Podcasts about disney corporation

It goes without saying that a fake holiday to celebrate a film franchise owned by the Disney Corporation is an atrocity of taste and nonsense of the highest degree. Why does life under the social mediaized form of capitalism subject you to all this simpery, this nonsense, this neverending wave of novelty? Truly we are in hell. But hey we had a Star Wars episode in the tank so screw it, Happy Star Wars Day, May the Fourth Be With You! We are joined by friend of the program Ryder Canepa to talk about Star Wars Episode III: Revenge of the Sith! This is a freewheeling episode about how this movie made me and Matt into Men, the emergence of Digital Cinema as we know it, and how a lot of this bad boy is sick with it, if you let it into your heart.  Guess what: our next epsidoe isn't about Zodiac no matter what I say! It's going to be about "The Fan," from 1996. Also watch "Eephus" from earlier this year. We will have a guest. It's a whole thing. 

Join Amy, Kathleen, Scott, and Phil, as they debate the best use for the recently abandoned Galactic Starcruiser Hotel. The Disney Corporation has repurposed it into office space, but we think we can do better. Follow our pages at: YouTube - https://www.youtube.com/@DVCClubhouse Facebook - https://www.facebook.com/groups/dvcclubhouse/ Instagram - https://www.instagram.com/dvcclubhouse?utm_source=ig_web_button_share_sheet&igsh=ZDNlZDc0MzIxNw== TikTok - https://www.tiktok.com/discover/dvc-clubhouse?is_from_webapp=1&sender_device=pc

What do successful presidential candidates, businesspeople, and military generals all have in common? The answer is that none of them go into a campaign without a strategy, without understanding their ultimate goals and the internal and external factors that influence their chances of success. In this week's episode, McKay discusses how having a fully developed and articulated strategy is key in finding success in all areas of your life, and offers sage advice on how to design your own strategy. First up is a discussion of political strategy and how Biden and Trump utilized it in their 2020 presidential campaigns. McKay points out that while Biden's strategy worked better, the point is that, just as no presidential candidate would ever enter a campaign without a strategy, we can't win at life without one either. Instead, using a series of examples including IKEA, the Disney Corporation, and Frank Sinatra, he demonstrates how having a fully developed, properly articulated strategy is key to achieving success. He also introduces SWOT analysis as a tool for examining your personal strengths and weaknesses to reveal your strategic focus. Finally, McKay encourages everybody to approach 2022 in a strategic manner, which will bring new energy and new success as we head into a new year.The Finer Details of This Episode: - The core of every political campaign.- Winning at life.- Comparing goals and tactics with strategies.- The stories of IKEA, Frank Sinatra, Walt Disney, and Tata Motors.- The steps in creating a life strategy.- The SWOT (Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities, and Threats) analysis. Quotes: “Our perspective directs our actions, and my hope is that after listening to this podcast, you have a new perspective of yourself, the possibilities in your life, and how you can find your way forward.” “I've spoken to groups about having a strategy for life dozens of times, and each time I asked the question, ‘Do you have a written strategy for life?' I usually get about 10% of the audience who raises their hand.” “A strategy is a dynamic collection of interwoven tactics that enable you to reach and sustain advantage in life.” “You too can create huge advantages in your life if you're living based on a strategy, versus just letting life come to you however it comes to you.” “In business, people buy you long before they buy your product. So what strategy have you put in place to make you more attractive? A strategy to improve you would make all the difference.” “When you look at the external conditions in your life, you may have to make some modifications to your strategy. Perhaps your chosen career isn't working, your daily schedule doesn't allow you to do what matters, or you don't like the group of friends you've inherited, and so forth. It will require some changes. And that's the value of an external analysis.” “One of the interesting things about COVID-19 has been watching how the changing external conditions in our life have caused so many people to adopt new strategies for life. People have reevaluated where they live, they've changed careers or started their own business. In short, external factors matter.” “Once you've considered a few of these factors and completed your analysis, next, you need to start trying on a few strategies. Just like clothes shopping at the department store, you try something on and see how it looks and feels and evaluate it before buying into it.” Show Links: Open Your Eyes with McKay Christensen

Howdy folks of the interwebs! Your host Double J is back with another edition of OpGCD Live! show. Today, Double J is joined by his dood Dan Dean - host of "Irish I Was Laughing" podcast, standup comedian, (future) Guinness Book of World Record holder, & retired veteran of the U.S. Marines/Army. In today's shenanigan infused journey...we discuss the ins, outs, and what have yous of the Disney Corporation & their apparent pending demise...whether by Hurricane Milton or by Disney Corp's own actions! Your host, Double J shares his thoughts on the depth of depravity surround'n the Disney Corporation, specifically Disney World in the good ol sunshine state of Florida! Also discussed are Double J's analysis of Disneyworld basically being "international waters", that is until the recent repeal of Florida law giving Disney Corporation full authoritarian control over that specific plots of central Florida swampland. One of the least scary results of this horrific "experiment" in American socio-political structure!...is the fact that no one ever died at Disney...well until that unfortunate incident back in 2016 where the florida pond monster ate that young boy! That young boy was the 1st person to legally die on a Disney property! Anyhow, folks of the interwebs...thanks for join'n me to get a lil GCD! Enjoy the conversation on the "Death of Disney??"! Links for Dan Dean - / grumpydan3 / @irishiwaslaughing Links for JJ - https://linktr.ee/operationgcd

Celebration, Florida was conceived by the Disney Corporation as a magical utopian community, something straight out of a fairy tale—meticulously planned, picturesque neighborhoods replete with ice cream parlors, bike paths, and state-of-the-art facilities. But the promise of living in a theme park soon became nauseating thanks to a greedy real estate developer, crumbling houses, rampant divorces and allegedly… swingers? In the end, a confusing combo of micromanagement and neglect left residents feeling disappointed and certainly disenchanted.Josh Clark and Chuck Byrant from Stuff You Should Know join Misha to put a damper on Celebration, Florida.Follow The Big Flop on the Wondery app or wherever you get your podcasts. You can listen to The Big Flop early and ad-free on Wondery+. Join Wondery+ in the Wondery app or on Apple Podcasts.See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Despite not being paid by the Disney Corporation, we couldn't help but promote the new little movie they've got coming out called Deadpool and Wolverine. This week we're talking about the Merc with a Mouth, Ryan Reynolds himself, Deadpool.For weekly episodes of Books: The Podcast and much, much more check out the TCGTE Patreon!Like the show? Rate The Complete Guide to Everything 5-Stars on Apple Podcasts and let us know what topic they should check out next.Follow Tim on Twitter: @yourpaltim and Instagram: @yourpaltimFollow Tom on Twitter: @tomreynolds and Instagram: @tomreynoldsAdvertise on The Complete Guide to Everything via Gumball.fmSee Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

In this week's episode, I look back at the movies I saw in Spring 2024 and rate them from least to most favorite. To celebrate the arrival of CLOAK OF TITANS, this coupon code will get you 25% off any of the CLOAK MAGE ebooks at my Payhip store: MAYTITANS The code is valid through June 3rd, 2024. So if you're looking for a new book to start the summer, we've got you covered! PODCAST 00:00:00 Introduction and Writing Updates Hello, everyone. Welcome to Episode 201 of The Pulp Writer Show. My name is Jonathan Moeller. Today is May 17th, 2024, and today we are looking at the movies and streaming shows I watched in Spring 2024. Before we get to anything else, let's do Coupon of the Week. To celebrate the arrival of Cloak of Titans, naturally, this coupon code will give you 25% off any of the Cloak Mage ebooks at my Payhip store. That coupon code is MAYTITANS spelled MAYTITANS and of course, as always, the coupon code will be in the show notes for this episode. This code is valid through June 3rd, 2024, so if you're looking for a new book to start the summer, we've got you covered. Now for an update on current writing and publishing projects. I am pleased to report that Cloak of Titans is done and it is now out. It should at all the ebook stores and get it at Amazon, Barnes and Noble, Kobo, Google Play, Apple Books, Smashwords, and my Payhip store. It looks like it's off to a good start, so thank you everyone for that. In audio news, Ghost in the Veils is out, as excellently narrated by Hollis McCarthy. As of right now, it should be available at Audible, Amazon, Apple, Kobo, and my Payhip store. It should be showing up on Google Play, Spotify, and Chirp shortly. Now that Cloak of Titans is done, my next big main project will be Shield of Darkness, the second book in the Shield War series, picking up from Shields of Storms earlier in the year. I spent the last couple days writing the outline for that, and if all goes well, I should start on it on Monday the 20th or Tuesday the 21st. It depends on what the weather is, since there are some things I'd like to do outside if the weather is good, but anyway, that will be my new main project. Hopefully that will be out before the end of June. My secondary project right now is Half-Orc Paladin, the third book in the Rivah series, and I am currently about 14,000 words into that. That should come out fairly quickly after Shield of Darkness is done, so probably mid to late July for that book. 00:02:10 Question of the Week Now it's time for Question of the Week, which is designed to inspire interesting discussion of enjoyable topics. This week's question is inspired by the various comments whenever I post the picture related to grilling: specifically, what is your favorite thing to grill? And we had a variety of responses this week. Our first response is from Justin, who says: my favorite thing to grill is a well marinated sirloin. Garlic, pineapple juice, soy sauce, and herbs in a Ziploc bag for two to four hours, then on a hot grill for a couple minutes per side. Yum! Alas, nowadays it's mostly chicken legs and pork loin sliced up for chops. Even the cheapest hamburger meat is getting to be too expensive to buy on a regular basis. Sadly, this is definitely true, and I've seen that myself. Our next response is from ABM, who says: is it even camping in the Midwest if you're not grilling a pudgie pie over a fire? For those unfamiliar with this regional delicacy, either sandwich or pie fillings are put between bread in the special sandwich shaped iron before it goes over the fire. It really puts the grilled in grilled cheese sandwich. Jenny says: steak, but only because I have a charcoal grill now. I used to use gas. I think it is better because I find it to be slower and tastier. Bonnie says brats and burgers were my favorite when Hubby was around to grill. Gary says: a pork loin is one of my favorite things to grill. I prefer smoking stuff over grilling. Grilling and barbecue are definitely two different things. There is nothing better than a dry rub pork shoulder smoked for about 10 hours and then shredded. Mark says: we love good old-fashioned burgers and lately have been adding teriyaki grilled chicken thighs to the cooking plan. John says: Chinese style plum sauce ribs. Family recipe. Country style ribs, which is just pork butt cut onto thick strips, marinated 3 days. Catriona says: Lamb chops and sausages. A different Mark says: ribs are my favorite, followed by barbecued chicken. Jesse says: spicy Italian sausages for the most part. Michael says: I find the grilling post interesting because over here in the UK, we tend to call it barbecuing and the term itself is a barbecue. Grilling is what you do under grill in your oven indoors. But regardless, I would say hamburgers! Joseph says: Porterhouse and lobster tails on charcoal grill. Second would be shrimp, scallops, and fish fillets of any kind on charcoal. Breakfast on the griddle, pork and chicken on the smoker all year round. Jonathan says: steak and nothing but steak. A third Mark says: prisoners. I hope he meant that tongue in cheek. For myself, I think it's a good old-fashioned burger. I find half the battle in terms of flavor is to spend ninety seconds melting cheese onto the burger in the final phase of grilling. Toasting the bun separately also helps a great deal. It is remarkable how proper cooking can improve the flavor of many foods. Like, I had eggs for lunch. Eggs by themselves are kind of bland, but if you add some ham and cheese and some pepper to the eggs, it really tastes quite a bit better. I suppose the realization that food tastes better when you prepare it properly is the foundation of five and a half thousand years of cooking and civilization. 00:05:15 Main Topic: Spring Movie Roundup And it's now titled for my Spring Movie Roundup for 2024, our main topic of the week. As usual, everything is sorted from least liked to most liked, and just a reminder that my opinions are in no objective or qualified and are based solely on my own taste and whether or not I like something. The least favorite thing I saw this spring would be Hot Tub Time Machine, which came out in 2010. This is one of the very rare movies I didn't finish. It was just too stupid. Like sometimes if I don't like movie, I'll start playing Starfield or Skyrim or something with the movie still playing in the background, but Hot Tub Time Machine was too stupid even to merit that treatment. I don't object to crude humor on its face. Indeed, much of the absurdity of the human condition comes from the various indignities to which human bodies are inherently subjected. There is something both hilarious and egalitarian in the fact that an emperor and a peasant have to relieve themselves in the same way, and many jokes have made use of that truth. You can get away with a lot of crudity if you're actually funny. But the Hot Tub Time Machine movie, just threw crudeness on the screen in lieu of attempting actual humor. Besides, crude humor ultimately is to storytelling as garlic salt is to cooking: best used sparingly. Anyway, the protagonists were all unlikable. I simply got annoyed enough with movie that I gave up around 40 or 50 minutes into it. Overall grade: F Next up is Wish, which came out in 2023. I did not see that in the theater. I saw it when I turned up on Disney Plus a few months ago. I liked the animation and the voice acting was good, but the movie just did not make a lot of sense. Like there's this wizard-king and people give him their wishes, but then they forget what they wish for, and he does this to prevent civil unrest, or so he says. The protagonist gets mad that the wizard-king isn't handing out free stuff in the way that she likes, so she wishes really hard and then a magic star falls from the sky to help her. This upsets the wizard king, so he switches from using good magic, which is apparently blue and sparkly to evil magic, which is green and sparkly. I guess that that color makes all the difference. Then everyone in the Kingdom sings at the wizard-king until he turns into a mirror. I have to admit that made even less sense as I spoke it aloud. There are movies that don't make a lot of sense but work because it's like a dream or a magic trick since the movie suspends the viewer's disbelief during the tale, and it's only afterward that you realize it didn't make much sense, but that by then it doesn't matter because you're entertained. Unfortunately, Wish doesn't even make sense while you're watching it, and a benevolent wizard king who hoards wishes sounds a lot like the Disney Corporation. It would be hilarious if Disney made Wish as a parody of themselves, but I think their interpretation happened by accident. Overall grade: C-, maybe D+ if I'm in a really bad mood. Next up is Green Lantern, which came out in 2011. This turned up free on Tubi, so I gave it a watch. It was interesting because all the pieces were there to make it a great movie, strong cast with good performances, reasonable CG computer graphics for 2011, and a potentially compelling plot. However, it didn't really gel. I suspect Ryan Reynolds works better as a comic actor than a dramatic one. Additionally, the movie relied way too heavily on a lot of ponderous infodumping to explain the elaborate mythology of the Green Lantern Corps. The classic axiom of fiction writing is to show don't tell, and since movies are a visual medium, it's especially true in movies. The problem was that Green Lantern spent a lot of its runtime telling instead of showing, but I suspect the studio didn't want to take a lot of risks with a movie that cost $200 million to make in 2011 money (before a lot of inflation). Additionally, the movie leaned a little too heavily into its CG. So overall, I would give it a grade of C-. Next up is Avatar: The way of Water, which came out in 2022. The Avatar films are visually beautiful, but they're also profoundly misanthropic, which is sort of a “it would be better if humans were all dead” strain of environmentalism running through it. It's also unfortunate how the movies portraying “living in harmony with nature” as morally upright, because in real life, living with nature means dying before the age of 30 of sepsis, dysentery, various contagious diseases, endemic local warfare, and starvation, often all at the same time. Basically, the history of civilization is five and a half thousand years of humanity trying to find ways to get screwed less by nature. Of course, then we're getting into profound philosophical questions. Do you believe that humanity is made in the image of God with a soul, or is humanity particularly simply a particularly clever breed of destructive chimpanzee? Obviously one's worldview will diverge profoundly based on how you answer that question, which, let's be honest, is a rather deep philosophical/religious discussion for a movie about blue space elves made by the director of Terminator. On the other hand, maybe I'm just overthinking it and in the world of Avatar, the Na'vi are blue space elves and the humans are just space orcs. Anyway, incoherent philosophical questions aside, the movie is visually stunning, the apex of computer graphics. It's what you get with a $400 million budget overseen by a perfectionist director who directed three of the four top-grossing movies of all time. The plot is a straight continuation of the previous movie. The humans have returned to reconquer Pandora, including a clone of the charismatic Colonel Quaritch from the first movie. It's up to Jake Sully and his family to unite the squabbling Na'vi forest and water clans to fight off the invaders. Unlike the first movie, Way of Water is not a self-contained story, but helps tee up the third movie, which is definitely happening since this one made like two and half billion dollars. I also admire James Cameron's unswerving devotion to the Papyrus font, even after two Saturday Night Live sketches about it. Overall grade: B Next up is The Cutting Edge, which came out in 1992. I watched this because I was told it is considered a classic in some corners. Since it was also free on Tubi, I decided to give it a watch. It's basically the ideal form of the very popular enemies to lovers romance story trope. Olympic hockey player Doug suffers a head injury that damages his peripheral vision, which means he can't play hockey anymore. Meanwhile, Kate is a spoiled and demanding figure skater who alienates every single potential partner, thereby ruining her chances of winning Olympic gold. Kate's coach Anton seeking out a partner willing to put up with Kate's difficult personality, tracks down the desperate Doug and convinces him to give figure skating a try instead of hockey. As you might expect, sparks and conflicts immediately fly when Doug and Kate meet, and they must learn to overcome their initial mutual dislike (and their obvious mutual attraction) to win the Olympics. Enemies to lovers romance tends to follow a very specific story structure, and this movie nails it perfectly. The actors all did a good job with their parts. Fun fact, Anton was played by Roy Dotrice, who narrated the A Song of Ice and Fire audiobooks. Even more fun fact, the movie was written by Tony Gilroy, who also wrote several of the Jason Bourne movies and created Star Wars: Andor, which are about as totally different from The Cutting Edge as you can get. This man has some range. Overall grade: B. Next up is Ghostbusters: Afterlife, which originally came out in 2021. After the 2016 Ghostbusters reboot didn't work for a variety of reasons, it seemed that Sony they settled on a different tactic, instead decided to continue the original continuity of with the new movies, which in my opinion was a smarter choice. Single mom Callie is having a rough time with her teenage children, Trevor and Phoebe. Callie is out of options when her estranged father dies and leaves her a farm on the outskirts of Summerville, Oklahoma. With no better options at the moment, Callie and the kids pack up and move to Summerville and the bored Trevor and Phoebe began poking into their relics of their grandfather's life. However, it turns out that their grandfather was Egon Spengler, one of the original Ghostbusters, and he had moved to Summerville to keep an eye on a dangerous supernatural threat. With Egon dead, the threat is waking up once more, and it's up to Phoebe and Trevor to finish their grandfather's work and save the world. This was a very well-constructed comedy/horror action thriller. Admittedly, it starts a bit slow in the same style as the original Ghostbusters movie from 1984, but overall, it works. There's a gradual sense that something is increasingly wrong in Summerville. Unlike Green Lantern, this movie doesn't do a lot of infodumping, but instead uses the much better storytelling technique of gradually revealing the worldbuilding as the kids start to investigate the mysteries around their family and their new town. Phoebe and Trevor had the right combination of teenage brattiness and curiosity and Callie was believable as a single mom who had made some questionable life choices and was trying to hang on as best she could. Paul Rudd was also good as an incompetent summer school teacher/seismologist who has nonetheless figured out that something strange is happening in Summerville. The movie leaned a little too hard into to nostalgia, but I liked it. Overall, grade: B+. Next up is The Sign of Four, which came out originally in 1987. I finally had a chance to watch the Jeremy Brett version of the Sherlock Holmes adventure The Sign of Four. Brett was, in my opinion, the best Sherlock Holmes actor of all the actors who have played versions of the character. Amusingly, I think Mr. Brett would have made a good Grand Admiral Thrawn, which is funny because one of the inspirations for Thrawn was of course, Sherlock Holmes. But unfortunately, Brett died two or three years before Heir to the Empire was even written. Anyway, back to the main point. In The Sign of Four, Miss Mary Morstan calls upon Holmes and Watson asking for Holmes's help in unraveling a strange mystery. Her father disappeared soon after returning to England from India, and once a year since then, she has received an extremely valuable pearl in the mail. Her mysterious benefactor wishes to meet her at last and Morstan wants Holmes' advice as to what she should do. Naturally, there's quite a bit more going on beneath the surface, and Holmes soon finds himself investigating a case involving a pair of eccentric brothers, a one-legged man, a deadly assassin, and treasure that seems cursed to bring misfortune to whoever obtains it. All of the performances were excellent, though given the state of 1980s sound technology, I definitely recommend watching the movie with the captions on. The only thing that I didn't like was that the adaptation removed the fact that Morstan and Watson get engaged at the end but given that the actors wanted to deemphasize Sherlock's cocaine use (the original story has the famous line “for me there still remains the cocaine bottle”), that's probably why it was cut. Overall grade: A-. And now for the favorite things I saw in spring 2023 and for the first time, it came out to a three-way tie. The first of my three favorite things was Fall Guy, which came out this year, in 2024. I didn't intend to go see this initially, but then I saw the hilarious Saturday Night Live opening Emily Blunt and Ryan Gosling did about Barbie and Oppenheimer, and I decided to give it a shot. This is a romantic comedy action thriller and it nails all those genres excellently. The protagonist is a highly regarded film stuntman named Colt, in love with an assistant director named Jody, but Colt is seriously injured in an accident. In the aftermath of the accident, Colt abandons his career and breaks up with Jody. Eighteen months later, the producer of a big budget science fiction epic contacts Colt. It turns out that his ex, Jody, is directing the movie and her career is riding on its success. So he goes to do the stunts for the movie to help her out. However, things soon take a turn for the worse when the movie's egotistical lead actor disappears, and if Cole can't find him within 48 hours, the studio will shut down the movie and destroy Jody's career. What follows is a romantic comedy that remains funny and turns into a pretty good thriller movie. The running joke about seeing the unicorn was great and there's a bit with Colt crying in his truck that becomes absolutely hilarious. Definitely recommended. It's really regrettable that this movie apparently didn't do well in theaters, but I predict it will have a long and healthy life on streaming. Overall grade: A. The second of my three favorite things is Clarkson's Farm: Season Three, which also came out in 2024. This show has stumbled into a genius formula: display the extreme difficulties of the modern farmer through the lens of an unsympathetic comedy protagonist in the person of Jeremy Clarkson. Like, Jeremy Clarkson is not a terribly sympathetic figure because he's very rich and unquestionably prone to quarrelling because he got fired from one of his old jobs for punching a dude. But by having him run his own farm and deal with all the many, many headaches and heartaches of farming, he becomes a sympathetic figure because he suffers through the same things as every other farmer: failed crops, bad weather, badger-spread diseases, animals dying, government red tape, and so on. And it also demonstrates how hard farming is. If Clarkson's farm loses a lot of money, it doesn't really matter to him because he can rely on his media career. But that isn't true for most farmers, obviously, and Clarkson himself and the show go out of their way to point out that fact again and again. Anyway, if you're not familiar with the concept of the show, in 2019 Clarkson decided to run his farm himself rather than hiring a professional manager and since he was under contract to produce a show for Amazon, he figured he could make a documentary and get paid for working on his farm. In the first season, Clarkson was shocked when a year's work on his farm brought in a profit of about $150. In the second season, he battled local government to open a restaurant on his farm. In the third season, the team continues. Clarkson attempts to raise pigs and find new ways of making revenue from the farm. The show manages to be both entertaining and educational about the difficulties of farming at the same time. Definitely worth the watch. Overall grade: A. And now for the third of my three favorites: Dune Part 2, which came out in 2024. As a writer of novels, I really, really hate to admit it, but I think Dune Part 2 improved somewhat on the original book. This is rare in film adaptations, but it does happen. Goldfinger the movie is better than Goldfinger the book in my opinion, since Auric Goldfinger's plan makes much more sense in the movie than it does in the book and the movie also has James Bond's climatic showdown with the deadly Oddjob. The Godfather movie is pretty close to the Godfather novel, but it's tighter because it does omit some needless subplots that honestly I thought the author threw into the book to pad out the length. So as a writer, it really does pay me to admit this, but I think some of the changes to Dune Part 2 are an improvement over the book. It's a bit tighter, a little less deus ex machina. The novel Dune, beyond all doubt, is a very weird book. It's also very dense, with multiple interlocking themes. You can honestly say that Dune is about ecology, religion, politics, declining empires, the cyclical nature of history, oil-based politics, social dynamics, and of course, truly enormous quantities of mind altering drugs. Any movie adaptation would probably have to take just one of those themes and lean hard into them since there won't be enough time to address all of them. The director, Denis Villeneuve, chose to go with the mostly political themes. Anyway, I think Dune Parts One and Two combined are probably the best possible adaptation that could be made of the seminal (but still very weird) science fiction book. Various parts from the novel have been omitted, altered, or emphasized, but that's necessary in adaptation. The trick is to do it in a way that preserves the spirit of the original work, and I think Dune Parts One and Two have done it well. Part of the problem with the 1984 version of Dune was that the ending totally subverted the message of the book, which Frank Herbert himself said several times was “beware of charismatic leaders.”  Dune Part 2 most definitely does not subvert the message of the book. Indeed, Paula Atreides's final line in the movie is downright chilling. Part 2 picks up in the second half of the story when Paul joins the Fremen and embarks on his gradual transformation (or perhaps descent) from the son of a destroyed noble house to the blood drenched warrior prophet Muad'Dib. All the performances are good, the effects are excellent, the desert shots are sweeping, and you could tell Hans Zimmer and his team enjoyed cutting loose with the soundtrack. Overall, I think Dune Parts One and Two are probably the best possible adaptation of the Dune book in movie form, which is probably was the other problem with the Dune 1984, since there was just one movie and Dune Parts One and Two required over five hours of very expensive big budget movie to tell even a condensed adaptation of the complicated original book. Overall grade: A. So that's it for this week. On my writing podcasts this week, we talked about grilling and movies, so next week we will try to have a more writing themed topic. Thanks for listening to The Pulp Writer Show. I hope you found the show useful. A reminder that you can listen to all the back episodes at https://thepulpwritershow.com, often with transcripts. If you enjoyed the podcast, please leave your review on your podcasting platform of choice. Stay safe and stay healthy and see you all next week.

