Speaker 1: Good evening, and welcome to another edition of the Cajun
Speaker 1: Night Live. I am your host, the Cajun Knight, Jacob Mook,
Speaker 1: and welcome everybody to another group. We've got a lot
Speaker 1: of things to discuss this evening. We're gonna start off
Speaker 1: primarily talking about some of the interesting and controversial things
Speaker 1: going on in the good old us of A. Then
Speaker 1: I've got some things that we're gonna talk about on
Speaker 1: the international stage, some Europeans things, some Russian, Ukrainian things,
Speaker 1: maybe some Israel Gaza things. We're gonna jump all over
Speaker 1: the place. For anybody listening that would like to be
Speaker 1: a part of the Wednesday Night Cajun Night Lives, then
Speaker 1: please come to the link in the description below and
Speaker 1: go to the Patreon. There's only one tier for injury,
Speaker 1: and we're trying to grow this thing to be its
Speaker 1: own autonomous group of individuals sharing ideas and information, philosophy,
Speaker 1: all the things. Let's just jump straight into it here. Also,
Speaker 1: I should mention Patreon is the only place where you're
Speaker 1: gonna be able to find a video for all these things.
Speaker 1: So if you want to see what we're talking about,
Speaker 1: this place to go. So I didn't know this, But
Speaker 1: did y'all know that AOL dial up is still a thing?
Speaker 1: It was, but it is about to go offline. This
Speaker 1: is from ABC News. AOL is set to pull the
Speaker 1: plug on the iconic dial up internet service, y'all. I
Speaker 1: honestly didn't know that this was even still offered. I
Speaker 1: you know, this is about as crazy to me as
Speaker 1: to say, well, I guess we're gonna take down the
Speaker 1: old telegraph lines. People ain't really using it no more
Speaker 1: Like I genuinely thought that this went by the wayside
Speaker 1: and somewhere in the mid two thousands. But here we are,
Speaker 1: and they are finally about to pull the plug. They
Speaker 1: got a little video on this article that we could
Speaker 1: just play, and then we're gonna talk a little bit
Speaker 1: more about it. Let's go, oh that iconic sound.
Speaker 2: Time now for our last call we love and remember
Speaker 2: that classic Tom Hanks med Ryan film rom com. You've
Speaker 2: got mail? But do you remember hearing that dial up sound?
Speaker 2: Well we literally put it in the show in case
Speaker 2: you are under thirty and don't remember.
Speaker 3: Well.
Speaker 2: Now America Online or AOL, is now announcing that it's
Speaker 2: pulling the plug on the long time dial up service
Speaker 2: this September thirty. So we're gonna bring back the panel.
Speaker 2: And first, everybody quick raise your hands. Do you remember
Speaker 2: dial up? Did you ever have it in your house?
Speaker 2: And while everyone's putting their hands up, Mike, where the
Speaker 2: heck is Bike's hands? Okay, thank you, Mike, you are
Speaker 2: our resident tech expert. I'm going to you bring us
Speaker 2: back to those early days of dial up.
Speaker 1: You have ten.
Speaker 4: Seconds, really quickly. The fact that one hundred and seventy five,
Speaker 4: two hundred and fifty thousand Americans in twenty twenty five
Speaker 4: to rely on dial up gives me an indication, as
Speaker 4: class cold water of me that there still is a
Speaker 4: problem in access with brough up in infrastructure, and we
Speaker 4: still need so much digital literacy in a way that
Speaker 4: we're heading toward the AI future that we're in right now.
Speaker 1: I love you.
Speaker 2: That was so succinct and so well said. Mike, took
Speaker 2: up all the time. Everybody else gets one word, Heidi,
Speaker 2: how do you feel about dial up going away? One word?
Speaker 1: Who's surprised?
Speaker 2: Not?
Speaker 5: That's okay?
Speaker 2: That was that was a couple of words. That's okay. Meheck,
Speaker 2: how do you feel about dial up going away?
Speaker 6: I'm with Mike on this one, one hundred percent agree
Speaker 6: with him.
Speaker 1: We have one minute left.
Speaker 2: I was told to move quickly through this segment, but
Speaker 2: we have a minute left, which is an hour in
Speaker 2: television PREA you get the rest of the time. How
Speaker 2: do you feel about dial up going away?
Speaker 7: Well, in all fairness, I did grow up on the
Speaker 7: tail end of dial up before everybody else got regular Internet.
Speaker 7: But I will say it does make me sad. It's
Speaker 7: just one another piece that gen Z gets to claw
Speaker 7: away from this millennial.
Speaker 1: That is pretty funny that gen Z are never going
Speaker 1: to understand dial up or even know what that tone is.
Speaker 1: But neither here nor there. I did like the point
Speaker 1: that was made by Mike Muse. As we are entering
Speaker 1: the AI generation, we still have over one hundred and
Speaker 1: fifty thousand people that are still using dial up as
Speaker 1: of time of recording. That's pretty insane to me. I
Speaker 1: genuinely thought that that was a foregone technology. But you'll
Speaker 1: learn something new every day. Let's get after it here.
Speaker 1: It's the end of an era for AOL. After more
Speaker 1: than thirty years of connecting people to the Internet through
Speaker 1: the dial up, AOL is hanging up its iconic service.
Speaker 1: AOL routinely evaluates its products and services and has decided
Speaker 1: to discontinue dial up Internet to the company's website states
Speaker 1: this service will no longer be available on AOL plans.
Speaker 1: The change will not affect any other benefits for your AOL.
Speaker 1: The company stated the service and dialer software will be
Speaker 1: discontinued as of September thirtieth, twenty twenty five. The distinctive,
Speaker 1: high pitched dial tone, humming and worrying may sound like
Speaker 1: a distant memory of an early Internet days for some,
Speaker 1: especially with the advent of wireless model connections that have
Speaker 1: replaced the conventional phone line technology. America Online is the
Speaker 1: Internet pioneer of the early nineteen nineties, changed its name
Speaker 1: to AOL in two thousand and six. Maybe that's why
Speaker 1: I thought it went away when it changed, like officially
Speaker 1: the name change. Maybe I thought that they also did
Speaker 1: away with dial up altogether at that time. I don't know.
Speaker 1: I was. I was still a child in six I
Speaker 1: who knows, well I say that, yeah, freshman hight, Yeah,
Speaker 1: I was a kid. I was a kid anyone. In
Speaker 1: twenty seventeen, it shut down the popular instant messenger service AIM. Wow.
Speaker 1: I didn't know that aim was still up and operating
Speaker 1: in twenty seventeen. That's crazy. And there's also some iconic
Speaker 1: sounds that come to memory with that, the door closing,
Speaker 1: the door opening, anyone, anyone. And the company was sold
Speaker 1: to Apollo Global Management in twenty twenty one, becoming the
Speaker 1: new Yahoo, Inc.
Speaker 5: Wow.
Speaker 1: So yeah, just kind of starting off with a lighthearted conversation, right,
Speaker 1: this is the end of an era, a legitimate end
Speaker 1: of era. Not mad at it, not sad about it.
Speaker 1: And I'm like, oh man, that's one. It's it is
Speaker 1: a thing that we everybody that we're actually using the
Speaker 1: internet during this timeframe will be able to remember, and
Speaker 1: pretty much everybody born from I mean, honestly, I would
Speaker 1: say probably two thousand and six onward, but realistically there
Speaker 1: may still be some small remnants of it, one hundred
Speaker 1: and fifty thousand people in America that will be able
Speaker 1: to speak with actual clarity on the dial up tone,
Speaker 1: that legendary signature sound. But it's also pretty interesting to
Speaker 1: see how technology is traversed and is moving forward as
Speaker 1: fast as it is. Moving on to the next topic,
Speaker 1: the urban vertical Farming project. So I don't know if
Speaker 1: anybody's heard this, but this actually makes sense to me,
Speaker 1: so quick breakdown before we get into the article. I
Speaker 1: know that in my area of the country there are
Speaker 1: two big super mals, right, big malls that used to
Speaker 1: be like the pop and spot. There was one called
Speaker 1: ball Marche and it was the mall like when you
Speaker 1: and your friends would go to the mall that was
Speaker 1: the spot. Then the mall at Cortana was built, and
Speaker 1: anybody in and around Baton Rouge will understand some of
Speaker 1: these terms. Everybody else will think I'm just making up terms.
Speaker 1: It doesn't matter. Just bear with me here. Ball Marche
Speaker 1: became the rougher place to go shop and Cortana was
Speaker 1: like the spot. Then the Mall of Louisiana was built
Speaker 1: right by the Interstate. Then the Cortana Mall became kind
Speaker 1: of the rundown section and nobody really shot there. There
Speaker 1: was only a few stores that would even remain open.
Speaker 1: But these buildings are still in place. These buildings have
Speaker 1: a lot of skylights and direct sunlight, and they're indoor.
Speaker 1: They're close proximity to big highways, they have big parking lots.
Speaker 1: The infrastructure is still there to do something with these buildings,
Speaker 1: but it's not a lot of people that are opening
Speaker 1: up stores anymore, especially with Amazon and all kinds of
Speaker 1: online shopping, and then things being delivered straight to your door.
Speaker 1: You no longer have to go to like try on
Speaker 1: shoes at this point, you can just have them delivered
Speaker 1: straight to your door. So big mall complexes are starting
Speaker 1: to be more and more phased out. That being said,
Speaker 1: there is a group that is currently working at using
Speaker 1: these buildings in these locations for more effective and productive means,
Speaker 1: So let's talk about it here. Time magazine once described
Speaker 1: malls as pleasure domes with parking malls in general. Strip
Speaker 1: malls in particular, are ubiquitous in suburban areas or suburban America. Rather,
Speaker 1: built in the nineteen fifties, sixties, and seventies during rapid
Speaker 1: suburban expansion and rapidly increasing car usage. For better or worse,
Speaker 1: they were once a sign of progress. Now a major
Speaker 1: enclosed mall hasn't been built in the United States since
Speaker 1: two thousand and six, and many are completely abandoned. According
Speaker 1: to Don Wood, the CEO of the Federal Yet Reality
Speaker 1: Investment Trust, even the process of knocking down or converting
Speaker 1: a mall could take as long as two decades. And
Speaker 1: I can understand that too, tearing down that large of
Speaker 1: a structure and hauling off the rubble, rezoning it if
Speaker 1: it's listed as commercial, if you're trying to rezone it
Speaker 1: for apartment complexes to residential. It's not like it's an
Speaker 1: impossible feat. It takes time and it takes money, and
Speaker 1: I don't mean a little money, I mean deep, deep
Speaker 1: pockets to make that kind of big change happen. So
Speaker 1: it's a thing. So the structures may be here to stay,
Speaker 1: but they don't have to just be a homage to
Speaker 1: what once was abandoned malls and strip malls could be
Speaker 1: easily and efficiently converted into vertical farms. So where are
Speaker 1: strip malls headed in the short term? Why we should
Speaker 1: grow food in mixed use structures and think more about
Speaker 1: their impact on the local economies. And doesn't make sense
Speaker 1: to convert a strip mall to a vertical farm. Let's
Speaker 1: break this down. So, so their present abandonment actually has
Speaker 1: a lot to do with the success they had in
Speaker 1: their early days. At that time, it was almost unimaginable
Speaker 1: a strip mall would be torn down, worthless or avoided.
Speaker 1: As a result, leases were signed, sometimes for more than
Speaker 1: fifty years. However, those leases had one important omission, an
Speaker 1: option to terminate that actually made a little sense back then,
Speaker 1: But now communities pay for developer and realature strong sightedness
Speaker 1: or short sightedness rather, though, you can't be too hard
Speaker 1: on them for failing to predict the Internet and online
Speaker 1: shopping with these awful structures, right, But what if we
Speaker 1: could put them to good use? As The New Yorker noted,
Speaker 1: in some cases the buildings have been converted into community colleges,
Speaker 1: corporate headquarters, or churches. But what about vertical farms? They're
Speaker 1: definitely possible. But let's look at the conventional wisdom about
Speaker 1: strip mall's first and what they that industry looks like
Speaker 1: in the short term, strip malls in the short term
Speaker 1: in terms of symbolism, excuse me, symbolism. There's actually a
Speaker 1: website called deadmalls dot com. That's just a gallery of failure. Wow, okay,
Speaker 1: that's that's kind of funny. I didn't know there was
Speaker 1: a website strictly devoted to taking pictures of the ruins
Speaker 1: of what was once shopping malls. That's that's pretty funny. Okay.
Speaker 1: The Internet just be Internet, and doesn't it The primary
Speaker 1: reason for these failings is that the anchor stores think
Speaker 1: about like the big stores that are usually at the
Speaker 1: perimeter of the mall, think of your Dillards, your Sears,
Speaker 1: you know, these types of things have lost so much
Speaker 1: ground to online shopping. These were the stores that drove
Speaker 1: traffic to malls in the first place and allowed these
Speaker 1: smaller retailers with less of an advertising budget to bring
Speaker 1: people to their doors. Wow. Yeah, that's just the nature's
Speaker 1: starting to overtake what was once the mall. That's crazy.
Speaker 1: Even more shutdowns are on the way. According to an
Speaker 1: industry study reported on the Wall Street Journal, in order
Speaker 1: to regain past levels of profit, department stores will have
Speaker 1: to close over eight hundred locations. Mall owners will struggle
Speaker 1: to fill spaces of that size, often resorting to discount
Speaker 1: retailers like TJ Max and Marshals, or converting the spaces
Speaker 1: to moviet theaters, which is also something that's going by
Speaker 1: the wayside because of all the streaming surfaces. So anyway,
Speaker 1: this leads to decreased traffic for the entire mall environment,
Speaker 1: meaning even more closures will follow in an increasingly vicious cycle.
Speaker 1: So let's jump ahead here. To where it talks about
Speaker 1: growing food in mixed use spaces. Mixed use first to
Speaker 1: the development that combines residential, commercial, institutional, and industrial uses
Speaker 1: in a way where it is physically and functionally cenergetic
Speaker 1: and that facilitates foot traffic. I personally hate the words
Speaker 1: synergy and synergetic, but I know it's going to be
Speaker 1: used in this good bit. Let's just get after him anyway.
Speaker 1: Let's look at Jane for a quick example. Jane is
Speaker 1: an accountant at a local firm across the street from
Speaker 1: an apartment where she lives. On a typical day, she
Speaker 1: packs your lunch and heads across the street for a
Speaker 1: pleasant nine to five on of her clients. That thing
Speaker 1: is supposed to be. One of her clients is the
Speaker 1: local grocer, which is the first floor in the same
Speaker 1: building as her apartment on the sixth. She works on
Speaker 1: her account until closing, when she meets some friends for
Speaker 1: a happy hour a restaurant downstairs from the office. Jane
Speaker 1: orders a beer, which the restaurant bruise itself. Not only
Speaker 1: does it sell the beer at its own bar, but
Speaker 1: it also sells it at the grocery store next door.
Speaker 1: Jane also orders a salad at a restaurant. Some of
Speaker 1: the produce comes from the same grocery store, which has
Speaker 1: worked out in a wholesale deal with the restaurants they
Speaker 1: both save on shipping, but a large portion of that
Speaker 1: salad is greens, and the greens come from hydroponics farmed
Speaker 1: on the top floor of the building that Jane lives in,
Speaker 1: where can harness sunlight and HVAC exhaust from the apartments
Speaker 1: and turn it into energy. The hydroponic farm supplies both
Speaker 1: restaurl and grocer and also gets its taxes done with Jane.
Speaker 1: That actually sounds like a pretty solid setup, which, if
Speaker 1: I'm not mistaken, is also something that they're trying to
Speaker 1: do with the line in Dubai. It's a very all
Speaker 1: enclosed ecosystem of human living. But anyway, this synergy is
Speaker 1: extremely important, and when looking at the economic impact of
Speaker 1: local businesses, it becomes something even more exciting to encourage.
Speaker 1: Local businesses account for half of the private economy, largely
Speaker 1: due to multiplate multiplier multiplier effects Jesus for communities. Essentially,
Speaker 1: the multiplier effect means local businesses are more likely to
Speaker 1: spend money with other local businesses, so much so that
Speaker 1: for every dollar that moves from being spent at a
Speaker 1: non local to a local business, the community will see
Speaker 1: a two to four greater income boost, job creation rate,
Speaker 1: and return on local taxes. So the overarching idea is
Speaker 1: that they are going to start trying to use these old,
Speaker 1: abandoned and strip malls to be hydroponic vertical gardens. I
Speaker 1: myself am a huge proponent of vertical gardens and hydroponics
Speaker 1: and aquaponics. I might add I find it to be
Speaker 1: just a way more efficient way to do things. And
Speaker 1: if they could actually start using these for that purpose
Speaker 1: at least a section of them. Right, And you think
Speaker 1: of your big malls that you have, maybe not all
Speaker 1: the little department stores on the side, but the main
Speaker 1: strip of the mall is typically lit by sunlight in
Speaker 1: a atrium style skylight that has direct sunlight in it.
Speaker 1: If you were to plant a very long strip of
Speaker 1: a vertical garden on the inside of this mall, and
Speaker 1: it's an enclosed system and you can maintain the temperature,
Speaker 1: you get a couple of people to maintain what the
Speaker 1: water nitrate levels are and all these things, then you
Speaker 1: could sell that at a i'll talk a cut rate
Speaker 1: to give local good, healthy produce to the local communities.
