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A poem about a map opens North and South, the first collection of the great twentieth century poet Elizabeth Bishop, and since, maps have been associated with her poetic vision—at once telescoping and binocular—and with the polarities and preoccupations of her work. The map's privileged, sweeping, bird's eye view of the earth is also hand-held, man-made, intimate. Depending on its level of minuteness or obsession, it can contain the tiniest details as well as, let's say, the whole enchilada. And though it purports to be scientific and objective, it is representational and therefore subjective, particular, imaginative, and personal. For several episodes, Wes & Erin will be reading a selection of some of Bishop's most anthologized poems, starting with “The Moose” as expressions of, among other things, her map-like imagination. Upcoming Episodes: Nolan’s adaptation of “The Odyssey”; more Elizabeth Bishop poetry: “First Death in Nova Scotia,” “One Art.” Pre-order Erin’s forthcoming book “Avail” here: http://subtextpodcast.com/avail For bonus content, become a paid subscriber at Patreon or directly on the Apple Podcasts app. Patreon subscribers also get early access to ad-free regular episodes. This podcast is part of the Airwave Media podcast network. Visit AirwaveMedia.com to listen and subscribe to other Airwave shows like Good Job, Brain and Big Picture Science. Email advertising@airwavemedia.com to enquire about advertising on the podcast. Follow: Twitter | Facebook | Website Transcript 0:11 Erin: Welcome to part two of our discussion of the poems of Elizabeth Bishop. We are currently about. Oh, I'm okay. I'm proud of us. We're just about halfway through the Moose. That's not bad compared to our usual record. We're not halfway through stanza one. We're going. You know, it's about a bus trip. It's encouraging us to pick up the pace a little bit and get to our next stop. So we were just going to pick up with the woman in stanza 13 climbing into the bus. 0:41 Wes: Before you say that, I just want to make one little observation. 0:44 Erin: Oh, sure. 0:45 Wes: Just that we get right as soon as the light goes out, it's then that we get the barking of a dog and the smell of salt. First it's the smell of salt hay and then it's the barking of a dog. So smell is introduced. And is that the first time sound is really introduced in any. You know, we get the bus starting and all that, but I think that's right. It's very visual up to that point, I think. And then as soon as we lose the light, we get these new sensory modalities. The collie just supervised this dog, gives us a nice bark, and presumably we can't even see him. We just hear him. So I just love that. I just. I love the transition into darkness. It's so. 1:26 Erin: Yeah. 1:26 Wes: I don't know how else to say it. 1:28 Erin: Yeah. 1:28 Wes: And it's then that we. This really is the midpoint of the poem because now we're going to make this transition into the world of the bus, I guess. As the woman climbs in, we have 1:41 Erin: the ship's port lantern, as you said, being an indication that it's now nearly or fully dark outside. 1:47 Wes: She says red light swims through the dark. 1:50 Erin: Yeah. I'm assuming that at this point a bus would have some form of illumination, at least for when it's stopped and the doors open for people getting on and off the bus. Right. It would. It would light up on the inside interior. Yeah. 2:03 Wes: Yeah. 2:03 Erin: Or at least maybe it would stop, certainly if it were stopping at a station or a little, you know, whatever those things are called. Those little. Yeah, there's a word for it. 2:14 Wes: We need something to see the freckles by. 2:16 Erin: Right. We need something. Exactly. But wherever they would be stopping would have some form of street light illumination or something of that order. Anyway. 2:26 Wes: But it's interesting you say this, because I didn't picture a bus station at any point in this. And I just imagine people along the side of the road. 2:34 Erin: Right. But if it were a course, it 2:38 Wes: couldn't be that way. 2:39 Erin: Well, I don't think it's a station. I think it would be a stop with a. You know, like a lean to. You know, what are those things that just. 2:44 Wes: Yeah, sure. 2:45 Erin: That just protect you from the elements. 2:47 Wes: Yeah. Bust down. 2:48 Erin: Right. 2:48 Wes: Yeah. 2:49 Erin: And that would probably have at least a street light. But anyway, then we get the moonlight. Maybe my favorite. Oh, it's so hard to say, but maybe my favorite image in the poem is the hairy, scratchy, splintery moonlight and mist caught in them like lambswool on bushes in a pasture. Just. There's nothing. There's no image greater than that. That's unbelievable. 3:13 Wes: There's kind of a more wildness to this. Right. The image now, the hairiness and scratchiness and splinteriness. It's a bit less Domesticated, I guess, than the previous part of the poem. 3:27 Erin: That's a really good point. I hadn't thought of that. Even a suggestion of danger, like the lamb running. 3:34 Wes: I just thought, this is where the hobbits are entering Fangorn Forest. 3:39 Erin: Yes. Yeah, yeah, the New Brunswick. 3:41 Wes: But you go a little bit more. It's a little wilder and more primal. I think once you. Even if you're on a bus, once you get into the woods, there's something different about it. 3:52 Erin: That's right. 3:53 Wes: But yeah, you're right. The idea that the moonlight could get caught in that. That's a great image. 3:59 Erin: Something giving chase to the lamb would cause it potentially to get a little ensnared in the chase. 4:06 Wes: It's as if Lambswool has, you know, a lamb is brushed up on the bramble or whatever and left its will so that. So the moonlight, instead of making this cosmic journey and landing on articulating the environment, has been subordinated to the environment. Right. It's become. It's been captured by these hairy woods. It's caught on it and, you know, a piece of it has come off from being caught on something that's scratchy and splintery. So that. That. Yeah, this is the great reversal. And that's the place where you can really get some good sleeping. Yes, right. 4:44 Erin: Yes. And where dreamy things can happen. 4:47 Wes: Divagation. Yeah, wanderings. 4:51 Erin: I looked that up. Wandering, straying or digressing from a main course, path or topic. So like a digression as long as 4:59 Wes: the bus stays on track. 5:00 Erin: Yeah, that's right. 5:01 Wes: You do whatever you want with your mind. 5:02 Erin: That's right. And the night. I just looked on Google Maps while I was writing my little notes in the margins. And if you were to take a bus today from Great Village to Boston, it would take like 10 hours. So it definitely is a, yikes, full course of the night on this night bus. So I love what happens in stanza 16, which begins in the creakings and noises, an old conversation not concerning us, but recognizable somewhere back in the bus. So I really love that it's grandparents voices, she says, uninterrupted talking. This is where the I becomes an us. And this is a characteristic of a bishop. I think she's rather reluctant to use an I, capital I in a poem. She's more likely to use a we or an us. And here it's as if they're all part of the same family now in the bus and the adults. It's almost like everybody on the bus who isn't a grandparent is a child and the adults in the back are talking and we are all, oh, that doesn't concern us. Just go to sleep. It's none of your business. Just stop eavesdropping on us. Right, so there's some community that's been formed already by the people who are not the grandparents talking. Do you get that impression? 6:20 Wes: Yeah, it's a bit confusing. So, yeah, let's try to figure it out. Because it. So it begins. A dreamy navigation begins in the night. She doesn't say, I started dreaming or they started dreaming or we started dreaming. Although it seems almost like it's collective. Right. So that the bus is dreaming or everyone on the bus is dreaming together, which kind of lines up with the not concerning us later on, the gentle auditory slow hallucination. So that's a very interesting idea. Right. The dream is usually associated with subjectivity. Right. The cogito and Descartes. Right. The dream tells us that we might have trouble distinguishing reality from what's in our own minds. And we in our own minds are very potentially cut off from reality. But it's a. It's an alienated individual position here. The dream is. Seems to be collective. And perhaps it's collective because it's partly real. Right. Is that the conversation? I thought, okay, there's a conversation going on in the back of the bus and it is old people talking. But as you're lying back, you could sort of. You can't hear exactly what they're saying. And you might have that kind of half dream, Right. Where you're. The dream is kind of lined up with or intertwined with what's going on in reality. So she's hearing in the conversation of the old people, her grandparents voices. Is that the way you took this? Or. Or they, they're hearing the grandparents voices or. Yeah. How do we, how do we interpret this? 7:54 Erin: I interpreted it as, you know, people of the age of grandparents having a real conversation. But the idea that one could be having an auditory. I mean, we are given the word auditory slow hallucination. So the idea that there could be an auditory hallucination or kind of half dream of one's own grandparents having a conversation, or it may be superimposed on a real conversation kind of inaudible going on on the bus. I never noticed this before. The G in grandparents is capitalized. So it does seem to sit to suggest the speaker's particular grandparents rather than. 8:30 Wes: Oh, I was going to. I thought you were going to say archetypal grandparents. 8:34 Erin: Oh, yeah, I suppose it could be yeah, it could be read that way, too. I think all of these things are true, right? 8:40 Wes: Yeah. 8:40 Erin: I mean, the image works because of the, shall we say, universal particularity of this experience. 8:47 Wes: The ordinary way to write the poem would be to. And a much simpler way would be to put this in her point of view and not try to put it into a collective point of view. But that seems to be what she's doing. 8:59 Erin: Yes. The effectiveness, though, I think is the. And it could just be the speaker's perception of it, but the atmospheric quality, because everyone on the bus is going to share an experience shortly, but already they are sharing an experience and a kind of atmosphere that they're all listening to the hum and having that. You know, when you're in the car and you. Maybe when you're a kid and you put your ear up against, like, the. The car door or the window or something, and you hear orchestral music. I don't know if you ever had that. I used to always hear classical music when I would put my head up. 9:38 Wes: Yeah, I don't think I have that. 9:40 Erin: All kinds of. And I always think, like, I should write this down. But you always have, like, a hallucination of an orchestra playing songs. Different songs. Sometimes like fantastical songs. Yeah. You know, my particular experience maybe doesn't quite get at the. Yeah. The sense that this is shared. 9:57 Wes: Well, you're put into a kind of dreamy state, and yet you're getting at the auditory hallucination part. I mean, for me, I think, as a child, and this, I think, is very evocative of childhood. It's something about being half asleep or falling asleep. You're on a journey and there are adults in the car and there's some. Maybe some sense of safety, I think is very relevant to this poem. But being ensconced in the world of adults and not quite alone when you do this thing, which is potentially very lonely, which is go to sleep. And of course, a lot of kids don't want to go to sleep because that loneliness factor. But it's a much different experience if you're traveling. You're all on the way to something together. And of course, you're with people who are awake and, you know, are going 10:45 Erin: to be awake, maybe because the kids are falling asleep. Their. Their voices are lowered and softer. And maybe that also contributes Right. To the. The way in which. That lulls the children in the back simply because they're aware of not wanting to talk too loudly. Certainly that would be the case on a bus like this, where they're Having a conversation where they're talking in. In lower voices and maybe actually inducing that calm and hum for sleep in the people, the other people in the bus who aren't talking. 11:15 Wes: And the question is, what are the adults doing with their talk? Right. It's not going to work if your parents are just fighting. In this case, it's the grandparents. Voices are clearing things up and I guess bringing certain things to resolution, coming to terms with these losses. But a lot of it does sound a bit gossipy and not necessarily like the most comforting. 11:39 Erin: Yes. Yeah. 11:39 Wes: Sort of talk we could imagine. Yeah. 11:41 Erin: Well, you know, in a situation like this where you might be a child in this car, could be that you're coming back from whatever, like a, like a late night and then the adults in the car are working through whatever has just happened over the course of the night. And. Oh no, she was the one who had that long. Yeah. Who had the criminal record because of that thing, remember where they. Oh, yeah, yeah. That was like 20 years ago. So you sort of get that. But for an entire family history going back ages and ages, talking in eternity. Deaths, deaths and sicknesses. The year he remarried, the year something happened. Oh, yeah, what year was that? Right. Something about the journey afterwards or maybe away from home. If these people are also. If their home is Nova Scotia and they're departing it, you know, then there's that backwards looking quality where something about the idea of the journey and moving away from the place is giving the opportunity to then take stock and look back. So there's this sort of like dual action happening in the poem where the further the bus goes, the further back they're kind of looking from deaths and sicknesses to then remarriage and then childbirth. Son lost when the schooner found her. 12:58 Wes: These are all very blue collar tragedies, right? 13:00 Erin: Yes. 13:01 Wes: He was arrested for insider trading. 13:04 Erin: No, but I mean, you know, there's a reverse order to what's happening, you know, so we get. We have death, then sickness, then remarriage, then dying in childbirth. So there's a rewind is what I mean. Yeah. 13:17 Wes: Well, we come back in the end to death. The way it's all summed up. 13:20 Erin: Insider trading. Sorry. 13:23 Wes: Huh? 13:24 Erin: Sorry, Just insider trading. That really is funny. 13:31 Wes: And he had an affair. No. A sharp indrawn breath. Half grown, half acceptance. That means life's like that. We know it. Also death, you know, and then the question, what does also death mean there? Death knows it, we also know death. But it, you know, it made me wonder at various points I wondered. Well, Is this an element here of a journey to the underworld or to the afterlife? Maybe it's a job not claiming that that's strong thematic part of this, but maybe a hint of that type of thing. Because the journey, I mean, and it does seem like journeys are good places for this or like when I travel, it produces in me a very different state of mind. And I do find it very calming in a way, you know, especially actually being on the train or something like that, because you're in between two different locations and you maybe you're not caught up in the expectations or the constricting qualities of any particular location. If I'm at home, I have to do this and that work, or if I'm at a destination, then I'm dealing with relatives or I have to be a tourist or something like that. But there's something liberating about being in between two locations. So it does seem like a place for this type of dreamy hallucination or this reflection or this clearing of things up. It's almost like therapy. Right? That's what all of this sounds like. People are talking through their problems, but where is it that they get to in the end here? The half grown, half acceptance. So it's not fully acceptance. It sums things up with this, maybe a degree of resignation. So yeah, I don't know. What do you make of the stanza? 15:15 Erin: Well, they're traveling west significantly. Right. I do take a lot of this to be a kind of, say, pre figurement of death, even though at the same time the fact that they're in the woods, the fact that not to jump ahead too much, the fact that the moose will come out of the woods and appear notably in the middle of the road, there is a suggestion of middle age or middleness, or midway in the journey of our life, I found myself within a dark forest. So I think it works both ways, or perhaps it's working in several ways simultaneously for the various passengers. So maybe the speaker is experiencing something more akin to the Dante esque middle of the journey on the bus. And something about the bus journey is also, symbolically speaking, a kind of final bus journey for some of the other passengers. And that intersection seems significant, but I don't know how, just in the sense that there's a retrospective quality happening or maybe even a reversion to childhood that goes on for the speaker and the other people in the bus by virtue of the propinquity to these old people at the end of their life's journey. Because there is very little about middleness Here, come to think of it, other than the moose appearing in the middle of the road. Right. It seems that the other people on the bus are like children and the grandparents are the adults. 16:50 Wes: I mean, I think part of what's comforting when we're children is that feeling that adults know the answers and that adults know how to cope with all the dangers and have experience doing that and therefore can protect us. The reality, of course, as we realize as we get older, is that that's not true. So what they may have is more of this acceptance that's sort of highlighted in this stanza, which is potentially a good thing, but maybe a double edged sword because it does seem to be a form of dying. It does seem to be a form of the very thing that we want to be protected from. 17:30 Erin: There's also, though, that. What I used to call my mom, the external hard drive. I used to say back before she. 17:42 Wes: She liked that. 17:44 Erin: I think now it would make her sad because she'll say, you know, very openly that she. Her memory is gone. But it used to be that she knew all the, you know, you could ask her who said that at that one. You know, there's that kind of. I mean, that's a sort of jokey, gossipy scorekeeping thing that she would keep tabs on. But there's also just the idea of long memory being the history keeper, the record keeper, the, you know, and there's sort of settling accounts over the course of this conversation. Oh, right, it was that year. Okay. And then this happened and then, then that happened. And that's important too, I think, for, you know, it situates children in a context. Not just say this idea of death that you're referring to, but also how to situate oneself in a life. 18:34 Wes: Right. 18:34 Erin: There's a. There's a sort of frame that the grandparents or the elder relatives have that whole history up until you enter the narrative and where you fit within that. We mentioned in part one a little bit about Bishop's family history just to kind of prefigure the types of story that she inserts, I think very significantly into the poem, particularly about poor Amos who just wouldn't stop praying in the store and had to be. Had to be put away. Right. Of course she does a gender swap, but yeah, we all have family stories like this, of this kind of unruly behavior or madness of some kind or other or some sort of family drama. 