Podcasts about caucasians

A five-film installation by Peter Finnemore (b.1963), Birdwatcher, made in 2004-2005. All five films (parts) of Birdwatcher are intended to be viewed concurrently with a total running time of 7 minutes, 11 seconds. Part one is 1 minute, 4 seconds and depicts blue tits feeding from two green bird feeders filled with seeds that hang from a Laburnum tree. Behind the tree is a bright orange corrugated shed where a Caucasian male figure dressed in ill-fitting green army camouflage and bold black rimmed orange sunglasses is transfixed, staring out at the birds from a rectangular opening in the structure. Ivy flows from the figure to the ground helping to hide his intrusion. The man steps away from the opening, dropping something in the process. Part two is 2 minutes, 34 seconds and again portrays blue tits feeding from two green bird feeders filled with seeds that hang from a Laburnum tree in front of a bright orange corrugated shed. Only this time, the militaristic figure is standing behind the tree peering out of the bottom right of the screen, slowly adjusting his vantage point between the left- and right-hand bird feeders. His eyes darting between bird and viewer. Part three is 59 seconds and this time portrays the militaristic figure hunched over behind the Laburnum tree, in front of the bright orange corrugated shed. His face mere inches away from the left-hand bird feeder, where a blue tit is happily filling up on seeds. The man's eyes dart between birds and the viewer. Part four is 24 seconds and again depicts the militaristic figure behind the Laburnum tree, in front of the bright orange corrugated shed, although his face is this time basked in soft golden sunlight as he watches the bird feeders. There are no blue tits present, and the man begins to whistle encouraging imitation bird song. Part five is 1 minute, 46 seconds and opens to a wintery scene, the bright orange corrugated shed now covered in snow, the leafless Laburnum tree still holding two full bird feeders. The militaristic figure standing to the left of the tree, watching as blue tits swoop in for quick feeds before flying away. This work is part of the Zen Gardener series, in which Finnemore utilises his garden environment and nature as an active collaborator. Birdwatching is one of the UK's most loved hobbies. Dressed in camouflage gear, Finnemore becomes a modern extension of the mythic Green Man. Blending into the environment, seeing how physically close he can get to the birds, and gain their trust.

Bringing The Darkness To The Light with Catherine Nadal From Operation Babylift to Rock Stages: Guest, Tyson Leslie on Vixen, Collaboration, Nashville, and a Life in Music Catherine Nadal Opens Bringing the Darkness to the Light In this episode of Bringing the Darkness to the Light, host Catherine Nadal welcomes musician Tyson Leslie, a keyboardist, guitarist, bassist, vocalist, songwriter, and performer known for his work with multiple bands, including Vixen. Catherine explains that she met Tyson about a year earlier at M3 through her friend Jack Frost, and she opens the interview by noting how impressed she was after learning more about Tyson's wide-ranging music career and ongoing projects. Operation Babylift and Growing Up in Colorado Tyson shares that he came to the United States through Operation Babylift after the Vietnam War. He explains that, after the war ended, many orphaned babies were flown out of Vietnam on cargo planes and Pan Am planes, sometimes in difficult and unusual conditions. Tyson was brought to the United States, placed in the Midwest, and adopted by a Caucasian family in Greeley, Colorado. He says he is grateful for that outcome because he knows his life would likely have been very different otherwise. Discovering Music as a Child Catherine asks when Tyson first became involved with music, and Tyson says his mother remembers him playing piano at about age three, picking out simple melodies like “Mary Had a Little Lamb.” His father did not play music, but often gave him toy instruments, including small organs, drums, and guitars. Tyson later took classical piano lessons, then became inspired by bands and artists he saw on MTV, including Mötley Crüe, Quiet Riot, Twisted Sister, Prince, and Michael Jackson. After winning a talent contest and earning $100, he bought his first guitar from a pawn shop and taught himself to play. Learning Instruments by Necessity Tyson explains that much of his musicianship came from necessity. If a band lost a bass player, he learned bass. When he worked at the piano bar Howl at the Moon in Kansas City, he had to jump between instruments and became a better drummer by playing regularly. He listened to drummers such as Neil Peart, Mike Portnoy, and jazz-fusion players, while also exploring many different styles. Although he is known as a rock musician in Nashville, he says he plays country, R&B, hip hop, classical, fusion, and whatever else he is hired to perform. Corey Taylor, Vixen, and Major Career Moments Tyson identifies Corey Taylor from Slipknot as the first major artist he worked with, in a project that later connected to Corey's CMFT material. He then discusses moving to Nashville in 2015, briefly playing country music with Tracy Lawrence, and eventually joining the Vixen camp. Tyson also recalls Eddie Trunk's 40th anniversary show as one of the most surreal moments of his career because he shared the stage with artists he grew up admiring, including Alice Cooper, Sammy Hagar, Kevin Cronin, and others. He also mentions playing before an enormous crowd with Bret Michaels at the NFL Draft in Pittsburgh. Life with Vixen and the Fan Experience Catherine asks about Tyson's role in Vixen, and he explains that although the band's brand is built around being an all-female hard rock band, male keyboard players have been part of the live setup in different ways over the years. Tyson says he was originally asked to remain somewhat invisible in photos and videos, which he understood, but that his role has evolved and he is now included more openly in certain moments, such as end-of-show bows. Catherine and Tyson also talk about how bands from the 1980s still transport fans back to earlier times through songs that carry memory, identity, and nostalgia. Tyson's Original Music and “Little Green Honda” The interview turns to Tyson's solo work, beginning with “Little Green Honda.” Tyson explains that the song was inspired by a female singer in an early-2000s band whose worn-out Honda Civic could not go in reverse, had a cracked windshield, and had to be pushed out of parking spots after gigs. He wrote the song as a tongue-in-cheek, high-energy power-pop track influenced by Butch Walker and Marvelous 3. Tyson says the album was his first solo record, and he produced it, wrote it, and played most of the instruments, with friends contributing drums, guitars, and backup vocals. Collaboration, “Burning Time,” and the Mercenaries Concept Catherine then highlights “Burning Time,” which Tyson released under the concept name Mercenaries. Tyson explains that he chose that name because the idea was to bring in “badass” hired musicians to execute the job. The track features major players including Billy Sheehan on bass, Roxy Petrucci from Vixen on drums, Jimmy Bell on guitar, and Todd La Torre from Queensrÿche on vocals and co-writing. Tyson says Todd rearranged the song and elevated it beyond what Tyson had originally imagined, reinforcing Tyson's belief that collaboration often makes music stronger. Rock Cruises, Nashville, and Musical Community Catherine asks about rock cruises such as Monsters of Rock and the '80s Cruise, and Tyson describes them as uniquely fun because musicians and fans are all together on the ship, with nowhere else to go. Artists watch each other's shows, run into fans in cafeterias, sign memorabilia, and sometimes join unexpected late-night moments such as karaoke. Tyson also describes Nashville's Broadway scene as sensory overload, with multiple floors of live music, constant requests, country and rock bands, and musicians moving quickly between venues. He explains that his own schedule is driven by a busy calendar of piano shows, downtown Nashville gigs, Vixen dates, travel, and special events. “Cradle to the Grave” and Closing Thoughts The show closes with Tyson discussing “Cradle to the Grave.” Catherine says the track felt country to her, while Tyson explains that his influence was more T. Rex, with big vocals, a big sound, and a fun party energy. He says he wrote lyrics while stopped at traffic lights, then developed the song with collaborators who added drums, backing vocals, and guitar. Tyson describes the song as playful and somewhat nonsensical, with the feeling of going as hard as possible and having fun as if it were the end of the world. He directs listeners to find him by searching Tyson Leslie on social media, YouTube, SoundCloud, Spotify, Apple Music, and other platforms before the episode ends with the song.

Mask vs Mask was the talk of the professional wrestlingworld! We review that instant classic, review #WWEClash in Italy & take our shot at predicting several active tournaments going on in professional wrestling. ALL OUR LINKS: https://linktr.ee/KOTR_PodcastMERCHANDISE STORE: https://wrestle-addict-radio-shop.fourthwall.com/collections/kings-of-the-rings-podcast TWITTER (X): https://twitter.com/KOTR_PodcastINSTAGRAM: https://www.instagram.com/kotr_podcast/FACEBOOK: https://www.facebook.com/KOTRPodcast/DISCORD: https://discord.gg/5ggSgjGeaR FOLLOW WRESTLE ADDICT RADIO: https://linktr.ee/wrestleaddictradioOFFICIAL WAR MERCHANDISE: https://wrestle-addict-radio-shop.fourthwall.com Beats by AO Baker of The Signature Move Show (00:00) Intro(05:25) Mask vs Mask Review(21:10) TripleMania 34 Goes 2 Nights(25:40) Clash in Italy Review(41:40) King of the Ring Tournament Bracket(49:15) Queen of the Ring Tournament Bracket(58:45) Owen Hart Tournament Men's Bracket(01:01:50) Owen Hart Tournament Women's Bracket(01:06:40) Willow Nightingale Vacates TBS Title(01:11:30) Outro

Low Value Mail is a live call-in show discussing current events, politics, conspiracies and much more.Every Monday night at 7pm ETSupport The Show:

This episode features Simon Tam of The Slants and Prof. Erik Nielson, co-author of “Rap on Trial,” who both have been instrumental in combating First Amendment right violations against minority musicians. Simon's fight to get his all-Asian band the right to their name saw thousands of pages of evidence denied, along with a footnote stating that – had they been Caucasian – there'd be no issue. Erik has researched how the Rap genre is singled out, identifying 800+ documented legal cases using Rap lyrics as evidence against young men of color. Hear from the pair on the results of their efforts, along with their concerns about freedom of speech in general.

Welcome to another episode of Spooky Gay Bullsh!t, our weekly hangout where we break down all of the hot topics from the world of the weird, the scary, and issues that affect the LGBTQIA2+ community! This week, we cover: UK police want to know why some constables have crime scene photos on their personal phones, a man gets arrested for making AI images of a runaway wolf, a firefighter takes it too far trying to get a cat out a tree, internet speedrunners meet IRL consequences, and an extremely heartwarming edition of Otter Watch. See you next Friday for more Spooky Gay Bullsh!t!   Join the Secret Society That Doesn't Suck for exclusive weekly mini episodes, livestreams, and a whole lot more! patreon.com/thatsspooky Get into our new apparel store and the rest of our merch! thatsspooky.com/store Check out our website for show notes, photos, and more at thatsspooky.com Follow us on Instagram for photos from today's episode and all the memes @thatsspookypod We're on Twitter! Follow us at @thatsspookypod Don't forget to send your spooky gay B.S. to thatsspookypod@gmail.com  Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

This week we talk about cocaine delis in the Bronx and why the Verizon guy finally feels seen. Follow Brian on Threads, Instagram and X - Support the show and get bonus audio/video episodes, ringtones, bonus footage and more!! All at patreon.com/brianmccarthy. 