Speaker 1: And most of these malls are now you know, surrounded
Speaker 1: by let's just call it low income communities. That's just
Speaker 1: a double hit of good things to come. Go ahead,
Speaker 1: Raven Lee, I see your hand raised.
Speaker 8: I do agree with you. I think that there's a
Speaker 8: lot of conversations I've been having about how they can
Speaker 8: supply all the different people. You know, there's so many
Speaker 8: groups that aren't having enough. I dropped a link in
Speaker 8: the chat that's actually a group that is working with
Speaker 8: malls and and pretty much is talking about doing vertical
Speaker 8: gardens in malls and museums to try to help like
Speaker 8: promote the environment and promote different stuff like that. But
Speaker 8: with vertical gardening and that kind of empty space is
Speaker 8: using the abandoned buildings repurposing them is a huge thing,
Speaker 8: and that that would be able kind of the same
Speaker 8: conversation of making community gardens. They can utilize this as
Speaker 8: a community garden, just on a scale, and that shows
Speaker 8: lots of benefits actually for supporting lower crime in the community,
Speaker 8: for uplifting and actually lowering depression and anxiety within the community.
Speaker 8: There's out of Detroit and Chicago, they did two studies
Speaker 8: and it shows the benefits of even doing a small
Speaker 8: little community garden, what it does and the impact it
Speaker 8: does in the community. So it could be that they
Speaker 8: these locations could feed potentially large amounts of people and
Speaker 8: would help reduce a lot of the crime in the
Speaker 8: area as well.
Speaker 1: Oh, I could believe that one hundred percent. So the
Speaker 1: link that you shared is from Botanic Botanics Bota ni KKs.
Speaker 8: Yeah, it's a group that they they've done it to
Speaker 8: like for locations, they've added in vertical gardens of different
Speaker 8: varieties to specialize locations like the Art Museum and Life
Speaker 8: and Stufience Museum and stuff like that around like Beijing,
Speaker 8: Malaysia and a couple other places, and kind of like
Speaker 8: they do down in specific parts in South America where
Speaker 8: they're adding in the concrete jungle where they add in
Speaker 8: the bushes now and they're covering those places to try
Speaker 8: to help with the air quality and to be able
Speaker 8: to keep the air pollutants down. It's all a part
Speaker 8: of it. But now the conversation, they just did the
Speaker 8: first decomposition of a body regenerated in fungus in mushroom,
Speaker 8: and so they're like they're all kind of intertwined with
Speaker 8: trying to help the environment, feed the people, reduce pollution,
Speaker 8: and be able to kind of reuse and recycle what
Speaker 8: we have going on right now.
Speaker 1: Hold on, just to clarify something, you said, the decomposition
Speaker 1: of a body, you mean a human body and they
Speaker 1: turn that into mushrooms.
Speaker 8: Yes, I'll have to look for the article. I just
Speaker 8: saw it the other day because I follow a couple
Speaker 8: of the California They have the pods in the wall
Speaker 8: where you put the bodies in the wall and it's
Speaker 8: like a circular it looks like a little hobbit door
Speaker 8: and they put them in there and then what they
Speaker 8: do is they decompose over a certain amount of days
Speaker 8: and they have like a bacterial composition that they've figured
Speaker 8: out how to quickly get rid of the body in
Speaker 8: like a fertilizing soil, and they're using that to help
Speaker 8: refertilize other things as that. As you know in nature,
Speaker 8: they also have the ones where you're trees, and they're
Speaker 8: the ones that where your different types of plants where
Speaker 8: your body gets planted underneath it. Now they're trying, because
Speaker 8: they're trying to figure out ways to use human bodies
Speaker 8: that are deceased to be able to fertilize and help
Speaker 8: restore the nutrients in the ground because we've ran out
Speaker 8: of space for all the bodies while we're running out
Speaker 8: of space and so the crematoriums are running NonStop pretty much.
Speaker 8: But that causes pollution and stuff like that, and so
Speaker 8: many people are trying to say, you know, is there
Speaker 8: a way that we could use human bodies to regenerate
Speaker 8: the land that is destroyed?
Speaker 1: So wow, I mean, I'm not necessarily against that. I mean,
Speaker 1: I've seen these pods where you know, you can have
Speaker 1: your remains be put in a pod and then like
Speaker 1: a tree will grow from it, and it's like your
Speaker 1: body will be like the initial nutrients for the tree's growth,
Speaker 1: and that's, you know, that's a cool thing. I'm not.
Speaker 1: I don't judge people based off of what they want
Speaker 1: to do with their bodily remains. I for one, want
Speaker 1: to be cremated and put into fireworks. That's just me.
Speaker 1: Some people want to be buried in a plot, some
Speaker 1: family plot, next to their loved ones, and like that's
Speaker 1: you know, everybody's got their own thing. I'm not. I'm
Speaker 1: not throwing shade one way or another. But to say
Speaker 1: that you're going to have mushrooms be grown from a
Speaker 1: human body, I'm, for the love of all that is holy,
Speaker 1: I am praying that it is not of the psychedelic variety,
Speaker 1: because I know quite a few people that would who's
Speaker 1: their mind if they found out that they were ingesting
Speaker 1: psychedelic mushrooms that were grown from a corpse. I can
Speaker 1: already hear some very dear friends of mine going off
Speaker 1: talking about the crazy things that they would experience off
Speaker 1: of that. But yeah, let's just hope that it's like Portobellos,
Speaker 1: you know. But yeah, yeah, I mean I could see
Speaker 1: that being a possibility as well, using humor remains and
Speaker 1: just remains in general of dead plants and everything else
Speaker 1: to make better fertilizers. So absolutely, I don't want to
Speaker 1: read a little bit from this article that you sent
Speaker 1: from botanics or botanis. I'm not sure how which one
Speaker 1: you pronounce it, as it talks about the benefits of
Speaker 1: vertical gardening in malls. It will improve air quality. Indoor
Speaker 1: air quality is crucial and pollutants can negatively affect human health.
Speaker 1: I agree with that one hundred percent. Plants are literally
Speaker 1: filtration systems for this enhanced esthetics one hundred percent. Who
Speaker 1: doesn't love nature? Right, No more empty walls. I know
Speaker 1: quite a few people that have a like serious issue
Speaker 1: with looking at bare walls. So that would improve. That
Speaker 1: creates a healthier environment, multiple levels of it. Creating a
Speaker 1: healthier environment, good things. Increase in visitors possibly possibly, yes,
Speaker 1: maybe no, but I mean that's you don't need visitors
Speaker 1: in order for the plants to grow and for them
Speaker 1: to be sold or donated or whatever. But okay, it
Speaker 1: could absolutely and reduce energy costs. Vertical gardens can also
Speaker 1: help with temperature control in the space. They act as
Speaker 1: a natural insulator, which can lead to a decrease in
Speaker 1: energy cost for heating and cooling in the area. Now,
Speaker 1: that's a good idea. Designing and implementing a vertical garden
Speaker 1: in a mall. You got to choose the right location
Speaker 1: that makes sense. You got to choose a spot that
Speaker 1: gets good natural light. That's ideal for a vertical garden.
Speaker 1: You should also consider the traffic flow in the area. Ideally,
Speaker 1: you want your garden to be visible and accessible to
Speaker 1: as many people as possible. Okay, fair enough, consider the
Speaker 1: size and shape of the wall. Very true, that you
Speaker 1: know makes sense led to the right plants. Very important,
Speaker 1: very important. I know somebody who had an aquaponic system
Speaker 1: and he chose the wrong type of fish for the
Speaker 1: aqua part, and he chose the wrong type of plants
Speaker 1: for the plant based part, and one good cold snap
Speaker 1: killed his entire crop of fish and plants. So got
Speaker 1: to make sure you're doing your research on which which
Speaker 1: plants would do the best for that environment, and which
Speaker 1: plants would be easier sold in your area. Like, if
Speaker 1: you're living in a spot that really gets down with kale,
Speaker 1: then like maybe you would grow kale. That's good things.
Speaker 1: If you're in an area that really prefers, you know, cucumbers,
Speaker 1: then I'm just saying you have to do your research,
Speaker 1: but very good things. Thinking about irrigation, your vertical garden
Speaker 1: will require a special irrigation system to ensure that the
Speaker 1: plants receive enough water and nutrients. Drip irrigation systems are
Speaker 1: often used to water vertical gardens. I don't think that
Speaker 1: that's really a problem because most of these malls have
Speaker 1: fire systems that are already built into them, So honestly,
Speaker 1: you could just you know, repurpose some of those or
Speaker 1: even just do it like not a tie in. Those
Speaker 1: systems have to be completely separate from the other water
Speaker 1: lines in the building, and I understand that. My point
Speaker 1: is though, like the infrastructure, the banisters that have the
Speaker 1: railings for pipes to be built onto, you just have
Speaker 1: to kind of build off of that. On the other side,
Speaker 1: it's it really wouldn't take much doing and seek professional help. Well,
Speaker 1: I mean, hey, who couldn't benefit from seeing a little
Speaker 1: more professional help maintenance and care. It's really not much
Speaker 1: to maintain a hydroponic system. It sounds like it's crazy.
Speaker 1: The legwork is in the beginning of it. Once it's
Speaker 1: up and running, you really just have to do some
Speaker 1: daily checks, like maybe once, if not twice a day,
Speaker 1: come by and check the pH check the nitrate levels,
Speaker 1: make sure that you don't have like an insect problem.
Speaker 1: And like that's what I'm saying. You could hire one
Speaker 1: to two people to maintain an entire strip malls worth
Speaker 1: of a hydroponic garden. That's okay, fair enough, watering the
Speaker 1: plants regularly, proper lighting, prune the plants very true, fertilize
Speaker 1: the plants. Like I said, you gotta check the nitrate
Speaker 1: levels pest control, yes, indeed, air circulation one hundred percent
Speaker 1: and monitor plants health. And that's what I'm saying. It
Speaker 1: depends on the scale, right, depends on the size of
Speaker 1: the vertical garden that you're talking about here, but it
Speaker 1: really the juice is absolutely worth the squeeze pun intended.
Speaker 1: Go ahead, Raven.
Speaker 8: Just to touch on the how many states legal by
Speaker 8: the way, that human composting is legal is thirteen states
Speaker 8: and fifteen more pinning the legislation right now, so fifteen
Speaker 8: states are one hundred percent you can do human comp Wow.
Speaker 8: And yes, there's a really cool YouTube video on vertical
Speaker 8: gardening the people that actually are doing the massive warehouses
Speaker 8: of them, and it breaks it down like all to
Speaker 8: the cellular level. It's a fascinating documentary about it.
Speaker 1: It's really good, absolutely and I'm as I said, I
Speaker 1: am a huge proponent of it. My parents' greenhouse is
Speaker 1: nothing but vertical gardens, and their square footage of their
Speaker 1: land versus the yield that they're getting from their plants
Speaker 1: is I've never seen anything like it in my life.
Speaker 1: It's insane. It's not even like they have a big,
Speaker 1: massive setup. It's a forty foot greenhouse. And the amount
Speaker 1: of just handover fist production they're getting out of their
Speaker 1: plants is mind blowing. Okay, very good thing, so possibly
Speaker 1: coming to them all near you vertical gardens. All right, now,
Speaker 1: let's move on to more political conversation here. This is
Speaker 1: actually an article from Al Jazeera Trump. Does Trump brokered
Speaker 1: deal squeeze Russia and Iran out of the South Caucuses.
Speaker 1: I'm not exactly sure if it does or does not.
Speaker 1: But for anybody who didn't hear a transit corridor pack
Speaker 1: signed by Azerbaijohn and Armenia could be game changing, according
Speaker 1: to several experts. So for anybody who didn't know, Azerbaijohn
Speaker 1: and Armenia have been in let's just call it conflict
Speaker 1: for somewhere around like thirty five years, give or take,
Speaker 1: and Trump just kind of brokeer the deal that made
Speaker 1: them come to the negotiation table together. Now, a lot
Speaker 1: of people in America do not know about this, because
Speaker 1: most people in America that I've talked to don't even
Speaker 1: know that Azerbaijohn is its own country. That's a true statement, sadly,
Speaker 1: but it is what it is, and honestly, the only
Speaker 1: reason why most Americans know about Armenia is because of
Speaker 1: the Armenian genocide that took place in you know, just
Speaker 1: a couple of decades ago. So it's unless it's done
Speaker 1: something crazy to be in the headlines. Most Americans don't
Speaker 1: really know about it, but let's talk. Azerbai John's president
Speaker 1: Ilham Aliev probably mispronounced it, and his late father im
Speaker 1: predes Haidar Aliev and some of their closest political allies
Speaker 1: hail from Nakchevin. Yeah, that's the spot. The name of
Speaker 1: this tiny mountainous and underdeveloped Azari area sandwich between Armenia
Speaker 1: Iran Turkey sounds unfamiliar to those outside of the strategic
Speaker 1: South Caucasus region, but Nakhchievan Knakchevan's name and geopolitical significance
Speaker 1: resurfaced after the United States President Donald Trump hosted a
Speaker 1: White House summit between Azari and Armenian leaders. On Friday,
Speaker 1: Azerbaijan's Prime minister and the Armenian Prime Minister signed a
Speaker 1: preliminary peace deal to indy decades long conflict over the
Speaker 1: Neigorno Karabak region. In the early nineteen nineties, ethnic Armenians
Speaker 1: in the Nigardo Khannabak Kara back rather region broke away
Speaker 1: from the oil rich Azerbaijohn after a war that killed
Speaker 1: thousands and displaced hundreds of thousands. Moscow broke her to
Speaker 1: truce in nineteen ninety four, maintaining two military bases in
Speaker 1: resource poor Armenia supplying with cheap energy selling arms to
Speaker 1: Azerbaijan sounds like a win win, to be honest with you,
Speaker 1: Even though the conflict did not involve Nakchavan. It cut
Speaker 1: off the zengiir Corridor, a forty kilometer or twenty five
Speaker 1: mile logistics unbiblical cord to Azeri mainland that consists of
Speaker 1: a derelict road and paralleled rusty railroad tracks, air travel
Speaker 1: and hours long bumpy transit through Iran's. Iran's remained the
Speaker 1: only way to reach the exclave, whose authorities ruled it
Speaker 1: like a personal fiefdom with lulls and ways of life
Speaker 1: often contradicting those of the mainland. After winning the twenty
Speaker 1: twenty war over the Nigorno car back and restoring control
Speaker 1: over three years later, Baku has been eager to receive
Speaker 1: or revive the corridor, demanding its extra territorially and even
Speaker 1: pondering the use of military force. A new reality in
Speaker 1: the region. On the other hand, the reasons go far
Speaker 1: beyond restoring access to Aliev's ancestral land. The cor or
Speaker 1: could become a namoth trans transport hub between Turkey, Azerbaijan
Speaker 1: and Central Asia. I feel like the Belton Rode initiative
Speaker 1: might have also had some precedents to kind of lead
Speaker 1: into this area. I don't know. It may increase the
Speaker 1: flow of Central Asian hydrocarbons to Turkey and further to Europe,
Speaker 1: boost the regional economy, and up end Russia's two centuries
Speaker 1: of domination in the region that also includes Georgia. Armenia
Speaker 1: was reluctant to allow Azari access to the corridor, fearing
Speaker 1: that the emboldened Turkish Azari's tandem might jeopardize its security.
Speaker 1: But Trump cut through the Gordian knot on Friday, and
Speaker 1: his role essentially cements a new reality in the region.
Speaker 1: According to Emil Mustefeyev, the Baku based chief editor of
Speaker 1: the menval Politica online magazine, this is a serious shift
Speaker 1: in the security architecture and transport logistics of the South Caucuses.
Speaker 1: While in the White House, Aliev and pash On God
Speaker 1: I'm butchering these names, lavish Trump with praise and nominated
Speaker 1: him for a Nobel Peace Prize. Wow. We will see
Speaker 1: if that gets pushed forward. It's very possible that old
Speaker 1: Don and T will become a Nobel Laureate's that's a
Speaker 1: reality that we might see. Okay, what cracked me up
Speaker 1: in this is that they didn't lose their way about
Speaker 1: how one has to communicate in Washington. An expert in
Speaker 1: the region told Al Jazeera. They also flattered Trump by
Speaker 1: naming the corridor the Trump Route for International Peace and
Speaker 1: Prosperity or Trip Tripp Wow, and leasing it to Washington
Speaker 1: for up to ninety nine years with exclusive development rights.