19:19 Wes: Yeah. So it's universal. But the way she captures it is very clever with this talk that we don't quite know whether it's just the conversation of the people, the old people at the back of the bus, or whether it's her dream or whether it's both or somewhere in between. They're interlaced, those two things. And that. That interlacing gets at this aspect of universality. Although I think by the time we get to the stanza where she's fantasizing about the grandparents and the featherbed, this, it start. Seems to become inescapably personal, which is why I think of the. The point of view is getting more and more focused. Right. With. With time. Yeah. And potentially it's still universal, but it seems almost like a personal memory. Right. So talking the way they talked in the old feather bed. Right. The way they. Her. Her grandparents presumably in the old feather bed, peacefully on and on. Dim lamp light in the hall, down in the kitchen, the dog tucked in her shaw. Shawl. Yeah, get another. And get another dog here. 20:28 Erin: I love this. 20:29 Wes: The collie, the barking dog. And. Yeah, so this, this stanza is wonderful. And it gets at exactly this thing that you've been talking about, which is the, like, comfort of being a kid overhearing adults talking. It really, despite this talk of death. Right. A reconciliation with death. This is the point. Seems to be the point of view of a child who finds this very comforting. And. Right. She'll say in the next stanza, now it's all right now even to fall asleep, just as on all those nights, the way in which the adult world and the safety of protective figures can make sleep okay to do. And then suddenly that's interrupted. 21:07 Erin: But I love too. I mean, yes, it's so particular, but it also just in this one stanza does so many things in miniature that the poem is doing all along, this telescoping in again to a scene which. Which even as a child, if it were her childhood in particular that she's referencing, she couldn't possibly know or see. She wouldn't be able to see the grandparents in their featherbed. She would have to be picturing them in the featherbed and she wouldn't be able to see the dog in the hall. And also I wonder if this. If the stanza in its operation is kind of doing. I mean, this is just occurring to me now, but maybe it's doing that kind of hallucinatory work that has prior been described where we actually get a remix of, you know, this is the third dog in the poem. But it's also the elements in the stanza are a kind of recapitulation of the light, the red light swimming, the port Lantern becomes the lamp light in the hall. We get the dog barking now becomes the dog curled up in the shawl. And then maybe even because we also get kitchen, maybe the shawl is even a kind of transposition of the table, tablecloth shook out. Right. So there's something actually in the stanza which has that hallucinatory quality that she's describing where these three elements swim in the imagination and then become the lamplight and the dog and the shawl in this half asleep kind of dream space. Maybe that's pushing things too far, but it does seem to be. It's the dreamiest stanza perhaps in the whole poem. Maybe the following one. Now it's all right now even to fall asleep. But this gets interrupted that next stanza. So this one, I think is the real depth of the dreamy or borderline dreamy or hallucinatory moment. 23:00 Wes: Yeah, this is great because it really underlines the way deviation creates the capacity for stasis or for comfort. So the deviation of a bus trip or of the dreaming. Right. Which is movement, which is dynamic and has that momentum, forward momentum that we were talking about, sort of underwrites or grounds this ability to. For stasis, for stopping, for going to sleep, for feeling comforted as a child and safe, I think. And I keep repeating that word because of the. What's going to happen. The use of the word that's going to happen in this poem later. But yeah, I'm not sure if you were saying that explicitly, but that's what came to mind my mind as you were talking. This. The way in which this journey, devigation, motion can ground something that's going to be more static or stationary, which is what we're going to get in the moose. Because it interrupts the. It explicitly interrupts the motion of the bus and the external line of the poem in a way that parallels the comfort that's produced by the dreaming. 24:08 Erin: Yeah. In stanza 22 is where we have that break that you're describing. The moose finally appears. Well, the moose doesn't appear until stanza 23 finally appears. 24:21 Wes: We've been waiting for you. 24:22 Erin: We've been waiting for you. The title has promised that you would come and then here you are. It is foretold of your coming. 24:29 Wes: Comes through the curtains, takes his bow. Right. 24:32 Erin: We get nights, just as on all those nights. And then the moose's appearance, the lights turn on. And that rhyme you get, I mean, it's a very basic, simple rhyme. Right. But there's that sort of sudden jolt which is then also visualized where in the middle of night we have this appearance, this bright because of the headlights on it. Appearance of the moose. And it looms and sniffs at the bus's hot hood, which I'm assuming means that it thinks that the bus might be a boy moose. 25:06 Wes: No. Well, it's a very hot bus, I'll say that. 25:10 Erin: Ow. Ow. 25:14 Wes: That enamel. And it's dented and, you know, depends on if you like bad buses. No, just kidding. 25:21 Erin: Dented from its last encounter with a girl bus. 25:25 Wes: Yeah. It's funny because I wrote in my notes, but was just reading it stanza by stanza. And the previous stanza I'd said, okay to sleep, even with death looming. Looming for all of us, you know, all day one. You know, one day we all die. Blooming in that sense. And then suddenly the moose is looming, standing there, looming. And I thought, whoa, that's really interesting 25:45 Erin: that I. Oh, yes, chose. 25:48 Wes: Chose that word before I even got to the next stanza. Not to give some, you know, obvious rote sort of identification of the moose with death or the experience of the moose as having something to do with that. But obviously they're coming into contact here with something quite primal and important. It's not just, oh, look, there's a nice moose, but is he sniffing or she's sniffing the buses hot hood because she thinks it might be another moon. That hadn't actually occurred to me. 26:21 Erin: I must have been infected with that reading at some point that this was a frisky moose, that it otherwise doesn't seem frisky at all. It seems pretty. Like a pretty staid, respectable moose. 26:34 Wes: But frisky and ditzy. 26:39 Erin: That's right. Hello. 26:41 Wes: What? 26:41 Erin: Oh, look, I seem to be in the middle of the road. Pardon me. 26:46 Wes: So, towering, antlerous, high as a church, homely as a house. We're safe as houses, a man's voice assures us. Perfectly harmless. Which you presume, right, that the. The man making that assurance is. Precedes the idea of it being homely as a house and safe as houses. Even though. So. So she interestingly puts the associations before her associative responses before the actual stimulus. Right. I don't think she's the one who is thinking about how they must be safe and. And he's saying something. I mean, as far as I know. I don't know back then. But you were warned about bison and mooses, right? Or is it mooses or moose? I think we're warned because they don't. They. They seem harmless, but they're not. And so I was quite surprised by this stanza. And I thought this idea, okay, safe as houses. Well, yeah, houses ought to be safe, but they're not always safe. The bus, the moving container of the bus turns out to be, in a way safer and more conducive to reverie and dreaming and all of that. 27:59 Erin: No matter how you slice it, whether you see the moose as harmless, truly, or not so harmless, this has got to be just a little bit of a wink, right? A man's voice assures us. 28:09 Wes: I mean, I think we're definitely meant to be skeptical. 28:12 Erin: Yeah. 28:13 Wes: This perfectly harmless line, it's not there for us to nod our heads in agreement. 28:20 Erin: Oh, yeah, he's right, right, right. I think it's more like, oh, here's another mansplainer. 28:26 Wes: He's moose splaining. 28:28 Erin: Mooseplaining this woman moose to moose splaining. Just out for a good time, having her existence commented upon by another man's voice. Probably a podcaster. One of those male podcasters has a manosphere podcast. 28:45 Wes: Girl mooses are. 28:49 Erin: Then we get these childish again. The passengers are like children and having this childlike response to the appearance of the moose, including. It's awful, plain sad. So much judgment of women's bodies. 29:04 Wes: I mean, they're not good looking creatures. Let's just. They're, you know, put that on the table. Come on. They are in an ugly sort of way. 29:11 Erin: Yeah. I mean, okay, I guess they don't follow, you know, classical proportions. They don't represent the golden mean. 29:21 Wes: They're not into beauty society societal beauty standards. All right. 29:28 Erin: They are like cartoon characters. 29:29 Wes: They're miss Positive is what they are. 29:35 Erin: Well, what I love though, about the description, you know, we get several, I suppose. Yeah. Contradictory descriptions of the moose in a way, because we get homely as a house or safe as houses. We get awful plane. But then she looks the bus over grand otherworldly, so she has some gravitas. She's like a great character actress who. Who may not be beautiful in that leading lady way, but she's Kathy Bates. Yes. Yeah, well, that's maybe a bit insulting to Kathy Bates, who I do think is a very attractive woman, but. 30:19 Wes: Sorry, Kathy. 30:20 Erin: I know, I love her. 30:21 Wes: Come on the show sometime, please. 30:24 Erin: Oh my gosh, I would die. I love Kathy Bates anyway. And then we get curious creatures. Well, first we get the idea that it inspires joy and then we get curious creatures. So there's a. The joy is then immediately undercut by a kind of ambivalence. Right. So there's just all of these descriptions of the moose combine to create a kind of ambivalent portrait, such as it is, of the animal. 30:47 Wes: Are we going to be able to answer this question? Why? Why do they feel the sweet sensation of joy? I mean, I think I would probably feel it. 30:57 Erin: Why? Why do we all feel it? I mean, they have. Well, they've successfully done what I couldn't see a moose in real life. So they're like one up on Erin. Can't wait to go back and tell her we saw moose. Yeah, I've seen certain things. I can't think of a specific example of this, but I've had plenty of instances. Whether it is a wild animal or, I don't know, like a sunset or a really spectacular natural event of some kind or other. You do get that feeling of joy, kind of excitement. 31:28 Wes: Yeah. Unfortunately, most of my encounters with large animals are at zoos. I did see a bear once. I was going to the bathroom. My mom had a house in Front Royal, Virginia, at the beginning of the Appalachian Mountains. And it was up high on a. We called it a mountain, but it was, I guess, more of a hill. But so it was out, you know, it was kind of. There was a bear on the mountain, let's just put it that way. And, yeah, I was going to the bathroom one day and looking out the window. There's a window right. You know, above the toilet. And suddenly there's bear's face looking at me. Wow. What the. So, but that, you know, and. And that was majestic. No, just kidding. That it was. I. It was surprising. 32:13 Erin: Yeah. 32:14 Wes: And there's an element of fear that involved. Even if you're, you know, even if, you know, black bears are harmless and there's a wall between you. Some. Something scary about it. I didn't have time to feel like it's majestic. Yeah. You know, like you have had these experiences in. In nature, but I can't think of a encounter like this. But it. I seem sure that if I had an encounter like this, I would feel exactly the same way. So. Yeah. What is otherworldly about it? What is majestic about it? It's a big, dumb beast. And I say that with love, without any criticism in the sense that. Right. It's an encounter with something primal. And I think we have to take into account the size of the animal as well. I mean, it is interesting to run into a fox or something like that, but it's also a matter of scale here. But. Yeah. What is otherworldly about it? I mean, I think the most. The most obvious part of this is that you know, we have lost something in our humanity and becoming language using creatures and becoming self conscious creatures. And sometimes when we're confronted with an animal like this, we're confronted with that loss. We're not as connected to the environment because of the intermediation of something like language, which poetry of course tries to overcome. It tries to put language into a disintermediating. Sorry to use these business terms. I don't know why this is happening. Into a disintermediation. 33:46 Erin: Actualize. Yeah, yeah. 33:49 Wes: When it. Yeah, right. Synergize it's agenda. Often where language might put distance between us and the world. Poetry, I think, can undo that distance. Like I was saying, with the very vivid imagery, I can undo that distance with figurative language. And maybe that distance is also undone to some extent by the dreaming or the half dreaming hallucinatory state that she was in. And the comfort of that, the return to childhood, which is also a simpler time. I don't know. I'm thinking out loud here. But yeah, I wanted to try to get more at this, you know, the otherworldly status of the moose and the joy that comes from encountering it. 34:34 Erin: I was thinking to myself, is the moose's gaze really clearly encapsulated? And then I thought, yes, she regards us amicably. And then I was like, no, no, that's the passenger who gets on the bus. 34:44 Wes: Right. Does the moose have freckles? Yeah, that'd be an interesting twist, right? 34:50 Erin: But yeah, but there is one. 34:51 Wes: Turned her into a moose. 34:53 Erin: Well, I would think that this would be a more garden variety animal encounter and maybe even a more, to use a word, I don't like, problematic poem in terms of its relationship with the animal. If it were to focus on the gaze of the animal. Because I think that is the thing which is often at the core of these interactions with animals in which we project or hope to have a kind of meaningful encounter. You want to meet the gaze of the animal and in so doing understand it. Right. And of course you don't realize that you're just projecting onto it a kind of maybe mutual regard. She regards us amicably. That you are seeing it and it is seeing you. And there's an acknowledgement and there's this, you know, spiritual encounter that you have with this animal. And all of that, of course, is often quite silly. It's often quite reductive and fanciful and unrealistic. But I am thinking of an encounter that springs to mind is in Utah. I hiked the same trail almost every day. And I Would often hike it late in order to escape the full heat of the desert sun. Which is a little dangerous, right? Because sometimes the sun would be setting and then all kinds of things come out. And one time I was trying to get back to my car before it got completely dark. And what I thought was a wolf, but what must have been a coyote. And the coyotes in Utah are huge. They look like wolves and completely white. Came out from over a hill, crossed my path, turned, looked at me in the eyes for a very long time, turned and went over on the other side of the hill. I mean, curiously, then, of course, I got to the car and I actually found out that a beloved family member, an elderly family member of mine, had passed away. And I said, I think I just saw her. You know, I had this feeling of, like. I don't know, the sense of this connection, inherent connection between these two. This woman who was dear to me and this encounter. But, of course, that's all silliness. And the idea that I was having a sort of interaction through the gate. Some sort of reciprocal. Right. Interaction with this animal was also entirely just my own projecting onto the animal. However, I will say that that's an instance in which I felt fear. But then there was also this, like, joy at the encounter, I think fear because it was dark. Because I wasn't actually sure if this was a wolf because it blocked my path. It was far enough away that I didn't feel as threatened as I might have. But it was definitely a mixed perception. 37:28 Wes: You didn't shoot it and then hang it around your neck. No, because I was thinking. I just suddenly thought of the albatross poem. 37:37 Erin: Rime of the Ancient Mariner. 37:38 Wes: Rime of the Ancient Mariner. And that sort of relationship to the natural world where. I mean, I forget what we said about it, but maybe I said something about envy and wanting to kill the albatross for. Because of its freedom or something like that. I don't. I don't know. But I think it's important because, yeah, this is part of something about the encounter with the natural world. Whether it's a big moose or something else. Yes. Is otherworldly. Strangely enough, it's otherworldly to us, even though it's where we come from. It's uncanny, maybe. And Freud actually, in the German, I think uncanny is sort of like unhomelike is what the German sounds like. And Freud made a lot out of this. I think it's home, but it's a home from which we've become alienated. We're animals, we're something more than animals. And so that primal encounter brings us back to that foundation, that natural foundation in us, but we can't fully come to terms with it. And I think the other aspect of this, I think the death. Right. So there is a link to death. Just. And I was thinking about that when you described thinking of it as seeing. As seeing your departed loved one. Because if we could regress to that animal state, it would be a kind of death. I think that the association with the movement to the pre. Linguistic, natural foundation is something like the movement towards dying, but there's something comforting. 39:07 Erin: Yes. 39:07 Wes: Right. And we encounter that when we encounter the gaze. To have a. Have a gaze returned by an animal like that usually like, like our internal. Our entire psychological structure, what makes us self. Self conscious is the internalization of a human gaze. Right. To the extent that we. We get an animal gaze, I think we are returned to that more primal part of ourselves. And it does seem to me to have something to do with being reconciled to mortality. Right. Which is part of what the function of that dialogue between the elderly people is doing. 39:44 Erin: You're leading me into the one, say, reading of the moose that I wanted to get to. And I just want to say that I think the great thing about Bishop and about this poem and all her poems is that the moose is a moose. It's not a symbol. I hesitate to offer any kind of 40:03 Wes: direct reading, but that's her job on this podcast, though. 40:05 Erin: I know, I know. It's. Yeah. In the letters with Robert Lowell when he's writing to her about her poem at the fish houses, he says, alas, all my fish just become symbols. 40:16 Wes: Ah, very good. 40:17 Erin: I hesitate to reduce. I think what you've just said makes me think that it's the maternal, the mother. 40:25 Wes: Which also brings us back to the house. 40:28 Erin: Yes, the house. Yeah. It's something that comes like the clapboard churches, like clamshells seem to arise out of the ground, if you will, or are directly compared to these native creatures. The houses are then in turn used as comparisons for the moose, the maternal. The idea that this is something that returns us to nature, that this is the encounter that we would have presumably upon death. It's the loved one that is somehow comforting, maternal, and is a female moose. It's moose mom. I don't know. I don't know. Something going on there. 41:04 Wes: Moose mom. 41:05 Erin: Natural and strange at the same time, not us. And I guess that's why I. That's why I mentioned that the story of my grandfather at the beginning, because I don't know why I wanted so badly to see a moose right after my grandfather's death. But there was something, like, logical about it to me. And I was familiar with this poem, but I very much did not have. You know, it was not something that was the forefront of my mind at all. But I think there is this inherent connection, and it's silly. You know, I kind of can't believe I'm saying this, but I do. I do think there is this kind of connection between this desire that I felt to see this animal. Like the particular kind of primordial itch that the moose in particular seems to be scratching for me in that moment. For Bishop, in this poem, something that is at once safe and comforting and from another world, natural in that kind of elemental way. 42:00 Wes: Yeah. 42:01 Erin: That all kind of coalesce in that image. 42:04 Wes: Very good. 42:05 Erin: Okay. I think that's it, Wes. All we're left with is the dim smell of moose and an acrid smell of gasoline. 42:12 Wes: Oh, you know, we should have talked about that. Maybe we can start with that on our next Bishop recording. We'll. We'll begin with the smells, the smells and the significance of that image at the end. 42:25 Erin: Nice. 42:25 Wes: That smellage at the end. 42:26 Erin: Smellage. All right. Thank you. 42:29 Wes: Thank you.

