Speaker 1: In a while, hasn't it. Anyway, a little bit about
Speaker 1: me in case you've I don't know you haven't heard
Speaker 1: this voice for but this voice before it sounds like
Speaker 1: I have got like a smooth jazz voice. Then welcome
Speaker 1: back to smooth jazz. Yeah, Zach behind the glass helping
Speaker 1: out today. He's nodding. He's like, yeah, she does sound
Speaker 1: a little smooth jazzy. And uh, yeah, that's me. I'm
Speaker 1: smooth jazz Cafer. So anyway, in my real life, I'm
Speaker 1: a Denver Post columnist. I'm off and on Colorado inside
Speaker 1: Out on PBS Denver twelve. In fact, I'll be on
Speaker 1: today's Friday. I'll be on this evening eight o'clock on
Speaker 1: Channel twelve. It's a little TV, a little radio. Also
Speaker 1: teach a little write, a little edit, a little so
Speaker 1: a little Yeah. I even like grow stuff and sell it.
Speaker 1: I guess that makes me a farmer, maybe like a
Speaker 1: micro farmer. You've heard of micro businesses. I guess I've
Speaker 1: got a micro farm. And it's even more micro thanks
Speaker 1: to twhawks, that one hog, two walks. I took out
Speaker 1: two of my chickens, and you know, I get it.
Speaker 1: I like chicken too, but miss those gals. I'm down
Speaker 1: to two hens to fix that later on Raise ups
Speaker 1: and new Chicks so I can have fresh eggs text
Speaker 1: line five six six N I know, got some fun
Speaker 1: topics for the show today, Christmas perspective, favorite Christmas movies,
Speaker 1: events of twenty twenty four, and New Year's resolutions. I figure, hey,
Speaker 1: we're kind of in that, like that weird period between
Speaker 1: Christmas and New Year's and I'm only going to sub today,
Speaker 1: so I got to pack in what I would probably
Speaker 1: normally do over a couple of days, which is, hey,
Speaker 1: let's review the year. Then we're going to review, you know,
Speaker 1: kind of what we hope for for next year, and
Speaker 1: so we'll get to all of that, but I want
Speaker 1: to give a little perspective first. This is a Wall
Speaker 1: Street Journal article that I read today. I text line
Speaker 1: five six six nine. Know also you can you can
Speaker 1: if you do Twitter. Still. I know it's called X.
Speaker 1: I think that is the dumbest name ever, so you'll
Speaker 1: never hear me call it X. But Twitter at CHRISTA.
Speaker 1: Kaefer's that's where you can tweet to me. And here's
Speaker 1: the deal you're going to put up with, not only
Speaker 1: public policy, but I like animal videos, so I post
Speaker 1: some of those and I don't fight. So if you
Speaker 1: want to like send nasty things my way, I just
Speaker 1: I'll just mute you. And then occasionally I feel in
Speaker 1: a little bit ornery and I will give a donation
Speaker 1: on your behalf to an organization that you probably won't like.
Speaker 1: So tweet wisely, that's all I'm going to say. So perspective.
Speaker 1: I just thought this was kind of interesting as we
Speaker 1: move into kind of a little Christmas, a little New
Speaker 1: Year's topics. And that is an article from the Wall
Speaker 1: Street Journal. It said it's called Mary Baum Free Christmas.
Speaker 1: Just a little perspective. Whether you're happy or not, whether
Speaker 1: you had a good Christmas or not, we're pretty darn
Speaker 1: safe here. And I pointed out the fact in this
Speaker 1: article that you know Nigeria, if you're a Christian, chances are,
Speaker 1: depending on where you live, you could be within range
Speaker 1: of someone who wants to kill you. Sixty Christians killed
Speaker 1: earlier this year by Islamists. And if you're in Nicaragua
Speaker 1: under Daniel Ortega, he just decided that he didn't like
Speaker 1: particular Jesuit Order Catholic nuns. And I don't know if
Speaker 1: it was Jesuit. It was some order didn't like the nuns.
Speaker 1: Jesuits are usually teachers, but whatever this order of nuns was,
Speaker 1: he wouldn't fan, so he expelled them from the country. Also,
Speaker 1: China cracking down on Christians and Muslims. Putin of course,
Speaker 1: bombed one hundred churches in Ukraine. And if you're a
Speaker 1: Syrian Christian, life's a little bit better now that a
Speaker 1: Sad is gone, but it's a little precarious. The thought
Speaker 1: was a very very evil man. It's been a rough
Speaker 1: ten years, not from Asad particularly, but from some of
Speaker 1: the Islamist factions. I've decided to persecute Christians, take their
Speaker 1: fury out on them. And so for them to be
Speaker 1: able to openly not do something for Christmas, celebrate their religion,
Speaker 1: they feel like they're freer than ever. Right now. The
Speaker 1: new leadership, the majority reigning faction is saying, hey, we're
Speaker 1: all going to be about helping people to let them
Speaker 1: practice their religion, whatever that religion may be. We're going
Speaker 1: to be you know, we're going to be a very
Speaker 1: tolerant new nation or nation reborn. Rather, if I was
Speaker 1: a Christian Syrian, I'd be a little nervous I'd be
Speaker 1: very happy with the current majority is like the majority
Speaker 1: factions like, yeah, we'll protect you. But it's that same
Speaker 1: majority faction decides that it wants to get the radical
Speaker 1: Islamists on board, they may no longer protect those Christians.
Speaker 1: So just a little perspective. I hate to start to
Speaker 1: show off a little on the dark side, but if
Speaker 1: you practice your religion, if you don't even have a religion,
Speaker 1: if you just did a secular Christmas or no Christmas,
Speaker 1: or if you did hanukkah, uh, if you're you know,
Speaker 1: whatever you're into, if you did it freely yesterday, be
Speaker 1: a little grateful, a little grateful because in some parts
Speaker 1: of the world, Uh, people are pretty darn miserable. Speaking
Speaker 1: of Christmas, that's the dark side. Let's talk a little
Speaker 1: bit about best Christmas movies. I don't know if you
Speaker 1: watched Christmas movies. Probably didn't watch them yesterday, but if
Speaker 1: you probably watched them up up until the season started.
Speaker 1: I did get was it the new Uh? The Rock
Speaker 1: wasn't a new one. I don't know. I don't know
Speaker 1: if you watched that, Zach It's Dwayne red one red one.
Speaker 1: Did you watch it?
Speaker 2: I actually did, I did gearing up for the season.
Speaker 2: I thought it was super cute.
Speaker 1: You know, it's it's kind of you if you're if
Speaker 1: you got kids that are sort of junior high end
Speaker 1: up or late elementary. You know, there's I think there's
Speaker 1: a little language in it that's about it. It's cute,
Speaker 1: it's fun, it's mild.
Speaker 2: And I I liked how they depict it the Santa
Speaker 2: hitting you know, eight billion houses in twelve hours or whatever.
Speaker 3: I thought that was.
Speaker 2: Something I hadn't seen in a Christmas movie before, and
Speaker 2: they did it, and I think it really like magical
Speaker 2: way that I felt kids would enjoy.
Speaker 1: Yeah, it's magical, but you know they just you know,
Speaker 1: Santa's got a lot of helpers, let's put it that way.
Speaker 1: I thought it was pretty cute. So I'm gonna tell
Speaker 1: this question out there eight six sixth and I know
Speaker 1: is our text line, and no one answers that I'll answer.
Speaker 1: Maybe ZECH can answer it. There are two Christmas movies,
Speaker 1: so think all the way back, you know, black and
Speaker 1: white Christmas movies all the way up to read one
Speaker 1: kind of the newest Christmas movie two that I can
Speaker 1: think of, in which a character reads part of the
Speaker 1: Biblical Christmas story. There's only two that I can think of.
Speaker 1: The shows are very different from one another. You're gonna
Speaker 1: answer five six to six, and I know I would
Speaker 1: love to think you think it would be something like,
Speaker 1: you know, an old fashioned in to both one movie
Speaker 1: two two thousands, the other's nineteen sixties. You may know
Speaker 1: what they are seem to get any answers yet, not yet,
Speaker 1: but if you want to text me five sixty six
Speaker 1: and I know two Christmas movies shown to wide audiences
Speaker 1: that actually read a little bit of the Christian story,
Speaker 1: that the biblical story from the Christian tradition, and the
Speaker 1: first one you probably have guessed, so I'll give you
Speaker 1: the first one. The first one is Charlie Brown Christmas.
Speaker 1: Charlie Brown Christmas. You've obviously seen it.
Speaker 3: Of course, one of the classics.
Speaker 1: It's a classic. Nineteen sixty five what I thought was interesting.
Speaker 1: Denver Post had a piece about it, talking about the
Speaker 1: controversy behind it when it aired, and I just thought
Speaker 1: it was pretty pretty interesting. So nineteen sixty five, the
Speaker 1: twenty five minute show of a couple of things that
Speaker 1: were unique about it. No laugh track, No laugh track.
Speaker 1: I hate laugh tracks personally. There's a laugh track on
Speaker 1: a show. I won't watch it, but a lot of people,
Speaker 1: a lot of people prompts laughter. That's why it's used.
Speaker 1: It also had a jazz musician that scored it, which
Speaker 1: is kind of interesting. So it's some interesting angles and
Speaker 1: that what in addition to sort of breaking those rules
Speaker 1: no laugh track, kind of a cool score? Is it simplicity?
Speaker 1: You know, it's it's a bunch of kids. One of
Speaker 1: them is feeling kind of down. He doesn't know what
Speaker 1: the meaning of Christmas is. He's looking around for it,
Speaker 1: he's yearning for it. And then by the kind of
Speaker 1: towards the end, Linus lineus a fascinating character and that
Speaker 1: he's kind of a philosopher, but he still carries his blanket,
Speaker 1: which is I don't know, kind of endearing, right, sweet kid,
Speaker 1: but definitely the philosopher of the bunch. And he sort
Speaker 1: of steps up and he reads a little bit of
Speaker 1: the Christmas story and I thought it was interesting. Well,
Speaker 1: at the time that it was written, the founder of Peanuts, Schaltz,
Speaker 1: he uh, you know, you put it together. They put
Speaker 1: it together pretty fast, got it over to the studio.
Speaker 1: The studio watched it and they were like, ah, I
Speaker 1: don't know, guys, it's an unusual it's kind of simple.
Speaker 1: It's a little you know, this kid's kind of feeling down.
Speaker 1: There's no there's no Yettis, there's no Santa Claus, there's
Speaker 1: none of that stuff. And then you, you know, you
Speaker 1: bust out some some bible. I'm not sure we can
Speaker 1: do this, and it was too late to rewrite it,
Speaker 1: so they went ahead and aired it, and when they
Speaker 1: aired it, it became an instant success. So Charlie Brown,
Speaker 1: Christmas one of the one of the two that I
Speaker 1: can think of, and maybe you can think of more
Speaker 1: than I can. This person says, a Little Drummer Boy, Oh, yes, there.
Speaker 1: I guess there was a movie Little Drummer Boy, so
Speaker 1: maybe there. I haven't seen it. Another person says, it's
Speaker 1: a Wonderful Life. This would be Dan in Northern Colorado,
Speaker 1: and actually you would, they so, but it's not in there,
Speaker 1: and I've watched It's a Wonderful Life a number of times.
Speaker 1: It's actually on my list of faves. I absolutely love it.
Speaker 1: I also love trading Places. And I know some people
Speaker 1: don't think that die Hard is a Christmas movie. Very
Speaker 1: clearly is a Christmas movie. Thoughts on that, Zach, I'm
Speaker 1: with you. I'm with you.
Speaker 2: It's the idea of Christmas themes versus Christmas setting. The
Speaker 2: Christmas setting applies only to Christmas. The Christmas themes are
Speaker 2: year round. If a movie doesn't have those themes but
Speaker 2: has the setting, I think it's a Christmas movie.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I think you're right. And hence, I mean Trading
Speaker 1: Places also has and he he's dressed up as the
Speaker 1: Santa Claus. He so completely wasted dan Ackroyd, and he
Speaker 1: goes to the and he's like shoving the food down
Speaker 1: his shirt because he's starving, and he's he's drunk. So
Speaker 1: it features a Santa of sorts, a sort of sad Santa.
Speaker 1: And I love Trading Places. You've seen that one to
Speaker 1: your nodding, for sure.
Speaker 3: Yeah.
Speaker 2: And the themes of like, you know, being grateful for
Speaker 2: what you have and all those things present all throughout
Speaker 2: that movie. Comedy classic and definitely a Christmas movie.
Speaker 1: Definitely a Christmas movie. Well, okay, so I'm gonna let
Speaker 1: you guess what is the second film that has a
Speaker 1: little bit of the Bible story in it?
Speaker 3: Okay, this is a long shot.
Speaker 2: I was thinking Home alone because there's that scene where
Speaker 2: they go to the church and I know there's choir singers,
Speaker 2: but I was thinking maybe there's a passage in the background.
Speaker 3: But now it's a long shot.
Speaker 1: What is it. It's Bad Santa.
Speaker 2: Oh, that's funny. I guess it kind of makes sense.
Speaker 2: But I would have never guessed that.
Speaker 1: Yeah, a lot of people would never guess. So two
Speaker 1: thousand and three it is my favorite all time Christmas movie.
Speaker 1: I watch it every year sometimes. Usually I got my
Speaker 1: decorations up, I turn on the oh the twinkling lights,
Speaker 1: I light some candles, and I watch Bad Santa. Now
Speaker 1: before you run out and get Bad Santa. They're like, okay,
Speaker 1: Caper recommended it. We got to watch this. Do not
Speaker 1: watch it with kids. It is an incredibly raunchy movie,
Speaker 1: and that's not all it is, but it definitely is
Speaker 1: not for younger viewers. You will see some people that
Speaker 1: you recognize in it, Bernie Mack and John Ritter, John
Speaker 1: Riders last movie. Billy Bob Thornton plays the main character,
Speaker 1: the Bad Santa. And I'm not going to give away
Speaker 1: the plot here, but I will say that you start
Speaker 1: off with truly one of the worst human beings you
Speaker 1: can possibly imagine. And I want to say, one of
Speaker 1: the worst human beings. I'm not talking like you know, Hitler,
Speaker 1: Stalin Polepot, League of mass murders. I'm talking run of
Speaker 1: the mill, horrible, drunk, dissipated, womanizing, selfish, the botched, actually
Speaker 1: kind of gross. The kind of person that would drink
Speaker 1: so much you would pee himself in public and not
Speaker 1: mind like that kind of gross. He's a gross human being.
