Two and a Mic - The Social Podcast Zak

We live in a society where bad people do horrendous things and are rewarded for doing them. We see it in every society played out on varying levels of insanity, like a video game going from Big Boss to Big Boss, without end.
The topic for this episode refers to Azerbaijan and Aliyev’s bloodthirsty policy towards the Armenians native to Kharapagh. He had their towns and villages bombed, the soldiers’ dead bodies humiliated, and their leaders imprisoned. They remain in prison to this day. And Azerbaijan is rewarded by hosting an event the government cares not a whit for.
On June 7 2024 at 14:00 at the World Conference Center, Platz der Vereinten Nationen 2, there is a demonstration in Bonn to address this grave injustice where people and countries are being called NOT to boycott COP29, because the event itself is fundamentally important, but the delegates are being asked to raise their voices and demand explanations of their hosts.
The hashtags are: #COP29 #greenwashgenocide #freearmenianprisoners
Thank you, Jonathan, for your time and your passionate words.
TwoandaMic
I welcome opinions of every kind so please come and find me on social media at:
Instagram: TwoandaMic
Twitter: TwoandaMic1
Should I really have to ask? 😉 If you like the developing story of this social journey unfurling in my series of podcasts, feel more than free, feel partially responsible for spreading the word by subscribing and sharing and where possible, liking. It is greatly appreciated! Thank you!
PS. The transcript has been generated automatically and does not always reflect what has been said with 100% accuracy. I hope however that it will still provide some clarity on the content...!

It is with pleasure I return to Melville’s short form. Are salespeople ever welcomed more heartily than this one here? I would think not and yet, having been so welcomed, he sets about displaying the exact characteristics that have always turned me away from a career in sales (not forgetting that I am a terrible salesperson anyway). In addition, the salesman is only too happy to speak of his own superior knowledge in a way that Rebecca Solnit would quite happily have coined him “mansplainer” I doubt not.
Melville’s clever turn-of-phrase in dialogue is sweetly in evidence once more.
Enjoy!
I welcome opinions of every kind so please come and find me on social media at:
Instagram: TwoandaMic
Twitter: TwoandaMic1
Should I really have to ask? 😉 If you like the developing story of this social journey unfurling in my series of podcasts, feel more than free, feel partially responsible for spreading the word by subscribing and sharing and where possible, liking. It is greatly appreciated! Thank you!
PS. The transcript has been generated automatically and does not always reflect what has been said with 100% accuracy. I hope however that it will still provide some clarity on the content...!

How did people of African countries see themselves in the past? How do they see themselves today? It’s an interesting perspective to consider especially as so much of the history about people from Africa has been written by non-natives. Yet those false narratives continue to shape perceptions of Africans.
When we consider the slave trade, historical references list slaves as objects of trade and they remain represented as such. They are objects, assets, numbers, profits or whatever else the slave trading Europeans considered them to be. The histories account for this as well and in learning this we fail to recognise that there were considerable rebellions, uprisings, resistance to the slave trade. Slavery ended because of such resistance. It stopped because the fightback organised and executed by people who had slavery forced upon them, overcame the odds. They fought back and they won their freedom. History records it as though their freedom, having been taken by the European, was graciously and generously returned to them. As Adémola puts it in talking with me, “As long as there was slavery, there was slave resistance!”
Thank you Adémola for the inspiration you are and I hope we will have a chance to speak again soon.
Enjoy!
I welcome opinions of every kind so please come and find me on social media at:
Instagram: TwoandaMic
Twitter: TwoandaMic1
Should I really have to ask? 😉 If you like the developing story of this social journey unfurling in my series of podcasts, feel more than free, feel partially responsible for spreading the word by subscribing and sharing and where possible, liking. It is greatly appreciated! Thank you!
PS. The transcript has been generated automatically and does not always reflect what has been said with 100% accuracy. I hope however that it will still provide some clarity on the content...!