Welcome back to another episode of the unSeminary podcast. Today we're joined by Dr. Derwin L. Gray, co-founder and lead pastor of Transformation Church. Since launching in 2010, Transformation Church has become a multi-ethnic, multi-generational movement impacting thousands locally and globally. In this conversation, Derwin tackles one of the most pressing—and often avoided—questions facing church leaders today: what are we actually multiplying? Are we forming disciples of Jesus—or unintentionally shaping people more through culture, politics, and media than through the gospel? Derwin challenges leaders to examine the deeper currents shaping their churches and to recover a bold, Christ-centered vision for discipleship. What are we actually multiplying? // Derwin raises a provocative concern: many churches are focused on growth, expansion, and multiplication—but not always clear on what is being multiplied. Are we producing disciples rooted in the gospel, or consumers attracted to experiences? He warns that without intentional focus, churches can unintentionally replicate shallow faith, cultural Christianity, or even ideological distortion. The goal of multiplication must not simply be more campuses or larger attendance, but deeper, more faithful discipleship. A discipleship crisis beneath the surface. // The issue isn't that churches lack discipleship. It's that many people are being discipled by the wrong influences. Social media, political ideologies, and cultural narratives are shaping beliefs and behaviors, often more powerfully than Scripture. This creates a “wrong discipleship” problem, where people identify as Christians but reflect values that are inconsistent with the teachings of Jesus. The challenge for leaders is to re-center discipleship around Christ, ensuring that people are being formed by the gospel rather than the surrounding culture. The danger of ideological captivity. // Derwin speaks candidly about the ways the church can become entangled in political ideologies—whether on the right or the left. He specifically critiques the rise of Christian nationalism, defining it as the fusion of the church's identity with the identity of a nation-state. This, he argues, distorts the gospel by elevating political allegiance above allegiance to Christ. At the same time, he acknowledges the influence of secular progressivism. Both extremes, in different ways, can pull believers away from the centrality of Jesus. The call is not to disengage from society, but to engage from a distinctly gospel-centered perspective. Recovering a gospel-shaped identity. // At the heart of Derwin's message is a call to rediscover what it means to be shaped by the gospel. The good news of Jesus is not merely about individual salvation—it creates a new family across ethnic, cultural, and social lines. This vision is central to Transformation Church's identity as a multi-ethnic community. Derwin emphasizes that the gospel reconciles not only vertically (between people and God), but horizontally (between people and one another). When churches lose this vision, they lose their witness in a divided world. Courageous and compassionate leadership. // Leading in this cultural moment requires what Derwin calls “courageous compassion.” Pastors must be willing to speak truth clearly while loving people deeply. This means addressing difficult issues without fear of losing people, while also avoiding harsh or divisive rhetoric. Derwin acknowledges that this approach can lead to criticism from multiple sides, but he emphasizes that faithfulness to Christ must take priority over maintaining comfort or approval. Practical steps for leaders. // For pastors who feel their churches have been shaped more by culture than by Christ, Derwin offers simple but powerful starting points: pray, repent, and refocus on the gospel. He encourages leaders to equip themselves through study and to guide their teams in rediscovering a biblical framework for discipleship. Most importantly, leaders must model what they teach, demonstrating lives rooted in Christ rather than captured by cultural narratives. A renewed vision for the church. // Ultimately, Derwin calls the church back to its prophetic voice. The church is not meant to mirror the divisions of the world but to offer a compelling alternative: a community shaped by love, unity, and truth. When the church remains rooted in Jesus, it becomes a powerful witness to a watching world. To learn more about Transformation Church and Dr. Derwin L. Gray, his teaching, and resources, visit transformationchurch.tc and derwinlgray.com. Plus, pre-order his book, It’s Time to Heal: Four God-Given Steps to Restore What Life Has Shattered. Thank You for Tuning In! There are a lot of podcasts you could be tuning into today, but you chose unSeminary, and I'm grateful for that. If you enjoyed today's show, please share it by using the social media buttons you see at the left hand side of this page. Also, kindly consider taking the 60-seconds it takes to leave an honest review and rating for the podcast on iTunes, they're extremely helpful when it comes to the ranking of the show and you can bet that I read every single one of them personally! Lastly, don't forget to subscribe to the podcast on iTunes, to get automatic updates every time a new episode goes live! Thank You to This Episode’s Sponsor: Portable Church Your church is doing really well right now, and your leadership team is looking for solutions to keep momentum going! It could be time to start a new location. Maybe you have hesitated in the past few years, but you know it's time to step out in faith again and launch that next location. Portable Church has assembled a bundle of resources to help you leverage your growing momentum into a new location by sending a part of your congregation back to their neighborhood on Mission. This bundle of resources will give you a step-by-step plan to launch that new or next location, and a 5 minute readiness tool that will help you know your church is ready to do it! Click here to watch the free webinar “Launch a New Location in 150 Days or Less” and grab the bundle of resources for your church! Episode Transcript Rich Birch — Hey friends, so glad that you decided to tune in to today’s episode of the unSeminary podcast. Really looking forward to this. I had a fragment of a conversation with a dear friend at the Exponential Conference and I want to have more of that today with you listening in. And this is a conversation that I know is impacting people. I think 100% of our church is in the country today. It’s something that we all are seeing. It’s impacting us. We’ve got to be thinking about this. Rich Birch — Honored to have Dr. Derwin Gray with us, incredible leader from Transformation Church. He and his wife, Vicki, co-founded the church in 2010. It’s a multi-ethnic, multi-generational, mission-shaped community community with two locations in South Carolina, as well as Church Online. He’s an award-winning author of multiple books. He’s been on the podcast in the past and is one of the people who, he’s called me out on the podcast before, and I have taken those lessons with me. And so I’m I'm hoping that happens with you today. Derwin, welcome to the show. So glad you’re here.Dr. Derwin L. Gray — Hey, man, thank you. So good to be with you.Rich Birch — No, it’s it’s honest. You know, been multiple times you’ve been on the show and I I’ve walked away being like, man, okay, Derwin just, he’s just pushed me and and got me to think different, which I really appreciate that. So for folks that don’t know about Transformation, kind of tell us a little bit about the church and give us the context you’re in, that sort of thing.Dr. Derwin L. Gray — Yeah, man. So ah my wife and I co-planted Transformation Church in 2010 in the Charlotte, North Carolina area. And so neither my wife and nor I grew up in church, and both of us came to faith in our mid to late 20s, and primarily through people at work. There was a woman at my wife’s job who shared Christ with her. I had a teammate named Steve Grant, with the Indianapolis Colts, where I played in the NFL. We called him the naked preacher because after practice, he’d dry off, take a shower, wrap a towel around his waist, and he’d share the gospel. And over five years, I came to faith. My wife came to faith before me. Dr. Derwin L. Gray — And all we knew was this. If Jesus is this incredible, this forgiving, this gracious, this is the greatest news there is in the world. And so we didn’t know what words like evangelism and discipleship meant. All we knew was this. I want to know him. I want to make him known. I want to know his word.Dr. Derwin L. Gray — And so that was in 1997, 1998. We moved to Charlotte, North Carolina to play for the Carolina Panthers, and I got injured. And so all I could do was read my Bible, rehab my knee. And the following year, both my wife and I said, you know what? I think my NFL time is done.Dr. Derwin L. Gray — What are we going to do? We don’t know. So I got an invitation to speak at a youth event to share my testimony. And I said, well, what is that? They were like, a testimony is where you share your story of how you met Christ and what what took place. So I did that. People started calling me.Dr. Derwin L. Gray — And in 1999, other Christians says, you guys need a nonprofit organization. You know, we’re like, what does that mean? So we started a ministry called One Heart at a Time. I would travel and speak. She would organize everything. We served at our church. Well, the longer we did that, we saw incredible fruit, but we also saw that wherever I would preach, it was ethnically segregated. It was it was really weird, right?Dr. Derwin L. Gray — I’m like, wait a second. America is integrated, but the church is basically segregated. And so I began to ask questions and I got lousy answers. But as we read the Bible, it was like the early church was Jews and Gentiles. That’s what it was. It was a multi-ethnic church. Jesus not only forgave sins, but he created a family with different colored skins. Not only is that the future of the church in Revelation 7:9, but that’s the present reality of the church that intrinsic to the gospel is ethnic reconciliation. What good would it be Jesus forgives you but don’t love your brother and sister? So the cross is vertical and horizontal. Dr. Derwin L. Gray — So we were frustrated. And then we just sense God say, well, you can criticize or you can create. And so ultimately that led to planting Transformation Church in the south area of Charlotte, North Carolina, where actually physically in what’s called Indian Land, South Carolina, and our other campus is in Lake Wiley, South Carolina, but it’s really the greater Charlotte area.Dr. Derwin L. Gray — And our church is more ethnically diverse than our community. And I want to be very, very clear. One of the reasons why we are ethnically diverse is because of the good news of Jesus. Like I explained, Jesus not only forgives sins, but he creates a family with different colored skins. And so for us, ethnic unity in Christ not only enhances our discipleship, but it enhances our witness to a looking and watching world which is filled with so much division. Dr. Derwin L. Gray — And over the last 16 years, God has done miraculous things. We’ve seen 9,000 people come to faith, thousands be baptized. God has given us massive influence. We also have what’s called the Multi-Ethnic Church Roundtable, where we’ve equipped 800 leaders from around the world to do gospel-centered multi-ethnic ministry. We’re also in the process, Leon’s Crump and I, of launching what’s called the Promise Collective, which is going to be an intentionally multi-ethnic gospel-centered church planting network.Dr. Derwin L. Gray — So a lot of wonderful things are taking place. And we think it’s pretty cool that God planted us in the state of South Carolina where the first shots of the Civil War were fired. And God has used this church here to influence not only the church in America, but even around the world. Rich Birch — Yeah, absolutely Dr. Derwin L. Gray — So we’re grateful.Rich Birch — Well, I, yeah, there’s I respect you on so many levels. And, and, you know, they these issues around being a multi-ethnic church are, you know, at the core of that. And just to respect you on for lots of what you’ve done. and And we ended up at this in this conversation, just to kind of bring everybody up to speed, we ended up in this conversation at Exponential that I leaned forward as just declaring my, ah you know, a little bit about me for folks that are listening in. So I am Canadian, don’t hold it against me.Rich Birch — But I’ve served mostly American churches in the churches I work with. And most of the 95% of the listeners of this podcast are in the States. I was in the States for a bunch of years. And that may become a little more obvious as we’re talking here why that’s why I’m talking about that context. But one of the things in this conversation that I heard you, the question you asked, which made me lean forward and then where it kind of unfolded from there is you asked the question, what are we actually multiplying? Exponential is obviously the global conference for multiplication, but you were pushing us to think about what are we actually multiplying? What is the the core of that? Can you unpack that for us?What were you thinking of when we started talking about that that day?Dr. Derwin L. Gray — Yeah, sure, sure. Just to provide either even a little bit more context is it was a gathering of of very large churches. Rich Birch — Right.Dr. Derwin L. Gray — And the question is what’s going well, what’s not going well? And so typically in those types of rooms, I like to listen. And so as I was listening, I was hearing no disrespect, but a lot of the same.Dr. Derwin L. Gray — And so I kind of waited for everybody to to finish what they were saying. And I said, here’s something that Transformation Church does well, is we are equipping our people to stand against secular progressivism and Christian nationalism. And I said, what are we exactly multiplying? Because the state of the church the United States America is not good. It’s not healthy. It is divided. In many cases, it is it’s mean. Shallow theology, not loving our neighbors as God commands us to be loved. Dr. Derwin L. Gray — So so my question was, are we just putting up more boxes for consumers to come in and consume because we have good music, good human-centered preaching. You know, we’re not going to mess with your idols. We’re not going to topple your idols at all. And yeah, you can invite your friends when we get more campuses. Because if that’s just what we’re doing, don’t sign me up for that. I don’t I don’t I don’t want any parts of that. That’s how we got to where we are now. And so you as a Canadian, here in America, the witness of the church is not very good. Like when I talk to people who are unbelievers, I have to untangle…Rich Birch — Right.Dr. Derwin L. Gray — …politics from the gospel because unfortunately there’s been an unholy wedding, particularly on the far right with aspects of Christianity, which has distorted and deformed. I think the secular progressivism is pretty easy to see, but I think the Christian nationalism is a lot harder. Dr. Derwin L. Gray — Now, let me define what I mean by that. So first of all, Loving your country is a good thing. That’s called loving your neighbors. You love yourself. So my fourth grandfather, Moses Davis, fought for the Union, the colored cavalry of Virginia… Rich Birch — Wow. Dr. Derwin L. Gray — …against the treasonous Confederate whatever it was. So in my blood is patriotism for my nation. America’s my home. But to love my neighbors, I love myself means not only do love America, but I love the entire world. And then as a Christian, we have a global body that we love. There are more followers of Jesus of color outside of America than the United States of America.Dr. Derwin L. Gray — Now, what do I mean by Christian nationalism? This is what I mean. Christian nationalism is the attempt to fuse the identity and mission of the church with the identity and power of a nation state, treating the nation as a primary vehicle of God’s purposes rather than seeing God’s kingdom as a global Jesus-centered reality that transcends all nations.Dr. Derwin L. Gray — By that definition, Christian nationalism is a heresy. Because it basically says, if you don’t think like us, you can’t be a follower of Jesus. And so you’re adding to the works of Christ. And so Christian nationalism has infiltrated much of what I would say the majority culture, Caucasian church in America. Not all, but a lot. Where Christians, what what it means to follow Jesus has turned into a far right, almost authoritarianism versus, no, no, you have the right to vote in the United States of America. But as Christians, we don’t have a right to idolize nor demonize those who vote differently than us.Dr. Derwin L. Gray — I’m not sure Americans know this, but most people in the world are not Republican or Democrat. Rich Birch — Right.Dr. Derwin L. Gray — So if you say your faith is based on what you vote for, you’re adding to the work of Christ.Rich Birch — So, so Derwin, I appreciate you. So I’ve not heard a lot of people talk about this. This seems to be, I don’t know, it seems like something happened post COVID and the church in general, there was this like shakeup in the church in general where, you know, lots of people ended up in different places and it was like, we’ve become more divided than ever before. And I do think that there’s a significant dividing line at or close to what you’re talking about here, that it’s like, there’s a, there’s a new voice around Christian nationalism that seems to be gaining influence. Is that, is that, is that ah a false perception or is that the way you see it as well?Dr. Derwin L. Gray — No, you are 100% right. And it is a well-orchestrated, well-funded plan. With social media and the rise of social media influencers, paid propagandists can go on and infuse their propaganda into people immediately.Dr. Derwin L. Gray — And here’s and here’s the thing. Populism does not require much intellect. All it requires is somebody to be angry at who’s taking from you. So the more divided we are as people, the more the oligarchs have power and the money that they make.Dr. Derwin L. Gray — They own the social media. They own the algorithms. I mean, for goodness sakes, Elon Musk promised people a million dollars to vote in Pennsylvania for the election. How is that even legal? Right. Rich Birch — Right.Dr. Derwin L. Gray — So people are being inundated. Like we have family members that don’t even talk to each other anymore because they have red hat or a blue shirt, right? And so it has been in increasingly effective. But here’s the thing, Rich, that’s so wild to me. The admin the the Trump administration greenlit the FDA approval of an abortion pill. And I don’t hear any evangelical saying anything about it.Rich Birch — Right. Right.Dr. Derwin L. Gray — And even when you look at the Supreme Court now saying states can choose whether you do abortion or not, that’s pro-choice. You know, what used to be the Republican Party, small government, family values, those things are way gone. Rich Birch — Right. Right.Dr. Derwin L. Gray — And so not only has Christian nationalism changed like, or not only has this current administration changed what the Republican Party was, but in many cases, it’s changed even so much of the church. And it is wild to listen to people in 2016 who said one thing, who say a totally different thing now.Rich Birch — Yeah.Dr. Derwin L. Gray — It’s hard.Rich Birch — Well, yeah. And I so I think the thing you’ve, you’re putting a finger on and it’s, I appreciate you being willing to talk about and unpack it is there’s definitely like a broader cultural conversation that’s happening around these issues. That is for sure. We’re seeing that. And that’s having an impact on our ability to disciple the people in our churches or our people are being discipled by social media, by the algorithm, by YouTube And that can create or is creating a discipleship crisis in many of our churches. How do you try to find the line between those two to say, hey, we’re going to talk about the discipleship stuff… Dr. Derwin L. Gray — Yeah. Rich Birch — …without getting dragged in on the you know the exterior? How do we how do we draw those lines in a way that makes sense?Dr. Derwin L. Gray — Yeah. Yeah. So, so, so what I would say is we don’t have a discipleship problem. We have a wrong discipleship problem. Rich Birch — Okay, that’s good. Dr. Derwin L. Gray — Because somebody is making students out of somebody.Rich Birch — Right, sure.Dr. Derwin L. Gray — And so are we becoming students of Jesus? that’s That’s the issue. And so what I say is this, how a person votes, that’s their conscience. But how do you treat the people who don’t vote like you? Dr. Derwin L. Gray — So for example, research shows black Americans are more socially conservative, more biblically committed than white Americans. But 90%, I’m sorry, but black American Christians, but black American Christians, 90% vote for Democrats. So how can you be more socially conservative, more biblically committed, but you vote for Democrat?Dr. Derwin L. Gray — Well, because they don’t take everything that’s in the Democratic Party, just like most people who voted for Trump don’t take everything with him. And so we have to give each other the latitude and the grace. And there’s also pro-life Democrats. And not everybody who voted for Trump is evil. Not everybody who votes Democrat is evil. But the powers that be want us divided. Rich Birch — Yeah, that’s true. Dr. Derwin L. Gray — And when I and when I talk to my friends from Canada, when I talk to my friends that are pastors from around the world, Norway, different parts of Europe, Australia, England, and they’re going, what has happened to you guys?Dr. Derwin L. Gray — I can tell you what’s what’s taken place is our faith is being distorted and driving it is fear and hatred.Rich Birch — Yeah. So I would echo that. The joke I’ve made, both with American leaders and leaders from other parts of the world, is there is a segment of the body of Christ that seems very angry about the love of God. Like they’re and they’re very fearful. Like it’s all it’s all anger and fear driven. And I don’t know whether, and it probably is related to the algorithms, but like we’re hearing from these people so much more than, than we used to. It used to be an echo chamber of people that lived in so much fear, but now it’s just out there. It seems to be in, in our, you know, in our feeds all the time.Dr. Derwin L. Gray — Yeah, what used to be on the fringes is now on the main street, right? And so we need to re-gospel ourselves. We need a greater commitment to Christ. So, for example, life in the womb is precious and sacred. That’s not conservative. That’s gospel. That’s biblical.Dr. Derwin L. Gray — Caring for the dignity of undocumented people in America is not liberal. That’s gospel. Wanting border control is not conservative. That is understanding that a nation has to have borders to flourish. Dr. Derwin L. Gray — Believing that marriage is between a man and a woman, we believe that’s biblical. But loving and respecting LGBTQ people is not liberal. Loving my neighbors as I love myself. And if I have any hope of anybody ah coming to Jesus, they’re not going come to Jesus because I’m yelling at them and I’m angry. I’m going to love them and pursue them just like we’ve done here at our church.Dr. Derwin L. Gray — And so I feel like what we’ve done in in in the church is we’ve taken a 250 year old country called America. And then specifically the last 10 years, we’ve made that the hermeneutic to understand the gospel.Rich Birch — Yeah, right.Dr. Derwin L. Gray — We’ve made that the lenses that we look through to determine the gospel. Whereas what I’m saying, let’s go back to the text. Let’s go back to the early church, the book of Acts, Paul’s letters, the gospels. That’s where our faith comes from. Dr. Derwin L. Gray — Like I have lobbied on Capitol Hill with Republicans and Democrats about immigration reform. We need border security, but we can also secure the dignity of human beings, especially human beings who are undocumented and don’t have a record against them. Right. So there has to be a process to have strong borders, but also to hold to people’s hearts.Dr. Derwin L. Gray — But but at the end of the day, right at the end of the day, we are people of the Lamb, not the elephant or the donkey.Rich Birch — So good. So good. So what’s the hardest part about leading in a church that really refuses to be captured by either side? I feel like there’s pressure on from both political parties to they, you know, I think somewhere along the line, they realize, wow, there’s a lot of power in these churches. And how do we you know, how do we kind of infiltrate or how do we gain that? What’s it like to lead a church that’s trying to, that’s refusing to be captured by both sides is wants to keep Jesus ahead. What does that cost? How is that, you know, what are some of the pressures of that? What have been some telltale signs for you as you’ve led at Transformation in this front?Dr. Derwin L. Gray — Yeah, um i would i would I would say, Rich, sometimes I’ll get a critical email and a eventually those people will leave. But but but but for the most part, I mean, we’re 16 years in, it’s our ethos, it’s our character. People know who we are. They know why we are. And so like we’re flourishing, we’re growing. It’s beautiful. Dr. Derwin L. Gray — There’s a matter of fact, I got some messages earlier today just saying, hey, thank you. Like I was just about done with Christianity and I found Transformation Church, right? I mean, this Jesus, you’re this is what I want to be a part of. So I think respecting and loving all people, even though you disagree with them. And the thing that I said, I did a series in 2024 in the fall before the election on on the Beatitudes.Dr. Derwin L. Gray — And my whole thing was how you vote is up to your conscious. How you treat people is not up for debate. We’re called to love our neighbors as we love ourselves. And so in our church, I’m sure we got people all over the political spectrum. I’m a registered independent myself.Dr. Derwin L. Gray — But something that I think really landed well with our people is this: 99.9% of all followers of Jesus for 2,000 years and even now have never voted Republican and have never voted Democrat.Rich Birch — Right. Right. That’s good.Dr. Derwin L. Gray — Our faith is in Christ and Christ alone. And America is what’s called a constitutional republic democracy. It is not a theocracy. It is governed by a constitution, not the Bible. And so, yes, I want believers in place not to do some kind of spiritual Sharia law, but to make sure that the Constitution is upheld, which gives life and liberty and justice, not for some, but for all.Rich Birch — What would you say, you know, I’ve often thought around this, these, this issue and we’re kind of related issues. I have to think back to Billy Graham and I think like, man, we don’t know what, don’t what he’d be doing today. Like what would, I’ve heard this story that and in the fifties he gathered a group of what at the time, they you know they self afflicted they gave themselves the title of fundamentalist and they said, hey, we gotta stop calling ourselves fundamentalist because that word is so loaded in our culture. It feels like evangelical is like that today. Dr. Derwin L. Gray — Yeah.Rich Birch — It is when people ask me, are you evangelical? I’ll say, well, it depends on what you mean by evangelical because it has so much freight behind it. Do you think there is a place for kind of a broader discussion? How, how can we continue to try to create a middle here that where people can actually try to shed these, like you say, the Lamb and the donkey and, or the, the, the elephant and the donkey and, and focus on the Lamb. How do we do that going forward? How do we create those kinds of places where those kinds of conversations can continue to happen?Dr. Derwin L. Gray — Yeah, you know, so let me answer the first question first is when I preached in Norway a few years ago, the people said, thank you for being so evangelical. And it had nothing to do with politics. So the term evangelical comes from the Greek word, which means good news. So it’s never meant to be a political voting block. Rich Birch — Right.Dr. Derwin L. Gray — It’s never meant to be an ethnicity. It is good news people. So in Europe, I say I’m evangelical because it goes well. Here in America, I say I am shaped by the gospel. I’m a Christian that’s shaped by the gospel. Rich Birch — That’s good language.Dr. Derwin L. Gray — I love God and I love my neighbors. I love myself. So I think we have a fundamental gospel problem in the American church. If you simply think the good news is Jesus died for your sins, now you don’t go to hell, then your discipleship is going to be very reductionistic. It’s going to be very individualistic.Dr. Derwin L. Gray — So the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus, his ascension and then sending the Spirit, is not only do we spend eternity with him, but as brothers and sisters, we’re equally righteous, equally redeemed, equally the temple of the Holy Spirit, equally God’s children. So if all those things are true equally, then by definition, we are the body of Christ. So if you hurt, then I hurt, but we don’t think that way.Rich Birch — Right.Dr. Derwin L. Gray — So we have to change the way we think. Paul says in Philippians 2.3, do nothing out of selfish ambition or vain conceit, but consider others better than yourselves. Verse five is “for you have the mind of Christ”. And so what we’ve been able to do here at Transformation Church is really move people deeper to the gospel. If you listen to one of my messages, you will hear gospel. That’s why we are the way we are. And the gospel challenges idols.Dr. Derwin L. Gray — When President Obama was president, I would get emails, “Oh you must be a Republican.” And then when President Trump, “You must be a Democrat.” I’m like, no, I’m an independent, but I’m called to be prophetic and to equip us to not be captivated by the zeitgeist…Rich Birch — Yeah, that’s good.Dr. Derwin L. Gray — …the spirit of the age. When the church loses her prophetic witness, we’ve lost everything.Rich Birch — That’s good.Rich Birch — Yeah, that that that names something that you put a finger on there, on something that I’d love you to unpack a little bit more. How do you do that as a pastor? Because I’ve seen you do that consistently. It’s like, how how do we be that prophetic voice, speak with clarity to ultimately point people back to Jesus, not be captured by just the winds of the day?Dr. Derwin L. Gray — Be courageously compassionate. Rich Birch — That’s good.Dr. Derwin L. Gray — Be courageously compassionate. I believe, you know, so I have, I have, I have talked to pastors who lead churches that may be, you know, center a little bit left. And well, if I talk about this issue too much, people may leave. Then I’ve heard other people like, well, if I talk about about this, the MAGA people may leave. And it’s like, well, Are you concerned about people leaving or are you concerned about honoring the call that God has given you? Rich Birch — Yeah, that’s good. Dr. Derwin L. Gray — And one day you have to face him and you’re going to say, well, you know, what Lord, I was afraid people were going to leave. Like you can be courageous and compassionate simultaneously.Rich Birch — That’s good.Dr. Derwin L. Gray — So I, there are people on both sides of the aisle that passionately and deeply love Jesus, but have different perspectives politically. Now, Christian nationalism, that is a whole different species that that has to be lovingly challenged. And my job at Transformation Church is to equip our people and to be a shepherd because there are false prophets and wolves that are coming.Rich Birch — There’s a ton here. I really appreciate that. For a pastor that’s listening in today that’s thinking, man, I look at my people and I think maybe I they have been discipled more by cable news than by scripture. And I maybe haven’t done everything I could could have done. I haven’t been clear with compassion. I’ve just been, I’ve just kind of let this happen. What would you say some of the first steps that you would say for a for a leader like that?Dr. Derwin L. Gray — Yeah, pray, repent, pray, repent. Take your elders and your staff through a book by Preston Sprinkle called “Exiles in Babylon” or the book by Michael Byrd and N.T. Wright. Both of them deal with you know how to be a faithful witness in this time of political division. But before you go out and share, make sure that you are equipped. But also choose not to be partisan.Dr. Derwin L. Gray — Rich, the Epstein Files is one of the biggest cover-ups in American history. We’re talking about precious kids who were taking advantage of. And I mean, where is the prophetic voice that this is wrong, regardless of who’s in it? This is wrong and it demands justice. We as God’s people are going to be held accountable to equip this. Like, this is serious. Like, I’ve heard people say, well, there’s bigger problems in the world. No, there’s not.Rich Birch — Yeah, that’s good. Derwin, this has been fantastic. I want to point people towards, you’ve got a new book that’s coming out. That’s like like a huge left-hand turn here, but just looking at it, I think this could is is connected, obviously, to what we’re talking about in today’s conversation. It comes out this fall.Rich Birch — It’s called it’s a time or “It’s Time to Heal: Four God-Given Steps to Restore What Life Has Shattered”. Tell us a little bit about this book, and I and I want to get people to you know actually pre-order this thing.Dr. Derwin L. Gray — Yeah, man. So basically the last seven years, what I have seen from followers of Christ is we’re the walking wounded. We are, we are just stuck. We have allowed our traumas, our histories, our pains, our failures, the way we’ve been hurt to keep us in a position of hurt. And we’ve just circled and circled. And then, a lot of preaching deals with behavior modification and doesn’t get to the root. And so I’ve just been like, you know what, God, I want to help God’s people. Right. And it starts with helping myself.Dr. Derwin L. Gray — And what I do is I really take a theology of who we are in Christ. I take neuroscience and psychology and marry them in spiritual formationRich Birch — Love it.Dr. Derwin L. Gray — And it’s by far the best book that I’ve ever written. I can’t wait for people to see the endorsements from people like Dr. Daniel Amen, Craig Groeschel, Christine Caine. It’s by far the most important book I’ve ever written and the best book I’ve ever written. And I believe that it can really help people heal. Like really understanding that trauma gets in our nervous system. It’s not just think harder, do more. Like we have to learn how this is embodied inside of us. Dr. Derwin L. Gray — And so, man, it transformed me writing it. And what I do is I walk the people through an acronym. The the book is in four parts and the acronym HEAL. H stands for honest about what what happened. E, expect hard. A, accept what happened and L, live from love, not for love. And I share some incredible stories in there. And so, yeah, I’m really, really looking forward to people healing.Rich Birch — Well, yeah, I would encourage people to, we’ll link to that in the show notes and all that. But I think it’s connected in that I think I think the extremes on both ends politically, they’ve picked up on kind of the pain in the zeitgeist. And they’ve they’ve said, hey, the solution is is is the other side is the enemy and we got to do something to tear them down. And we know that just won’t work. At the end of the day, it’s Jesus transforming our lives. It’s him restoring us to who we are. And I think this could be a great tool for folks as they’re wrestling with that. So I’m excited for that book to come out. Looking forward to that. And we’ll we’ll link to all that. Rich Birch — Any kind of final words as we wrap up today? I really appreciate you unpacking this a bit more and taking some time to, you know, kind of let us chat a little bit about it.Dr. Derwin L. Gray — Yeah, two thoughts. Jesus said in Matthew 5:44 and 45, bless those who persecute you. And I said, love your enemies. And then Jesus said, you will know my disciples because they love one another. Refuse to let anger and hatred and division guide you.Rich Birch — That’s good. So good. You said two things. You had two you that and one other thing.Dr. Derwin L. Gray — Well, yeah, it was it was Matthew 5 and you’re on…yeah.Rich Birch — Oh, I see. Right, right, right. Yep. Okay. That’s good. Nice. Where if people want to track with you or with the church, where do we want to send them online? Just as we wrap up today’s call conversation.Dr. Derwin L. Gray — Yeah, just go to derwinlgray.com, derwinlgray.comRich Birch — Nice. That’s great. Dr. Derwin, I just want to honor you. You’re an incredible leader. Thank you for being here today and helping us think through these issues. Thank you.Dr. Derwin L. Gray — Thank you, my friend.Rich Birch — Take care.Dr. Derwin L. Gray — Appreciate you.