Speaker 1: He's a thief and every Christmas, he and his associate
Speaker 1: they rob a grot, they rob a department store. What
Speaker 1: happens in the course of the film, and why it's
Speaker 1: my favorite, is that it's a redemption story. You have
Speaker 1: this grotesque, horrible human being who becomes a better human being.
Speaker 1: That does he become mother Teresa. No, that becomes a
Speaker 1: better human being by the end of the movie. And
Speaker 1: he does that because of the unmerited love of a child.
Speaker 1: The unmerited love of a child causes him to go
Speaker 1: from this self loathing, despicable person to a better person
Speaker 1: by the end of the film. And that, my friends,
Speaker 1: if you're of the Christian tradition, you know that is
Speaker 1: the Christian message that you know, God breaks into the
Speaker 1: world to redeem human beings who can be despicable, every
Speaker 1: one of us, and that it is the unmerited love
Speaker 1: of a child that can cause people to go from
Speaker 1: being pretty bad to being better. Not you know, I'm
Speaker 1: no mother Teresa, but it's something I've experienced at myself.
Speaker 1: So yes, if you're gonna go on a watch Bad
Speaker 1: Santa it is, you could watch it with a teen
Speaker 1: Do not watch it with kids. Maybe watch it alone
Speaker 1: if you're you know, I don't know of any kind
Speaker 1: of edited version. I'm not sure you could edit it,
Speaker 1: just because there are so many F bombs in it.
Speaker 1: The dialogue would be at a little thin, some other
Speaker 1: sort of ryebald scenes in it. But it does have
Speaker 1: a redemptive theme, and that's my favorite story. I love
Speaker 1: Road to Perdition. Like if you were to like have
Speaker 1: me list my ten favorite films, a lot of those
Speaker 1: would fall into the redemption category. I just I'm stunned
Speaker 1: by those kinds of films where you start off with something,
Speaker 1: you know, somebody who's a bit of a hot mess,
Speaker 1: and by the end they're somewhat redeemed, or a story
Speaker 1: bad relationship that becomes better by the end of the movie.
Speaker 1: I'm a sucker for that. I'm a sucker for like
Speaker 1: quest type shows as well. People. You know, I guess
Speaker 1: you could say that the Charlie Bounce Brown Special falls
Speaker 1: into the quest category of, you know, searching for something
Speaker 1: and finding it. You know, I'm kind of a sucker
Speaker 1: for those as well, and hence the reason I love
Speaker 1: Aad Santa and I recommend it, but I recommend it
Speaker 1: again with a caveat. If you're a person who is
Speaker 1: sensitive to things that are a little ribaled, naughty and
Speaker 1: a lot of swearing, it's not the film for you,
Speaker 1: But if you know you're willing to overlook that for
Speaker 1: some other merits, it's also absolutely hilarious. And speaking of hilarious,
Speaker 1: I just finished Deadpool and Wolverine. I know a Rod
Speaker 1: would like that at Zach. Have you seen it as well?
Speaker 1: I have. I have.
Speaker 3: I thought that was a fun one.
Speaker 1: It was fun. Now it is a little bit patchy
Speaker 1: on the I think the plot is not great, but
Speaker 1: I thought the movie itself was a laugh riot.
Speaker 3: Yeah.
Speaker 2: Yeah, the plot is more an excuse to, I don't know,
Speaker 2: get all these characters together and get them to interact
Speaker 2: and whatnot, and all the fourth wall stuff. And you know,
Speaker 2: for how messy it could have been, I think they
Speaker 2: did a pretty good job executing that.
Speaker 1: I think so too. I mean it thin on plot,
Speaker 1: but pretty fun and a lot of hilarious jokes, and
Speaker 1: it got a couple of texts coming in here. All.
Speaker 1: This person says, Yage has these sexy, brilliant Christmas back Ah.
Speaker 1: You know, I'm a sucker for flattery. Thank you, thank
Speaker 1: you very much. And let's see Christmas movie also brilliant.
Speaker 1: Gremlins definitely a Christmas movie. Takes place during Christmas, but
Speaker 1: there's some Christmas themes and now granted evil monsters. I
Speaker 1: mean they kill a lot of people, basically ruined their Christmas,
Speaker 1: but it's still still good. Let's see this person says,
Speaker 1: Christmas Chronicles one and two, and I guess star animated
Speaker 1: Star not ones. I've seen a person who also likes
Speaker 1: Bad Santa at Rocks. And this person says, have you
Speaker 1: ever noticed that Billy Popler in play almost the exact
Speaker 1: same character in every movie. He's almost always a drunk,
Speaker 1: cigarette smoking, divorced man. Yeah, pretty much. He does seem
Speaker 1: to have He does seem to have that. I think
Speaker 1: some characters, some actors out there are most comfortable when
Speaker 1: they can step into the same role in every movie.
Speaker 1: You know a lot of people like to, you know,
Speaker 1: diss Tom Cruise, but I think you know when he
Speaker 1: plays the character that he is best at, which is
Speaker 1: you know, badass dude, maybe he does okay. I think
Speaker 1: the Rock plays the same guy every time and he
Speaker 1: does great. So you know, no, you're not everyone's built
Speaker 1: to be like a Shakespeare actor. Some people want to
Speaker 1: play the same role and you know what, they do
Speaker 1: a darn fine job at it. The thoughts about Christmas
Speaker 1: movies I'm totally open for at five, six, six, nine
Speaker 1: to zero. Do you know that bad Son is a
Speaker 1: Cohen Brothers movie. Yeah, they were executive producers. Weren't writers
Speaker 1: on it, but they were executive producers. And I got
Speaker 1: to say, I haven't seen every Coen Brothers movie, but
Speaker 1: I'm a sucker for the ones that I like. I
Speaker 1: loved Lady Killers, which is actually they re redid a
Speaker 1: film from the sixties on that one, but it's got
Speaker 1: Tom Hanks in it. And if you watch Lady Killers,
Speaker 1: watch two things. Watch what the cat is doing and
Speaker 1: watch what the portrait is doing. There's a portrait of
Speaker 1: her husband's is the good character in it. There's a
Speaker 1: portrait of her husband, and that portrait changes over the
Speaker 1: course of the movie. It is a funny, fun beautiful film,
Speaker 1: True Grit, the remake, awesome Coen Brothers. Oh brother Where
Speaker 1: art tho? It's beautiful film, funny, witty moments, sort of deep.
Speaker 1: It kind of tracks, like I say, loosely tracks. I
Speaker 1: believe the Odyssey. It is a coming home kind of movie.
Speaker 1: You even have sort of the Cyclops character in it.
Speaker 1: Great scene, absolutely great scene. So, uh I am I
Speaker 1: am a sucker for a Redemption movie. I am a
Speaker 1: sucker for a Coen Brothers movie. And uh yeah, what
Speaker 1: can I say? Let's see a couple other films that
Speaker 1: came in. Oh, that's nice of you. Let's see while
Speaker 1: you were sleeping. Yes, that's a good one, very good
Speaker 1: Sandra Bullock when she was young. Christmas movie obviously total classic.
Speaker 1: And uh, Crampis. I had not seen Crampis, Crampus being
Speaker 1: the sort of dark side of like Santa's. I don't
Speaker 1: know if they're brothers. They are in Red One. I
Speaker 1: think adopted brothers. I'm not sure that they're well because
Speaker 1: they don't they don't really look alike Grampa's though. So
Speaker 1: Santa Claus gives gifts to kids on the the good list,
Speaker 1: and the Crampish meets out punishment to the bad kids
Speaker 1: on the list. And so you might want to know
Speaker 1: what which list you're on when are coming in to Christmas.
Speaker 1: Just to modify your expectations, happy to have a few
Speaker 1: other Christmas movies also, Well, let's do a little bit
Speaker 1: of a year in room. A year in room? Can
Speaker 1: I get through the sentence? A year in review kind
Speaker 1: of top things that you think happened over over the
Speaker 1: last year. Twenty twenty four. I'm not going to say
Speaker 1: it was a good it was not a good year
Speaker 1: for me. Twenty twenty five has got to be a
Speaker 1: little bit better. With that, Let's let's go ahead and
Speaker 1: take a break. This is Christa Kafer sitting in for
Speaker 1: Mandy Connell. You're listening to eight fifty koa like I
Speaker 1: srot on the shallow end of the pool and then
Speaker 1: just sort of drift into the deep end. So we
Speaker 1: started off with I just started off with like a
Speaker 1: kind of a heavier, you know, foreign policy Christmas perspective,
Speaker 1: but then we moved into the shallow in we've been
Speaker 1: doing best to Christmas movies. I confessed Bad Santa is
Speaker 1: my favorite. It's my top watched every year. Yes, it
Speaker 1: is a little raunchy. I don't know, maybe a little
Speaker 1: more than a little. I had a little bad language
Speaker 1: in it, but I just I'm such a sucker for
Speaker 1: a redemption movie that I gotta love it. I actually
Speaker 1: gotta love it. And it's really well acted and it's
Speaker 1: it's absolutely hilarious. Somebody just texted in and said, I
Speaker 1: saw Bad Santa on MTV on Tuesday and the cuss
Speaker 1: words were all bleeped out. Wow, it can be done.
Speaker 1: I would assume the film would be like beep beep, dialogue,
Speaker 1: beep beep, beep beep. I don't know, but it, Yeah,
Speaker 1: I feel like overused, Like people are really over using
Speaker 1: the F word, and it's kind of ruining it for me.
Speaker 1: You know, it's taken all of the kind of spiciness
Speaker 1: out of it. It's like if you put cayenne pepper,
Speaker 1: and I love me some cayenne, but if you put
Speaker 1: it on everything, after a while you'd be like, I
Speaker 1: don't know, this is just not that spicy. I just
Speaker 1: feel like people have ruined it. You know, it's just
Speaker 1: taking all the joy out of the word. And I uh,
Speaker 1: I hate that, I absolutely hate. I mean, you know,
Speaker 1: it's like in all these little videos on you know,
Speaker 1: I watched videos on Facebook or whatever, and you know
Speaker 1: they're funny, but you just cut back on the f wort.
Speaker 1: They just ruined it. It really bothers me. I hardly
Speaker 1: want to use it anymore. It's just becomes so common.
Speaker 1: A couple other movies carry on on Netflix. I'm about
Speaker 1: halfway through that. I almost never watch a movie in
Speaker 1: one sitting, like, watch it, then I stop and I
Speaker 1: watch it some more. It's pretty good though, and Baits
Speaker 1: who we know, Jason Bates, who's almost always a good
Speaker 1: guy and a little easy on the eyes. You and
Speaker 1: I are about the same age, and but he's very bad,
Speaker 1: I mean very bad. So enjoying that it's a that's
Speaker 1: good to kind of. I was looking at the basic
Speaker 1: kind of like you know, human stories. You know, there's
Speaker 1: the redemption story, there's the quest, there's rags to riches,
Speaker 1: these trading places might be that I don't know, but
Speaker 1: carry on, you know, kind of conquering a monster. That's
Speaker 1: actually a theme. It's like a story theme. So it's
Speaker 1: kind of a story theme there. But it's good, it's suspenseful,
Speaker 1: it's set on Christmas Eve, somebody like the original Family Stone.
Speaker 1: I haven't seen it, but I'll take your word for it. Also,
Speaker 1: Emmett Otters Jug Band Christmas. Haven't seen it, but will
Speaker 1: take your word for that as well. Let's see. Yeah,
Speaker 1: keep it coming. We've been talking a little bit about
Speaker 1: best movies. Talked a little bit in the beginning about
Speaker 1: how kind of special that Charlie Brown Christmas was for
Speaker 1: the time nineteen sixty five. Actually, it's kind of a
Speaker 1: simple theme, the real meaning of Christmas. You also get
Speaker 1: the Bible story in there, which was very controversial, and
Speaker 1: if there have been time to rewrite it, chances are
Speaker 1: the executives CBS executives would have made Schultz rewrite it,
Speaker 1: but there wasn't time, so it was aired and it
Speaker 1: has been beloved ever since. And I brought them up,
Speaker 1: both At and Bad Santa, because they are the only
Speaker 1: two movies I can think of that actually have a
Speaker 1: little bit of scripture in them, which is interesting. And
Speaker 1: I'm not one of these people that goes I don't
Speaker 1: I'm not really into like religious movies. I am a
Speaker 1: person of faith, but I really need some action I need.
Speaker 1: I mean, if you could do like a religious movie
Speaker 1: with zombies, I could probably get behind that. I like action,
Speaker 1: I like humor, like car crashes, and I mean, if
Speaker 1: you could mix the two, maybe maybe I could be
Speaker 1: down with that, but not really just into the religious movie.
Speaker 1: I've never actually sat through a Hallmark movie. I can't
Speaker 1: do it now. Maybe maybe if I don't know, if
Speaker 1: I was tied down, I just can't see under what circumstance. Okay,
Speaker 1: I can think of the circumscs. This is pretty tragic.
Speaker 1: So there's this guy. He's in a some of the
Speaker 1: a head injury in which he was people thought he
Speaker 1: was a vegetable. So they prop him up and they
Speaker 1: make him watch hour after hour, day after day of Barney,
Speaker 1: that horrible dinosaur pre kindergarten show. The thing, the guy's
Speaker 1: not lucid, that he's just kind of a vegetable, so
Speaker 1: they just sort of prop him up in bed, they
Speaker 1: make him watch this. He's like that for years. Sometime
Speaker 1: in his late teens, he regains the ability to function,
Speaker 1: as you know, He's able to like move his body again.