We dig into why more people are happily single than ever and the surprising benefits of thriving alone! Sam sends 3 of his rare Luke Skywalker cards off for grading after one sold for $600,000. Plus, why raccoons are getting so comfortable around us they may soon be practically domesticated.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Traffic or paranormal phenomena, which has Pat been bothered by now? Could body cameras be the ghost hunting tool and who is that staring back at you from the mirror?! Its... Stout Steve, the BRAND NEW cryptid that has hit the scene! Find out more on this week's episode! We Love You!

When we think about the workers that keep California's agriculture afloat, we rarely think about the bees that fertilize our crops. In places like California's Central Valley, millions of domesticated bee colonies are transported in and out of the state to pollinate crops and to keep our food system running. But between intense workcycles, pesticide exposure and a changing climate, industrial agriculture has proven hard for bees. Can the bees continue to survive in these conditions? In this hour we speak to science writer Jennie Durant about her new book, “Bitter Honey: Big Ag's Threat to Bees and the Fight to Save Them.” Guests: Jennie Durant, science writer and author, “Bitter Honey: Big Ag's Threat to Bees and the Fight to Save Them” Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Join Chris and Pat as they do some disclosing of their own! Find out what the "Dick and Balls" situation is when it comes to the different races of aliens and SO MUCH more!!! We Love You!