Is it a plus or a minus

We have a Caucasian male, late 50s, presenting as overly snarky and cynical, complaining of excessive exposure to hot doctors on TV. Another white male, approximately the same age, somewhat less cynical. And a Caucasian woman in her 30s, quite optimistic, some would even call her a fan.They're here to comprehensively discuss Season 2 of The Pitt, which just concluded it run on HBO Max. Editor-in-chief Dan Friedman, former editor-in-chief Neal Pollack, and now-frequent BFG podcast contributor Jessica Babbitt break down the highs and lows, but mostly highs, of the season, discuss their doctor crushes, and dissect the politics of The Pitt, the most sneakily political show on TV, in detail so granular, you'd think that they might need an MRI.You have to listen to this episode until you're done with your charting.Enjoy!

One summer night, Brittney Wood walked away from her family home in southern Alabama and vanished into thin air. Did dark family secrets have something to do with her mysterious disappearance? If you have any tips for the Mobile police department, you can contact them at (251) 208-7210. Brittney is Caucasian, stands five-feet-one-inches tall and weighs one-hundred-five pounds, with a thin build. She was last seen wearing a blue tank top, blue denim shorts and flip-flops, and carrying a pink or teal tote bag containing extra clothing, a red curling iron, a makeup bag, and a cell phone. She has dirty blond/brown hair and blue eyes, with a lip piercing and a tattoo reading "Payton" on her left leg. Missing Brittney Wood Links: Facebook: ⁠https://www.facebook.com/MissingBrittneyWood/⁠ Instagram: ⁠https://www.instagram.com/missingbrittneywood/⁠ TikTok: ⁠https://www.tiktok.com/@missingbrittneywood⁠ If you or anyone you know has been a victim of sexual assault, help is available. Visit the Rape, Abuse & Incest National Network website or contact RAINN's National Helpline at 1-800-656-4673 Listen Ad Free And Get Access to Exclusive Journal Entries Episodes: Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/4HEzJSwElA7MkbYYie9Jin Patreon: ⁠⁠⁠⁠https://www.patreon.com/themurderdiariespod⁠ Apple: Hit subscribe/ 1 week free trail available Sponsorship Links: Build credit fast and get your first month for just a dollar at ⁠getkikoff.com/DIARIES today. Thanks to Kikoff for sponsoring us! Sign up for a one-dollar-per-month trial period and take your retail business to the next level today! ⁠https://www.shopify.com/murderdiaries Resources: ⁠⁠⁠⁠https://themurderdiariespodcast.com/episodes/template-9webg-nwtpj-t96tc-b64ps-f7lrd-lwllk-s8gla-j69fp-t25s5-yybna-rtjlw-t4g9a-823ee Music Used: Walking with the Dead by Maia Wynne Link: ⁠⁠⁠⁠https://freemusicarchive.org/music/Maiah_Wynne/Live_at_KBOO_for_A_Popcalypse_11012017⁠⁠ License: ⁠⁠⁠⁠https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/⁠⁠ Imagefilm 018 by Sascha Ende Link: ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠https://filmmusic.io/song/315-imagefilm-018⁠⁠⁠ License: ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠https://filmmusic.io/standard-license⁠⁠ Glitter Blast by Kevin MacLeod Link: ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠https://filmmusic.io/song/4707-glitter-blast⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ License: ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠https://filmmusic.io/standard-license⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ Our Links: Link Hub: ⁠⁠https://msha.ke/themurderdiaries⁠⁠ Instagram: ⁠⁠⁠⁠https://www.instagram.com/themurderdiariespod/⁠⁠ Edited by: ⁠⁠⁠⁠https://www.landispodcastediting.com/ Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

This episode originally aired July 18, 2019. When hunters reported finding a skull in a Texas canyon, police immediately began an investigation. At the scene, they found bits of clothing, a woman's shoe, some small bones and a strand of hair. An anthropologist determined the victim was a Caucasian woman, and that she'd been stabbed repeatedly. A forensic artist reconstructed her face, and the image was released to media. Eventually, police learned who she was. Now all they had to do was find her killer. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Pack Nation, it's another wild night in the After Dark bunker — and the callers brought the heat. From Caller Roulette chaos to deep NFL system takes, this one goes all over the map in the best possible way. Uncle Rico takes over the lines — multiple calls covering stadium naming rights, the value of the Combine and pro days, and whether scouts are wasting their time watching stopwatches from the nosebleeds Batman drops a full ref reform manifesto — breaking down why NFL officials making $250K to work Sundays should be full-time employees hired on merit, not seniority, and why technology needs to do more of the heavy lifting The Rooney Rule sparks a fiery debate — a caller from Green Bay brings up the Florida AG's legal threat against the NFL, leading to an unfiltered discussion on race-based hiring policy, Caucasian anthropology (yes, really), and whether the rule is even coherent James from California delivers an elite Jordan Love segment — third-down brilliance, MVP ceiling talk, Matthew Golden's breakout potential, and why this offense is a perfect storm waiting to happen if the O-line can just stay healthy Drop a call, hit the like button, and let us know — is Jordan Love your 2025 MVP pick? #Packers #GreenBayPackers #PackernetAfterDark #JordanLove #NFLDraft #PackNation #GoPackGo #NFL #RooneyRule #NFLRefs #MatthewGolden This episode is brought to you by PrizePicks! Use code PACKDADDY to get started with America's #1 fantasy sports app. https://prizepicks.onelink.me/LME0/PACKDADDY To advertise on this podcast please email: ad-sales@libsyn.com Or go to: https://advertising.libsyn.com/packernetpodcast Help keep the show growing and check out everything I'm building across the Packers and NFL world: Support: Patreon: www.patreon.com/pack_daddy Venmo: @Packernetpodcast CashApp: $packpod Website: https://nfldraftgrades.com/ My Board: https://nfldraftgrades.com/board/83a18c42-7a0b-4590-8d1b-453e49840d02

Pack Nation, it's another wild night in the After Dark bunker — and the callers brought the heat. From Caller Roulette chaos to deep NFL system takes, this one goes all over the map in the best possible way. Uncle Rico takes over the lines — multiple calls covering stadium naming rights, the value of the Combine and pro days, and whether scouts are wasting their time watching stopwatches from the nosebleeds Batman drops a full ref reform manifesto — breaking down why NFL officials making $250K to work Sundays should be full-time employees hired on merit, not seniority, and why technology needs to do more of the heavy lifting The Rooney Rule sparks a fiery debate — a caller from Green Bay brings up the Florida AG's legal threat against the NFL, leading to an unfiltered discussion on race-based hiring policy, Caucasian anthropology (yes, really), and whether the rule is even coherent James from California delivers an elite Jordan Love segment — third-down brilliance, MVP ceiling talk, Matthew Golden's breakout potential, and why this offense is a perfect storm waiting to happen if the O-line can just stay healthy Drop a call, hit the like button, and let us know — is Jordan Love your 2025 MVP pick? #Packers #GreenBayPackers #PackernetAfterDark #JordanLove #NFLDraft #PackNation #GoPackGo #NFL #RooneyRule #NFLRefs #MatthewGolden This episode is brought to you by PrizePicks! Use code PACKDADDY to get started with America's #1 fantasy sports app. https://prizepicks.onelink.me/LME0/PACKDADDY To advertise on this podcast please email: ad-sales@libsyn.com Or go to: https://advertising.libsyn.com/packernetpodcast Help keep the show growing and check out everything I'm building across the Packers and NFL world: Support: Patreon: www.patreon.com/pack_daddy Venmo: @Packernetpodcast CashApp: $packpod Website: https://nfldraftgrades.com/ My Board: https://nfldraftgrades.com/board/83a18c42-7a0b-4590-8d1b-453e49840d02

Horsepower and Caucasian, what the hell do these words mean? Where did they come from? Also, we guess which celebs are which ethnicity, be careful HA We got Betsy on the phone, guess who she is, she cheated with Derek from yesterday's Truth and Consequences, allegedly…. Sounds legit tho..