What follows is an introductory analysis into a term I first picked up in Germany, which in being in German makes complete sense of course – Fehler Kultur. Despite my falling into the trap of assuming the English false friend of ‘failure’ of course I had in mind, ‘mistake,’ which is naturally what the word ‘Fehler’ would signify, given a choice between the two…but on the meaningful side of the issue, Lilek and I jump into a brazen discussion on what having a ‘culture that accepts mistakes’ and that is set up to “embrace” the errors of team members in the pursuit of a “growth mentality” within the organisation signifies.
We look at politics and point to examples of bad practice in businesses too and emerge at the end with suggestions on how people might individually pave the way for boldness, fortifying their growth mindset and being the change they so desire.
Thank you, Lilek, for your time and thoughts as always.
Enjoy!
I welcome opinions of every kind so please come and find me on social media at:
Instagram: TwoandaMic
Twitter: TwoandaMic1
Should I really have to ask? 😉 If you like the developing story of this social journey unfurling in my series of podcasts, feel more than free, feel partially responsible for spreading the word by subscribing and sharing and where possible, liking. It is greatly appreciated! Thank you!
PS. The transcript has been generated automatically and does not always reflect what has been said with 100% accuracy. I hope however that it will still provide some clarity on the content...

The sci-fi juggernaut that is 3 Body Problem has left a multidimensional impact on the landscape of storytelling. It throws the reader into the past and picks them up again feeling relatively queasy at some point in the present, with a few notes of futurism thrown in for good measure.
It’s a sci-fi story with a lot of science and a lot of story, and a thick pinch of fiction. It is not for the faint hearted, but having said that, it has a depth not commonly found in modern stories. The TV show is easier on the mind intellectually speaking, but as Greg says here, “stands alone”.
Thank you, Greg, for your time. It’s always a pleasure to catch up.
Enjoy!
I welcome opinions of every kind so please come and find me on social media at:
Instagram: TwoandaMic
Twitter: TwoandaMic1
Should I really have to ask? 😉 If you like the developing story of this social journey unfurling in my series of podcasts, feel more than free, feel partially responsible for spreading the word by subscribing and sharing and where possible, liking. It is greatly appreciated! Thank you!
PS. The transcript has been generated automatically and does not always reflect what has been said with 100% accuracy. I hope however that it will still provide some clarity on the content...

Continuing with the corruption theme I began some weeks ago, here is a short analysis on democracy. Yes I know, for everyone democracy is the holy grail of political ideologies. I understand that we cannot mess with your prized baby when it comes to the champion of liberty. Yet when was the last time you stopped to question exactly whether what we have is a democracy at all?
From a certain point of view, the question must be asked, is it really a democracy if it has to be exported at the point of a bayonet? What is on the menu nowadays? Coup for starters, bombs for the mains, and democracy for dessert, as long as people choose someone we like to lead the liberation movement, and then award us all the juicy contracts.
Democracy in its current guise is corruption made real on a global scale. Not because the idea of democracy is bad, but because the leaders of democracies aren’t interested in the democratic values of the system, just the profit margins. Voting every few years is an exercise in voicing your thoughts, but what if the whole thing is fixed? What if whoever you vote for delivers the same long-term results? What if the business interests in the background, own both stables in a two-horse race? And just to keep those two horses in the lead, a third more gruesome creature lurches on the sidelines as a marker…
It sounds all conspiratorial but it’s just a description of what we can see happening. In some countries one of the two main parties have absorbed the creature, in others they remain temporarily isolated yet heavily influential.
If people really care about their democracy and they really want to protect it, then they need to do more than vote every few years. If people want to value the freedoms that the declaration on Human Rights guarantees, we need to make sure that we are willing to become active, loud, and inconvenient in the face of oppression, no matter how familiar or friendly that face may appear…!
Universal Declaration of Human Rights - Amnesty International
Enjoy!
I welcome opinions of every kind so please come and find me on social media at:
Instagram: TwoandaMic
Twitter: TwoandaMic1
Should I really have to ask? 😉 If you like the developing story of this social journey unfurling in my series of podcasts, feel more than free, feel partially responsible for spreading the word by subscribing and sharing and where possible, liking. It is greatly appreciated! Thank you!
PS. The transcript has been generated automatically and does not always reflect what has been said with 100% accuracy. I hope however that it will still provide some clarity on the content...