Speaker 1: He's able to talk, and he's in a wheelchair, but
Speaker 1: he's substantially recovered from being in this vegetative state. And
Speaker 1: I think the first thing he tells his caregivers is,
Speaker 1: why did you torture me? I was totally I could
Speaker 1: I could think like I could think like normal. I
Speaker 1: was myself trapped in this immobile body, and you prop
Speaker 1: me up, and day after day I have to watch Barney.
Speaker 1: I'm surprised he didn't come out of that vegetative state
Speaker 1: and become a mass killed, because it would be understandable,
Speaker 1: not good. I'm not saying that would be good, but
Speaker 1: it would be semi justifiable if you had to watch
Speaker 1: Barney twelve hours a day, three hundred and sixty five
Speaker 1: days a year. I'm not saying I would want harm
Speaker 1: to come to those caregivers, but I would understand it.
Speaker 1: Those are really the only circumstances in which I can
Speaker 1: see myself watching a holiday one of those Hallmark holiday movies.
Speaker 1: Is that I'm in a coma or in a vegetative state.
Speaker 1: Somebody props me up in bed and says she's a woman,
Speaker 1: she probably likes Hallmark movies, And then they would force
Speaker 1: me to watch those that's really the only circumstances in
Speaker 1: which I can see myself watching a holiday a Hallmark
Speaker 1: holiday show. I loathe It's terrible. I kind of loathe them.
Speaker 1: I need humor, I need action. If we could if
Speaker 1: we could mix, like, you know, some zombies in there,
Speaker 1: if we could mix a car crash, maybe some espionage
Speaker 1: into the plot, because they all have the same plots, Like,
Speaker 1: you know, executive male or female goes to a small
Speaker 1: town for some reason, falls in love with the town,
Speaker 1: the charm, you know, the little bakery that person's come
Speaker 1: to shut down because corporate has decided to build a Starbucks.
Speaker 1: But in the moment, the Christmas spirit reaches their hardened
Speaker 1: city heart and they become a good guy. Like if
Speaker 1: you could add like a zombie apocalypse into that, I
Speaker 1: could watch it. That would be that would be watchable
Speaker 1: for me. But as is, and thing goes for like
Speaker 1: you know, anything that's sort of touchy feely, you know,
Speaker 1: I just yeah, I need something a little more, a
Speaker 1: little a little more. We'll just go with that. We'll
Speaker 1: just go with that other favorite movies, see what folks
Speaker 1: are saying. Yeah, because we're coming to the end of
Speaker 1: that mee where I guess that idea is, let's go
Speaker 1: ahead and wade on into the deeper end of the pool.
Speaker 1: Promise there's no zombies there. Let's talk about like top
Speaker 1: events of twenty twenty four. I know this is something
Speaker 1: I can guarantee. Man, he's going to hit on this
Speaker 1: next week. So you got great ideas. You can hit
Speaker 1: him here first, you know, sample him out, and then
Speaker 1: when you want to go, go go with the real host,
Speaker 1: you could go, you know, you could do a repeat it.
Speaker 1: It's I think it's a good idea to visit the year.
Speaker 1: I didn't. I can't say I had a particularly good year.
Speaker 1: It mostly sucked, but I have I've got a good
Speaker 1: feeling about twenty twenty five. You know, worldwide, it wasn't
Speaker 1: It wasn't a horrible year unless you're you know, in
Speaker 1: Ukraine or Gaza or some other places where people are
Speaker 1: being killed. Here in America, I think it was okay.
Speaker 1: And we didn't even get hit by a lot of smoke.
Speaker 1: I mean, I was thinking about what was absent, I mean,
Speaker 1: not just what happened over this last year, but we
Speaker 1: actually could breathe relatively well here in Colorado. We didn't
Speaker 1: have the massive influx of smoke and that was nice.
Speaker 1: I don't think we had here in America any earthquakes.
Speaker 1: We had a you know, it's a it was a
Speaker 1: bad hurricane season, a very bad hurricane season for the South,
Speaker 1: really really tore up South Carolina and North Carolina, and
Speaker 1: you know between the mud slides and the you know,
Speaker 1: everything that happened there, it was terrible for those communities.
Speaker 1: But here in Colorado, I don't want to jinx it.
Speaker 1: For all I know, tornado will pop up today and
Speaker 1: uh they'll be like, yeah, I know why that tornado came.
Speaker 1: Ca Fir said it was a really great a great
Speaker 1: year for weather. Well, I'll tell you what, five six six,
Speaker 1: and I know, if you've got it could be a
Speaker 1: big thing that happened in Colorado, a big event, or
Speaker 1: it could be a big event nationally, a big event internationally,
Speaker 1: you know, like a sad fleeing Syria. That's pretty big.
Speaker 1: So yeah, let me know, five six six, And I
Speaker 1: know this is Christa Kaefer. I'm sitting in for Mandy
Speaker 1: Connell and it's Kale fifty. It was almost a perfect
Speaker 1: outro A fifty Kowa. I'm going to give my favorite
Speaker 1: books and the reason I thought about this is that
Speaker 1: Mandy Connell talked about how much she loves a bookstore.
Speaker 1: I also love books, and I had a goal to
Speaker 1: read fifty two books this year. I missed it by
Speaker 1: about twenty. I'm less than twenty, but still, yeah, I
Speaker 1: didn't hit it. But my favorites. Just in case you're
Speaker 1: looking for a book recommendation, I really liked Material World
Speaker 1: by Ed Conway. Talks about kind of the main like
Speaker 1: the main materials that create the modern world, everything from
Speaker 1: steel to silicon to lithium. And it's it's easy to read,
Speaker 1: it's not technical, but it's a lot of really good information.
Speaker 1: It's it's a it's a good book. It's worth reading. Also,
Speaker 1: you want to read something dark, yeah, a little dark.
Speaker 1: Hitler's People by Richard Evans is a stunning book. It's
Speaker 1: a biography of of Adolf Hitler and then all of
Speaker 1: the horrific people around him. And it will surprise you.
Speaker 1: It will surprise you in the sense that some had families,
Speaker 1: some a lot of them like played instruments and did art.
Speaker 1: Like Yeah, when they weren't killing people or ordering the
Speaker 1: deaths of others, they they were they were pretty uniformly ambitious,
Speaker 1: wanting to get ahead. All of them were anti Semitic,
Speaker 1: as you could imagine, all of them were really smitten
Speaker 1: with Hitler, but they also had someone, you know, the
Speaker 1: fact that they they liked art. Hitler himself did some art.
Speaker 1: You know, some of them were really educated. Yeah, it
Speaker 1: was really Uh, it was just interesting to see how,
Speaker 1: i mean, how evil can come in a kind of
Speaker 1: ordinary package. It was interesting putt on the dark side though. Also,
Speaker 1: like Jane Harper's mystery series. I think she's written five books.
Speaker 1: I read them all pretty darn fast because they were
Speaker 1: that good, just really good books. So yeah, those were
Speaker 1: my best books. Okay, the book that I thought was
Speaker 1: the like the one I don't recommend, although if you
Speaker 1: read my substack, I have a substack. Just go to
Speaker 1: Christa k for substack, so you could publish stuff. I
Speaker 1: did write a little review on it because there's good
Speaker 1: stuff in it, but I do not recommend Reinhold Nieber's
Speaker 1: Moral Man and in Moral Society. It's got some brilliant insights,
Speaker 1: but the book is brutal to get through. Think in
Speaker 1: Manual Kant only maybe worse, No, nothing is worse than Kant.
Speaker 1: Bad just I mean, and no amount of like you know,
Speaker 1: there's just there's really it's really hard to get through,
Speaker 1: but has insights. So I don't know, but you know,
Speaker 1: buyer beware if you're just thinking about reading the book,
Speaker 1: I don't know why you'd be thinking about it. But anyway,
Speaker 1: we're going to hit a break in about two minutes
Speaker 1: and then we come back. We're going to talk about
Speaker 1: events of the year, good, bad, just big things that happened.
Speaker 1: It is the subject of my Denver Post column on Sunday,
Speaker 1: looking just at Colorado, some things that I was kind
Speaker 1: of tracking over the year that I thought were interesting.
Speaker 1: I do not mention anything that was of national because
Speaker 1: I was just focused on Colorado. But if you if
Speaker 1: you want to go on away in five six to six,
Speaker 1: and I know, big things that happened nationally, internationally or
Speaker 1: here in Colorado. Obviously, the election I kind of dominated
Speaker 1: dominated headlines for obvious reasons. It was a big election
Speaker 1: and thinking back, but I'm not going to talk about
Speaker 1: it too much. But who picks joy as a campaign slogan?
Speaker 1: I mean, I know it kind of worked for President Obama.
Speaker 1: He did hope and change and people are like, yeah,
Speaker 1: we love an airy meaningless slogan, you know, and if
Speaker 1: it's for the most part, they all are. I mean,
Speaker 1: like normalcy that was what was that? Hardings? You know,
Speaker 1: they all have, they all had. All those slogans are
Speaker 1: pretty bad. Although I liked warning in America that was
Speaker 1: Ronald Reagan's. I mean, occasionally there's one in there that's
Speaker 1: kind of nice, but they're all kind of airy. So
Speaker 1: you basically take whatever you think and feel and you
Speaker 1: can just put it in there yourself, like it's just
Speaker 1: this sort of airy nothing that you can imagine whatever
Speaker 1: you want. But joy number one, I don't think i'd
Speaker 1: go with a one word slogan and not one that's
Speaker 1: that dumb. Nobody feels joyous about it an election, I don't.
Speaker 1: I mean, unless you're a consultant making a lot of money,
Speaker 1: you're making six figures off of the election. Yeah, there's
Speaker 1: some joy there, but otherwise I'm not sure how joyful
Speaker 1: it is until it's over and the bowse that won
Speaker 1: these slim majority, they get their joy on, but I
Speaker 1: wouldn't say it's joyous during And as far as airy
Speaker 1: meaningless campaign slogans go, I'm thinking it might be the worst.
Speaker 1: This is Christy k Fer. I'm sitting in for Mandy
Speaker 1: Connell and you're listening to eight fifty k away. This
Speaker 1: is Christy kay for sitting in and should be back
Speaker 1: next week, so never hear and know she's having a
Speaker 1: terrific just a terrific Christmas with her family, so and
Speaker 1: her big lovely dog and yeah, they're they're having a
Speaker 1: good time. So anyway, thanks for hanging with the sub.
Speaker 1: My text line is five six six, And I know
Speaker 1: we're moving into kind of a year in review, you know,
Speaker 1: big things that happen here in Colorado, maybe around the country, Hey,
Speaker 1: how about around the world. Just yeah, I can't believe
Speaker 1: the Russians shot down a nazerbe Aji Azerbaijani sorry as
Speaker 1: a Bajan was a flight And that's a it's a
Speaker 1: it's a little country, a little oil rich country that
Speaker 1: is next to Armenia and Russia kind of within that
Speaker 1: orbit and kind of a kind of an ally I think,
Speaker 1: not an ally of Russia, but I think is a
Speaker 1: good relationship with that with Russia. Nothing can really, shall
Speaker 1: we say, a strain of friendship more than shooting down
Speaker 1: someone's plane and killing their people. So I'm thinking that's
Speaker 1: not going to work out so well. And uh yeah,
Speaker 1: Russia has is already a bit of an international pariah,
Speaker 1: given that it likes to bite off other people's or
Speaker 1: other countries territory. And when they don't just you know,
Speaker 1: bit off a piece of Georgia, Georgia was like, okay,
Speaker 1: you could, you can have that part, which is what
Speaker 1: most countries do when he takes a bite. In case
Speaker 1: of Ukraine, Ukraine was like, no, you're not You're not
Speaker 1: taking that, and that's why they've been at war. So
Speaker 1: kudos to obviously Ukraine and the fighting spirit to say no,
Speaker 1: you can't just take part of our land and our
Speaker 1: people and our resources because you want them. And so
Speaker 1: right now Russia's God is. Russia's got a couple of friends.
Speaker 1: You know, they're kind of similar birds of a feather.
Speaker 1: North Korea just sent them some troops to help out,
Speaker 1: because you know, they're going through people like you know,
Speaker 1: they're soldiers, get they're not well trained, they end up dead.
Speaker 1: They keep they keep taking recruiting men from their eastern territories.
Speaker 1: You know out there in the pardon me, out there
Speaker 1: in Siberia, people who are desperate for money and their
Speaker 1: families coming, bringing those soldiers, bringing those men forward to
Speaker 1: be soldiers, and maybe they're running out. I don't think
Speaker 1: they're running out. There's still a lot of people. But
Speaker 1: North Korea graciously say here, have a couple thousand of
Speaker 1: our guys. And you know, China, Russian and China getting
Speaker 1: along pretty well too. So there's I'm guessing probably Venezuela
Speaker 1: has it been on the supportive side as well. So,
Speaker 1: but yeah, I don't think the shooting down of a
Speaker 1: neighbor's airplane is going to help them help them in
Speaker 1: the region anyway, just on the side. Talking Also a
Speaker 1: little bit about the word of the year. Now, Oxford
Speaker 1: Dictionary does a word of the year. Other people do
Speaker 1: a word of the year. As we enter into our
Speaker 1: review of twenty twenty four, the Oxford sorry not Oxford Dictionary,
Speaker 1: Oxford University Press named brain rot as it's twenty twenty
Speaker 1: four word of the year. It's to find as the
Speaker 1: supposed deterior of a person's mental or intellectual state, especially
Speaker 1: viewed as the result of over consumption of material considered
Speaker 1: to be trivial or unchallenging. Now, I really like animal videos,
Speaker 1: dog videos, dog and cat videos. I like some comedians,
Speaker 1: and yeah, I probably watched too much. Maybe that explains
Speaker 1: the brain rot. I don't know. It seems to me
Speaker 1: that we all consume a little bit of that stuff.