“If you heal yourself, you have the ability to heal generations before and after you.” In this episode, Nick speaks with Amber Richbook about her journey through identity, subconscious beliefs, and the impact of generational trauma. They explore the importance of awareness and the role of cultural identity in shaping our experiences and ultimately who we believe we are and what our “identity” means to us. What to listen for: We all have gifts and abilities that can be realized Coincidences are often signs that require investigation Generational trauma impacts our identities and experiences Healing is a personal journey that affects generations Self-mastery requires the willingness to change our identity as we grow Awareness is crucial for personal growth and healing Our identity is fluid “We all have different generational things running through our veins. What are we going to do with them? How are we going to reconcile? How are we going to bring the healing?” Healing is our responsibility, no matter what our parents passed to us genetically Understanding what our family history is can sometimes shed light on our current struggles Epigenetics research is increasingly validating that generational trauma not only exists but has real repercussions on future generations “You must be willing to change identities as many times and as often as you feel led to” What we believe our “identity” is, isn't always accurate or remotely current The hesitance for change is normal, but being willing to adapt and evolve is critical for personal growth Changing identities isn't about becoming someone else; it's about uncovering more of who you are at your core About Amber Richbook Amber Richbook is a transformational speaker and identity-shift coach who helps people move from simply existing to fully living. Through keynotes, coaching, and her podcast Meaningful Conversations, she teaches individuals to break self-limiting beliefs and take practical steps toward authentic, purpose-driven lives. She is a TEDx speaker and has appeared on PBS and corporate leadership platforms. Her mission is to become the go-to voice for mindset and identity transformation for a new generation. https://www.arichbook.com/ https://www.linkedin.com/in/arichbook/ https://www.instagram.com/a.richbook/ Resources: Check out other episodes about identity: Processing Our Childhood Traumas With Jeremy Stegall Exploring The Role Of DEI In Healing And Growth With Corey Williams How To Embrace Your Identity And Inner Strength With Rich Vysion Love and Faith Beyond Identity and Labels With Carl King Exploring Human Design For Self-Mastery With Akary Busto Interested in starting your own podcast or need help with one you already have? https://themindsetandselfmasteryshow.com/podcasting-services/ Learn more about our host, Nick McGowan: https://nickmcgowan.com Thank you for listening! Please subscribe on iTunes and give us a 5-Star review! https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/the-mindset-and-self-mastery-show/id1604262089 Listen to other episodes here: https://themindsetandselfmasteryshow.com/ Watch Clips and highlights: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCk1tCM7KTe3hrq_-UAa6GHA Guest Inquiries right here: podcasts@themindsetandselfmasteryshow.com Your Friends at “The Mindset & Self-Mastery Show” Click Here To View The Episode Transcript Nick McGowan (00:00.495)Hello and welcome to the Mindset and Self Mastery Show. I’m your host, Nick McGowan. Today on the show we have Amber Richbook. Amber, how are doing today? Amber RichBook (00:22.403)Well, how are you Nick? Thank you for having me. Nick McGowan (00:25.679)Yeah, absolutely. We were just shooting the shit for like a solid half hour. And again, one of those situations like let’s just record. So I’m stoked for you to be here. I think this is gonna be cool. We’re gonna get into a lot to talk about identity, subconscious limiting beliefs and your story. And even talking about regional and generational trauma and some of the things I’ve talked about on different episodes. But I think identity is a big part of that. I always like to start episodes off with something that’s a little Amber RichBook (00:29.846)I know. Nick McGowan (00:54.319)odd or bizarre about you that most people don’t know. So what do you got for me? Amber RichBook (00:58.19)Okay, so one of my bizarre weird things that people don’t know about me is that I wrote about my life as a single mother of three daughters when I was in the first grade and my mom She kept like this big bag, like everywhere we moved to, this was like this big bag of childhood memorabilia from myself and my siblings of things we drew and wrote in kindergarten, pre-K, first grade, second grade, like the little macaroni art that’s like happy Mother’s Day. Here’s a flower with glue and there’s missing pieces on it. And so, you know, in first grade when they have the writing pads with the story and you draw the little ugly picture and you think like, Nick McGowan (01:32.655)Yeah, of course. Amber RichBook (01:44.014)And it’s like Miss A takes her three daughters and the names were like J, E, A, like they were all like names with those initials. And my daughter’s names now have the initials J, A, and E. To get ice cream and they love driving in their really big truck. and they love doing all these fun things together. They like dancing. like, there was no, was just this Miss A. and her three daughters. And I remember years ago when I, well, my mom was like, kind of like, all right, you guys are grown, take your shit. Like I saved all of it. Let me show you guys that I actually cared about you as children. Like do with it what you want. I’m like, okay, so let me go through my stuff. And I’m just sitting there and I’m reading it. And I was like, can I curse? I was like, okay. Nick McGowan (02:27.96)Yeah. Nick McGowan (02:40.958)yeah. Amber RichBook (02:42.86)I was like, Amber, what the fuck were you writing about in the fucking first grade? Like you’re writing about being a mom. Now, fun fact, I was the child, the friend, even in high school that used to call kids creatures. I was like, ill, be a mom. That’s so disgusting. Motherhood. So now there’s a running joke. Like every mother’s day, my friends from high school and college are like, dude, how did you become a mom? Nick McGowan (02:45.443)Yeah. Amber RichBook (03:09.836)Like that’s the joke. Like you’re a mom, bro. None of them are mothers, but I’m a mom. Dude, how did that happen? So I think that’s interesting because one of my favorite books is The Alchemist. I talk about it in my, started my Ted talk with it and it was like, we really go on this journey of life and all you’re doing is getting back to the core of who you are. Nick McGowan (03:10.179)You Nick McGowan (03:14.423)Ugh. Nick McGowan (03:36.569)Yeah. Amber RichBook (03:36.992)and your inner child, like those youthful experience where your imagination is purely untamed, not realizing that many of us have these gifts. We all have these gifts and abilities, but where were they most active? How were they most active? and I’ll just layer it with this before I give it back to you. There was a thread that I saw recently that said, healers, spiritual people, did you have a near death experience that confirmed your abilities, et cetera, et cetera? And when I was born, Nick McGowan (04:10.863)Mm-hmm. Amber RichBook (04:13.942)I only had eight minutes to live. Eight is my favorite number. Eight is when I was eight years old. That was like my favorite age. Schoolhouse rock was like a thing when I was growing up. So it was like the figure eight song. I loved eight. When I was in school, I was always drawing eight. I was always like just fascinated with eight. And my birthday is on a 26. So two plus six equals eight. And so. Nick McGowan (04:26.704)yeah. Amber RichBook (04:43.118)start reflecting on these things and you’re like oh here are how all the dots connect in my life in my reality in my experience so yeah i’m a little woo woo Nick McGowan (04:56.431)I don’t think it’s as much woo woo as it’s looking for patterns of things. I’m similar in the sense where I look, like we were talking about even signs before we hit record, looking for signs. I think there’s a level of awareness. And if you’re aware of something, you can at least say, well, that’s something. I don’t particularly agree that there are like coincidences in the world. I think there are things that line up, but then there are also things that just don’t make sense. Like I remember saying, Amber RichBook (05:07.148)Yeah. Amber RichBook (05:19.534)Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Nick McGowan (05:25.679)People saying to me like years and years and years ago like you might read something in a book or like the Bible or whatever and it doesn’t make any sense at all and then years later it punches you right in the mouth like there are times literally within the Bible or God’s like this thing today means the most thing to you and you’re like, whoa What what does that mean and you’ve read it 400 billion times? Or you’ve seen a situation or whatever. I think there’s a power of being aware to be able to see those things but then Amber RichBook (05:36.183)Yep. Nick McGowan (05:53.229)like you had even said before we hit record, and we probably should have just hit record way early, was that it’s our responsibility to do something with that. And it’s what we get to do with it from there that actually shapes the way that future generations and all of those sort of things. It’s interesting to me, like right off the bat when you said, I wrote that out in first grade and now I’m living it, because I remember people in grade school thinking or writing out like a five year, 10 year plan. Amber RichBook (05:56.942)you Amber RichBook (06:01.569)Yep. Amber RichBook (06:09.336)Yeah. Nick McGowan (06:21.967)There were a couple of the smart kids in school that I can think back to, like fifth or sixth grade that did that. And there was one in particular, I forget what her name was, but she was like dead set. Like this is exactly how my life’s gonna be. And I’ve thought about that girl every once in a while of like, did life work out? Because my life was totally different than what anything I could have ever created. But what a cool thing for you to see, because it sounds like you didn’t say, well, my intention is to have three kids. Amber RichBook (06:39.5)Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Nick McGowan (06:51.381)and nobody around and I wanna do this and we’re gonna go get ice cream and all this like this is the fucking life I’m gonna live and like you pushed for it but what a wild thing for it to create, yeah. Amber RichBook (06:53.089)Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, you just lived. Yes. And, and, and then I want to say like older years, like in my teen years, I remember being a freshman and we had the opportunity to sign up for vocational school. prior to us hitting record because Nick and I, were chopping it up. we were talking, I said, you know, even as I navigate my own gifts, I had to process, okay, am I speaking things into existence or am I speaking something that’s already into existence and it’s already the same. So even when you say coincidences aren’t real, coincidence gets a freaking rap because if we break down coincidence, it is coincide. It is all these things that are coming together, but it’s easier to write it off like, it’s just a coincidence. It’s nothing. But if it’s really a coincidence, you should want to do the investigation of. Nick McGowan (07:37.081)Yeah. Amber RichBook (07:52.246)where is this coexistence happening in my reality? Okay, so Amber, what are you getting to? When I was in the eighth or the ninth grade, they said we could sign up for a vocational school. So school, high school, halftime, then go to a technical school. So I’m like, all right, I wanna do cosmetology because I don’t wanna flip burgers while I’m in college. Like that was what I convinced my mother. I’m like, mom. Nick McGowan (08:05.377)Yeah. Amber RichBook (08:16.898)And it was $300 and I’m like, it comes with a whole kit. And I’m like, you want me to go to college, right? Like I’m not saying I’m not going to college. So I don’t want to flip burgers. Not that anything is wrong with that. Cause I did end up working at a fast food restaurant, right? Because you’re like, I don’t want to do that. And then you end up where you said you don’t want to be because the universe source wherever it doesn’t here don’t, it just hears focus and attention. And I went through that. that cosmetology program, graduated high school, graduated with my cosmetology license. I’m still licensed to this day. And I remember when I was in college, I had a car accident where I lost all my cognitive abilities and I had to medically withdraw. Now, once I started to heal up, I didn’t have the cognitive ability to return back to college. Nick McGowan (08:58.361)Hmm. Amber RichBook (09:09.024)Why? Because prior to my accident, had a brain contusion afterwards, but I could study with the lights on, the music on, the TV on, all these stimulators. But then after my accident, when I say I had to write things word for word, I had to have pure silence, I had to take breaks. I’m like, this is not going to work for me. So I had this cosmetology license to lean back on to create a living for myself and to work prior to returning back to school. Nick McGowan (09:29.006)Hmm. Amber RichBook (09:38.88)And so that’s where that interconnectedness of the universal law of cause and effect, right? So if you ensure, like get insurance on all these things, you’re also calling in accidents, breaks. You’re also calling in all the things that benefit from having this insurance. So that’s how interesting and coincidental life is, is when you’re preparing and creating these incidents Nick McGowan (09:53.709)you Nick McGowan (10:04.836)Mm. Amber RichBook (10:08.784)that get to coincide with each other. That was so crazy. Yes. Yes. Nick McGowan (10:13.871)I think the awareness is the glue of that though. Like if you’re aware of that stuff, you can then do something or not. Like there are certain things I think that happen. Like even with you saying, all right, mom, I’m gonna go to college, but I wanna go this route. You’re really just thinking from a perspective of the system of the world tells me that I need to make money. I need to do this on my own. So I guess I’ll go do this thing. Yes. Amber RichBook (10:35.692)and I need to have something to fall back on, right? So going with that intention of I need something to fall back on because something can go wrong. Yup. Nick McGowan (10:43.833)Just in case. Yeah. Which is such a fucked thing. So our parents went through the bullshit like that with their parents and maybe they went to college or they did something and they had something they could fall back on because their parents said, based on the current system that we’re in, in the 60s and 70s, this is what it’s gonna be like. And by the time the 80s and 90s came around, now we’re experiencing what that’s like where you motherfuckers were able to afford a house. Amber RichBook (10:49.262)You Amber RichBook (10:53.975)Yep. Nick McGowan (11:13.359)for $13,000 back in the day. We can’t afford that for a porch on a house, let alone, you know what I mean? But those though are stories and it’s up to us to be able to change. And I think that’s where part of the awakening is happening, where we then look back and go, well, motherfucker, some of this shit really fucked us up. And this was straight up abuse in that time or. Amber RichBook (11:13.826)Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Okay, okay, wait. Amber RichBook (11:26.711)Yeah. Yes. Yes. Nick McGowan (11:40.751)You told me I needed to do this and therefore I went down a different path because I wasn’t able to just be my authentic self. Now it’s not like we live in some reality where we just like unicorns and rainbows constantly and we just create whatever we want. Like the Jetsons, you go, I’m hungry, here’s a button and like whatever. I actually don’t want that anyway. Like by the time AI does that shit, I hope to be long gone. But we are not in that space where we can just play constantly. Amber RichBook (11:47.971)Yeah. Amber RichBook (11:57.359)Yeah. Amber RichBook (12:00.876)Yeah. Nick McGowan (12:09.721)but how do we be ourselves with our identity to be able to play? Amber RichBook (12:13.486)Let’s see, Nick, but that’s the theme. I play all the time. Play is a part of it. I think also, so there’s so many different things I would jump through my head as you were talking. And I’m trying to get there. I’m going to get there. My matrilineal line, my grandmother was brought here by a white family in 1961 from Antigua to be there up here. And my mother was a first-generational. college graduate and then I was a second generational college graduate and each my grandmother worked to get her GED coming to America. She got her GED. She worked as a maid in upstate New York. And then once she had my mom and my aunt’s and uncle, she went to school to be a nurse because that’s what she needed to or she felt she needed to do. than my mom or CNA, right? Cause my mom went to college. then there’s me. And so it’s kind of like you mentioned the Bible earlier. I like to tell people like I am an Abrahamic prophecy fulfilled for my grandmother who came to America. for this opportunity from her little island. And in that rate, she worked for white people. And growing up cultured, I didn’t grow up knowing that I was Caribbean because no one wanted to be, everybody wanted to be American. So I was having Caribbean experiences in the household. And I think by the time I got, cause I grew up, where I was growing up, people were like, you’re mixed, you’re not. you’re not just black. And my dad’s family, they’re from the Virginia that’s there, we could trace back to there. And I’m like, yo. And so I was in college, I’m like, I’m not just black. I’m not just African American. I’m not just this. But also it was in high school. So why is all of this relevant? Because it leads to my life. In high school, as a ninth grader, the same year that I was like, okay, I don’t wanna be a whatever I wanna be. Amber RichBook (14:29.528)do here and this is the first time that I’m telling this story and I’m telling this story because of our pre-show conversation and you said I the real, I want the ball, I want all this stuff. So this is the first time I’m sharing this publicly. When I was in the ninth grade, I went to a predominantly white high school where less than 10 % of the high school population were students of color. And I had just moved, this was in the Poconos, and I had just moved from New Jersey because my mom was like, I want you to have a better opportunity, et cetera, et cetera. And at this time, these innate things, I have to share my cultural experience, right? Because people don’t, it’s going to make sense. Nick McGowan (15:11.865)Context. Amber RichBook (15:12.022)you proximity to whiteness will help me be better. That’s why my name is Amber. How many times in high school, right? I remember where there was a substitute teacher and there was another black girl in my class, but she did. She wasn’t there for the day and her name was Shaniqua. Like that was for real her name, but she wasn’t there. So when the substitute got to her name, she’s like, Shaniqua, like whatever. And so she’s looking at me and I’m like, I’m not Shaniqua. Nick McGowan (15:16.473)Hmm. Mmm. Nick McGowan (15:40.078)Man. Amber RichBook (15:41.888)My name was at the end of the thing. So she’s like, Amber Walters. And I’m like, that’s me. man, what? She was going to write me up, me to the principal’s office because she thought I was being funny. And like my classmates were like, no, she’s Amber. I had to get up and show my ID. So having that experience as a ninth grader, then being voted freshman class president, the first black president at a high school, like that was the thing. Nick McGowan (15:42.959)You don’t live here no more. Amber RichBook (16:11.958)at 14 and you got all this pressure. And so now you’re on the softball field and you’re in gym playing softball and you beat the popular girl. You beat the girl who’s been in this district since she was in kindergarten and all her friends and surrounding around. And for the first time in my life, I was called the N word and it was swing and N swing, swing and N swing. And that was my first time. So the culture shock of going from the urban Jersey experience to this predominantly white experience, not harming anyone, just like, yeah, we’re people, we’re ninth graders. Like, it’s cool. Like, I’m just, I’m Amber. Like, we’re gonna be class president. It’s gonna be cool, like class or whatever. And I had never had that experience. And I’m like, all I could feel was like, don’t call me that. Nick McGowan (16:44.867)Yeah. Amber RichBook (17:05.942)And I remember, swing and then swing. You think you won and you think you won. You cheated, you did. And I’m like, what the fuck? And all I went in is to warrior. And it was like my mother, my grandmother, my grandmother before them. My grandmother is a product of Portuguese colonization in Antigua, taking advantage of an indigenous woman on the island, right? So she had no home from either side. And I defended myself, but I was punished for that incident. And I was the first, and I tell my kids, joke about it now, right? I’m like, I was the first black president in my high school, the first one to be voted in, and the first one to be impeached. And that followed me through my whole high school career. And it was in my 20s that this particular woman reached out to me via LinkedIn. And she’s like, I just want to apologize for what happened in the ninth grade. And I’m like, girl, you fucked up my high school career. I graduated in the top 10 % of my class, but that still followed me. And that followed me. And we talked about the Alchemist early on before we came on the show. And I’m sharing this depth of, because you want the real world, I’m going tell you. It shared that depth because that depth. Nick McGowan (17:54.403)Hahaha. Nick McGowan (18:07.715)Ha ha ha. Amber RichBook (18:23.916)because it then took me on that journey when I did go back to college and I finished in accounting as a non-traditional student and I went to the big four as a public accountant. the only one who looked like me. And so it was now my 14 year old self back in this swing and end swing. Go get this thing and go get this coffee and go get this thing. And you’re like, what is happening? But that’s where the world is like, where you talked about where our parents, you got to go to college, you got to graduate, you got to get the good job, you got to do what you got to do, you got to keep your head down. For me and my reality, it’s you got to work twice as hard, you got to be twice as this, don’t show your emotion, don’t show You don’t have these things. So even as I built my career in corporate, right? I built myself to be the corporate mermaid where I tell people don’t ask me shit about corporate because I do what I want when I want how I want whenever I want but I had to heal that 14 year old girl who thought that she wasn’t enough and that thought and and and took the emotional responsibility so me as the adult going to her like we don’t Like what Michelle Obama say, when they go low, we go higher, whatever she said, right? Like, no, that has nothing to do with you. That has nothing to do with you. And so me moving in the frequency of love. giving people back their pain. You mentioned trauma early, giving them back their trauma. Because just like people of color have generational trauma innate in our DNA, so do Europeans, so do Caucasians, so do white Americans. We all have these different generational things running through our veins and it’s what are we going to do with them? How are we going to reconcile? How are we going to bring the healing? And it looks like that accountability, it looks like no. And so what ended up happening and then I’ll wrap it up because I know I just gave you so much at one time. They tried to, I don’t want to say they tried to set me up, but I live near UNC, like the museum, and they were like, we need you to go audit the museum. I’m a little baby associate. You want me to audit a museum’s millions of dollars painting and do an inventory count? I said, okay. I said, okay. And I used to have my, my Bob, my professional white girl looking black hair. so I could be palatable. And I remember the museum couldn’t find a painting, Nick. It was $7 million. And they were like, you can leave. And when we find it, we’ll let you know. I was like, I am not leaving here until y’all find this painting. I am not leaving here. But seeing the pressure that was on me in that now moment. Nick McGowan (21:12.921)No, my God. Amber RichBook (21:19.982)think is the same pressure that I felt in being voted class president as a ninth grade girl. And I sat there and I sat there and they found it because I was like, God, they got to find this. And it was in between some other paintings. But just seeing how my inner child, the intensity that I had and so to bring it home, how Spirit, source, universe, your life path is gonna keep putting you in positions until you get comfortable. And so I remember my mom, she was in seminary school when I was a kid. And I remember going with her and this was in Madison, New Jersey at Drew University. And we pulled up to Burger King. Again, these are things I’ve never told anyone, right? You want the depth, the raw. And she’s like, Amber, you didn’t want to get out the car. And I’m like, what? She’s like, I don’t want to get out the car because all those white people are going to look at me. Now, my family, my mom had white friends. Like, we had a very diverse. friend experience. was not isolated from things. My grandfather, was friends with Italians. I was in school, so it was very diverse, but there was a different energy. It was a different sense. It was a different experience. So now as an adult woman, it was like, right. When we were talking about self mastery and mindset, in my TED talk, I talked about the Oro Burrows, the loop of life, the beginning and the end being one, the death and and the birth and the rebirth and the death and the birth, that cycle. And it wasn’t until I finally, in my adult years, got into the same space as my white peers, my white colleagues, and I stopped shrinking myself to inferiority. And that looked like my grand living and becoming my grandmother’s deferred dream that she wasn’t able to witness in her living life. Amber RichBook (23:22.99)Everything in life connects in that capacity. I had to learn to be confident as an eight year old. I had to learn to be confident as a 14 year old, as a 20 something year old. Now in my thirties to be like, I stand in my power. Now we know that we create our reality. And I was creating my reality at all of those ages. All of those experiences were my own personal lessons to learn. I’m sorry, y’all. Thank you for your patience. I was just running my mouth. Nick McGowan (23:26.669)Yeah. Nick McGowan (23:40.665)Yeah. Nick McGowan (23:51.801)Yeah, thank you for the Ted talk. mean, well, truthfully that’s some of the best magic that happens within podcasting. Even if we just had a few minute conversation, we probably wouldn’t get to this. And I think it’s on me as the host to be able to facilitate this and allow you to have those conversations. Amber RichBook (23:52.944)I know I was like Nick McGowan (24:16.695)and allow in the sense of like, let’s move in a direction that makes it open for you to be able to do that. There’s a lot that you put out there, obviously, and those that are gonna listen to this, they’re like, yeah, there’s a whole lot. But there’s a lot of great things and it’s all also woven together and there’s patterns to that. There’s system problem to start off with. Those white kids in the fucking Poconos, I know, yeah, it’s much different than East Orange. Amber RichBook (24:40.782)because you know the polka-dos, you’re from up there. Nick McGowan (24:46.243)and vastly different. I grew up in the burbs, but in a more diverse section of the burbs, not the higher end burbs. Like if anybody’s from Springfield, Pennsylvania, you know, you’re different than Prospect Park and Glen Olden. And there’s versions to that, but then also living in the city at times. And my mom grew up in the city in Philly as a tiny little goofy looking redhead kid. She got picked on because she looked like Pippi Longstocking basically. And she had problems with Italians and other Irish people as well as African-American people and Latin people and like all these different groups. But all of that comes from a fucking system problem and generational trauma because everybody’s pitted against themselves. And ultimately what I’m learning is that it gets further back to the white people. Amber RichBook (25:34.796)Yep. Yep. Yep. Nick McGowan (25:41.753)that said, think we’re better than you. So we’re just gonna do this the way that we think. And even with like a male and female sort of thing, like men think they’re better than women and I don’t understand it. Like I thank God daily for my partner because she’s so much smarter than I am and so much more grounded and there are things that we learn. And that’s the way that even when you think of men and women being together, let’s just use that as an example where Men should be the leaders. That’s not correct. Women actually lead us. She leads me a lot and will lead me into a direction that then I can do my part and go from there. I think there’s awareness to this and understanding what some of those systems are. Like why are there poor sections of a city or a town? probably because they’re all pushed that direction and everything’s fucking concrete. They can’t even grow their own vegetables. They can’t even… try to get out of the system that they’re stuck within. And even what you’re saying with your mom saying, well, we’re gonna go closer to a white direction because proximity, that makes me think of from the Irish people that were brought over here that were like, well, you’re a slave, but you’re white. And why don’t we just make you a cop? Because, know, fuck it, you’ve got a little bit of authority, but you’re not gonna have all the authority. I’m not saying that I understand what you went through at all because really I don’t. But I can see how some of that is even within my cells that needs to be processed out. I think of the shit that I went through as a kid being a token white kid. kids would make fun of me because I was a chunky little kid and I think I’ve sized appropriately as I got older. But there are things that I remember going, well, this doesn’t feel right. But I do often think back to there was literally just a handful of different people, a handful of Asian kids that were in the school or some black kids, but it was primarily a bunch of douchebag white kids that thought they had privilege over anybody that was slightly different than them. And again, I think that’s a system problem and it’s a generational trauma thing. So we, as the people, get to do something with it. I think it’s cool that that person came back to you and said, Amber RichBook (27:54.594)Yeah. Yes. Yes. Yes. Nick McGowan (28:00.599)I’m sorry, I’ve thought about this. Clearly they’ve thought about it for a long time. Does not make it right for what they said. However, I do think there is a little bit of, I don’t want to say grace, but understanding context of how we grew up. Because look, I’ve said some fucked up shit growing up that I didn’t understand was as fucked up. But then when I understood what it was, and that it was, I don’t know, entrenched in racism or whatever. Amber RichBook (28:14.915)yeah. Yeah. Nick McGowan (28:29.537)I could tie back to where that came from. There was an example. My mom was about to buy a house. She grew up pretty poor and had me at 22. And I don’t know, maybe like 10, 12 years old, something like that. She bought her first house. And I remember her driving, we’re driving down the street and she pointed at somebody doing lawn work. And she was like, we’re going to get one of them. I was like, a lot? I would hope we’re gonna buy a house. And she was like, no, somebody that can basically be our slave and do our lawn work. And I remember, I don’t know, being 12 or whatever and be like, that sounds kind of fucked up. But all the rest of these assholes that I’m around kind of say similar things. And nobody’s really breaking out of that. Their responsibility was to change that so that we, as our kids, you know, like us, were able to do things differently. But it’s not on anybody else, it’s on us to do something with it. I think really the failure would be if you and I are having this conversation and then we get off here and we’re both fucking assholes and douchebags of people and we don’t do anything from it. Because I know that I still have problems at times like I’m really impatient, especially driving. And if somebody is driving in the fast lane, going 10 miles an hour under the speed limit, I question how they even fucking put shoes on, let alone do anything else in the world. But I understand that there’s pieces of that that Once we’re aware of something, we can do something with it. So we started this by talking about identity. Your identity was shifted at that point. Yeah, that girl kind of fucked up your high school. Also, the story that you told by yourself in your own head based on unprocessed trauma that was literally in your genetic code was pitted against you. Like any work that was done prior to you hadn’t been fully accomplished and completed. Amber RichBook (29:58.018)Yeah. Nick McGowan (30:23.981)and then something came up and you needed to do something with it. It took you time. The fact that you’re doing something with it, your girls are gonna be better off. At the same time, it’s on them to do whatever happens to them. Like I had a conversation with a friend maybe about a year or so ago where they’re like, I’m gonna do everything different from what my parents did. And his parents were, they fucked him up. Amber RichBook (30:27.714)Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Nick McGowan (30:46.859)And he’s doing everything he can. And at one point he had a realization. He was like, and still, bet these kids are going to be in therapy at some point saying something about me because everybody’s going to interpret it the way that they want and how they do it from there. So the systems of this is fucked up, but it is what we work within. The generational trauma is fucked as well, but here we are. Amber RichBook (30:54.54)Yeah. Yes. Yes. Amber RichBook (31:03.328)Yeah, and so, yeah, yeah. And so even in your response, I appreciate it. And it is multifaceted because we have our own experiences. While your mom had her experiences, you had your own. And while my mom and my grandmother had their experiences, I had my own. So I think that… I can’t necessarily just leave it to my generational DNA pass down trauma without acknowledging the impact of my own personal life experience and those that the things that could be traumatic had I not chose to heal and navigate through them. Right. And so there are some people who don’t have the higher mind or the discipline or the wherewithal. Nick McGowan (31:36.461)Of Amber RichBook (31:58.134)to heal themselves so they may not have been able to receive an apology from someone who has caused them harm, right? So when we think about… the Holocaust experience, people are still apologizing for that experience. Because just because we apologize doesn’t mean it takes away the pain of that experience. And that’s the empathy that… We have to extend to all persons who have been impacted. It does not take away. We can apologize and extend grace and those groups of people who did what they did to that particular community, they may have learned their lesson, but it does not take away the pain. It does not absolve it. I may, and that’s no different than parents, right? There’s a book called Adult Children of Emotionally Immature Parents. As a parent, you do have the responsibility to Nick McGowan (32:35.14)Yeah. Nick McGowan (32:57.902)Yeah. Amber RichBook (33:01.8)listen to your child and be accountable, but your apology is not gonna fix their fucked upness. It’s not gonna fix the pain. They themselves have to do the work to absolve that. And sometimes even when they do, the relationship may not go back to being the same because of how impactful the trauma is. And that’s just psychological in itself. Nick McGowan (33:21.945)Yeah. Amber RichBook (33:27.328)And so it’s just so multifaceted and I, and I can’t speak for a collective of people, but I can speak for myself and like anyone listening. One of the things that I teach my collective specifically persons of indigenous or persons of color, but anybody, right? If you heal yourself, you have the ability to heal generations before you and generations after you, which is able to have a healthy, loving, thriving relationship with my mom. Nick McGowan (33:29.807)For real. Nick McGowan (33:50.319)Mm-hmm. Amber RichBook (33:57.42)and healthy, loving, thriving relationship with my children while still having, and I think the other thing is too, sometimes people think that these healed relationships mean perfection and no mistakes and no disagreements and we are all holding hands and singing the Munchkin song. No, it’s how we navigate through conflict. It’s how we resolve the conflict. Nick McGowan (34:09.251)Yeah. Amber RichBook (34:21.312)Is my mom accountable for herself? Am I accountable for myself? Are my children accountable for themselves? So, this is good. You’re good. Nick McGowan (34:33.167)I mean, I think the big thing here is to really understand that no matter what we go through and how we look at things, there may be an interpretation, there may be things that are kind of blocking us or propelling us in one direction, but it is ultimately up to us to do. And something that has come up as you were talking about, like, I can’t speak for an entire type of people or race of people, et cetera. I think there are things where some people can say, yeah, well, the Holocaust was different than this, or we should look at what happened with this and we should feel a certain way. Any of these things don’t take away from somebody else. The Holocaust is really not as different as what the fucking people did when they got to this country and they’re like, look at this land, who the fuck are you? you grow things here, cool. Amber RichBook (35:17.666)Nick, I wasn’t ready. But they do, right? But they do. And that’s the systemic issue that you started with earlier in the conversation. And it’s no right or wrong. It’s just we have to, for those of us that see, see. Nick McGowan (35:20.857)But I mean, it doesn’t take away from that. Amber RichBook (35:39.934)understand. And then you mentioned something earlier too that I wanted to reflect on where you were like, this stuff is fucked up. But those that know the yin and yang, the dark and the light, the ugliness, the fucked upness is here for a reason. Because there’s, there’s the balance. And that’s the fairness. Nick McGowan (35:56.879)Yep. And there’s a balance to it as well. Amber RichBook (36:05.386)of life that is a universal principle and a universal law. And then when we understand like on this mindset mastery journey of life, we have these fucked up experience based on what our soul needs to learn and understand for its own development. Who do, who did I come here to be? Well, Obviously, I tell people, I’m like, I’m pretty sure in a past life, I was a man and I was an asshole. And then I got sent here to be a woman and specifically a black woman to have certain life experiences to humble me and give me my soul more evolutionary experiences. That’s my own self theory, y’all. That’s just my own self theory. But. Nick McGowan (36:45.785)Damn. Nick McGowan (36:50.127)I love that. I understand, you know, I get that. think there’s like there’s shit that I’ve learned over the past few years that has propelled me in a different direction where even with that sort of stuff, I’m like, I wonder what will happen next. And how faith and religion and stuff like that ties in. Now full transparency, I’m a big fan of the OG Jesus, not the Republican Jesus, because that’s strange. Amber RichBook (37:18.23)tables at the synagogue because he’s like what y’all doing selling stuff in my father’s house I’m throwing all this shit over okay the one who Russia released that the oldest Bible was found in Ethiopia and the oldest form of Christianity was found in northern eastern Africa that Jesus the one with the woolen hair why are you starting problems why are you starting why are you starting problems on your podcast Nick McGowan (37:19.395)Yeah! Ugh… Man… Yeah! shit, even with that. Nick McGowan (37:35.695)Well, that’s where we all started from so even if you think of like race That’s what I’m fucking here for This is what I’m here for disrupt things I actually I talk about that a little bit at different times with that specific story about Jesus. So I read a book Maybe mid-2000s called the beautiful outlaw and a little bit context. I’d played in church bands for the better part of a decade so I was in churches, like in Green Room style in, know, and somebody told me about that book. I read it. It was basically like, well, Jesus will show up to people in the way that they expect to see him. And let’s look at his stories that actually break down context. Like even when they say don’t eat pork, it’s because it was dirty and they couldn’t actually get the viruses out of the pork so people would die. We eat pork now and it’s different. but people will look at things and like, Bible said this. It’s like lot of it was metaphors and parables and just trying to get you to understand the fucking story in your stupid little brain. Amber RichBook (38:38.222)And the Bible was rewritten, one that the Americas, okay, so since you brought this up, there is called the Council of Nicaea. And there once was a king who was upset and scared of witches because witches ruled the world. He also was abhorred by his sexuality and wrote a lot of things against himself as if it would help him. So. Nick McGowan (38:48.306)15th century. Nick McGowan (38:53.039)Ugh. Amber RichBook (39:05.934)What you say? Homophobic and then that. Yes. And then there are missing books because people don’t know that you have the Vatican that has all the books that were written. So. Nick McGowan (39:06.093)And then that became literally gospel. What the fuck? Nick McGowan (39:18.073)yeah. Well, they changed things in the 15th century because they were like, this is what we want this to be. This is when King James came out. Context people, context is important. And we’re not just spewing this shit to just spew the shit. If there are systems in place, yeah, but there are systems, there are things that happen. There are biases of people that say, I am afraid to be me. So I’m going to do these things. We’re fucking seeing it now. Amber RichBook (39:22.998)Yes. Yeah, you can go to a library. Yeah. Nick McGowan (39:44.525)We’re seeing it with everything that’s happening right now. all right, so, I mean, what the fuck? We’re seeing a lot of it now, but so that story specifically, context is important. Jesus actually spent time braiding a whip and then turned it on. The man probably sat there for a while, like an hour, maybe even longer. He might’ve even braided some of the whip at home, because he knew what was going on. He didn’t just walk in and go, what in the fuck? Amber RichBook (39:50.382)Nick you are funny Amber RichBook (39:57.848)Yeah. Nick McGowan (40:13.615)boom, and blow everything up. That’s not how it worked. That’s not what context is about. And the reason why he did that was because these people were doing something against everybody and the actual premise of being community driven. That was selfish. wasn’t just that they were doing something in God’s house and God said, no. A lot of people will just eat the shit that they’re fed and just keep consuming. Reason why it keeps going back to that is again, it’s systems. Amber RichBook (40:25.046)Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Nick McGowan (40:41.455)And I think there are biases that people look at, which then infect or affect whichever way you wanna look at it, our identity. I appreciate that we’ve gone on this tangent in certain ways with this sort of stuff. And I think it’s important for us all to understand that the identity that we have right now is evolving and it may not actually be the identity that we want it to be. And that trauma might be a part of that, the subconscious winning strategy, which we didn’t really touch about. Amber RichBook (40:53.698)We did. Amber RichBook (41:02.092)Yes. Amber RichBook (41:05.537)Yes. Nick McGowan (41:10.903)is a part of that, these strategies that develop us. But what’s your advice for somebody who’s listening that’s on their path towards self-mastery? Amber RichBook (41:19.818)that there is no end to the path of self-mastery. You must be willing to change as many times, change identities as many times as often of times as you feel led to in your residence. And sometimes in this identity self mastery journey, some people do choose to stop and land at a destination. And that’s where they want to cap their beingness on this identity. And there’s no right or wrong to any of it. Amber RichBook (41:59.918)That’s the biggest thing that I would say. There’s no right or wrong to this path of self mastery at all. you get to decide this is your world, this is your reality. If you want to be a single woman today or a single man today and then say tomorrow you want to be partnered and that’s your reality and that’s the identity you want to shift into, do that. And I think the biggest thing is us being willing to look at our lives objectively, understanding that each individual is just filled with opinions and that. is what forms the facts of their life and to respect the opinions and facts of one life as a way of you respecting and honoring the facts and opinions of your life, which is much like the namaste, right? The God in me sees the God in you. Nick McGowan (42:48.567)Yeah, beautiful way to put that. And I think this has been great. I really appreciate you being on. We could probably sit here and just shoot the shit for like hours and just keep recording. But before I let you go, where can people find you and where can they connect with you? Amber RichBook (43:03.638)People can find me on social media everywhere at a.richbook on LinkedIn, Amber Rich Book, arichbook.com. Put my name in Google, I’ll pop up. But thank you, Nick, for having me and allowing me to share these things with your community. Thank you all for having me. Nick McGowan (43:23.779)Absolutely, it’s been a pleasure. appreciate your time. Amber RichBook (43:26.392)Thank you. https://youtu.be/zO7xasV4WUg

