Welcome back to everyone. Doing a new episode of You Were Wrong with Molly
Hemingway and David Harsani. Just a reminder, if you'd like to email the
show, please do so at radio at the Federals. We love hearing from
you. Molly, welcome back. It's great to be here with you.
David. I hope you had a nice holly season Christmas. Yeah, Christmas
has been wonderful. We still have a few more days left before the end
of the Christmas season, which lasts, as you may have heard, twelve
days. I hear about it quite often from you, So there's two more
days. You said, Yeah, a couple of days left. That's nice.
And you were a little bit under the weather, right, I am
under the weather, but I'm better ish I have. I've been sicker than
I can remember being ever. Did you have you had COVID? Right at
one point it did. Yeah, this is worse than see, this is
COVID like it. I never I always felt COVID was just like a less
bad than a normal flu. It just stayed longer. That was my experience
with it. This feels like a flu, although I went to the doctor
and it's apparently not the flu. And it's not COVID, and I don't
know what it is, but it feels it just feels like a flu.
And I've been down for the count. I have had so much work to
do and I have done basically nothing for the last week. I've just laid
in bed and slept a lot. So this is very exciting beginning to our
podcast. I think, yes, I'm happy you're back. I'm happy you're
feeling better. You know. It just hit me that I don't know if
I ever had COVID. I don't think I ever tested for it or anything,
just had some colds. Anyway, I always thought to myself, it
doesn't really matter, right, there's something I can do about it once I
have it. Yeah, I'm I kind of opposed to testing, except you
know, when you go to the doctor they do it. But sure,
I feel like, what do they treat you with? Also, you should
treat the symptoms really anyway, I think, right? So right? Also,
I stay isolated as much as possible diseases. Okay, so listen,
Molly, today we have the I think, yeah, happy, want you
as well? Yeah, yeah, I forgot to mention that, right,
do you do resolutions? No? But I had to do one for Fox
News. I did like the last special report of the year, and they
asked us to do New Year's resolutions. And I know enough about television to
know that saying I don't do resolutions is not an appropriate answer. So I
had recently decided to. So, you know, I've been reading my Bible
since April. We've talked about it, and then I kind of got so
busy with book stuff that I just stopped doing it, and I decided,
you know what, this isn't working for me to not do. I really
enjoyed doing it every morning. I liked that part of the routine, and
so I decided I would get back to it. So that's what I told
everybody was my New Year's resolution, although it would just kind of happen to
coincide with that timing. And I got the nicest responses from people about how
they do that, and you know, the manner in which they do it
and all that. So, anyway, do you do New Year's resolutions?
Not really, you know, not very specific ones. I just try to
it when people are talking about resolutions, I'm reminded of the things that I
need to do better in life. You know, both on a personal level,
but professionally, and I try to just remind myself of those things.
I don't really have any specific resolutions now. I don't. Yeah, I
feel like if you want to do something, you just do it, and
if you want to change something about the way you're doing something, just change
it. You don't need a new year as a timing mechanism. And it
just seems like designed for failure anyway, exactly. So I feel like these
things I need to do get into better shape whatever, they're a continuum.
Like just giving yourself this goal just because it happens to be the first of
a new month is kind of a way to set yourself up for failure and
as you say, and also just sort of arbitrary in a weird way.
Right. There is this one thing that in religious circles where people just pick
a period of time to do some kind of increased level of you know,
either physical work or prayer or devotion. And I like that idea because you
can always do like a forty days of something or other, and then you
frequently find that once you've done it, you're just locked in and you do
it more. It's like a little trick. It's a little spirit trick anyway.
Absolutely, yeah, No, when I do something it becomes part of
my It's just habitual and you do it right. So those yeah, Clauding
claudiing Gay should have a new Year's resolution to stop plagarizing. What do you
think? I think? So that's an excellent segue. I was going to
say, we have the ultimate gotcha store bouncing story of all time. Probably
anyway, for people who don't know Claudie Gay, I think this week,
I know this week resigned from her post as Harvard president. This all start
a little bit about who she is for star. Yeah, so she's the
president of Harvard. I don't think she's been president for long. I don't
exactly know how long, but it's the shortest tenure of any president ever at
Harvard. But can we go back first to how this all started. So
Harvard the day, you know, the day I believe, the day of
the attacks on October seventh in Israel, a bunch of people, the student
group so so onsite some kind of letter which where they said it was all
this is before any retaliation, but for anything that they signed this letter where
they blamed Israeli's for their own death. I guess, and there's a lot
of antisemitic stuff going on, I believe. And someone asked, who asked?
Who asked her this question? LEAs Stephonic asked her if people are shouting
or one genocide of jewses, is that against like Harvard policy or something?
Right, I forget the exact framing of it, but whatever it was,
she couldn't answer it. She was ridiculous. And then people started looking into
her in her academic work, which I have to say is quite slight,
right. I think she's like published like eleven academic papers. Christopher Rufo again,
I hope I'm pronouncing his name right. I believe was the first person
to point out that there were there was some plagiarism there. I would say
that there were some light plagiarism, and there were some I think consequential plagiarism
in those in those examples, and then it kind of grew and I believe
basically everything she's written has some level of plagiarism in it. I think there
are fifty separate examples of plagiarism. Anyway, So there was a lot of
pressure. What did you want to say about her personally? Did you have
something to say? It felt like, I don't know much about her history.