Speaker 1: How much is too much? How much is too much?
Speaker 1: So brain rot? That is well, certainally two words, but
Speaker 1: that is their word of the year, and you can't
Speaker 1: think I get a word of the year. They probably
Speaker 1: should hyphenate it just so it really is one word.
Speaker 1: But anyway, a couple words that I heard recently that
Speaker 1: I had not heard that I think kind of go
Speaker 1: with twenty twenty four. One of amost trauma bragging. I
Speaker 1: heard that on Deadpool versus Overeeing, which I watched last night.
Speaker 1: But trauma bragging, that is, and I think it was.
Speaker 1: I think it was a reference to gen Z and
Speaker 1: trauma bragging, which is, you know, how much worse can
Speaker 1: my life be than yours? That kind of thing, or
Speaker 1: how much have I been traumatized compared to you? I
Speaker 1: thought it was pretty fair. I'm not going to like
Speaker 1: dismiss an entire generation. I think gen Zs are just
Speaker 1: about the cutest, nicest group of young people. If all
Speaker 1: I know Zach behind the glasses, gen Z are you
Speaker 1: a gen Z guy, I.
Speaker 3: Am, but I can handle our well learned criticism.
Speaker 1: Okay, well, you know, I teach some I teach a
Speaker 1: couple of universities, and I happen to really like gen
Speaker 1: Z because of just the niceness. I'm a big you know,
Speaker 1: I got young people thank me when they leave the
Speaker 1: classroom like that's I never thank a professor that it's awesome.
Speaker 1: So I like and Zach being a very fine example
Speaker 1: of gen Z.
Speaker 3: Well, thank you. I'll take it.
Speaker 1: Yeah, way to represent appreciate it. So, yeah, I heard
Speaker 1: trauma bragging. I thought that was pretty good. And then
Speaker 1: tiger face syndrome. Just just pick this one up. Its
Speaker 1: sound a little caddy, but so Jeff Bezos leaves his
Speaker 1: wife for his girlfriend, and I don't know if you
Speaker 1: financed all of the I'll just call it work done
Speaker 1: on this woman's face and torso maybe she's got independent money,
Speaker 1: I don't know, but he's showing her off the way
Speaker 1: one might show off. I don't know a car, I
Speaker 1: don't know they're out in the town. She's in this
Speaker 1: dress and somebody mentioned on this on Twitter that she
Speaker 1: had tiger face syndrome. So if you look at her face.
Speaker 1: It's obvious that a lot of money's gone into it.
Speaker 1: I'm not I don't have a problem with people getting
Speaker 1: work done. I personally like botox a lot, but this
Speaker 1: had a lot done and so definitely a lot of
Speaker 1: lip filler. I don't know, when you when it looks
Speaker 1: like you could pop your lip like a you know,
Speaker 1: like a balloon, it's a little much. I mean, I
Speaker 1: just as a guideline if you're getting lip filler, just
Speaker 1: be like, if it looks like somebody could pop it
Speaker 1: with a pin, it's a it's a little much. So
Speaker 1: she's definitely had a lot of lip filler. I'm thinking
Speaker 1: possibly a nose job, definitely a brow lift. There's probably
Speaker 1: some cheek filler, and uh definitely the boobs. Those are
Speaker 1: all uh all of the purchase what I think might
Speaker 1: be the purchase products. And it does make for kind
Speaker 1: of a tiger face. I got admit, whoever put this
Speaker 1: this comment on a on a tweet that I saw it.
Speaker 1: I don't know if it's an official tiger face syndrome.
Speaker 1: But when you have a brow lift, cheek filler, you
Speaker 1: get your nose made a little pointier, you get your
Speaker 1: lips done big. It does give you kind of a
Speaker 1: tiger face. And again, I don't have a problem people
Speaker 1: getting work done. I just think a light touch is better.
Speaker 1: If your lips look like they could be popped like
Speaker 1: a balloon, probably a bit much when you look like
Speaker 1: you are always super super super awake and possibly have
Speaker 1: drank fifty Starbucks coffees. Maybe the brow lift was a
Speaker 1: bit overdone. And I guess the popping thing might also
Speaker 1: go for boobs as well. It's pretty clear these are fake,
Speaker 1: far too large for her frame. And you know you
Speaker 1: don't keep a Lamborghini in the garage. I get that,
Speaker 1: and so that's why I think she's showing these things
Speaker 1: after The degree that she do is it's one of
Speaker 1: those dresses where you have to use some kind of
Speaker 1: a glue or an adhesive otherwise you will fall out.
Speaker 1: Now I've never worn a dress like this. I've never
Speaker 1: experienced the falling out. But some of these women were
Speaker 1: addressed up so low cut, and you know, the girls
Speaker 1: are so far out there that if it was not
Speaker 1: sort of glued on, they would bust out entirely. And
Speaker 1: I know that's the look she's going for. Maybe I'm
Speaker 1: being a little caddy and pointing it out. But I
Speaker 1: have a hunch, and you know, people have to get
Speaker 1: reconstruction done. I get that. I have friends that have
Speaker 1: had reconstruction and there's absolutely nothing wrong with that is
Speaker 1: a good choice for people. But if you go for
Speaker 1: just the voluntary, Hey, I want to size up to
Speaker 1: something extremely large because my wealthy boyfriend will pay for it,
Speaker 1: there is kind of a line that you cross over
Speaker 1: that line. I don't think it's that attractive, and I'm
Speaker 1: not sure big hard and round. I don't know. I'm
Speaker 1: not a dude. I don't know. I'm got a hunch
Speaker 1: that maybe some guys prefer the actual look. I am
Speaker 1: going to move on from this topic because it's it's
Speaker 1: a little edgy, but I'm going to get Zach being
Speaker 1: a dude that kind of that kind of super artificial aesthetic.
Speaker 1: Do you find it attractive? No, I think it becomes
Speaker 1: I agree with what you're saying. I think there's a
Speaker 1: lot of celebrities that have some work done here there.
Speaker 1: It works fine, and that's fine that it probably is
Speaker 1: worth what they're paying for it.
Speaker 2: You know, it works out for them. I think a
Speaker 2: lot of times, though, there's what you're talking about where
Speaker 2: it's a little duck fakesh or facish or tiger facesh
Speaker 2: or yeah. And then you get the ones that are
Speaker 2: like absolute boulders in the shirt and that's a little
Speaker 2: I don't know, that's not appealing to me personally.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I just don't find it. And I can't imagine
Speaker 1: that hugging that person. That just doesn't strike me as
Speaker 1: I don't know my friends who are chesty. When you
Speaker 1: hug them, they're just soft and you know, bzz of
Speaker 1: me and he's a good person to hug. It makes
Speaker 1: sound like I'm not gay. I'm just saying, you know,
Speaker 1: you hug somebody and they're just, you know, a lovely hug,
Speaker 1: that's fine. But when somebody's like that artificial, I give
Speaker 1: me be kind of like hugging a mannequin. I don't know,
Speaker 1: sex with sex nodding, Yeah, I definitely have gone along
Speaker 1: the edge of what is tasteful for talk radio. So
Speaker 1: I will be walking myself back from the ledge here.
Speaker 1: So those are the two terms that I've heard, tiger
Speaker 1: face syndrome and trauma bragging as being two words I
Speaker 1: just learned. I also was substitute teaching in junior high
Speaker 1: this year. I learned a lot of dumb words that
Speaker 1: I wish I didn't learn and know of these aren't
Speaker 1: swear words. It's like skibbety and different things like that.
Speaker 1: If you are the parent or a teacher of a
Speaker 1: middle schooler, you know exactly what I'm talking about. Guillocht,
Speaker 1: there's a bunch of them. I like make a mental
Speaker 1: note when I'm subbing for the damn like, how many
Speaker 1: times are I going to hear that today? And maybe
Speaker 1: that's the number of drinks I have when I get home.
Speaker 1: I'm kidding, there'd be a lot of drinks. So talking
Speaker 1: about twenty twenty four, I will not bring up Bezos's
Speaker 1: girlfriend again. Is Yeah, so what was one of the
Speaker 1: big things that happened this year? Got a couple of
Speaker 1: interesting things coming in. This person says, let's see, I
Speaker 1: had to put on my reading glasses. How sad is
Speaker 1: that that's what twenty twenty four did to me? Yeah? Okay,
Speaker 1: so this person says, uh. This person says, I'm glad
Speaker 1: that that we shut down the quote unquote school choice measure.
Speaker 1: Colorado is smarter than most I'm thankful for that this year.
Speaker 1: Those are my words. That's somebody who texted in, and
Speaker 1: you know, I did vote for that tech because I
Speaker 1: like school choice. Most over half of the states have
Speaker 1: some kind of a voucher program or tax credit for education.
Speaker 1: We have other school choice things here. We don't have those,
Speaker 1: but we've got charter schools, We've got open enrollment for
Speaker 1: public schools, so we've got some things going for us.
Speaker 1: I'd like to see like the full roster of choices
Speaker 1: for families. I've seen how good it is for people
Speaker 1: to pick the school that best meets their kids needs.
Speaker 1: There was I think the reason that went down isn't
Speaker 1: just because the unions hated it. I think part of
Speaker 1: the reason that went down is there were some in
Speaker 1: the homeschooling community that we're a little nervous about the wording,
Speaker 1: and so that's why they didn't vote for it. And
Speaker 1: I personally absolutely hate the initiative process. I've been pretty
Speaker 1: open about this. I know that's a contraran viewpoint. Most
Speaker 1: people think it's super but you know, we hire legislators
Speaker 1: to do the work, so why are we legislating. I mean,
Speaker 1: as guys make like vifty forty two thousand dollars a
Speaker 1: year for when do they work three months. Okay, that's
Speaker 1: good work if you can find it. I'd like forty
Speaker 1: two thousand dollars for you know, I think it's four
Speaker 1: months of work. But we pay them to do these things,
Speaker 1: and yet we are We've got this initiative process that
Speaker 1: allows millionaires and their friends and some of these are
Speaker 1: good people, not saying they're not good people, to come
Speaker 1: in and push a measure, using their substantial resources, and
Speaker 1: try to get to the public to adopt it. And
Speaker 1: we end up with some really bad ideas. And the
Speaker 1: school choice idea would have been would have been I
Speaker 1: really wouldn't have done much. And I think the homeschoolers
Speaker 1: were right to probably worry about some of the wording, don't.
Speaker 1: I don't think it was a prudent measure to put
Speaker 1: forward for that reason, even though I do support school choice.
Speaker 1: But I don't know what your reasons are. But you, obviously,
Speaker 1: I say you, this is the person that just wrote
Speaker 1: in obviously you didn't like it. This person said they
Speaker 1: would have guessed that joy to be the word of
Speaker 1: the year. Thanks Dan. Yeah, I was saying in before
Speaker 1: we went to this hour, I can't think of a
Speaker 1: worse campaign slogan than joy. I don't know though that
Speaker 1: was her official campaign slogan, but it's about as bad
Speaker 1: as picking Tim Walls as as her running mate. Yeah,
Speaker 1: there was some definitely some errors made in that campaign.
Speaker 1: And I think joy about the dumbest campaign slogan I have,
Speaker 1: I think I've ever heard, and I think it could
Speaker 1: be it could be a word of the year, right,
Speaker 1: And this person says they I can't read that on
Speaker 1: the air, but I did get a kick out of it.
Speaker 1: You know who you are. It has to do with
Speaker 1: Jeff's his girlfriend and the artificial the artificial body. Yeah,
Speaker 1: all right, moving on, so the top kind of top
Speaker 1: things that happen in twenty twenty four, let's start with Colorado.
Speaker 1: I'll start with Colorado here just because obviously we live here.
Speaker 1: My column The Sunday is about one are some big
Speaker 1: things that happen in Colorado. I focus mainly obviously on politics.
Speaker 1: I write about politics, and I thought it was kind
Speaker 1: of cool that during the primary, the really far right
Speaker 1: in the far left lost out. I say this as
Speaker 1: a moderate, I'm really glad. I'm glad that Epps and Hernandez,
Speaker 1: the too farthest left leaning Democrats in the Collbright House representatives.
Speaker 1: They got primaried out. They're gone. Good Old Hernandez is
Speaker 1: going to have to find a job. He's got the
Speaker 1: barist to look. I think that'll work for him. Epps,
Speaker 1: I don't know, some kind of angry nonprofit where she
Speaker 1: can channel the rage. I think that would that'd be
Speaker 1: a good call for her. Also, the Dave Williams slate
Speaker 1: of far right candidates, most of them lost in the primary,
Speaker 1: couple of them lost in the general. I think maybe
Speaker 1: one one of that slate made it. Everybody else lost,
Speaker 1: which is good because the mainstream republic and alternatives did.
Speaker 1: Some of them did pretty darn well. We ended up
Speaker 1: with very solid picks in the third and the eighth
Speaker 1: congressional districts. I'm talking about Gabe Evans and Gabe Evans
Speaker 1: and also Jeff Hurd, really solid candidates. I think they're
Speaker 1: going to serve of Colorado very very well. Also, the
Speaker 1: House of the House, State House, that is at the
Speaker 1: General Assembly, the House picked up three Republicans, so there's
Speaker 1: no longer a Democrat supermajority in that chamber. And my
Speaker 1: hat's off to Rose Puglucy. Apologies if I just I
Speaker 1: feel like I just mispronounced her name, but anyway, super sharp.
Speaker 1: She is the minority leader there, raised the money, got
Speaker 1: it done, brought some more Republicans and a little more
Speaker 1: balanced to that chamber. I am a registered Republican. I
Speaker 1: am kind of offbeat Republican independent, I guess contrarian perhaps,
Speaker 1: I don't know, but I am happy to see more
Speaker 1: Republicans in that chamber. Really stoked about Hurd and Evans.