00:00 All right, so, I mean, what are the Democrats really trying to defend here? They're defending radical Islam and they're defending illegal aliens, criminal illegal aliens in our country. Listen to this. This is from up in Charlotte, Mecklenburg County. Let's take a listen to this. Just learned Fernandez is being held without bond and has a court-appointed public defender. Fernandez is... 00:28 Facing first degree murder charges and it is related to the deadly shooting of 44 year old Ludvin Guzman Morales along Central Avenue on January 24th. Court records show that Fernandez was arrested yesterday. Investigators say a break in the case came just days ago when officers responded to an attempted murder on Albemarle Rd. During the investigation, police say they found a gun inside Fernandez's car. 00:57 They say he later admitted to shooting the victim after examining that weapon. Detectives believe it may be linked to the shooting of Guzman Morales. Now Fernandez also has an ice detainer, meaning he could be taken into federal custody here at the Mecklenburg County Courthouse. Fernandez is expected to be seen again on April 14th. here's what I love about that. He could be taken. He's got it. He's got a detainer. He's got an ice detainer on him. He could be handed over to federal authorities. 01:27 Oh, he could be. But if you actually look up Angelvis Jesus Quintera Fernandez, the shooter in this case, you will find out 01:41 that is not hispanic no no no no hate no he's not he's not hispanic 01:50 He's Caucasian. At least that's what's listed. 01:57 on the arrest record, yeah, it's a white guy. It's a white guy, you see, they do, and folks, that is absolutely 100 % on purpose. It's on purpose. Because they want you to think that the white guys are running around doing all the violent crime out there. They hide the identity of these people. 02:22 So you've got all of these sanctuary, you know, even look up Mecklenburg County, you can say that's a sanctuary county. But how illegal is that? Well, it's very illegal. 02:35 It's extremely illegola. 02:40 In fact, if you look at the U.S. 8 U.S. Code 1324, it says it is a federal crime to harbor or conceal someone who is in the U.S. unlawfully. 03:02 It is unlawful to transport or move them within the country. 03:07 To encourage or induce someone to enter and remain in the U.S. illegally, it is illegal to bring or attempt to bring undocumented individuals into the United States. 03:20 All of those things are illegal. All of those things are exactly what sanctuary cities do. They're all violating 8 U.S. Code 1324. They're harboring these people. 03:38 Joe Biden. There should have been. There should have been. 03:45 And this is where the Democrats really got the jump on the Republicans. And it's been a long time coming. And we know that George Soros is out there and he's putting a lot of money into all of this. They made sure that they had all of these judges in place. All of them, like Judge Boasberg. All of these radical judges. 04:10 that were in place in order to make sure that all of these illegal aliens got some sort of protection. 04:20 You've got people out there doing this right now here in Greenville. They're transporting or moving them within the country. mean, look at 85. That's a huge corridor. 04:33 They are encouraging and inducing people to enter and remain in the United States illegally. How did they do that? Well, look at all they gave them. That was encouragement. You see, going into another country illegally should be a very difficult thing to do. It should be hard. But it wasn't under the Biden administration. It was easy. Number one, they wanted them here to count in the census. 05:01 so that they could have the right proportions of Democrats in their district. Number two, they wanted them here to vote. Oh my gosh. I um want you to listen. is what's wrong with the Republicans, okay? This is what's wrong. I want you to listen ...

00:00 All right, so I mean, what are the Democrats really trying to defend here? They're defending radical Islam and they're defending illegal aliens, criminal illegal aliens in our country. Listen to this, this is from up in Charlotte, Mecklenburg County. Let's take a listen to this. Just learned Fernandez is being held without bond and has a court appointed public defender. Fernandez is... 00:28 Facing first degree murder charges and it is related to the deadly shooting of 44 year old Ludvin Guzman Morales along Central Avenue on January 24th. Court records show that Fernandez was arrested yesterday. Investigators say a in the case came just days ago when officers responded to an attempted murder on Albemarle Rd. During the investigation, police say they found a gun inside Fernandez's car. uh 00:57 They say he later admitted to shooting the victim after examining that weapon. Detectives believe it may be linked to the shooting of Guzman Morales. Now Fernandez also has an ice detainer, meaning he could be taken into federal custody here at the Mecklenburg County Courthouse. Fernandez is expected to be seen again on April 14th. here's what I love about that. He could be taken. He's got it. He's got a detainer. He's got an ice detainer on him. He could be handed over to federal authorities. 01:27 Oh, he could be. But if you actually look up Angelvis Jesus Quintera Fernandez, the shooter in this case, you will find out 01:41 that is not hispanic no no no no hate no he's not he's not hispanic 01:50 He's Caucasian. At least that's what's listed. 01:57 on the arrest record, yeah, it's a white guy. It's a white guy, you see, they do, and folks, that is absolutely 100 % on purpose. It's on purpose. Because they want you to think that the white guys are running around doing all the violent crime out there. They hide the identity of these people. 02:22 So you've got all of these sanctuary, you know, even look up Mecklenburg County, you can say that's a sanctuary county. But how illegal is that? Well, it's very illegal. 02:35 It's extremely illegola. 02:40 In fact, if you look at the U.S. 8 U.S. Code 1324, it says it is a federal crime to harbor or conceal someone who is in the U.S. unlawfully. 03:02 It is unlawful to transport or move them within the country. 03:07 To encourage or induce someone to enter and remain in the U.S. illegally, it is illegal to bring or attempt to bring undocumented individuals into the United States. 03:20 All of those things are illegal. All of those things are exactly what sanctuary cities do. They're all violating 8 U.S. Code 1324. They're harboring these people. 03:38 Joe Biden. There should have been. There should have been. 03:45 And this is where the Democrats really got the jump on the Republicans. And it's been a long time coming. And we know that George Soros is out there and he's putting a lot of money into all of this. They made sure that they had all of these judges in place. All of them, like Judge Boasberg. All of these radical judges. 04:10 that were in place in order to make sure that all of these illegal aliens got some sort of protection. 04:20 You've got people out there doing this right now here in Greenville. They're transporting or moving them within the country. mean, look at 85. That's a huge corridor. 04:33 They are encouraging and inducing people to enter and remain in the United States illegally. How did they do that? Well, look at all they gave them. That was encouragement. You see, going into another country illegally should be a very difficult thing to do. It should be hard. But it wasn't under the Biden administration. It was easy. Number one, they wanted them here to count in the census. 05:01 so that they could have the right proportions of Democrats in their district. Number two, they wanted them here to vote. Oh my gosh. I um want you to listen. is what's wrong with the Republicans, okay? This is what's wrong. I want you to listen to Ut ...

