routines. My day goes on rails, and it always has. 519 00:37:52.320 --> 00:37:53.760 When I was back in college, writing people used to note, you 520 00:37:53.760 --> 00:37:59.840 know, you're the only guy who says he's a writer. Well, actually, 521 00:38:00.079 --> 00:38:04.360 lights that's my secret. That's what I do. I would make time. 522 00:38:04.599 --> 00:38:07.000 I would sit down every day. I'm going to do this. Now, 523 00:38:07.559 --> 00:38:09.719 I'm not going to do that. Then I'm going to do that over 524 00:38:09.800 --> 00:38:13.639 there. This is my pinball time, this is my writing time, this 525 00:38:13.679 --> 00:38:15.840 is my walking time. And I stick to it, and sometimes it makes 526 00:38:15.840 --> 00:38:20.119 me incredibly unflexible, and I get twitchy if I moved off the schedule. 527 00:38:20.159 --> 00:38:24.480 But Monday through Friday the life is unrailed. The weekend the chalks are off 528 00:38:24.559 --> 00:38:28.400 madness and madness. But that's how I do it. I just and I 529 00:38:28.440 --> 00:38:30.920 have set in and I can do different things at different time, so I 530 00:38:30.960 --> 00:38:34.920 don't get bored, because I get bored very easily. Don g who would 531 00:38:34.960 --> 00:38:37.400 like to remind us that c AGW as a scam. By that, I 532 00:38:37.440 --> 00:38:45.599 hope he means that the anthropogenic global warming right goes back to wy Coon about 533 00:38:45.599 --> 00:38:50.519 the Star Tribune me working there, and notes young adults get their news from 534 00:38:50.559 --> 00:38:54.840 TikTok. I didn't see that coming newspaper existed before the advertising model. Will 535 00:38:54.840 --> 00:39:00.000 they exist after the collapse of advertising, just a different kind of advertising. 536 00:39:00.440 --> 00:39:01.800 We still have advertise. I mean, we still have ads. We still 537 00:39:01.840 --> 00:39:05.079 have lots of ads, and we still have people go out there and sell 538 00:39:05.119 --> 00:39:07.599 them, and we still have people who use us as a medium to get 539 00:39:07.639 --> 00:39:09.480 to the people who want to buy this, that or the other. That's 540 00:39:09.519 --> 00:39:15.480 great. We'll never be without ads, and that's one of the things that 541 00:39:15.239 --> 00:39:21.400 we got going for you. It just pains me to look at the ads 542 00:39:21.400 --> 00:39:23.159 of the old papers and it's not as you could just because there were so 543 00:39:23.239 --> 00:39:28.039 many. I mean, Downtown had Dayton's Department Store, Donaldson's Serious Pennies, 544 00:39:28.559 --> 00:39:30.559 it had powers, It had all of these stores, each of which would 545 00:39:30.559 --> 00:39:36.760 take two three pages out in a Sunday newspaper. The quantity of retail advertising 546 00:39:36.760 --> 00:39:39.679 in the old newspapers is astonishing. The newspaper on Sunday would be three hundred 547 00:39:39.719 --> 00:39:46.599 and seventy pages thick. We're still the third largest Sunday newspaper in the country, 548 00:39:46.599 --> 00:39:50.079 but we don't know that. But it wasn't just the big ads. 549 00:39:50.119 --> 00:39:52.800 It was the little tiny ones. I mean the profusion of stuff either for 550 00:39:52.840 --> 00:39:59.760 scab medication or scrofula or qatar, moving on to little tiny thing for golden 551 00:39:59.800 --> 00:40:04.800 girls, milk and salt and all the rest. It was just the eye 552 00:40:05.159 --> 00:40:09.559 could could could linger on the page of an ordinary newspaper on a Tuesday afternoon 553 00:40:09.639 --> 00:40:15.800 and find a three dozen things to think about. And that was just one 554 00:40:15.800 --> 00:40:19.599 page. So we will exist after the collapse of advertising. But by the 555 00:40:19.639 --> 00:40:22.800 way, if you look back at the oldest newspapers, they have ads. 556 00:40:22.400 --> 00:40:25.679 I've looked at newspapers in the eighteenth century