Speaker 1: I think they're going to do a really great job there.
Speaker 1: So that was kind of the subjects of my of
Speaker 1: my calm looking at to sort of elect you know,
Speaker 1: election changes. They're getting rid of a lot of the
Speaker 1: far left and the far right in the primary coming
Speaker 1: into the general, and some really nice pickups by Republicans,
Speaker 1: and so we'll see, we'll see what that does. Big
Speaker 1: things that happened in Colorado, big things that happened around
Speaker 1: the country. If if you've got a thought, I would uh,
Speaker 1: I'd love to I'd love to read it for you.
Speaker 1: Let's see. This person says, oh, it's kind of an
Speaker 1: interesting comment. So this is again about that school choice deal.
Speaker 1: This person says, I'm sick of the school choice nonsense.
Speaker 1: Teachers need a certificate in four years of higher education.
Speaker 1: We have some parents who barely passed high school thinking
Speaker 1: they can do the job. They haven't met a single
Speaker 1: homeschool kid that was thankful for it. I got a
Speaker 1: hunch it was just a hunch that maybe that's the
Speaker 1: same person that wrote the first comment, But I will
Speaker 1: address it here. I know a lot of very successful
Speaker 1: homeschool kids that were happy with the experience. They were
Speaker 1: super involved in a whole bunch of other stuff. They're
Speaker 1: quite happy. Now is every homeschool kid happy. Probably not,
Speaker 1: I mean not probably. No, that you're going to find
Speaker 1: some discontents. You're also going to find some bad homeschooling parents. Frankly,
Speaker 1: having been around education politics, I also teach both in
Speaker 1: public schools. I've been a teacher in a Royal substitute
Speaker 1: teacher for years in K twelve schools public schools for
Speaker 1: Jeff Coo. I also teach higher ed occasionally. I do
Speaker 1: adult you know in Richmond classes that adult for adults.
Speaker 1: So I guess, but I guess k through. I don't know, Senior.
Speaker 1: I've thought a lot of large range of kids, a
Speaker 1: large range of learners. I should say, as somebody who
Speaker 1: loves to learn and loves to teach, and I would
Speaker 1: say that you can find bad public schools, bad public
Speaker 1: school teachers. You can find good public schools, some great
Speaker 1: public school teachers. I've met some awesome teachers in early
Speaker 1: difficult challenge schools. Also you can find great private schools,
Speaker 1: bad private schools, bad private you know, bad homeschooling parents,
Speaker 1: good home schooling parents. I think the difference is is
Speaker 1: that because private schools have to parents have to have
Speaker 1: some skin in the game. Even in states where they're
Speaker 1: a voucher programs, parents still have to put in some
Speaker 1: of their own money. Kids got to be there and
Speaker 1: do the hard work. Private schools, not all of them,
Speaker 1: but most of them have to be a cut above
Speaker 1: because otherwise people are going to take their money and
Speaker 1: leave private school or I say, homeschooling. Same thing. You've
Speaker 1: got to make a sacrifice to do it so that
Speaker 1: some people who would really suck at it aren't going
Speaker 1: to make that sacrifice. And then with public schools and
Speaker 1: lesson school is really wretched, it is not going to
Speaker 1: get closed. And I hate to say this, that's true
Speaker 1: for a lot of charter schools as well. Charter schools
Speaker 1: can be closed for bad performance but they don't always
Speaker 1: get closed for bad performance. So I would just say
Speaker 1: to this person, hey, look around. There are a lot
Speaker 1: of good people doing a lot of good stuff. You
Speaker 1: can always find you can find bad everywhere, but you
Speaker 1: can also find a lot of good everywhere. And I've
Speaker 1: met some really miserable public school teachers that don't want
Speaker 1: to be there. I've also met some amazing public school
Speaker 1: teachers that want to be there and are doing a
Speaker 1: great job. I would say this, and then we're going
Speaker 1: to take a break. If you love kids and you
Speaker 1: love your subject matter, that's the two most important things.
Speaker 1: The rest is technique, and that technique can be learned,
Speaker 1: doesn't have to be learned with a teaching degree. It
Speaker 1: can be learned outside of that. I say, this is
Speaker 1: somebody who substitute teach and actually likes doing it, which
Speaker 1: is freaking weird. I know this is Christy Kaefer. I'm
Speaker 1: sitting in for Mandy Connell and you're listening to eight
Speaker 1: fifty KOA nice compliments. It says, where should you get
Speaker 1: that voice? I could listen to you for hours. I
Speaker 1: wanted to say thank you. That was really sweet, and yeah,
Speaker 1: it's kind of a smooth jazz voice. I could definitely
Speaker 1: do NPR. I just be a little more like a
Speaker 1: little more monotone that I had to be like. And
Speaker 1: welcome back to NPR. Sleepier, Yeah, a little sleepier and
Speaker 1: welcome and welcome back to smooth jazz. And welcome back
Speaker 1: to NPR. You're listening to Christa Kaefer or I could do,
Speaker 1: And welcome back to the BBC. Welcome to Russian television.
Speaker 1: We are real good to tell, all right, all right,
Speaker 1: back to something serious. We're talking about the most serious
Speaker 1: things that happened this year, the or the weirdest things,
Speaker 1: or the lamest things, like whateverever you want to characterize it.
Speaker 1: We're talking about a year in review. The thing that
Speaker 1: wasn't on my bingo card for the year was the
Speaker 1: bridge collapse in Baltimore. That was the Key Bridge, named
Speaker 1: after Francis Scott Key, the guy who wrote our national
Speaker 1: anthem during the World of eighteen twelve. And yeah, that
Speaker 1: is an elegant bridge. And then it got hit by
Speaker 1: a boat, a big boat, but a boat. Nonetheless, that
Speaker 1: was not in my that was not on my being
Speaker 1: my being go card, like I. You know, you expect
Speaker 1: a certain amount of damaged done to the country, be
Speaker 1: it from a hurricane, maybe an earthquake, at tornado, something
Speaker 1: along those lines. But I didn't expect a boat to
Speaker 1: take out one of the nation's iconic bridges. That was
Speaker 1: not on my BINGO card. Yeah. Also, I haven't said
Speaker 1: the most disturbing category of twenty twenty four is. I
Speaker 1: gonna have to say it's the WTF category. I don't
Speaker 1: understand how people behave this way, and I guess I
Speaker 1: don't think I don't have not fully hit peak peak
Speaker 1: cynicism yet. I'm close. I'm really close, But every year
Speaker 1: I'm reminded that I'm not quite there. I could get
Speaker 1: just a tiny bit more cynical, just a tiny bit.
Speaker 1: So there's just as there's there's room to grow, I
Speaker 1: should say. So you have the murder of the United
Speaker 1: Healthcare CEO, Brian Thompson. I'm going to give the victims
Speaker 1: name here. The father, fifty year old, father of two husband,
Speaker 1: success story kind of a you know, modest, humble origin,
Speaker 1: you know, worked really hard, ended up becoming the CEO
Speaker 1: of United health Care. I don't have United right now
Speaker 1: I have in the past, and is murdered by this
Speaker 1: child of privilege. This horrible human being, this grinning, murdering
Speaker 1: piece of you know what who murders this man whose
Speaker 1: wife and kids spent yesterday Christmas Day without him and
Speaker 1: are probably still in grief shock that he was torn
Speaker 1: from them recently. And I guess what. The fact that
Speaker 1: evil people murder people doesn't shock me. I mean, that's
Speaker 1: not shocking. What is shocking to me is that there
Speaker 1: was a subset of Americans that thought that was good. Now,
Speaker 1: I'm lucky. I don't know any of those people. I'm
Speaker 1: not one of those people who unfriends people on social
Speaker 1: media very easily, not on Twitter, not on Facebook. If
Speaker 1: I was actually on one of the cooler ones, I
Speaker 1: wouldn't do it. I don't. I just you know, if
Speaker 1: you got weird opinions, I don't have to agree with
Speaker 1: you to like you. If anyone's going to get unfriended,
Speaker 1: it's probably me, you know, as far as I people.
Speaker 1: I had friends that didn't like the fact that I
Speaker 1: didn't wear a mask during COVID. They unfriended me whatever.
Speaker 1: Generally speaking, though I figure you're different, you don't I
Speaker 1: don't agree. It's fine, I don't care. But if I
Speaker 1: had if I had a friend on social media who
Speaker 1: said I'm so glad that this person, this innocent person
Speaker 1: was murdered because I don't like my healthcare and they
Speaker 1: probably wouldn't have put it exactly that way. But if
Speaker 1: I had ever gotten a whiff of that, that's an
Speaker 1: instant unfriend and I don't do it that often, and
Speaker 1: I know unfriending's kind of dumb anyway, but I don't
Speaker 1: want to know people who think it's okay to kill
Speaker 1: people they don't agree with. I just don't. I don't care.
Speaker 1: I mean, you had that, you had someone tried to
Speaker 1: kill President Trump or former President Trump soon to be
Speaker 1: President Trump, someone you know, took a shot at him.
Speaker 1: I think that guy may have been crazy. I don't know.
Speaker 1: It didn't matter anyone who thought that was a good thing,
Speaker 1: anyone who tweeted out, you know, something nasty about that
Speaker 1: that somebody was almost murdered, Whether it was somebody who
Speaker 1: was murdered, the CEO of United Healthcare or the former president,
Speaker 1: A lot of people don't care for him. I don't,
Speaker 1: But you don't get to murder people, innocent people because
Speaker 1: you disagree with them. That is absolutely horrific that anyone
Speaker 1: would cheer either of those incidents this year. Now I
Speaker 1: know it's a minority. I know it's an minority because
Speaker 1: I have by a thousand Facebook friends, a couple thousand.
Speaker 1: Maybe I don't know Twitter follow people who follow me
Speaker 1: because I don't follow all of them. I guess I
Speaker 1: follow around five hundred. Nobody tweeted. I didn't catch any
Speaker 1: of that on my own social media feed. I know
Speaker 1: it's a small sample size, so I'm not saying it's representative,
Speaker 1: but I didn't come across it. But I knew it
Speaker 1: was out there because I had friends who said they
Speaker 1: knew people that we're talking normal people like suburban housewife
Speaker 1: or something, because housewives kind of an old fashioned term,
Speaker 1: people who live in suburbia. Who cheered the murder of
Speaker 1: Brian Thompson. I have no doubt there were liberals that
Speaker 1: cheered the attempted assassination of President Trump. Either way, if
Speaker 1: you're cheering the uh, you know, murder or almost murder
Speaker 1: of a person you don't agree with, I'm thinking first
Speaker 1: you need to go to confession. Maybe that, and then
Speaker 1: maybe call up a counselor just do you know one,
Speaker 1: Maybe confess to God. If you're Catholic, maybe go to
Speaker 1: confession and then when you get back just call up
Speaker 1: with a therapists and be like, you know, fo myself
Speaker 1: the other day cheering on an assassin. I think that's
Speaker 1: a moral, spiritual, mental issue. Can I get in for
Speaker 1: a little chair of time. I'm just saying that is
Speaker 1: not that's not normal. That's not normal. So that would
Speaker 1: be in my WTF column of twenty twenty four of
Speaker 1: who who praises a murder or an almost murderer? Don't
Speaker 1: get that at all. It's very mystifying to me in
Speaker 1: my column of good stuff. And I'll get to some
Speaker 1: of your comments. Is I was really happy to see
Speaker 1: the there's a reporter for the Wall Street Journal. I'm
Speaker 1: going to mess up his name. It's like Gerskovich Evan.
Speaker 1: I just kind of knew him as Evan, not that
Speaker 1: I know him, but what I prayed for him. I
Speaker 1: just prayed for Evan because I can't I can't pronounce
Speaker 1: the last name. But guy spent like a year in
Speaker 1: a Russian prison. I can't even imagine what that must
Speaker 1: have been like. So I'm really happy to see a
Speaker 1: couple of Americans released from from Russian prisons. This is
Speaker 1: not the time to be visiting Russia. I know it's
Speaker 1: got a lot of like cool architectural stuff, cool history.
Speaker 1: It's a cool language. Russian's a pretty language. I'm sure.
Speaker 1: I'm sure there's lots of nice people there. People are
Speaker 1: not the same thing as their leader. It would be
Speaker 1: cool to go. I've always wanted to go there, but
Speaker 1: this is not the time because what happens is they
Speaker 1: basically take Americans that are there, hold them on some
Speaker 1: specious charge saying that they're spies, throw them in prison,
Speaker 1: and then use them as a bargaining chip so they
Speaker 1: can get their spies out of our prisons. So you know,
Speaker 1: there's other places you can go there. You can get
Speaker 1: the Slavic experience. Poland is fantastic. I wish you could
Speaker 1: go to Ukraine. I've been to Ukraine. It's a fantastic place.
Speaker 1: Odessa's beautiful city. It's where my family came from about
Speaker 1: a one hundred and twenty years ago. Also, you want
Speaker 1: to go somewhere that's just ideal. You're thinking maybe honeymoon,
Speaker 1: something like that. I go to Croatia. Croatia is rgeous
Speaker 1: and Serbia is a lot of fun. So there's there's
Speaker 1: some really fun, cool countries where you can hear those
Speaker 1: beautiful languages, you can see some cool stuff, get some history,
Speaker 1: see how countries have recuperated from a treacherous era of communism.
Speaker 1: But I'd avoid Russia just in case you're making twenty
Speaker 1: twenty five vague Eachian plans. That would be my advice.
Speaker 1: So we're going to hit a break here, we get
Speaker 1: back more comments on what you thought were the top weirdest, best, biggest, gravest,
Speaker 1: most horrible, most awesome things that happened in twenty twenty four.