Catch a NEW show, every Thursday, on all your favorite platforms!!We Love You!

"Coca is to cocaine what potatoes are to vodka" — Dr. Andrew Weil and Wade Davis on the health benefits, sacred history, and unjust prohibition of the most misunderstood plant on Earth.Dr. Andrew Weil is a pioneer in integrative medicine and founder of the Andrew Weil Center for Integrative Medicine at the University of Arizona, where he holds the Lovell-Jones Endowed Chair and serves as Clinical Professor of Medicine and Professor of Public Health.Wade Davis is an ethnographer, writer, photographer, and filmmaker. From 2014 to 2024 he served as Professor of Anthropology and BC Leadership Chair in Cultures and Ecosystems at Risk at the University of British Columbia, and from 2000 to 2013 as Explorer-in-Residence at the National Geographic Society.Connect with the Beneficial Plant Research Association (BPRA): Website (scroll down to donate) | Coca Leaf Research | Coca Leaf Documentary | Coca Leaf RetreatThis episode is brought to you by:Incogni, which automatically removes your personal data from the web, helping shield you from fraud, scams, and identity theft: Incogni.com/Tim (use code TIM at checkout and get 60% off an annual plan)Maui Nui Venison​ delicious, nutrient-dense, and responsible red meat: https://mauinuivenison.com/tim5-Bullet Friday, my very own free email newsletter: https://tim.blog/fridayTimestamps:[00:00:00] Start.[00:02:38] When coca tea cured my brutal altitude sickness in Chile.[00:04:01] Andy meets coca, 1965: the Andes' master medicine for gut, energy, mood, metabolism.[00:06:20] 14 alkaloids, one scapegoat.[00:07:11] The paradox: one remedy for both diarrhea and constipation.[00:11:37] 8,000 years, zero addiction — and the 1975 study no one wanted to run.[00:13:11] Eradication began 60 years before there was a cocaine problem.[00:16:27] Two nations inside Peru: alcohol versus coca.[00:17:05] The 1950 UN commission that dictated coca policy by pseudoscience, fear, and racism.[00:18:10] Filed beside fentanyl and heroin; 250,000 families and the price of peace.[00:20:03] What coca actually feels like: milder than half a coffee, no crash, no withdrawal.[00:24:19] Decoupling the leaf from the cartels; why crop substitution is a fantasy.[00:25:54] Domesticated three times; the accident of Schedule II.[00:27:49] The sacred leaf: k'intu, cruceta, Pachamama, runakuna.[00:31:11] Hayo in the Sierra Nevada, and Latin America's most-denied gift.[00:32:53] The wedge in the door: demand, the FDA, and an entrepreneur's gold mine.[00:40:22] The story coca deserves — a film, green powders, and one good study.[00:43:12] Monkey mind, the tax of consciousness, and an 84th birthday on coca.[00:47:35] Who to fund: McCurdy and the hunt for legal leaves.[00:49:17] Could coca treat cocaine addiction? Cost, and NIDA's timing.[00:53:18] "Green cocaine" at the airport: coca is to cocaine as potatoes are to vodka.[00:56:58] A 24-hour ritual run powered entirely by coca.[00:59:07] Why two men gave their careers to one leaf — and the pharmaceutical body count.[01:06:22] America's legal cocaine capital, and Coke's secret recipe.[01:09:08] No accident: the hideous prose behind laws we still obey.[01:15:42] Parting thoughts.*For show notes and past guests on The Tim Ferriss Show, please visit tim.blog/podcast.For deals from sponsors of The Tim Ferriss Show, please visit tim.blog/podcast-sponsorsSign up for Tim's email newsletter (5-Bullet Friday) at tim.blog/friday.For transcripts of episodes, go to tim.blog/transcripts.Discover Tim's books: tim.blog/books.Follow Tim:Twitter: twitter.com/tferriss Instagram: instagram.com/timferrissYouTube: youtube.com/timferrissFacebook: facebook.com/timferriss LinkedIn: linkedin.com/in/timferrissSee Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Dave LaGreca and Bully Ray discuss Monday Night Raw: Jacob Fatu acknowledges Roman Reigns, plus, Oba Femi advances in the KOTR tournament... what next for him and Brock? To visit our partners at Chewy, click here. The Master's Class is now available on its own podcast feed! SUBSCRIBE NOW to hear over 50 episodes of Dave, Bully, Mark, and Tommy taking you behind the scenes like only they can, plus BRAND NEW episodes every week. Subscribe to SiriusXM Podcasts+ to listen to new episodes of Busted Open ad-free and get exclusive access to bonus episodes. Start a free trial now on Apple Podcasts or by visiting siriusxm.com/podcastsplus. Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

Ohhh how we LOVE Jesus as Savior...but what about Jesus as LORD?  I think most Christians just settle for Jesus being "house help."