Chuck Marohn, the President and Founder of Strong Towns, joins me to talk about his newest book, “Escaping The Housing Trap: The Strong Towns Response to the Housing Crisis.” Along the way, we also discuss the upcoming Strong Towns National Gathering in Cincinnati, a different way cities can think about building and financing new sports facilities, and our different takes on the place-making of Disney World.If you have an interest in attending the National Gathering in May, I highly recommend it. Register at this link, and use this code for Discounts: KEVINK2024For some background on Walt Disney's history in Kansas City, check out Thank You Walt Disney.Find more content on The Messy City on Kevin's Substack page.Music notes: all songs by low standards, ca. 2010. Videos here. If you'd like a CD for low standards, message me and you can have one for only $5.Intro: “Why Be Friends”Outro: “Fairweather Friend”Episode Transcript:Kevin K (00:00.964)Welcome back to the Messy City podcast. This is Kevin Klinkenberg. I'm delighted today to have my friend Chuck Morrone on the show. Mr. Strong Towns, Chuck, it is so good to see you and I'm really excited to talk with you today.Charles Marohn (00:16.848)Hey, I'm really happy to be here. And here's the amazing thing. I listen to your podcast. You have a great voice for this. I mean, I have this horrible voice that people have grown used to. But when you turn on, you're like, hey, this is the messy city podcast. I'm like, yeah, man, you should be doing way more of this.Kevin K (00:37.38)Well, at least you didn't say that I have a great face for radio. So.Charles Marohn (00:40.72)Well, you and I both.Kevin K (00:44.484)Oh man, well, it's fun. You know, I'm still very much an amateur at the podcasting gig. And it's been fun to learn and experiment with it. You've been doing it for quite a while. And so I really appreciate the opportunity to talk with you on this show. And we've got a couple of, a couple of fun topics, but in a couple of things that I think will get more serious and interesting as we go. And we'll just get through whatever we can get through. But.Charles Marohn (01:11.568)That sounds great. Well, you've been having all my friends on, you know, so like, yeah, here's Howard. I'm like, wait a sec. That was a blast. And then you had, you had Seth Zeran on recently. I'm like, that's really cool. So yeah, it's been fun. You know, I, I know you and I know, uh, you know, some, some of the ways that you think about things. And I really am. I love chatting with you, um, hearing you have these.Kevin K (01:15.172)I try to do that.Kevin K (01:19.076)Yeah.Yeah.Charles Marohn (01:38.704)fun conversations that we sometimes get to have in person. Hearing you have them with other people is just, it's a delight for me. So yeah.Kevin K (01:46.02)Well, that's very great, very flattering to hear. You know, it's one of the fun things you've probably experienced this too. One of the fun things about having a podcast is you get to choose who you want to talk to. And there's a lot of people that we know and we've all known for a long time that I get to learn so much more about. And for me, that's been one of the most enjoyable aspects of this is just getting to really know people's backstories a lot more. And so that's been a great pleasure.Charles Marohn (02:04.496)Sure.Kevin K (02:16.036)So.Charles Marohn (02:16.4)Yeah, yeah. Well, you you know everything about me, so we don't need to talk about.Kevin K (02:20.1)We know a lot about we know a lot about Chuck. Chuck, fortunately, shares his backstory a lot, although I'm sure there's tons we could get into. I'd rather save the time for some other topics, but you. You do have an awful lot going on right now in this moment, and I want to talk about a couple of those things. One is you have a book, a new book, the strong escaping the housing trap, the strong towns response. This is your.Charles Marohn (02:32.24)Yeah, it's the least interesting part.Kevin K (02:49.636)third book, right? Yeah, okay. Tell me a little bit about why an engineer wanted to write a book about housing.Charles Marohn (02:51.12)Yeah, yeah. Number three. Yep.Charles Marohn (03:01.52)Well, the reality of the story is that I, in the early days of writing the Strong Town's blog, was thinking about a book the entire time. I mean, I started writing this three days a week blog back in 2008, and to me, it was building up to a book. I had a couple publishing companies and agents contact me.And when I gave them my book proposal, it was just blah, blah, blah. It was, it was like 2000 word book. Like it didn't make sense. It was only when I got hooked up with Wiley publishing where we stepped back and we said, okay, this is actually multiple books, put this together in like the compilation of what you think it should be. And I said, well, I, I think I should write the book on finance first. I think I should write the book on transportation. Second, third would be housing. And then there's a couple others that are coming.And so we kind of agreed to a five book series that would kind of encapsulate the strong towns conversation. Housing happened to be the third. And the crazy thing about it is I didn't plan to release it in the middle of a housing crisis where everybody's talking about housing and housing's like on the lips of, you know, every political debate and every public policy conversation. It just so fortuitously happened that we're dropping our ideas in the middle of this kind of housing.you know, policy feeding frenzy right now. But.Kevin K (04:27.556)Yeah, I mean, that's an interesting aspect of that. I know obviously there's a long timeline to write a book anyway, to write it, get it published, edited, and all that sort of stuff. So I'm curious, like, what has changed in your mind from the point when you first started thinking about writing this book to actually getting it out today?Charles Marohn (04:48.624)It's, so Daniel Hergis and I co -wrote this, and I know you had him on a couple weeks ago. It was a really good conversation. The two of us, I think, encapsulate in our thinking the trap that we were trying to illuminate. Because I, we both went through the same graduate school program, and we both maybe took different things away from it. He was really focused on housing and kind of the,the mechanics of zoning and how the government has intervened in the housing market and all the kind of things that I would just put under an urbanist label. And for me, I was really fascinated with the financial side of the whole thing. That was the thing to me that when I was in grad school, I didn't think the housing people made any sense, quite frankly. You have to take some of that. And I was like, this is really dumb. I don't get it. AndI think I didn't get it because as an engineer, I was more plugged into the finance side. I spent a number of years just reading every book on finance that I could. I actually watched for like two years straight, I had CNBC on in my office. Not because I think CNBC is like a good channel or like has revealing things, but because the lingo that they use, the finance lingo that they use, I didn't understand.So when they said like MBS, like what is an MBS? It's a mortgage backed security. When they were talking about interest rate spreads and swaps, like I'm like, what the heck is that? Once I learned that language, to me the fascinating thing about housing was how it really is at its core downstream of the financial conversation that's going on in this country. So Daniel and I really tried to merge those two together, first in a set of insights that the two of us could agree on.and then in a narrative of the book that we could publish and share with the world.Kevin K (06:45.348)So, without giving away too much of the book, obviously we want people to go buy the book. And I think you can pre -order it right now, is that right?Charles Marohn (06:48.656)Yeah, yeah.Charles Marohn (06:55.248)Well, it's not like it's a murder mystery, you know, like I'll tell people the core insights, but you know, there's a lot of depth there beyond that. So.Kevin K (06:57.892)Yeah, yeah, yeah. Right. But maybe how about just tease out a couple of the key insights that you think are critical to share related to what the housing trap actually is.Charles Marohn (07:12.912)Well, the housing trap is the situation we've gotten ourselves in where housing as a financial product needs to go up in value. So the price of your house needs to go up for the economy to churn. But housing as shelter, when the price goes up, everything falls apart. Lots of people can't get into a house. If they get into a house, they're very financially strained. Once they're in a house, it's tough to move, take another job.So these two things compete against each other and they're both necessities. I mean, shelter is in Maslow's hierarchy of needs and we've literally structured our entire economy to where mortgage -backed securities, your house bundled with a bunch of other houses, sit as the bank reserves for every bank in the country. Housing prices can't go down. They have to go up financially. Housing prices can't go up. They must actually come down.for us to be able to function as a society. And that is the trap because both of those things are true at the same time.Kevin K (08:17.412)Yeah, yeah, yeah. I think probably the word of the decade has been financialized. And it seems like we've used that to discuss a lot of the foundation of the economic system we have today. And it certainly affects housing in all forms of real estate.Charles Marohn (08:23.76)Mm -hmm.Charles Marohn (08:35.184)Well, Daniel and I reached this understanding quite a while ago, I mean, way before we started working on the book, that if you if you look at the market for housing today, it represents the market of financial products. So when you see developers out building single family homes on the edge of Kansas City, what you're seeing is the manifestation of a financial instrument. The mortgage bundled with other mortgages.securitized, sold off as a mortgage -backed security. There's a lot of liquidity. There's a lot of money and capital put into that product because it's a really good financial product. When you see the five over ones being built, the one story of concrete with five stories of wood construction, whether it is an apartment building or a condo, whether it's a high -end condo or a mid -level condo, whatever it is, those also are financial products.Those are really easy to bundle with other similar structures from all over the country. Again, securitized, sold off, bought up by pension funds, put on the books of banks, all this stuff. What you don't see is you don't see the single family home converted to duplex. You don't see the single family home where we take the fourth bedroom that nobody's using and put it, make it an accessory apartment. You don't see the backyard cottage. You don't see the small 400, 600 square foot starter home.because there's no financial product for those things. But those are the products that if they were available in the local market would actually anchor the market at a lower price point and keep the rest of it from going crazy. And so the conclusion that we've come to is that we just need a policy to build not more single family homes and not more five over ones and more apartment buildings. We really need policies to build lots of this starter stuff.And the cool thing about it is that cities can do that on their own. They don't need federal grants and approvals. They don't need state support and funding. They actually have the capacity to really shift their local housing market, make it more locally responsive, and they can do it all on their own. They just have to do it with intention.Kevin K (10:50.436)Yeah, I think one of the things that you've talked about and written a lot about too is the notion of how after the financial crisis, 2008, 2010 or so, that the housing recovery in many ways has been kind of re -inflating a bubble. And I'm fascinated by this because obviously I'm not an economist, although I play one on TV. And it certainly seems like...Charles Marohn (11:07.248)Hahaha.Kevin K (11:17.604)the signs of stress that we've seen in the banking system even the last, let's say, year, year and a half, is putting a ton of pressure on the local community banks and continuing to centralize the banking system into larger and larger banks, including the four banks that are essentially protected by the federal government. So in essence, it kind of seems like we haven't really...At a federal level, we're almost doubling down on this approach that has given us these large products that we don't really like.Charles Marohn (11:53.84)There's no doubt that our strategy when housing starts to level off or go down, as in like 2007, 2008, when housing went down in price, our strategy is to pump more money into the top of the financial funnel in order to keep housing going in the other direction, in order to keep housing from falling. And so, yeah, you have this weird thing where every economist looks back at 2001 to 2008,And when you say housing, what they'll fill in the blank with bubble. They'll say, yes, it was a housing bubble. And you say, OK, well, in 2008, it started to go down a little bit. And then 2010, it hits bottom and it starts to go back up. And it's way, way higher than it is today than it was in 2008. That was a bubble. What is this? And they say, well, that's a housing recovery. Right. Like we recovered to a bubble and then beyond. This is.You know, I think we don't know all of the things that we will know after the next reset. Warren Buffett has the same. You don't know who's swimming naked till the tide goes out and the financial tide has not gone out yet. So we really don't know where the bodies are buried. But if you listen to financial news, you'll hear a lot of fretting over regional banks, commercial real estate.A lot of people when they hear commercial real estate think Walmart or strip mall or franchise restaurant or what have you. Those are certainly part of commercial real estate, but also part of commercial real estate is apartment buildings. You know, multifamily, multifamily buildings is a big part of commercial real estate. And those are financed with at least partially with short term financial products at local banks that have to be rolled over. And there is a huge incentive to extend and pretend.to pretend that they'll someday be rented out at high margins, at high prices. And that works when interest rates are low or very stable. But when interest rates rise, those financial products actually decrease in value, those bonds do. And so banks are less willing to, or less able to really pretend that...Charles Marohn (14:10.544)You know, the in the hundred unit apartment, the 50 units or 40 units that aren't rented will someday be rented at this really high rate. The bank can only pretend so much until, you know, the grim reaper of finance comes for them. And it kind of feels like for regional commercial banks, like that's going to be the shakeout that will make a lot of cascading things in the apartment market. Be very, very different six months, 12 months from now.Kevin K (14:39.684)Yeah, if I were to maybe tie together a couple of different things, one, you had a recent, one of your recent podcasts where you talked about, uh, this is an election year and you kind of went through, uh, this, which was great. I really enjoyed it. Uh, and, uh, I have long enjoyed the way that you have talk about politics and the sort of reframing of the top down versus bottom up, you know, instead of like left, right all the time. I think that's incredibly helpful to think about.Charles Marohn (14:49.808)Haha.Kevin K (15:09.764)But you mentioned, you kind of talked a little bit about the old Tip O 'Neill phrase and the all politics is local, you know, and how that shifted to all politics is national today. And I can't help but think about that in relation to like this real estate discussion and financing where real estate used to be hyper local and it feels more and more like all real estate is national in that respect in terms of how we plan, design and finance whatever is being built.Charles Marohn (15:40.4)I think that's a brilliant insight. To me, the question is, what is the price of the house sensitive to? And a lot of us think that it should be sensitive to the buyer's ability to pay, right? You have a product in the marketplace, there's someone coming to buy it. If that person can't afford it, the market will have to adjust and figure out, is it smaller units, is it smaller rooms, is it less appointment? What is it that will make thatunit affordable to the person buying it. But our market is completely insensitive to the ability of people to pay. What it is more sensitive to is the macroeconomic funding stream. If we can lower interest rates, if we can print money at the Fed and buy mortgage -backed securities, if we can create massive amounts of liquidity, if we can funnel this liquidity to hedge funds and others that will invest in single -family homes as rental products or in a commercial -backedreal estate, what we can do is we can really drive up the price. And so I think from a consumer standpoint, you have to ask, like, what is the product here? We think that the product is us buying a house where the consumer, the house is the product. But the reality is, is that that transaction is incidental to creating what the real product is, which is a mortgage or a commercial real estate certificate, something that can be bundled, can be securitized and sold off.That is what the market is sensitive to, not to your inability to pay. We are, in all sense, not the consumer, we are the product.Kevin K (17:18.436)Yeah, yeah, yeah, I think that's right. And well, I suppose this topic, since the book is fresh or will be freshly out, will be a big center of discussion at the Strong Town's national gathering coming up in a couple of weeks.Charles Marohn (17:34.736)Yeah, no doubt. I mean, I know that I'm scheduled to do a little bit of housing discussion there. You know, the National Gathering is really we don't call it a conference. We don't call it we call it a gathering because it really is Strongtown's advocates from all over. I would say all over the country, but it's all over North America. And we've got people coming from around the world for this thing. It really is a chance for people to see and learn.what other people are doing bottom up to build strong towns. And housing is certainly part of that and will be part of the discussion. But a big, big emphasis of the gathering is just to, there's a phrase that I used last year that I'll probably talk about this year again, is just like, you're not alone. Being an advocate in a city can feel, you can feel very alone. Like you're the man or the woman against the machine. And the reality is, is that when people join together in a neighborhood,when they start to gather more people together with them, there's so much that can be done from the bottom up. It's really empowering to get these local heroes in a room, let them see each other, let them talk to each other, let them hear each other's stories. I feel like that's the most powerful part of the gathering, really.Kevin K (18:50.371)Yeah, yeah. Well, I certainly enjoyed it last year and then the first one you had a few years ago in Tulsa. And this one's coming up in Cincinnati, May 14th and 15th. It precedes the Congress for the New Urbanism and both are well, well worth attending. So I hope folks who are listening can get out. And if you get a chance to attend, that's great. If you can't look at it for next year, it's really a cool way to meet.Charles Marohn (19:03.055)Yep.Kevin K (19:19.556)people who are interested in the same things. I was really fascinated, Chuck, last year in Charlotte at the, I talked about this with a number of our CNU friends, the difference in the dynamic between the Strong Towns crowd and the CNU crowd. Seeing that like back to back was really fascinating. And it's completely and utterly anecdotal and just judging by what I saw. But I felt like there was a lot.Charles Marohn (19:30.64)Yeah.Kevin K (19:47.268)of energy in the Strong Towns room and Strong Town side of things. And generally speaking, a younger crowd and less, you know, like the senior crowd long has been focused on the design and building professions, architecture, engineering, planning, and the Strong Town, which is great. You know, it's fine. We need, we have to do that, but the Strong Towns crowd was really different. It was much more diverse in terms of the backgrounds of the people that were there.Charles Marohn (20:16.24)So you and I are, I'm gonna say I'm a little older than you, right? I'm 50 this year.Kevin K (20:20.836)No, I'm 54, my friend.Charles Marohn (20:24.112)Okay, okay, well, all right. I assumed I was a little older than you. You just look younger, that's what it is. You and I have been hanging out together at the CNU for many years. And I remember when I first started going, this was the place of super high energy, right? Like I would go, I would meet all these thinkers and all these people doing stuff. And we would like,Kevin K (20:30.436)It's just, I just kept my hair color longer, that's all.Charles Marohn (20:50.48)debate things in the hallway. And there was all these like side things going on. Remember in Salt Lake City, when we did the first debates, it was just this like crazy wild party of, and I say party, I don't drink. There was no like, this was a party of like intellect. Like it was just like electric in the air. I have, I have, I have been searching for that the last few years. I've been like, where's that? Like I want, I want to be in the room with that energy. And I showed up at,are gathering last year with high expectations, but really, you know, knowing, having been on the road and met with people, knowing that our movement had a lot of this bottom up energy, a lot of, you know, just very different people from people who are doing retail and like, I sell flowers and I, you know, have a bakery to people who are, I'm out building homes, I'm doing this stuff, I'm on a planning commission, I'm a mayor of a city.There really is a, when you say diverse, it's a crazy group of bottom up people all who self identify as like, I love my place. I want it to be better. I walked into that room at the opening last year and I'm like, this energy is out of this world. It's amazing. I'll give you a little like under the hood. I'mI wanted last year, like, let's get some music. There should be a party. Like we're having a party here. Like everyone's coming together. Let's get some music. And when I got there and like I had a thing where my daughter was graduating, like that was the week of her graduation from high school. And I could, I flew in at the last minute and I had to fly out right away. So it was just like the timing didn't work well for me, but I got there and like, we didn't have the music because like logistically it wasn't going to work and the sound system wasn't going to work and all that.And I kind of was like a little disappointed. I'm like, Oh, I don't, I don't, I kind of want the vibe to be up here. I walked in the room and the vibe was up here. And I'm like, if we would add music, like they would have blown the roof off this place. It would have been a little too crazy because people were amped. They were excited. Um, I have been re I've been assured that this year there will be music. So we'll see what, we'll see what happens in Cincinnati. If we can, uh, yeah, get, uh, get things even more, uh, more excitement, let's say.Kevin K (22:53.284)Yeah.Kevin K (23:02.564)Oh good.Kevin K (23:11.364)Yeah, well, I look forward to that. I mean, I think like you, I have, you know, it used to be like the CNU, we would come back from a CNU and the adrenaline rush was so crazy that for like a month afterwards, all you could do was think about the stuff that you heard and talked about and you're like, we've got to do X, Y, and Z now. And, you know, I honestly haven't felt that rush in quite a while with CNU. Part of that might just be that I'm getting older and...It's harder for me to feel that and things change. But there's definitely, I love the excitement of the debate and the discussions and seeing a lot of younger people there I think is really cool. So kudos to you guys and hope it continues.Charles Marohn (23:57.488)Thank you. Thank you. It definitely will. We're committed to it. And, you know, I mean, this thing is going off here in a couple of weeks and we're almost full. So, I mean, we've sold hundreds of tickets, people flying in from all over. It will be, it will be, it will be really cool.Kevin K (24:08.164)Yeah, good.Kevin K (24:17.092)All right, well, let's shift and talk about something a little more lighthearted, perhaps. But I want to talk, first, let's talk about baseball, something that both of us share an interest in, both American League Central Division fans of different teams. And obviously, there's a rivalry. But honestly, there isn't really much of a rivalry because both teams are never good at the same time.Charles Marohn (24:24.464)All right.Charles Marohn (24:43.152)Who do you like legitimately consider your top rival?Kevin K (24:47.076)Well, I think for years, the weird thing is it was like the Cardinals, right? But they're not even, but they're National League. Right, so when interleague play started, I think that became a really, really big deal and those games were enormous in both cities. It's tapered off a lot and it's probably, you know, the Cardinals have been such a great organization for so long, they probably kind of laugh about it amongst themselves.Charles Marohn (24:51.312)Okay, right, they're not even in your division, right?Charles Marohn (25:03.248)Yeah, yeah.Charles Marohn (25:12.976)Sure.Kevin K (25:14.468)Uh, so, uh, any more, I don't know, you know, when I was growing up, um, it was the Yankees, it was the Royals and the Yankees. Um, because in the seventies, the Royals had those great teams that won the division every year, 76, 77, 78, and then went to the playoffs and just like lost to the Yankees every year. And, uh, finally turned around in 1980 and won it and world went to the world series. But.Charles Marohn (25:21.104)Okay. Yep.Kevin K (25:41.732)So for years there actually was a pretty fierce rivalry between the Royals and the Yankees, but that was again not in the same division. So it was a little odd.Charles Marohn (25:50.8)We share this in common because the twins, I think we, I mean, we did have the record of all sports for most consecutive playoff losses. And losing consecutively in baseball games is hard to do because you, even, you know, even coming in with mismatched teams, you've got a like 40 % chance of winning statistically any game. So the idea, I think we lost 17 or 18 in a row post -season and almost all of those were to the Yankees. And so we had a deep,Kevin K (26:04.228)Yeah.Charles Marohn (26:20.912)I mean, I told my daughter growing up, you know, she's two years old. And I said, in this family, we don't hate anybody, but we do hate the Yankees. So that's, that's an acceptable, but for me in the division, it's the white Sox. Like I, I'm not a fan of Cleveland. I, I don't really care about Detroit all that much. I gotta say Kansas city does not, like I don't get, you know, foaming at the mouth when we're playing Kansas city, but.Kevin K (26:29.38)Ah yes.Charles Marohn (26:49.712)When we play Chicago, the White Sox, I like go ahead and hit every ever the batter like I don't care. Like I'm I don't like those guys.Kevin K (26:56.868)Yeah. Yeah. And the White Sox, they just have every misfortune. I mean, come on. I think ever since they tore down Old Kamisky, it's been like a curse on that team. So speaking of, go ahead.Charles Marohn (27:06.192)Yeah. Yeah. Well, I took, let me, let me tell this story real quick. Cause this will solidify Chicago for me. I took Chloe, my oldest, she came, I was speaking in Chicago once and she, she's probably like five or six young kid. We rode the train, the Amtrak to Chicago and we were just there for a couple of days. I spoke at this conference. The White Sox were playing a game.And so we went to the game because she likes baseball, you know, dad and daughter go in the game. We showed up. She wanted to wear her twins jersey because, you know, the twins weren't playing. It was the White Sox versus some other team. I don't even remember. We walked in to sit down. Little girl with a cute little pink twins jersey on. People started booing her and yelling at her like literally like she started crying. She felt bad. I'm like, these people don't deserve this kid. This is the White Sox. I hate you guys.Kevin K (27:52.164)Oh my god.Charles Marohn (28:01.296)I'm sorry I came to your dumb stadium with my beautiful daughter. Get lost. So.Kevin K (28:06.02)Well, it is their punishment for tearing down a nice stadium, building a horrific one, having a lousy owner. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, it was probably the worst new baseball stadium built in that entire era. So speaking of new stadiums, one of the things I just want to chat with you about and get your perspective on is we are having a big debate here locally regarding baseball stadiums because the Royals ownership.Charles Marohn (28:11.984)Yeah, it was a bad stadium. Yeah. Yeah.Kevin K (28:34.884)which is a new ownership group. They bought the team, I guess, three years ago, local people led by John Sherman. They want to build a new park. They want to leave Kauffman Stadium and build a new park in the downtown area. And which in theory, you know, I'm, I and many other people are like, great, let's do it. Sounds awesome. But, you know, obviously we're having this kind of age old debate about,how to finance and build a stadium. And in a smaller market like Kansas City, that comes with fairly large public subsidy one way or another. And the projects themselves just balloon in size incredibly. So we're talking instead of a baseball stadium that might be, I don't know, let's say $600 million, now it's a stadium in a district that's two billion.And the public is expected to underwrite a significant share of that. So there's, you know, we have this, we, there's been this knowledge within our world for years that a lot of us, the economics of this are just kind of silly, but how the, how the hell do cities escape this discussion and this trap? Because I'm completely mystified as how we ever get out of the situation where we are subsidizing major league franchises.Charles Marohn (30:04.784)I have some weird thoughts on this. And yeah, I don't think that, I think that people who are gonna hear this and I'm probably just gonna make like everybody angry. Because I do have like very strange thoughts on this. So let's go out to the edge of Kansas City where the DOT and the city are actively building interchanges because they wanna get more development.Kevin K (30:06.692)please share.Charles Marohn (30:32.816)What I find frustrating about that, when you go build an interchange and you've got on ramps and off ramps on the highway, you're in a sense robbing the highway capacity, right? Because an interchange creates friction and slows down traffic and all that. In order to get the development on the side of the highway, the frontage roads, the interchange, all the big box stores and all the stuff that will go there, and then the housing subdivision that will go adjacent to that.The act of building that interchange makes multimillionaires out of a bunch of randos out in the middle of nowhere. It might be the guy who like inherited it from someone who inherited it or someone from inherited it like. And that's probably the most palatable. What generally happens is someone by bought it from him a decade ago and like a land speculator just sat on it and then worked with the D .O .T. to get it developed. But either way, it's a massive cash transfer from the public.to private property owners. And I have always said, if we're gonna do that, we should do one of two things as a public. We should go out and buy up all that land around where the interchange is gonna be. I'm thinking like a mile in each direction. You know, we should buy that ahead of time at pre -interchange rates. We should build the interchange and then the interchange makes the land more valuable.We should then sell the land back to the market at that higher rate and use that amount to pay for the interchange. That or a more conventional way to do it would be to do a special assessment, which cities do all the time when they're out building sewer and water, they special assess the whole thing.I'm cognizant of the fact that like the Colosseum in ancient Rome was not built in order to get ancient Rome. Like ancient Rome was what it was. And then wealthy patrons came in and said, I want everybody to think I'm awesome. So I'm going to build this Colosseum and, you know, deck it all out and do all that. I feel like our stadiums are, in a sense, the same thing. And if I were a city.Charles Marohn (32:41.36)working with some very rich people to try to build what is in a sense a monument to them and their play thing, this major league baseball team. I would want to use the tools of either imminent domain and development, or I would want to use the tools of special assessment to recoup my part of the investment. Because if I'm gonna build a baseball stadium,I want it to be Wrigley field in terms of the intensity of the development around it and what that actually means to the land values in its vicinity. If I'm going to build, I can't remember what the Atlanta one is called. I hate that state, the new Cobb field or something like that. It's a junk park. Like it might be a nice place, but I like, don't like anything about its development. Even, um, you know,Kevin K (33:21.028)the new one.It's truest. Is it truest park? Yeah.Charles Marohn (33:36.112)Target Field, which is like one of my, I think Target Field is my favorite park and I'm biased obviously, Minnesota Target Field. But I think it's a great park. I think the way they financed it is really backward. And the development around it has trailed the park by 10 to 15 years because we didn't have the right kind of financial.I'm going to use the word incentives, but I don't mean giveaways. I mean, incentives by like now you've got a $10 million special assessment in this land. You better build something that's a hundred million dollars on it or, you know, you're going to pay a high tax rate year after year after year. You got to make use of this property. We didn't have everybody's incentives aligned when we made the big public investment. And so we didn't get the private investment out of it that we should have got. That's.I could buy into stadiums if we actually had that mindset because then the public is not only going to recoup their investment ultimately, but you're going to get a really nice product at the end.Kevin K (34:44.804)Yeah, I think that's a really interesting way to think about it. And unfortunately, I don't think we don't really have public officials who think about it that way. Yeah. Well, yeah, we don't have the stomach for it. And it's a good point.Charles Marohn (34:53.36)the stomach for it? I mean, Chuck says, imminent domain, everything within a mile. I mean, that's crazy. But if you were responsible with your finances, you would do a special assessment.Kevin K (35:08.932)Yeah, yeah, yeah. I mean, I think there's a lot of logic to that. And maybe you don't even recover all of the public investment, but you could recover a substantial portion of it. Who knows?Charles Marohn (35:20.72)What I think you can, I think you recover some of it upfront, right? Like you can, you can have your upfront and then you'll have the after effect of basically having the incentives aligned where people will then develop and then you will collect the rest of it in terms of long -term taxes. I mean, I, I've watched Kansas city Joe, our friend, Joe Mancosi did some, some analysis of tax increment financing deals that Kansas city's done that would make your stomach churn. I mean, just giving away.tens of millions of dollars to the most ludicrous kind of things that will never cashflow. I've watched Kansas City build monstrosity things out on the edge of town and call it growth and call it public investment when the city's guaranteed to lose money on every single one of these things. You don't even need more than a napkin analysis to figure that out. It makes me sad. I would, if, if Kansas City were to become more sophisticated about the public purse, I think they could build a stadium.responsibly, but they can't do it without, you know, in a sense, demanding that everyone who's going to get rich on it contributes proportionately to what is being built.Kevin K (36:28.74)Yeah, yeah, I like that. I mean, it seems to me almost like it's sort of a third way thought, you know, thought pattern about it because as I tried to talk to people locally about it here, unfortunately with the reality of sports and sports economics today, like a city the size of Kansas City, you're just not going to build a new facility without public investment in it. It's just not going to happen or you're going to lose the teams. And that sucks, but that's where we are.Charles Marohn (36:55.408)Did New York, didn't New York have public subsidy on their ZO2? I mean, I'm.Kevin K (37:00.612)I think they might have. I know in San Francisco when the Giants built their new stadium, they built it all themselves. And I can't remember some of the new football stadiums they have. Yeah. Yeah.Charles Marohn (37:10.704)I know the 49ers, the 49ers got a huge subsidy on theirs. So, I mean, you're like, I'm with you because you and I are both told that we're mid -market teams, you know, and you've suffered the trauma. No, I was going to say you've suffered the trauma of having a football team lead, but that was St. Louis that had the football team lead. That wasn't Kansas City. You guys have the glorious football team.Kevin K (37:30.308)That was St. Louis, yeah. Uh -huh. Nope.We do. We had a baseball team leave, but that was before I was born. So the Kansas City A's. Yeah. Yeah. Well, we lost an NBA team and an NHL team in my life.Charles Marohn (37:40.048)Okay, so that that trauma is is gone.Charles Marohn (37:47.984)Really? What was your NBA team? I don't remember that.Kevin K (37:50.276)It was the Kansas City Kings. They went to Sacramento. Yeah, in the 80s. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah, at one point we were the smallest city in the country that had all four major sports leagues.Charles Marohn (37:53.104)Sacramento, no kidding. I did not know that. Huh. Huh. Um.Charles Marohn (38:05.52)We've been told that that Minnesota can't support four because we're too small for that. And there's always the, you know, I feel like it's one of those things where each team can kind of threaten to leave because they're the we're the fourth one that can't be supported without a public stadium. Yeah, it here's here's so you have a you have a background in architecture. Here's what I struggle with with stadiums. I feel like.And I'll say this even about my beloved target field. We don't build stadiums that will be around to be excavated in the future. Like the Roman Coliseum, we can look at and we can see this grandeur and like it's been there thousands of years. We don't build anything that isn't in a sense, it might have a nice fancy facade and it might be nice. And we've used some decorative brick to make it look good.But the reality is, is like, like we just built a plastic band box with some good veneer on it that looks cool. And I like the dimensions, but these aren't like massive public investments meant to endure beyond really a generation. Right? I mean, am I, am I misunderstanding something about how we build these things?Kevin K (39:25.38)Well, I think there was an era where they were built differently. I think that's probably more commonly the case now. I mean, even Kauffman Stadium is a pretty incredible structure in and of itself. There were a lot of impressive structures, though, built in that era in the 60s now that basically are all gone. They're all torn down and replaced. It seems more like they're thought of more like a consumer product.Charles Marohn (39:48.4)Yeah. Yeah.Kevin K (39:55.076)now that is like you build these stadiums and they're wildly expensive and they're huge, but essentially they're built to last maybe two generations. And then we're looking to either completely overhaul it or replace them.Charles Marohn (39:55.888)Yeah!Charles Marohn (40:11.952)Well, I realized that the Metro Dome, which the Metro Dome was a special case product where we built the dumbest stadium at the end of the dumb stadium era. And like, I think the year after we built the Metro Dome or two years later, Camden Yards was built and everyone had buyer's remorse right away. But, you know, you're talking about a stadium that at the 18 year mark.They said needs to come down and we're going to contract this team and actually have fewer baseball teams because of this bad stadium. We got target field in 08 or 09 somewhere in there. I think somewhere in that range. So, you know, the the the Metrodome era lasted 24, 25 years. And I remember that like the roof caved in on it and like you blew it like no one was sad really to see it go because it was really like a plastic box.It seemed to me like it's a consumer good, like it's just designed. And I wonder if, because Wrigley Field, you know, say you could tear that down and rebuild it in place, right? I don't know what it would take to do that. I mean, people would flip out if you did that. They're going to maintain it till it can't be maintained anymore. But.there's really no question of where the Chicago Cubs will play. And I don't think that's because it's iconic as much as it is embedded in this ecosystem around it. You know, so to I'm sorry, Kevin, to me, the key to having a good public stadium investment would be that you have to actually grow the ecosystem around it. So there's some codependency. So that thing actually like could never leave again.Kevin K (41:45.7)Yeah, yeah.Kevin K (42:03.428)Yeah, as our as our friend, Philip Bess would say, he wrote a great, great little book called City Baseball Magic, which actually was a study of what the White Sox should have done when they replaced Comiskey Park. But he talked about it's just the best ballparks are neighborhood ballparks. It would then emphasis on the neighborhood park. So check out one fun little bit of baseball park trivia for you.Charles Marohn (42:24.784)Yeah.Kevin K (42:30.436)One of the very first projects I worked on as a young architect right out of college was at the Metrodome. You remember at one point they put in these big vertical screens to block off parts of the seats. Yeah, to block off part of the seats to make it look more full for different events. I did that. It was a ridiculous project.Charles Marohn (42:30.8)Uh oh.Charles Marohn (42:44.336)The baggy? Yeah, the baggy.Uh huh. Uh huh.man, I hated you then. Because it was so weird because what it was, the Metrodome was built like a football stadium and then they overlaid this baseball stadium within it. And I had season tickets for a while. My brother and I, when I was in grad school, I got them. We went up, the twins had been historically bad for many years and they were selling season tickets at an event. And my brother and I said, well, let's...Let's go look at them. If we can get front row seats, we'll do it. Well, we got front row seats down by the tunnel where they come out for the football game. So it was like by the bullpen. It wasn't it wasn't by the dugout or anything. It was like maybe like what would be in the corner today. But front row is front row. I mean, they were really cool. Like we were right there. You could yell at the right fielder and talk to the guys in the bullpen. It was it was awesome. The problem was you were facing the 50 yard line.which was like center field. So if you wanted to watch the game, you had to like crane your head over the left to actually see the game going on. Those when those banners went up, I think the what you tell me, I feel like the thing was to try to make it feel less empty because you took out like 20 ,000 seats by by putting up this big curtain to say, hey, it's not as empty and it's a little more intimate. Yeah, it didn't work.Kevin K (44:12.164)Yep. Mm -hmm.Kevin K (44:22.148)It was a funny deal. Just the sort of project you give a young architect to work on.Charles Marohn (44:22.288)Hahaha!Charles Marohn (44:28.88)So did you, you came up to the metronome and like, you know, what was your level of involvement with?Kevin K (44:33.988)The funny thing on that, I was just the kid in the office doing the drawing work, so I didn't actually go get to do a site visit for any part of it. But when I was a little kid growing up in Albert Lee, I mean, we went to the Metrodome a lot. I have a lot of great memories of going to games at the Metrodome.Charles Marohn (44:38.352)Sure, sure.Charles Marohn (44:49.648)Now hang on a sec, you're not Minnesotan, are you?Kevin K (44:52.836)No, not really. We lived in Albert Lee.Charles Marohn (44:55.536)Okay.I mean, I like you, I like you, and you have some positive characteristics about you. I didn't want to automatically attribute them to being Minnesotan, but now things are falling into place.Kevin K (45:05.54)No, we lived in Albert Lee for eight years. And yeah, yeah, totally. Yeah. And it was when I was a, you know, elementary school kid and junior high. So, you know, those are great years and great, great memories. My parents, I think my parents really were happy to get out. They thought it was way too cold and, you know, they weren't, they weren't too fond of that. But well, I was a kid. I was a kid. I didn't, you know,Charles Marohn (45:09.68)OK, OK, so you got a little of the vibe.Charles Marohn (45:21.456)Yeah, yeah.Charles Marohn (45:31.376)You didn't think it was too cold though, did you? Cause you're, yeah, bring it on.Kevin K (45:36.548)So, last thing I just wanna kind of touch on a little bit, cause it's a fun topic is you've been, you've shared a lot in many podcasts about your love for Disney World and your enjoyment of Disney World. And I just wanna touch on this a little bit. And I've probably like, you know, thinking way too deeply about all this stuff, but we took our kids there, I guess it was about a year and a half ago. I have actually no experience with Disneyland in California, just Disney World in Florida.Charles Marohn (45:47.824)Yeah.Charles Marohn (46:04.752)Mmm.Kevin K (46:05.7)And of course we had a fantastic time. It was absolutely magical for the kids for the age they were. And everything about it was really, really nice. And I just want to talk a little bit about it because it's fascinating to think about because if you could think about like the un -strong towns, it would be like Walt Disney World. It's...you know, if you think about the most incredible, or at least this was the thought I had at the time. If you thought about something that was like the most top -down, large enterprise you could conceive of, it's Disney World. And yet we both really, really enjoy it and find a lot to admire. And I wonder if you could maybe expand on that a little bit or talk about it.Charles Marohn (46:40.912)Absolutely.Charles Marohn (46:51.984)Well, let's start with this. I think the thing that I have always loved from the time that I was, I think 13 was the first time that my family went up until today, is that it is some of the best designed urban spaces in America. If you want to experience, you know, you and I hang out with a crowd.where there's actually a debate over, do you like your urbanism gritty or do you like it fake? And there's a whole strain of people who like, if I can't smell urine in the street, it's not a real city. And I'm from a small town. I actually like things nice. So the idea of going to Disney World and riding transit and having it be beautiful and comfortable and fun, the idea of not having a car and going to places and walking around and...Yeah, there's a lot of other people there, but it's so well designed and proportioned. And the hyper attention on the human experience, not just standing, how you stand in line and wait, but how you actually get the transition from one place to another, to another. You know, like the sight lines that you have and the smells, like all of this, the music, as someone who is an auditory person,The idea that you would walk between different places and the music would not clash with each other as you would go from one place to another, but actually blend. I try to explain this to my wife decades ago and I didn't do a very good job. I said, it's comforting to me because it's so well designed. I used to take my, when I ran my own planning and engineering firm, I used to take my team down to just show them.Here's what good urban design looks like. And like, let me look at the way these buildings are proportioned and laid out. Look at where they've done with the lighting. Look at this. It wasn't like we were going to come back to Brainerd, Minnesota and build Disney World. But my gosh, you look at the lights we put in the park, they're just like ugly street lights because, oh, we need light here. The attention to detail is so deep and thorough. And the stories are just legend of like, you know.Charles Marohn (49:10.416)They would they would put a tree in a spot and what would come and he'd look at him and be like, oh, geez, I should be three feet over this way. And be like, why should it be three feet? Well, look at like here's where it blocks this view and that like this and that. And then he'd walk away and they go, we had to move the tree three feet because now I'll never be able to walk by this and see it that way again. Our cities. Could spend way less money and be vastly more beautiful if we had just.a tiny bit of the understanding of urban design that like the base Imagineer has. And I think that is the thing that, you know, it is Disney World is not meant to endure. It is. I mean, they call it a stage. You're on stage when you're there at the park. It is, you know, like a stage in a theatrical production. It's false fronts. It's like not.Not like super high quality construction. It's meant to be ripped down and rebuilt after a certain amount of time. But your city is made to endure. I mean, you want your city to be around 100 years from now, 200 years from now. None of us build thinking that, well, this neighborhood is going to be disposable. If if we grasped 10 percent of what the Disney Corporation grasp about building great places, it would be a revolution in this country of.of urban design.Kevin K (50:38.66)Yeah, I think one of the things that struck me or maybe it just occurred to me differently this time as well is since I'm in professionally now, I'm running this place management organization here in Kansas City. And so I have gotten a whole lot more exposure in day -to -day work with just management of public space and how difficult that is and just the challenges.Charles Marohn (50:51.888)Yeah.Kevin K (51:07.652)I started to look at it a little bit through that lens. And I think when I started to do that, I'm just completely and utterly impressed with the management of everything that Disney does from beginning to end, from the entire experience, from when you arrive through the process of going through security. Oh my God. The thousands and thousands of people that go through security per hour. And it's just this utterly seamless experience that you're just like, why can't the airport be like this? You know?Charles Marohn (51:37.072)Yeah. Yeah.Kevin K (51:37.092)And, you know, all the aspects of it really makes you say, this is what I think a lot of us are really hoping. This is how we wish our places were managed on a daily basis, including the cleanliness of it. And I know it's a fake world. It's a theme park. But I think that's part of it seems to me like that's part of the attraction.Charles Marohn (52:00.464)Yeah, and I actually think we can discount it and say it's a fake world, like I totally get it. But I also feel like what they've recognized that we all could easily recognize is that a huge part of creating value is the experience. We were having a chat here internally today about an article that one of our writers is working on about transit.and just how a lot of the wayfaring is being taken out in New York and in other places because it was old and it just didn't get replaced. And you can go to a place like Vancouver where they've got new parts of the system and those parts have great wayfaring and great signage. The reason is because the way we finance transit focuses on massive one -time investments.but it doesn't really look at long term the user experience and how do we improve that? How do we put money towards that? And how do we make that fun? We would rather have double the size of the transit system and have it be really crappy for everybody than to have half the transit system and have it be marvelous for everyone who uses it. And that is really a byproduct of like our macro economy, right? Grow, grow, grow, build, build, build more, more, more. Disney builds a lot, butThey never build anything without having a strategy for how it will be exquisitely maintained, for how it will really be conformed and contorted to match the experience. They're always willing to check their assumptions, check their understandings based on how people use stuff. And I think that we could learn a lot from that.The four step process that we use at Strong Towns, the idea that you humbly observe where people struggle and you ask yourself what's the next smallest investment and then you do that and you repeat the process. Part of that comes from really Walt Disney himself. This may be a apocryphal insight, but there's a story about Walt that feels like it's genuine.Charles Marohn (54:21.232)He had an apartment at Disneyland and he would go down in the morning and walk around in his bathrobe watching people get the park ready. And one day he's out walking around and they're putting up a fence. And he's like, why are you why are you putting up a fence there? And he's well, people keep cutting across the grass. We want them to stay on the sidewalk. And his answer was, well, you've got it wrong. Rip out the sidewalk and put it here where people are walking. They're showing you where to go.anyone who's been at one big box store and trying to drive to the next big box store and recognizes that they have to drive half a mile up the highway and then do a weird U -turn and come back and use a right in right out and do all this. Anybody who's tried to cross a street and recognize that they have to walk half a mile to a street light to cross and then come back appreciates the idea that Walt has, which is observe where people are struggling, observe where this is hard and just make it easier for them.To me, this is a genius insight, but it shouldn't be a hard one for us to do.Kevin K (55:27.46)Yeah. Yeah. And I think the other thing is the other observation that I think ties into all that is what you see with Disney World, or at least what I saw with it, is we're in this weird time and place in our culture where there's just not a lot of feeling that we're doing a lot of things really well. And even at the big corporate level,very large corporations, it seems like there's more bad news than good when it comes to all that. And here you have this massive corporation. The Disney Corporation is absolutely massive and owns so many things. And they own this enormous complex of Walt Disney World. And I think when you go there, it's like it kind of, I can understand how my parents would have thought about that era, that America.does big things really well because Disney World epitomizes somebody, an organization doing big things really, really well down to the smallest detail like you describe.Charles Marohn (56:38.096)Well, Walt Disney embodies, for better and for worse, I mean, I think there's obviously two sides to this, the immediate post -war mentality. I mean, Disneyland itself is a hubristic undertaking to transform an orange grove out in the middle of nowhere into this dreamland where you can take your kids, you can take your grandparents, everybody can go and have this wonderful time.His vision came about because he was sitting at like an old carnival, watching his kids go on rides that were dirty and not well taken care of and grounds that weren't very fun. And he's like, as an adult, you're kind of ostracized from participating. Let's build this dream world. I think it is in many ways the best of that era because he did have aa dream and a vision that was very, I'm not gonna use, I want to use the word inclusive, but I think that is probably wrong in our current context. But he would have said, a place for everybody to come. He was also criticized for it being too expensive like it is today. So there's limits to what is very expensive. But I think it's also the worst.Kevin K (57:55.3)It is expensive. Yeah.Charles Marohn (58:00.912)of what we did, because it is this idea that you can create perfection. All like it is possible to build to a finished state and have it be done right. And when it comes to magical make believe places, I think that that's probably right, because they don't have a mindset that it will always be there. They are always redoing and refixing things and all that. But we when we take that mentality and we bring it into our neighborhoods and our cities and we're like, well, we can build this.with a Disney mentality where we go out and build it perfect the first time and then walk away. Sure, we'll get 20 years where it's the nice neighborhood and the good place, and then it will become a downward spiral like every place else. And I do think we have not, it's almost become a place that allows us to believe in the wrong things. Like we, to me, I feel like if my mayor went to Disney World, he would come back,not with the mentality of we need obsessive maintenance and to humbly observe where people are struggling and to respond to the human condition and have great urban design. He would come back and say, wow, we can build big stuff really quickly and have it be awesome. And I'm like, that's the wrong takeaway, buddy.Kevin K (59:16.196)Yeah, yeah, it's interesting. I mean, I think it does espouse a lot of those contradictions. So that feels like probably a good place to leave it. I should also mention in case you didn't know that Walt Disney is from small town Missouri. And Marceline. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Well, everything in Missouri is pronounced strange. That's just the way it is. It's also Missouri. So I should say that. You know.Charles Marohn (59:22.032)Yeah, yeah, yeah.Hey, thanks, man.Charles Marohn (59:31.696)He is, no, I definitely knew that. I've been wanting, it's Marceline, is that the name of the place? Marceline, okay, I'm saying it like I'm Minnesotan.HahahaDo people actually say that? Missouri?Kevin K (59:47.619)If you're if you are not in Kansas City or St. Louis, it's pronounced Missouri. Oh, yeah.Charles Marohn (59:52.336)Seriously, I did not know that. You know, I spent a summer at Fort Leonard Wood, which was one of the most miserable summers of my life. So I had clay, you know, Minnesota, we have this beautiful glacial outwash. Doesn't mean like the engineering geek, but we have this nice glacial outwash. So when it rains, the water drains into the ground and I'm in Kansas City or I'm sorry, I'm in Fort Leonard Wood in Missouri and I have a tent that I'm sleeping in because I'm a soldier.Kevin K (59:57.316)Oh, that's right. Yeah. Yeah, that's it.Charles Marohn (01:00:21.392)And it rains and guess what happens to the water in Missouri? It just runs into the lowest area and floods it, which happened to be my tent. Oh my gosh, it's horrible. Just wretched.Kevin K (01:00:24.548)Yeah.Kevin K (01:00:29.124)Yeah, yeah, and you just get mud everywhere. It's wonderful. Yeah, but yeah, but yet continuing the story just briefly, Walt Disney then as a young man went to Kansas City and got his start in journalism and his professional career in Kansas City. And he worked at a place called the Laffagram Studios, which a friend of mine here, a developer is trying to restore and they're trying to make it into an attraction. But yeah, it should be a cool thing when it gets done. So.Charles Marohn (01:00:41.328)Yeah.Charles Marohn (01:00:54.128)Oh nice.Is that where he did the first, because there was a first iteration before Mickey Mouse. Mickey Mouse was the second prototype after he had a falling out with his business partner. Yeah.Kevin K (01:01:01.348)Yes.Kevin K (01:01:06.628)Yes. Yeah. There, there is some, you know, urban legend that the first one was here at the Laffagram studios. But I think, I think that's, uh, I mean, we'll claim it, but it's hotly debated. Uh, well Chuck, thanks so much for doing this. Uh, for again, um, the book, uh, coming out is Escaping the Housing Trap, the Strong Towns Response. And then the Strong Towns National Gathering is coming up May 14th and 15th in Cincinnati.Charles Marohn (01:01:13.392)Sure. Let's go with that. Yeah, yeah, let's go with that.Kevin K (01:01:35.844)So I can't wait to see you there and see our other good friends and look forward to a great week in a city that I've been looking forward to spending more time.Charles Marohn (01:01:48.624)Thank you, my friend. And I'm, I'm happy, uh, to introduce a whole bunch more people to your podcast. Um, if you're not listening, if this is your first time listening and you're listening, cause of me, put this on your rotation. Cause this is a very good podcast and Kevin, uh, has a lot of my friends and our mutual friends and a lot of other interesting people. Um, we talk about more than just Disney and, uh, Kansas city and baseball. So yeah, thanks friend. Absolutely.Kevin K (01:02:10.052)Yeah, absolutely. All right. Well, thanks, Chuck. I appreciate that. All right. Take care. Get full access to The Messy City at kevinklinkenberg.substack.com/subscribe