Bomani Jones breaks down everything happening in March Madness. He starts with Bill Self in another classic Bill Self game, Rick Pitino back in the Sweet 16, and how Pitino suddenly has a chance to be the hero we need when St. John's takes on Duke.Later, he digs into the rumors that UNC might fire Hubert Davis after blowing a 19-point lead to VCU. Bomani explains how it fell apart, what that VCU loss reveals about Carolina's current reality, and why the way it's being handled says as much about the institution as it does about the coach.After the break, Bomani breaks down Tom Brady and NFL stars losing to Team USA in flag football, Pittsburgh not being able to handle the NFL Draft, Jay-Z's concert announcement, and much more. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

BUFFALO, NY — March 23, 2026 — A new #research paper was #published in Volume 18 of Aging-US on March 12, 2026, titled “Blood biochemical and gut microbiotic neural network models forecasting human biological age.” Led by Anastasia A. Kobelyatskaya from the Russian Clinical Research Center for Gerontology, Pirogov Russian National Research Medical University, and the Institute of Biology of Aging and Healthy Longevity Medicine with Preventive Medicine Clinic, Petrovsky Russian Research Centre of Surgery — with corresponding author Alexey Moskalev from the Institute of Biology of Aging and Healthy Longevity Medicine with Preventive Medicine Clinic, Petrovsky Russian Research Centre of Surgery — the study builds a gender-specific biochemical model (seven routine clinical markers, e.g., cystatin-C, IGF-1, DHEAS, plus sex-specific sets) and a microbiota model (45 species measured by full-length 16S sequencing). Both models were trained and tested on the same 637-person dataset and achieved mean absolute errors of around six years and R² values above 0.8. The team emphasised interpretability: they applied SHapley Additive exPlanations (SHAP) to convert each model from a “black box” into a more interpretable tool, showing how individual predictors (for example, DHEAS, cystatin-C, NT-proBNP in the blood model, and species such as Blautia obeum in the microbiota model) shift predicted age in years for a given individual. The biochemical clock yielded a small (clinically accessible) predictor set (7 markers) to ease clinical translation, while the microbiota clock used a 45-species signature and highlighted microbiome taxa whose abundance gradients correlate with predicted microbiotic age. “As the proposed models possess both global and local explainability, they hold future potential for application in monitoring the effectiveness of various interventions in clinical trials.” The authors note limitations and next steps: the cohort was restricted to a Caucasian population, and the microbiota model requires sequencing resources that may limit immediate clinical rollout. They call for external validation in larger, ethnically diverse cohorts, prospective testing to link model predictions to health outcomes, and application of the explainable models to monitor responses in intervention trials (for example, lifestyle, diet, or drug studies) where a change in predicted biological age would be an early, interpretable signal of benefit. DOI - https://doi.org/10.18632/aging.206360 Corresponding author - Alexey Moskalev - amoskalev@med.ru Abstract video - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wg3YEwXMKWY Sign up for free Altmetric alerts about this article - https://aging.altmetric.com/details/email_updates?id=10.18632%2Faging.206360 Subscribe for free publication alerts from Aging - https://www.aging-us.com/subscribe-to-toc-alerts Keywords - aging, biological age, blood biochemistry, gut microbiome, neural network To learn more about the journal, please visit https://www.Aging-US.com​​ and connect with us on social media at: Bluesky - https://bsky.app/profile/aging-us.bsky.social ResearchGate - https://www.researchgate.net/journal/Aging-1945-4589 X - https://twitter.com/AgingJrnl Facebook - https://www.facebook.com/AgingUS/ Instagram - https://www.instagram.com/agingjrnl/ LinkedIn - https://www.linkedin.com/company/aging/ Reddit - https://www.reddit.com/user/AgingUS/ Pinterest - https://www.pinterest.com/AgingUS/ YouTube - https://www.youtube.com/@Aging-US Spotify - https://open.spotify.com/show/1X4HQQgegjReaf6Mozn6Mc MEDIA@IMPACTJOURNALS.COM

Who knew that Italian immigrants worked the grape crops in California? The final episode of season 6 begins a new series focusing on how we, the macro-society and pretty much all forms of media, conflate race and culture non-stop. For this series, we look specifically at educators who are Caucasian (or white racially) but are not white culturally. Hence, don't call me white, call me _____. Listen in to the journey of Carrie Sotro, proud Italian and CLR educator extraordinaire. Carrie's Italian history in America, which goes back many generations, is classic. Learn how Carrie has walked the fine line between the racial expectation of being white juxtaposed to the reality of her ethnic identity. Dr. Hollie's two cents provides the background, history, and context for this series. You will be provoked. Learn more about CLR and Dr. Hollie at www.culturallyresponsive.org and Twitter @validateaffirm

RSS/iTunes/Spotify Check out the full HOW DO YOU DO, FELLOW KIDS? archive right here On a brand new episode of HOW DO YOU DO, FELLOW KIDS? we’re finding a stranger in the alps with THE DUDE and all his funny pals in The Coen Brothers’ neo-noir cult favorite THE BIG LEBOWSKI from 1997. Featuring Jeff Bridges as the dude, John Goodman as his pal Walter Sobchak and – of course – the great Steve Buscemi as the mild-mannered Donny (and also Julianne Moore, Philip Seymour Hoffman, John Turturro, Sam Elliott and MORE). We talk about Dudeism, oat sodas, Caucasians.. all that stuff! Enjoy!The post Episode 316 – How Do You Do, Fellow Kids? – The Big Lebowski (1997) first appeared on Cinema Smorgasbord.

This week, we have 2 lectures to keep pace for those following the Come Follow Me program. Text: Genesis 6-11; Moses 8 Supplemental Text: The First 2,000 Years chapters 20-22 BYU Lecture 7: The Great Universal Flood Due to the wickedness of the people, similar to the wickedness of today, God cleanses the Human race by using a universal Flood. Noah obeys the Lord and builds an enormous ark, but only he, his wife, and 3 of his sons along with their wives survive. Has the ark been discovered on Mt. Ararat? Discussion of the need for a righteous government to govern a righteous people. There is a great need to conserve the Constitution. A good student will solve problems by using Constitutional principles. He must study in fairness all sides of important issues and make intelligent decisions that build a righteous people.   The Law of Consecration must be restored among a righteous people but only under the direction of the priesthood. God's work will prevail. BYU Lecture 8: Mankind Expands Across the Land After the Flood. After the flood and the ark settles, the family of Noah enters the new world. As they descend from the mount, the families of Japheth, Shem and Ham go their separate ways and begin again to populate the earth. Different races across the world can be traced to the three sons of Noah; Slavic and Orientals traced to Japheth, Arabic, Jewish and Caucasian traced to Shem, and Blacks traced to Ham. Egypt means “black” and it's evident from the mummy discoveries that Egypt had many different dynasties from both Ham and Shem. This concludes the First 2,000 Years and the supplemental text now begins in The Third Thousand Years.  

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Ana's been chatting with her group chat members… Books, tv, music, and more. Find out what everyone is talking about this week. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoicesSee Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

661. Today we talk to Rachel L. Doherty about Louisiana folklore and folklife. Rachel is the Assistant Director for Programming and Special Projects at the Center for Louisiana Studies. Dr. Rachel Doherty is a scholar of contemporary Francophone art, literature, and creolized identities in Louisiana and Canada. She is an alumna of UL Lafayette's Francophone Studies program, a former lecturer at UL and Université Sainte-Anne, and a former French immersion teacher. Dr. Doherty specializes in occult and magical lore in minority Francophone literatures and arts, and analyzes folklore's place in today's language and identity movements. Now available: Liberty in Louisiana: A Comedy. The oldest play about Louisiana, author James Workman wrote it as a celebration of the Louisiana Purchase. Now it is back in print for the first time in 222 years. Order your copy today! This week in the Louisiana Anthology. “At the 'Cadian Ball” by Kate Chopin is about a Fais Do Do in the late 1800s. "BOBINÔT, that big, brown, good-natured Bobinôt, had no intention of going to the ball, even though he knew Calixta would be there. For what came of those balls but heartache, and a sickening disinclination for work the whole week through, till Saturday night came again and his tortures began afresh? Why could he not love Ozéina, who would marry him to-morrow; or Fronie, or any one of a dozen others, rather than that little Spanish vixen? Calixta's slender foot had never touched Cuban soil; but her mother's had, and the Spanish was in her blood all the same. For that reason the prairie people forgave her much that they would not have overlooked in their own daughters or sisters." This week in Louisiana history. January 16, 1962. Students at Southern Univ. begin civil rights demonstrations. This week in New Orleans history. Mayor C. Ray Nagin's "Chocolate City Speech" January 16, 2006. The "Chocolate City Speech" is the nickname that some have given to the Martin Luther King Jr. Day speech by Mayor Ray Nagin on January 16, 2006, several months after Hurricane Katrina. Prior to Nagin's speech, some commentators were suggesting that the city's demographics would change from majority African American to majority Caucasian.  In an interview with Public Radio International's Tavis Smiley (originally broadcast on January 13, 2006) Nagin used the phrase "chocolate city" in reference to New Orleans' future demographics. This week in Louisiana. January 31, 2026 Louisiana King Cake Festival 402 West 3rd Street Thibodaux, LA 70301 A large-scale outdoor food festival where attendees can sample dozens of different king cakes from across the state. This event serves as a major fundraiser for the Lafourche Education Foundation: 10:30 AM: The “Krewe of King Cake” Children's Parade kicks off the festivities around 201 Green Street. 11:00 AM: The festival grounds officially open for tasting and live music. Highlight 1 (The Tasting): Guests purchase “tasting tickets” to sample various king cakes and vote for the “People's Choice” winner. Highlight 2 (The Music): Local Louisiana bands perform on the main stage throughout the afternoon.  4:00 PM: The winners of the best traditional and non-traditional king cakes are announced. End: The festival wraps up at 5:00 PM. Website: louisianakingcakefest.com Email: info@lafourcheeducation.com Phone: (985) 688-4662 Lafourche Education Foundation P.O. Box 486 Thibodaux, LA 70302 Postcards from Louisiana. Little Freddie King. Listen on Apple Podcasts. Listen on audible. Listen on Spotify. Listen on TuneIn. Listen on iHeartRadio. The Louisiana Anthology Home Page. Like us on Facebook.    

The conversation highlights that “angry Caucasian women” are leading protests against ICE raids, and asserts that following police instructions reduces the likelihood of trouble.

Nearly $800,000 has been raised for the Ford employee who heckled Trump during a plant visit. Questions arise about whether the Trump administration has issued illegal orders to the US military, with Senator Mark Kelly regularly challenging Pete Hegseth on the matter. Mayor Mamdani passionately discusses First Amendment rights, which Border Czar Tom Homan may not fully support. Mark takes your calls! Mark interviews Jimmy Failla, WOR Weeknight host. The conversation highlights that “angry Caucasian women” are leading protests against ICE raids, and asserts that following police instructions reduces the likelihood of trouble.

The Obama administration implemented a large-scale deportation strategy, similar to current ICE deportations under the Trump administration. CBS News is facing criticism from left-leaning citizens for its attempt to appear more centrist, particularly regarding sensitive ICE raid coverage. Mark interviews economist Steve Moore. Steve discusses the ongoing labor shortage and expresses concerns about President Trump's proposal to cap credit card interest rates at 10%, suggesting it could reduce available credit options for consumers. Nearly $800,000 has been raised for the Ford employee who heckled Trump during a plant visit. Questions arise about whether the Trump administration has issued illegal orders to the US military, with Senator Mark Kelly regularly challenging Pete Hegseth on the matter. Mayor Mamdani passionately discusses First Amendment rights, which Border Czar Tom Homan may not fully support. Mark interviews Jimmy Failla, WOR Weeknight host. The conversation highlights that “angry Caucasian women” are leading protests against ICE raids, and asserts that following police instructions reduces the likelihood of trouble.

The conversation highlights that “angry Caucasian women” are leading protests against ICE raids, and asserts that following police instructions reduces the likelihood of trouble.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Nearly $800,000 has been raised for the Ford employee who heckled Trump during a plant visit. Questions arise about whether the Trump administration has issued illegal orders to the US military, with Senator Mark Kelly regularly challenging Pete Hegseth on the matter. Mayor Mamdani passionately discusses First Amendment rights, which Border Czar Tom Homan may not fully support. Mark takes your calls! Mark interviews Jimmy Failla, WOR Weeknight host. The conversation highlights that “angry Caucasian women” are leading protests against ICE raids, and asserts that following police instructions reduces the likelihood of trouble.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

The Obama administration implemented a large-scale deportation strategy, similar to current ICE deportations under the Trump administration. CBS News is facing criticism from left-leaning citizens for its attempt to appear more centrist, particularly regarding sensitive ICE raid coverage. Mark interviews economist Steve Moore. Steve discusses the ongoing labor shortage and expresses concerns about President Trump's proposal to cap credit card interest rates at 10%, suggesting it could reduce available credit options for consumers. Nearly $800,000 has been raised for the Ford employee who heckled Trump during a plant visit. Questions arise about whether the Trump administration has issued illegal orders to the US military, with Senator Mark Kelly regularly challenging Pete Hegseth on the matter. Mayor Mamdani passionately discusses First Amendment rights, which Border Czar Tom Homan may not fully support. Mark interviews Jimmy Failla, WOR Weeknight host. The conversation highlights that “angry Caucasian women” are leading protests against ICE raids, and asserts that following police instructions reduces the likelihood of trouble.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Seek, create, mentor, partner – the four steps to getting diverse voices onto industry stages     Welcome back to Blended!    Today, we're talking about the ethos behind this podcast – highlighting diverse voices.    The Blended podcast was founded to give people from all walks of life a platform and, as an extension of that, the Blended Pledge was established to get those people onto industry stages. Because we've all been at conferences and events and seen the same type of person represented time and again. We've heard that diverse voices weren't invited or, if they were, they couldn't afford to fund the trip.    Across industries, we're starting to see panels and stages work on that diversity, but progress isn't happening quickly enough. So, as we look towards a brand new year, we wanted to share some practical advice around what we can all do to get more diverse voices onto industry stages – and why it matters.  IN THIS EPISODE:   [01.04] Introductions to our Blended panelists.   Karen – President and CEO at World Trade Center Denver Megan – Psychotherapist and host of Career Congregation podcast  Mary – Senior Vice President of Business Development at Pallet Alliance    [06.07] The group discuss what they see when it comes to diverse voices on industry stages, how inclusion has changed, and their experiences as speakers, organizers and attendees.   Male representation on stage  Different perspectives lead to better outcomes  Small changes  Slow pace  Why should companies care?  Diversity of country of origin  Diversity of audience as well as panel  Megan's experience of shifting gender representation in psychology, therapy, and wellness, as well as different representations across cultures (west vs east)    "I've been going to conferences a long time and I do see a shift in the diversity that's on stages. But I'm still very familiar with the basics: Caucasian, male, business." Mary    "Like attracts like, even though diversity matters. If you're trying to get a diverse audience, you need to have those people on the panel… I build a panel based on who I want in the audience." Karen  [24.18] The panel explore common barriers and challenges to achieving more diversity and inclusion at industry events.  Women rejecting opportunity/suggesting male colleagues   Making mistakes  Event planning  Honesty  Panel planning is an art, not a science  Responsibility – individual and business  Karen's experience of a speaker tying her personal talent for fire-eating to managing supply chain  Inspiration  Mary's experience of being a masculine-presenting lesbian and being treated differently    Lack of exposure  Being different is a superpower  Courage  Seeing to believe  Corporate gatekeeping – who can represent the company?  Travel –  Expenses  Getting creative  Permission  Company vs personal brand  Calling people out  Bias  Leadership  Fear  Neurodivergence –  creating diverse experiences  different ways of learning/working   "A lot of companies are afraid to talk right now, there's a fear of retribution, they don't want to get out in front on some of their challenges. But if you're vulnerable and talk about the mistakes you've made, you seem more powerful. And that's what people learn from." Karen     "I'm a masculine-presenting lesbian… Who I am and how I present is NOT represented anywhere. I'm different, but that's been working for me... And I encourage people that are like me to be proud of who they are by sharing my story." Mary    "These big decisions usually boil down to one person. They've been around for a long time, they're resistant to change and don't like the way things are going… These old white male headspaces need to shift." Megan  [01.11.26] The group share some practical tips and advice for getting more diverse voices onto stages.     Intent Research  Goal-setting  Calls for speakers  Understanding/supporting the people you have in your company  Upskilling  Identifying strengths Personal ethos/mission/values    Authenticity    "Diversity is way beyond color of skin." Karen  [01.25.33] The panel sum up their thoughts from today's discussion.   RESOURCES AND LINKS MENTIONED: You can connect with Karen, Megan or Mary over on LinkedIn.    