She's she's the child of Haitian immigrants, and she went to Phillips Exeter
Academy. So I just think about it like she's a black woman, and
that's a big part of, you know, the story, is that you're
not allowed to point out plagiarism allegations against a black woman. But when you
hear like, oh, Haitian immigrant black women, you're kind of like thinking
of a certain type of person and just knowing she went to literally the best
schools in this country, including Phillips Exeter, which is, you know,
such an elite situation. She is the child of extremely wealthy, an extremely
wealthy family, but she didn't work her way up from the streets of Kingston
or anything like that, right, And so this idea that because of the
hue of her skin, you're supposed to like cut her some slack on plagiarism
when in fact she's, you know, one of the most privileged people in
this country is just, to me an interesting part of the story. Yeah,
for sure, for sure. And I want to get more into that
a bit more, because I think this story actually touches on a bunch of
issues that are important right now. In any event, finally, after weeks
of you know, more and more coming forward by the way, you know,
also her colleagues, you know, some of her colleagues found, meaning,
other academics found, you know, instances of plagiarism as well. Wasn't
just conservative activists who did this, and obviously the you know what this does
to an institution of higher learning where there are students who cannet but just point
to the president when they're called I think saying it's okay for her, it's
got to be okay for me. It's just completely corrodes, you know,
just standards in that place. But anyway, she finally stepped down, and
the reaction is just amazing. I don't even really know how else to explain
it. So this AP story is the best. It's the best, and
here it goes. Harvard president's resignation highlights new conservative weapon against colleges colon slagiarism.
Now, let's unpack this. First of all, there is this thing
that goes on in media, goes on on every level, these stories where
Republicans pounce, Republicans do this, Conservatives do that. It is so weird
to me. It's not weird. Actually it is wrong. It is unjournalistic,
if that's a word for journalists when they're writing a story to focus on
who the accuser is first as the main thrust of the story, and then
talk about what the people did wrong second. Do you know what I'm saying,
Like all this Pounds story are all just trying to frame it as conservatives
doing something that is abnormal or wrong, or finding victims or hunting for people
to hurt, rather than talking about what the person actually did. Like that
that's for all the pouncing stories that you see. Yes, that's true that
you should focus on the main story, and little truism of his writing is
that you focus on the main thing and then you fill in the details later,
like that's a sidebar. That's a sidebar to talk about the accuser.
It's also worth noting that like one hundred percent of every story about a conservative
being taken down, one hundred percent of those times it's some like highly paid
left wing activist that found the dirt that brought them down, And you never
ever hear like Soros funded outfit brings down you know. So, and so
it's because you know, the news is whether you what the substance of the
story is but not for Claudine Gay. Well, let's just mention, like,
you know, just to pick it back on what you just said.
Every story that you see about like Clarence Thomas, all these BS stories about
how he's you know, corrupted or whatever, they all come from highly you
know, activist groups that are paid probably by Sourus in the end or whoever.
No one ever mentions that when they're writing about it in the New York
Times. Excepa. Actually that's a great note. That's a great example.
So the all these like made up stories, this potemkin journalism, as you
put it, for trying to take down Clarence Thomas, one of the greatest
living Americans and a really remarkably principled Supreme Court justice. There are literally teams
of like hundreds of researchers and reporters digging through every aspect of that man's life,
harassing neighbors, associates, people who ever knew, people who did know
Clarence Thomas. And they are highly funded at a level like we would never
I would dream of having this type of resources at the Federalists. It's like
unimaginable amount of billionaire fun going into the attempt to destroy the Supreme Court,
and they don't even come up with anything, and it's all left wing,
and nobody mentions that. And the situation with the allegations against Claudine Gay,
they didn't actually originate with conservatives. So that's, by the way, a
lie that comes from these ap stories and otherwise they were circulating on academic message
boards for years. People knew that she had no academic rigor or intellectual rigor,
and yet had become the president of Harvard University despite one of the thinnest
publishing records of any academic, even at like a junior college. And so
there was a lot of complaining about just how weak she was, in addition
to how so much of her work was plagiarized. And it was an associate
of Christopher Rufo, and I'm forgetting his name, and I apologize for that
who first discovered this on these message boards and communicated with Christopher Rufo and then
with Aaron Samaram of the Free Beacon to kind of get more of this out
there and to start looking into her all of her many eleven articles and PhD
dissertation and realizing that all of it was full of plagiarism. But it didn't
originate with conservatives. It originated with academics themselves who were upset by her being
rewarded for a very weak academic record. The Watchdout on Wall Street podcast with
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wherever you get your podcasts. But again, so what if it did so?
What if it was only conservatives who did it? So what The journalistic
work done by the Freebeacon and Ruffo was excellent and if a newspaper had looked
into this, it would be a completely legitimate story. It's just that they're
not doing their jobs. That conservatives have to do this, you know,
I mean, David, did you see where someone said, you know what
to show that this isn't racism that went after the privileged clouding gay we should
look into every university head and see what their academic you know, situation is.
And it was hilarious because of course conservatives are like, no, absolutely
we should because there terms are acceptable and they're all awful, so we would
be happy to look into any one of them. Now, this isn't some
listen, I think again, a lot of times I do think the plagiarism
flame has been weaponized to use a term of like the activists left, but
this is not one of those cases. It was rampant in all the things
she did, and they're like, well, none of her ideas were stolen,
but her ideas were just gibberish nonsense. And you know, you can't
simply take big chunks of other people's work and not attribute it. It's just
it's one of the key you know, it'll get you fired from any use
to be able to you know, you get fired from any news, maybe
you get fired from you know, any university for that kind of transgression.