Speaker 1: And there is the sweetener of the deal. What looks
Speaker 1: like one of Trump's favorite real estate deals actually heralds
Speaker 1: a tectonic shift. Trump's administration has indeed been quick to
Speaker 1: find its way toward the long do geopolitical pivot. China,
Speaker 1: which has been promoting its Belt and Road initiative in
Speaker 1: Asia and Eastern Europe, may remain neutral to it. In Russia,
Speaker 1: which has two military bases in Armenia, might ignore it,
Speaker 1: at least publicly, he said. But for Iran it's a
Speaker 1: real blow. So this is a boost to Washington's cloud
Speaker 1: To guard the trip, Washington may use private military companies
Speaker 1: and eventually build a military base that nominally safeguards Armenia
Speaker 1: but actually keeps an eye on Iran with said Ukrainian
Speaker 1: political analysis analyst Aleski Kutsch Couch, sure it means more
Speaker 1: potential pressure on Iran and a boost of Washington's clout
Speaker 1: in the resource rich Caspian region, where US oil companies
Speaker 1: made sizable investments in the nineteen nineties and Moscow is
Speaker 1: also about to lose a lot. No matter how paradoxical
Speaker 1: it sounds, it's Moscow that has been and still is
Speaker 1: a decisive factor in the peace settlements between Armenia and Azerbaijan,
Speaker 1: and in sault having the latter's problems of accessing Nakchavan. Dude,
Speaker 1: I'm sure I've pronounced it right one of those times,
Speaker 1: said the head of Central Asia's Due Diligence and think
Speaker 1: tank in London. One of the main motives for the
Speaker 1: reproachment of both sides is there push to get rid
Speaker 1: of Moscow's influence of peacekeeper's roles that it had imposed
Speaker 1: on them. The new deal only highlights how fictitious Moscow's
Speaker 1: role as a peacekeeper in the Middle East is in
Speaker 1: peace settlements in South Caucasus, really is. However, the deal
Speaker 1: is not yet set in stone, and the Trump hosted
Speaker 1: summit sparked premature optimism, said the University of Exeter in
Speaker 1: the United Kingdoms, a dude named kevork Auscinian. All Right,
Speaker 1: this optimism should be tempered by realism and historical precedent,
Speaker 1: as many peace processes have failed despite promising starts. So,
Speaker 1: like they said, the deal is not done yet, but
Speaker 1: at least it's a good start. Now, let's just look
Speaker 1: at this. Is it more likely that Trump is doing
Speaker 1: this brokering of this peace deal because he genuinely cares
Speaker 1: about the people of Armenia and azerbai John, you be
Speaker 1: the judge. I think that it is more likely that
Speaker 1: he's doing this. So that, like they said, they could
Speaker 1: put some American infrastructure in the area, possibly throw a PMC,
Speaker 1: a private military contractor out in that area to kind
Speaker 1: of keep an overwatch over it until they can build
Speaker 1: yet another foreign military base for the United States. That's
Speaker 1: kind of our jam. We don't do the whole imperialism thing,
Speaker 1: but we set up a military base there, and that
Speaker 1: acts as a outpost, right, it acts like one of
Speaker 1: the tentacles of the octopus. And if we could get
Speaker 1: something that close to Iran, yeah, I could see that
Speaker 1: being more of the motive behind Trump wanting to broker
Speaker 1: a peace deal between the two countries. We will see
Speaker 1: how it shakes out. But anyway, let's move on here.
Speaker 1: Let's talk about the Texas Democrat situation. We talked about
Speaker 1: this last week a little bit. They are trying to
Speaker 1: read district the state of Texas for better voting numbers right,
Speaker 1: to make it quote unquote more fair and balanced. And
Speaker 1: the Democrats in their offices in the state of Texas
Speaker 1: know that they're about to lose this rezoning vote, so
Speaker 1: they just took off. They left to go to other
Speaker 1: states and things. The downside of that is there was
Speaker 1: other things on the dock that needed to be voted on.
Speaker 1: Some of that was the flood relief and for all
Speaker 1: these people that were affected by the Texas floods. So
Speaker 1: now the Democrats are being blamed for some of the
Speaker 1: relief to that didn't get to the victims. And meanwhile
Speaker 1: they're blaming the Republicans for them leaving the state in
Speaker 1: the first place, which delayed the relief to get to
Speaker 1: who it was. So the Democrats and Republicans are pointing
Speaker 1: the finger at each other for well, why didn't you
Speaker 1: send the flood relief? Well, why didn't you? And it's
Speaker 1: a mess and all this really stems from the Democrats
Speaker 1: not showing up to work to do the thing that
Speaker 1: they were elected to do, which is crazy. But let's
Speaker 1: go ahead and watch this quick little news clip about it.
Speaker 1: Then we're going to talk about it some more.
Speaker 9: Hi, I'm Dylan McKim here in Kirk County, Texas, where
Speaker 9: about two hours north in Austin, political feeder is playing out.
Speaker 9: Texas Democrats have vowed to kill the first special session
Speaker 9: in order to temporarily block an effort by Republicans to
Speaker 9: redraw congressional maps, but in doing so, they've also blocked
Speaker 9: efforts to provide relief for the victims of those deadly
Speaker 9: floods in central Texas. Both Republicans and Democrats are putting
Speaker 9: fingers at each other, saying who's to blame for these delays. Meanwhile,
Speaker 9: here in Kirk County, residents are trying to rebuild.
Speaker 1: Three inches a mid and everything.
Speaker 10: Nathan Rich rents this shop for his diesel repair business.
Speaker 10: On July fourth, the Guadalupe River came pouring in, damaging
Speaker 10: electrical equipment and rusting his tools. A month later, his
Speaker 10: business is somewhat back to normal, but the house he
Speaker 10: rents next door is completely gutted.
Speaker 5: It's hard to shell out one hundred thousand dollars to
Speaker 5: rebuild a house.
Speaker 10: Rich received thirty thousand dollars in grants for his business,
Speaker 10: but grants for his home and personal belongings are limited.
Speaker 9: All the stuff that we've built together just gone.
Speaker 10: This is his wife, Audrey. She works across the street
Speaker 10: at the local bank. It happens to be the location
Speaker 10: where residents in Centerpoint, Texas can pick up applications for
Speaker 10: financial relief. That money is being distributed by the Centerpoint
Speaker 10: Alliance for Progress, which has about two hundred and seventy
Speaker 10: thousand dollars to hand out.
Speaker 11: We have a committee that actually went to their houses
Speaker 11: to verify that they did have damage.
Speaker 10: So far, it's helped fifty eight families with twenty five
Speaker 10: hundred dollars.
Speaker 12: Checks rent now and hit our shop rent.
Speaker 10: But that money doesn't go far.
Speaker 9: We don't have the money to just rebuild go buy
Speaker 9: a house, go rent somewhere.
Speaker 10: Local groups like the Alliance are having to step up
Speaker 10: because relief efforts at the state capitol are stalled as
Speaker 10: politicians duel over redistricting.
Speaker 11: It would be nice for our government to want to help,
Speaker 11: but we're going to try to make sure they're taken
Speaker 11: care of regardless.
Speaker 10: Both political parties are appointing fingers over who to blame
Speaker 10: and the delay and funding, But people like Rich are
Speaker 10: choosing not to wait around for Austin politicians.
Speaker 2: I got way more going on than to sit and
Speaker 2: watch the news and be mad at Democrats or be
Speaker 2: mad at Republicans or whatever.
Speaker 10: They continue rebuilding little by little with a simple mada,
Speaker 10: one day at a time in Kirk County. I'm Dylan McKim.
Speaker 1: Okay, now let's talk about that a little more in depth. Shally.
Speaker 1: This is from the Texas Tribune. Texas Republicans and Democrats
Speaker 1: locked in redistricting battle weaponize the flood response, with Democrats
Speaker 1: walking out over redistricting, bringing the house to a standstill.
Speaker 1: Both parties are accusing each other of abandoning Central Texas
Speaker 1: flood victims. And I'm not saying this because I am
Speaker 1: more of a conservative minded person, I am going to
Speaker 1: say who abandoned who, Which side of the aisle just
Speaker 1: literally up ended and left the state rather than come
Speaker 1: in and do their job. If we're gonna start pointing
Speaker 1: the fingers at who is abandoning their post and abandoning
Speaker 1: their constituents. But let's read in here. When Governor Greg
Speaker 1: Abbott called a special session last month, he put legislation
Speaker 1: responding to the devastating Hill count Country floods at the
Speaker 1: top of the lawmaker's agenda, But with the session went
Speaker 1: winding down, the legislator's ability to improve disaster response has
Speaker 1: become tied up in a bitter fight over a rare
Speaker 1: effort by Republicans to redraw the state's congressional map halfway
Speaker 1: through the decade. The new map, as demanded by President Trump,
Speaker 1: would create up to five new GOP seats ahead of
Speaker 1: next year's midterm elections. The Texas House is in a
Speaker 1: standstill after Democrats left the state on mass last week
Speaker 1: to prevent the chamber from voting on the map again
Speaker 1: blow my mind, and both parties have been accusing each
Speaker 1: other of abandoning Central Texas flood victims. With the tragedy
Speaker 1: which killed more than one hundred and thirty people, becoming
Speaker 1: a political cudgel in the redistricting clash. Republican lawmakers have
Speaker 1: blasted Democrats for delaying measured measures to bolster the state's
Speaker 1: emergency response by fleeing the state to deny the House
Speaker 1: the quorum needed to advance any legislation. The only thing
Speaker 1: standing between Texas and real disaster relief is whether our
Speaker 1: absent colleagues decided to show up. That's what Speaker Dustin Burrows,
Speaker 1: a Republican from Lubbock, said on the House floor Monday,
Speaker 1: continuing the quote, when the gavel drops, the question is simple,
Speaker 1: will you be in that chair to vote for these
Speaker 1: critical disaster recovery bills or will you be remembered as
Speaker 1: one who did not show up. That's pretty cut and
Speaker 1: dry there. Democrats say their GOP counterparts showed they were
Speaker 1: never serious about prioritizing the flood response when they put
Speaker 1: the contentious redistricting effort first on their agenda. They point
Speaker 1: out that the flood bill saw no movement in the
Speaker 1: House in the first two weeks of the session, even
Speaker 1: as Republicans advanced the congressional map at a quick clip.
Speaker 1: This is a quote here. Abbot can call a special
Speaker 1: session today that is dedicated to honoring the loss of
Speaker 1: the memory of the July fourth flooding victims, or he
Speaker 1: can once again put DC corruption ahead of Texas communities.
Speaker 1: Representative Jene Wu of Houston, chair of the House Democratic Caucus,
Speaker 1: said in a statement Tuesday, Ultimately, all legislation, including the
Speaker 1: flood response, the new congressional map, stricter regulations on consumable hemp,
Speaker 1: and a raft of socially conservative a raft of socially
Speaker 1: conservative priorities Abbot placed on the agenda, will remain stalled
Speaker 1: until Democrats return to Austin and the House regains a quorum.
Speaker 1: Republican leaders on Tuesday said that it would they would
Speaker 1: gabble out the special session early on Friday and immediately
Speaker 1: launch into a second thirty day session if Democrats did
Speaker 1: not return to Austin this week. I don't believe they're
Speaker 1: gonna gonna be real with you. They scheduled the flood
Speaker 1: bills for a Tuesday vote on the House floor, which
Speaker 1: did not take place due to insufficient attendance. Upping the
Speaker 1: pressure on Democrats to return, Abbot has launched a flurry
Speaker 1: of ads targeting the Democrats who walked out, and he
Speaker 1: has asked the Texas Supreme Court to declare their seats vacant,
Speaker 1: arguing they have deserted their office. Again, I'm not saying
Speaker 1: this because I disagree with their political statements. I'm saying
Speaker 1: that I agree with him based off of the fact
Speaker 1: that they're not showing up to work. It's literally their
Speaker 1: entire job to show up and vote on these things.
Speaker 1: But yeah, anyway, if Texas House Democrats care about the
Speaker 1: Texans they abandon, they will return to Austin and do
Speaker 1: the job they were elected to do. Man Man after
Speaker 1: my own heart, Abbot spokesperson Andrew Mahalaris think I got
Speaker 1: that right, said in a statement Tuesday. Democrats said they
Speaker 1: were eager to pass the flood bills, but refused to
Speaker 1: play a role in adopting the new congressional which they
Speaker 1: called an attempt by Trump to rig the midterm elections
Speaker 1: and maintain Republican control of the US House. So, all right,
Speaker 1: I don't know. I know a lot of people from Texas.
Speaker 1: I do have very close family members that live in Texas.
Speaker 1: I can't imagine that this is going to bode well
Speaker 1: for the Democrats in the midterms, even if they don't redistrict.
Speaker 1: Like just being real here, because the people that really
Speaker 1: need the help right now are not getting it, and
Speaker 1: there is one side of the isle that is showing
Speaker 1: up to work. Whether you agree or disagree with their politics,
Speaker 1: that's not important. You got real people that are really
Speaker 1: hurting right now, and they're not getting the help that
Speaker 1: they need because one side of the aisle isn't showing up.
Speaker 1: I can't imagine the people that are not showing up
Speaker 1: getting re elected when that time comes. Maybe I'm wrong,
Speaker 1: Maybe these are very long standing seats and this is
Speaker 1: a person that's been elected eighteen times and it's name
Speaker 1: recognition alone, so they're gonna get re elected anyway. But
Speaker 1: I would I would think very low of the people
Speaker 1: that would vote that kind of person in. And I'm
Speaker 1: not saying, you know, I don't know each individual person's quality,
Speaker 1: but if that's what it is, when the going gets tough,
Speaker 1: you literally abandon your posts until things smooth out. That's
Speaker 1: not the type of people that I personally would want
Speaker 1: to run my area or my district or my county
Speaker 1: or whatever else. But okay, we will see continuing here,
Speaker 1: it says, Dems say the flood response wasn't a GOP priority.
Speaker 1: Democrats noted that about halfway into the special session, the
Speaker 1: Republicans led House hailed four hearings on redistricting and planned
Speaker 1: a four vote of sorry, a floor vote on the map.
Speaker 1: The legislature's Disaster Committee meanwhile held two joint hearings on
Speaker 1: the floods. In these sessions first two weeks before specific
Speaker 1: bills were introduced, the House and Senate handles advanced their
Speaker 1: proposals last week. Is another quote from Actually, there's a
Speaker 1: quote from Representative Anne Johnson, a Democrat from Houston. We
Speaker 1: have been there for two weeks waiting to address They
Speaker 1: only put one bill up for us to debate in
Speaker 1: the House, and it was the redistricting Okay, that's fair.
Speaker 1: Democrats also argue Republicans showed their priorities by putting a
Speaker 1: quote unquote call on the House that would hold until
Speaker 1: the redistricting map was adopted without mentioning the flood related bills. Okay,
Speaker 1: so it's dirty politics either way, slicely, I get this,
Speaker 1: But again, as an elected official, your job is to
Speaker 1: wade into the waters of dirty politics, not abandon it
Speaker 1: when things don't look like they're going to go your way.
Speaker 1: So anyway, just given the update on the Texas situation,
Speaker 1: we talked about it last week, and I thought it
Speaker 1: was worth bringing up again this week. All right, So
Speaker 1: still sticking to the South. You know, in the United
Speaker 1: States of America, this is from Wece. This flesh eating
Speaker 1: bacteria is spreading across the South. Here is how to
Speaker 1: stay safe. There's something extra unsettling about the words flesh
Speaker 1: eating and beach season being in the same sentence, but
Speaker 1: that's where we are. A bacterium called Vibrio valneficus. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I'm just gonna call it vv if that comes up again,
Speaker 1: because I'm definitely not gonna get that right. For twice
Speaker 1: in a row. It's spreading across five Southern states and
Speaker 1: it already has been linked to nine deaths this year.
Speaker 1: It lives in warm, salty, not super clean water, the
Speaker 1: kind you wade into barefoot while holding a beer. And
Speaker 1: it's hitting Florida, Louisiana, Alabama, Mississippi, and North Carolina the hardest.
Speaker 1: That's kind of a jump up. It jumped straight over
Speaker 1: South Carolina and hit North Carolina the heart. Okay, fair enough.
Speaker 1: The bacteria can enter your body in two ways, and
Speaker 1: neither is ideal. First is through open wounds, which would
Speaker 1: include scrapes, cuts, tattoos, piercings, and yep, even razor birn.
Speaker 1: The second is through the consumption of raw or undercooked
Speaker 1: sell shellfish, especially oysters. See I gotta m that sucks.
Speaker 1: I personally love oysters, but just being real with you,
Speaker 1: I prefer farm raised because you have way less of
Speaker 1: a chance of getting sick from them, regardless of what
Speaker 1: month it's in. Yeah, but fair enough. If you were
Speaker 1: just to go out there and get you some oysters
Speaker 1: from the Gulf and just start shucking and slurping, you
Speaker 1: could very well get a flesh eating bacteria. Isn't that fun?
Speaker 1: That sounds like a particular attack on your vacation plans.
Speaker 1: That's because it sort of is. According to state health departments,
Speaker 1: most cases so far have been linked to wound exposure,
Speaker 1: but several have been tied to the consumption of raw seafood.
Speaker 1: Either way, once it's in, things can get serious fast.
Speaker 1: The flesh eating bacteria it's infecting people across the South.
Speaker 1: The doctors say the symptoms can go from that looks
Speaker 1: red to getting the ambulance in a matter of hours.
Speaker 1: High fever, swelling, intense pain, and oozing wounds are In
Speaker 1: the worst cases, the infection can spread to your bloodstream
Speaker 1: and trigger blisters, confusion, dangerously low blood pressure, and tissue death,
Speaker 1: hence the flesh eating nickname.