Speaker 1: This is Krista Kayfer sitting in for Mandy Connell, and
Speaker 1: you're listening to a fifty koa and we're talking about
Speaker 1: the biggest, kind of the biggest events of the year. Obviously,
Speaker 1: the election was kind of took a lot of air
Speaker 1: out of the room. Was definitely dominated things, but there
Speaker 1: was other stuff that happened. And I went off a
Speaker 1: little bit in the last segment about the murder. It
Speaker 1: was late in the year of the United Healthcare CEO
Speaker 1: Brian Thompson by this horrible, horrible person, and my dismay
Speaker 1: over the fact that some people cheered that on. It's sickening,
Speaker 1: just as it's sickening that somebody cheered on the fact
Speaker 1: that somebody tried to kill President Trump. You don't you
Speaker 1: don't get to kill people that you don't agree with,
Speaker 1: and you don't get to cheer when somebody else does.
Speaker 1: It's sickening, and it's I think maybe if you're feeling
Speaker 1: that right now, like yay, an innocent person died that
Speaker 1: I didn't agree with, you do go to confession, maybe
Speaker 1: get a counselor that is not the way to be
Speaker 1: Other things that happened besides the election is you know,
Speaker 1: it's kind of the elephant in the room that was interesting.
Speaker 1: At the key Bridge collapsed. Interesting, It's sad. It's a
Speaker 1: cool bridge, but not something that I kind of predicted.
Speaker 1: What about those campus protests, and I actually think that
Speaker 1: they helped Republicans because nobody likes that. I mean, they
Speaker 1: did like a million dollars worth of damage to the
Speaker 1: Araria campus. And I'm an area campus alum. I've got
Speaker 1: both my bassaords and my Masters at CU Denver and
Speaker 1: and I've taught there. I you don't get to rip
Speaker 1: up stuff because you're upset, and they did terrible damage
Speaker 1: to to the campus, to the d I think they
Speaker 1: had to resawed the entire area they were camping out.
Speaker 1: I don't know where they were going to the bathroom,
Speaker 1: but you know, grass can only take so much of
Speaker 1: that stuff. So I again, you don't have to You
Speaker 1: can be upset about stuff. There are ways to channel
Speaker 1: that if you are. If you despair over the fact
Speaker 1: that I think it's like four forty six thousand gozens
Speaker 1: died and this war. Some of those were militants, some
Speaker 1: of those were terrorists, but a lot of those were
Speaker 1: normal people, including kids, and that's tragic. If that is,
Speaker 1: if that's upsetting to you to the point where you
Speaker 1: want to do a protest, why not channel that into
Speaker 1: giving some money to a relief organization or talking to
Speaker 1: friends about getting some relief dollars over there, medicine, blankets, tents,
Speaker 1: you know, things like that. Put your money there, put
Speaker 1: your energy there. You don't need to go to a
Speaker 1: campus and rip stuff up. You also, I think, have
Speaker 1: to acknowledge that Gaza, as tragic as it is and
Speaker 1: the human suffering that's going on, you got to acknowledge
Speaker 1: that Hamas started it. If Hamas hadn't killed well over
Speaker 1: one thousand innocent Jewish people, murdered them, raped them, and
Speaker 1: kidnapped them. War wouldn't be going on. That isn't decid
Speaker 1: You can't feel deep compassion and pain for those who
Speaker 1: are suffering in that war, and it's at something you
Speaker 1: feel passionate about. Rather than rip up the sad at
Speaker 1: your local university, raise some money to get some help
Speaker 1: to these folks. I'm just saying it's a little common sense.
Speaker 1: The reason I think it did help Republicans though, is
Speaker 1: that people don't like that. It's kind of like the
Speaker 1: sixty eight protests and riots. It didn't help Democrats that
Speaker 1: election season, was it, Hubert Humphrey? I think yeah, he
Speaker 1: went down. He went down in part because of all
Speaker 1: those protests. People don't like it when people go out
Speaker 1: and rip stuff up and spray graffiti and break stuff
Speaker 1: and cost taxpayers money. Come on, it's a little common
Speaker 1: sense there. And I remember what it was like to
Speaker 1: be young. I remember, but I never went to those
Speaker 1: kind of protests. I would go to like peaceful pro
Speaker 1: life protests where we walked around and you know, didn't
Speaker 1: litter or yell. I guess I'm just I don't know.
Speaker 1: I guess I'm just not into breaking stuff. That I
Speaker 1: don't own. If you got a thought three zero, well
Speaker 1: I almost I almost give the number. I actually prefer
Speaker 1: the text slife you gotta talk, go to five, six, six, nine,
Speaker 1: oh and let me know what you think. We're talking
Speaker 1: and we're gonna keep talking about this going into the
Speaker 1: next hour. Big stuff that happened in twenty twenty four
Speaker 1: can be stupid stuff, it can be fun stuff. It
Speaker 1: can be big stuff, small stuff, collabad of stuff, international,
Speaker 1: national stuff. Also, if you have a New Year's resolution
Speaker 1: that you want to share and you know, as long
Speaker 1: as it's not right, it are, I will share it
Speaker 1: on the air way to make sure that you're committed. Right.
Speaker 1: We'll talk a little bit about New Year's resolutions in
Speaker 1: the next hour as well. This is Christa Kafer. I'm
Speaker 1: sitting in for Mandy Connell and you're listening to eight
Speaker 1: fifty koa A ring Ton on my phone and spin
Speaker 1: this way. For as long as I've had a cell phone,
Speaker 1: almost is back in Black by ac DC, So I
Speaker 1: guess that could be my theme song. I've also been
Speaker 1: I've always liked Peter Gunn, that little, you know, fun
Speaker 1: set of jazz riff. I'm not sure what that is,
Speaker 1: but yeah, probably back in Black. I always loved that song.
Speaker 1: I always love that song. We're talking a little bit
Speaker 1: about big things that happened in twenty twenty four. If
Speaker 1: this little key voice is new to you. Normally, I'm
Speaker 1: in print. I'm a Denver Post columnist and I pop
Speaker 1: up on Sundays the Denver Post and in the Perspective section.
Speaker 1: I am a commentator, like to you know, people, I
Speaker 1: mean in journalism, but I'm not a journalist. I'm not
Speaker 1: out there like you know, writing breaking news. I may
Speaker 1: comment cracks me up when I'll I'll post something on
Speaker 1: Twitter at Achris de Kafer. People be like, your journalism
Speaker 1: is a reporter? You suck. I'm like, yeah, as a reporter,
Speaker 1: I do suck. And that's because I'm not a reporter.
Speaker 1: I'm a commentator. I'm an opinion person. And in fact,
Speaker 1: tonight you actually if you want to see what I
Speaker 1: look like, I will be on the Channel twelve PBS.
Speaker 1: Channel twelve does a really cool program called Colorado Inside Out.
Speaker 1: Kyle Dyer and I'll be on the panel tonight. We're
Speaker 1: talking about our year in review, and it's a lot
Speaker 1: of fun. It's a fun show and fun to do.
Speaker 1: So yeah, I do TV, I do some radio, do
Speaker 1: some some some print stuff, and I've got a sub
Speaker 1: stack if you want to check out my print stuff.
Speaker 1: I actually republish my columns there after the fact, and
Speaker 1: we get some other stuff up there too. Probably gonna
Speaker 1: be writing more. It's one of my New Year's resolutions
Speaker 1: is to get a little bit more out there. And anyway,
Speaker 1: that's who I am happy to have you on if
Speaker 1: you've got a thought. Five six six nine ozer. We're
Speaker 1: doing a year in review and also talking a little
Speaker 1: bit about New Year's resolutions. I know we're still a
Speaker 1: few days out from the new year, but because I
Speaker 1: will not be here, you know, those days leading up,
Speaker 1: I'm just here today. If if you got a New
Speaker 1: Year's resolution and you'd like me to air it, I
Speaker 1: can read it on the year. Man, you're committed means
Speaker 1: that you know a lot of people have heard you
Speaker 1: make that commitment. So yeah, you could definitely text me
Speaker 1: at five six six and I know either what you
Speaker 1: think were the big the big deals, the big things
Speaker 1: that happen in twenty twenty four or New Year's resolutions.
Speaker 1: Not everybody said them. I didn't, I didn't set one
Speaker 1: for last year, which is probably good or this year.
Speaker 1: I should say twenty twenty four because it was not
Speaker 1: a good year. It was not a good year medically
Speaker 1: primarily was my issue. But I'm thinking twenty twenty five
Speaker 1: is going to be a great year. I've got some
Speaker 1: get some irons in the fire. Let's see what things
Speaker 1: turn out. I'm also going to get another dog. Those
Speaker 1: of you who have heard me sub in for man,
Speaker 1: do you know that my beautiful dog died last year.
Speaker 1: Bacon died after almost thirteen years. I got her when
Speaker 1: she was about six seven weeks old. She was from
Speaker 1: Lifeline Puppy Rescue, which is in Brighton, Colorado. They go
Speaker 1: around they take puppies basically from high kill shelters in
Speaker 1: the the Rocky Mountain region. Probably hit Okay, I know.
Speaker 1: My dog came from New Mexico and she was a
Speaker 1: German shepherd chow chow. And she was my best friend.
Speaker 1: And she was the best dog I've I've ever had,
Speaker 1: and we had lots of adventures together. We hiked, we
Speaker 1: went snowshoeting. I was wearing snowshoes. She was not. She's
Speaker 1: it is anything fluffy, golden colored, German shepherds, which she
Speaker 1: looked like. And we yeah, we went swimming together, we
Speaker 1: went hiking together. We would do snowshoeing. We would do
Speaker 1: all just all kinds of fun stuff. She was always
Speaker 1: up for fun. And when she could no longer walk,
Speaker 1: I uh, I said goodbye, and I think cancer took
Speaker 1: her down. I guess in the end, heart disease or
Speaker 1: cancer gets all of us if we live long enough.
Speaker 1: And she wasn't senior dog, but she even that January.
Speaker 1: I lost her in June. That January, she went snowshoeing
Speaker 1: with me. She she loves snow. And one of my
Speaker 1: fondest memories was I used to take her up to
Speaker 1: this park. She couldn't go to the dog park. She
Speaker 1: was a little bit of a brawler, but I would
Speaker 1: take her up to this area where there was like
Speaker 1: eight soccer fields and we'd just go and she would
Speaker 1: run and run and run. We go late at night
Speaker 1: when nobody was around, and snowing. She loves the snow.
Speaker 1: So she maybe a year or two before she died,
Speaker 1: she just plopped down on her back and started making
Speaker 1: dog snow angels. So I was like, you know, that's
Speaker 1: a good idea. So I did the same, and yeah,
Speaker 1: all right, before I start to cry, I will go
Speaker 1: back to my New Year's resolution. One of them is
Speaker 1: to adopt a dog. It'll be two years come June,
Speaker 1: and I'm ready. I'm almost there. I will have financial
Speaker 1: wherewithal come midyear to to get a dog, because you
Speaker 1: know they're expensive now, like you can't get out of
Speaker 1: the vet without dropping a grand, so you know you
Speaker 1: gotta you gotta have money in set of side. Cats
Speaker 1: are no big deal. I have some cats. I guess
Speaker 1: I'm jd Vance's catwoman. I got my two cats. I
Speaker 1: am really more of a dog person though, dogs and horses,
Speaker 1: although I love cats too. But I'm gonna be riding
Speaker 1: more this year hopefully. Love horses, love love dogs. And
Speaker 1: did do a little wrangling last year. I like to
Speaker 1: wrangling cattle. I think it's a lot of fun. I
Speaker 1: got to do that. I got to do some pretty
Speaker 1: pretty hardcore mountain riding. Really great great quarter horse really
Speaker 1: handled that well. But some more riding and definitely a
Speaker 1: dog and it's interesting. An article in this week's Denver
Speaker 1: Post talking about just how many pets are at the
Speaker 1: shelter now. Now it's not the peak. Twenty twenty three
Speaker 1: was the peak here. I think some a holes out there,
Speaker 1: not them all were a holes somewhere though. Adopted a
Speaker 1: dog because they thought it would be super cute during
Speaker 1: COVID and then we're like, I don't want this dog
Speaker 1: now they went back to work. Now. I know, emergencies happen.
Speaker 1: There are times when people have to take a dog
Speaker 1: to the pound. You know, there's a death in the family,
Speaker 1: something happens where it's an emergency. You cannot find another
Speaker 1: home for that animal. The pound is your only option.
Speaker 1: I get it. Bad things happen. But there were also
Speaker 1: some really irresponsible people out there who were like, I
Speaker 1: would just love a puppy, and you know what, I
Speaker 1: think I'll get a sporting breed. I think I'll get
Speaker 1: a big dog that requires a ton of exercise even
Speaker 1: though I don't leave the house. And so they got
Speaker 1: things like German shepherds and you know hunting dogs, Like
Speaker 1: if you don't hunt, owning a pointer is not really
Speaker 1: a good If you're a daily runner, you run every day.
Speaker 1: Pointers a great dog for you take that dog with
Speaker 1: you on a run. If you are a sit in
Speaker 1: front of the TV kind of guy or gal Maltese
Speaker 1: is good, be Shaun is good, miniature poodle is good,
Speaker 1: Basset hound like, there are some dogs for you. Pointers
Speaker 1: not one of them. And I know the puppies are
Speaker 1: super cute, but people went out and adopted these big
Speaker 1: breeds that require a lot of exercise at a yard.
Speaker 1: COVID was over, they went back to work and they
Speaker 1: put that animal on the pound. And do you know
Speaker 1: what happens to animals at the pound that don't get adopted.
Speaker 1: They die. I used to volunteer at a dog pound
Speaker 1: and it's crazy how many animals have to be put down,
Speaker 1: including healthy animals, just to make room for more animals.
Speaker 1: So all these these pounds all around town talking about pounds.