This month, we're talking about one of the most crucial animals in our society. Alex sits down with Jennie Durant, Author and Researcher, to explore why these animals matter so much and what's at stake if their populations decline. With over a decade of experience studying them and working alongside those dedicated to their protection, Jennie brings a deeply informed perspective to the conversation. So join us as we buzz into the world of domesticated bees.For sources and more information, please visit our website.We're so excited to share that we've launched a Patreon!If you like the show and want to support us, you can join our Patreon at https://www.patreon.com/onwildlife.By joining, you can help keep On Wildlife going and make it possible to create more episodes, resources, and bonus content. Check out the link above for more details!Support the show

For a performer trained to draw attention to themselves Ami Skånberg has found a way to make herself invisible in public space. Andrew Stuck has come to Gothenburg on Sweden’s western coast to interview her and learn about her passion for a Japanese performing arts step called Suriashi (also practised in tea ceremony and martial arts). Not only does she practice Suriashi daily but she uses it in her teaching and through that encourages others to use it in meditation and peaceful protest. So, join them on this walk through a busy modern city occasionally adopting an ancient Suriashi step and turning themselves invisible. 28’10” 13.2MB Download notes from this interview: Ami Skanberg_podcast_notesDownload In this photo Ami practices with Nishikawa Senrei, Kyoto 2011 Improvising to two giant organs (dance) Domesticated pilgrimage in Carina Ari’s apartment in Paris (Suriashi) Image credits: Feature – Pethrin; Kyoto, 2011- Folke Johansson; Improvising – Karin Brygger 

There is never a serious conversation about taxation within liberal or conservative media. They want us to accept our Tax Slave status. The abandonment of Trump. Too little too late. But also a tad suspicious. What is the NEXT con they plan to run?

Fox Sports News' Justin Edwards is joined by Fox Cricket's Nic Savage to review the epic Sheffield Shield final which saw South Australia claim a dramatic win over Victoria to secure back to back titles. The boys take a look at which stars from the season could potentially join the Australian test team and South Australian bowler Henry Thornton joins the show as the celebrations continue.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

As the Sheffield Shield season nears its conclusion, Fox Sports News’ Justin Edwards is joined by Fox Cricket’s Nic Savage to break down the latest from the domestic cricket season. Today's agenda features a discussion of Cam Green's out-of-character interview, the bizarre scenes surrounding Brad Haddin's interview process at New South Wales and a preview of the Sheffield Shield final between Victoria and South Australia. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

“Relationscapes” is the current podcast by Fireside host Blair Hodges. Enjoy this sample episode! Be sure to subscribe directly to Relationscapes now, because this episode will fall out of the Fireside feed next month!

On TODAY'S Podcast!What is the correct way to wrap a Nintendo 64 controllerFind out, on The Bar Banter Podcast!Support the Show!If you want to show your support for the show, now you can! Help us pay for our "Bar Tab" by clicking the link below! https://ko-fi.com/the_barbanterFind us on Social Media!Instagram: the_barbanter Twitter: https://twitter.com/the_barbanterYouTube: The Bar Banter PodcastTiktok: @the_barbanterpodcast Bluesky: thebarbanterWe're Sponsored!Angry Toothpick Jerky, Own Your Hangry Click here and enter "banter" at checkout for 10% off your entire order!About this episodeHosts: Ben Trimmer, Drew Mullis, Rick Mattison, Travis Jennings Guest: Producer: Travis Jennings Editor: Travis Jennings Song Credits: The Floor Is Lava · Avocado Junkie30 Seconds Of Funk - Slap Bass · PremiumProductionTracks, funky-fortune-154575, electronic-rock-king-around-here-15045 Link to full podlink: https://pod.link/1615139311#barbanter #drinkinggames #podcast #satire #beer #alcohol #spirits #bar #banter #argue #debate #funny #comedy #indy #drinking #popculture #social #cheers #lastcall #wouldyouratherSHOW NOTES!Topic 1Topic 2Topic 3Last call

Revelation 7:1-17 “Jesus Is Greater Than Our Domesticated, Status Quo, ‘Safe' Vision for Our Church Family”Preacher: Guest: Scotty SmithSunday MorningDate: 1st March 2026Passage: Revelation 7:1-17

In this week's episode, Dan and Mags interview Matthias Toplak to talk about the history of our furry friends in Viking society.------------------------------------------------Check out Matthias's blog:https://wikinger-toplak.deFollow Margrethe on Instagram:https://www.instagram.com/arkeomagsFollow the Podcast on Instagram:https://www.instagram.com/nordicmythologypodcastIf you like what we do, and would like to be in the audience for live streams of new episodes to ask questions, please consider supporting us on Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/NordicMythologypodcastCheck out Dan's company, Horns of Odin, and the wide range of handmade items inspired by Nordic Mythology and the Viking Age. Visit: https://www.hornsofodin.com Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Dogs in most Western countries are domesticated - meaning they live as pets in our homes. That comes with significant perks but also with the loss of choice and control over ... a lot of things in their lives. Jesse and Verena chat about the important topic of agency: How can we provide more of it? What to do if we can't provide it? And how can we avoid sending our dogs into a state of learned helplessness? Our shoutout goes to Rubi Sullivan at Heal Animal Massage Therapy. We would appreciate your support for the Reward Your Dog Podcast by liking, rating, reviewing, and sharing. It helps us so much!You can also:Join the RYDP Patreon (no paywalls unless you *want* to subscribe)Buy us a coffeeAnd of course you can reach out to Verena help with your dog. More info on Verena and Reward Your Dog Training can be found here:WebsiteBlue SkyFacebookInstagram

Fox Sports News' Justin Edwards is joined by Fox Cricket's Nic Savage to discuss all the latest action from the domestic cricket season as Australia's T20 World Cup hopes look gone, the panel is also joined by Liam Scott to talk about his career-best form from this domestic season. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Ryan Harrison is the President and Director of Fun for the Welland Jackfish. The Jackfish are part of the Canadian Baseball League. Ryan shares with us about "Niagara's Greatest Show" and what fans can expect when going to a game. We chat about some of their alternate identities and he shares his Proffitt & Loss.Be sure to follow the Jackfish online.Welland Jackfish -Website: https://www.wellandjackfish.com/Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/wellandjackfish/Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/wellandjackfish/ (@WellandJackfish)Twitter: https://www.twitter.com/wellandjackfish (@WellandJackfish)Earned Fun Average - Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/earnedfunavg/ (@EarnedFunAvg)Twitter: https://www.twitter.com/earnedfunavg/ (@EarnedFunAvg)Blue Sky: https://www.bsky.app/profile/earnedfunavg.bsky.social  (@EarnedFunAvg.bsky.social)Threads: https://www.threads.com/@earnedfunavg (@EarnedFunAvg)Curved Brim Media -Website: https://www.curvedbrimmedia.com/Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/curvedbrimmedia/ (@CurvedBrimMedia)Twitter: https://www.twitter.com/CurvedBrim/ (@CurvedBrim)

Evolution has carefully crafted species over milennia, tinkering with them in the face of each new challenge to produce the wonders of life that lay before us today. Today's episode takes a look at just how easy it is for humans to ruin that as we bend the species of the earth to our will in one of the most fascinating processes we've subjected nature to - domestication.  Once you've wrapped your head around a crazy study that Jack is bringing to the table today, get ready for the arena as we're taking on the Quokka, an animal influencer whose no stranger to rubbing shoulders with the stars. Finally, we're offering you a choice - you're in a supermarket, alone, for 2 weeks. Red pill: Silverback Gorilla, blue pill: five Black Mambas. Choose wisely... For extra goose, find us on Patreon at: www.patreon.com/howmanygeese

Human beings move as a flock. What feels like freedom is motion inside a herd. People act the way they do because of pressure, habit, fear, desire, reward, or past experience. When we make decisions, we are responding to systemic forces already acting on us, even when theologians insist on calling this a free choice, the so-called “free will.” Long before a choice is named, the path is worn.Governments, workplaces, laws, economies, religions, philosophies, ideologies, and social norms all rely on the same logic. If certain behaviors are rewarded and others punished, people will respond in predictable ways. Obedience inside these systems is never neutral. People comply because it benefits them, protects them, or helps them avoid loss. Even rebellion, blind to what it is building, follows recognizable patterns and is absorbed back into the systems it supposedly opposes.But beneath these systems sits something deeper and more diabolical: the human logos. Explanation. Justification. Language itself as causality. Words that govern reality, binding reasons to actions, beliefs to outcomes, and sacrifices to meaning. This is how systems hold together. They are not only structures of power, but temples built of language, narratives, and shared explanations. Propaganda. A world where everything makes sense.Belief, in this sense, is not faith. It is how humans explain themselves to themselves, a projection of the lamp of the body, quieting fear, justifying loss, making obedience reasonable. Over time, this explanatory language becomes a prison people inhabit. A Temple made of human hands, not of stone, but of coherence. An idol constructed from meaning.Inside this Temple, every sacrifice is justified. Every command explained. Every loss serves a purpose. Even love is rationalized. Domesticated. Hope reframed as likelihood. Language does not merely describe the system. It sanctifies it.These systems can even tolerate sacrifice, as long as the sacrifice is made for something abstract: the nation, the tribe, the future, the greater good, the “building” up or the “survival” of the community. Abstract loyalty is calculable. It can be taught, praised, rewarded, and demanded. A person who gives themselves for an idea or a cause is still operating inside logic the system understands and human language can defend.Torah insists that a true command cannot arise from within this Temple or employ its language. Scripture does not perceive human beings as autonomous agents standing outside the flock, freely acting. It finds people as they are: already bound, already oriented, already enslaved to something. That is why Torah does not ask whether people are free, but whom they serve. Egypt is not replaced by false autonomy, but by covenant. Pharaoh is not replaced by the self, the builder of temples, but by the Voice of the Shepherd, that commands, calling us out of the temples that entomb us. According to Scripture, if a rule makes sense because it works, helps, or produces good outcomes, then following it is still a calculation. It may be wise or effective, but it is not obedience. It is sycophancy. That is why the Voice of the Shepherd is heard in the wilderness, away from stable systems and the human Temple of explanation. In the wilderness, people cannot rely on strategy or outcomes. They can only hear and respond. To those who live inside the system, this looks like slavery, or worse, insanity. Far from it.It is trust.This is where love of neighbor enters, and it does not enter as an idea, let alone a Platonic ideal. A neighbor is not humanity in the abstract. A neighbor is not the future, the cause, or the system. A neighbor is the real person who stands before you and whose claim cannot be translated into principle without being lost.Your neighbor is not defined by worth, identity, or moral condition, but by proximity under obedience to the Command. Love of neighbor is irrational by decree. It does not weigh consequences. It does not ask whether the whole will survive. It does not justify itself in language the system can use. Systems assume that when forced to choose, people will sacrifice the one for the many. Love of neighbor refuses that exchange. It does not assume God's purview. It does not control. It does not judge. It does not choose the right thing. It submits to the Command: love for the one encountered. This is why love of neighbor looks dangerous from inside the Temple. It threatens coherence. It interrupts explanation. It is willing to let the world burn rather than betray the one who stands before you. It does not argue. It does not explain. It does not rebel. The moment it does, it has already been absorbed back into the prison of the human logos. Hope enters here, not as optimism and not as confidence in success. Hope is what remains when explanation fails. Hope is the willingness to act without knowing whether the act will save or destroy everything. It interrupts causality by refusing to let outcomes or narratives decide what matters. Love of neighbor does not act because things will turn out well. It acts because of the Command.The Command does not abolish cause and effect, but it interrupts it. Scripture introduces something causality and human language cannot produce: a binding word that is not an effect, not a tool, and not a story we tell ourselves. It is not obeyed because it succeeds or pays off, but because it is spoken and heard, through the claim of a real person, a flesh and blood prophet, rather than the demands of an abstract group.When people live inside societies and institutions, this kind of hearing becomes difficult. Explanation returns. Outcomes take precedence. Faithfulness is measured by effectiveness. Hope is reduced to human belief in a future that can be imagined and defended. The Temple quietly rebuilds itself.Scripture keeps pointing back to the wilderness to remind people that freedom is not about mastering systems or rejecting them, but about remaining able to hear and act when human language blinds and deafens us, to act with conviction when explanation fails, and to obey the Command of the Shepherd even when the world can no longer be justified.This is the promise in which we hope, faith in things not seen: that through his Command God alone will achieve victory for his many flocks, which in his sight are one flock:“For in hope we were saved. Now hope that is seen is not hope. For who hopes for what he sees? But if we hope for what we do not see, we wait for it with patience.” (Romans 8:24-25)Episode 576 is a searching and uncompromising meditation on language, submission, and judgment, spoken from the land itself rather than from the safety of abstraction. Recorded in Jordan on New Year's Day, the conversation between Father Marc Boulos and Father Timothy Lowe unfolds as both personal reckoning and scriptural indictment.At its core, the episode argues that modern Christianity has betrayed the text it claims to serve by severing itself from the languages in which Scripture was spoken. Translation is not neutral, and reliance on English is not innocent. To speak in God's name while neglecting Hebrew, Greek, and Arabic is to risk uttering words God never said. For the preacher, this is not an academic shortcoming but a spiritual danger, because every utterance stands under divine accounting.The discussion presses further, insisting that biblical languages are not tools but living realities that carry wisdom through shared Semitic roots. By tracing these roots across the Torah, the Gospel, and the Qur'an...