No, I agree, and I've sometimes been annoyed by how I think we
even maybe talked about this a couple of weeks ago, about how someone will
describe something very in a very similar way to the way someone else does it,
but there aren't really that many ways to describe the given thing, and
people, oh, plagiarism. It's like, well, that's not really what
we're talking about. But the examples cited for cloudingay include like just taking the
whole chunk of someone else's thesis and running with it. And did you see
the CNN guy said it wasn't that she plagiarized, it's that she took other
people's work without attribution. Yeah. I was like, does this man know
what plagiarism? How to define plagiarism? Well, yeah, well let's get
into that. In a moment, I quickly wanted to mention something, just
one last word on the whole Clarence Thomas, and you know the comparison between
those two. When they write those stories, there's nothing there most of the
time or all the time, but they use this performative, overwrought language to
make it sound like it is something, Whereas at the same time, when
they write about Claudine Gay or whoever, they purposefully either deflect or minimize everything.
And this is a kind of bi it's not even a bias. It's
an activism that you should not be doing but for the AP. But you
know, if you're younger, you might not realize, like AP was the
gold standard in straightforward journalism ten years ago, twenty years ago, thirty for
I don't know if they were always that great. They always had a bias,
yes, but they were more straightforward than you'd get at the New York
Times or the Washington Post. At least that was my I actually worked at
AP for a little bit earlier my career. But now, like that's a
new story. That was a new that headline was on a new story.
Now let me read you another line from this new story. I have always
sort of oscillated between thinking people are evil or stupid. I don't know which
one. Maybe they're both sometimes. But there's a line in here that is
great. So this is in the middle of the story on X formerly Twitter.
This is about Christopher Rufo. He wrote quote scalped as if gay was
a trophy of violence, invoking a gruesome practice taken up by white colonists who
sought to eradicate Native Americans. So before we even talking about this, that
story went through an editor, and that story went through a copy editor,
and that story someone put up on the website and was supposed to read,
And none of those people knew that scalped. All those people thought white colonists
were scalping. I mean, I'm glad you can laugh about probably at Clouding
Gay's academic institutions. That's what they teach, you, know, when they're
doing your land acknowledgment about like the unbelievable peacefulness of the Native tribes that were
completely peaceful until the white man came and brought in violence. Like I'm sure
that's what they're being taught. They don't realize, No, I actually think
you're onto something. I don't know that they taught them to that that,
but they definitely teach them that because of color of your skin, because of
your cultural history, or you're just your history, you are prone to doing
the bad things. While the people who have the other kind of color skin
and come from you know, poorer places than poor have are the victims all
the time. So you when you hear something bad happening, you immediately your
reflex is to just assign that bad thing to the white people. And that
is actually like the core of this problem in a way that everyone talks about
skin color like it is some you know, like it defines you in some
way. You know, it defines your work, or it defines anything about
you that that's worth thinking about. And you can see just like I've got
who it was saying, you know, we have to name another black woman
now as president of Harvard, you know, and then when people pointing out
that it should be some conservative, he's like, yeah, to you people,
black people are all interchangeable. No, to you, they're interchangeable.
So let's just talk about this for a second. I mean the low expectations.
Well, how about this, I'll ask you a question. I don't
understand the defense of this at all. Like basically a bunch of leftists are
now like this is a hit job. This is like are they saying that
lagiarism's okay if you're black. I don't really understand even what they're arguing exactly
like you what I'm saying. I think there was someone who published something about
how critiques of plagiarism or white supremacy, But I'm losing track of what people
are mocking in terms of critical race theory and what's actual critical race theory.
So I, I don't know. It's been very interesting to see just how
upset people are that the president of Harvard was brought down through plagiarism allegations.
This does remind me. I was talking to a friend who went to Harvard
and Harvard Law, and he was saying, he was joking, this isn't
actually true, but he was like loving what was happening, even though he
was saying, this material materially decreases the value of his degrees, but he's
so enjoying what's happening to Clauding Gaye that he feels like it's worth it.
He was joking that his politics were motivated mostly by schadenfreuda these days. But
I think, how quickly just quickly say interject there. It literally took fifty
instances of for her to get to step down. She wasn't even fired,
do you know what I'm saying? Like, or you know, maybe she
was pushed out, but it literally you had to find that many just to
get her. And even then she is like put up as this victim of
some kind of conservative you know, loot to undermine universities actually one of the
worst things. I know, it's really wrong to steal other people's work,
so I don't want to belittle that, but I thought her resignation letter was
one of the most appalling things I had seen, where she blames racism for
her theft of other people's work. She doesn't even say that, She just
basically says, like, calling me out on my theft of other people's work
is racism, and I've been subjected to racism. The letter was the letter
yet to not say, to not say you've been chastened, that you'll be
more careful that you you know, and to speak well of everybody involved,
but to lash out. And again, she's not some like child of poverty.
She's a child of a wealthy family that went to the best schools.
And to play this race victimhood is just obscene to me. Well, Harvard
is like the apex of supposed to be the apex of American you know,
education, right, Harvard matters like a lot of our leaders and a lot
of our you know. Yeah, go on, No, I think they
I think that's why people are upset. I think they realize like they've been
able like the the leftist elite has been able to lord over everybody using this
like belief that Harvard educated people are worthy of ruling over us, and that
they have better ideas and better policy ideas, and that they're more moral and
they're more just, and so taking down the president of Harvard is during an
era when people are starting to see so so in so many places that the
emperor has no clothes. It is really humiliating to the left because they they
kind of sense that maybe they're idiots and that they're not very well educated,
and that they're not very smart, and they that it's all like a web
of lies that they should have any authority over the normal people. They're the
ones who, for instance, you know, pushed all of the COVID hysteria
while the people that they look down on looked at those rules with skepticism.