Speaker 1: I also could be like Dumb Friends League and others
Speaker 1: that don't have the word pound in them. A lot
Speaker 1: of animals that need to be adopted. So come summer,
Speaker 1: I'm going to be looking at adoption. And if you're
Speaker 1: going to make a resolution and you've got room in
Speaker 1: your heart for a dog, you've got the lifestyle that
Speaker 1: allows you to, you know, take that dog on a walk,
Speaker 1: do what you need to do. Pick the right breed
Speaker 1: for you, be honest with yourself. You're not a big hiker,
Speaker 1: snowshoe runner, whatever, They'll get a pointer, get the right
Speaker 1: dog for you. But do consider going to the pound
Speaker 1: or the Dumb Friends League or Max Fund or whatever
Speaker 1: and find a pet there. Also. I guess BLM, this
Speaker 1: is not Black Lives Matter, but this is Bureau of
Speaker 1: Land Management. They could use your help as well. So
Speaker 1: when we get back, I'll talk a little bit about that.
Speaker 1: Then bust into some other New Year's resolutions and a
Speaker 1: couple of highlights from twenty twenty four. It's Chris Kafer
Speaker 1: sitting in for Manny Connell. You're listening to a fifty
Speaker 1: koa and started talking about New Year's resolutions, and then
Speaker 1: I started talking about the fact that there's a lot
Speaker 1: of dogs and cats and animals out there generally that
Speaker 1: need to be adopted. Not the peak twenty twenty three
Speaker 1: was actually the peak here. But still a lot of
Speaker 1: animals in these shelters, and they, you know, they do
Speaker 1: their best to accommodate as many animals as possible, but ultimately,
Speaker 1: some animals, you know, they get put down. When I
Speaker 1: worked at I used to volunteer a day. It's probably
Speaker 1: the worst dog pounds This is about twenty years ago,
Speaker 1: and it was in the heart of Washington, d C.
Speaker 1: In the hood, this shelter that was just overrun with animals,
Speaker 1: and I had not seen animals that abused before. The
Speaker 1: animals with collars grown into their skin where somebody just
Speaker 1: you know, left the collar on, didn't take care of
Speaker 1: the animal, animals that had been used as bait dogs
Speaker 1: for fighting animals. One of the most despicable thing I
Speaker 1: saw was where a lot of dogs have naturally downward ears,
Speaker 1: like not like German shepherd, you know, triangle ears, but
Speaker 1: they got the floppy ears. Well, you can have your
Speaker 1: dog medically changed like a lot of times, well people
Speaker 1: will do it with Doberman. They'll have the ears medically
Speaker 1: changed to have up ears. But what I saw was
Speaker 1: diy versions of that in which pit bulls or mastiffs
Speaker 1: or other dogs somebody taken a pair of scissors to
Speaker 1: their ears. Saw a lot of really ugly things, and
Speaker 1: saw a lot of animals put down because in that
Speaker 1: particular shelter, in that particular city, I should say, pit
Speaker 1: bulls were illegal, and so pitbulls were summarily put down.
Speaker 1: And that used to be the case here in Denver,
Speaker 1: that has changed things to changes in the law, changes
Speaker 1: in hearts and minds. Even so, as this writer writes
Speaker 1: in shelters are full of pit bulls and pit bull mixes,
Speaker 1: and pipples are wonderful breed. They're not a breed for everybody.
Speaker 1: Some pipples do well at the dog park, some pipples
Speaker 1: do well with other dogs. Generally speaking, pit bulls do
Speaker 1: well with humans, though when they were bred for fighting,
Speaker 1: they were bred to be aggressive towards other dogs, but
Speaker 1: very pliable with people. And that's because if you were
Speaker 1: fighting dogs, you would need to reach into the pit
Speaker 1: where the animals were being fought and pull out an
Speaker 1: injured dog with your hands without getting bits. So they
Speaker 1: were actually bred to be docile to people, but to
Speaker 1: be ferocious to dogs. And it's something that you want
Speaker 1: to keep in mind if you get a pipples that
Speaker 1: they may not be dog friendly, and some of them are.
Speaker 1: They're usually very people friendly and usually really good with kids.
Speaker 1: Like you know, there are outliers with any breed. You
Speaker 1: do hear of situations where children are injured. Some dogs
Speaker 1: can't really be around young kids. So I used to
Speaker 1: have a fantastic German shepherd chow Chow awesome, awesome dog
Speaker 1: like a I think German shepherd Teddy Bear like a
Speaker 1: fluffy German shepherd. And I had to put a lot
Speaker 1: of training into her to be able to be with kids,
Speaker 1: to be trusted in that situation. But I did not
Speaker 1: take her to the dog parks. She liked a brawl.
Speaker 1: She was good at it too, sun dogs. A lot
Speaker 1: of dogs cannot go to the dog park. They fight
Speaker 1: a lot of dogs. I mean you had to. You know,
Speaker 1: the extroverted Golden Retriever who's like, hey, this wanna be
Speaker 1: friends with everybody, min But you also have a lot
Speaker 1: of dogs they're like, hey, I just want to hang
Speaker 1: with my friends. You put me with a dog I
Speaker 1: don't know, and we might have words and so just
Speaker 1: you know, go into the breed knowing what to expect.
Speaker 1: But if you've got space in your heart and your home,
Speaker 1: I would consider a pibble. Learn about it, learn about
Speaker 1: the animal. Usually these these that's true for any dog
Speaker 1: or dog breed. But learn about the breed, learn about
Speaker 1: what's to expect. But as this person said, the shelters
Speaker 1: are full of pit bulls and pit bull of mixes.
Speaker 1: Open your heart if you can, this breed can make
Speaker 1: a really wonderful, wonderful companion. Another person said that they
Speaker 1: recently adopted a mutt from the Denver dumbfriendsly wonderful place.
Speaker 1: It was because this person was a great experience. My
Speaker 1: Dutch shepherd isn't so sure about the whole thing dut shepherds.
Speaker 1: There's like four different kinds of Dutch shepherds. Melani was
Speaker 1: probably the best known. And these are smart dogs and
Speaker 1: tense dogs. But apparently the Dutch shepherds still trying to
Speaker 1: figure out what to do about the new guy. But
Speaker 1: you know, dogs they know introduced him right. I'll give
Speaker 1: you one little tip though, if you've got one dog
Speaker 1: and you're getting another one, bitches can be bitchy. Two
Speaker 1: male dogs are more likely to get along. A male
Speaker 1: and a female dog can get along. Two females might
Speaker 1: have to fight a little bit to figure out who's
Speaker 1: the boss. And if they can't figure out out, they
Speaker 1: will fight all the time. Just a thought you have.
Speaker 1: You know, my sister has two femaline dogs that love
Speaker 1: each other. It's not always the case, but sometimes, uh yeah,
Speaker 1: sometimes bitches can be bitchy. What can I say this
Speaker 1: acristic kaeper and we're hitting into another break. I'm sitting
Speaker 1: in for Mandy Connell and you're listening to a fifty koa.
Speaker 1: My friend Drew Bollen did me a little favor. He's like, Kafer,
Speaker 1: did you know today's Thursday not Friday? Oddly enough, I
Speaker 1: did not know. Gets in my mind. I was thinking
Speaker 1: it's Friday. Yeah yeah, I uh yeah. Anyway, it's Thursday.
Speaker 1: I yeah. The whole holiday thing, I don't know. I
Speaker 1: don't know. Anyway. I'm talking a little bit about dogs actually,
Speaker 1: because the shelters are full and need your help. If
Speaker 1: you've got room in your life for a dog or
Speaker 1: cat or as I said, I think before the break,
Speaker 1: maybe it was the last break or the break before that.
Speaker 1: Bureau of Land Management is actually looking for folks to
Speaker 1: adopt some of these horses. So if you've got pasture land,
Speaker 1: maybe you're looking for a horse. Maybe you think I
Speaker 1: got a little room, I've got pasture, I could take
Speaker 1: a mustang. The reason for this is that we've got
Speaker 1: feral horses roaming different parts of the state. These animals,
Speaker 1: both the burrows and the horses, will overpopulate those lands
Speaker 1: in pretty quick order. I believe a horse American have
Speaker 1: a probably have a baby a year. You get these
Speaker 1: these these animals reproduced pretty quickly, and they end up overgrazing,
Speaker 1: end up others, busies end up suffering because antelope, obviously, deer,
Speaker 1: elk and others rely on vegetation as well. And so
Speaker 1: they have to go in and call these herds and
Speaker 1: they're gonta do something with the horses because they're not
Speaker 1: allowed to slaughter them, so they put them in holding pins.
Speaker 1: They get acclimated to people. Very often they'll be in
Speaker 1: holding pens on prison land, and people who are in
Speaker 1: prison will work with these animals. Sometimes they can get trained.
Speaker 1: Mustang makes for a very hearty horse because they've you know,
Speaker 1: they've lived on the range. And you've got space in
Speaker 1: your life for a horse or a burrow. You've got
Speaker 1: the land. The Bureau of Land Management is looking to
Speaker 1: rehome about eleven thousand horses and burrows in the next
Speaker 1: five years. And so, yeah, so there's there's room. If
Speaker 1: you've got room in your heart and your and your
Speaker 1: household for a large animal, consider that. But if you
Speaker 1: got a little room for something smaller, the horse or
Speaker 1: a horse, dog or a cat, or a small small
Speaker 1: animal like a guinea pig is. It's a great addition.
Speaker 1: And I'm a big, a big proponent of adopt, don't shop.
Speaker 1: I'm not against shopping. I'm not against ethical breeding. Keeps these,
Speaker 1: you know, particularly keeps breeds around, because there are people
Speaker 1: who are breeding specific breeds. But ethical breeders, I think,
Speaker 1: do a good thing. But if you've got you know,
Speaker 1: if you're not picky, adopt. And I like shepherd mixes,
Speaker 1: so that's what I'm going to be going for. Talked
Speaker 1: a little bit about pit bulls. This is a cute story.
Speaker 1: This person had a pit bull follow them and their
Speaker 1: pit bull home from the park because the animal was alone, scared,
Speaker 1: possibly abandoned, walked all the way to the house and
Speaker 1: ended up spending the night. So this person took this
Speaker 1: stray dog in because the shelter was closed. He stayed
Speaker 1: the night. He's a really good dog, really sweet dog,
Speaker 1: and then the owners were able to find him through
Speaker 1: social media. It's a lovely story. And you know, animals
Speaker 1: do get lost. My mom lives in South Carolina and
Speaker 1: in the country, and I don't know if it's a
Speaker 1: Southern thing a country thing. I don't I mean, I
Speaker 1: love the South, but very often people will just dump
Speaker 1: animals like, oh, yeah, my cat or dog can just
Speaker 1: live off the land. Really yeah, in the middle of
Speaker 1: the country. Yeah, I mean a cat can survive in
Speaker 1: a city, probably because there's enough rodents. Dogs don't really
Speaker 1: do well. Uh. And and cats that don't hunt, like
Speaker 1: the kitten that I took home. Uh, that cat would
Speaker 1: have died. One of my cats I brought back from
Speaker 1: South Carolina. Some just dumped this kitten like, yeah, she'll
Speaker 1: just hunt. Okay, I find this cat's got you know,
Speaker 1: basically this kitten skin and bones, and took her home.
Speaker 1: So that's how I helped. How I got a second cat,
Speaker 1: And I'll be adopting a dog this summer. And I
Speaker 1: like I like shepherd mixes, I like pipples. I think
Speaker 1: they're great dogs too. But just you know, if you
Speaker 1: want a powerful breed, have the lifestyle and the ability
Speaker 1: to train that animal to give them the life that
Speaker 1: they need. If you're kind of sedentary, just be honest,
Speaker 1: be like, hey, I'm a sit and watch sports guy.
Speaker 1: Get a dog companion that can fit that lifestyle. Don't
Speaker 1: don't go ahead and get a pointer. All right? Public
Speaker 1: service message over is over. I promise if I do
Speaker 1: have to read this, this person says, because it's just beautiful.
Speaker 1: My friend gave me his whole life. I gave him
Speaker 1: all of my life that overlapped with his. I owe
Speaker 1: him that seventeen years wasn't nearly long enough. And that's
Speaker 1: that's how I felt about my dog's I honestly think
Speaker 1: one of God's greatest gifts is a dog. I don't
Speaker 1: know that we would have conquered the world if it
Speaker 1: hadn't been for them and dogs. Unlike other domesticated creatures,
Speaker 1: most domesticated creatures have been with us less than less
Speaker 1: than about six seven thousand years. I think pigs and
Speaker 1: sheep were the first. Then you get cattle, later you
Speaker 1: get chickens. Cats eventually sort of domesticated themselves and they
Speaker 1: were just like hanging out and then they were like, yeah,
Speaker 1: i'll snuggle. But dogs may have been domesticated upwards of
Speaker 1: thirty thousand years ago. They and like modern man is
Speaker 1: about fifty thousand years and you've got you know, human
Speaker 1: beings go back much farther than that. Then you've got
Speaker 1: archaic human like beings as well. But in terms of
Speaker 1: like you know, people like us that had language, and
Speaker 1: you know, granted they were like hunter gatherers fifty thousand
Speaker 1: years and about maybe thirty thousand years with dogs that
Speaker 1: helped us to hunt, that protected us that now you
Speaker 1: know guide dogs. They're just an amazing animal. So that's
Speaker 1: my little, my little tribute to dogs. I think they're
Speaker 1: I think they're just a great gift and to the
Speaker 1: person who lost your dog after seventeen years. When I
Speaker 1: think about my dog, what I imagine is that she's up
Speaker 1: in heaven with my dad. I really miss my dad.
Speaker 1: I had a really fantastic dad, and she's up there
Speaker 1: with him and they're doing stuff, and at some point
Speaker 1: I'll join them and it will be a great, a great,
Speaker 1: a great meeting. You think about how dogs are like
Speaker 1: stoked to see you after like you've been you went,
Speaker 1: you went to the seven eleven, you were gone five minutes.
Speaker 1: In their mind you were gone, you know, five hours,
Speaker 1: five days, whatever. They're super stoked to see you, Like
Speaker 1: he came back. It's been I wrought five minutes. Imagine
Speaker 1: imagine that, you know that set that greeting after all
Speaker 1: this time, They're going to be so stoked to see you.