Pastor Kory reflects on how many view church as a place for comfort rather than transformation. He reminds us that while the gospel affirms our worth as God's image-bearers, it also calls us to grow and live out Jesus' mission. True discipleship means moving beyond a culture obsessed with ease and embracing prayer as a source of power for God's work. This series challenges us to untame our prayers and join God's Kingdom mission.

Fox Sports News' Justin Edwards is joined by Fox Cricket's Nic Savage to discuss all the latest action from the domestic scene, including Nathan McSweeney's starring role for Australia A against the English Lions and Sam Konstas' ton against Queensland. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Well, we've reached episode 666 ... That seems weird. This one's all about sucking at fantasy football, domesticated grizzlies, poop stuff, using a bidet and a whole lot more nonsense. Enjoy! 

TEXT US A COMMENT!Most men aren't weak by design, they've been domesticated. House-trained by other people's opinions. Afraid to offend. Afraid to stand out. Afraid to actually live at full strength. In this episode, Rory goes straight at the domesticated mentality. The destructive mindset that makes us water down who we are so that those around us can stomach us.If you've ever walked away from a moment knowing you played small, this one is a line-in-the-sand episode.Today is an intervention for the man who keeps diluting himself down to be “tolerated.”HOW TO DEVELOP – TRAINING FOR FULL, AUTHENTIC POTENCY1. WHERE AM I DILUTING MYSELFAsk: “Where do I pretend to care less than I actually do?” “Where do I hide the real me?Ask your wife or a close brother: “Where have you seen me shrink back?”2.OTHER PEOPLES COMFORT ISNT MY COMPASSDaily declaration:“I fear God, not man. Their comfort is not my compass.”Stop editing your answers: when people ask what you believe, what you're building, or what you're about, give the real version.Let people filter themselves out if your full-strength life makes them uncomfortable.3. CRANK UP THE VOLTAGE (turn it up to 11!!!)Decide: “I will stop apologizing for my intensity, my standards, my discipline, and my CONVICTIONS!!!Focus: on the people you're assigned to build, not the crowd you're afraid to lose.SOTD : Galatians 1:10 (ESV) - “For am I now seeking the approval of man, or of God? … If I were still trying to please man, I would not be a servant of Christ.”Support the show TDMP SITE: https://dangerousmanpodcast.com/ Grab some DANGEROUS GEAR in our shop https://dangerousmanpodcast.com/shop/ Support the show for as little as $3 a month https://www.buzzsprout.com/2080275/supporters/new Follow us on X for more shenanigans https://twitter.com/TDMPodcast603 Follow us on Instagram for extra shenanigans https://www.instagram.com/thedangerousmanpodcast/ Connect with Matt Fortin & Rory Lawrence Email us at: thedangerousmanpodcast@gmail.com Remember men... Stop trying & start training! Top Men's Podcast for 2024... https://podcasts.feedspot.com/mens_podcasts/

Jen Psaki rounds up reporting and developments from just the past 24 hours that paint Donald Trump's secretary of defense, Pete Hegseth, into an even tighter corner, not the least of which is a newly uncovered video from 2016 in which Hegseth talks about war crimes and troops not following illegal orders, the same message he has been criticizing Democrats for delivering in a recent PSA video.Newly released photos and videos of Jeffrey Epstein's island estate have made Donald Trump's nightmarish news week even worse. Rep. Jamie Raskin discusses the steady progress being made on releasing the Epstein investigation files despite Trump's efforts to suppress them.The special election in Tennessee's Seventh District may seem like a typical Republican win in a solidly Republican district, but political experts see a grave vulnerability for Republicans nationwide in the much narrower margin of victory by Republican candidate Matt Van Epps. Faiz Shakir, executive director of More Perfect Union, and Brendan Buck, former senior advisor to Republican House speakers, talk with Jen Psaki about how the outcome of the Tennessee has changed the political landscape looking ahead to the 2026 midterms.  Rep. Ilhan Omar sings the praises of her Somali-American community and reminds Americans of what Donald Trump is neglecting and failing at in his job while he works himself up insulting Somalia. To listen to this show and other MS podcasts without ads, sign up for MS NOW Premium on Apple Podcasts. Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

Patreon backer Tim brings you this special episode all about monsters and fantastic animals living alongside humans. Fun idea or twee de-escalation? If you're enjoying the show, why not consider supporting it on Patreon? You'll get access to lots of new bonus content, including my other podcast, Patron Deities! Thanks to Ray Otus for our thumbnail image. The intro music is a clip from "Solve the Damn Mystery" by Jesse Spillane, used under a Creative Commons Attribution License.

Are raisins trash? Dylan can't stand them but Robbie and Pepper love them. Do they belong in certain dishes? We discuss the realities of lab grown and bio engineered meat. A Santa Cinema miracle. The audience decides whether or not we award passes to briber. Domesticated raccoons may be the next designer pet!

AITA: For not giving my parents keys to my new house? DIRT ALERT: "Wicked: For Good" triumphs at box office, BOOB TUBE: Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade preview and Jason and Holly do a "Pluribus" check-in. and domesticated raccoons could be in our futureSee Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

The podcast kicks off with Domesticated Lino going to a pumpkin patch. After that, Lino's Mom calls in for a round of Hickety Pickety. Then the guys decide what's overrated, underrated, and properly rated. And the podcast wraps up with something that hasn't happened in 500 years!

Fox Sports News' Justin Edwards is joined by Fox Cricket's Nic Savage to discuss Cam Green's performance ahead of the Ashes, a thriller Shield finish between QLD and WA, plus the guys are joined by coach Chris Rogers to discuss the recent success of the Victorian team and the potential of Campbell Kellaway!See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Fox Sports News' Justin Edwards is joined by Fox Cricket's Nic Savage to discuss all the latest action heading into the Ashes selection announcement, with Jake Weatherald and Cameron Green getting ducks at an unfortunate time, while Brendan Doggett appears to be in great form. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Learn, Understand and Master the LANGUAGE of WOMEN

Fox Sports News' Justin Edwards is joined by Fox Cricket's Nic Savage to discuss all the latest action from the Sheffield Shield, and where Marnus Labuschagne will bat in the Ashes after 4 Shield tons. The boys are also joined by Ashes hopeful Jake Weatherald.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Fox Sports News' Justin Edwards is joined by Fox Cricket's Nic Savage to discuss all the latest action from the Sheffield Shield, and what results could be a deciding factor in the final Ashes call up. Plus has a new star been unveiled?See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Genre-blending pop-soul artist Lily Lane makes her much-anticipated return with “Reciprocation.” Blending vintage soul textures, razor-sharp pop sensibilities, and raw, confessional lyricism, “Reciprocation” stands as a bold new chapter in her ever-growing body of work and a can't-miss release from one of music's most exciting rising voices. A Boston native now splitting her time between New York and Los Angeles, Lily first broke out as a teen on national tours, opening for Big Time Rush (selling out the House of Blues in her hometown) and Cody Simpson, while quickly finding herself in the orbit of the 2010s pop elite. After graduating with honors from the Clive Davis Institute of Recorded Music at NYU, Lily signed with Wilhelmina Models, came out as bisexual, and emerged as a bold voice for body positivity, female empowerment, and LGBT+ representation. Music runs in the family. Lily's older brother, Tucker Halpern, is one half of the Grammy-nominated electronic duo SOFI TUKKER. Like her brother, her music has earned many sync placements across major platforms, including Netflix, HBO Max, Peacock, and Bravo, bringing her soulful, cinematic sound to screens across the country. Lilly's sophomore EP Queen of Hearts dropped in Fall 2022 and her third EP, Love, Lily Lane, arrived in Fall 2024 as a genre-spanning concept record written during her engagement and released in the lead-up to her wedding. Its lead single, “I Do,” is a soul-infused acoustic love song praised by top bridal blogs as a perfect first-dance track. Now, with “Reciprocation” serving as an auspicious preview into her next chapter, including her upcoming EP, Domesticated, with her signature blend of powerhouse vocals, confessional songwriting, and stylized visuals, Lily Lane's not just dropping songs. She's setting the scene.   Want to watch: YouTube Meisterkhan Pod (Please Subscribe)