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In this week's episode, I take a look at the movies and TV shows I watched and enjoyed in winter 2023. TRANSCRIPT 00:00:00 Introduction and Brief Writing Updates Hello, everyone. Welcome to Episode 181 of The Pulp Writer Show. My name is Jonathan Moeller. Today is December, the 22nd, 2023 and today we're going to talk about the movies I saw in Winter 2023. Careful listeners might notice that I am recording this on December 22nd, which is actually only a day after I recorded Episode 180, which I recorded yesterday. The reason for that is it is the last Friday before Christmas and New Year's today, and I think I'm going to take most of the days between now and New Year's off and spend time with family and hopefully do other fun things. So this episode I was just recording a couple episodes in advance and I believe this episode is going to go out on January 1st, 2024. So if you're listening to this, I hope you have a Happy New Year and however things went for you in 2023, whether good or bad, I hope they are better in 2024. Just a quick update on my current writing projects, since I am recording this episode the day after I recorded Episode 180, not much has changed. I am 40,000 words into Shield of Storms and I hope to have that out in January, which would be later this month (if you are listening to this in January). I am 51,000 words into Sevenfold Sword Online: Leveling and I'm hoping to have that in February. I am 4,000 words into Half-Elven Thief and I'm not sure when that's going to come out. One additional bit of news since yesterday, it looks very likely we will have an audiobook of Sevenfold Sword Online: Creation sometime in January, if everything goes well. So watch and listen for additional news on that. Since I don't really have any other news since I recorded last week's episode yesterday, let's get into our main topic, which is the movies and TV shows I watched in Winter 2023.   00:01:54 Main Topic: Winter 2023 Movie and TV Reviews As always, I will discuss them in the order that I like them from least liked to most liked and as always remember my opinions about this are subjective. I am not a filmmaker. My opinions are often very, very idiosyncratic and just what I happen to think of a particular piece of work. First up is The Crown Season 6, which came out in 2023. The performances were superb, the actors were excellent, the set design and cinematography was excellent. Everyone involved in the show was at the top of their field and did an amazing job. And I still just didn't like this because it felt a bit ghoulish. For one thing, as The Crown has gone on, it's become less historical and more of a messy soap opera with an increasingly casual relationship with what really happened in the events it describes. For another thing, as I mentioned, I found the show's fixation on Princess Diana's death to be rather ghoulish. I am old enough to remember her death in 1997, and even then when I was much younger and stupider, I thought the American media's obsession with her death was weird and disturbing, especially since the media fixation on her was the direct contributing cause to her death. If the media hadn't been willing to pay vast sums for photographs of her, the paparazzi wouldn't have chased her and history would be different. A while back I knew a history professor who said that history only starts between 20 to 30 years ago and anything that happened within the last 20 to 30 years wasn't history yet, it was still journalism. I think that is part of what bothers me about Season Six of The Crown. Most of the people involved in the story are still alive. Writing historical fiction about people who have died, who have died is one thing, especially if they've been dead for centuries or even millennia. Only God may judge of the dead, so what those of us among the living think about them is quite irrelevant. But making up fiction about people who are still alive, even if they are major public figures who have unquestionably made some bad decisions, somehow seems libelous, especially since there have been so many articles in both the UK and the US press detailing all the things that Season Six of The Crown got wrong with the historical record. So to sum up, the show is extremely well done, but I cannot help but feel that it's like excellent work done in a bad cause. Overall Grade: D. Next up is Shazam: Fury of the Gods, which came out in 2023. The first Shazam movie was actually pretty good, definitely in B or B Plus territory. The sequel, alas, was quite a bit weaker. It reminded me of watching a really cheesy sword and sorcery movie from the 1980s: fun to watch mostly, but quite dumb. Following up from the first movie, Billy Batson and his foster siblings are now part of the Shazam superhero family and are handling their powers about as well as you would expect inexperienced teenagers to handle phenomenal cosmic powers, except it turns out that the wizard who gave Billy and his family their powers actually stole those powers from the Greek Titan Atlas and Atlas's daughters are ticked off about this and want those powers back. Since this is a superhero movie, let's just say they're not going to settle this dispute in probate court. The product placement for the Skittles candy in this movie was just over the top. In fact, an entire major plot point hinges on a teenage girl's love of Skittles. One hopes that Mars Incorporated, owner of the Skittles brand, really coughed up for that. Helen Mirren chews a lot of scenery as the chief daughter of Atlas, though she does have a very funny bit with a dictated letter. This isn't her first time in an over-the-top fantasy movie. She played Morgana in Excalibur back in the 80s, though her costume this time covers quite a bit more than Morgana's various outfits did. The movie also leans way too heavily into the rest of the DC movie universe. I'd say it's enjoyable to shut off your brain and watch all the sparkly fireworks and the scenery chewing, but it's not very good. Overall Grade: D+. Next up is Clue, which came out in 1985. Big swing and a miss, but definitely a miss nonetheless. I tried to watch this about ten years ago, but the version I watched then didn't have any captions and all the characters talked too fast for me to understand. But I have a much better TV than I did ten years ago and the caption situation has improved, so I gave it another go. This is a dark comedy version of the popular board game Clue. All the classic Clue characters, Colonel Mustard, Professor Plum, and so forth are summoned to Mr. Boddy's mansion during a dark and stormy night. Mr. Boddy gloats says he has been blackmailing all of them, distributes the classic Clue weapons of the pipe, the knife, the wrench and so forth, and then promptly turns off the lights. When the lights come back on. Mr. Boddy has been murdered. Mr. Boddy, to be blunt about it, doesn't seem to have been all that bright a bulb. Anyway, madcap hijinks ensue as the guests try to figure out who the killer was. Three alternate endings are included with the movie, which have a different killer in each one. There were some very funny bits in the movie, but overall it really didn't work and it had some oddly heavy-handed commentary about the Red Scare. Tim Curry was pretty great in it though. Fun fact: he did an excellent turn as Darth Sidious in what was then the final episodes of The Clone Wars animated series, and he also played Arl Howe, one of the chief villains in Dragon Age: Origins, which was one of the last video games I had time to play through all the way before I spent the next fourteen years writing like 147 novels. A remake of Clue has been in production hell for like the last ten years. You just know that Hasbro wants to include Clue in their cinematic universe where Colonel Mustard and Miss Scarlett team up with Optimus Prime and GI Joe to fight Megatron and the Monopoly guy or something. Overall grade: C Minus. Next up is Murder Mystery, which came out in 2019. This was unquestionably a dumb movie, but it was a fun, dumb movie. Like it's a C Minus student, but it's a sort of C Minus student who everyone likes, throws great parties, and goes on to have a very successful career as a regional sales manager. Adam Sandler and Jennifer Aniston play Nick Spitz and Audrey Spitz, a New York City cop and a hairdresser. Nick has failed the detective exam multiple times and has gotten stuck in a rut, and Audrey really wants to go to Europe so Nick takes her to Europe and they promptly blunder into a ‘40s screwball style comedy about the murder of a wealthy European oligarch and his squabbling heirs. A lot of the comedy comes from the good-natured, but boorish Spitzes contrasted with the sophisticated, wealthy Europeans who promptly decided that Nick and Audrey would make the perfect scapegoats to take the fall for the oligarch's murder. Wacky hijinks follow. I do have to respect how Adam Sandler uses his movie productions as an excuse to travel to exotic locations with his friends. Overall grade: C Minus. Next up is the sequel to Murder Mystery, the aptly named Murder Mystery 2, which came out in 2023. It's the sequel to the first Murder Mystery and pretty much everything I said about the first one still applies-dumb, but fun. Overall grade: C Minus. Next up is Indiana Jones and The Dial of Destiny from 2023 and ah, I was very ambivalent about this movie. To be fair, it was better than Kingdom of the Crystal Skull. It had some stuff that was really good and some stuff that just annoyed me. The opening sequence with the train during World War II was great- classic Indiana Jones stuff. The Nazis try to time travel to change World War II is a well-established trope of science fiction, but the twist this time is the villain thinks he understands how the time travel device works, but it turns out that he actually doesn't was pretty good. The car chases were excellent as well, both in New York and Tangiers. That said, the legacy protagonist now is an old loser getting lectured by a more competent younger woman story trope was in full force, and it's a really annoying story trope. Disney seems to just adore the story trope: the Star Wars sequels, Secret Invasion, and now Dial of Destiny, and I suspect a majority of audiences agree with me and don't like it, which is probably one of the significant reasons the Disney Corporation lost a metric gigaton of money this year. Top Gun Maverick was a much better example of bringing back a legacy protagonist. Indy also has this oddly out of character speech where he says he doesn't believe in magic, which is rich considering he has literally seen The Ark of the Covenant melt Nazis, the power of The Holy Grail turn another Nazi to dust, and space aliens. So I would say that Indiana Jones and The Dial of Destiny was half a good movie and half a weak one. Overall grade: B Minus. Next up is the Barbie movie, which came out in 2023. I saw Oppenheimer in the theater in August after I finished working on Dragonskull: Crown of the Gods and a couple months ago I did finally get around to seeing Barbie. Greta Gerwig is clearly a genius because she figured out how to take the existential anxiety of the modern American woman and convert it into $1.44 billion at the box office. If we could work out how to apply the same principles to generating electricity, we would have limitless clean energy, flying cars, and World Peace. Though I suppose the phrase modern American woman really is a facile generalization. Anyway, I really wasn't in the target demographic for this movie. That said, it is quite funny. It's a fantasy comedy that's a bit surrealistic in places. The set design is superb and done with very little computer effects. Apparently so much pink paint was used that it actually caused a nationwide shortage. As many reviews said, Ryan Gosling almost stole the movie as Ken, which was amusing on a meta level because he's played so many grim action heroes. In the third act, the movie really does beat the viewer over the head with the message. But what else can you expect from a Barbie movie in 2023? The funniest line was “How can she call me a fascist? I don't control the railways or the flow of commerce.” The joke about Proust Barbie not selling was pretty funny as well. Maybe if the Barbienheimer meme continues, in the sequel, Proust Barbie can fall in love with Oppenheimer Ken, and they have grim conversations about existentialism and science. Overall grade: B Plus. Next up is Muppet Treasure Island, which came out in 1996. This is a loose-ish adaptation of the classic novel Treasure Island by Robert Louis Stevenson, with many Muppets filling the roles of the characters from the book and Tim Curry playing Long John Silver. Like in the book, young Jim Hawkins acquires a treasure map leading to the buried treasure of a ruthless pirate captain and sets out on an adventure to find it. However, many of the dead captain's former associates likewise want the treasure, so Hawkins and his allies must outwit their foes. This wasn't quite as good as Muppet Christmas Carol, but still quite enjoyable and funny. Overall Grade: A Minus. Now for the runner up of the best thing I saw in winter 2023 and that will be Loki Seasons One and Two, which came out in 2021 and 2023. I liked the first season of Loki, which came out back in 2021, but it was very obviously the first half of the story so I didn't write anything about it. However, I've seen the second season and the completed Loki show is very good. As I've written before, I don't really like multiverse or time travel stories because the stakes are either too vast or utterly meaningless. Time travel stories are a lot like homemade lasagna: if it's not excellent and not prepared by someone who knows exactly what they're doing, you're going to regret eating it. However, Loki leads hard enough into the concept, and the stakes that the show actually works. Like, I think the key question that every time travel story needs to answer at some point is why the time traveler doesn't just go back in time over and over again until she he or she fixes the problem, like remoting a saved game until you finally figure out how to beat the final boss. If you can time loop indefinitely, why not do it infinitely until you get the perfect outcome? Loki actually comes up with good answer to that question that isn't “because the plot requires it.” Anyway, the show starts with the version of Loki who escaped with Tesseract from Avengers Endgame getting captured by the Time Variance Authority. The TVA is basically the time cops. They guard the flow of The Sacred Timeline and prevent any alternative timelines and realities branching off from the main one. The events that make it out of The Sacred Timeline are determined by the Timekeepers, three mysterious figures who rule the TVA from the shadows. Loki manages to ingratiate himself to his captors, soon realizes that the TVA isn't all what it appears or claims to be, and discovers that big trouble is coming. The show had some good character development for Loki and managed to wrestle with what is in fact some profound philosophical questions. Is there a choice between determinism and free will? Must we choose between either brutal tyrannical order or destructive chaos, or is there another way? On a more prosaic level, some reviews said that the finale of Loki bound Marvel to using Kang The Conqueror as their next major villain, which would be a potential problem due to the actor's ongoing self-inflicted legal troubles. That said, I don't think that assessment is correct. In my opinion, the ending resolves the story while leaving things wide open for whatever Marvel wants to do (or can afford to do, given Disney's financial woes) next. Overall, Loki was the best non-Spiderman thing Marvel has done since Endgame. It also achieved one of the rarest feats of all in superhero movies: an emotionally satisfying ending to both the story and a long character arc. Overall Grade: A. Finally, the best thing I saw in Winter 2023 was The Shop Around the Corner, which came out in 1940. It is a romantic comedy starring Jimmy Stewart as Mr. Kravlik and Margaret Sullivan as Miss Novak. Mr. Kravlik is the top salesman at Matusek's, a store owned by the somewhat erratic Mr. Matusek, who kind of reminded me of a marginally brighter Michael Scott. One day Miss Novak comes into the shop and fast talks her way into a job as a sales clerk. Both she and Mr. Kravlik immediately take a dislike to each other, which is ironic because Mr. Kravlik and Miss Novak have been unwittingly corresponding with each other anonymously and falling in love over the last few months, which was something people used to do in the pre-Internet age before Tinder and Match.com. However, big trouble is on the horizon because one of the sales clerks is having an affair with Mr. Matusek's wife and Mr. Matuszek mistakenly blames Mr. Kravlik, who is in fact the most loyal of his employees and the only one brave enough to disagree with him. The movie was both very funny and had a real degree of tension with dramatic stakes. It's a cross between You've Got Mail (which was partially inspired by this movie) and the UK version of The Office. It's a very tight movie, not a single line of dialogue or shot was wasted and the layout of the shots was nearly perfect. In the modern mind, we tend to think of black and white movies as being sanitized and saccharine, but that overlooks that the 1950s and the 1940s were in fact very different periods in American history. Movies from the ‘40s really do have this hard, sometimes cynical, edge to them, without indulging in pointless nudity, graphic violence, or nihilism the way that modern movies often do. Like at one point in the movie, Mr. Matusek tries to shoot himself in despair, only for a teenage boy to stop him. That's dark stuff for romantic comedy. Of course the teenage boy is hardly traumatized by the experience. He definitely leverages the event to get himself promoted from delivery boy to sales clerk. I enjoyed this movie thoroughly. I do recommend you watch it with captions if possible, since sound technology has come a long way since 1940. Overall Grade: A+. So those were the movies that I saw and enjoyed in Winter 2023 and later this year, I will do a roundup of stuff I saw in Winter 2024. So that is it for this week. Thanks for listening to The Pulp Writer Show. I hope you found the show useful. A reminder that you that you can listen to all the back episodes on https://thepulpwritershow.com. If you enjoyed the podcast, please leave your review on your podcasting platform of choice. And once more, have a Happy New Year! Stay safe and stay healthy and see you all next week.