in England, they have ads. 557 00:40:25.800 --> 00:40:29.840 If you look at newspapers from the nineteenth century in America, the front page 558 00:40:29.880 --> 00:40:34.480 is almost all ads. And so yeah, I just didn't have a lot 559 00:40:34.480 --> 00:40:38.960 to sell. But lord, all ads, shoes, books, cheap metal 560 00:40:39.000 --> 00:40:45.519 things. GLD three, purveyor of splendid malpropisms. That was great. Reagan 561 00:40:45.599 --> 00:40:50.599 member, I should note, I says in response to my thing about being 562 00:40:50.679 --> 00:40:53.480 tiresome and depressing, he says or she there are at least five of us 563 00:40:53.599 --> 00:40:57.960 ricochets in the Alaska trip this coming summer. Can you weasel your way into 564 00:40:57.960 --> 00:41:00.800 being there? I'm working on it. I'm working on it. The only 565 00:41:00.840 --> 00:41:05.480 problem is is I am also sort of kind of sort of obliged to a 566 00:41:07.840 --> 00:41:10.320 to do a show in England. I think I'm booked at a theater. 567 00:41:10.719 --> 00:41:15.599 Another story, Stephen, See best book and movie you have read and seen 568 00:41:15.679 --> 00:41:22.039 this year? I can't think of any sold. They can't because the movies 569 00:41:22.039 --> 00:41:24.840 they come in to go and I don't think of them in terms of years. 570 00:41:24.840 --> 00:41:28.679 And it may have been that the best movie that I saw this year 571 00:41:28.840 --> 00:41:31.639 was something that was from three or four or five years ago. I mean, 572 00:41:31.679 --> 00:41:35.519 I see a lot of as impressed with Parasite, for example. Takes 573 00:41:35.559 --> 00:41:38.519 me a while to get to some things, and that's that's the problem with 574 00:41:38.559 --> 00:41:40.840 that. And likewise, I think the probably the best book that I read 575 00:41:40.840 --> 00:41:44.360 that I mean, how do you define best? Is it gonna be Thomas 576 00:41:44.360 --> 00:41:49.760 Soule's latest? It should be could be it's great. Or is it a 577 00:41:49.800 --> 00:41:53.000 novel that I reread because I'd forgotten how it went and I was at the 578 00:41:53.000 --> 00:41:57.760 beach and I wanted a detective story. Or is it simply because it was 579 00:41:57.800 --> 00:42:01.440 a Roman detective story that I read at the beach earlier in Kancun that kept 580 00:42:01.440 --> 00:42:07.639 me interested, not for its vivacious pros, not for its spellbinding mystery, 581 00:42:07.039 --> 00:42:12.280 but simply because I knew the characters and liked them and wanted to spend some 582 00:42:12.320 --> 00:42:15.440 time with them in this sort of reimagined way of what we'd like to think 583 00:42:15.519 --> 00:42:20.079 Rome was. It's great. You know, Roman mysteries, there's a whole 584 00:42:20.079 --> 00:42:22.719 big genre, and they each have their own different approach to it. I'm 585 00:42:22.800 --> 00:42:25.360 kind of tired of the guys I got to go back to the well every 586 00:42:25.400 --> 00:42:29.639 single time to do the whole Caesar thing. Yeah, we know, and 587 00:42:29.719 --> 00:42:31.679 more interested in the ones that come along later. This series that I was 588 00:42:31.719 --> 00:42:37.639 reading, which is not particularly it's great literature, but it's a Marcus Aurelius 589 00:42:37.719 --> 00:42:44.320 view. It's a very very upstanding view of Rome. Kind of cool. 590 00:42:44.960 --> 00:42:49.119 Mid mitht White Male, when talking about the Vikings and the Snow and the 591 00:42:49.119 --> 00:42:52.039 rest of it, says that that working playing outside thing has worked well for 592 00:42:52.079 --> 00:42:57.480 the Packers lambeau Field thirty consecutive years of Hall of Fame quarterbacks and just three 593 00:42:57.519 --> 00:43:00.840 Super Bowl appearances. Shut up, shut up, go away. Uh. 594 00:43:00.920 --> 00:43:02.679 And then they go back and they're arguing about this, about that again, 595 00:43:04.719 --> 00:43:07.039 and then Peter Jean, Hi, Gene, how were you. Jeane, 596 00:43:07.079 --> 00:43:10.360 by the way, who has been with us for a long time, has 597 00:43:10.400 --> 00:43:16.239 been on several Ricochet cruises, and as you all know, is the well 598 00:43:17.079 --> 00:43:20.280 there's there was there was, you know, on a cruise, you'd see 599 00:43:20.360 --> 00:43:22.280 Jane, and you'd see Dave, and I missed Dave. And I used 600 00:43:22.280 --> 00:43:25.559 to work with Dave here at the paper, not at this building, back 601 00:43:25.599 --> 00:43:30.239 at the old building, back at the old building, under the old management, 602 00:43:30.280 --> 00:43:32.320 which is so stupid that they took him out of his extraordinary talents and 603 00:43:32.360 --> 00:43:36.559 put him to put him to doing some rote thing, not drawing as much 604 00:43:36.559 --> 00:43:39.079 as he could have. Just ridiculous. All you need to know really about 605 00:43:39.079 --> 00:43:43.320 management sometimes is that they would take him, you know, newspaper management, 606 00:43:43.599 --> 00:43:45.159 is that they would take him in a talent like Dave Metheni and say why 607 00:43:45.159 --> 00:43:52.000 don't you, why don't you edit the entertainment calendar fools. Anyway, Gene 608 00:43:52.000 --> 00:43:57.000 asks any chance of Lilac's Post of the Week returning. I guess so let 609 00:43:57.000 --> 00:44:00.840 the powers that be decide that. I think we still love the sounder for 610 00:44:00.920 --> 00:44:04.480 it, don't we? Yeah? I think we do? Or did I 611 00:44:04.480 --> 00:44:06.960 make that one up? Did I? It would doesn't matter if you could 612 00:44:06.960 --> 00:44:08.280 pick what time period in the US to live in, other than now, 613 00:44:08.360 --> 00:44:12.480 what era would that be? I asked, because you are such a collector, 614 00:44:12.559 --> 00:44:19.239 connoists, your commentator of Americana in architecture. I have always thought all 615 00:44:19.280 --> 00:44:22.159 my life that I would have liked to have been born in nineteen hundred and 616 00:44:23.039 --> 00:44:28.880 live eighty nine years. I think it'd be fantastic. You'd be a teenager 617 00:44:28.960 --> 00:44:31.679 during World War One, and you'd so you'd be an idiot, twelve fourteen 618 00:44:31.719 --> 00:44:36.599 year old kid who was excited about war news and following it and the rest 619 00:44:36.599 --> 00:44:38.519 of it, and it all seemed terribly modern and terribly terrifying. You'd be 620 00:44:38.519 --> 00:44:43.360 in your twenties during the twenties, which would be I mean, come on, 621 00:44:44.280 --> 00:44:47.119 just the jazz, the Charleston, the Hooch, the flasks, the 622 00:44:47.119 --> 00:44:51.840 Fitzgerald. Who wouldn't You'd be in your thirties and probably settled a bit during 623 00:44:51.880 --> 00:44:54.159 the depression, which wouldn't be that great. But you know, it's not 624 00:44:54.159 --> 00:44:57.559 like everybody went on the breadline. I mean, there was still a functioning 625 00:44:57.599 --> 00:45:00.400 economy. It was just crippled, and it was a fascinating time, time 626 00:45:00.440 --> 00:45:04.119 of rapid growing sophistication in a variety of mediums. If you look at the 627 00:45:04.119 --> 00:45:06.480 movies of the thirties compared to the twenties, you look at the ads of 628 00:45:06.519 --> 00:45:08.599 the thirties, the magazines of the rest compared to the twenties. We grew 629 00:45:08.679 --> 00:45:13.159 up fast in the thirties. To be in your forties and the forties would 630 00:45:13.159 --> 00:45:15.760 be well, you know again, following the news in your fifties and your 631 00:45:15.760 --> 00:45:17.719 fifties. That's the thing. We think of the fifties as being, you 632 00:45:17.719 --> 00:45:21.079 know again, happy days, carefree. No, no, no, it 633 00:45:21.119 --> 00:45:23.159 was a difficult time. It was neurotic, it