Speaker 13: Wow.
Speaker 1: So that thing can make you go necrotic in a
Speaker 1: matter of hours. It can start going that way. Oh
Speaker 1: my goodness. Some people have indeed amputations or I'm sorry,
Speaker 1: have needed amputation. Others didn't survive. The Florida Department of
Speaker 1: Hell says blood born infections from Vibrio vulneficus. Ah, I
Speaker 1: think I got it right twice. What's up, have a
Speaker 1: fatality rate of about fifty percent. Oh my god. If
Speaker 1: this gets into your bloodstream, you got a fifty to
Speaker 1: fifty shot of making it out alive. But even if
Speaker 1: you make it out alive, you're not gonna be all good.
Speaker 1: Oh my god. And while this bacteria isn't new, it
Speaker 1: was first reported in the nineteen seventies, it's showing up
Speaker 1: more often, especially at ocean temp as ocean temperatures rise.
Speaker 1: Louisiana typically sees about seven cases a year this summer alone.
Speaker 1: It's already had seventeen. Cool Florida has had at least
Speaker 1: thirteen with four deaths. North Carolina has seen nearly sixty
Speaker 1: Vibrio cases across different strains. Some health departments are blaming
Speaker 1: the spike on hotter water and hurricane related flooding. Climate
Speaker 1: change once again is playing Oh Jesus Christ, yep, it's
Speaker 1: climate change. That's why the bacteria is killing us. Clearly,
Speaker 1: the best way to protect yourself is, unfortunately also the
Speaker 1: least fun. Don't go into the water if you've gotten
Speaker 1: any open skin, no matter how small. Skip the raw
Speaker 1: oysters unless you know they're from a safe, regulated source
Speaker 1: like farm raised. And if you're immunocompromised or have liver issues,
Speaker 1: be especially cautious. Doctor say you're at higher risk of
Speaker 1: the life threatening complications. No one's saying cancer is Cancel
Speaker 1: your beach plans. Maybe rethink the combo of open wounds
Speaker 1: and seafood that you brought out of a cooler. Okay,
Speaker 1: fair enough, So I did think that was important to
Speaker 1: bring up. As we are getting into hurricane season, the
Speaker 1: water is still warm and people are still making beach trips.
Speaker 1: Just be careful out there, everybody. Now, let's jump into
Speaker 1: this next conversation. This is from the Washington Examiner. Appeals
Speaker 1: court says that Trump can cut two billion dollars in
Speaker 1: foreign aid. They just dropped this information, so let's learn
Speaker 1: a little bit more about what this means.
Speaker 13: Appeals court ruled that President Donald Trump can withhold nearly
Speaker 13: two billion dollars in previously approved foreign aid payments. The
Speaker 13: US Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia voted
Speaker 13: two to one to overturn a lower court's order requiring
Speaker 13: the administration to pay out the funds. Judge Karen L.
Speaker 13: Henderson wrote for the majority that the plaintiffs, a coalition
Speaker 13: of contractors and nonprofit organizations, lacked legal standing to challenge
Speaker 13: the freeze. The case drew support from a coalition of
Speaker 13: twenty state attorney generals led by Republican South Carolina Attorney
Speaker 13: General Alan Wilson, who argued that the President has brought
Speaker 13: authority to ensure taxpair dollars serve US interests. Judge Florence
Speaker 13: Pan issued a lengthy dissent, warning that the majority's decision
Speaker 13: under minds Congress's power of the purse and enables the
Speaker 13: executive branch to bypass constitutional safeguards. Shortly after beginning his
Speaker 13: second term, Trump moved to dismantle USAID and other sources
Speaker 13: of foreign spending. The administration argued that the freeze was
Speaker 13: necessary to reevaluate whether the billions of dollars spent annually
Speaker 13: through USAID advanced US diplomatic and security interests.
Speaker 1: All right, so I got a PBS article. It's going
Speaker 1: to talk a little bit more about it, to talk
Speaker 1: about the the deeper analysis of what this could mean.
Speaker 1: The Appeals Court lets Trump administration suspend or end billions
Speaker 1: in foreign aid funding. A divided panel of Appeals Court
Speaker 1: judges ruled Wednesday that the Trump administration can suspend or
Speaker 1: terminate billions of dollars of congressionally appropriated funding for foreign aid.
Speaker 1: Two of three judges from the US Court of Appeals
Speaker 1: for the District of Columbia Circuit concluded that the grant
Speaker 1: recipient's challenging the freeze to not meet the requirements for
Speaker 1: a preliminary injunction restoring the flow of money. In January,
Speaker 1: on the first day of his second term in office,
Speaker 1: Republican President Donald Trump issued an executive order directing the
Speaker 1: State Department to shut down USAID. We talked about that already.
Speaker 1: After groups of grant recipients sued to challenge that order,
Speaker 1: the US District Judge Emir Ali ordered the administration to
Speaker 1: release the full amount of foreign assistants that Congress had
Speaker 1: appropriated for the twenty twenty four budget year. The Appeals
Speaker 1: Court's majority partially vacated Ali's order. Judges Karen Lacraft Henderson
Speaker 1: and Gregory Katsas katsas I don't know concluded that the
Speaker 1: plaintiffs did not have a valid legal basis for the
Speaker 1: court to hear their claims. The ruling was not on
Speaker 1: the merits of whether the government unconstitutionally infringed on Congress's
Speaker 1: spending powers. The parties also dispute the scope of the
Speaker 1: District Court's remedy, but we need not resolve it because
Speaker 1: the grantees have failed to satisfy the requirements for the
Speaker 1: poleminary injunction. In any event, Henderson wrote. Judge Florence pan
Speaker 1: who we just heard about a second ago, who dissented,
Speaker 1: said that the Supreme Court has held in no uncertain
Speaker 1: terms that the President does not have the authority to
Speaker 1: disobey laws for policy reasons. Yet that is why the
Speaker 1: majority enables today. Pan wrote the majority opinion thus misconstrues
Speaker 1: the separation of powers claims brought to the grantees by
Speaker 1: the grantees, rather misapplies precedent and allows executive branch officials
Speaker 1: to evade judicial review of constitutionally impermissible actions. The money
Speaker 1: at the issue, I'm sorry, yeah, The money at issue
Speaker 1: includes nearly four billion dollars for USAID, USAID, I should say,
Speaker 1: to spend on global health programs, and more than six
Speaker 1: billion dollars for HIV and AIDS programs. Trump has portrayed
Speaker 1: the foreign aid as wasteful spending that does not align
Speaker 1: with his foreign policy goals. Okay, Henderson was nominated to
Speaker 1: the Supreme Court by the President George hw and Catnus
Speaker 1: or cats Sistic rather was nominated by Trump. Pam was
Speaker 1: nominated by Democrat President Joe Biden. So they just gave
Speaker 1: the approval, basically saying that he has the go ahead
Speaker 1: to suspend and cut off these funds. We're gonna we'll
Speaker 1: see if they want to try to fight this, or
Speaker 1: if they're gonna try to do something to repeal it,
Speaker 1: or or you know, I don't know, I don't know,
Speaker 1: but it seems like that money's not gonna go where
Speaker 1: it was slated to go. Have you know, I'm not
Speaker 1: a big fan of USAID, and it's not just because
Speaker 1: of the and there was that list that Doge found
Speaker 1: of like all these ridiculous things that USAID was sending
Speaker 1: the money to. That's not my inherent problem with it.
Speaker 1: I just see it as inefficient, and it's there's that list.
Speaker 1: Don't even wrong. But yeah, there's a few things that
Speaker 1: they were sending money to that was very worthwhile causes
Speaker 1: and people that really needed the help, and I understand that.
Speaker 1: But I will say this Trump has a very very
Speaker 1: different approach to foreign relations than most of the presidents,
Speaker 1: if not all the presidents that we've had since McKinley.
Speaker 1: So again, we will see if they try to push
Speaker 1: this in a more judicial way or if this might
Speaker 1: even lead to I'm sure somebody's gonna try to make
Speaker 1: this an impeachable offense for him. But he's still having
Speaker 1: to fight this whole Epstein situation, which they just tried
Speaker 1: to get a release of the documents from Maxwell of
Speaker 1: the conversation, and the court basically said, we're not going
Speaker 1: to release this because it doesn't hold any kind of
Speaker 1: real weight behind it, and it wouldn't help any open
Speaker 1: investigations at this time. So it's again Trump's guy's playful
Speaker 1: with things that he started, and we'll see how it
Speaker 1: all shakes out. Now. In other news, still talking about
Speaker 1: Trump and the White House, the White House has ordered
Speaker 1: the review of the Smithsonian Museums. And I think this
Speaker 1: all kind of ties in with the new push to
Speaker 1: federalize Washington, d C. And I just saw an article
Speaker 1: that the mayor of d C actually wants to work
Speaker 1: with Donald Trump, who a Democrat with a Republican. I
Speaker 1: just want to throw this out bipartisan union where they
Speaker 1: are wanting to federalize the city itself. And yeah, it
Speaker 1: all stems from old big balls getting you know, mugged.
Speaker 1: But the crime rate in d C, yeah, it might
Speaker 1: be a little bit lower this year than it was
Speaker 1: last year, but that's not saying much overall. I think
Speaker 1: the statistics said that Washington, d C is twenty six
Speaker 1: percent safer now than it was last year. I get that.
Speaker 1: That's cool. That's a quarter safer. So when you go
Speaker 1: out in a you know, area that may not be
Speaker 1: the safest, you have a one in four less shot
Speaker 1: of being mugged. But again, it's like, is that really
Speaker 1: the ratio that we should be looking at or why
Speaker 1: is there so much rough areas in and around our
Speaker 1: nation's capital? Right? Sam, go ahead, sir, Yeah, I'm sorry.
Speaker 12: I thought that the ec the whole point of BC
Speaker 12: being the way it is is so that no one
Speaker 12: state could be quote unquote the capital of the nation,
Speaker 12: so they couldn't have all the power. So then federalizing
Speaker 12: that wouldn't that be counterproductive of said government could be?
Speaker 1: However, federalizing it wouldn't make it under the jurisdiction of
Speaker 1: Maryland or Virginia. If anything, they just wouldn't be That's
Speaker 1: the thing. It's like, it's seen as its own district, right,
Speaker 1: which means it has its own legal precedents. It has
Speaker 1: like six different police departments that are operating within it.
Speaker 1: Federalizing it basically means that those police departments may or
Speaker 1: may not be around anymore. But it would be more
Speaker 1: like the DC National Guard would be the police force
Speaker 1: of DC.
Speaker 3: So.
Speaker 12: It could so it's like similar to martial law without
Speaker 12: it being marshall.
Speaker 1: It's like, basically, if you commit a crime in Washington,
Speaker 1: d C. It will instantaneously be a federal crime. Oh now.
Speaker 1: But that's the other thing too. That's seen as a
Speaker 1: very authoritarian thing. And I understand why knee jerk reaction
Speaker 1: it would look that way. And I'm not even necessarily
Speaker 1: saying that it's not. I am saying that I lived
Speaker 1: in Washington, d C. For four years, and that place
Speaker 1: is a shithole. Like aside from the National Mall where
Speaker 1: all the monuments are and all the tourist attractions are,
Speaker 1: which find good things, and aside from the rich, swanky
Speaker 1: neighborhoods where all the politicians live and things like that,
Speaker 1: which fine, you have these areas, pretty much the entire
Speaker 1: town is an actual shit bag. It's it's horrible and
Speaker 1: go ahead.
Speaker 12: But didn't they like, uh, deface Lincoln's memorial and tear
Speaker 12: down Washington and statue and everything.
Speaker 1: I don't know about the defacing of Lincoln. I feel
Speaker 1: like that would have been.
Speaker 12: But I remember they spray painted over it. It was
Speaker 12: during the time when they started tearing down all the
Speaker 12: statues of fus shit U. It was of Albert Pike,
Speaker 12: which they I think we all can agree, fuck him.
Speaker 12: And I say what you will about the Confederate generals
Speaker 12: that that's neither here nor there, but them tearing down
Speaker 12: the like all statues of our founding fathers, I do
Speaker 12: have a problem with. And now they're bringing back the
Speaker 12: Albert Pike statue.
Speaker 1: You know what's crazy. I think I do remember hearing
Speaker 1: about it. It was like a spray painting on Lincoln and
Speaker 1: it was during the big activism, you know, b LM movement.
Speaker 1: It makes no sense to me that you would do
Speaker 1: that to Lincoln. And then they even went and spray
Speaker 1: painted on Mlk's memorial, which made no sense.
Speaker 12: Like, ah, I'm just a little waising boy from Georgia,
Speaker 12: but it would be it seems like that that would
Speaker 12: be the one thing that is the biggest slapper in
Speaker 12: the face of your own community. Uh m Oka, He's
Speaker 12: paraded almost as a sight in your community and you're
Speaker 12: gonna disrespect him.
Speaker 1: It made no sense to me either. I remember it.
Speaker 12: That man is rolling over in his grave like we
Speaker 12: need some my knees to dig him up and matches
Speaker 12: trap him down so he don't set his damn coffin
Speaker 12: on fire.
Speaker 1: It's a crazy But this is the thing. If DC
Speaker 1: does get federalized, that is not gonna happen again, or
Speaker 1: if it does, it's going to have a lot more
Speaker 1: weight behind the punishments that will be doled out to
Speaker 1: the offending parties. So I don't know. I'm I'm not
Speaker 1: saying that I am in favor of federalizing DC, and
Speaker 1: I'm not inherently against it either. I would have to
Speaker 1: see to what level that's really gonna play out to
Speaker 1: the local population, But we could talk about that later on.
Speaker 1: For now, Like I said, the White House has ordered
Speaker 1: the review of the Smith's Soan museums. The reasons why
Speaker 1: are actually kind of funny. Let's listen.
Speaker 14: In coming to your favorite Smithsonian museums. The White House
Speaker 14: will be reviewing material in some of the museums to
Speaker 14: make sure that they align with the President's view of history.
Speaker 5: There's forth.
Speaker 7: Jessica Albert explains what we know about the President's audit
Speaker 7: of these Smithsonian museums. She also spoke with museum visitors
Speaker 7: about the changes. We talk to people outside some of
Speaker 7: these museums that will be reviewed by the White House.
Speaker 7: Many of them express concerns that key pieces of history
Speaker 7: could be erased.
Speaker 3: The ridiculousness of it evades description. History is history, and
Speaker 3: you can't change it to fit the.
Speaker 1: The plan of somebody who doesn't know what's going on.
Speaker 7: In a letter addressed to the Secretary of the Smithsonian Institution,
Speaker 7: the White House laid out a plan that could alter
Speaker 7: several Smithsonian museums content and these eight museums will be
Speaker 7: reviewed by the White House to make sure it fits
Speaker 7: with the President's vision ahead of the country's two hundred
Speaker 7: and fiftieth birthday celebration. Next.
Speaker 1: All right, real quick, I did want to read which
Speaker 1: of these eight museums, because the Smithsonian has tons of
Speaker 1: museums for the record, all over DC. The eight in
Speaker 1: question the National Museum of American History, the National Museum
Speaker 1: of Natural History, the National Museum of African American History
Speaker 1: and Culture, the National Museum of the American Indian One
Speaker 1: of my favorite museums in DC, I might add the
Speaker 1: place is badass. The National Air and Space Museum, my
Speaker 1: other one of my other favorite museums, The Smithsonian American
Speaker 1: Art Museum, the National Oh dang it, the captions are
Speaker 1: on on that one. National Portrait Gallery, and the Hershorn
Speaker 1: Museum of Sculpture. Oh wow, her Shorn Museum and Sculpture garden. Okay,
Speaker 1: fair enough, let's continue cheer.
Speaker 7: The letter says, quote. This initiative aims to ensure alignment
Speaker 7: with the President's directive to celebrate American exceptionalism, remove divisive
Speaker 7: or partisan narratives, and restore confidence in our shared cultural institutions.
Speaker 7: One of the museums on the list is the National
Speaker 7: Museum of African American History and Culture.
Speaker 15: That oswe come before the changes.
Speaker 13: If they do, hopefully they don't.
Speaker 1: If the changes do occur, that's one give you one
Speaker 1: last chance to go ahere.
Speaker 7: The McGinnis family from Pennsylvania brought their grandson to the
Speaker 7: National Museum of the American Indian History.
Speaker 3: Shouldent follow an agenda. What happens happens, and there are
Speaker 3: a lot of things that happened that are we're.
Speaker 15: Not proud of.
Speaker 7: This isn't the first time the President has targeted the
Speaker 7: Smithsonian Museums. In March, he signed the Restoring Truth and
Speaker 7: Sanity to American History Executive Order, which called for the
Speaker 7: removal of quote improper ideology from the Smithsonian Museums and
Speaker 7: National Zoo. News Force spoke with a curator at the
Speaker 7: Air and Space Museum, another museum on the list, sent
Speaker 7: out by the White House. He told us he just
Speaker 7: learned of the plan to do a review the curators.
Speaker 16: We are historians first, and we care deeply about just,
Speaker 16: you know, wanting to tell stories as accurately as possible
Speaker 16: in a way that is accessible for all Americans to
Speaker 16: come see.