In the latest episode of Hospitality Hangout, Michael Schatzberg “The Restaurant Guy” and Jimmy Frischling “The Finance Guy” chat with R.J. Melman, President of Lettuce Entertain You, a fifty-one year old restaurant group that is privately held with over one hundred and twenty restaurants across the country in thirteen different states. It is based out of Chicago, Illinois.Melman's dad, Rich Melman started the company back in 1971 when he opened a restaurant with his best friend Jerry Orzoff. Melman's siblings Jarrod and Molly are both part of the Lettuce Entertain You Restaurants team.The guys share breaking news and say that Lettuce has just opened their first restaurant in Florida. It is Aba, a Mediterranean restaurant that brings cooking influences from the Mediterranean, including Israel, Lebanon, Turkey and Greece. Also the group is opening RPM Italian in West Palm Beach and Summer House in Orlando.In Chicago in 2023 Melman talks about the new collaboration between Tao Group Hospitality. The partnership will bring a new private members club. The guys also talk about the Lettuce loyalty program that has been around for more than three decades. Now the program is free through the app. Recently they announced that Lettuce has partnered with DoorDash for a first of its kind loyalty program. The program powered by DoorDash will now allow guests to receive loyalty points and redeem gift cards for takeout and delivery.Melman's goal when he became President was to use tech to transcend hospitality in dining rooms, bringing hospitality and technology together. Melman says they are in the process of switching over our general ledger, HR solution and more.Melman shares how the company continues to keep things going well with all of the expansion. They have been consistent on expansion over the last thirty years and said that the team has played a role in the growth.Key Takeaways:[02:42 - 04:17] Introducing RJ Melman, President of Lettuce Entertain You Restaurants[04:18 - 07:20] RJ introduces himself and his company, its history in Chicago and their 120 restaurants[07:20 - 08:31] RJ's first job as a restaurant host[08:36 - 09:51] Breaking news, Aba opens its doors in Miami's Bal Harbor Shops[09:49 - 11:24] Working in Florida, the opportunity to do a restaurant for Disney Corporation[11:24 - 14:17] Partnering with Tao Hospitalities, more on working with RJ's brother and sister[14:24 - 16:07] Lettuce Entertain You partnership and menu powered by DoorDash[16:15 - 18:19] Redeeming loyalty points on delivery orders, bringing technology and hospitality together. The Tech Stack.[18:20 - 22:27] A family business that has focused on growth. RJ's dad gave them autonomy and acted as their cheerleader in managing the restaurants[22:30 - 25:11] Learning from RJ's store success, "Someone ahead of you never stops you from growing in this company...And developing someone below you never makes you be replaced either."[25:11 - 29:31] Talking Back, RJ asks about the best of the best[29:36 - 32:55] Food Service Feud, favorite pretzel chain and Franke The Tank[32:55 - 37:40] Branded Quickfire, Taco Tuesday or Fried Chicken FridayTo hear more about Lettuce's tech strategy, the foodservice feud and the talking back segment plus get the answer to the trivia question, check out this episode of Hospitality Hangout.