And then the people they looked down on turned out to be right and they
turned out to be the fools. And then this is sort of like a
really credential example, the credential example of it for them, and it's very
humiliating. I think they're embarrassed, they're humiliated, they and they feel insecure
and now everybody's like pointing and laughing at them and it's glorious. Yeah.
At some point, I think in our debate, credentialism sort of trumped actual
knowledge because a lot of these people who go to these schools are educated in
kind of like pseudo intellectual gibberish of intersectionality of whatever, and they don't make
much sense to me at all. Let's talk a little bit about the reaction
again. Now this is Jonathan Shape. He says, this is what kind
of trap repos specializes in exploiting. The rufo's trap was that he went back
thirty years and he got Claudine Gay to plagiarize over and over again, so
that later on, when the time was right, he could trap, you
know, he could get her, Like it's how's this a trap? But
anyway, he tax targets with high ethical standards, which he himself doesn't care
about at all, forcing them to choose between maintaining their standards and resisting his
nakedly, his nakedly political agenda. I made this argument many times. I
don't care if you have a political agenda, as long as what you're saying
is true, Like that's what matters. People went after Nixon had a political
agenda. People went after Clinton had a political agenda, but the things they
were talking about were real and you know or you know whatever. So I
don't understand why that matters so much now in this in this scenario, is
it Harvard that had the high ethical standards, because it's certainly not because she
doesn't make sense, you're right, But also Harvard never never asked for her
resignation publicly, So where are these high ethical standards that they had, I
mean, according to the public knowledge, she simply resigned of her own volition
through no pressure from Harvard. Harvard stood behind her, stood beside her at
the entire process, even just like hiring her showed not the best standards,
certainly not good academic standards. Yeah, it doesn't even make sense. It's
just anger that that RUFO won in a way. I mean, of course
it has a political agenda, but you know, his target. He's not
targeting some you know, professor of biology who's teaching normal things. He's targeting
someone who a is guilty. And there's no First of all, I would
love to ask these people, is plagiarism okay? Is it okay for the
president of Harvard to plagiarize and if so, wise because she's black, is
because she's a one. And don't you think that it's racist to think to
believe that black people can't achieve or do the same things that a white president
would. I mean to me, that seems racist, I mean legitimately because
it is. Yes, yeah, And this is a whole affirmative action argument,
right, And there is now this woman who cheated her way to the
top. In some ways, she has ruined the reputation of a lot of
good academics who are black, because a lot of people now look at high
achieving African Americans and universities and say, are they there because of affirm you
know, this kind of affirmative action, and that's unfair to them, but
they don't care, right, they will defend the person who who is who
is a plagiarist. So did you see that race hustler Ibram x Kendy he
had, Oh yeah, yeah, what did he say? He was saying
he was he was saying, he was saying that. I mean, listen,
he's an identitarian, he's a true, true racist. So his view
is that any one who goes after a black woman is doing it because of
the color of her skin. Now, let me ask you something doesn't even
make sense to me, Like we're you know, conservatives are out there going
after Joe Biden. He's not black. I mean, I just is there.
It's not like conservatives are who is that guy? Who is that?
I read it. When a racist mob attacks a black person, it finds
a seemingly legitimate reason for the attack that allows for it to accrue popular support
and credibility, and which allows the growing mob to deny they are attacking the
person in this way because the person is black, and it goes on from
there. I just think what's funny about it is. Of course, what
actually got Clouding Gay in trouble was her testimony where she said that depending on
the context, it's okay to call for the genocide of Jews on the Harvard
campus. And she's not the first president to get attention from people. The
University of Pennsylvania president was already five or the same disastrous congressional testimony performance.
So the idea that and by the way, that University of Pennsylvania president is
not a black woman, white woman. So the Ibram x Kenny does not
even know enough about the context in which attention was brought to cluding Gay to
understand that his thesis doesn't bear free. First of all, a person who
writes a sentence like that should not be in academia at all, or maybe
they need to be an academia. I don't know. You know, Kenny
was the guy who said that Amy Coney Barrett adopted kids to like, adopted
Haitian kids to like further slavery or something. I forget what it was.
Listen, I don't know why anyone takes them seriously. What they do is
a best selling author and so on. Anyway, it kind of surprises me
how big this story is in the sense of the reaction being so passionate,
because I feel like if this was some conservative, even someone I liked,
you know, some academic, I wouldn't feel the need to protect them over
the plagiar I'd say, listen, you know, they had good ideas or
whatever. I'm sorry that they did this. I wouldn't feel the need to
protect them or defend them over bad behavior. So it's almost like I don't
think that they I think they deserve different standards than other people or something.
Do you know I'm saying like they don't believe in neutral principles. They don't
believe in neutral standards anymore. I don't know, Yeah, I don't know.
I do think that tribalism is not the worst. This is something I
think you and I disagree about quite a bit. I do not view tribalism
as like a dirty word. And there is something good about wanting to defend
your own people. There is a virtue in that, wanting to protect and
defend the people in your in group. Conservatives are very bad at that.