Speaker 7: The Smithsonian also put out a statement. It says the
Speaker 7: Smithsonian's work is grounded in a deep commitment to scholarly excellence,
Speaker 7: rigorous research, and the accurate, factual presentation of history. We
Speaker 7: are reviewing the letter with this commitment in mind, and
Speaker 7: will continue to collaborate constructively with the White House, Congress
Speaker 7: and our governing Board of Regents. According to the letter
Speaker 7: from the White House, the museums have thirty days to
Speaker 7: turn over information about their current exhibits, and about one
Speaker 7: hundred and twenty days the museums should begin implementing quote
Speaker 7: content corrections where necessary in the district. Jessica Albert News.
Speaker 1: Four content corrections. That's very interesting phrasing, and like I said,
Speaker 1: it's it's kind of crazy that. And I understand that history,
Speaker 1: some would say, is all I agreed upon. And I
Speaker 1: understand that from time to time we have a certain
Speaker 1: opinion of history that we get more information on later
Speaker 1: that kind of rewrites what we once knew about history.
Speaker 1: This happens all the time. It really does not being said,
Speaker 1: that is not what is in this conversation here. I
Speaker 1: actually had the letter pulled up on the White House
Speaker 1: dot gov Briefing Statement Letter to the Smithsonian International Review
Speaker 1: of Smithsonian Exhibits and material I said, Aaron International, I'm internal.
Speaker 1: Excuse me, so it's going to be an internal audit
Speaker 1: of the Smithsonian exhibits and materials. Now, let's talk about it.
Speaker 3: Here.
Speaker 1: It says, Dear Secretary Bunch, we wish to begin, Actually
Speaker 1: is Bunch the last name? Yeah, the honorable Lonnie G. Bunch,
Speaker 1: the third, Dear Secretary Bunch. We wish to begin by
Speaker 1: expressing our appreciation for the brief tour you gave us
Speaker 1: recently of the National Museum of American History and the
Speaker 1: National Museum of the African American History and Culture, and
Speaker 1: by acknowledging your work on behalf of the Smithsonian Institution,
Speaker 1: as well as the Institution's role in shaping public understanding
Speaker 1: of the American history and culture. We are completely aligned
Speaker 1: with your statement that the Smithsonian is a welcome welcoming
Speaker 1: place of knowledge and discovery for all Americans. We are
Speaker 1: grateful that you and the Board of Regents have expressed
Speaker 1: your commitment to the non partisan educational mission of this
Speaker 1: great institution. As we prepare to celebrate the two hundred
Speaker 1: and fiftieth anniversary of our nation's founding, it is more
Speaker 1: important than ever that our national museums reflect the unity, progress,
Speaker 1: and enduring values that define the American history. In this spirit,
Speaker 1: in accordance with Executive Order one four two five three,
Speaker 1: this is the restoring truth and sanity to American history,
Speaker 1: we will be leading a comprehensive internal review of selected
Speaker 1: Smithsonian museums and exhibit exhibitions. This initiative aims to ensure
Speaker 1: alignment with the President's directive to celebrate American exceptionalism, remove
Speaker 1: divisive or partisan narratives, and restore confidence in our shared
Speaker 1: cultural institutions. Okay, to some of the museums in question,
Speaker 1: I don't think that's going to be an issue whatsoever.
Speaker 1: To others, I could see some potential upheaval. I'm just
Speaker 1: gonna throw that out, but we shall see. This review
Speaker 1: is a constructive and collaborative effort, one rooted in respect
Speaker 1: for the Smithsonian's vital mission and its extraordinary contributions. Our
Speaker 1: goal is not to interfere with the day to day
Speaker 1: operations of curators or staff, but rather to support a
Speaker 1: broader vision of excellence that highlights historically accurate, uplifting and
Speaker 1: inclusive portrayals of America's heritage. That's a great sentiment, it
Speaker 1: really is. However, not all of American history has been
Speaker 1: uplifting or inclusive. Just gonna make sure that we're keeping
Speaker 1: it all one hundred here, but all right, continuing, it says,
Speaker 1: the review will focus on several key areas. Number one,
Speaker 1: public facing content A review of exhibition text, wall dick ditict, didactics,
Speaker 1: didactics rather excuse me? Websites, educational materials, and digital and
Speaker 1: social media content to assess tone, historical framing, and alignment
Speaker 1: with American ideals okay. Number two the curator process. The
Speaker 1: curatorial process a series of interviews with curators and senior
Speaker 1: staff to better understand the selection process, exhibition approval workflows,
Speaker 1: and any frameworks currently guiding exhibition content. Okay. Exhibition planning
Speaker 1: a review of current and few your exhibitions, with particular
Speaker 1: attention to those planned for the two hundred and fiftieth
Speaker 1: anniversary of the Declaration of Independence. Of course, Number four
Speaker 1: Collection use evaluating excuse me an evaluation of how existing
Speaker 1: materials and collections are being used or could be used
Speaker 1: to highlight American achievement and progress, including whether the Smithsonian
Speaker 1: can make better use of certain materials by digitizing or
Speaker 1: conveying to other institutions. All right. Number five Narrative Standards
Speaker 1: the development of consistent curatorial guidelines that reflect the Smithsonian's
Speaker 1: original mission. Going on, It says, initially our review will
Speaker 1: focus on the following museum's. Additional museums will be reviewed
Speaker 1: in phase two. This is a multi phase plan. Well,
Speaker 1: all right, let's see where we're talking about here. I
Speaker 1: read this list earlier, but let's re review it, shall we?
Speaker 1: The National Museum of American History, the National Museum of
Speaker 1: Natural History, the National Museum of African American History and Culture,
Speaker 1: the National Museum of the American Indian the National Air
Speaker 1: and Space Museum, Smithsonian Art Excusing a Smithsonian American Art Museum,
Speaker 1: National Portrait Gallery, and the Hershore Museum and Sculpture Garden.
Speaker 1: So of these, let's see one, two, three, four, possibly five,
Speaker 1: I think possibly five out of these eight will have
Speaker 1: some very drastic changes made because they don't fit into
Speaker 1: this whole inclusivity narrative that is trying to be portrayed
Speaker 1: at this moment, and we'll see, we'll see how they
Speaker 1: try to rewrite history this time materials request to initiate
Speaker 1: this process, We respectfully request that each of the museums
Speaker 1: listed above designate a primary point of contact and provide
Speaker 1: the following materials to our team, including for online content
Speaker 1: number one, two hundred and fiftieth Anniversary programming number two,
Speaker 1: current exhibition content number three, Traveling and Upcoming exhibitions number four,
Speaker 1: Internal guidelines and Governance number five, Index the permanent collection
Speaker 1: or index of the permanent collection, Number six, Educational materials
Speaker 1: number seven, Digital Presence number eight, External Partnerships number nine,
Speaker 1: Grant related documentation, and number ten Surveys and other evaluations
Speaker 1: of visitor experience. So we talk about the timeline a
Speaker 1: little bit here. Within thirty days of receipt of this letter,
Speaker 1: we anticipate that each museum will submit all requests of
Speaker 1: materials outlined in the first four bullet points above, including
Speaker 1: current exhibition descriptions, draft plans for upcoming shows, America's two
Speaker 1: to fifty programming materials and internal guidelines using the Exhibition
Speaker 1: Development Review of america two hundred and fifty exhibition and
Speaker 1: program planning, and connect with curators and staff about their
Speaker 1: specific proposals. A staff liaison from each museum will be
Speaker 1: designated to serve as the primary point of contact, and
Speaker 1: our team will begin on site observational visits, conducting walkthroughs
Speaker 1: of current exhibitions to document themes, visitor experience, and visual messaging.
Speaker 1: They have another timeline for within seventy five days, museums
Speaker 1: are asked to submit the remaining requested documentation. Our team
Speaker 1: will begin scheduling and conducting voluntary interviews with curators and
Speaker 1: senior staff. It is a voluntary interview, but okay, and
Speaker 1: each museum should finalize and submit its updated plan to
Speaker 1: commemorate America's two fiftieth within one hundred and twenty days.
Speaker 1: Museums should begin implementing content corrections where necessary, replacing divisive
Speaker 1: or ideologically driven language with unifying, historically accurate, and constructive
Speaker 1: descriptions across placards, walled dedications, digital displays, and other public
Speaker 1: facing materials. If all the benchmarks are met on schedule.
Speaker 1: We anticipate completing our review and preparing for a final
Speaker 1: report for your review in early twenty twenty six. This
Speaker 1: report will include museums specific assessments and institutional trends, and
Speaker 1: constructive recommendations for future exhibit exhibition strategy. We view this
Speaker 1: process as a collaborative and forward looking opportunity, one that
Speaker 1: empowers museum staff to embrace revitalizing curatorial visions rooted in
Speaker 1: the strength, breadth, and achievements of the American story. By
Speaker 1: focusing on Americanism, the people, principles, and progress that define
Speaker 1: our nation, we can work together to renew Smithsonian's role
Speaker 1: as the world's leading museum institution. All right, and they
Speaker 1: list a bunch of names of thanks and things. Okay,
Speaker 1: remember how I said that federalizing DC kind of seemed
Speaker 1: like in a certain light and authoritarian move. You know,
Speaker 1: this is where we kind of take that next uptick.
Speaker 1: And again, it may not play out that way. It
Speaker 1: might be that they just want to make sure that
Speaker 1: a lot of these exhibits have a you know, for instance,
Speaker 1: in the National Museum of the African Americans. Right, So
Speaker 1: is it possible that they're going to keep up all
Speaker 1: of the somewhat the exhibitions or exhibits I should say
Speaker 1: that may not cast ante bellum America in the best light.
Speaker 1: Is it possible to keep those up? But then they
Speaker 1: also want to make sure that they show some patriotic
Speaker 1: things as well as far as like how far we've
Speaker 1: come as a nation since our beginning. Okay, that's not
Speaker 1: inherently a bad idea. Is it also possible that they
Speaker 1: are about to try and rewrite and, for lack of
Speaker 1: better words, whitewash a lot of this history. There is
Speaker 1: a possibility of that. Yeah, So anyway, we will see
Speaker 1: what happens with the Smithsonian Museums in the upcoming days.
Speaker 1: Real quick, We're not going to spend too much time
Speaker 1: on this one, but we did need to bring this up.
Speaker 1: An investigation is begun. The US Steel Plant is ready
Speaker 1: to get to the bottom of the explosion. For anybody
Speaker 1: who did not hear about this, a US steel plant
Speaker 1: blew up and there were some deaths and they have
Speaker 1: a current investigation to see what exactly happened. If you
Speaker 1: haven't heard about it yet, let's hear some from CBS Pittsburgh.
Speaker 16: Wes Steele continues to promise to pinpoint what happened at
Speaker 16: its Clairton plant on Monday to cause the explosion that
Speaker 16: killed two workers, injured ten more, and spread fear throughout
Speaker 16: the mand Valley. The company's president and CEO said again
Speaker 16: today they're committed to understanding exactly what happened and will
Speaker 16: fully cooperate with all investigations. As slatest statement comes as
Speaker 16: federal investigators make their way to Clareton.
Speaker 17: Of the ten workers who were injured, five remain in
Speaker 17: the hospital. They range in age from twenty seven to
Speaker 17: seventy four. As of yesterday, all were in critical but
Speaker 17: stable condition. The five other injured victims were released Monday.
Speaker 17: As for the two men killed, one has been identified
Speaker 17: as Timothy Quinn. The family of the other is asking
Speaker 17: that his name not be made public. From Governor Shapiro
Speaker 17: on down, everyone wants to answers as to what caused
Speaker 17: the explosion.
Speaker 16: Congresswoman Summerly represents Clareton in Washington. Chris Hoffman asks her
Speaker 16: what the investigation will look like.
Speaker 5: Congresswomanly is appreciative if you as steal's efforts to get
Speaker 5: to the bottom of this. She says, ultimately this can
Speaker 5: never happen again, and we need to make sure people
Speaker 5: that do work in these facilities, whether here and Claron
Speaker 5: or in other parts of the Mont Valley, are in
Speaker 5: a safe environment. You as Steel committed to a transparent
Speaker 5: process that it says we'll get answers about the blast.
Speaker 5: Congresswoman Lee says it's up to leaders and agencies to
Speaker 5: hold them to that promise so.
Speaker 18: That we can get the full truth of not just
Speaker 18: what happened, how it happened, and what do we do now,
Speaker 18: what needs to be done to make sure that something
Speaker 18: like this never happens again.
Speaker 5: According to the pH twelve representative, OSHA and the EPA
Speaker 5: will be involveda have federal regulation and investigative power.
Speaker 1: Now.
Speaker 5: Lee didn't have a timeline for when more details could
Speaker 5: come out. She says some of the investigation will need
Speaker 5: to be talking with the people who were there, some
Speaker 5: of whom are still recovering.
Speaker 18: Those are some of the folks who will be able
Speaker 18: to talk more, you know, in detail about maybe what
Speaker 18: happened in real time, what they saw themselves.
Speaker 5: The US Chemical Safety Board also has a team at
Speaker 5: the plan investigating. They are in an independent agency that
Speaker 5: doesn't issue citations are fines, but gives recommendations to companies
Speaker 5: and groups like OSHA.
Speaker 1: Basically, today we were just able to see the initial
Speaker 1: debris field. Is the site still being made safe to
Speaker 1: allow further engine? Real quick? That dude looked like a
Speaker 1: safetymand didn't he tell me that dude does not look
Speaker 1: like safety is his life. I'm just saying, uh, anyway,
Speaker 1: moving on to allow further engine.
Speaker 5: Our newsroom has been contacted by several steel workers, CLEM
Speaker 5: and US Steel maintenance work is reactive and not preventative,
Speaker 5: and it may have played a role in this explosion.
Speaker 5: US Steel CEO David Burrett had this response.
Speaker 1: I'm shocked and outraged at that statement.
Speaker 16: I find it unbelievable because of safety being in our DNA.
Speaker 1: We take this extraordinarily seriously.
Speaker 5: Congressoman Lie says, whether it be US Steel or Nipon,
Speaker 5: there must be a commitment and investments to fix whatever
Speaker 5: issue caused the blast and make all mills safer.
Speaker 18: And if there's no accountability, then we can't, you know,
Speaker 18: we can't say for sure that safety is in a DNA.
Speaker 5: Her office is working on getting in contact with Ni Pond,
Speaker 5: who has put out a statement saying it's committed to
Speaker 5: give all the resources needed to heal from this tragedy.
Speaker 1: All right, So that will just about do it as
Speaker 1: far as the the American home front conversation is concerned. Now,
Speaker 1: let's shift over to wildfires that are going rampant in
Speaker 1: Europe as we speak. Lest listen, it is of em Reuters.
Speaker 19: Wildfires, fanned by a heat wave and strong winds continued
Speaker 19: to rage across southern Europe on Wednesday, as houses, farms
Speaker 19: and factories were burned and thousands of residents and tourists
Speaker 19: were evacuated. A wildfire near the city of Patras in
Speaker 19: western Greece prompted the evacuation of at least twenty five settlements,
Speaker 19: with the fires setting alight a cement factory and sweeping
Speaker 19: through olive groves and forests. On the Greek islands of
Speaker 19: Chios in the east and Caphalonia in the west, both
Speaker 19: popular with tourists, authorities told people to move to safety
Speaker 19: as fires spread. In Spain, a volunteer firefighter died from
Speaker 19: severe burns fighting fire in the Central Castile and Leon region.
Speaker 19: Firefighters hosed down blazing houses and warehouses and villages, where
Speaker 19: more than five thousand people were evacuated. The country's state
Speaker 19: weather agency almost all of the country was at extreme
Speaker 19: or very high risk of fire. Spain's environment minister said
Speaker 19: many fires were suspected to be intentionally caused, but added
Speaker 19: it was too early to say how many. In Albania,
Speaker 19: several major wildfires are burning across the country. In the
Speaker 19: southern city of Dalvina, evacuees returned to their homes, but
Speaker 19: authorities remained vigilant. Attempts to douse the fires have been
Speaker 19: hampered by a heat wave across large parts of the continent.
Speaker 19: Spain was in its tenth day of soaring heat that
Speaker 19: peaked on Tuesday, with temperatures as high as one hundred
Speaker 19: and thirteen degrees fahrenheit. Conditions are expected to last till Monday,
Speaker 19: making it one of the longest on record.
Speaker 1: Okay, Greece, Spain, Albania. Well, let's learn a little bit
Speaker 1: more about this here. This is from CNBC. Temperature records
Speaker 1: smashed as extreme heat wildfires grip parts of Europe. The
Speaker 1: extreme heat, like I said, there is the key points.
Speaker 1: Excuse me, extreme heat is smash temperatures like you said?