Rerun. Disneyland Paris, now Europe's most popular theme park, initially haemorrhaged money - at a rate of around $1 million per day. But, after three hard years, it returned its first annual profit on 16th November, 1995.  This change in the park's fortunes can be attributed to the popularity of two trains: the opening of the Eurostar direct line from London, and the building of the world's most expensive roller coaster, Space Mountain, which first launched from Discoveryland on 1st June. In this episode, Arion, Rebecca and Olly unpick how the Disney Corporation consistently underestimated the French traditions of wine with lunch, surly customer service and a unionised workforce; reveal how Spain and Britain had competed for the opportunity to be considered as alternative sites for the park's development; and recall the French antipathy for Americana that led to one critic to label the attraction ‘a cultural Chernobyl'...  Further Reading: • ‘INTERNATIONAL BUSINESS; Euro Disney Reports Profit for '95, but the Future Remains Cloudy' (The New York Times, 1995): https://www.nytimes.com/1995/11/16/business/international-business-euro-disney-reports-profit-for-95-but-future-remains.html • ‘Why Was Euro Disney Considered a Failure?' (The First Drop, 2021): https://thefirstdrop.net/disneyland-paris-resort/why-was-euro-disney-considered-a-failure/ • ‘Your destination: outer space. Your speed: astronomical.' (Space Mountain advert, 1995): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xlKKTSVETt0 ‘Why am I hearing a rerun?' Every Thursday is 'Throwback Thursday' on Today in History with the Retrospectors: running one repeat per week means we can keep up the quality of our independent podcast. Daily shows like this require a lot of work! But as ever we'll have something new for you tomorrow, so follow us wherever you get your podcasts: podfollow.com/Retrospectors Love the show? Join  