They're like, the moment trouble comes to someone in their in group, they
like toss that person over board. And the left shows the other extreme error
here, I think, which is to defend it at all costs and to
have no principles that you hold to in this case. I'm not saying that's
like universal for either group. It's interesting. I'm probably naive here, but
I think that the reason as many conservatives don't view power in the same way
maybe, and they view like they like process. They like let's say,
constitutional process. So for them, it's more about less about people in positions
than a system let's say, you know, or something like that. But
I don't know. I don't know if this relates. But I do remember
when the allegations came against Brett Kavanaugh, I was in a I think I
think I just talked about this too. I was in a group of people
where some of the journalists on the right were like, boy, this sounds
serious. And my first instinct was, this sounds a lot like what they
tried to do against Clarence And I don't trust the Washington Post. So if
they're going to prove to me that Brett Kavanaugh, a federal judge for twelve
years, is a serial gang rape or you know, as a rapist,
I'm going to demand a hell of a lot more than whatever this thinly like
weirdly written Washington Post story is. That was like my initial instinct, and
you could you could view that as bad, like I should have just you
know, taken the Washington Post at face value and that I was being too
tribalistic. But I also just think the context of the battle is important too.
I think the fact that Christopher Ruffo telegraphs that he's coming after Clouding Gay
because she is advancing dangerous ideology like DEI racism, gives people on the left
this belief that they can therefore defend her on the same grounds. Yeah,
what do you think. I think that's right. I just going back to
Kavanaugh and stuff like that. A long time ago, when I was a
young person, like there was bias in papers. But if the Washington Post,
let's say, came forward with the story and said they knew something had
happened, you know they had sources that said that, you would have to
trust that that was true, because there's no way you'd think in your mind
that they would publish this if someone hadn't said it or if it wasn't true.
But that is no longer the case. It's the opposite, right,
But it's also in a sense unfalsifiable. Like the Russia collusion hopes. When
it first happened, you're like shell shocked a little bit. You're like,
I don't know, it sounds pretty crazy, right, Like, but would
all these papers, would all these people in government say it's true if it
wasn't, Well, yeah they would. But at that time, you know,
it was a little you know, and I know that you were quickly
skeptical of it, and I was skeptical a little later. But initially for
a normal person, it's like, whoa, you know, this is a
big deal, and they wouldn't move forward with this without it being true.
I think now we don't trust papers at all, so I wouldn't trust them.
But at the time in the past, it was a little bit different.
So even with Kavanaugh. Kavanaugh was the moment I think that broke me
completely, Like I just was so angry about it because it was exactly what
happened to Clarence Thomas. Like even the way they unfolded the whole thing was
almost the same, except the difference was the charges were so odious and despicable.
They were worse than what they said about Clarence Thomas. And they still
run around saying that there are two sexual predators on the court, like all
I see it all the time anyway, Yeah, I think it all ties
in, It all ties into each other. And it's my point was only
that they can't even take a loss when it's so obvious. You know,
this is just a clear loss. She's obviously not a good academic. And
by the way, is this true, because I couldn't really find it's she
still works there, she's still pulling in a nine hundred thousand dollars check.
Yeah, I think so. I believe that's the case. I do think
the DEI thing is interesting. It's also not just Harvard that has been brought
low through its devotion to DEI. This is the Diversity, Equity Inclusion racism
program. So they rebranded racism as DEI to advantage what they called disadvantage groups
and to disadvantage what they call advantaged groups. And it has been just a
complete you know, just this is a great way to show what kind of
failure it is when you pick people for racist reasons instead of academic performance or
leadership ability, you have problems like this arise. Corporations are also feeling the
crunch during the BLM insurrection. By the way, I just want to say
a listener was pointing out that the BLM riots of twenty twenty were so much
more of an insurrection than anything that happened on the afternoon of January sixth,
which is undoubtedly true. It was nationwide, it was coordinated, it was
done to unseat a you know, a political party, and it worked quite
well actually, through violence, arson, murder, attacks on the White House,
attacks on the Federal Courthouse, a tax on police precincts. Anyway,
after the BLM insurrection, of twenty twenty, corporations gave more than like one
hundred billion dollars in in bribe money to BLM groups and causes, And they
also instituted DEI programs where they would put the racism directly into the corporations.