Fox Sports News' Justin Edwards is joined by Fox Cricket's Nic Savage to discuss which players on the domestic circuit could bolt into Ashes contention, as they preview one of the most anticipated Sheffield Shield seasons in recent memorySee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

The Kelly Alexander Show welcomes pop-soul recording artist Lily Lane who has dropped her song "Reciprocation" and has a new EP on the way in November called “Domesticated." Lily lets us know how her career in music took off, why Aretha Franklin is so important to her and why she will always support the LGBTQIA+ community. Lily also shares the meaning behind her EP "Domesticated," who she would choose as her musical guest if she was hosting SNL and the close relationship she has with her brother, Tucker Halpern, who happens to be one half of the Grammy-nominated EDM duo Sofi Tukker. Enjoy the conversation and thank you for listening!

Mr. Cunningham encourages us to be active with our faith and not grow complacent. Today's chapel frame is Hands of Service.

3,500 years ago, cats started showing up in Egyptian paintings on tomb walls and in sculptures and carvings. Not only were they abundant in these representations, but it was very clear that they were domestic. They had collars around their necks and were eating out of food dishes underneath the dining room table. That scene is not so different from the life many cats lead today. So how did cats go from the wild to being immortalized on tomb wall paintings and lounging on living room couches? And just how domestic is a domestic cat?Send us your science facts, news, or other stories for a chance to be featured on an upcoming Tiny Show and Tell Us bonus episode. And, while you're at it, subscribe to our newsletter!Links to the Tiny Show and Tell stories are here and here. All Tiny Matters transcripts and references are available here.See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

The 15,000-year story of how grass seduced humanity into being its unwitting labor force--and the science behind it. Domesticated crops were not human creations, and agriculture was not simply invented. As Robert N. Spengler shows, domestication was the result of an evolutionary process in which people played a role only unwittingly and as actors in a numberless cast that spanned the plant and animal kingdoms. Nature's Greatest Success: How Plants Evolved to Exploit Humanity (Univ of California Press, 2025) is the first book to bring together recent scientific discoveries and fascinating ongoing research to provide a systematic account of not only how agriculture really developed but why. Through fifteen chapters, this book dives deep into the complex processes that drove domestication and the various roles that plants and animals, including humans, played in bringing about those changes. At the intersection of popular history, archaeology, and evolutionary biology, Nature's Greatest Success offers a revolutionary account of humanity not at the apex of nature but deeply embedded in the natural world and the evolutionary processes that continue to guide it even today. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/new-books-network

The 15,000-year story of how grass seduced humanity into being its unwitting labor force--and the science behind it. Domesticated crops were not human creations, and agriculture was not simply invented. As Robert N. Spengler shows, domestication was the result of an evolutionary process in which people played a role only unwittingly and as actors in a numberless cast that spanned the plant and animal kingdoms. Nature's Greatest Success: How Plants Evolved to Exploit Humanity (Univ of California Press, 2025) is the first book to bring together recent scientific discoveries and fascinating ongoing research to provide a systematic account of not only how agriculture really developed but why. Through fifteen chapters, this book dives deep into the complex processes that drove domestication and the various roles that plants and animals, including humans, played in bringing about those changes. At the intersection of popular history, archaeology, and evolutionary biology, Nature's Greatest Success offers a revolutionary account of humanity not at the apex of nature but deeply embedded in the natural world and the evolutionary processes that continue to guide it even today. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/environmental-studies

The 15,000-year story of how grass seduced humanity into being its unwitting labor force--and the science behind it. Domesticated crops were not human creations, and agriculture was not simply invented. As Robert N. Spengler shows, domestication was the result of an evolutionary process in which people played a role only unwittingly and as actors in a numberless cast that spanned the plant and animal kingdoms. Nature's Greatest Success: How Plants Evolved to Exploit Humanity (Univ of California Press, 2025) is the first book to bring together recent scientific discoveries and fascinating ongoing research to provide a systematic account of not only how agriculture really developed but why. Through fifteen chapters, this book dives deep into the complex processes that drove domestication and the various roles that plants and animals, including humans, played in bringing about those changes. At the intersection of popular history, archaeology, and evolutionary biology, Nature's Greatest Success offers a revolutionary account of humanity not at the apex of nature but deeply embedded in the natural world and the evolutionary processes that continue to guide it even today. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/science

Are we alone in the universe—or already living alongside an ancient alien intelligence? In this mind-bending exploration, Professor Robin Hanson (George Mason University & Oxford's Future of Humanity Institute) breaks down the statistical odds that alien life exists and why it may have already been found in our own solar system. From AI-driven extraterrestrials silently observing us, to the chilling theory that humans are being domesticated by advanced alien civilizations, Hanson reveals where alien life is most likely to emerge, why UFO sightings might actually be real, and how our understanding of “quiet” vs. “loud” aliens could change everything we know about our future. Robin Hanson's Book, The Elephant in the Brain: Hidden Motives in Everyday Life: https://www.elephantinthebrain.com/ BialikBreakdown.comYouTube.com/mayimbialik