Make Morality Mainstream Again The adultification of teen fiction has intentionally Frankensteined books for teens into cesspools of ideological normalization. A while ago, I met a mother and her daughter, the latter of whom I hadn't seen in several years. On the cusp of turning twelve, she'd obviously grown in the time since, and, her mother proudly informed me, had become quite the reader. Indeed, the girl held quite a thick book in her hand. Which was it? The girl showed me the cover. I turned to the mother. “Do you know what your daughter is reading?” She'd figured telling her eleven-year-old she could read whatever was marked 14+ was a safe enough guardrail for appropriate content. As reading is an experience between book and reader, the mother wouldn't have seen what her daughter was taking in. She couldn't either know that her daughter's book was familiar not because it was something I'd read but because it was something I wouldn't. Worse, she thought she could trust the institution. THE READING DILEMMA Parents want kids to read, but as most can't keep up with their reading habits, they don't fully realize what's being allowed, even promoted, in books for young readers. As with other once vaunted institutions, the publishing world has morphed in ways many aren't fully aware of. Over a decade ago, I signed my first contract for Young Adult (YA) fiction. Before and since, I've watched the genre boom through the stages of audience demographic to viable business. Throughout, YA has expanded from books for teens to a genre unto itself, attracting talented writers, lucrative contracts, and the golden goose of Hollywood adaptations. YA is officially for readers 14-18 years (and up). However, as it's after Middle Grade (8-12 years), tweens are frequent readers, plus many eleven-year-olds reading up. There is “lower” and “upper” YA, but they're unofficial categories for libraries or writers specific about their target audience. Most retailers and publishers categorize all teen books under the general YA umbrella. NA, New Adult, mainly written for college-aged readers into their early twenties, is often sheltered under the YA umbrella too. Alongside the wider publishing industry, YA has changed significantly over the years, reflecting broader shifts in society. What follows isn't an analysis on talent or quality but content, as something about words in a book makes what's written more real, valid, romantic, admirable, aspirational. Thus, the intent is to shed light on some of the many topic and imagery that are included in books for young readers. At risk that this won't earn me any friends in publishing (at best), here's some of what I've seen: DEVOLUTION OF YA FICTION Growth of the YA audience/genre is an objective benefit, logical as it is to increase methods for targeting potential customers. As YA has increased in business and position, its morphing into genre unto itself has attracted many adults readers. As a YA author, I read mainly within my market and see the appeal for adult readers considering how well the genre's developed. The migration of older readers to YA is certainly one of the many reasons it's been so adultified. Other factors include the poisonous stranglehold ideological tentacles have on many aspects of culture, entertainment, and education. The shifts adults have finally caught onto in adult fiction and film have infected literature for younger audiences, picture books through YA. A quick example, originally, romantic comedies centered on a man and woman who clashed at the outset, then eventually found their way to each other at the end. The story would build to some romantic declaration, then a kiss. Anyone who's been watching knows that there's now a whole lot of touching that happens before any romantic declaration occurs. Longer, more frequent kisses are only second to scenes of the pair sleeping together before deciding how they really feel about each other. All this is becoming commonplace in YA. What was once cutesy stories about a high school girl chasing a crush has now become stories featuring a whole lot of other firsts, even seconds, and then some. The devolution of YA is a result of purposeful normalization and reshaping of societal norms through manipulatively emotional appeals by writers, agents, and editors. On average, books from larger publishing houses take roughly eighteen months to two years to evolve from contract to product on the shelf. To say, story trends are set in motion well before their rise in popularity. Whatever the view on agents as gatekeepers to the larger houses, publishers only publish so many books in a year, an amount significantly less than all the people who want to be published. Hence, agents act as preliminary filters for editors, whittling down potential authors to relatively more manageable numbers. An agent must really believe in a writer and project to nab one of those few spots. Like most creative fields, writing is highly subjective, so in addition to general quality, each agent and editor has preferences for stories they want to work with. They're also usually pretty clear about what they're looking for, so part of the progression of change can be traced back to what's being requested. CHARACTER INCLUSION CHECKLISTS When I first entered the “querying trenches,” wish lists from agents mainly specified genres and their various offshoots. Although ideologies make a home in all genres, most were subtler, more akin to a light sprinkling than the deluge of today. Within a few short years, wish lists changed. Unofficial “checklists” appeared in the now familiar cancerous categories of equity, representation, marginalization, and other socialist pseudonyms. Nonfiction for teens is dominated by activism, coming out, and adaptations of left-wing figures' biographies. Rather than prioritize quality, potential, uniqueness, the new gatekeeping is often focused on the inclusion of certain ideologies. For the first while, emphasis was on strong female characters, an odd request considering the YA market is dominated by female writers and readers. Previous character portrayal thus had little to do with some imagined patriarchal oppression. Now, female characters are “fierce”, projections of feminist fantasies celebrating girl bosses who are objectively pushy, uncooperative, obnoxious, self-righteous, and/or highly unrealistic. Somehow, they capture the most desirable love interest, a magical combination of masculinity and emotional vulnerability, who is inexplicably un-neutered by support of her domineering principles. Frequently, the girl makes the first move. Worse than overbearing feminism is unrealistic portrayals of a girl's physical abilities accompanied by most unsavory rage and wrath and anger. Supposedly, these traits aren't anathema to the gorgeous guys (when it is a guy) these girls miraculously attract. Unless there's a moth to flame metaphor here, it's a lie to pretend wrath is a healthy attraction. This well reflects the move away from what's become so-last-century stories featuring underdogs who searched deep for courage and heart to overcome challenges, raising up others alongside themselves. A time when character development focused on, well, character. More wholesome stories have been replaced with a self-proclaimed oppressed burning with self-righteous rage and violence. Such characters have seeped into fantasy for adults as well, most notably in armies featuring female combat soldiers and warriors without special powers, who somehow go toe-to-toe if not best male counterparts. Often this sort of matchup is shown as some cunning of smallness, agility, and destruction of arrogant male condescension. Never mind that such fighting is highly unrealistic, and any male is rightly confident if paired against a woman in physical combat. No amount of small body darting or ingenuity will save a girl from the full force of one landed male punch. The unquestioned portrayal of women able to best men in physical combat is worrying considering the real possibility of a reader confusing fact with fiction. Besides, a country which sends its women to war will no longer exist, as it's a country with males but not men. The current not-so-secret of major houses is that a book doesn't have a high chance of getting published if it doesn't check certain markers, especially for midlist and debut authors, though A-listers are not immune. A Caucasian is hardly allowed to write a story featuring a so-called BIPOC, but a straight author must somehow include the ever-expanding gay-bcs, and it must be in a positive light. Some authors were always writing these characters, which at least reflects acting of their own volition. For the rest, many didn't start until required. Because of the careful wording around these ideologies, many don't speak out against these practices so as not to appear hateful and bigoted. The mandated appearance of so-called marginalized and under-represented in stories lest the author risk erasing…someone, somehow also operates along these lines. Although, apparently, only very specific groups are at risk of disappearing. These standards are ridiculous in their least damaging iterations. How many so-anointed BIPOC were consulted over their standard portrayals? How can every individual of every minority be consulted for approval, and who chooses which faction decides? How many Latinos, speakers of gendered language, agreed to Latinx and Latine? Christian characters in mainstream publishing are rarely portrayed as steadfast believers or even rebels rediscovering faith. Jewish stories usually feature a character who's “lived experience” is assimilation, so the character is of a religion but doesn't represent it. A real portrayal of the true beliefs these characters come from would not align with the world mainstream publishing wants to shape. Even more ludicrous is that “disabled” and “neurodivergent” are considered identities, as if a physical or medical condition is cause for new labeling. The approach used to be that you are still you, worthy of respect and consideration, despite these conditions. In the glorified world of the self-hyphenate, the world of we-are-our-self-declared-identity, it's the foremost feature mentioned, with accompanying expectation of praise and exaltation, regardless of an individual's character or behavior. Don't confuse the argument against the labeling with the individuals, because they are separable. Worse than the tokenism is the reduction of individuals to secondary characteristics. Is this really the first thing you have to say about yourself, the most essential thing to know? When did it become norm to turn skin color or medical condition or physical ability into a character trait, the very notion of which says that anyone in this group must be viewed primarily through this lens, as if each is exactly the same? How myopic. How belittling. Following the cue set by movies, books for teens also morphed from cutesy rom-coms to ideological showcases. Unsurprisingly, there's been the introduction of the stereotypical gay best friend. Then storylines focusing on coming out or discovering someone close was gay, with accompanying template for writing them. The one coming out is always the strong one, the resilient one, though much language must be banned lest they be offended or erased, so their strength is dependent upon a carefully constructed bubble. Not only is inclusion necessary but happiness is the only possible, deliberately portrayed reaction. Never mind if some or all of it runs counter to a writer's religious beliefs. Moreover, “I'm not sure how I feel about this, but I'll still treat you with respect” was never an acceptable response. And it is an acceptable response in all manner of situations, unless you exorcise it in efforts to forcibly shape a particular worldview. Additionally, the attitude is that since you can't tell me who to love, and loving this person makes me happy, you must not only ally but champion me. Why is it offensive to present different acceptable, respectful reactions to teens? Who exactly is erased if this character isn't presented at all? As before, don't confuse the argument against mandate with the individuals. The contention isn't about love, but about religion protecting the sanctity of romantic relationships and marriage, a religious practice since the dawn of time, as seen across centuries and civilizations. Marriage is described as sanctified and holy, because it's Divine in nature, and thereby under the domain of the religious. If it's just a contract, then of course any government can regulate it. It’s disingenuous to deny that such enforcement clashes with the very nature of what writing is about. It shuts down discussion, then subverts it entirely by pretending there's nothing to debate. That shouldn't be a source of pride for publishing, but deepest shame. In their efforts to supposedly widen the window of story matter, they've narrowed the frames and tinted the panes to exclude suddenly unacceptable voices entirely. PORNOGRAPHY AND CONSENT Compounded upon all this, most books are no longer relatively clean romances building to a single kiss, as every stage of the relationship has become more explicit. Some scenes are akin to manuals, containing the sort of imagery once the sole province of steamy romances. When efforts are rightly made to remove these books from shelves, screeches of censorship! erasure! representation! resound. We wouldn't, and shouldn't, tolerate any adult approaching a kid on the street and telling stories with such description, nor should we allow it from close friends or family. Authors do not hold special status in this, no matter what the screechers screech. Taking such books off shelves isn't an indication of bigotry, intolerance, hatred, or erasure, but moral obligation. The counterargument from writers, agents, and editors is that explicit detail is necessary because of something to do with “lived experiences” and consent. First, if kids are doing it anyway, then adults definitely needn't assist. Second, consent is not quite the magical word society would have us believe. Third, “everyone has different experiences” is not a reason for writing graphic content, and the replacement of “intimacy” with “experience” is largely responsible for why relationships are in the gutter and leaving people unfulfilled. Intimacy is something private between two individuals; experience is a vague euphemism to pass off what should matter as transitory, despite irrevocable effects. It's difficult to imagine in an age when phones, cameras, and microphones track a person everywhere, but there was once an ideal called privacy, and the intimate was part of it. Pushback also leads to defenses of “sexuality,” another way of saying adults want to teach kids all kinds of ways to pursue these “experiences”. Changing the wording doesn't alter the nature but does allow immoral actors to force celebration of their fantasies and fetishes. The wrongness is incontestable, though not surprising from those who promote polyamory for teens and romantic relationships between humans and demons or other ungodly creatures. The feeble argument for writing scenes of teens sleeping together is they must see what consent looks like. Again, authors do not hold special status or exemption. There is no strong enough argument for writing scenes for teens in which one character undresses another and verbally asks permission every step of the way. Especially because the new trend seems to be the girl not only “consenting”, but also a burning I want this. If she wants, this wording implies, then she must have, abandoning all reason and morality. Consent has become an excuse for all sorts of undesirable, immoral, even illegal behavior, but mutual agreement is supposed to make it okay. This isn't the behavior we should be promoting for teens; we should be giving them better things, bigger ideas to think about. Worst of all, why is any adult writing about two sixteen-year-olds sleeping together? A teenager, no matter how mature, is still developing and while smart and clever not really old enough to fully understand what she's “consenting” to, and is probably being taken advantage of. We treat eighteen with the same magical power as consent, as if any age should be sleeping around, even if legalese only extends so far. Teen pregnancy, abortion overall, would hardly be an issue if everyone stopped sleeping with people they shouldn't. Any adherent to morality knows this, though morality is just another thing scuttled from teen fiction. G-dless ideology is the new morality; immoral, manmade gods have replaced G-d; lust is the new love; sexuality excuse for pornography; perceived racism and misogyny validation for violence and rage. Many are we who did not consent to this. These scenes are in teen films as well, though how many parents know this in an age of individual devices? Adults pretending to be teens take each other's clothes off before a camera for real tweens, teens, and/or adults to watch. Please explain in clear and simple language why this is not a form of pornography. What absolutely vital role does this scene have in advancing the story? Consent is not enough. Wanting is not enough. We're encouraging teens to turn their bodies into used cars, dented, scraped, scarred, and baggage laden, for what? Why is this hollowing out of self and morality good? This serves no benefit for teens and the overall state of relationships. Consent has become an excuse for all sorts of undesirable, immoral, even illegal behavior, but we're supposed to think that everyone agreeing makes whatever they agree to okay. It's incredibly obvious that feminism and the sexual revolution didn't free women, but chain them in a prison of animalistic, unsatisfying desire, dooming them to jadedness, frustration, and loneliness. But they're so responsible! So mature! By such logic, a responsible sixteen-year-old should be able to buy guns, alcohol, and drugs. But identity! No, identity doesn't mandate a book with graphic imagery, nor is it “sexuality” or “feeling seen” or any other term you hide behind. Witness the tattered remains of social morality that writers do not balk at writing this for teens. They should balk at writing this for anyone. Once we recognized that betterment came through battling temptations. It is not difficult to see how the enforced normalization of all this was also an effective ridding of undesirable shame. Not only have we banished feeling bad, we've enforced celebration of what shame once kept in line. But they'll never be prepared! How did any of us get here if none of this existed for millennia? But look at the sales! Many people also bought rock pets. Deviants and defenders will attempt to claim that (a) this sort of stuff always existed, which isn't really a reason for its continuance, and (b) previous generations were undoubtedly stifled in their inability to express their true selves. Perhaps. And yet, previous generations built civilization, with significantly less medical prescriptions too. Previous generations were better at family and community, meaning and purpose. We have “experiences.” But this is what married people do! Some writers introduce a faux or rushed marriage into the plot, perhaps because their weakening moral compass prevents writing an explicit scene between unmarried characters. Marrying the characters and making them eighteen doesn't magically okay writing this for teens. Everyone does it—indeed there are many common bodily functions which shouldn't be demonstrated in public—isn't either reason enough. Pressures to include these scenes is evidenced by authors long regarded as “clean” storytellers, authors who won't swear or indulge in graphic or gratuitous content, authors who clearly express Christian beliefs in their acknowledgements, writing them too. Would they give this book to their priest? To a young church member? Would they read the scene aloud for family or friends or the very teens they write for? If even the professed religious authors do not have the fortitude to oppose this, if even they can be convinced of the supposed validity, then gone is the bulwark protecting children from the psychological and moral damage resulting from these scenes. But inclusivity! We must reflect the world around them! Considering what's in these books, all should pray teens aren't seeing this around them. Either way, that doesn't excuse writing about it. Moreover, cries for inclusivity from those shutting down differing opinions are inherently without substance. True inclusivity is achieved when stories focus on universal truths and laudatory values shared by all. The fundamental argument is that “could” is not “should”, and the only reliable arbiter between the two is Divinely-based morality. Current permissiveness is only possible in a society which worked for decades to expunge religion from its vital foundational position and influence. The demonization piled atop its degradation was simple insurance that the moral truths of religion wouldn't interfere with the newly established secular order. We can still be good people, they claimed. Witness the tattered remains. Allowing, championing, this sort of writing has not made us better, and instead of listening to concerns, activists and proponents double down. Need you any proof of the separation between ethics and morality and elitism and academia, scroll through an article or two in defense of these scenes. The more “educated” the individual, the twisted the pretzel of rationalization. Rational lies, all of them. These lies are prominently center of the new crusade against so-called “book banning,” although the books are still available at retailers and publishers. Fueled by self-righteous hysteria, activists take great pride in influencing state legislatures to enact decrees against book bans in protection of “lived experiences,” representation, and the like. If a teen doesn't see two boys or girls or more sleeping together, so the thinking goes, then they face imminent, unspecified harm, never mind that their sacred voice has been quashed. They claim BIPOC and queer authors are specifically targeted, failing to mention it's the content not the author rejected. Somehow the bigots are the ones who don't want kids reduced to “sexuality”, while the tolerant are the ones who do. Need anyone ask if these protections extend to writers who don't align or even disagree with their worldview? I'd say these books are better suited for adults, but adults are despairing of the unreadability of books in their categories too. And that aside from the targeted “decolonization” of books and authors that adults, especially men, enjoyed reading. From the myriad of books extant, no plot was ever turned, no story ever dependent upon an explicit scene, in the bedroom or elsewhere. Neither does such render the work art or literature, but rather indecent and abhorrent. Parents struggle to encourage their kids to read when such are the books available. ELIMINATING THE WEST For some time, agents have specifically requested non-western narratives, histories, and legends. Atop the deteriorating state of the current education system, teens aren't being presented with a fictionalized character in history, which may thereby spark interest and curiosity in real history. No wonder they know so little of the past when they're not offered history at all. What does make it in represents very select time periods. Other permitted historical fiction is alternative histories where the past is magicked or reimagined, almost always in some gender swapped way. While alternative histories can be creative, the lack of regular historical fiction seems to indicate the only permitted history is a remade one. Otherwise, most of western history isn't on shelves because no one wants to represent it. Which means no one's fighting for it to be published. Which means young readers aren't given glimpses into the past that made this present and will highly influence the future. And this from those who claim large swaths of the population don't properly teach history. The same who pushed the fabricated and widely debunked lie that slavery was unique to the west, the only culture who actively sought to end it. The same who have yet to consider the absolute necessity of mandating schools to teach the true horrors of communism done right. The same who have a monochrome view of colonization and chameleon approach to the faux oppressed-oppressor narrative. A rather high volume of Asian-based stories, histories, and mythologies fill the market instead. The proliferation of Asian and other eastern fiction isn't objectively concerning, but it's deliberate increase alongside western stories' deliberate decrease is. It's less an expansion of viewpoints and more a supplanting of anything west. I grew up reading historical fiction, but there's a dearth on shelves for teen readers, who must see where we come from through the eyes of characters resembling our ancestors. Instead of walking through time in their shoes and understanding their struggles in the context of when they lived, we project modern ideologies upon the one protagonist somehow vastly ahead of her time. It's deliberately false and disconnects readers from the world that created the one we live in. Whatever your opinion of our world, it was formed in those histories, and we cannot appreciate the present without understanding the world that made it. MENTAL HEALTH Another major trend in teen fiction is the focus on the broad category of mental health, its emergence unsurprising considering the uptick in modern society. Whatever the viewpoint on diagnoses, the truth is that the ones calling for greater awareness have much to do with having caused the issues. Teens living in the most prosperous, free society that ever was should not have such measures of mental health struggles, yet they do. Skim the messaging of the last several decades and it's no wonder why. Teens are raised on a bombardment of lies and damaging viewpoints resulting in a precarious Jenga structure at their foundation. For decades they've been told they can sleep around without lasting consequence, negating the need to build deep, lasting, exclusive relationships. Families, a fundamental source of meaning and grounding, have been shoved aside for the faux glory of sleeping with whomever, whenever, and the new solution of “found family”. Just because a pill supposedly prevents biological consequences doesn't mean a different sort of toll hasn't been exacted. And that follows the perpetual degradation of dress, reducing the entirety of an individual to a form as valued or devalued as any other physical object. Added to the disrespect of the body is the incessant, unfounded claim that “climate change” is going to destroy the planet by…well, soon. Never mind that we're doing better than before, and all predictions have been proven wrong. Imagine what continual doom and gloom does to the mental state of a teenager already grappling with ping-ponging hormones, who should be presented with optimism for the future they're about old enough to create. Well, we have a pill for that too. Teens have been told the American dream is gone by those who set out to destroy it, that American greatness isn't worth dreaming about by those who recolored it a nightmare. Hobbies and collected skills, the work of their own hands, have been shunted for social media trends and unfettered internet access. Phones are given to younger and younger kids, so they don't grow up in the tangible, real world but an algorithmic, digital one. Inevitably, the worst of that world affects them. They're told that they're hated, feared for the way they were born. They're told they're not even who they've been since birth, basic facts purposely turned into issues and doubts to shake the foundation of self. Those most adamant about the contrived need for teens to discover identity are the most diligent at axing their very roots. The response to the mental health crisis, the jadedness, the internal turmoil they've helped facilitate by destroying the enduring, reliable fabric of society is to encourage more of the same empty, hollowing behaviors. Atop all this is never-ending rage, rage, rage. At the base is the deliberate removal of religion. No matter an individual's choice of observance, religion undeniably provides what liberal society and decadence cannot; meaning. Eternal, enduring meaning. The knowing that you're more than a clump of cells passing through this timespan, because you are an integral link in a chain reaching back millennia. Your ancestors didn't endure hardships or fight to build civilization so you could be the end of the line, but so you could gratefully take your place in it. You and your actions matter. Not because you're a political vote or celebrated community, but because you were made in the image of G-d Who woke you today as there's something only you can do in His world. What effect would the proliferation of this messaging in literature have on the mental state of the youth? And for those pontificating about diversity and inclusion, who in truth only want different skin colors espousing the same beliefs, there is no greater unifier than religion. Belief in a higher power unites individuals of different backgrounds, colors, and, most valuably, opinions, in ways no mandate or ideology ever can. While lengthy, the above in no way encompasses all the changes, reasons, and effects pertaining to the devolution of teen fiction. And, as the focus is not on talent but content, it can be shifted as easily as it was before. You may disagree with everything I've written. You may accuse me of jealousy, hatred, bigotry, racism, misogyny, xenophobia, erasure, et al. I only encourage you to look for yourself. Peruse bookstore aisles; click through new releases; check who's getting awards. What do your eyes see?