They would have racist hiring practices, racist promotion practices, racist groups built into
the corporation. They invested a lot of money, and this was at a
time when there was a lot of money to be had, and now the
money is a little and they're starting to let go some of these DEI people,
people who were hired based solely on identity reasons, racist, sexist,
or other identity based discrimination reasons. And you read the Wall Street Journal,
a lot of people are starting to let some of these people go or look
for ways to cut out their DEI programs, which have not resulted in any
net gain for the company. And so I think the clouding gay firing happening
at the same time that corporations are kind of softening the blackmail money that they
were paying to the BLM rioters also relates. Yeah, I wonder if things
are going to change because of this kind of skeptical they will. I think
this is kind of thinking so ingrained now that it's just tough. And these
are the people, by the way, from Harvard who go on to work
at newspapers, who go on to work in the State Department, who go
on and work in banks, and our lawyers and all this stuff. So
you know, it's actually spreading, not being contained. True, But there's
it's also true that the American people don't love racism. And there's just no
question that the left and DII is just like horrifically racist stuff. And like
when you look at normal people in day to day operations, they don't they
aren't racist, they don't like racism, they don't have racist interactions with their
neighbors. This is true regardless of people's skin color, black, white,
Asian, Hispanic people aren't big fans of racism. Harvard is a big fan
of racism, and the elite left are big fans of racism. And yes
they are very powerful, but I'm not I don't think it's like a lost
cause to fight against racism, even if they have all the power, anymore
than it was a lost cause to fight against the racism of you know,
the slave holders, and they're agents of power in a previous era. That's
a good point, I do think, and I've said this and people laugh
when you say it, but with the least racist place on earth, for
sure, and most Americans don't act that way, even I think Americans who
maybe just repeat slogans a BLMA writer actually in the real world probably don't act
that way. So maybe there's hope. It's such a down I just don't
think. Let me buy this way. I don't think in our best schools
there's much hope. And that's fine. Harvard doesn't have isn't you know,
It isn't the Holy Temple. You know, it's just the school. It
can crumble and new things can rise that are better, you know, because
I just I wouldn't trust this is book in the seventies called social Science is
sorcery that I love, And I just feel like that institution has been taken
over by sorcery. Like I'm not talking about the hard sciences but the rest
of it. So don't we need better schools? Yes? Do I think
better schools will emerge? I do actually think that. I think you saw
there are stories about people holding back their kids from going to Harvard. Now
they don't want their kids there, So maybe that's a good sign. I
don't know. I think you go to a state school and probably get a
better education, and then you can at Harvard right now when it comes to
political science or you know, any kind of social science. Okay, let's
move on to culture, because I think we've had enough of the dour situation
out the real world escapism? What'd you do? What you want? Would
I have done nothing but watch television. I don't even remember all the things
I've watched. Should I just go through some of it? Yeah? I
just say so. Many emailers are like, your culture sections the best part
of your show. Sometimes I'm like, what are we even talking about the
serious stuff? To go on? Yeah, I want to hear this.
We hold on, let me get my pen, all right, go okay.
I saw Cinderella man Oh with Russell Crowe. Yeah, I thought that
was joy directed by Ron it's his name, Ron Howard, Ron Howard,
and she was good and it was I don't I mean, there's not much
more to say that. It was a it was a nicely done film.
A zell Wigger. I'm not a bulan of her. It was good,
okay, great depression era movie. I saw the Red Shoes. Have you
seen that? It was a Powell and Pressburger film. One of the listeners
had recommended it after I talked about a previous Powell and Pressburger film. And
it is so good. It's first of all, they're just amazing directors,
and they also did the screenplay. And it's kind of based on this Hans
Christian Anderson fairy tale called The Red Shoes, which is about a young girl
who gets adopted and puts on red shoes and then like it kind of controls
her life. So this movie is about a ballerina who has to choose between
her love of dancing and love, and it is it's just it's otherworldly and
it's really great and I would highly recommend it, and I can't stop thinking
about it. So that's from like the forties or something, that movie Old
One. Yeah, and there's this like scene in it that goes on for
like twenty minutes of a ballet, which is just breathtaking. Everything about what
you just said does not sound like it's up my alley, but I will
give it a shot. Ballet, I will tell you, well, I
do like ballet, that's true. But Mark liked it too, okay,
okay. I made it about twenty five minutes into a movie called Deck the
Halls, and then I had to stop because it was so bad. I
don't know what that is. Who's in it? It was, oh gosh,
who's Sarah, Jessica Parker's husband, Matthew Broderick, Yeah, and Danny
Devado and Kristin Davis and Kristin Chenowick. And it was just it just had
no there's no reason to watch it, okay. So then I watched again
Muppets Most Wanted, which is a solid Uppets movie. I like the Muppets
a lot. I pretty much like everything the Muppets have ever done. And
this is a movie about Kermit getting kidnapped and put into a Soviet gulag and
then Constantine, this other frog that looks just like Kermit, replacing Kermit on
a world tour of the Muppets, and it's just great. It has Ricky
Gervas in it, and Tina Fey and a bunch of other people. I'm
a fan of the Muppets, so okay, great, And then and it
has great songs that my kids and I like to sing. I also watched
Ricky Gervay's's new comedy Special. Yeah, I didn't think it was that great.
Also, I feel like he thinks he's really transgressive, but it was
pretty weak. In my mind. He does it in a way somehow that
seem is careful, right, a little bit more careful than people giving credit
for being I think I haven't seen that special though now. Yeah, so
I don't know. There's just something that I didn't And then I was gonna
watch the Dave Chappelle one, but I haven't done that yet. Oh I
did watch. I mentioned I've done nothing but lay in bed twenty four hours
a day. I watched a little bit of The Dave Chappelle Show. I
revisited that. It's just great. I love Davelle. That's funny. Okay.
I also watched The Big Sleep with Bogart and Bacall. That was excellent.
I really liked it. Okay, have you seen it a long time
ago? Yeah? I think it's their first movie they did as a married
couple. I watched the Wham documentary and I have to say it was fantastic.
I watched it. Oh did you Netflix? Yeah? Did you like
it? Yeah? Just a thing. I will watch any documentary about any
music, band anything, and I did. I thought it was good.
I mean, the music is just insufferable, but this story was kind of
interesting. So I liked WHAM, I liked George Michael, and I Andy
Ridgeley. Yeah, I thought that was really fascinating to see the evolution of
George Michael. And of course it ends so horribly sadly like that was like
the nicest part of George Michael's life in one way, but so narcissistic,
so driven to success in a you know, clearly a genius and I mean
even seeing how he was writing these songs and producing these songs, like truly
a brilliant mind. But it was interesting how little of an ego the other
dude had. In a way, he was just along for the ride and
he kind of knew it and he was okay with it, it seemed to
me. And he just lived had fun in his life, which didn't seem
like George Michael did. Yes, he seemed to have a sense of himself
that George Michael did not have. And Mark was telling me that George Michael's
dad is a legit communist. I don't know if that's true or not.