Speaker 1: Weather forecaster Media or Media France said it has an
Speaker 1: update that unprecedented maximum temperatures, often twelve degrees above normal levels,
Speaker 1: were set earlier in the week. Scientists have warmed, of course,
Speaker 1: that climate change is exacerbating the frequency and intensity of
Speaker 1: extreme weather events. Let's learn a little bit more about
Speaker 1: this here. Record breaking heat has swept across Europe in
Speaker 1: recent days, pushing temperatures well beyond four a degree celsius,
Speaker 1: which is one hundred and four degrees fahrenheit in some areas,
Speaker 1: and fuelling regional wildfires. In France, temperature records were obliterated
Speaker 1: in the Bordeaux region, Saint Emilio, Saint Girons, Anguilem and
Speaker 1: Bergerac Bergiaq. It's been quite a while since I tried
Speaker 1: to pronounce French words. On Monday afternoon, according to an
Speaker 1: update from the Weather forecaster, often remarkable, even unprecedented maximum temperatures,
Speaker 1: often twelve degrees above normal levels, were reached this Monday.
Speaker 1: The FORECASTU said that a heat wave is in the
Speaker 1: southwest has seen spreading to the center, east and northeast
Speaker 1: of the country through Tuesday and Wednesday. In Croatia, temperatures
Speaker 1: climbed to thirty nine point five degrees celsius. In the
Speaker 1: Adriatic coastal city of Sibonik, and thirty eight point nine
Speaker 1: in the popular tourist deaf destination of Dubravinnik, the Brovnik.
Speaker 1: Excuse me. The temperature records come as scientists warren climate
Speaker 1: change is exacerbating the frequency and intensity of extreme weather events.
Speaker 1: The burning of fossil fuels such as coal and gas
Speaker 1: is the chief driver of the climate crisis. There's okay.
Speaker 1: Europe is meanwhile known to be warming faster than any
Speaker 1: other continent, at twice the speed of the global average
Speaker 1: since the nineteen eighties, according to the EU's Copernicus climate
Speaker 1: change service. The UU excuse me. The EU's climate monitor
Speaker 1: has attributed this trend to changing weather patterns, reducing reduced
Speaker 1: air pollution, and the region's geography, noting that part of
Speaker 1: Europe extend into the Arctic, the fastest warming region on Earth.
Speaker 1: In Spain, firefighters largely contained a blaze that broke out
Speaker 1: near the capital of Madrid on Monday evening. Nearly six
Speaker 1: thousand people were evacuated from their homes in the northern,
Speaker 1: central and southern Spain this week as wildfires raged amid
Speaker 1: a heat wave predicted to push temperatures up to around
Speaker 1: forty four degrees celsius in some parts of the southern
Speaker 1: European country. Wildfires have also been reported in Portugal, Croatia, Turkey, Greece, Albania,
Speaker 1: Montenegro and the UK in recent days. It's not just
Speaker 1: Europe suffering from the record heat, with temperature records also
Speaker 1: broken in Canada of late temperatures Meanwhile, soored above fifty
Speaker 1: degrees celsius in Iraq, plunging the country into darkness on
Speaker 1: Monday during a nationwide power outage. So the heat is
Speaker 1: actually also affecting the power grid in some of these places.
Speaker 1: But that is unprecedented that many countries, all spread out
Speaker 1: across Europe. It's not like these are all neighboring countries.
Speaker 1: Some of them are, but the UK, Portugal, Croatia, Turkey, Greece, Albania, Montenegro,
Speaker 1: the UK, Spain. This is crazy. And yes, of course,
Speaker 1: hotter temperatures make for easier combustibles. I understand that one
Speaker 1: hundred percent. But my god, again, that is unprecedented. And
Speaker 1: I'm not saying that there is obviously a nefarious actor
Speaker 1: or arsonists at play here, but I would like to
Speaker 1: see what the investigation yields as far as how all
Speaker 1: these fires started. We will see what these things turn
Speaker 1: up if they actually do an investigation on it. Now.
Speaker 1: Sticking onto the European conversation, Zelensky and European leaders to
Speaker 1: hold a call with Trump ahead of the Putin summit.
Speaker 1: This is from the BBC. I should add Ukrainian President
Speaker 1: Vladimir Zelensky is joining European leaders and talks need at
Speaker 1: aimed excuse me at increasing pressure on the US President
Speaker 1: to side with Ukraine during Friday's summit with his Russian
Speaker 1: counterpart in Alaska. In an online call with Trump on Wednesday,
Speaker 1: the leaders are expected to reiterate that no decision should
Speaker 1: be taken without Ukraine, including changing its borders by force.
Speaker 1: Trump has said any peace deal would involve some swapping
Speaker 1: of territories quote unquote, and it is believed that Putin's
Speaker 1: demands is that Kiev surrenders the parts of eastern Donbas
Speaker 1: area that it still controls on Tuesdays. Lensky said such
Speaker 1: a concession could be used as a springboard for future
Speaker 1: attacks by Russia. Russia launched a full scale invasion in
Speaker 1: February twenty twenty two. A Russian summer offensive has been progressing,
Speaker 1: with troops making a sudden thrust near the eastern town
Speaker 1: of Do Dobro Pilia, all right, and advancing ten kilometers
Speaker 1: or six miles in a short period of time. But
Speaker 1: they really, yeah, they did that, but they haven't really
Speaker 1: taken much ground more than that as of this moment.
Speaker 1: Some but it's a very very slow grind. But yes,
Speaker 1: they are still gaining ground one hundred percent. While downplaying
Speaker 1: Russia's advance, Zelensky said it was clear to us that
Speaker 1: Moscow's objective was to create a certain information space before
Speaker 1: Putin meets Trump, that Russia is moving forward, advancing while
Speaker 1: Ukraine is losing. Okay, that's not a certain information space.
Speaker 1: The math is the math. I'm just gonna throw that out,
Speaker 1: but all right. No official details have emerged on what
Speaker 1: demands Putin could make when he meets with Trump in
Speaker 1: Anchorage on Friday. However, there has been concern among Ukraine's
Speaker 1: European allies about the possibility of Trump agreeing to Putin's demands.
Speaker 1: German Chancellor Merz has called Wednesday's meeting, and Zelenski is
Speaker 1: traveling to Berlin to join him for the video call
Speaker 1: with other European leaders, including the UK Prime Minister Starmer.
Speaker 1: Before the call Trump, Zelensky has previously insisted that Ukrainians
Speaker 1: would not quote unquote gift their land to the occupier,
Speaker 1: and pointed to the country's constitution, which requires a referendum
Speaker 1: before a change in its territory. Last week, Trump said
Speaker 1: there would be quote some swapping of territories to the
Speaker 1: betterment of both quote Russia and Ukraine, sparking concerns in
Speaker 1: Kiev and across Europe that Moscow could be allowed to
Speaker 1: redraw Ukraine's border by force. Russia currently controls just under
Speaker 1: twenty percent of Ukrainian territory. The dun Boss is made
Speaker 1: up of the eastern regions of the Luhansk and Dnesk
Speaker 1: has been partially or partly rather occupied by Russia since
Speaker 1: twenty fourteen. I think with that they mean the U Crimea.
Speaker 1: Moscow now holds almost all of Luhansk and about seventy
Speaker 1: percent of Dunesk. But speaking to reporters on Tuesdays, Zelensky
Speaker 1: reaffirmed that Ukraine would reject any proposal to leave the
Speaker 1: donbas So this is a current map of the occupied
Speaker 1: territory of eastern Ukraine. Like they said, they have all
Speaker 1: of thelu Hansk, they have seventy percent of Dunesque, They've
Speaker 1: had Crimea since twenty fourteen. They are still pushing into
Speaker 1: the Khirsan region, but it's not as heavy of a
Speaker 1: push as it is to the northern region, and Zaparizia
Speaker 1: still has fighting going on there. But again, the Dunesku
Speaker 1: seems to be where the majority of the Ford advance
Speaker 1: is taking place as of this moment. The White House
Speaker 1: on Tuesday said that Alaska talks would be a quote
Speaker 1: unquote listening exercise for Trump, and added having him and
Speaker 1: Putin sit down in the same room would give the
Speaker 1: US President the best indication on how to end this war.
Speaker 1: It follows Trump describing the summit as a feel out
Speaker 1: meeting on Monday, seeming to tone down expectations that Friday's
Speaker 1: meeting could bring Ukraine and Russia closer to peace. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I don't believe it's gonna at all. As a matter
Speaker 1: of fact, when he announced the summit last week, Trump's
Speaker 1: sounded positive that the meeting could result in concrete steps
Speaker 1: towards peace. He's very sure of that, but he's very
Speaker 1: sure of pretty much everything he says, So take that
Speaker 1: with a grain of salt. I think in my gut
Speaker 1: instinct really tells me that we have a shot at it,
Speaker 1: he said. The Ukrainian leader has previously said any agreement
Speaker 1: without Kiev's involvement would amount to dead decisions. That's fair,
Speaker 1: and Zelensky is very pissed about this. I understand that
Speaker 1: he's basically saying, like, Yo, if you're gonna call this
Speaker 1: meeting with Putin, why is Ukraine not also being invited
Speaker 1: to the meeting. Meanwhile, the Trump is like, listen, man,
Speaker 1: I've got to get him alone to talk to him
Speaker 1: about some things. We're trying to figure out what's gonna
Speaker 1: be best for all parties. You'll be at the next one.
Speaker 1: I've had multiple meetings with you, and the last time
Speaker 1: you came to my house and had a conversation with me,
Speaker 1: you got a little temper tantrum on international television. So
Speaker 1: I'm gonna go meet with old lad real quick and
Speaker 1: we're gonna have a convo. I'll let you know how
Speaker 1: things shake out, Tony, I see you unmuted brother way
Speaker 1: in Yeah.
Speaker 15: Back in twenty fourteen, Crimea succeeded very effectively, but Luganskantnik
Speaker 15: also attempted to their legislators didn't recognize the new the
Speaker 15: departure of Yanikovic, and they tried to secede, and they
Speaker 15: held referenda on it too. But in kind of the
Speaker 15: short term, the don Bas Republics ended up only being
Speaker 15: like maybe twenty percent of those territories way in the east,
Speaker 15: and Ukraine was trying to conquer them, and that's kind
Speaker 15: of what really set off the war in twenty twenty two,
Speaker 15: because Kiev was about ready to finish the job and
Speaker 15: take back these kind of breakaway regions within the breakaway
Speaker 15: province that was like the easternmost twenty or thirty percent
Speaker 15: of them. So yeah, that is different, a little different
Speaker 15: from Crimea. But now, as we've seen for the last
Speaker 15: three years, Putin has gotten uh you know, pretty much
Speaker 15: most of both of those territories and more so, and
Speaker 15: he's not giving them up and it's time to probably
Speaker 15: just recognize that.
Speaker 1: So yeah, I means he's not very popular in his
Speaker 1: country as of this moment, Putinsky. Yeah, I mean, there's
Speaker 1: an argument to say that Putin is also not very
Speaker 1: well liked in his country as of this moment, because
Speaker 1: he told his people this was going to be a
Speaker 1: two week military operation and we're on year three of it.
Speaker 1: Even if people supported what the mission was about. That's
Speaker 1: that's not a good look. Right. It's the same thing
Speaker 1: if America was to get involved in, you know, some
Speaker 1: sort of a peacekeeping operation via the UN, and we
Speaker 1: told the American people that, oh, we're only going to
Speaker 1: be there for a month, and we ended up staying
Speaker 1: for ten years. Like that's that is not a good look,
Speaker 1: regardless of what the initial motives were. Yeah.
Speaker 15: I think there was some overconfidence on both sides, to
Speaker 15: be sure. Yeah, but I think Putin is still popular enough.
Speaker 1: And if you felt like he's about to lose his
Speaker 1: seat of power by any means, it's not to that level,
Speaker 1: no way.
Speaker 15: Yeah, And he has been re elected since the war started,
Speaker 15: if you believe the election results, which a lot of
Speaker 15: people in the West don't. But I believe him, and
Speaker 15: I think opinion polls confirm that he is popular enough.
Speaker 15: He's least popular with younger and male voters. He's more
Speaker 15: popular with older and female voters.
Speaker 1: Wait, wasn't his opponent in that election arrested shortly after
Speaker 1: the election?
Speaker 15: You know, I forget might have been even been before
Speaker 15: I don't even remember what those guys' names were. I
Speaker 15: would have been able to remember if this was last year,
Speaker 15: but I don't remember.
Speaker 1: Same. Same. And then I also get that mixed up
Speaker 1: with the leader of the Wagner group that tried to
Speaker 1: throw a coup, and I know it's not the same.
Speaker 15: You have guy.
Speaker 1: Yeah, it wasn't Pregosion that he was going up against
Speaker 1: in the election. It was somebody that was not a
Speaker 1: member of his cabinet, but like somebody who was seen
Speaker 1: in years prior to as a homie of his. And
Speaker 1: then you know, when they went up for the election,
Speaker 1: it was, oh, it's no big deal, this is his friend.
Speaker 1: Putin's obviously gonna win and it's gonna be no big deal.
Speaker 1: Then you hear that your boy was bagged and tagged,
Speaker 1: and it's like, oh, well, all right, then this is
Speaker 1: an ursha, you know, and these kinds of things.
Speaker 15: But anyway, Yeah, I don't have much more to say
Speaker 15: on that. How many more stories you got?
Speaker 1: Just a few, But I mean we can go longer
Speaker 1: than two hours this evening. I have no issue with it.
Speaker 1: So if you got something, dude, do you want to
Speaker 1: jump in? Now we're jumping towards the end.
Speaker 15: Yeah, I'd like to jump in now, Okay.
Speaker 1: Go for it. The next article I was going to
Speaker 1: read is talking about the conversation with Trump and Putin,
Speaker 1: but by all means, brother, jump in.
Speaker 15: Okay. This has to do with Israel and Gaza, which
Speaker 15: I don't think we've talked about in a little while.
Speaker 1: Okay, and I.
Speaker 15: Wish Royce were still here, but I guess it's not.
Speaker 15: He said he was passing out and good bye, good
Speaker 15: night and Royce. But I wanted to bring up a
Speaker 15: guy who many listeners have probably heard of. His name
Speaker 15: is Anthony Aguie lar He's gone on Tucker Carlson twice,
Speaker 15: He's been interviewed by the BBC, He's been interviewed by
Speaker 15: a host of other podcasts hosts that I have listened to.
Speaker 15: And to give you some background on him, he was
Speaker 15: working for a security contractor called ug Solutions. I forget
Speaker 15: what that stands for, but they're like PMC a little bit,
Speaker 15: and they were working for GHF, another three letter acronym,
Speaker 15: and GHF stands for Godza Humanitarian Foundation, and Godza Humanitarian
Speaker 15: Foundation kind of replaces the U n unruh. If you've
Speaker 15: ever heard of them. It's U n r W, a
Speaker 15: un Relief Work Association or something. I actually forget what
Speaker 15: it stands for. But that was the organization that was
Speaker 15: bringing lots of food into Gaza until about March of
Speaker 15: this year when they were banned and Gaza was put
Speaker 15: under a blockade, and then food couldn't get in there
Speaker 15: anymore until this GHF Foundation started. And okay, this guy
Speaker 15: Anthony Aguilar, let's let's play a little bit of one
Speaker 15: of his Tucker interviews. I got it going right now.
Speaker 15: I hope that you can hear it.
Speaker 1: I have it pulled up. You posted in the chat. Huh, Tony,
Speaker 1: can you hear it? I can't guess, but I have
Speaker 1: it pulled up on my screen. It's the it's twelve
Speaker 1: minutes long. Is this the one you post in the chat?
Speaker 15: Yeah, let's just do like the first minute of it
Speaker 15: and then I'll keep talking.
Speaker 1: Okay, all right, so good everybody watching this on Patreon
Speaker 1: at Cajun night. You're gonna be able to see this
Speaker 1: for everybody who is just listening to it. Look, you're
Speaker 1: gonna want to be a part of this. Come join
Speaker 1: us a Patreon for this. All right, let's check it out.
Speaker 6: I witnessed Palestinian parents, men and mothers and fathers carrying
Speaker 6: their dead children in their arms, skeletons. I witness that,
Speaker 6: I've witnessed people that have come on to the sites
Speaker 6: that you can see that they are just completely emaciated
Speaker 6: and starving.
Speaker 15: That's not fake.
Speaker 6: So if if the deniers want to think that we
Speaker 6: got Stanley Kubrick to go into Gaza and take a
Speaker 6: bunch of crisis actors and shoot a film on, you know,
Speaker 6: to fake this starvation, but it's real and people are dying.
Speaker 1: At this point right now.
Speaker 6: Because we the United States, the Gaza Humanitarian Fund put
Speaker 6: up our hand and said we'll do it. The starvation
Speaker 6: at this point has gotten worse than it was before
Speaker 6: because the Gaza Humanitarian Foundation's process is leading to that
Speaker 6: starvation because it's not delivering enough aid, not even nearly enough,
Speaker 6: not even nearly to be to be a fraction of enough.
Speaker 1: Because I feel like.
Speaker 6: Someone handed bb net NYAFU a list of the violations
Speaker 6: of the Djeva Convention, but but like took the took
Speaker 6: the numbers off of it, and he's just checking them off,
Speaker 6: like displacing the population.
Speaker 1: Yeah, do that.
Speaker 6: It's like Okay, well that that's a war crime. Firing
Speaker 6: at the civilians to control the population. Okay, well, targeting
Speaker 6: civilians with lethal amunition to control the population, verbatim is
Speaker 6: a war crime. So you got that one.
Speaker 15: Check what next?
Speaker 1: What do you got next?