This week we talk about H5N1, fowl plague, and viral reservoirs.We also discuss the CDC, raw milk, and politics.Recommended Book: Nexus by Yuval Noah HarariTranscriptIn late-January of 2025, staff at the US Centers for Disease Control, the CDC, were told to stop working with the World Health Organization, and data, and some entire pages containing such data, and analysis of it, were removed from the CDC's web presence—the collection of sites it maintains to provide information, resources, and raw research numbers and findings from all sorts of studies related to its remit.And that remit is to help the US public stay healthy. It provides services and guidelines and funding for research and programs that are meant to, among other things, prevent injury, help folks with disabilities, and as much as possible, at least, temper the impacts of disease spread.Its success in this regard has been mixed, historically, in part because these are big, complex, multifaceted issues, and with current technology and existing systems it's arguably impossible to completely control the spread of disease and prevent all injury. But the CDC has also generally been a moderating force in this space, not always getting things right, itself, but providing the resources, monetary and otherwise, to entities that go on to do big, generally positive things across this range of interconnected fields.Many of the pages that were taken down from the CDC's web presence in late-January popped back up within a few weeks, and now, according to experts from around the world, these pages have been altered—some mostly the same as they were, but others missing a whole lot of data, while still others now contain misinformation and/or polemic. A lot of that misinformation and political talking points are related to things the recently re-ascendent Trump administration has made a cornerstone of its ideological platform, including anti-trans policies and things that cast skepticism on vaccines, abortion, birth control, and even information related to sexually transmitted infections.Scientists doing research that is in any way connected to concepts like diversity, equality, and inclusivity—so-called DEI issues—have been forced to halt these studies, and research that even includes now-banned words in different contexts—words like gender, LGBT, and nonbinary—have likewise been halted, or in some cases banned altogether. Data sets and existing research that happen to include any reference to this collection of terms have likewise been pulled from the government's publicly accessible archives; so some stuff actually connected to DEI issues, but initial looks into what's been halted and cancelled shows that things like cancer research and other, completely non-political stuff, too, has been stopped because somewhere in the researchers' paperwork was a word that is now not allowed by the new administration.All of which is part of a much bigger story, one that I won't get into right now, as it's still evolving, and is very much it's own thing; that of the purge of government agencies that's happening in the US right now, at the apparent behest of the president, and under the management of the world's wealthiest person, Elon Musk, via his task force, the Department of Government Efficiency, or DOGE.This process and the policies underpinning it are facing a lot of legal pushback, even from other Republicans, in at least a few cases. But it's also a story that's evolving by the day, if not the minute, and the long-term ramifications are still up in the air; some are calling it the first move in an autogolpe, a coup from within, while others are calling it a hamfisted attempt to seem to be doing things, to be reducing expenses in the government, but in such a way that none of the actions will be particularly effective, and most will be countered by judicial decisions, once they catch up with the blitzkrieg-like speed of these potentially illegal actions.There's been some speculation that this will end up being more of an albatross around the neck of the administration, than whatever it is they actually hope to accomplish with it—though of course there are just as many potentially valid concerns that, again, this is a grab for power, meant to centralize authority within the executive, with the president, and that, in turn could make it difficult for anyone but a Republican, and anyone but a staunch ally of Trump and his people, to ever win the White House again, at least for the foreseeable future.But right now, as all those balls are in the air and we're waiting to see what the outcome of that flurry of activity will actually be, practically, I'd like to focus on one particular aspect of this culling of the CDC's records, publicly available information, and staff.What I'd like to talk about today is bird flu, and what we think we know about its presence in the US right now, and how that presence is being felt by everyday people, already.—What we colloquially call bird flu, or sometimes avian flu, or the avian influenza, if you're fancy, is actually a subtype of influenza called Influenza A virus subtype H5N1, or just H5N1.There have been many subtypes of bird flu over the generations, some of which have disappeared from the record (as far as we can tell, at least), while others are still tracked, but in animal populations in locations that make them low-risk, in terms of spreading beyond their host species.We've been studying various types of bird flu since at least the late-1800s, when researchers in Italy started looking into a disease colloquially called “fowl plague,” because it was afflicting chicken and other poultry flocks. This wasn't the first time something that seems like it was probably this disease afflicted flocks and was recorded as having done so, but it was the first time such a plague was differentiated from bacterial diseases that were also prevalent in such poultry communities, and thus they could say it was something distinct from, for instance, fowl cholera, which was also pretty common back then.In the 1950s, it was confirmed that this avian flu was similar to flus that afflict humans, and in the 1970s, researchers figured out that the flus they were tracking in bird populations were diverse, in the sense that there were many subtypes, not just one universal disease.Today, we know that this type of Influenza A virus, of which H5N1 is just one example, are super common in wild waterfowl, and they've achieved this commonality, in part, by living in their respiratory and gastrointestinal systems without negatively effecting their host. So the birds can fly around and eat and peck at things without even getting a case of the bird sniffles, which means they're less likely to isolate from their kin, which means they're more likely to spread it to all of their friends.Waterfowl also tend to travel great distances, just as a matter of course, migrating across continents, in some cases, but in others simply flitting from lake to pond to puddle, looking for food.Domesticated birds, like chicken and ducks that are kept for their eggs or meat, tend to catch bird flu either by socializing with their wild kin, or by coming into contact with their feces, or surfaces that have been contaminated by their feces.In this way, traveling flocks of ducks and geese and seagulls, which maybe set down to get a drink or some food at a source of water in a bird meat facility, could infect a chicken directly, but just by flying overhead and pooping, they can do the same, as chickens will tend to peck around at the ground, and if that poop is somewhere nearby, boom, chicken infected, and then, in relatively short order, the whole coop is also infected.There are vaccines that can protect chickens and other domesticated birds from avian flu, but because of how widespread H5N1 in particular is, it mutates rapidly, so these vaccines are not a silver bullet. On top of that, buying and administrating them costs poultry companies more money, and because they might administer a vaccine that hasn't kept up with the mutations of the disease, that could end up being a sunk cost; so the money question sometimes keeps poultry providers from vaccinating their flocks, but even those who do apply this layer of protection don't always benefit from the investment as much as they would like.And birds that are thus infected spread the disease rapidly, but also tend to die in large numbers. The relatively chilled-out symptoms experienced by water fowl doesn't always translate to other types of birds, so chickens will sometimes conk out pretty quickly, and on top of that, when bird flu gets into a poultry population and mutates within them, the new mutation of the disease might get out into the water fowl population, and that can then cause anywhere from mild flu symptoms to reliable death in those ducks and geese and such. So the version they have might be mundane, they give that mundane version to chickens, where it mutates into something else, and that new bird flu variant then goes back into the water fowl and, no longer mundane, kills them all.So part of the problem here, as is the case with any virulent, quick-spreading, treatment-resistant pathogen with large wild reservoirs where it can survive even when the populations we're tracking are cured or culled, is that this thing evolves just really quickly. And that means anything we do, vaccines, killing infected populations or potentially infected populations, dividing flocks into smaller, easier to manage and segment groups, generally doesn't keep up with the emergence of new versions of the disease.This can, in turn, result in new versions that spread even quicker, that are harder to detect, or which simply kill a lot faster.It can also lead to mutations that spread more readily to and within other species, including mammals.And that's what seems to be happening in meat and dairy cattle, at the moment, in addition to some of the humans who work closely with birds and with cows.There have been reports over the past couple of years of folks in the US coming into close contact with infected birds or cows contracting bird flu, or testing positive for bird flu antibodies, which means the disease hit them, but they either managed to fend it off or had it for a while, and then their immune system took care of it—even if they didn't have symptoms.Such infections, those we know about for certain, anyway, as opposed to having hints of suggestions of them, still seem to be relatively small in number. A recent study, which the CDC was eventually able to publish, after those pulled pages and hidden data sets started to come back online, indicates that of 150 cow veterinarians tested for evidence of bird flu infection, only three had such evidence.That said, two of those three did not have any known exposure to bird flu-infected animals, and one didn't even practice in a state with any known infections. So this is a mixed outcome; good, in a sense, that infection evidence in humans who come into contact with potentially infected animals isn't more widespread, but alarming in the sense that those who did have such infection indicators were mostly doing work that wouldn't seem to have put them at risk of infection, based on what our data tell us, and yet, they were put at such risk. Which suggests our sense of how widespread this thing has gotten is probably way, way off at this point; the official data on where bird flu is, and even what animals it's infecting, is perhaps uselessly out of date in the US.So at this point, the official CDC data say there have been 68 cases of bird flu in humans in the US since 2024, and one of those infections has resulted in death.41 of those infections were the result of exposure to dairy cattle, 23 were from exposure to poultry farms or poultry meat production facilities, 1 was from another unspecified animal contact, and 3 were from unknown sources.The major concern, here, is that these numbers suggest bird flu isn't having a hard time moving from birds to other mammals to humans, at this point, so that aforementioned 68 cases in humans since 2024 could be a vast undercount; we might already be in the early days of a new pandemic, and we don't realize it because we simply don't have the data.I think it's worth noting, though, that the biggest bird-flu related threat, the biggest one we have data for, anyway, globally, is people who are coming into contact with infected animals, or in some cases consuming their meat or milk.Most of the officially documented cases of bird flu in humans, since the early 2000s, have been in Southeast Asia, and there have been around 950 humans infections and just over 460 deaths caused by various types of bird flu since 2003, according to World Health Organization numbers; most of those deaths were in in the early 2000s.So not a ton of either infections or death over that span of time, but that also means this disease has a fatality rate of something like 50% in humans; around half the people who contract it die. Which is not great. And that's part of why the concern about this type of flu may to seem a little out of proportion to the recent infection numbers—if it mutates, evolving a version of itself that is transmissible between humans so that we see transmission similar to what we see in bird flocks, that would be very, very bad.At the moment, though, even if something like that never manifests, poultry and dairy industries could suffer significant losses as a consequence of this animal-world pandemic, and to some degree, they already have. Especially those in the US.This is spreading in flocks globally, to a limited degree, but US poultry, beef, and dairy industries are being absolutely clobbered by the dual impact of infections that are necessitating additional protections against infection, and the increasing number of mass-cullings—killing entire flocks, because one of their number has been infected—that have been necessary in recent years. This has put a lot of such companies out of business, and the amount of stock, of animals, that have had to be killed as a precautionary measure, to keep one or a few infections from spreading more widely, have been staggering.Egg prices have been a semi-reliable indicator of inflation rates in the US for a long time, but the investments required and cullings committed have ballooned egg prices in recent months, hitting record highs and stoking outcries both within the industry, and amongst consumers who have seen average egg prices more than double between late-2023 and January 2025; and that's when eggs have been reliably available on supermarket shelves, which hasn't always been the case during this period.On top of that, there are heightening concerns about bird flu in the egg, meat, and milk supply; US government agencies have said that cooking meat appropriately, to the recommended temperatures, kills pathogens, including bird flu, and the pasteurization of milk, which basically means rapidly heating it, briefly, to kill germs, has been shown to kill the bird flu virus. But a purity- or naturalism-based movement, often closely tied with the anti-vaccine movement, has seen a surge in popularity in the US, and many people who subscribe to that ideological have also become supporters of consuming raw milk, which isn't pasteurized, and thus this virus, and other pathogens, can survive in it, potentially becoming a new vector of infection for humans.So there's a lot going on in the US government right now that's making tracking such things difficult, and trusting the information even more so, in some cases. And that could remain the case, and could become even more muddled, based on the stated beliefs of some of the people who are being put in charge of these agencies, the studies they conduct, the things they track, and the information they divulge.But at the base level, right now at least, it looks like bird flu has become a persistent reality within the US poultry and cattle industries, that most humans probably don't have a lot to worry about, yet, but that this could change rapidly, if those industries aren't able to get things back under control, as that would provide more viral reservoirs for this disease in which it can mutate, and reservoirs that are closer to large populations of humans than the wild waterfowl flocks that otherwise serve as the largest stockpile of these viral colonies.Show Noteshttps://www.nytimes.com/2025/01/23/nyregion/long-island-duck-farm-bird-flu.html?unlocked_article_code=1.rk4.oY1r.MEdP-NpwG4owhttps://doc.woah.org/dyn/portal/digidoc.xhtml?statelessToken=USHi9N-71EDqawTHVX0wYrVCjSlZ8B8vx8qFYu3Ngcw=&actionMethod=dyn%2Fportal%2Fdigidoc.xhtml%3AdownloadAttachment.openStatelesshttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Avian_influenzahttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Influenza_A_virus_subtype_H5N1https://www.cdc.gov/mmwr/volumes/74/wr/mm7404a2.htmhttps://www.cdc.gov/bird-flu/situation-summary/index.htmlhttps://www.npr.org/sections/shots-health-news/2025/02/13/nx-s1-5296672/cdc-bird-flu-study-mmwr-veterinarianshttps://arstechnica.com/health/2025/02/h5n1-testing-in-cow-veterinarians-suggests-bird-flu-is-spreading-silently/https://cdn.who.int/media/docs/default-source/wpro---documents/emergency/surveillance/avian-influenza/ai_20250131.pdfhttps://www.washingtonpost.com/business/2025/02/15/bird-flu-influenza-eggs/https://archive.ph/QDcZihttps://www.washingtonpost.com/dc-md-va/2025/02/15/return-to-office-mandate-trump-desks/https://arstechnica.com/health/2025/02/the-country-is-less-safe-cdc-disease-detective-program-gutted/https://arstechnica.com/health/2025/02/a-sicker-america-senate-confirms-robert-f-kennedy-jr-as-health-secretary/https://www.npr.org/sections/shots-health-news/2025/02/06/nx-s1-5288113/cdc-website-health-data-trumphttps://www.vox.com/future-perfect/399319/trump-cdc-health-data-removed-obesity-suicidehttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Centers_for_Disease_Control_and_Prevention This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit letsknowthings.substack.com/subscribe

We're back under the cover of our new studio in Hollywood! The soundproofing has been installed and the neighbors have been warned.  Thank you Send emails to EddiePepPodcast@Gmail.com Go to www.eddiepepitone.com for show dates and all things Eddie  Check out our full videos on YouTube: https://shorturl.at/mpsIL For additional content support Eddie on Patreon: www.patreon.com/eddiepepitone Please write us a review on iTunes https://tinyurl.com/mv57us2d Watch The Bitter Buddha the doc by Steven Fienartz about Eddie. https://tubitv.com/movies/321208/the-bitter-buddha Send emails to: EddiePepPodcast@gmail.com Follow Eddie on Twitter: @EddiePepitone Instagram: @EddiePep Follow Kevin @KevinTienken Thank you to Allen Mezquida for our beautiful artwork