The podcast returns with discussion on how their past two months have been, the best Caucasian couple, the best signature basketball shoe, the Diddy documentary, and much more!!!Check us out on all streaming platforms, turn on the notifications and get us RIGHT

Today's Case A 30-year-old nulliparous Caucasian woman comes in for her routine gynecology appointment. She tells you that she would like to discontinue her birth control as she and her partner are planning to become pregnant in the next year. The patient says that one of her family members has cystic fibrosis (CF). Today's Reader Dr. Kada Fehlman is an Internal Medicine Resident at Huntington Health Cedars-Sinai. About Dr. Raj Dr Raj is a quadruple board certified physician and associate professor at the University of Southern California. He was a co-host on the TNT series Chasing the Cure with Ann Curry, a regular on the TV Show The Doctors for the past 7 seasons and has a weekly medical segment on ABC news Los Angeles. More from Dr. Raj ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠The Dr. Raj Podcast⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Dr. Raj on Twitter⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Dr. Raj on Instagram⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ Want more board review content? ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠USMLE Step 1 Ad-Free Bundle⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Crush Step 1⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Step 2 Secrets⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Beyond the Pearls⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠The Dr. Raj Podcast⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Beyond the Pearls Premium⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠USMLE Step 3 Review⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠MedPrepTGo Step 1 Questions⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠MedPrepTGo Step 2 Questions⁠ Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Intro -Vince Welcome back to another episode of Let's Go Hunt, reminding you that we were left unsupervised and it's all your fault. Tonight! Dave Packard, who is tired of this summer weather at Christmas Mike Goncalves, who was not dreaming of a warm Christmas. Sam Alexander - who is back from bird watching And, Just here for the lulz, I'm Vince H   Around the Campfire Tonight: Texas birding and some reflection Sam's special note: leave us a review if you would like to see the downfall of corporate podcasts!   Warheads on Foreheads with Mike https://aimpoint.us/news-updates/a-hunters-gripping-story-of-surviving-a-bear-attack?srsltid=AfmBOopvS44P_weEAE9JyG9PfLR4hZuiGqG-qE7c2i8mWWGvXgt2aiU8 What can we learn from this? We can learn to be better people, probs   Eventual Ad Slot . Personal Gear Chat and Updates: Mike Hummer lights work on Prado Dave Sam's crane was pimp Instagram ban Shithead can fuck thyself Buck leaves tomorrow Couple weeks left for antelope Cimarron and Comanche National Grasslands fuckery? C:/Users/dapac/Downloads/CCNG_DraftAssessment_202500703_Final508_RevisedMaps_.pdf  https://www.fs.usda.gov/r02/psicc/planning/forest-plan/grasslands-plan-revision-library  Sam   Texas Sandhill Crane and Goose Hunt Reeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeecap   Vince Rifle season ends FRT Krampus Arrived Early   Trying to work on the coyote hide Got the tanning solution prepped and working the hide soon Worked on the hide, hope I got enough flesh off Set the fur, hope I got it set well enough Got out and shot my bow some which was fun Finally really got my crossbow dialed in…I think Flagstaff Greyboe Rifle Stock has got me MOIST News and World Events Initiative 82 https://leg.colorado.gov/content/wildlife-and-ecosystem-conservation-commission-0 Wyoming Corner Crossing going to the Supreme Court? https://montanafreepress.org/2025/05/22/landowner-looks-to-appeal-loss-in-corner-crossing-case-to-us-supreme-court/ Spotlighting With Dave: What are some other uses for thermals?   Subsonic 22LR: so  many ammo options, so what's the difference? What the Rut is going on here? or The Otter Creek Labs Polonium 30. What's it good for?   Please, if you listen to our show, leave a review!  Go to lghpodcast.com -> Click on Support the Show -> Leave us a Review! -> Follow the link to your favorite podcast brain beamer and leave us a review! Email contact@lghpodcast.com and get a sticker pack!   Outro - Dave Support the sport and take a buddy hunting! If you like that buddy, tell them about our show! If you don't like that buddy, slip a number 4 buck round in with his goose loads. Hit us up at lghpodcast.com.  Thanks for listening and Let's Go Hunt!    EMAIL: contact@lghpodcast.com Let's Go Hunt Archives - Firearms Radio Network

Welcome to DipShips, the "Legitimate" Boating Podcast! On this weeks episode, the crew talks about take 2'n it, eugenic big naturals, Good Job, Jamie, It's not Starscream, Eri's Math Lesson, RIP DougEpisodes, Caucasian or Undecided, Comt the SuperHorse, Carl and Marsh Go To A Regional, Nick's Bad Movie Beatdown, just -lette, The Killdozer, PEAK gaming, fictional character Steve Harvey, and drifting aircraft carriers. DipShips is a totally Legitimate Boating Podcast hosted by some friends who love to talk facts about boats after retelling the events of their weeks, sharing a few stories, and answering some questions. Check out Ben's Odyssey and Patchwork's other games with our Creator Bundle: https://itch.io/s/147040/calamity-carl-creator-support-bundle?c=calamitycarl Check out our stuff: ►Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/m/DipShipsPod ►Podbean and other podcast apps: https://dipships.podbean.com/ ►Merch: https://streamlabs.com/thecalamitycarl/merch ►Send Questions and Topics to Questions@DipShips.Boats ►Podcast Twitter: https://twitter.com/DipShipsPod ►BlueSky: https://bsky.app/profile/dipships.boats ►TikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@dipshipspod The DipShips Crew: ►Carl: https://bsky.app/profile/calamitycarl.com ►PM: https://bsky.app/profile/pappums.bsky.social ►Metty: https://bsky.app/profile/metty.bsky.social ►Nick: https://bsky.app/profile/xerinos.bsky.social Special Thanks: ►Edited by Mimi: https://bsky.app/profile/social.mimickrii.com ►Intro and additional music by Vidazen: https://bsky.app/profile/vidazen.bsky.social ►Logo by ShibuyaGato: https://bsky.app/profile/shibuyagato.bsky.social ►Art assets by Shorah: https://bsky.app/profile/shorah.bsky.social 

Secretary of War Pete Hegseth has announced that he will not release any additional videos of the boat strike, despite possessing the full footage of the incident. Additionally, a new film focusing on First Lady Melania Trump is set to be released soon. Mark takes your calls! Mark interviews author Ann Coulter. They discuss the challenges facing many colleges, particularly those stemming from students described as social justice warriors, which have led to safety concerns on campuses. Ann also comments on the potential for some Caucasian men to influence American politics, but notes that this would only be possible under specific conditions.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

They discuss the challenges facing many colleges, particularly those stemming from students described as social justice warriors, which have led to safety concerns on campuses. Ann also comments on the potential for some Caucasian men to influence American politics, but notes that this would only be possible under specific conditions. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

There are new developments in the case involving actor Rob Reiner and the circumstances surrounding his wife's death, particularly regarding the actions of their son, Nick Reiner. President Trump is scheduled to address the nation tonight at 9 pm to provide updates on the current state of the USA. Meanwhile, left-wing news networks remain fixated on White House Chief of Staff Susie Wiles, a situation that is reportedly agitating the Democratic Party. Mark interviews streaming host Bill O'Reilly. During their conversation, they discuss President Trump's recent comments about Rob Reiner following his death, which Bill suggests may have been a misstep. Trump's legacy could fail if he doesn't win the 2026 midterm elections. Bill believes that while the president does not need to fundamentally change, he should consider modifying his approach. Secretary of War Pete Hegseth has announced that he will not release any additional videos of the boat strike, despite possessing the full footage of the incident. Additionally, a new film focusing on First Lady Melania Trump is set to be released soon. Mark interviews author Ann Coulter. They discuss the challenges facing many colleges, particularly those stemming from students described as social justice warriors, which have led to safety concerns on campuses. Ann also comments on the potential for some Caucasian men to influence American politics, but notes that this would only be possible under specific conditions. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Secretary of War Pete Hegseth has announced that he will not release any additional videos of the boat strike, despite possessing the full footage of the incident. Additionally, a new film focusing on First Lady Melania Trump is set to be released soon. Mark takes your calls! Mark interviews author Ann Coulter. They discuss the challenges facing many colleges, particularly those stemming from students described as social justice warriors, which have led to safety concerns on campuses. Ann also comments on the potential for some Caucasian men to influence American politics, but notes that this would only be possible under specific conditions.

They discuss the challenges facing many colleges, particularly those stemming from students described as social justice warriors, which have led to safety concerns on campuses. Ann also comments on the potential for some Caucasian men to influence American politics, but notes that this would only be possible under specific conditions.

There are new developments in the case involving actor Rob Reiner and the circumstances surrounding his wife's death, particularly regarding the actions of their son, Nick Reiner. President Trump is scheduled to address the nation tonight at 9 pm to provide updates on the current state of the USA. Meanwhile, left-wing news networks remain fixated on White House Chief of Staff Susie Wiles, a situation that is reportedly agitating the Democratic Party. Mark interviews streaming host Bill O'Reilly. During their conversation, they discuss President Trump's recent comments about Rob Reiner following his death, which Bill suggests may have been a misstep. Trump's legacy could fail if he doesn't win the 2026 midterm elections. Bill believes that while the president does not need to fundamentally change, he should consider modifying his approach. Secretary of War Pete Hegseth has announced that he will not release any additional videos of the boat strike, despite possessing the full footage of the incident. Additionally, a new film focusing on First Lady Melania Trump is set to be released soon. Mark interviews author Ann Coulter. They discuss the challenges facing many colleges, particularly those stemming from students described as social justice warriors, which have led to safety concerns on campuses. Ann also comments on the potential for some Caucasian men to influence American politics, but notes that this would only be possible under specific conditions.

Episode 306 is the nineteenth  episode of our mini-series on the Tippit murder.  David Belin, the celebrated Warren Commission attorney called  it the "Rosetta Stone" of the JFK assassination. It may very well be just that...but for other reasons! In  this nineteenth  episode, we tell the story of Air Force Sergeant Robert Vinson. On the morning of November 22, 1963 Vinson boarded a flight at Andrews Air Force Base bound for Lowry Airforce Base in  Colorado.  He was hitching a ride to his duty station at Ent Air Force Base and the plane was empty with the exception of Sergeant Vinson, the pilot and the copilot. Shortly after take off, the crew announced president Kennedy's shooting in Dallas and the plane made an immediate detour south. It was not long before they were over Dallas, a city that Vinson recognized as he peered out the window. They would soon land on a sandy strip of land along the Trinity River in Dallas, and without shutting down the aircraft engines, would take on two passengers. From there they would fly to Roswell Air Force Base in New Mexico. The purported landing area would have put the plane close to  Oak Cliff.  One of the men who boarded in Dallas was Latino. The other was a taller Caucasian man. The pilots and the two men would hastily depart the aircraft upon landing at Roswell. A departure from the original flight plan, Vinson was forced to stay overnight at Roswell and catch a plane the next day to Colorado. But that night he would see pictures of Lee Harvey Oswald on television and feel certain that one of the passengers on the plane, the Caucasian, bore a striking resemblance  to Oswald. Vinson would keep this information private until after he retired from the Airforce.  Could it have been Oswald's double?  Yes…there is a grave possibility that the true "Rosetta Stone" of November 22nd, 1963, might just lie in the quiet Dallas suburb of Oak Cliff, waiting for us to finally put the pieces together. This is a wander I've created especially for you…and of all the wanders you have taken with me, this Tippit series  may be the most thrilling of all! And don't worry, as the fall winds turn cooler, we will all be vacationing once again, in Mexico…I think  you know what I mean by that. But our new wander takes precedent.  As we wind down the Tippit series, I hope that you will enjoy these last few episodes of what is one of the most riveting aspects of the JFK assassination story. 

We've all grown accustomed to Black Monday, but now White Sunday has come upon us - with a number of #collegefootball programs hiring (and giving big bucks) to their next head coach

Y'all, meet Jasmine Handy — Madison County's newest viral superstar and my official Insufferable Turd of the day. This grown woman (who also drives a school bus, by the way) rolled up to the Madison Walmart, parked dead in a handicapped spot with no placard or plate, and when a little elderly white lady politely called her out and started filming, Jasmine came back out swinging: cussing the old woman up one side and down the other, threatening her, screaming “that skin tone and police crap don't scare me,” the whole meltdown. Then, because the internet never sleeps, Jasmine went home and doubled-down on Facebook: “Yes, I always park in handicap. I'm aware of the fine and I'm prepared for it… I've noticed Caucasian people in Madison County feel they're so entitled… anybody know where I can get a handicap pass? I'll pay for it.” Let me translate that for everybody who still pretends not to see it: “I know the rules, I just don't think they apply to me, and if you call me on it I'll make your day hell.” This is the exact “cancel-proof, no-consequence” culture Andrew and I spent three hours tearing apart on the show this morning. We have created an entire class of people who can act any kind of way in public, break laws on camera, brag about it, and nothing ever happens, because the check still hits the account on the first and nobody in their circle will ever hold them accountable. I'm past “ghetto fatigue” at this point. I'm straight-up in “black fatigue” fatigue, because it ain't all of them, but Lord have mercy it is ALWAYS them in these videos. And I'm tired of biting my tongue about it. We need more sweet little white grandmas willing to film this nonsense and we need a hell of a lot more consequences for the Jasmine Handys of the world. Until that happens, the rest of us are just gonna keep watching our shared public spaces turn into the Wild West one entitled meltdown at a time.  

The House of Representatives recently passed a resolution to honor the late Charlie Kirk—no thanks to 118 Democrats who voted against the measure, including Reps. Ilhan Omar, Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, Jasmine Crockett, and more. Why did they snub Kirk, especially after the House unanimously passed a resolution commemorating the shooting of the Democrat speaker of the Minnesota State Legislature? Victor Davis Hanson breaks down how this refusal to honor a man who was just assassinated reflects a troubling shift in our politics where basic decency, civility, and bipartisanship are being replaced by ideological purity tests on today's episode of “Victor Davis Hanson: In His Own Words.” “ If you listen to what Ilhan Omar said about him, that he was a racist and he was a racist every day of his life. And AOC said she was not going to honor him. And Jasmine Crockett said Caucasians, only two Caucasians—that was not true, by the way, as everything she says is almost not true.  “What they're angry about was—what was Charlie Kirk? I said in an earlier video, he was very successful in channeling the natural rebelliousness of youth to focus against the establishment. He's saying to young people: The establishment are baby boomer leftists and these are the people who are responsible for a lot of our unhappiness. And that's why they're angry. And he was also angry at racialists, tribalists—like Jasmine Crockett, like AOC, like Ilhan Omar—who self-identify, essentially, by their skin color or appearance rather than incidentally.”

GET LIVESTREAM TICKETS FOR OUR SHOW ON OCT 4TH https://www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/livestream-lions-led-by-donkeys-podcast-live-in-glasgow-4th-october-2025-tickets-1532091008449?aff=ebdssbdestsearchgl=1s0822wupMQ..gaNDgyMTk4OTc3LjE3NTc4NjgzNzM.ga_TQVES5V6SHczE3NTc4NjgzNzMkbzEkZzAkdDE3NTc4NjgzNzMkajYwJGwwJGgw It's a special version of History of Armenia in which Georgian journalist Omar Tsotsoria joins the show to discuss the history of another Caucasian country, and the specific history of an early-Soviet-era anarchist breakaway state in the Georgian SSR. Get the whole episode on Patreon here: https://www.patreon.com/posts/139624712