Pol and Pop (Politics/Pop Culture‪)‬ Anthony

In this episode, Woody and I delve into some side issues.  We delve into OJ Simpson and comparing his trial to Trump's, older athletes that are still playing or returning to their sports, local news about Key Bridge and Senator Cardin retiring.

I'm experimenting a little bit with loudness normalization, since I feel like there's been too much difference between the quieter parts and the louder parts recently/

This is the second part of a two-part conversation.

In this, the final episode of Get 2 the Point, we start out by recapping the series.  Then, we talk about the U.S. Senate, including the history of the filibuster and the problem of aging Senators who don't have term limits.  After that, we speculate on where the U.S. political landscape is going from here.  Then we smoothly segue from discussing the Senate to discussing how various people have more versus less amounts of power to change things in their lives.

And the rest of the episode is impossible to sum up succinctly in any way that could do it justice.  But we do end with getting to the point.


Quick note: What do I mean by fungibility?  In earthly situations, I mean the degree to which you can change your circumstances in life.  And, in dreamlike or heavenly situations, I mean the degree to which you can change the physical environment around you with thought.  Officially, the word's meaning is more about being able to perfectly replace something with something else... but words like convertible and swappable are still considered synonyms for it.  It's hard to find a word that means exactly what I was going for, so I went with that one.


Acknowledgments: For this episode, I give thanks to all the people who have given me (or have helped lead me to) little bits of profound wisdom here and there over the years.  I was listening, I put it all together as cohesively as I could, and a ton of it even made its way into this episode.

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

This is the first part of a two-part conversation.

Sometimes, it's right in the middle of the day, and suddenly the moon gets right between you and the sun and it gets really dark out for a few minutes.  Likewise, we take a break from our usual series of politics and pop culture for this episode.

I took a trip through Tennessee, Alabama, Mississippi, Arkansas, Missouri, Illinois, and Kansas, scheduling it all so that I could see the April 8th solar eclipse in totality in Missouri during the trip.  I got to get a "slice of life" for six new states (and got to stop by Illinois for a little while again too).  This podcast is basically my trip journal.  Were the new states like I expected them to be?  Did I stay on schedule?  Did the eclipse weather and traffic all cooperate?  And how was it all?  Listen and find out!

Special note: I'm re-releasing this on April 8th, which is the day that a full solar eclipse is occurring across much of the middle of the United States.  If all is going according to plan, I'm out in Missouri now so that I can watch it from the zone of totality!  It's also part of a trip where I'm visiting six states in that west-Tennessee general area, all for the first time.

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In this episode, I start out by delving into how humans evolved tribalism, how our news media has become less objective and more biased over time, and how social media makes that even worse.

Then I go into the psychology of Donald Trump, how the Republican Party progressed to the point of nominating someone like him, and how he gets people to believe whatever he wants them to believe.

After that I look at confidence versus proof, the specific example of the 2020 Presidential election, and where things are heading from here.


I dedicate this episode to Howard Boyer, my last surviving grandparent, who lived to a ripe old age of 98 1/2 and passed away the day before this episode went up.  Rest in peace, Pop Pop.

In this episode, I delve into the topic of High School education in the U.S., including more tape from my interview with Gary and Woody which I followed up on with further research.  Areas discussed include: ramifications (or the lack thereof) for bad behavior, racial disparities in suspension rates, diploma versus certificate tracks, bullying, and parents moving to better areas (with better schools)  than they may be able to reasonably afford.

I also share some thoughts about how our society looks at college versus trade school and what types of practical things we should be teaching more of.

And then I present my own theoretical solution to help incentivize kids to attend school and put enough effort in to avoid failing.  It might be a great solution or it might be a terrible one...  But the important thing is that I'm getting it out there so you can try to come up with a better one yourself.

All this in about 29.5 minutes total, so we get to all the points and don't waste your time!