It rose from an idea to the largest entertainment empire in history. All that goes up must come down.

Walt Disney has inspired many past and present business owners, and no doubt he will continue to inspire future entrepreneurs. One theory that has been attributed to Disney is the "Low Ride Out" theory, and believe it or not this theory could also apply to your small business!It's been said that the Disney Corporation would evaluate the attractions each year and count how many people rode them, and then the ride with the least amount of riders would be replaced. You are most likely not in the theme park business, but there are some key takeaways in today's episode. We look at three areas in your business where you could apply the "Low Ride Out" theory to increase customer satisfaction and continue to grow your business.Also on this episode:Hiring / Strengths - We often hear that we should hire people who excel in the things we aren't good at but Rochelle Ratkaj Moser, owner of Ratkaj Designs explains why we need to look at our strengths when adding people to our team. But before we can begin the hiring process, we need to be aware of what our individual strengths even are!Imposter Syndrome / Weaknesses - No one wants or likes the feeling of being stuck in imposter syndrome. William Deck, founder and CEO of Mind Business LLC is here to help us better understand imposter syndrome and what we can do when it takes hold.Tired of working on your small business all by yourself? Wish you could have allies and partners willing to collaborate with you to solve problems and capture opportunities? Check out the international problem-solving small business community that is working together to beat the odds and achieve their small business goals: The Idea Collective Small Business Incubator: https://ideacoachmedia.com/idea.Also, we want YOU on the Pat Miller Show. Sign up for your appearance now: https://www.patmillershow.com. It's the event of the year - The Idea Collective Conference is happening in November. Come get away, get inspired, and grow your business!Mentioned in this episode:Athena Legal Solutions Small business legal doesn't have to be complicated. Say hello to peace of mind. Athena Legal Solutions is your personal business lawyer from start up to legacy creation. Learn more at https://pat-miller-show-podcast.captivate.fm/legalAthena Legal SolutionsChoices Coaching & ConsultingThis episode is sponsored by Choices Coaching & Consulting. Krista Morrissey and Choices Coaching & Consulting build leaders in your small business so you can grow faster. Learn more: https://pat-miller-show-podcast.captivate.fm/choicesChoices Coaching & ConsultingSidekick AccountingThis episode is sponsored by Sidekick Accounting. Sidekick is your trusted companion as you grow your small business that effortlessly handles the finances. Now an official Profit First Provider! Contact with Sidekick Accounting at https://pat-miller-show-podcast.captivate.fm/sidekick Sidekick Accounting Services[Backstage Access Granted]This is your chance to go backstage, meet Pat and check out the Idea Slam Brainstorming event! Only show listeners can get in on the Backstage Brainstorm on September 13 and 27. Sign up...

Hey BillOReilly.com Premium and Concierge Members, welcome to the No Spin News for Monday, August 7, 2023. Stand Up for Your Country. Tonight's rundown: Talking Points Memo: Bill looks at the latest surrounding Donald Trump, his indictment, and his campaign for the presidency. Author and former Watergate defense attorney for Richard Nixon, Geoff Shepard, joins the No Spin News. The Disney Corporation is set to lose $1 billion dollars over its latest Indiana Jones movie flops. Why are some angry that the Orlando Magic have made a political donation? This Day in History: Peter Jennings dies. Final Thought: The Old Man and the Sea In Case You Missed It: Get tickets to Bill and Sid Rosenberg's live show this October: "A New York State of Mind," at The Paramount in Hunting, NY. They are on sale NOW! Read Bill's latest column, "FYI." Look good and read more! For only $49.95 choose any polo and get a copy of Bill's bestselling The United States of Trump. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

The Two Overarching Goals of This Podcast Project:1.  To raise awareness about the scope and scale of the twin evils, the climate and biodiversity crises. Because the extent of our eco-problems are global, we think most people don't truly conceive of the magnitude of what is happening. After all, the sky is blue, and the birds are singing – what's the issue?2. To promote a better understanding that, even with all the progress we have accomplished, it is sadly, nowhere near the efforts we must undertake to realize any real headway in this mother-of-all planetary threats. (See #1)To illustrate this, we share two tales. One of a legendary superstar musical couple trying to make a healing gesture to the earth. The other is about The Disney Corporation marketing an elite “Bucket Lists Adventure” around the world package tour. The “Happiest Place on Earth” is not doing much to make the Earth happy. OK, we lied, we do have a Third Goal: Solutions. Below, find a link for The Green Elephant's fabulous new resource, A CALL TO ACT: A Comprehensive On-line Encyclopedia of Eco-Solutions.  “A Call to Act” is NOT about going vegan, boycotting fast-fashion, and upping your home recycling game. "A Call to Act" is a well-organized, thoughtfully laid-out resource with  hundreds of climate & environmental groups to join, and eco-action activities to be taken. Check it out – it is a site to behold. A CALL TO ACT: An Incredible On-Line Encyclopedia of Eco-SolutionsEPISODE WEPAGE 

What really happened in Russia last weekend? The Supreme Court is WINNING! In the last two days, SCOTUS has ruled against affirmative action, protected freedom of religion and freedom of speech, and shot down Biden's student loan forgiveness plan. To go along with the recent layoffs at Disney in the wake of losing nearly $900 million at the box office in their last eight movies, the Disney Corporation is also laying off about 20 on-air personalities at ESPN. A UK-based non-profit cancer trust suggests using the term “bonus hole” instead of “vagina.” Riots are breaking out all over France.

Bells and Goose deliver hot takes about the future of Disneyland and Uncle Roy tries to purchase the Star Trek Franchise for the Disney Corporation. Have a magical day!

Gov. Ron DeSantis crossed the constitutional line when the State of Florida voided its contract with the Disney Corporation.

The battle for the 2024 US election is heating up – and the biggest challenger to former president Donald Trump seems to be Ron DeSantis. He's the current governor of Florida, a key battleground in nationwide elections. Time and time again, he has promised to bring the blueprint of what he's accomplished in Florida to a national scale. He gained notice when he lifted COVID-19 regulations earlier than most other US states. As governor, he's also made sweeping changes to education and immigration, as well as feuded with the Disney Corporation. With a formal campaign announcement expected this week, does he have a chance against former President Trump? In this episode:  Michael Kruse (@michaelkruse), senior staff writer at Politico  Mansoor Adayfi (@mansooradayfi), author and former Guantanamo prisoner  Episode credits: This episode was produced by Chloe K. Li with Amy Walters, and our host Natasha Del Toro, in for Malika Bilal. Miranda Lin fact-checked this episode. Our sound designer is Alex Roldan. Tim St. Clair mixed this episode. Our lead of audience development and engagement is Aya Elmileik. Munera Al Dosari and Adam Abou-Gad are our engagement producers. Alexandra Locke is The Take's executive producer, and Ney Alvarez is Al Jazeera's head of audio. Connect with us: @AJEPodcasts on Twitter, Instagram, and Facebook

Today, we're having a conversation about one of the greatest business people ever; Walt Disney. Many of us are familiar with Disney. Whether it's his Disney World, Disneyland, all the movies, cartoon characters, and in recent times, the Disney+ streaming service.  But very few of us know the story of how Walt Disney and his brother, Roy dreamed of then built the empire that we now know today as the Disney Corporation. So joining us today is Jeffrey Barnes, a Disney expert who has studied Walt Disney from a very young age.  Jeff has dedicated his entire life to understanding the Disney Corporation, the Disney family and the experiential ecosystem they've built. In this episode, we talk all about the qualities that made Walt the great businessman we know him as today. What kind of person was he? What allowed him to achieve such phenomenal success? What were his early setbacks and how did they shape him? What were the consequences of those setbacks? And how did it create the Disney that we know today? [7:30] - What kind of man was Walt Disney and how did his young years forge his character and resilience? [11:51] - A real life story from rags to to riches that will inspire you and prove that we all have an inner Walt Disney. [20:50] - The modern day leadership lessons we can learn from Walt and apply in our dental practice today. [28:29] - It takes a fair amount of courage for someone to start any kind of business, including a dental practice. It's easy to be courageous when you know something will work, but you have to draw on different skills to find that courage when there is massive uncertainty associated with your decisions and goals. [35:21] - Walt always wanted to be moving forward, and this lesson shows how to grow your business. Scale your successful business for bigger profits. [42:45] - If you want to channel some Walt Disney into your own practice today, here are 3 easy tips to apply instantly.