Interesting and but with George Michael ending up with the drugs and the anonymous sex
and the like failures and love and all that. It was just anyway.
Okay, I rewatched The Godfather, and I want to say again that is
a fantastic film. Have you heard about this film called The Godfather? Of
course? Yeah. I like to watch it once a year. And I'm
kind of sad about what al Pacino became because he's just like a revelation in
that movie, as is Marlon Brando. He was a revelation in a lot
of movies, especially in the seventies. Yeah, yes, but then you
know how now he's like, I'm al Pacino. You know, it's just
like boring and he is like in his eighties, still making children. Okay,
I saw Runaway Jury. You would know Gene Hackman's in it. I
think yes, no, no, John Cusac maybe both, Okay, And
it's I'm just showing off my recall on these things. It's this anti gun
fantasy. It's like anti gun porn. Basically I probably saw years ago and
forgot. Remember in the nineties, like every movie was about like a courtroom
drama or whatever, so they all kind of bleed into each other. Well,
speaking of I also saw the Verdict. Have you seen that? Yeah?
I think we spoke about this recent David Mammott with yea, yeah,
you're right, okay. And then our family tradition, which we don't want
anyone to know because it's so we've talked about this before too. But we
watched Trapped in Paradise, which is my favorite Christmas film with excellent messages.
I will say some listeners wrote in either that they loved it or they hated
it, and that seems to be the reaction of one hundred percent of watchers
of this film. They either love it or they hate it. So no
one's like, man, it was okay, no worry, passionately into it,
or I think scarbage. So let me remind me. So this is
Nicholas Cage John love it. It was that comedian uh I forget his name.
You mean he was on Saturny Live. Yeah, it's a Dana Carvey.
And Dan Carvey is definitely like the most annoying part of the film.
He's contentionally annoying, but it, to me does the best job of giving
actual theological Christmas messages. Really Christmas film really particularly about forgiveness of sins.
No, it's I'm pretty I have to watch it now. This seems that
it just doesn't seem like the type of movie that's going to give sound theological
advice. But I will definitely check it out and about Christian living and how
we are transformed through faith in Christ. Very bad all that. You see
that kind of thing in a lot of shows, because you take out the
best parts of them and you're like, oh, you're like, you're like
that. I'm trying to think of some crazy You're like scar face. It's
all about you know, redemption or whatever. So like, what was it?
Girls? Like it's like the most conservative show ever? And I put
it on, Oh it is. It was like pornography. It's but okay,
right, okay, sorry that I've just told you like twelve things,
and I don't even think I got half of what I have watched. I
don't even remember all of that I watched. Or I watched a little like
half hour Christmas special by the people who made Chicken Run. Oh yeah,
yeah it was on Netflix. Yeah, I like those claimations before Christmas.
Yeah, Wallace and Gramat was that what they did? Yeah? That was
good, totally my speed. It's it's a tale about the redemption of Do
you is that it or do you have more? I think so for now.
I watched a few things i've I was not sick, but I was
a little busy working on my book. But I did take time to watch
Barbie finally, and I thought it was fine. Like I didn't hate it
and didn't love it. Did you hate it? I forget I did.
I neither hated nor loved it. I thought it was way over sold,
but I didn't hate it. I wasn't one of these people who was like
that was awful. I did realize that if you watch it, so you
know that like really annoying America. What is her name? America? Oh
yeah, like the monormy in the movie Who's Yeah, she gives a speech
about how awful it is to be a woe. Oh right, yeah,
yeah. Yeah. Hated it, And I hated the idea that my daughters
would get a negative view of being a woman, because I love being a
woman and I think it's a wonderful gift from God, and I hate it
when people are like down on it, and it sort of like instructs people
in hatred of their own sex. But I thought if you understood that speech
as an anti feminism speech, like feminism does these things to women, it
goes over much better. That's interesting. I did not view it like that
when I was listening to it, but now that you're saying that, it
makes sense. I felt like a lot of that speech and other things like
that were very cliche. They'd been in movies before. We've heard women complaining
about them before. It didn't seem very revolutionary to me. I just felt
like they wanted to make a Barbie movie, but they needed to infuse it
with something more serious to sell it to people. But it really was just
a Barbie movie, you know, and it just had a lot of tropes
about men and women that simply aren't really true most of the time. But
it was entertaining enough to watch, I thought so. One of my daughters
said that her favorite part of the film was when Ken discovered the patriarchy and
dragged it back to barbieland so I feel like that was good. My problem
with the patriarchy was that he didn't make it work right. I mean,
they all just were lazy. They weren't doing anything constructive when men obviously are
very constructive when they have power and build a lot of things. I thought
it was funny that he had to like go back to the nineteen eighties for
examples of patriarchy, because we have we have long housed our way into the
for the last thirty some years. And you know, it's annoying too.
There are a lot of women CEOs out there. I don't know what the
number is, but there. You know, when they showed the board there,
it's just all stupid men and they're all dumb. Oh. Also,
there were they in their world. There were no female Supreme Court justices in
the real world. It was like since the one we've had you. Anyway,
there was one scene where they mentioned in the background Steve Malcamus a pavement
for some reason. So I like that anyway. I thought it was fine.