Speaker 6: We're gonna build the humanitarian distribution sites in the middle
Speaker 6: of combat zones. Oh shit, there's there's protocol three.
Speaker 13: Got it?
Speaker 6: You just did that one.
Speaker 1: What's next? Oh?
Speaker 6: How about we, uh we label the entire society as
Speaker 6: as got as hamas and kill them all. Wow, bingo,
Speaker 6: you just got a straight across, because now you just
Speaker 6: made another war crime statement. Because the Geneva conjaventions pecimply
Speaker 6: hibbits the classification of an entire population as the enemy
Speaker 6: based on the actions of a few is hamas all.
Speaker 1: Of all of Gaza.
Speaker 6: No, no, of course it's not. Are we treating them
Speaker 6: like they're all Hamas? Yes, we are. Another war crime.
Speaker 6: So when I bring up these points about this.
Speaker 15: Not this content here, and yeah, I don't want to
Speaker 15: take up all of everyone's time, But he's he repeats
Speaker 15: the same thing in a number of different places, and
Speaker 15: so he went on Tucker once I think July thirty
Speaker 15: first or August first, and then a few days later,
Speaker 15: all of a sudden, and Tucker warned them, there's going
Speaker 15: to be a lot of attacks on you. So a
Speaker 15: day or two later, and I don't think this is
Speaker 15: just useless Twitter drama, but a bunch of mugshots of
Speaker 15: him were posted alleging that he beat up his wife
Speaker 15: and was guilty of you know, elie, possession of a
Speaker 15: firearm and all kinds of stuff. And then what I'm
Speaker 15: sharing here for people who can't view it is that
Speaker 15: lady on Twitter who goes by handled Village Crazy Lady.
Speaker 15: She pretty thoroughly debunked that, and I don't use the
Speaker 15: word debunked lightly, but she was kind of lucky that
Speaker 15: she's got like a paralegal background, and she also lived
Speaker 15: in North Carolina where he lived, and she looked at
Speaker 15: the mugshot and the arrest record and said it just
Speaker 15: doesn't look right. The docket number actually maps to somebody else,
Speaker 15: and his date of birth, which is listed on the mugshot,
Speaker 15: is not the procedure that the way they do things,
Speaker 15: they will give the age in years like forty something
Speaker 15: years old, but they don't post birth dates. And yeah,
Speaker 15: Duke Lane doesn't exist. And there's you know, all kinds
Speaker 15: of other reasons that this was obviously a fabricated attack
Speaker 15: on him, and he's been coming under lots of attacks.
Speaker 15: This one's obviously very illegitimate. One of the slightly more
Speaker 15: legitimate attacks on him is that he seems to be
Speaker 15: a disgruntled employee. So he was a contractor. They didn't
Speaker 15: want to renew his contract. He was having a hard
Speaker 15: time getting along with people, and he told them, if
Speaker 15: if you don't renew my contract, I'm going to go
Speaker 15: public with all this stuff, and he did so. This
Speaker 15: is making Gaza Humanitarian Foundation look bad. It's because he's
Speaker 15: got lots of stories about how starving people are coming
Speaker 15: and just getting a shot at and something like a
Speaker 15: hundred of them will die per day at least, you know,
Speaker 15: that's the report I've seen. He had kind of a
Speaker 15: unique position where he got to travel between four different
Speaker 15: sites there. Three of them are way down in the
Speaker 15: southern end of Gaza, and the fourth one is right
Speaker 15: in the middle in the net Serene Corridor. So most
Speaker 15: people throughout Gaza don't really have easy access to any
Speaker 15: of these places, and they have to walk a long
Speaker 15: long distance to get there, and it's just a terrible
Speaker 15: situation because they get there, there's no signs telling them
Speaker 15: where to go. The only way they figure out where
Speaker 15: to go is that American and Israeli contractors shoot it
Speaker 15: to the ground or over their head, and you know,
Speaker 15: some of those bullets hit them. And so he's got
Speaker 15: lots of stories. One of his stories is about a
Speaker 15: boy named Emir who comes up to thank him for
Speaker 15: the food and then he sees a mirror running off
Speaker 15: and then in a group that gets fired on, Amir
Speaker 15: gets killed. I'm sure most people, many people have probably
Speaker 15: heard that story. As for the whole disgruntled employee allegation,
Speaker 15: I guess this comes down to the idea of loyalty
Speaker 15: in a military situation, because I think you would agree, Jacob,
Speaker 15: the military the highest virtue for somebody in the military
Speaker 15: is loyalty and obedience, not so much you know, doing
Speaker 15: the right thing based on what a priest might tell you.
Speaker 15: What do you think about that.
Speaker 1: There's levels to that, but I would say yes, loyalty
Speaker 1: and instant obedience to orders are two of the highest qualities.
Speaker 1: But just so we're clear here, he wasn't there for
Speaker 1: military as far as like uniformed military purposes. He was
Speaker 1: there for a as a private contractor correct, Yeah, he was,
Speaker 1: so then his loyalty goes to the almighty dollar.
Speaker 15: Yeah, maybe to his employer. But I think the people
Speaker 15: in organizations like this have a pretty military like mindset
Speaker 15: where they follow orders and it's a messy world and
Speaker 15: you do the best you can and you're not going
Speaker 15: to be judged based on the morality of your actions.
Speaker 15: Your superiors are responsible and for making those decisions. So
Speaker 15: I think his disloyalty, you know, if you can call
Speaker 15: it that, there's a big turn off to people who
Speaker 15: are especially are more ideologically aligned with Israel. But this
Speaker 15: brings so I don't know, maybe this is a larger issue,
Speaker 15: But in the twentieth century, I feel like Nuremberg tried
Speaker 15: to the Nuremberg Trials tried to rewrite the whole idea
Speaker 15: of what you should do as a soldier if you're
Speaker 15: commanded to do something bad, because the previous mindset was
Speaker 15: you just obey orders, and the mindset after that is
Speaker 15: actually a lot murkier, where yeah, maybe you can obey
Speaker 15: the orders, but you know, will you be able to
Speaker 15: use that as a defense if people want to judge
Speaker 15: you for it.
Speaker 1: Yes, I'm with you on that front. But also PMCs
Speaker 1: do not operate under the Geneva Convention or the Nuremberg trials.
Speaker 1: So and there's levels to the private military contractor game,
Speaker 1: and I understand that as well. But like for instance, Benghazi, right,
Speaker 1: if you ever watched the movie associated with it, the
Speaker 1: contractors that were there to guard the CIA Liaison office,
Speaker 1: even though everybody in that building was American, and the
Speaker 1: dudes that were a part of the PMC were American contractors,
Speaker 1: and yeah, all of them were former military, they were
Speaker 1: not military at that time. They were ordered to not
Speaker 1: go help the embassy, and they said, fuck you were
Speaker 1: doing it anyway, right, So like good things, but that
Speaker 1: also broke their contract. And if something would have happened
Speaker 1: to them and they would have gotten taken prisoner, no
Speaker 1: one's coming to get them because PMCs they don't operate
Speaker 1: that way. And if a private military contractor wants to
Speaker 1: take a prisoner and do medieval torture on them to
Speaker 1: get some sort of information, Geneva Conventions not at play here.
Speaker 1: Neither is the Nuremberg neither is any other kind of
Speaker 1: international officiating body. Because they're out there for private contracting purposes.
Speaker 1: So I don't know Aguilar's entire backstory. I don't know
Speaker 1: which contractor he worked for. I know dudes personally, who
Speaker 1: and hell I even almost worked for a PMC at
Speaker 1: one point in time. I was I was almost picked
Speaker 1: up by Constellis and I was almost picked up by
Speaker 1: Oh Hill. What was the other one? Not bare Claw.
Speaker 1: I'm thinking I'm hunger. I'm thinking of bear clothes. I
Speaker 1: forget what the name of it was, but there was
Speaker 1: two PMCs No no, no, no, no Blackwater that went by
Speaker 1: the wayside after the Blackwater Bridge incident. It then became
Speaker 1: Triple Canopy, and then it got sold and it's some
Speaker 1: other subsidiary. Now it's a new name, but basically the
Speaker 1: same rank and file structure of it all. God, I
Speaker 1: cannot remember the other PMC that I was about to
Speaker 1: work for, but damn it anyway. But a lot of
Speaker 1: my buddies that went worked for them in Afghanistan and
Speaker 1: in active war zones. They were fully aware of what
Speaker 1: the score was, and that's why they were getting paid
Speaker 1: up to five or six times what these soldiers were
Speaker 1: getting paid out there, because the soldiers if something happens
Speaker 1: to them, the US Government's coming to get them. PMCs.
Speaker 1: If something happens to you, you are up Shit's creek, brother,
Speaker 1: and I hope you make it back to the state
Speaker 1: to one piece, because that's just the way it goes now.
Speaker 1: Humanitarian PMCs, I don't know, they're like their mo right,
Speaker 1: I don't know what they're stane and operating procedure is.
Speaker 1: I know that the same rules or lack of rules
Speaker 1: still applies to them, but I don't know what the
Speaker 1: difference is as far as their like you would say,
Speaker 1: their orders or their mission set. Usually PMCs are hired
Speaker 1: to protect the assets of their their contract, right, So
Speaker 1: if you are hired to guard this road, it's not
Speaker 1: against this group or against that group. You're hired to
Speaker 1: make sure that no one destroys this road or impedes
Speaker 1: traffic beyond a reasonable point. And like whether that's your guys,
Speaker 1: their guys, whatever, that's your job and you're just literally
Speaker 1: punching a clock. There's no feelings or morality associated with it.
Speaker 1: So I don't know. I don't know how that's going
Speaker 1: down as far as Gods is concerned. But PMCs kind
Speaker 1: of operate their their mercenaries for lack of better words,
Speaker 1: and morality very rarely plays in with mercenaries.
Speaker 15: Yeah, and these guys were proud, probably largely hired precisely
Speaker 15: because they were trusted to keep their mouths shut. And
Speaker 15: this is one guy. I don't know how many coworkers
Speaker 15: he has, but he's had a couple other make statements
Speaker 15: that are very critical of the of the aid process
Speaker 15: and how these people are not really getting fed, but
Speaker 15: they are getting shot at and they are getting killed.
Speaker 15: But the other people have done it anonymously. He's the
Speaker 15: only one who puts his name on it. And he's
Speaker 15: saying that after this is over, or maybe not even
Speaker 15: after it's over, maybe just months from now, more of
Speaker 15: these guys are going to come forward and say they've
Speaker 15: seen the same thing. And he's alleging the UNRA did
Speaker 15: a better job at distributing food, but GHF seems like
Speaker 15: it's specifically set up to get as many of them
Speaker 15: killed as possible. He points out lots of things like
Speaker 15: they don't provide any water. Most of the food they're
Speaker 15: providing his dry rice and lentils and stuff and stuff
Speaker 15: you've got to boil in water, and God has no water,
Speaker 15: no fresh water. It's got salt water but no fresh water.
Speaker 15: So they are just really screwed there.
Speaker 1: That is, that's horrible, Sam, your hands raised, brother, what
Speaker 1: you got?
Speaker 5: Yeah?
Speaker 12: I was wondering, what was the Blackwater bridge thing?
Speaker 15: Something Falujah?
Speaker 1: Uh? All right, so how can I The Blackwater Bridge
Speaker 1: incident was where you had some Blackwater operators that were
Speaker 1: American by birth, but where they were operating, they were
Speaker 1: not flying an American flag that got into a little
Speaker 1: bit of a scuffle with the local for lack of
Speaker 1: better words, let's call them a terrorist organization. They lost
Speaker 1: the fight, and their bodies were drugged through the streets
Speaker 1: and hung off of a bridge with nooses, with signs
Speaker 1: around their necks. You know, the typical debt to America,
Speaker 1: death to the infidels, you know that old that old
Speaker 1: stick and uh. These pictures made their way all over
Speaker 1: the internet. You could look up right now videos and
Speaker 1: documentary about the Blackwater Bridge incident. Blackwater, up until that
Speaker 1: point was the largest and most successful American PMC operating
Speaker 1: in the world. That one incident pretty much negated that,
Speaker 1: and they took such a hit that they ended up
Speaker 1: having to sell and rebrand the company. To another group,
Speaker 1: which is when it became triple canopy.
Speaker 12: Wait, is that why the snipers started dipping his bullets
Speaker 12: in the spam?
Speaker 1: No, that sniper was an American sniper, so PMC they
Speaker 1: could dip it. Huh.
Speaker 12: I was talking about why he was doing that because, Hey,
Speaker 12: a fellow American was killed and humiliated like that.
Speaker 1: And yeah, there's been a few cases of American soldiers
Speaker 1: and marines that you know, were killed and their bodies
Speaker 1: were mutilated and all these things, But these were servicemen PMCs.
Speaker 1: You could do psych warfare all you want. It's not
Speaker 1: gonna like help your mis set. But yeah, if you
Speaker 1: want to dip your your bullets and spam to make
Speaker 1: sure that the hodgies will you go to hell when
Speaker 1: they die, then like you could totally do that. There's
Speaker 1: no Geneva convention that these guys answer to. See.
Speaker 12: That's the thing and the way I say, if an
Speaker 12: insurgency doesn't follow the Geneva conventions, why should we? I
Speaker 12: feel like, how government can tell us where to fight,
Speaker 12: when to fight, they should not tell us how to fight.
Speaker 1: So the problem is, whenever you declare total war on
Speaker 1: a group of people, the blowback on that years after
Speaker 1: the fact is typically the Uh, the ends don't justify
Speaker 1: the means, right, So you want to try to leave
Speaker 1: the area better than when you got there. When it's
Speaker 1: all said and done, you want to leave the area
Speaker 1: a little freer, uh, not as oppressed, you know, because
Speaker 1: the bad guys that you're killing, you want to be
Speaker 1: the bad guys, like the actual bad guys over this
Speaker 1: area where the women and children are scared of these
Speaker 1: people in the are they are a hindrance to a
Speaker 1: happy life being lived in this area. Whenever you go
Speaker 1: into the mindset of a total war kind of situation,
Speaker 1: that usually goes by the wayside. And that's how we
Speaker 1: get some of these situations like in Vietnam where you
Speaker 1: had helicopter pilots and door gunners that were just mowing
Speaker 1: down groups of women and children because well, how do
Speaker 1: we know they weren't VC And it's like, no, no, no,
Speaker 1: that's that's not the way at least that's not the
Speaker 1: way that America wants to do business. We want to
Speaker 1: be seen as the golden standard of how to operate
Speaker 1: in a war zone, not not the other way around.
Speaker 1: Although I think there's a time and place for everything
Speaker 1: I mean, if the insurgency is going to use dirty tactics,
Speaker 1: I am all in favor of meeting that fire with fire.
Speaker 1: But the problem is that if we don't maintain the standard,
Speaker 1: then who's going.
Speaker 15: To I PREGI that goes along with this this whole
Speaker 15: title of this podcast Cajun knight, and being a knight
Speaker 15: means that you have a concept of honor and chivalry,
Speaker 15: and part of that's, you know, just pr and part
Speaker 15: of that's trying to do the right thing. But pr
Speaker 15: is really important in war, and you don't want to
Speaker 15: cross lines that you'll be judged negatively for and that'll
Speaker 15: give the enemy an excuse to cross lines too. So
Speaker 15: in World War Two in Europe, luckily nobody crossed the
Speaker 15: line of using chemical weapons, even though both sides had
Speaker 15: stockpiles of them, and both sides were just waiting for
Speaker 15: the other side to cross that line first, and somehow
Speaker 15: it never happened. So we got lucky there.
Speaker 1: Saying with the flamethrower situation, right, that's why they stopped
Speaker 1: using flamethrowers, because you would use them to clear out
Speaker 1: a pillbox or a machine gun. Nest okay, dope, that's
Speaker 1: what they were designed to do. But once these guys
Speaker 1: came out on fire, they wouldn't shoot them. They would
Speaker 1: let them slowly burn to death. That's that goes against
Speaker 1: the standard of us trying to show the world that
Speaker 1: we're the good guys. If we had cameras and satellite
Speaker 1: TVs back in those days, and the American public, we're
Speaker 1: seeing that our American boys, these guys that were drafted
Speaker 1: from all over the country were doing this animalistic and
Speaker 1: heinous shit to the enemy, even if yes, they were Nazis.
Speaker 1: I understand that, I get it, But it's about the optics.
Speaker 1: It's about what gets seen by the public and what
Speaker 1: these guys are going to be viewed as when they
Speaker 1: get home. That's why you had these guys coming home
Speaker 1: from Vietnam getting spit on and called baby killers. Right.
Speaker 1: It wasn't even like they were actually trying to do that.
Speaker 1: There were some cases where they were doing some heinous
Speaker 1: shit and should have been shit on. But the ninety
Speaker 1: nine point nine percent of US service members that went
Speaker 1: to Vietnam because they were drafted and then came home
Speaker 1: did not deserve that type of retribution. But they got
Speaker 1: it anyway, because that's all that the media was reporting
Speaker 1: on because no news sells like bad news, so it's
Speaker 1: about the optics overall.