This show is made possible by you!  To become a sustaining member go to LauraFlanders.org/donate  Thank you for your continued support!Laura and guest, Abigail Disney, ask how long can corporations sustain the “American Dream” at the expense of their workers.  Is the American Dream dead?  While most Americans are earning less than their parents and economic mobility is on the decline, the median net worth of the top 10 billionaires in the world has nearly tripled over the last decade.  Abigail Disney, the granddaughter of Roy Disney, one of the founders of Disney, discovered that some employees were earning one two-thousandth of the earnings of CEO Bob Iger.  She wrote to Iger, testified in Congress and ultimately made a film, “The American Dream and Other Fairy Tales.”  Abigail underscores the need to tax the top 1%, speaks out against corporate greed and calls out the policies and values that created such gaping inequality at Disney and across the business world.  Abigail Disney is an Emmy-winning documentary filmmaker, and an activist. The film, co-directed with Kathleen Hughes is available for streaming now. “There was a woman who played Winnie the Pooh for many years . . . six days a week, who died in her car. That was really a galvanizing moment for a lot of the folks that I spoke to, because the wrongness of this was all concentrated in this one moment.” - Abigail Disney“Absent collective bargaining, we are all subject to the tender mercies of Elon Musk and Jeff Bezos. Collective bargaining is the only way workers have to democratically represent their own interests in the workplace.” - Abigail DisneyGuest:  Abigail Disney, Documentary Filmmaker & Social Activist; Co-Director & Producer, The American Dream & Other Fairy Tales; Founder Fork Films; Producer & Host "All Ears" Full Show Notes are located HERE.  They include related episodes, articles, and more to dive deeper.This podcast includes an endorsement for Best of the Left, with host Jay! Tomlinson.  We think you'll dig it too!Music In the Middle:  “Black Fros Black Gold - All You Zombies Dig the Luminosity” by Burnt Sugar, The Arkestra Chamber from their ‘Twentieth Anniversary Mixtapes: Groiddest Schizznits, Volume 3'.Additional Music: "Many Hands & "Steppin" by Podington Bear Chapters (full conversation)00:00:00  Best of the Left podcast endorsement from Laura00:05:40 Gaping disparities between the Disney Corporation and employees at Disney theme parks; it's personal for Abigail Disney.00:08:43  From the founders to the current CEO, Abigail Disney investigates, and reflects on what happened00:13:27 Shifting the status quo toward justice, civil rights, assault on unions, wage disparities, capitalism00:21:37  Re-introduce guest & subject.Music in the Middle: “Black Fros Black Gold - All You Zombies Dig the Luminosity” by Burnt Sugar, The Arkestra Chamber from their ‘Twentieth Anniversary Mixtapes:  Groiddest Schizznits, Volume 3'00:24:13  Gap between have's and have not's, what to do? Money in politics00:28:00  Hope for the future addressing injustices and inequities.  Raising wages vs raising taxes. Auditing, the tax code.00:37:00  Reconstruction, shared dreams, well being and accomplishments.00:41:00 Woke Capitalism, fruits of labor, aspirations00:44:46  Closing commentary from Laura on history, anxiety and change00:46:37  FIN

Our friend Avi Garelick joins us to discuss his recent piece on the war between Ron DeSantis and the Disney Corporation in Florida, as we explore the longer history of Florida's extraordinary relationship to the Disney brand. Along the way, we talk about Sean Baker's haunting film The Florida Project, the weird politics and aesthetics of “New Urbanism,” and the current direction of housing politics in American cities.  Check out our subscribers-only podcast series on Disney's wild history: Ep 1 - Time is a Flat Circle: https://www.patreon.com/posts/trap-tv-brick-is-74949645 Ep 2 - Uncle Walt Goes to War: https://www.patreon.com/posts/trap-tv-brick-to-75566223 Ep 3 - Space Cowboys: https://www.patreon.com/posts/trap-tv-brick-76267538  

The SKATCAST Network presents:The Dipsh*t Files #43 with Mr. and Mrs. Script KeeperToday's Dipshit:This week Mrs. Script Keeper teaches us about a city made by the Disney Corporation in Florida and a gruesome family annihilator named Anthony Todt. Quite the story of lies and shame. Happy Wednesday!Visit us for more episodes of SKATCAST and other shows like SKATCAST presents The Dave & Angus Show plus BONUS material at https://www.skatcast.com Watch select shows and shorts on YouTube: bit.ly/34kxCneJoin the conversation on Discord! https://discord.gg/mVFf2brAaFFor all show related questions: info@skatcast.comPlease rate and subscribe on iTunes and elsewhere and follow SKATCAST on social media!! Instagram: @theescriptkeeper Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/scriptkeepersATWanna become a Patron? Click here: https://www.patreon.com/SkatcastSign up through Patreon and you'll get Exclusive Content, Behind The Scenes video, special downloads and more! Prefer to make a donation instead? You can do that through our PayPal: https://paypal.me/skatcastpodcast Get bonus content on Patreon Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Danny, Proto, and Slim chat about Once Upon a Time… in Hollywood (2019). Was Patreon voting a mistake? Movies About Movies Month continues with a stunning vote from our supporters to not cover Singin in the Rain and instead cover a movie that Danny gave 1.5 stars. You'd think he would have garnered some respect over these last few years of podcasting but some people just wun 2 watch du werld bern. The hosts also discuss the Disney Corporation's CEO shake-up alongside a possible Apple acquisition, Proto feeling embarrassed by Disney superfans, Slim making a pledge to not bring up anyone's feet later in the show, Danny watching You've Got Mail again, Indiana Jones 5, bad Netflix holiday movies and much more. Support the 70mm Patreon to join our VHS Village Discord and access exclusive episodes in the 70mm Vault like the 1990s Batman movies, Harry Potter, The Matrix, SHIN Godzilla, West Side Story, Twilight, Moana, and more. Signing up for the Patreon also get your own membership card, member-only discounts on merch, and the ability to vote on future episodes! Subscribe on Apple Podcasts to unlock access to episodes from the 70mm Vault! Subscribe on Spotify if that's more your bag for those exclusive 70mm Vault episodes! Episode transcriptions are available thanks to Soph from Film Hags! Don't forget you can visit our website to shop our storefront to buy prints and merch, follow us on Letterboxd, email the show, upgrade to Letterboxd Pro/Patron at 20% off, and much more. 70mm is a TAPEDECK podcast, along with our friends at BAT & SPIDER, Cinenauts, The Letterboxd Show, Dune Pod, FILM HAGS, Will Run For..., Twin Vipers, and Lost Light.

Synopsis A question: do you see colors when you hear music? No, we're not going psychedelic on you and absolutely no controlled substances are involved in preparing today's edition of Composers Datebook. It's just that many composers do—see colors, that is. The late Romantic Russian composer Alexander Scriabin would describe the key of F-sharp Major as very definitely being “bright blue.” His colleague Nicolai Rimsky Korsakov, however, thought F-sharp Major more a greyish-green hue. While many composers confess to seeing certain musical keys as certain colors, the fact is they don't always agree on which color matches which key. Which brings us to the American composer Michael Torke, who gave the title “Bright Blue Music” to an orchestral piece that premiered on today's date at Carnegie Hall at a concert of the New York Youth Symphony. In 1985, when this music premiered, Torke was just 24 years old, but had already been composing music for most of his young life. In addition to a string of other “colorful” scores, with titles like “The Yellow Pages” and “Ecstatic Orange,” Torke has also gone on to write a number of ballet scores and vocal works, including a TV opera and, in 1999, a big choral symphony for the Disney Corporation to celebrate the Millennium. Music Played in Today's Program Alexander Scriabin (1872-1915) Etude in F#, Op. 42, no. 4 Piers Lane, piano Hyperion 66607 Michael Torke (b. 1961) Bright Blue Music Baltimore Symphony; David Zinman, conductor.

Have you ever been to Disney? Do you remember how you felt when you were there for the first time? We see our favorite characters, theme parks, movies, stores, and places to shop. But think outside the box. The Disney Corporation is a world made up of ideas from one man who wanted to change the world through entertainment. The truth is that we can enjoy Walt's ideas now because of how well the supply chain works. Businesses must think outside the box when it comes to their supply chain operations if they want to be the best at what they do. What if we took Walt Disney as a model for supply chain management? Would we be better able to take care of our customers and move our industry forward? Would we be more likely to work together and encourage our industry to think big? This is what Disney has been doing for a very long time. In this episode, Blythe Brumleve, the founder of Digital Dispatch and host of the Everything is Logistics podcast, talks about her time working for Disney, the path that led her to logistics, and her favorite Disney logistics facts.Episode Timestamps:00:51 – Working for Disney02:08 – Fun Facts about Disney and How They Handle Logistics 03:37 – A Show Called Behind the Attraction03:56 – The First Monorail05:35 – Disney Continues to Invest in New Transportation Concepts 05:54 – Skyliner07:05 – Parking Garage Systems09:24 - 11 Different Countries That Are Represented in World Showcase Area10:52 - Entertainment in the Line Queue11:13 - Tunnels and Emotion of Disney Logistics12:26 – Disney Wants to Be a Memory Maker for Your Trip13:19 - Disney plans for Christmas all year round15:17 – Go Away Green at Disney16:08 – The Liberty TreeQuotes:“If I can't work at the dream company, then I'm just going to start my own company. It led me on the path to where I'm talking to you guys here. Today. I'm working in logistics.”“I want to bring up when we talk about tunnels and emotions that Disney is trying to convey. They also want to be a memory maker for your trip. They use what's called Smellitizers” “That is one aspect of the Disney logistics when it comes to around Christmas time but they want to make sure that they affect your eyes. They want to make sure that they affect your sense of smell and your experience of what's going on in the park.”You can check out Blythe on https://everythingislogistics.com/ or follow her directly on her socials: Twitter | LinkedIn| Instagram| TikTok| YouTube...

So, if you couldn't tell by the title, the boys got a lot-a-bit weird with this one. A formal apology to the Disney Corporation, sorry you can't be as funny as us.  Thanks for listening! Follow the pod on Instagram @dumbtrivia, on Facebook at Dumb Trivia, Twitter @dumbtriviapod, and send some questions our way at dumbtrivia@gmail.com, make sure you place in the subject who you would like to read the question! Support our show at https://ko-fi.com/dumbtrivia. Follow Andres on Instagram @theresnowaythisappwilllast Follow Christian on Instagram and Twitter @crimbusrimbus and check his music out at www.untilthevoid.bandcamp.comFollow Cory on Instagram @coryw099Stay dumb and safe everyone!

Ryan proposes a new business venture for the Disney Corporation. Grant demands an apology from Office Depot. Tommy enjoys comedy promotion more than comedy itself. Plus we get a Kwik Trip update.Please rate, review and subscribe!Submit your anonymous apology here: www.grantwinkelscomedy.com/wecoolpodcastSubscribe to our Youtube Channel for HD full length episodes and clips: https://youtube.com/channel/UCEFHvn5zEiiXX9bfbYT-RNg?sub_confirmation=1Follow us on all social media:@WeCoolPodcast@TommmyBear@IdiotRyanKahl@GrantWinkels

“The bonds will be paid by Disney. They will be paying taxes, probably more taxes. They will follow the laws that every other person has to do, and they will no longer have the ability to run their own government.” – Governor Ron DeSantis, at a Fox News town hall (April 28)The story of how the Disney Corporation came to have the unique ability to run their own government on a swampy tract of land in Central Florida is documented in Richard Foglesong's remarkable book, Married to the Mouse: Walt Disney World and Orlando. Foglesong, a retired Professor of Politics at Rollins College, has become a sought-after commentator in the wake of Florida Governor Ron DeSantis's move to revoke the special privileges granted to Disney over 50 years ago. The proximate cause? Disney's vocal opposition to Florida's new “Parental Rights in Education” law (HB 1557) – sometimes called the “Don't Say Gay” bill.Some argue that DeSantis is just leveling the playing field, and finally treating all corporations the same, but given his status as a rising star in the Republican Party – known for being pro-growth – one might ask why DeSantis isn't instead moving to give more legal autonomy to neighboring theme park resorts like Universal Studios, rather than put an end to one of the most successful experiments in private governance ever to be attempted?Hong Kong is often cited as the greatest growth miracle of the 20th century – demonstrating the power of legal autonomy and the free enterprise system to supercharge a city's economic engine. Free market Hong Kong outperformed communist China so spectacularly that the Communist Party had to effectively admit defeat and copy the free-market model in establishing its Special Economic Zones throughout the country.And yet Walt Disney World in Orland Florida may be an even better poster child for charter cities – a truly Magical Kingdom, that continues to produce growth and prosperity for the surrounding region. The population of Orange County, Florida, doubled in less than thirty years at the behest of Disney executives and the business-friendly government based in Orlando. The secret sauce behind this sensational growth was the agreement to structure the theme park development as a “special district” that effectively granted the Disney Corporation complete autonomy to build the infrastructure according to its own vision and needs. Unlike Disneyland in Anaheim, California, Disney World was birthed as an autonomous city within the state of Florida – free to build out Walt Disney's vision for the cities of the future.Why would DeSantis be inclined to break up a marriage that by all appearances has been a wildly successful one? To understand this, we must consult Foglesong and his book, which analyzes the 55-year experiment through the lens of the marriage analogy, complete with successive stages of “serendipity", “seduction,” “secrecy,” “marriage,” “growth,” “conflict,” “abuse,” “negotiation,” and finally, therapy.Today, Disney World's special district status is at risk, since Governor Ron DeSantis and the state legislature have moved to terminate the district in June of 2023. Foglesong, who knows the history of the marriage between Disney and Florida government better than anyone, is a trusted commentator on the looming “divorce.” He joined the show of ideas to discuss the implications of the dissolution of the Reedy Creek Special District, and what we can learn about urban growth and the politics of charter cities from the rich story he tells in his book.We also discussed the tension between the ideals of free enterprise touted by Walt Disney, and the centralized administration of the theme park and surrounding community. Finally, we discussed the question of democracy in the context of an autonomous city, where a single corporation wishes to make political decisions efficiently and unilaterally.Richard Foglesong reports in his remarkable book Married to the Mouse: Walt Disney World and Orlando that the population of Orange County, Florida, doubled in less than thirty years at the behest of Disney executives and the business-friendly government based in Orlando.The secret sauce behind this sensational growth was the agreement to structure the theme park development as a “special district” that effectively granted the Disney Corporation complete autonomy to build the infrastructure according to its own vision and needs. Unlike Disney Land in Anaheim, California, Disney World was birthed as an autonomous city within the state of Florida – free to build out Walt Disney's vision for the cities of the future.Today, Disney World's special district status is at risk, since Governor Ron DeSantis and the state legislature have moved to terminate the district in June of 2023. Foglesong, who knows the history of the marriage between Disney and Florida government better than anyone, is a trusted commentator on the looming “divorce.” He joined the show of ideas to discuss the implications of the dissolution of the Reedy Creek Special District, and what we can learn about urban growth and the politics of charter cities from the rich story he tells in his book.We also discussed the tension between the ideals of free enterprise touted by Walt Disney, and the centralized administration of the theme park and surrounding community. Finally, we discussed the question of democracy

Florida Governor Ron DeSantis has shown himself uniquely skilled at attracting attention beyond the borders of his home state.  Just this month, DeSantis blocked state funds for the Tampa Bay Rays stadium after players voiced support for gun control in the wake of the mass shooting in Uvalde, Texas.  He's also continuing a fight to punish the Disney Corporation for criticizing Florida's so-called Don't Say Gay law.  An Ivy League-educated anti-élitist firebrand, he is willing to pick a fight with anyone—reporters, health officials, teachers, Mickey Mouse—to grab a headline. DeSantis “practically radiates ambition,” the staff writer Dexter Filkins tells David Remnick. “He sounds like Trump, except that he speaks in complete sentences. … He's very good at staking out a position and pounding the table and saying, I'm not giving in to the liberals in the Northeast.” Yet despite having been anointed by Donald Trump in his primary election, DeSantis has refused to “kiss the ring,” and many see DeSantis as a possible opponent to Trump in a 2024 Republican primary.

Guest host Bryan Dean Wright discusses the Disney Corporation's journey from 'Walt' to 'Woke' Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

With the death of the Haye's Code in the late 1960's and a dearth of new movies from the Disney Corporation's homogenous stranglehold over the field of animation, the time was right for new players to take up the field, carving out a unique landscape in cinema which was not only varied in its style and artistic voices, but in its audiences as well. The leader of this pack was a Jewish animator from a historically Black neighborhood in Brooklyn -- two informative elements of Bakshi's past which would inform much of his earliest work in feature film. He cut his teeth in television, working on a variety of serialized cartoons with an emphasis on slapstick and comedy, honing his skills for the eventual day he would aim to apply these sensibilities beyond the limited scope of children's entertainment.Those ambitions culminated in the first animated film to receive an X Rating: 1972's Fritz the Cat, an adaptation of Robert Crumb's provocative comic strip satire of the same name. It was the first of several X-Rated animated films Bakshi would make, each building off the low-budget, underground, urban aesthetics inherent to the director's innate sensibilities. His art would perpetuate a propensity for lewdness, feature excesses of nudity and violence as a means of not only challenging audiences' preconceptions of what animation could and should be, but also as a means of harkening back to the medium's origins, where titillation and subversion were primary appeals of the animated form. Bakshi would go on to apply his inherently transgressive sensibilities to more conventional animated avenues, brightening up the fantastical worlds of Wizards (1977) and an innovative adaptation of The Lord of the Rings which would impress itself as a vital influence on the later definitive interpretations of Peter Jackson.While certainly popular in his time, Bakshi always struggled to get his films made. Even in their most broadly appealing form, each were distinctive counter culture works, challenging the viewer to engage with Bakshi's vision on both visual and thematic levels at every turn. They are not always easy works to swallow -- Bakshi's fearlessness when it comes to depicting racial caricatures as a means of uncomfortable satire and cultural reflection has never been unanimously received -- but that willingness to challenge viewers continues to make him a fixture of cinematic interest. Though the craft is often crude, for any number of different reasons, Bakshi's works endure as distinct, innovative cornerstones in the canon of feature animation.