I mean, I just I didn't get what all of hubbub was about.
I watched Rebel Moon. Have you heard about this? I I've only
heard of it. I don't know what is it? Like? What is
is it a book that became a TV series or what's the So the guy
you made, oh my gosh, I'm gonna forget his name. He directed
three hundred and some other movies. And he pitched some Star Wars movie and
they rejected him. So he basically took that story and built out this thing.
It's going to be I think a trilogy. Rebel Moon spent a lot
of money on it. It's on Netflix. Everyone thinks it's like the worst
thing possible, and I kind of liked it, so, I don't know.
I thought it was fine. It's just science fiction y. It's very
similar to Star Wars. Maybe it's a little more grown up, like a
grown up Star Wars kind of thing, which doesn't you didn't like you're not
a Star Wars person right when I was six and seven. I feel like
that's a way to insult me. I don't know how, but I feel
like you're saying that I shouldn't be into this sort of thing. But I
do like science fiction and good science fiction moving be honest with you, they're
quite rare. Have you ever watched this thing on YouTube called Tasting History?
No, So this guy, I think his name is Max Miller. Max
Miller, he will take recipes from the ancient world and make them or he'll
like he made like Babylonian beer and he made you know, he does the
best approximation of these things that he can, but he doesn't use as the
process they use then, so he'll make what's in rome. They all ate
this fish sauce condiment. I forget what it's called. Yeah we made that,
or he may mead, you know whatever. And so I really enjoy
that show. It's a good one, so I thought I would recommend it.
I watched sort of watching Reacher season two on Amazon, and I think
it's better than season one. I like it. That's another thing. I
finished Slow Horses me too. I love that show, and I thought season
three was the weakest. But I love that show. So at the end
they show scenes for next season, so we're always like, I know it's
in the bag already, and I just saw it got renewed for season five.
So I like everyone in that show. Actually, but I obviously I
love Ary Oldman is so amazing and as you say, his commitment to his
character, he's all in on that. Yeah. I thought season three was
kind of ludicrous, like in terms of plot, but Mark was pointing out
that for however ludicrous it was, it's a very well directed show, like
you never lost track of what they were claiming was happening and right, it's
somewhat complex in the way those spy books are complex. But yet Yeah,
you can follow a long and there's a bit of there's enough like action,
but it's not too much. It's just it's just the right balance. And
then Gary Oldman just shows up every few scenes and you're like, yeah,
and he's funny and h gross. Yeah. Yes, I also find it
annoying though, how insecure their location is. It's just a it's just a
building on the road where anyone to walk in, and they put like files
in there of great import yes, national security. And then to get into
the other place, like he's really got to jump through hoops to get in
there. Yeah, it's kind of ridiculous. The whole thing I mean is
it's not like season one was plausible or see, like, none of nothing's
plausible without it at all. But it's just fun, right, it's just
escapist. Yeah, anyway, REATA has nothing to do with that. But
it's not a bad show. It's okay. Oh. I also started one
no Go this is why we're here this week I took off was really amazing.
Louder Milk, We've talked about this years ago. I love that show.
I absolutely love that show. Yeah, he is so funny. I
think so he's it's a story about an ex a music critic. I guess
he's just this grouchy gen x or I think it might be a Canadian show.
I'm not sure, but it is. You know, it's funny.
It's the guy from Office Space. I guess he was in like Sex in
the City or whatever as well or something. I don't know follow him in
those shows, but yeah, his character. My husband's not an ex addict,
but he's grouchy, and so his character reminds me of my husband trying
to like learn how to be less grouchy. It's funny seeing people that you
watched when you were young be older, but not having seen them in between,
do you know what I mean? So, like, this actor just
shows up in my life. But what's funny is I was telling my wife
the other day how I like people ask me, like, I hurt my
arm right, and they how'd you hurt your arm? And I'd say sleeping,
Like I hurt myself sleeping. You know you're old when your injuries occur
when you're doing nothing. And he has a whole skit on that anyway,
Okay, so I just want to point out to bring things round. So
his name is Ron Livingston. Yeah, he is married to Rose Marie de
Witt. Who's that. She's an actress who was in Cinderella Man playing like
a character who's like a friend of the Renees Elwiger character. She is also,
however, the granddaughter of the real Cinderella Man or the great granddaughter.
Oh, I think that's it, the great grandletter. Interesting she was in
the movie about her own ancestor. Wow, everything really came together there.
I have other stuff, but I don't even think I should say anything.
Perfect wrap up. And I did watch Shane Gillis finally that show that was
funny, and I started reading this is such a bad way. And but
I started reading Kissinger's memoirs because I'm so into him right now. I read
his one of his biographies. He's took. I had such So there are
people in history I have the wrong conception of completely, and he's one of
them. I just think that he probably was one of the smartest men to
ever like work in our government. You know, just such high views and
then not high views of him, don't get me wrong. Yeah, he's
a complicated figure for sure. Yes, but his memoirs are so well written,
and there's I just there's three. I think I forgot what they're called
exactly. One of them is The White House Years, and his just uh,
you really get inside the White House and it's just really interesting if you're
into that sort of thing. I doubt I'm going to finish it. Beca's
like five thousand pages. That's a for me. And uh, yeah,
well it was nice seeing you. Missed you last week and we'll be back
next week. Until then, Beuve was a freedom and anxious for afraid. Yeah,