was anxious. I mean, 634 00:45:23.239 --> 00:45:25.400 yeah, it had a lot going for it. There was much more 635 00:45:25.400 --> 00:45:30.119 cultural capital and cultural solidity. But at the same time, I mean, 636 00:45:30.159 --> 00:45:32.800 for God's sakes, imagine being somebody who had been through the depression in World 637 00:45:32.840 --> 00:45:37.920 War two looking at juvenile delinquents, looking at all these hoods and these thugs 638 00:45:37.920 --> 00:45:40.360 and saying, what is the matter with you? You know what we went 639 00:45:40.440 --> 00:45:44.719 and you're and you're acting like you know you were born in some awful, 640 00:45:44.800 --> 00:45:50.719 horrible world. Come on, sleepe up, yeah, eat nick Losers. 641 00:45:51.039 --> 00:45:53.039 And then to endure the sixties and the seventies and then finally in your eighties 642 00:45:53.039 --> 00:45:58.199 and you're waning years of your dotage. Live until the Berlin Wall came down 643 00:45:58.239 --> 00:46:01.159 and we won. There had to be somebody who was eighty nine years old 644 00:46:01.400 --> 00:46:06.840 who was watching the Berlin Wall come down and realized we won, and then 645 00:46:06.880 --> 00:46:09.480 they died. There has to be There has to be somebody who either turned 646 00:46:09.480 --> 00:46:14.320 off the television and went to bed and never woke up, or somebody who 647 00:46:14.360 --> 00:46:16.880 was in a nursing home and it was not going to go gentle into that 648 00:46:17.000 --> 00:46:21.480 dark night and held his trembling hand with the remote up at the television in 649 00:46:21.519 --> 00:46:22.719 the wall and saying, I'm not going to turn it off. I want 650 00:46:22.719 --> 00:46:27.320 to see how this comes up. They're tearing down the Berlin Wall. We 651 00:46:27.440 --> 00:46:30.880 won. Good, I can go It happened to somebody. It's a nice 652 00:46:30.880 --> 00:46:34.639 note to go out, and it's a good note to go out on. 653 00:46:34.920 --> 00:46:38.119 Here too. Thank everybody for listening to this, and remember that you never 654 00:46:38.159 --> 00:46:43.360 see what's coming when it comes. All the things we're worried about today are 655 00:46:43.880 --> 00:46:46.280 things that we probably won't be worried about next year. There will be something 656 00:46:46.280 --> 00:46:54.719 else, and to gird yourself for it, and remember that some days bad 657 00:46:54.719 --> 00:47:00.960 things happened. To state the obvious and the banal. But then the arc 658 00:47:00.039 --> 00:47:02.920 of history, which is a term that I hate because it doesn't exist, 659 00:47:04.519 --> 00:47:08.480 moves in such a way that you were watching the wall come down, and 660 00:47:08.559 --> 00:47:13.320 in our lifetimes we will see the equivalent of that in some other sense. 661 00:47:13.719 --> 00:47:15.360 We can't see it coming now, just any more than we could see it 662 00:47:15.360 --> 00:47:20.360 coming in nineteen eighty four or eighty two or seventy nine. But good things 663 00:47:20.400 --> 00:47:23.639 will happen because we're America, because we are optimistic, because we are still 664 00:47:23.679 --> 00:47:30.599 free, and because we are the last best hope of Western civilization. And 665 00:47:30.679 --> 00:47:34.360 on that cheerful note which I entirely mean, I thank you for listening. 666 00:47:34.400 --> 00:47:37.880 I'm James Lennox. We'll be back next week with Robin Long, probably with 667 00:47:37.960 --> 00:47:43.119 rob and Long and Peter and Robinson to join the Ricochet Podcast, And as 668 00:47:43.159 --> 00:47:45.719 ever, I'll see you in the comments, not at Ricochet five point zero 669 00:47:45.840 --> 00:47:52.039 because it's common, But some point this year we'll see you in the comments 670 00:47:52.159 --> 00:48:28.920 at Ricochet five point oho, but for now, happy New Year. Ricochet 671 00:48:30.679 --> 00:48:30.639 joined the conversation