In this episode we discuss some of Walt Disney and the Disney Corporation's somewhat dark history and some of the conspiracy that surrounds them. --- Send in a voice message: https://anchor.fm/readyconspiracyone/message Support this podcast: https://anchor.fm/readyconspiracyone/support

Welcome to the podcast of “Wrestling with the Inner Man” with Author / Speaker David Savage. The Disney Corporation waded into Florida state laws on education advocating for LGBTQ+ employees and is feeling the backlash from parents and lawmakers. Pastor Michael Fernandez is the guest on WWM this week to provide his transsexual testimony and give listeners a glimpse into life on the wild side and how he was rescued from it David has a passion for Men’s Ministry and Biblical Truth to help build Better Men for our society. The show title is derived from the first fight we each face every day, the fight with our flesh. Do we listen to our selfish sinful nature or to our spiritual and divine nature guided by the Holy Spirit? Contact David at wrestlingwiththeinnerman@gmail.com or go to https://www.thesavagepath.com.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Welcome Team TEET! Today we present the serious matters of the world (Ron De Mantis vs. Mickey Mouse and the Disney Corporation, Marjorie Taylor Greene and her shit show on the stand, as well as the bickering about gender neutral birth certificates, and Jon Stewart on the fragility of world leaders). We ALSO dig into a little bit of brilliant TRASH as we dive deep into the hot garbage mixed with high drama that is Johnny Depp risking ridicule on the road to reputation rehab against his crazy, cruel, cun...um...cunning ex Amber Heard. Don't miss today's show folks!! Remember- Use code TEET20 for 20% off and free shipping on ALL Manscaped products.

Hour 1 * Guest: Chris Carlson – Without God, we can never win, With God, we can never lose, The Battle for Freedom is the Lord's, but we need to be engaged in the fight! * “Put Not Your Faith in Men, But Bind them Down with the Chains of the Constitution” – Thomas Jefferson Kentucky Resolutions 1798. * Resident Biden is blaming rising food prices on Vladimir Putin. But is there something else causing food prices to rise? According to investigative reporters Rick Whiles and Doc Burkhart, there is a disturbing pattern of fires at food-processing plants throughout the world – TruNews.com * We are up against pedophilic demoniacs. Listen to them moan as the Florida State Legislature passes legislation repealing Disney World's sovereign status – The significance of the sovereignty-stripping vote is that it now makes Disney accountable to Florida state and federal criminal laws. Disney World and Disney Corporation is a hot bed of pedophiles. The yelling in the legislative chambers is the sound of pedophiles and pedophile sympathizers bemoaning the fact that they can now be held accountable for their crimes under Florida state law. Hour 2 * Who will Control the Money? * the Book “The Day the Dollar Dies”, Willard Cantelon. * Communist or capitalist, banker or president of the nation, all men seemed to agree that those who controlled the finance of a nation represented a power greater than any other legislative body. * Karl Marx declared: “The idea of God is the keystone to a perverted civilization. It must be destroyed.” * Richard Levine spent 54 years as a man – He had a wife and a family. He “transitioned” to pretending to be a woman in 2011, Joe Biden appointed Levine to be a 4-Star Admiral and now USA Today has named ‘Rachel' Levine as ‘Woman of the Year.' Where are the feminists? * Stand with me against Twitter – Charlie Kirk, Turning Point USA – The Big Tech overlords just suspended my Twitter account for the “thoughtcrime” of writing the TRUTH. --- Support this podcast: https://anchor.fm/loving-liberty/support

* Guest: Chris Carlson - Without God, we can never win, With God, we can never lose, The Battle for Freedom is the Lord's, but we need to be engaged in the fight! * "Put Not Your Faith in Men, But Bind them Down with the Chains of the Constitution" - Thomas Jefferson Kentucky Resolutions 1798. * Resident Biden is blaming rising food prices on Vladimir Putin. But is there something else causing food prices to rise? According to investigative reporters Rick Whiles and Doc Burkhart, there is a disturbing pattern of fires at food-processing plants throughout the world - TruNews.com * We are up against pedophilic demoniacs. Listen to them moan as the Florida State Legislature passes legislation repealing Disney World's sovereign status - The significance of the sovereignty-stripping vote is that it now makes Disney accountable to Florida state and federal criminal laws. Disney World and Disney Corporation is a hot bed of pedophiles. The yelling in the legislative chambers is the sound of pedophiles and pedophile sympathizers bemoaning the fact that they can now be held accountable for their crimes under Florida state law.

The GOP-led Florida state legislature gave the final stamps of approval to a pair of proposals on Thursday. The first redraws Florida's Congressional voting map in a way that would eliminate two majority Black districts. The other revokes Disney Corporation's special tax status around Disney World. In headlines: The U.S. will provide $800 million in military aid to Ukraine, the Supreme Court ruled that residents of Puerto Rico aren't eligible for some federal aid programs, and CNN+ announced its closure. We also talk with Mary Annaïse Heglar and Amy Westervelt, the hosts of Crooked's “Hot Take,” to discuss how Earth Day got away from its origins in protest and activism. Show Notes: Crooked's “Hot Take” – https://crooked.com/podcast-series/hot-take/ The “Hot Take” Newsletter – https://www.hottakepod.com/ Follow us on Instagram – https://www.instagram.com/whataday/ For a transcript of this episode, please visit crooked.com/whataday Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

From continuing to mask while traveling to Vice President Kamala Harris's awe-inspiring speech on space to actors duking it out in court, Mary Katharine and Vic are talking all about performance art.  Times 00:12 - Segment: Welcome to the Show 08:05 - Segment: The News You Need to Know 08:28 - An update on travel mask mandates 15:48 - Segment: You Love to Hear It 15:54 - MSNBC contributor Symone Sanders concedes some points about Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis's pandemic health guideline decisions  17:26 - Florida considers removing special carveouts for the Disney Corporation, following their opposition to the Parents' Rights Bill 21:45 - Capitol building evacuated over “air threat…” which just so happened to be the Army parachuting into Nationals Stadium for military appreciation day…  24:30 - Segment: Kamala Fan Club  26:03 - Actors Johnny Depp and Amber Heard duke it out in court over defamation case  39:39 - JLo's new engagement ring looks eerily familiar to Mary Katharine…

The Walt Disney Company is more than a giant corporation. To many, it's long been synonymous with family entertainment. It's now caught up in a much larger battle in Florida tied to the country's cultural and political divides, prompted by its opposition to the governor's stance on LGBTQ issues. PBS NewsHour is supported by - https://www.pbs.org/newshour/about/funders

Tonight we did a deep dive into the World Health Organization's plan to run the world! But seriously, they want an international treaty signed by all countries that would give them control over future pandemic responses. Same thing really. We dive into the WHO's commitment to CEPI, the Coalition for Epidemic Preparedness Innovations, funded by donations from private, public, philanthropic and civil society organizations including the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation. So basically, the WHO is beholden to CEPI which is run by unelected billionaires. Wonderful! We also talk about DeSantis and his ongoing feud with Disney Corporation. And we play a clip from MSNBC where the news anchors finally give DeSantis some props! Articles Mentioned: Dr Tedros Speech: https://www.who.int/director-general/speeches/detail/who-director-general-s-keynote-speech-at-the-global-pandemic-preparedness-summit CEPI Info: https://cepi.net/ https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Coalition_for_Epidemic_Preparedness_Innovations https://100days.cepi.net/100-days/ Norway Prime Minister/Davos: https://norwaytoday.info/news/erna-solberg-appointed-davos-meeting-leader/ https://www.consilium.europa.eu/en/policies/coronavirus/pandemic-treaty/ https://apps.who.int/gb/COVID-19/pdf_files/2021/18_03/Item2.pdf Linktree: https://linktr.ee/theamberandjoeshow Follow Us On Instagram @The_Amber_and_Joe_Show Listen to our podcast on Spotify, Apple Podcasts, Anchor and Google Podcasts!

The Walt Disney Company is more than a giant corporation. To many, it's long been synonymous with family entertainment. It's now caught up in a much larger battle in Florida tied to the country's cultural and political divides, prompted by its opposition to the governor's stance on LGBTQ issues. PBS NewsHour is supported by - https://www.pbs.org/newshour/about/funders

From Orlando, CBS News Correspondent Peter King has the latest on the feud between Florida's Governor and the Disney Corporation in this Reporters Notebook. See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Follow us (and like us!) at Apple Podcasts or wherever you listen to your favorite podcasts, and follow us on Twitter. Also please subscribe to The Ankler at TheAnkler.com for more podcasts and stories like these about the entertainment industry.For subscribers: read the full transcript here.Today's Ankler Hot Seat podcast is hosted by Tatiana Siegel and welcomes guest Abigail Disney, Fork Films CEO, philanthropist, granddaughter of Roy O. Disney and grandniece of Walt Disney. The woman who is perhaps the single biggest thorn in the side of Disney's two Bobs – former CEO Bob Iger and current CEO Bob Chapek – has been at it again, eviscerating the mega-conglomerate and its “botched” response to Florida's so-called “Don't Say Gay” law.Disney, who recently wrote an op-ed on the subject for The Washington Post, weighs in on why she won't sit by idly on the sidelines. “The bear needed poking,” she tells The Ankler Hot Seat. “[Chapek's] response was so flatfooted and ill-considered. The first round of response was, ‘Oops. Well, we're neutral anyway. So don't yell at us.'” First of all, you're not neutral if you're giving money to those particular politicians. I know about their records. Nobody who gives them money should be surprised at all by their stance on this issue. There is no neutral. The right-wing in the case of transgender and LGBTQ people have been coming for their very existence for a long time now.”She says Disney's leadership that well pre-dates Chapek often backs right-wing politicians in its shameless pursuit of profits. “Politicians in general have always benefited by the largesse of Disney in California and Florida and federally as well. But they lean Republican in who they support because Republicans, generally speaking, and politicians on the right are more supportive of what is generally called a pro-business agenda, which means lower taxes, less regulation and more autonomy for companies,” the heiress says. “So, I don't think Disney was necessarily thinking about [Florida State Sen. Dennis Baxley's] record when they gave him money. They were thinking about his record on business.”Disney also talked about the mindset behind directing the Sundance documentary The American Dream and Other Fairy Tales, about “America's dysfunctional and unequal economy” focusing on her family's story as a prism to view systemic problems. The project began in 2018, and it rankled corporate brass. (“I had a film crew with me when I went to testify [before Congress]. I know there was a Disney lobbyist there trying to prevent me from testifying,” she recalls. She recounts how she reached out to then-CEO Iger about her concerns about the company's drift towards inequity only to have her emails go unreturned. “It started before I started the film when I wrote a long email to him about my concerns. And of course, my concerns are not the concerns of a person who went to business school. But I think that's partly why they need to be heard. Right? His response to me was really actually dismissive and tiny bit insulting. I wrote him a second time and then I just never heard from him again.”Finally, in this podcast she challenges Disney to put a rank-and-file worker on the board to represent employee interests. “I don't know why boards are always filled with managers when the lion's share of workers are [low-level] workers. Their interests should be represented at the board level.” Instead, the company's top tier, particularly Iger, accumulated fabulous wealth on the backs of those workers (Iger and Chapek's comp packages were reported at $45.9 million and $32 million respectively in 2021). “Bob Iger never took a risk in his life,” she notes. “He took risks by purchasing other companies, but was he ever in danger of losing his house. Never. So to get rewarded that way [and] having never taken that kind of risk, it feels wrong.”Representatives for the Disney Corporation did not respond to requests for comment.Please just us next week for more episodes of Ankler Hot Seat, and remember to follow us (and like us!) at Apple Podcasts or wherever you listen to your podcasts.If you're not already a paying subscriber, we invite you to join our community and never miss another podcast or story again, New on The Ankler:Will NFT's save Hollywood? Entertainment Strategy Guy looks at the industry's next would be savior.An entire industry's love/hate psychosis arout Netflix.Spotify's Top Dealmaker to Depart: news first broken here.Inside the State of Zaslav's WB SlatePod: David Zaslav “May Have Hubris but He's Not Stupid”A View to a Kilar: surveying the final gasp of the AT&T era at Warners.Subscribe to The OptionistThis week: Finding T. rex + 7 Great Picks Q&A: Cons are In, Bleak is Out: With projects all over town, Truly Adventurous is changing the journalism x Hollywood playbook This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit theankler.com/subscribe

Recently the Disney Corporation arrogantly declared their intent to purposely use their medium to present human sexuality and marriage and more in their way. Bryan Osborne describes how Answers in Genesis is responding to Disney's decision.

Pastor Shane MillerOn today's episode we look at the leaked videos from the Disney Corporation and examine their “not-so-secret gay agenda” while unpacking lessons and principles that we can incorporate into our not-so-secret agenda. 

Darrell Castle discusses the law recently passed by the Florida legislature and signed by Governor DeSantis entitled Parental Rights in Education and how this law provoked the Disney Corporation to risk its reputation as family friendly in defiance of the law. Transcription / Notes PARENTAL RIGHTS IN FLORIDA AND EVERYWHERE ELSE Hello this is Darrell Castle with today's Castle Report. This is Friday the 8th day of April in this the year of our Lord 2022. I will be discussing the law recently passed by the Florida legislature and signed by Governor DeSantis entitled Parental Rights in Education but often defamed with the lie Don't Say Gay. How did this law provoke the Disney Corporation to risk its reputation as a family place, a kid friendly place, a happy place, a safe place for vacation, in defiance of the law? A secondary title for this Report could be, Does the State Own Your Children? Perhaps when you deliver your kids into the hands of the state system of education or indoctrination, they are yours no longer, but wholly owned by the all-knowing state. In Florida, the governor and the legislature have decided to oppose state ownership of children.  When Governor DeSantis signed the bill, he announced it as a parental rights bill that bans teachers from giving classroom instruction on “sexual orientation” or “gender identity” in kindergarten through third grade. He said in Florida, we not only know that parents have a right to be involved we insist that parents have a right to be involved. Those who insist that they have the right to sexualize and exploit young children immediately cast the bill as the don't say gay bill, but the bill, all 7 pages of it, does not mention the word gay. The three cohosts of the Oscars mocked it, repeatedly saying gay. DeSantis gave it right back to them saying, “If the people who held up degenerates like Harvey Weinstein as exemplars and as heroes and as all that, if those are the types of people that are opposing us on parents ‘rights, I wear that like a badge of honor.” He went on to say that what they hope to do with their slogans and false narrative is camouflage their true intentions. It was expected that anytime any state legislature tried to protect the state's children from gender identity indoctrination there would be angry pushback, but who would have thought that The Walt Disney Company would risk its reputation to go all in to defend the proposition that 5-year-olds should be exposed to sexualized content in public schools and Disney committed to further sexualizing their content aimed at young children. Disney came out swinging and did not mask the true intentions of the Walt Disney Company. The company's statement said, “Our goal as a company is for this law to be repealed by the legislature or struck down in the courts, and we remain committed to supporting the national and state organizations working to achieve that.” That statement was a declaration of war in the culture wars currently being waged across the country. Meanwhile, Pixar, Disney's animation studio, pressured the company to be more gay-friendly and the company quickly agreed. One has to question whether it is possible for Disney to be even more gay friendly, but the company is determined to try. The attitude of Disney is not normal. It is not normal for a once family friendly company to presume that the rights of a tiny sexual minority take precedence over the rights of parents to raise their children as they see fit. The education/indoctrination system, backed and funded by the Walt Disney Company, wants your children to be sexualized, or groomed, if you prefer, in any way they decide to do it. Parents, in their view, are to have no say in the matter. In order to destroy the old system of intact families raising their children, they want a new normal where they own your kids, and they have the exclusive right to decide what's best for them, even if that includes perverted sexual degeneracy.

The tiara is tainted, the pixie dust has turned to dirt and the polish of the previously esteemed brand of Disney is coming to an inglorious end. Before we examine the disrupting and dismantling of the Disney Corporation, we examine the courageous and imaginative genesis of all things Disney: Walter Elias Disney. Disney has been a cultural pillar of our nation for nearly 80 years. To watch this treasured jewel of American cultural influence degrade into a rough, woke beast is tragic for so many of us who have benefited and enjoyed the fruit of the Disney brand. The question must be asked: Is Disney worth saving? Or Should we cast Disney into the eternal trash heap forever? http://sovereignnations.com Support Sovereign Nations: paypal.me/sovnations patreon.com/sovnations Follow Sovereign Nations: sovereignnations.com/subscribe facebook.com/SovereignNations twitter.com/SovNations youtube.com/SovereignNations rumble.com/c/sovnations instagram.com/sovnations/ minds.com/sovnations?referrer=sovnations parler.com/profile/sovnations © 2022 Sovereign Nations. All rights reserved.

Today, Rich talks regenerative medicine or cloning pets and humans. Then, the ridiculous continues as the Disney Corporation complains about the Florida bill to protect young kids (ages 4-9) from sexual orientation discussions in the classroom. Plus, actor Ron Perlman and teachers blast the bill as Gov. DeSantis defends it.Portions of today's program are brought to you by JustFacts.com/Rich. Comment and follow on Facebook, Twitter, GETTR, and Parler or visit us at RichValdes.com.