Speaker 1: And I'm going to be so stoked to see her.
Speaker 1: So I'm talking having to pivot back to New Year's resolutions.
Speaker 1: If you got one, I'll read it out loud, mean
Speaker 1: it can be read a lot on air. And also,
Speaker 1: you know anything that you thought was like a big
Speaker 1: deal that happened this year that you want me to
Speaker 1: mention on air. I definitely hit a couple of those
Speaker 1: earlier in the show. I tak it an interesting text saim,
Speaker 1: do you think we will have a peaceful transfer of power?
Speaker 1: And it's to kind of pivot back to a little
Speaker 1: public policy. Yes, I do. I do. Biden is he's done.
Speaker 1: Not only do I trust that he will leave power.
Speaker 1: I don't see how he could try not to. He's
Speaker 1: definitely ready for retirement. And here's the interesting thing. If
Speaker 1: he had had the humility back in spring to say
Speaker 1: I'm not going to run again, if he had had
Speaker 1: that humility to say, I really, I'm on the back
Speaker 1: end of you know, I need to retire. I'm slowing down,
Speaker 1: I'm tired, I'm not all there, which is going to
Speaker 1: happen to all of us before you make fun of
Speaker 1: somebody for getting that old. If you have the uh,
Speaker 1: the blessing of a long life, you too will be
Speaker 1: that old. And you know, when I'm eighty, I'm going
Speaker 1: to be like that too, probably, although I know some
Speaker 1: super sharp eighty year old people that I that I
Speaker 1: think would be fine. You know, there's a good chance
Speaker 1: that I'm going to be like you know, I'm going
Speaker 1: to nap and you know, watch TV or whatever and
Speaker 1: garden and I think that's that's basically what he's heading forward.
Speaker 1: And he's got grandkids. But if he had had the
Speaker 1: humility back in spring to say I did my four
Speaker 1: years and proud of what I did, moving on, he
Speaker 1: would have put his replacement or the person who's going
Speaker 1: to run next in a better position to win that race.
Speaker 1: And people wouldn't have known just how kind of elderly
Speaker 1: he had become. I mean, it basically had been kept
Speaker 1: kind of secret by AIDS and Pip Boss. You know,
Speaker 1: a little collusion on the part of the press had
Speaker 1: not really made the situation as you know, situation if
Speaker 1: his sort of mental decline as obvious as it had become.
Speaker 1: But he probably could have retired with grace if he
Speaker 1: had had the humility to say, I'm not running again,
Speaker 1: but now he's not gonna be running again, I do
Speaker 1: think we will have a peaceful transfer of power. I
Speaker 1: think we're gonna have an interesting next four years when
Speaker 1: I sub again. Of course we can comment on those things.
Speaker 1: I have really no comment worth sharing right now. On
Speaker 1: Eric's episode, I think that RFK has got to go.
Speaker 1: The guy is a quack. And I'm really happy that
Speaker 1: Matt Gates is bowed out, not only bowed out of
Speaker 1: being Attorney General, which was an absurd nomination, but also
Speaker 1: he's not in Congress anymore. And you know, the report
Speaker 1: was made, the report was put out there, you know,
Speaker 1: prostitutes and drugs and sex with an underage girl. Creepy stuff.
Speaker 1: And I mean he looks like Eddie Munster grown up.
Speaker 1: I guess you got you know, you got a mug
Speaker 1: like that. Maybe you have to pay for it. I
Speaker 1: don't know, maybe I don't know. And then so and
Speaker 1: this kind of ties back if if you're going to
Speaker 1: get some some plastic surgery, not gonna judge it. You know,
Speaker 1: probably by the time I'm sixty, maybe I'll go into
Speaker 1: the knife. Who knows, but go lat push it go
Speaker 1: like if you go early. It's not a good look.
Speaker 1: Think Meg Ryan just a little too much surgery a
Speaker 1: little too early. Same goes for Matt Gates. I mean,
Speaker 1: and and botox isn't permanent. I get botox, it wears off.
Speaker 1: I think some other stuff has been done there that
Speaker 1: wasn't good. I don't know if it was a brow
Speaker 1: lift something, because he went from being like Eddie Munster,
Speaker 1: grown up, but you're not a not a good mug
Speaker 1: to something that doesn't look quite right. Yeah, it doesn't
Speaker 1: look quite right. So I guess maybe he felt he
Speaker 1: had to pay for it. I don't know, but you know,
Speaker 1: between prostitutes, drug use, and sex with underage, that guy
Speaker 1: had no business being in Congress. And I am happy
Speaker 1: for the lovely state of Florida that he is. Out
Speaker 1: a couple other people I'd probably put on that list
Speaker 1: of people that maybe should be better off, you know,
Speaker 1: back in the private sector, but that we would get
Speaker 1: to another day. I'm just glad that he's And you
Speaker 1: gotta wonder what is he going to do now that
Speaker 1: Congress of people they make I think one hundred and
Speaker 1: forty hundred and fifty thousand dollars a year, assuming he
Speaker 1: didn't blow all of that on prostitutes, he probably has
Speaker 1: some money in the bank, and he can, you know,
Speaker 1: figure out what he wants to do. I just don't
Speaker 1: know who hires a guy like that. They always end
Speaker 1: up becoming lobbyists. So maybe he'll be like a lobbyist,
Speaker 1: but a lobbyist for what, you know, I drug legalization,
Speaker 1: prostitute legalization. I don't know who knows, who knows, So
Speaker 1: that that's my only comment about the peaceful transfer of power.
Speaker 1: My hope is that we have separation of powers for
Speaker 1: a reason. If you look back at the you know,
Speaker 1: federalist papers and other documents, people who put our constitution
Speaker 1: together wanted there to be tension. Wanted there to be
Speaker 1: a tension between the executive, the judiciary, and the legislature,
Speaker 1: and that tension is supposed to keep power from a
Speaker 1: massing in one place. So it really is really important
Speaker 1: that the Senate take all of those nominees, vet them seriously,
Speaker 1: keep the good ones. I'm the governor from North Dakota.
Speaker 1: He seems like a decent pick. A couple of the
Speaker 1: other governors that have been picked for stuff, they have
Speaker 1: experience governing, you know, they probably will do a decent job.
Speaker 1: Some of the other people don't have the experience or
Speaker 1: they're crazy and have no business being anywhere near power.
Speaker 1: I want to see that the Senate do its due diligence.
Speaker 1: I'm not a big fan of people who just cow
Speaker 1: tow to power. I think they need to take their
Speaker 1: own power seriously, give those a good vetting, pick the
Speaker 1: ones that that are the best, shoot down the rest,
Speaker 1: and then other ones will be nominated in their place.
Speaker 1: So I do ex I do expect. I'm just getting
Speaker 1: back to this person's question. Yes, there will be a
Speaker 1: peaceful transfer of power. I think the first couple of
Speaker 1: months will be interesting in terms of the nominees, what
Speaker 1: goes on in the Senate. And I think it's going
Speaker 1: to be a really interesting year as I, Uh, somebody
Speaker 1: has said to somebody, you know, I guess elections anymore
Speaker 1: are kind of the you know, f around and find out,
Speaker 1: and I think that's pretty much, uh what's going to happen.
Speaker 1: It's going to be interesting. So uh, let's see a
Speaker 1: couple of interesting places or interesting places, interesting texts that
Speaker 1: have come in and uh, let's get to a couple
Speaker 1: of them before uh. I again, about eight more minutes.
Speaker 1: So if you want to text me, I'm five six
Speaker 1: six and I know. This person says Gates looks like
Speaker 1: a butt head. Yes, as in Beavis and butt Head.
Speaker 1: It looks like butt heead, not a butt heead. Sorry,
Speaker 1: he looks like butt hit. But Beavis and butt Heead.
Speaker 1: I was more of a ren and stimpy girl back
Speaker 1: in the day. But I did watch Beavis and butthead,
Speaker 1: and he does look exactly like butt heead, does he not? Zach?
Speaker 2: He looks like he's got the eyes. He's got the eyes.
Speaker 2: Eyes are dead ringers for each other, and.
Speaker 1: Roughly the intelligence level, I think it's a it's kind
Speaker 1: of a good match. It is a good match. This
Speaker 1: person says he was mentally incompetent four years ago. I
Speaker 1: think he's probably been in decline at least that long.
Speaker 1: And I say this is somebody who will probably be
Speaker 1: in decline at some point myself. You know, you got
Speaker 1: kind of two choices. Your body can go or your
Speaker 1: brain can go. Person will be must go at the
Speaker 1: same time, and you don't know what one is going
Speaker 1: to be. You don't know if you're going to be
Speaker 1: like that super sharp guy or gal that dies from
Speaker 1: you know, heart issues or cancer, because that's statistically what happens.
Speaker 1: And you may go into that, you know, go into
Speaker 1: that good night with with your faculties. Or you might
Speaker 1: be that person who's got a healthy body and the
Speaker 1: brain's gone. It could happen. Could you know, nobody knows.
Speaker 1: You live long enough, one of those things will probably happen.
Speaker 1: Nobody nobody gets out of here alive. I hate to
Speaker 1: say it, nobody does. Let's see this person, because he's
Speaker 1: actually running the country. Yeah, I think his advisor's probably
Speaker 1: his wife took over that. And you know, this has
Speaker 1: happened before. Woodrow Wilson, he was a president around the
Speaker 1: time of World War One. In fact, one of the
Speaker 1: reasons that we got into World War One and kind
Speaker 1: of one of the reasons that we ended up with
Speaker 1: World War two because it is handling of that. Not
Speaker 1: a good president, big time racist, segregated, resegregated the federal government. Yeah,
Speaker 1: he had some serious health issues, was really on his
Speaker 1: way out and by his way, by way out, I
Speaker 1: mean way out of the office, I mean way out
Speaker 1: of this life, and his wife and his advisors pretty
Speaker 1: much made it seem like he was still president for
Speaker 1: the months that he was on his on his on
Speaker 1: desk's door. So this has happened before. I don't want
Speaker 1: it to happen to anybody. It's just the way life is.
Speaker 1: You either lose your mind, lose your body, or lose
Speaker 1: them both. But in the end we all we all
Speaker 1: go that route if we live long enough. I mean,
Speaker 1: you could die earlier than that too. Let's see this
Speaker 1: person says, have you been to Dog Mountain in Vermont?
Speaker 1: Absolutely sweet place? That is a church for dogs that passed.
Speaker 1: Oh I like that. I like that. I still had
Speaker 1: my dog's ashes. I'm not sure I want to bury him.
Speaker 1: I don't know. Oh, this is gonna sound sick. They're
Speaker 1: in my nightstand, you know I would. I don't know
Speaker 1: what to do with them. Maybe take her to someplace
Speaker 1: like that. I don't know. I don't know. Anyway, we're
Speaker 1: heading towards the end of the show, just say, hey,
Speaker 1: thanks a lot. It has been an absolute pleasure to
Speaker 1: be the guest host. If you're like, you know, I
Speaker 1: could use a little more of that K for action,
Speaker 1: I am. I'm on Colorado Inside Out tonight at eight
Speaker 1: o'clock on PBS Channel twelve. You can also find you
Speaker 1: can find it on I think, YouTube, Spotify. There are
Speaker 1: other ways to listen into that show. It's a lot
Speaker 1: of fun. If you like a talk show where you
Speaker 1: people give their honest opinion but they don't actually talk
Speaker 1: over one another and they like each other even when
Speaker 1: they disagree, that would be Colorado Win. Sign up and
Speaker 1: Kyle Dyer super nice. You probably recognize the name from
Speaker 1: Channel nine. She's to be on Channel nine now she's
Speaker 1: our host and super super nice. It's a great show
Speaker 1: and just you get you get a good sort of
Speaker 1: taste of public policy in a half hour without without
Speaker 1: the yelling. Now, if you like the yelling, it may
Speaker 1: not be the show for you. If you like people
Speaker 1: yell at each other, yell over each other and genuinely
Speaker 1: dislike each other, this would not be the show for you.
Speaker 1: But you can catch that at eight o'clock. Also, I've
Speaker 1: got a substack. I do some writing there. Who knows
Speaker 1: I might be doing a podcast next year. I don't know.
Speaker 1: I don't know what. I don't know what's in store,
Speaker 1: I honestly don't. But I also have my Denver Post column,
Speaker 1: and I'm on Twitter every now and again I say
Speaker 1: something clever. Who knows I did? I did have a
Speaker 1: tweet go viral. Two of them go viral this year. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I know, big deal. Yeah it's not a big deal,
Speaker 1: but I did do I did a this year. Was
Speaker 1: this thing or that Barbie Barbie came out that came
Speaker 1: out this year? Was that last year?
Speaker 3: That was last year? The whole Barbenheimer craze?
Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, it was two years ago that one. I
Speaker 1: did a Barbie Bingo card and Ben Shapiro retweeted it,
Speaker 1: so I got a little I had my two point
Speaker 1: five seconds of fame with that. That's the worst movie,
Speaker 1: Oh good grief, was it terrible. I would like to
Speaker 1: mix it with a zombie movie in which Barbie Barbie
Speaker 1: becomes a zombie and eats people's brains. I could probably
Speaker 1: go for that, but as it stands, that movie is
Speaker 1: definitely on my most avoid list. Zach, You've been fantastic.
Speaker 1: Thanks for being the fabulous producer today.
Speaker 3: Thank you so much for having me. It was a
Speaker 3: pleasure doing this with you.
Speaker 1: Thanks. Well, you know what, even the best host has
Speaker 1: to take a day off from time to dime. So
Speaker 1: when Mandy takes another day off, I will be back tomorrow.
Speaker 1: Tomorrow is Friday, and John Caldero will be standing in
Speaker 1: and then you know, what I assume. Mandy will be
Speaker 1: back next week. She is a fantastic host. Thanks for
Speaker 1: hanging with the sub. This has been Christa Kaefer sitting
Speaker 1: in for Mandy Kln on eight fifty Kowa