Speaker 12: But Jacob, the uh, how do I put it? That's
Speaker 12: the thing though, you you can't really I feel like
Speaker 12: you can't judge. So you can't judge the actions of
Speaker 12: like the men on the in the fight in war
Speaker 12: because war is not human. Everybody says, oh, we should
Speaker 12: fight the war humanly.
Speaker 1: How do you.
Speaker 12: Kill vast amounts of enemies humanity?
Speaker 1: You can't.
Speaker 12: And if you want to, and if you really want
Speaker 12: to talk about the justifying the ends, justify the means. Okay, yes, Uh.
Speaker 12: The world's greatest uh general Ville party was when America
Speaker 12: UH introduced our little boy to Japan. Granted, but we
Speaker 12: did far more and more damage and more UH casualties
Speaker 12: with the firebombing of Japan, the mainline Japan then we
Speaker 12: actually did with the two atomic bombs dropping.
Speaker 1: That's fair, but we also have to look at what
Speaker 1: the alternative was to that. The culture of Japan during
Speaker 1: World War II was literally they were telling the people
Speaker 1: that Americans were eating them, they were gonna eat the
Speaker 1: prisoners of war, that we were these barbarian animals, and
Speaker 1: all these things and that's confirmed by multiple people that
Speaker 1: could speak Japanese that were in the Pacific year that
Speaker 1: heard these women throwing their children off of cliffs to
Speaker 1: their deaths rather than be quote unquote captured and eaten
Speaker 1: by the animalistic Americans. Right, they were not going to
Speaker 1: surrender by any means. As a matter of fact, every
Speaker 1: Purple Heart that has been awarded since World War Two
Speaker 1: were made for what they expected to be the Purple
Speaker 1: Hearts to be awarded after the invasion of mainland Japan.
Speaker 1: So the ends justifying the means dropping two atomic bombs
Speaker 1: finally got it through the Japanese mindset that hey, y'all,
Speaker 1: maybe we can't win this thing and we need to
Speaker 1: stop to save our population. Because the reality of it
Speaker 1: is that upwards of hundreds of thousands, if not a million,
Speaker 1: people would have died from the US invading mainland Japan.
Speaker 1: So I'm not in favor of dropping nukes on people,
Speaker 1: but that truly was a situation where the inns truly
Speaker 1: justified the means. It's not a fun conversation to have,
Speaker 1: and I'm with you, you can't. You can't judge the
Speaker 1: war fighter who's in the middle of a firefight for
Speaker 1: going a little berserk. I get this one hundred percent
Speaker 1: fog of war being a thing, frenzy being a thing.
Speaker 1: I have the sympathy and the empathy for it. But
Speaker 1: there's gotta be a limit.
Speaker 12: Okay, I understand what you're saying, but it's just the
Speaker 12: way it says. You can't judge some like the way
Speaker 12: that people judge. So like the our boys from Vietnam,
Speaker 12: they the people judging them, they didn't they they weren't there,
Speaker 12: they didn't do it. And and what really fills them
Speaker 12: off if you go to you have twenty years before that,
Speaker 12: you had you had the Gat the dads and all
Speaker 12: who were young boys literally killing Nazis and all getting
Speaker 12: swiped out on beaches and everything. Then you have the
Speaker 12: forgotten war, which was the Koreans. They that the Korean War,
Speaker 12: which they probably felt some type of way because they
Speaker 12: would they were just dropped off by the wayside. No
Speaker 12: one ever would talk about the Queen War. But it's
Speaker 12: just like, how do you as a country.
Speaker 1: We didn't.
Speaker 12: We went into the Vietnam War as a favor towards
Speaker 12: the French, because up until that point it was the French,
Speaker 12: the French and Indonesian War.
Speaker 1: I want to say this Vietnam was called.
Speaker 12: Yeah, yeah, that it was a over a twenty years
Speaker 12: civil war at that point.
Speaker 1: Yeah.
Speaker 12: Granted, you really can't expect much from the French military
Speaker 12: that they gave up with They didn't even fight in
Speaker 12: World War two.
Speaker 1: So but again there's limits. There's got to be limits.
Speaker 1: There's never gonna be justification from mowing down a village
Speaker 1: full of women and children. You know that there's gotta
Speaker 1: be a line where we say, no, although the insurgents
Speaker 1: might be doing some heinous shit, we are not going
Speaker 1: to go to this level to match that particular fire
Speaker 1: using human shields. We have to at some point acknowledge, no,
Speaker 1: we have to be better than that, right, I agree,
Speaker 1: So but yeah.
Speaker 15: You know, we want to give our boys the maximum
Speaker 15: possible benefit of the doubt. But the other people are
Speaker 15: given their boys, and even if they're terrorists or Nazis,
Speaker 15: the maximum benefit of the doubt from their angle too.
Speaker 15: So this ends up, I don't know, special pleading on
Speaker 15: both sides to say, oh, well, we're just better and
Speaker 15: but you know, our boys should be allowed to do anything.
Speaker 15: So Hitler allowed that Wehrmacht completed immunity from any prosecution
Speaker 15: for any crimes in the Eastern Front, not on the
Speaker 15: Western Front. He was pretty strict with them in France
Speaker 15: and German. German behavior was not too bad there, but
Speaker 15: in Russia and Poland it was very bad by comparison.
Speaker 15: And yeah, if we're going to say, well, we don't
Speaker 15: want you know, the men who are fighting the war,
Speaker 15: they are under so much pressure you can't really judge them. Well,
Speaker 15: that goes for the enemy's men too, But we do
Speaker 15: want to judge the enemy's men.
Speaker 12: And humanize your enemy. It's a whole lot easier to
Speaker 12: kill them, which is the indoctrination. But it's jack you
Speaker 12: bought up how the Japanese said that we were cannibalizing
Speaker 12: the POW's. There was an actual Japanese unit that actually
Speaker 12: took a bunch of I want to say that air
Speaker 12: man it was yeah, yeah, not even that, it's not
Speaker 12: not even talking about just then. But no, they they captured,
Speaker 12: they shot down a bunch of the US planes. They
Speaker 12: captured the crews of the ships. And of yeah, it
Speaker 12: was a Bush senior.
Speaker 1: Yeah, his boys. He found out that all of the
Speaker 1: guys that were in the camp with him got eaten.
Speaker 12: Yeah, so it's kind of funny that they were gonna say,
Speaker 12: oh that they they commit cannibalism. But yet the Japanese
Speaker 12: officer made his men eat the the body parts of
Speaker 12: the American pow because he believed that it would give
Speaker 12: them the strength that they would absorb their essence and right.
Speaker 15: But they were that's.
Speaker 1: Absolutely accurate. And but here's the thing. They were eating
Speaker 1: a military combatant. The Emperor of Japan and his media
Speaker 1: spear told the Japanese civilian population that the Americans were
Speaker 1: eating women and children. I'm not saying that eating military
Speaker 1: members is better or anything like that. What I'm saying
Speaker 1: is a mother humming her two year old off of
Speaker 1: a cliff onto rock face to prevent it from being
Speaker 1: eaten alive, and committing mass suicides like that seen as
Speaker 1: the more humane option because that's what they were told.
Speaker 1: That's a different conversation, right.
Speaker 12: Oh, it's just agree and everything, and it might just
Speaker 12: come out like I'm a dickord of it, which I
Speaker 12: say this as someone who has Japanese lineage and I'm
Speaker 12: learning more about the heritage, and I'm about my Cueen
Speaker 12: and Filipino heritage too. It's just it escaped.
Speaker 1: It kind of.
Speaker 12: Pisses me off that the Japanese there's folk they believe
Speaker 12: that they were on a bound and they have the code,
Speaker 12: the Bashido code, but yet when push come to shove,
Speaker 12: they threw all that shit out the window because they
Speaker 12: wanted to be quote unquote the superior Asian when in reality,
Speaker 12: all Asians primarily come from the same fucking area, which
Speaker 12: it's all a fucking su.
Speaker 1: I think it's funny that the Bashido code and pretty
Speaker 1: much the entirety of the Samurai way of life was
Speaker 1: outlawed in the eighteen hundreds, and then when it came
Speaker 1: time for World War Two, they're like, we got to
Speaker 1: get back to our roots. Man. It's like, wait, so
Speaker 1: all the swords, the Samurai swords that you outlawed, now
Speaker 1: you have Kamakazi pilots that are putting their family samurai
Speaker 1: swords in their planes so that they can have and
Speaker 1: maintain their family honor. It's like, all right, that's that's
Speaker 1: a flex.
Speaker 12: Also, uh oh, I can't remember which general it was
Speaker 12: or if it was the in for himself, but when
Speaker 12: they gave the they gave, when they surrendered, they gave
Speaker 12: their not not there are the military sort. They actually
Speaker 12: gave their families a semi sort, which is saying a
Speaker 12: lot because they they believe the Kaitans, they believe that
Speaker 12: their ancestral souls goes into them.
Speaker 1: Yeah. I've seen a couple of those in the Marine
Speaker 1: Corps Museum. As a matter of fact, a quantico, it's
Speaker 1: pretty dope.
Speaker 12: I had a actual kitana that a that that was
Speaker 12: passed on to me, uh from a gentleman that I met,
Speaker 12: uh and everything. He was he was a World War
Speaker 12: two vet, it was and everything, but it got stole
Speaker 12: when my house got broke into.
Speaker 1: Damn it was.
Speaker 12: It was. I cleaned it in everything, but it was
Speaker 12: very old it You could feel the history in it
Speaker 12: like they even like you couldn't tell that they've seen battles.
Speaker 12: There was nicks from where it was, uh where the
Speaker 12: other it's hit another sword and off and uh. There
Speaker 12: there was even notches in the pommel like titting.
Speaker 1: Yeah that's a dope, dude. Yeah.
Speaker 12: But there's also photos of the Japanese having a competitive
Speaker 12: beheadings with the in Nan king, which.
Speaker 1: Yeah, the raping of name king. You actually did have that.
Speaker 1: You had two Japanese officers that had a contest to
Speaker 1: see who could be head one hundred people the fastest
Speaker 1: with a katana. And then they got to the end
Speaker 1: of it and it was decided that it was a tie,
Speaker 1: and neither of them like were cool with that, so
Speaker 1: they continued the contest in more more disgusting ways. The
Speaker 1: raping of Nan King was, uh, that was a thing.
Speaker 1: You know what the fucked up thing is?
Speaker 12: And I say this and it's it's fascinating, but it's
Speaker 12: also fucked up. You know who's actually considered the hero
Speaker 12: of Nan King, I cannot remember, it's gonna uh. It
Speaker 12: was actually a high ranking Nazi he actually uh, he
Speaker 12: was not a racist. He actually hated that. He grew
Speaker 12: up over in Japan and it uh no over in China.
Speaker 12: He was like the Nazi delegate over in China. He
Speaker 12: had China. He had uh, Germany and Chinese like children
Speaker 12: at all. Like he and Hitler did not get along
Speaker 12: for that reason. But he wrote up. He interfered with
Speaker 12: the Japanese. He he gave a sanctuary I want to say,
Speaker 12: like a mile long whatever.
Speaker 15: And Chalkeenhausen I believe that was his name. Yeah, but yeah,
Speaker 15: I know who you're talking about.
Speaker 12: He was cleared of. He was the only ss TO
Speaker 12: officer to not have any charges brought up to him
Speaker 12: after World War Two.
Speaker 1: That's incredible.
Speaker 15: Well, yeah, I think they wanted to charge and they
Speaker 15: held them in captive. The Allies did, and he lost
Speaker 15: a lot of weight. And it was a Chinese lady
Speaker 15: who actually saved him from that situation.
Speaker 1: Damn.
Speaker 15: Her name was and she lived in Belgium until two
Speaker 15: thousand and eight.
Speaker 1: Damn.
Speaker 15: Yeah, she also saved a lot of a lot of
Speaker 15: like Belgian resistance from the Nazis too, so she saved
Speaker 15: people on you know, mostly the Belgian resistance side.
Speaker 1: She was the thing today.
Speaker 12: I can't remember the name, and I feel bad, but
Speaker 12: like when the Nazis rolled into her country, I can't
Speaker 12: remember which country. I'm running off for like two hours
Speaker 12: of sleep, but yeah, I'm great. So she was eight
Speaker 12: months pregnant.
Speaker 1: Oh wow.
Speaker 12: I don't know if it was I can't remember if
Speaker 12: it was the Funch, if it was the Nazis, But anyway,
Speaker 12: she got held and they waited till the day after
Speaker 12: she gave birth, then killed her.
Speaker 1: The lady that we're talking about that lived in Belgium
Speaker 1: to a two thousand and eight, not.
Speaker 15: The Chinese lady and Belgium else.
Speaker 1: A revolution she was she started.
Speaker 12: She didn't just lead it, She erected the She built
Speaker 12: the whole of resistance, like the network and everything. Like
Speaker 12: she was pregnant at the time she started. I eight
Speaker 12: months pregnant. And then when she gave birth to like
Speaker 12: a month later, she got captured and the government waited
Speaker 12: till after the day after she gave birth to kill her.
Speaker 1: Wow, talking about Southeast Asia, let's talk about this and
Speaker 1: let's you know, let's end this one on a slightly
Speaker 1: humorous note, shall we? Collision between Chinese ships expected to
Speaker 1: escalate tensions in the South China Sea. And before people
Speaker 1: start thinking that this was some sort of an active war,
Speaker 1: we should mention the fact that it was two Chinese
Speaker 1: ships that hit each other because they were trying to
Speaker 1: stop a merchant vessel, a non combative merchant vessel just
Speaker 1: got a maneuver kill. And that's on record. Let's read
Speaker 1: in and now let's just predict China will move to
Speaker 1: restore its image at sea while ramping up exercises to
Speaker 1: improve navy coast guard coordination. Yeah, I'll bet they are.
Speaker 1: This is a picture of one of the ships that
Speaker 1: had a collision. Let's learn some more about it, shall we.
Speaker 1: Just they cannot, they cannot, And of course this article
Speaker 1: on my phone opened up the entire way, but on
Speaker 1: the internet it's not going to long story short. These
Speaker 1: two military Chinese vessels, they were, you know, Chinese coast Guard.
Speaker 1: They were trying to stop I cannot remember off the
Speaker 1: top because I had this article pulled up earlier, and
Speaker 1: of course it's going to suck now. They were trying
Speaker 1: to get closer to and I'm not sure if it
Speaker 1: was a Taiwanese merchant ship or a Indonesian or what
Speaker 1: the case was.
Speaker 15: But it was Filipino, I'm pretty sure. And the filip
Speaker 15: got video of it too.
Speaker 1: Yes, Filipino, that's what I knew. It was an island nation.
Speaker 1: I couldn't remember which one. My apologies, and uh, essentially
Speaker 1: they tried to maneuver to stop it and ended up
Speaker 1: ramming into each other and now they're worried about their
Speaker 1: image at sea. If nothing else, I think this is
Speaker 1: an excellent time to hear from our resident Malaysian correspondent.
Speaker 10: Try don't trust China.
Speaker 5: China is ass hoo.
Speaker 1: I love that guy so much. I really do. So
Speaker 1: you know, we'll see, we'll see if China is able
Speaker 1: to uh save face on this. I don't think that's possible.
Speaker 1: Just gonna throw that out.
Speaker 3: Uh.
Speaker 1: Now, that's not to say that America has not had
Speaker 1: our own military oopsies in the past couple of years.
Speaker 1: I mean, hell, we had two planes get shot down
Speaker 1: by the same destroyer over towards the Middle East area,
Speaker 1: and that was that was not a good look. The
Speaker 1: commander was relieved of command hard and uh, I don't
Speaker 1: think he's even allowed to recommission, honestly. But that's at
Speaker 1: least I would think slightly better than ramming two entire
Speaker 1: ships into each other. I don't know. I've never piloted
Speaker 1: a naval vessel or a coastguard vessel. I've never piloted
Speaker 1: a plane, so I don't know, but out loud, one
Speaker 1: of those sounds more embarrassing than the other. You have
Speaker 1: a missile system on a plane that, for a split
Speaker 1: second couldn't tell the difference between if that was our
Speaker 1: guys or their guys, versus two giant ships that were
Speaker 1: trying to outmaneuver a non armed merchant vessel and one
Speaker 1: of them straight up nose dove into the other. I
Speaker 1: just speaking on behalf of myself. I think that's just hilarious.
Speaker 1: But you know, hey, anyway, all right, Sam, go ahead,
Speaker 1: I see your hand raised.
Speaker 10: Yeah.
Speaker 12: So I just I find it funny and that they're
Speaker 12: Asian and there's a reason why the stereotype things can't drive,
Speaker 12: and now they can't fucking boade either.
Speaker 1: I guess not. You know, I guess not. Oh Man.
Speaker 1: Quite an episode we've had this evening, everybody. I want
Speaker 1: to thank everybody for joining me on this edition of
Speaker 1: The Cajun Night Live once again. If you would like
Speaker 1: to join us for our Wednesday Night lives every Wednesday night,
Speaker 1: nine pm Central, please go to the link in the
Speaker 1: description below Patreon slash cult excuse us listen to me
Speaker 1: Patreon slash Cajun Night once Again. I am the Cajun
Speaker 1: Night and I thank you all for joining me. And
Speaker 1: as always, God bless